Smote them on this side and on that, and arose the ghastly groan;[108]
Fell she backward-reeling, and gasped her spirit away;[109]
Reeled he backward: the cup from his hand-grasp fell to the floor.[110]
In all these cases the adverbs are placed after the verbs. This principle, like the other, is attractive; but it is equally unsound. For here are passages in the same poet expressed in the opposite way:
Clusterwise hover they ever above the flowers of spring;[111]
To-day shall Eileithyia the Queen of Travail bring
A man to the light.[112]
Well, are the lines at all inferior because the verbs are placed after the adverbs? No one can say so.
Once more, I imagined that I ought always most scrupulously to observe the principle that things earlier in time should be inserted earlier in the sentence. The following are examples:—
3 ἕσπετε F || ἔχουσαι. καὶ M 4 σοῖο Hom. 5 τὰ prius om. PMV 6 αὐτῶν PMV: ταύτην F 8 πρότερα τάττειν PMV: προτάττειν F 9 ἐστι πρότερον F 10 πάσχειν F1 12 παραδείγμασιν P 13 ὄρνυτ’ PMV 16 γὰρ δὴ F: γὰρ PMV || ἅμα τῶν FPM: καὶ τῶν V1: τῶν V2 18 οὐδὲ PMV || τάδε γὰρ δὴ F: καὶ γὰρ δὴ καὶ ταῦτα PMV || αὐτῶι F: om. PMV 19 ἢ ἐκεῖνα PMV: ἐκείνοις F 21 φάος δὲ F: φάωσδε P || εἰλήθυια PM 23 χείρω τι PMV || γέγονεν P || ἐνταῦθα PMV: ἐνθάδε F 24 οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴποι F: om. PMV 25 τόδε Sylburgius: τάδε libri || ὠιμην F, M: ὠιόμην P, V 26 τῆι τάξει καὶ τοῖς χρόνοις F 27 ταυτί PMV: ταῦτα F
8. πρότερα τάττειν ... ἐπειδὴ πρότερον ἐστι: probably this pointed repetition is intentional on the part of Dionysius. πρότερα τάττειν might afterwards be changed to προτάττειν for the sake of brevity.
18. ταῦτα (PMV) may be right, as ταῦτα in Dionysius can be used of what follows as well as of what precedes; cp. n. on [106] 5. So in Plato Rep. vi. 510 ῥᾷον γὰρ τούτων προειρημένων μαθήσει, and Xen. Anab. iii. 1. 41 ὡς μὴ τοῦτο μόνον ἐννοῶνται τί πείσονται ἀλλὰ καὶ τί ποιήσουσι. For Thucydides’ usage cp. Shilleto’s note on Thucyd. i. 31 § 4. In [100] 16-[102] 25 (and further) there are several instances in which F’s readings (though given in the text) may emanate from some early Greek editor rather than from Dionysius himself: cp. [100] 24 with [112] 5.
26. Cp. Ter. Andr. i. 1. 100 “funus interim | procedit: sequimur; ad sepulcrum venimus; | in ignem impositast; fletur.”