[41] Cp. p. [24] supra. The desire to avoid monotony of termination would seem to be the main explanation of such collocations as οὗ τοῖς ἄλλοις εἴργεσθαι προαγορεύουσι τοῖς τοῦ φόνου φεύγουσι τὰς δίκας and τῷ αὐτῷ χρῶνται νόμῳ τούτῳ [Antiphon v.]. Additional emphasis, too, falls on τοῖς ἄλλοις and τῷ αὐτῷ, as on σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ in Demosthenes’ peroration.
[42] In describing the smooth or elegant style of composition (as practised by Isocrates and his followers, including Theopompus), Dionysius notes, as one of its characteristics, the avoidance of hiatus. This avoidance is to be noticed in the recently discovered Hellenica; and without basing any positive conclusion on the fact, Grenfell and Hunt point out that the author usually avoids hiatus “even at the cost of producing an unnatural order of words, e.g. ἐπηρμένοι μισεῖν ἦσαν τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους and ἴωμεν, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἔφη, πολῖται, ἐπὶ τοὺς τυράννους” (Oxyrhynchus Papyri v. 124).
[43] e.g. the greater tendency in Latin to place the principal verb at the end of the sentence. Cp. Quintil. ix. 4. 26 “verbo sensum cludere, multo, si compositio patiatur, optimum est. in verbis enim sermonis vis est. si id asperum erit, cedet haec ratio numeris, ut fit apud summos Graecos Latinosque oratores frequentissime. sine dubio erit omne quod non cludet, hyperbaton, et ipsum hoc inter tropos vel figuras, quae sunt virtutes, receptum est.” In Latin the words μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον Εὔβοια ἀπέστη ἀπ’ Ἀθηναίων would naturally run “haud multum postea Euboea ab Atheniensibus defecit” (J. P. Postgate Sermo Latinus p. 7).
[44] On the other side, the classical writers not seldom yield to the temptation to write long and rambling sentences, whereas the best English authors are stimulated by the very absence of inflexions to arrange their thoughts with great care and clearness within the sentence and the paragraph. By these and other means English prose becomes, in the hands of a great master, an instrument of surpassing force and beauty. As there are differences in word-order between Greek and Latin, so are there among the modern analytical languages, though (in a comparison) it may be legitimate to group those languages together. An order regarded as natural (i.e. customary) in one modern language will not be so regarded in another. Further, a language like German (though it is often unable to follow the Greek order without ambiguity: cp. Lessing’s Laocoon c. 18) possesses a greater number of inflexions than English or French. Welsh, too, has certain syntactical features which enable it often to reproduce the Greek order more faithfully than English can do. For example: in St. John’s Gospel xvii. 9 where the Greek has οὐ περὶ τοῦ κόσμου ἐρωτῶ, ἀλλὰ περὶ ὧν δέδωκάς μοι, ὅτι σοί εἰσιν, the Welsh version gives Nid dros y byd yr wyf yn gweddio, ond dros y rhai a roddaist i mi; canys eiddot ti ydynt. And Plato Apol. c. 33 καὶ ἐὰν ταῦτα ποιῆτε, δίκαια πεπονθὼς ἐγὼ ἔσομαι ὑφ’ ὑμῶν, αὐτός τε καὶ οἱ υἱεῖς: Welsh, Ac os hyn a wnewch, yr hyn sydd gyfiawn fyddaf fi wedi ei dderbyn oddiar eich llaw, myfi a’m meibion. [These Welsh instances are given on p. 38 of the present editor’s chapter on the Teaching of Greek, in F. Spencer’s Aims and Practice of Teaching.] In Appendix II. at the end of this volume will be found a few idiomatic modern renderings (in English, French, and German) from Greek prose originals.
[45] Lemaître Les Contemporains i. 205.
[46] Boileau L’Art poétique i. 133.
[47] Edinburgh edition of Stevenson’s works, iii. 236-61 (Miscellanies). “It is a singularly suggestive inquiry into a subject which has always been considered too vague and difficult for analysis, at any rate since the days of the classical writers on rhetoric, whom Stevenson had never read” (Graham Balfour’s Life of Robert Louis Stevenson ii. 11). S. H. Butcher (Harvard Lectures pp. 242, 243) regards the essay as “a pretty precise modern parallel to the speculations of Dionysius,” and quotes some passages in proof. The following is an example of such points of contact. Stevenson: “Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each phrase in music consists of notes. One sound suggests, echoes, demands and harmonizes with another; and the art of rightly using these concordances is the final art in literature.” Dionysius (C.V. c. 16): ὥστε πολλὴ ἀνάγκη καλὴν μὲν εἶναι λέξιν ἐν ᾗ καλά ἐστιν ὀνόματα, καλῶν δὲ ὀνομάτων συλλαβάς τε καὶ γράμματα καλὰ αἴτια εἶναι, ἡδεῖάν τε διάλεκτον ἐκ τῶν ἡδυνόντων τὴν ἀκοὴν γίνεσθαι. Compare p. [40] infra as to the music of sounds; and see Demetrius on Style p. 43, as to Stevenson and other English writers on style.
[48] Compare especially the speeches in Il. ix., and the warm eulogies they have drawn from Quintilian (x. 1. 47; cp. x. 1. 27, with reference to Theophrastus) and from many others since his time. Dionysius’ versification of Demosthenes, and prosification of Simonides, in c. 25 and c. 26, may not seem altogether happy, but one or two points should be remembered in his favour. He does not recognize merely mechanical conceptions of literature: such as are implied in the Latin-derived words prose and verse, or in literature itself. He would probably have agreed with Aristotle that “Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common but the metre, so that it would be right to call the one poet, the other physicist rather than poet” (Aristot. Poet. i. 9, S. H. Butcher). He might probably have also maintained that, in essentials, Theognis is less of a poet than Plato. And in modern times, if he had known them, he might have called attention to the rhymed rhetoric which often passed as poetry in eighteenth-century England, and have asked whether the elevation of thought and the measured cadences of Demosthenes did not entitle him to a higher poetic rank than that.
[49] Of Thucydides: ποιητοῦ τρόπον ἐνεξουσιάζων (de Thucyd. c. 24). Of Plato: ᾔσθετο γὰρ τῆς ἰδίας ἀπειροκαλίας καὶ ὄνομα ἔθετο αὐτῇ τὸ διθύραμβον, ὃ νῦν ἂν ᾐδέσθην ἐγὼ λέγειν ἀληθὲς ὄν. τοῦτο δὲ παθεῖν ἔοικεν, ὡς ἐγὼ νομίζω, τραφεὶς μὲν ἐν τοῖς Σωκρατικοῖς διαλόγοις ἰσχνοτάτοις οὖσι καὶ ἀκριβεστάτοις, οὐ μείνας δ’ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀλλὰ τῆς Γοργίου καὶ Θουκυδίδου κατασκευῆς ἐρασθείς (Ep. ad Cn. Pomp. c. 2; de Demosth. c. 6. See further in Demetrius on Style p. 14, n. 1).
[50] It will be noticed that the only question here is about differences of form. But it is one of Dionysius’ great merits to have proclaimed so clearly the leading part which beauty of form (not simply verse, but expression generally) plays in all high poetry. Aristotle was by no means insensible to this essential element, but he is apt to dwell more fully (though we must remember the fragmentary condition of the Poetics) on the associations of ποιητής than on those of ἀοιδός. It is in connexion with prose rather than with poetry, that it seems necessary to lay most stress upon the intellectual and logical elements involved, and to pay heed not only to the nature of the subject matter itself but to the sustained argument in which it is presented. Reason in prose and emotion in poetry: these are perhaps the two leading elements, if any distinction of the kind is to be attempted.