nor to form at random any chance combinations, but to select pure and noble words, and to place them in the beautiful setting of a composition that unites charm to dignity. So in this department, the first in which the young should exercise themselves, “for love’s service I lend you a strain,”[88] in the shape of this treatise on literary composition. The subject has occurred to but few of all the ancients who have composed manuals of rhetoric or dialectic, and by none has it been, to the best of my belief, accurately or adequately treated up to the present time. If I find leisure, I will produce another book for you—one on the choice of words, in order that you may have the subject of expression exhaustively treated. You may expect that treatise next year at the same festive season, the gods guarding us from accident and disease, if it so be that our destiny has reserved for us the secure attainment of this blessing. But now accept the treatise which my good genius has suggested to me.
The chief heads under which I propose to treat the subject are the following: what is the nature of composition, and where its strength lies; what are its aims and how it attains them; what are its principal varieties, what is the distinctive
1 ἐπιστάσεως EF: ἐπιστασίας PMV 3 μηδὲ PF1V || εἰκῆ sine iota PF2: εἰκεῖ F1 || ἀλλὰ PMV 4 τε χρήσεσθαι s: τε χρήσασθαι PMV: κεχρῆσθαι sine τε EF 5 τῶ σεμνῶ sine iota P: σεμνῶ[ι] cum litura F 6 ἐσ F 7 συμβάλλομέν F || μέλος M. Schmidt: μέρος libri || εἰς F: εἰς τὸν PMV || τὴν (ex τῆς) F,M: τὸν P,V in marg.: τὸ r || τῆς F: om. PMV 8 ὀλίγοις] οὐκ ὀλίγοις V in marg. || ἐλθοῦσαν ἐπινοῦν F 9 ἀρχομένων M || διαλεκτικὰς F: καὶ λεκτικὰς P: καὶ διαλεκτικὰς MV 10 et 11 δὲ PMV 10 ἀποχρώντως οὐδ’ ἀκριβῶς F || οὐδὲ PMV 12 σοι om. F 13 ἔχης P sine iota 15 ἀνούσους P 16 ἄρα om. F 17 δέχου F: προσδέχου PMV 18 δὲ PMV || ταῦτα δεῖξαι F 19 τε om. M 21 τίνες ἑκάστης χαρακτῆρες F
2. The reference is to the indiscretions of an impertinent tongue,—‘Whatever, without rhyme and reason, | Occurs to the tongue out of season’: Lat. quicquid in buccam. Cp. Lucian de conscrib. hist. c. 32 ἀναπλάττοντες ὅ τι κεν ἐπ’ ἀκαιρίμαν γλῶσσαν, φασίν, ἔλθῃ.
4. The κεχρῆσθαι of EF perhaps points to τε χρῆσθαι as the right reading. We should then have λέγειν ... συνθήσειν, χρῆσθαι ... κοσμήσειν: a combination of present and future infinitives which would be in keeping with Dionysius’ love of variety (μεταβολή).
6. “Write νέους. The dative with the passive present, though of course possible, is unlikely in Dionysius. ἀσκῶ can take two accusatives,” H. Richards in Classical Review xix. 252.
7. M. Schmidt’s conjecture μέλος (M. Schmidt Diatribe in Dithyrambum, Berol. 1845) seems to be established by Athenaeus xv. 692 D ἐπεὶ δ’ ἐνταῦθα τοῦ λόγου ἐσμέν, συμβαλοῦμαί τι μέλος ὑμῖν εἰς ἔρωτα, κατὰ τὸν Κυθήριον ποιητήν: cp. ib. vi. 271 B συμβαλοῦμαί τι καὶ αὐτὸς μέλος εἰς ἔρωτα τῷ σοφῷ καὶ φιλτάτῳ Δημοκρίτῳ.—In itself, however, συμβάλλομαι μέρος gives good sense (cp. Plato Legg. 836 D τί μέρος ἡμῖν ξυμβάλλοιτ’ ἂν πρὸς ἀρετήν;); and the repetition of μέρος might be deliberate,—‘to this part of the subject ... I contribute as my part.’—ἔρανον [corrupted into ἔρον, ἔρων, ἔρωτα] might be conjectured in place of ἔρωτα, if any considerable change were needed.
8. In estimating Dionysius’ obligations to his predecessors, it should be noticed that the correct reading here is not οὐκ ὀλίγοις (as in the editions of Reiske and Schaefer) but ὀλίγοις.—For συνθέσεως see Gloss., s.v.
11. Either (1) ἐὰν δ’ ἐγγένηταί μοι (without σχολή), or (2) ἐὰν δὲ γένηταί μοι σχολή, would be more natural. Cp. H. Richards in Classical Review, l.c.
12. Either Dionysius did not fulfil his design, or this treatise on the ‘choice of words’ has been lost. For other lost works of Dionysius see D.H. p. 7.