DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS[65]
ON
LITERARY COMPOSITION
CHAPTER I
OCCASION AND PURPOSE OF THE TREATISE
To you, Rufus Metilius, whose worthy father is my most honoured friend, “I also offer this gift, dear child,”[85] as Helen, in Homer, says while entertaining Telemachus. To-day you are keeping your first birthday after your arrival at man’s estate; and of all feasts this is to me the most welcome and most precious. I am not, however, sending you the work of my own hands (to quote Helen’s words when she offers the robe to her young guest), nor what is fitted only for the season of marriage and “meet to pleasure a bride withal.”[86] No, it is the product and the child of my studies and my brain, and also something for you to keep and use in all the business of life which is effected through speech: an aid most necessary, if my estimate is of any account, to all alike who practise civil oratory,
1 ἁλικαρνασσέως PV2 4 καὶ om. V 6 ταυτηνὶ PMV 7 ἡδίστην om. P 8 χεῖρον PV1 9 ἔφη PV || οὔτε εἰς PMV 11 σοὶ om. E 12 πάσας EF 13 ὠφέλιμον V: ὠφελίμων EFM: ὠφέλιμοι P 14 τι] τι δὴ MV
2. For the meaning and rendering of σύνθεσις see Glossary, p. [326] infra.
5. In ll. 5, 8, 9, 10, the reference is to Odyssey xv. 123-127:—
Ἑλένη δὲ παρίστατο καλλιπάρῃος
πέπλον ἔχουσ’ ἐν χερσίν, ἔπος τ’ ἔφατ’ ἐκ τ’ ὀνόμαζε·
Δῶρον τοι καὶ ἐγώ, τέκνον φίλε, τοῦτο δίδωμι,
μνῆμ’ Ἑλένης χειρῶν, πολυηράτου ἐς γάμου ὥρην,
σῇ ἀλόχῳ φορέειν.
10. The word γαμετή is used by Dionysius in the interesting and highly characteristic passage which opens the de Antiq. Oratoribus (c. 2).—Here Sauppe conjectures γαμετῇ for γαμετῆς.—For εὔθετος cf. de Thucyd. c. 55 τὸ διηγηματικὸν μέρος αὐτῆς πλὴν ὀλίγων πάνυ θαυμαστῶς ἔχειν καὶ εἰς πάσας εἶναι τὰς χρείας εὔθετον, τὸ δὲ δημηγορικὸν οὐχ ἅπαν εἰς μίμησιν ἐπιτήδειον εἶναι.