βοτρυδὸν δὲ πέτονται ἐπ’ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσι ... 20
σήμερον ἄνδρα φάοσδε μογοστόκος Εἰλείθυια
ἐκφανεῖ.
ἆρ’ οὖν τι χείρω γέγονε τὰ ποιήματα ὑποταχθέντων ἐνταῦθα
τοῖς ἐπιρρήμασι τῶν ῥημάτων; οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴποι.
ἔτι καὶ τόδε ᾤμην δεῖν μὴ παρέργως φυλάττειν, ὅπως τὰ 25
πρότερα τοῖς χρόνοις καὶ τῇ τάξει πρότερα λαμβάνηται· οἷά
ἐστι ταυτί·
Hear me, thou Child of the Aegis-bearer, unwearied Power;[105]
and
Tell to me, Muses, now in Olympian halls that abide;[106]
and
Remember thy father, Achilles, thou godlike glorious man.[107]
In these lines the verbs are in the front rank, and the nouns stationed behind them. Yet no one would impugn the arrangement of the words as unpleasant.
Moreover, I imagined it was better to place verbs in front of adverbs, since in the nature of things what acts or is acted upon takes precedence of those auxiliaries, modal, local, temporal, and the like, which we call adverbs. I relied on the following as examples:—