τοῦτο τὸ μέτρον ἡρωϊκόν ἐστιν ἑξάπουν τέλειον, κατὰ δάκτυλον
Here again no one can say that the grace of the style is due to the impressiveness and the dignity of the words. These have not been picked and chosen with studious care; they are simply the labels affixed to things by Nature. Indeed, it would perhaps have been out of place to use other and grander words. I take it, in fact, to be always necessary, whenever ideas are expressed in proper and appropriate language, that no word should be more dignified than the nature of the ideas. That there is no stately or grandiose word in the present passage, any one who likes may prove by simply changing the arrangement. There are many similar passages in this author, from which it can be seen that the fascination of his style does not after all lie in the beauty of the words but in their combination. We need not discuss this question further.
CHAPTER IV
TO CHANGE ORDER IS TO DESTROY BEAUTY
To show yet more conclusively the great force wielded by the faculty of composition both in poetry and prose, I will quote some passages which are universally regarded as fine, and show what a different air is imparted to both verse and prose by a mere change in their arrangement. First let these lines be taken from the Homeric poems:—
But with them was it as with a toil-bowed woman righteous-souled—
In her scales be the weights and the wool, and the balance on high doth she hold
Poised level, that so may the hard-earned bread to her babes be doled.[91]
This metre is the complete heroic metre of six feet, the basis
1 οὐδὲν F 2 πεποίηκεν P 3 ἡ om. PV || τέθεικεν FP: τέθεικε EMV 4 κρείττοσ(ιν) P 5 δὲ δὴ [που] FM: δε P: δὴ Vs 8 περιττὸν οὐδὲ σεμνὸν F 9 τοῦτο (-τω corr.) τ(ω) P 11 ἦν * * ἀλλ’ P 12 καὶ] ἦν καὶ M: ἦ καὶ V 13 τις FM: om. PV 14 ποιήμασιν P 15 ἀλλοίας P 17 μὲν om. PMV || ταυτί PMV: ταῦτα F 18 ἔχεν FM: ἔχον PV Hom. 19 εἰριον deleto accentu P 20 ἄρηται Hom. 21 ἡρωϊκόν PMV: ἡρῷόν F
3. P gives ἀφηκέναι in [262] 22, and τέθηκεν may possibly be right here. The -η- forms are found in some MSS. of Eurip. Hel. 1059 and Demosth. Chers. 34. But cp. [108] 13.
9. καὶ παρὰ τούτῳ: perhaps ‘in Herodotus as well as in Homer.’ Reiske, πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ‹ἄλλα› παρὰ τούτῳ τῷ ἀνδρὶ τοιαῦτά ἐστιν.