Transcriber’s Note

Special Characters

Metrical notation is used in the original book to mark the length or weight of syllables in scansion. In the e-text, the metrical notation is placed on a separate line above the text and uses the following Unicode symbols:

metrical short: ᴗ (U+1D17)
metrical long: – (U+2013)
metrical short over long: ⏓ (U+23D3)
metrical long over short: ⏒ (U+23D2)

When Greek letters are cited as examples in the original book they have an overline printed above them (e.g., λ̅, ν̄), much as in English cited letters are underlined or italicized. A combining macron (U+0304) is used in this e-text above single letters to represent the overline. In cases where the overline extends above more than one letter, combining overline U+0305 is used because it gives a better result (e.g., κ̅δ̅).

Since there is no precomposed Unicode character for omicron with acute and diaeresis (e.g., το̈́ῦτοτε), this e-text uses U+0308 combining diaeresis and U+0301 combining acute accent above the omicron.

The following additional character modifications used in the original book are represented in the e-text as follows:

o with breve above: ο̆ (U+0306)
o with macron above: ο̄ (U+0304)
θ with inverted breve above: θ̑ (U+0311)

Unicode symbols for some of the above cases are currently not well supported by standard fonts, and they may be displayed imperfectly or not at all.

Parallel Display of Greek and English Pages

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Page images of a different copy, but the same edition, of the original book can be viewed at The Internet Archive:
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The cover image that appears in e-book versions was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Errata:

Page 40: ὠδῇ -> ᾠδῇ
Page 108, note 16: οὐδεμίας -> οὐδεμιᾶς
Page 109, line 21: μηδεμίας -> μηδεμιᾶς
Page 112, note 14: διάνοιας -> διανοίας
Page 182, note 9: Διά -> Δία
Page 188, critical apparatus to line 5: συγκαμφθείς -> συγκαμφθεὶς
Page 204, line 11: ἀλλ -> ἀλλ’
Page 232, line 1: οὐχι -> οὐχὶ
Page 334, s.v. ᾠδή: ὠδικός -> ᾠδικός

Dionysius of Halicarnassus
On Literary Composition

BEING THE GREEK TEXT OF THE

DE COMPOSITIONE VERBORVM

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION, NOTES

GLOSSARY, AND APPENDICES

BY

W. RHYS ROBERTS

Litt.D. (Cambridge), Hon. Ll.D. (St. Andrews)

PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

FORMERLY FELLOW OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

EDITOR OF ‘DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS: THE THREE LITERARY LETTERS,’ ETC.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1910

EQVITI INSIGNI

NATHAN BODINGTON

VNIVERSITATIS LOIDENSIS VICE-CANCELLARIO PRIMO

HVNC LIBRVM DAT DICAT DEDICAT

EDITOR COLLEGA AMICVS

Tantum series iuncturaque pollet,
Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris.

Horace Ars Poetica 242, 243.

See Dionysius Homer’s thoughts refine,
And call new beauties forth from every line.

Pope Essay on Criticism 665, 666.

PREFACE

It is a happy instinct that leads Pope to find in Dionysius a gifted interpreter of Homer’s poetry, who can ‘call new beauties forth from every line.’ In his entire attitude, not only towards Homer but towards Sappho and Simonides, Herodotus and Demosthenes, Dionysius has proved that he can rise above the debased standards of the ages immediately preceding his own, and can discern and proclaim a classic excellence. He has thus contributed not a little to confirm our belief in the essential continuity of critical principles—in the existence of a firm and permanent basis for the judgments of taste.[1]

The breadth of interest and the discriminating enthusiasm with which in the present treatise Dionysius of Halicarnassus (or ‘Denis of Halicarnasse’, as we might prefer to call him) approaches his special subject of literary composition, or word-order, may be inferred from the table of contents, the detailed summary, and the brief statement on page [10] of the Introduction.[2] It is an interest which impels him to touch, incidentally but most suggestively, on such topics as Greek Pronunciation, Accent, Music. It is an enthusiasm which prompts him to speak of ‘words soft as a maiden’s cheek’ (ὀνόματα μαλακὰ καὶ παρθενωπά), to describe Homer as ‘of all poets the most many-voiced’ (πολυφωνότατος ἁπάντων τῶν ποιητῶν), and to attribute to Thucydides ‘an old-world and masterful nobility of style’ (ἀρχαϊκόν τι καὶ αὔθαδες κάλλος). Expressions so apt and vivid as these, together with the easy flow and natural arrangement of the whole treatise, tend to prove that Dionysius is not laboriously compiling his matter as he goes along, but is writing out of a full mind, is dealing with a subject which has long occupied his thoughts, and is imparting one section only of a large and well-ordered body of critical doctrine in the command of which he feels secure.

That to the Greeks literature was an art—that with them, the sound was echo to the sense—that they were keenly alive to all the magic and music of beautiful speech: where shall we find these truths more vividly brought out than in the present treatise? And if we are still to teach the great Greek authors in the original language and not in translations, surely it is of supreme importance to lay stress on points of artistic form, most especially in a literature where form and substance are so indissolubly allied as in that of Greece and when we are fortunate enough to have the aid of a writer who knows so well as does Dionysius (see page [41]) that noble style is but the reflection of those noble thoughts and feelings which should inspire a nation’s life. Nevertheless, the de Compositione lies almost dead and forgotten, seldom mentioned and still more seldom read; and one is sometimes tempted to think of the eager curiosity with which it would most certainly be welcomed had it lately been discovered in the sands of Egypt or in some buried house at Herculaneum. A new ode of Sappho, and a ‘precious tender-hearted scroll of pure Simonides,’ would rejoice the man of letters, while the philologist would revel in the stray hints upon Greek pronunciation. So striking an addition to the Greek criticism of Greek literature would be hailed with acclamation, and it would be gladly acknowledged that its skilful author had known how to enliven a difficult subject by means of eloquence, enthusiasm, humour, variety in vocabulary and in method of presentation generally, and had made his readers realize that the beauty of a verse or of a prose period largely depends upon the harmonious collocation of those sounds of which human speech primarily consists.

A word may be said upon some of the modern bearings of the treatise. Dionysius is undoubtedly right in holding that consummate poets are consummate craftsmen—that even so early a poet as Homer φιλοτεχνεῖ. Our British habit of thought leads us to dwell on the spontaneity of literary achievement rather than on its artistic finish. We are apt to sneer, as some degenerate Greeks did in Dionysius’ time (pages [262]-270), at the contention that even genius cannot dispense with literary pains, and to insist in a one-sided way on the axiom that where genius begins rules end. But a reference to the greatest names in our own literature will confirm the view that the highest excellence must be preceded by study and practice, however eminent the natural gifts of an author may be. Would any one hesitate to say whether Paradise Lost or Lycidas is the more mature example of Miltonic poetry? Shakespeare, with his creative genius and all-embracing humanity, may seem to soar far above these so-called artificial trammels. But, here again, could any one doubt, on grounds of style alone, whether Hamlet or The Two Gentlemen of Verona was the earlier play? To be able fully to appreciate such differences is no small result of a literary education; and though the rhetoric of each language is in a large degree special to that language, it is notwithstanding true that our western literatures are closely interrelated—that they should continually be compared and contrasted—and that modern literary theory can gain much in stimulus and suggestion from that ancient literary theory which had its origin in Greece, and which by way of Rome (where Dionysius taught Greek literature in the age of Horace) was transmitted to the modern world.

In the present edition an endeavour has been made to suggest some of the many points at which Dionysius’ principles and precepts are applicable to the modern languages and literatures. Efforts, too, have been made to smooth away, by means of the Glossary and the English Translation, those technical difficulties which might easily deter even the advanced Greek student (not to mention the wider of cultivated readers generally) from seeking in the de Compositione that literary help which it is so well able to give. The edition has been many years in preparation; and special pains have been taken with the English Translation, as it is the first to be published and as its execution presents great and obvious difficulties. The Glossary will show how rich and varied is Dionysius’ rhetorical terminology, and it may also serve as a contribution towards that new Lexicon of Greek and Roman Rhetoric which is a pressing need. It seems not unnatural to treat thus fully a work of which no annotated edition in any language has appeared for a hundred years. For the constitution of the Greek text, on the other hand, the recent critical edition of Dionysius’ literary essays by Usener and Radermacher is of the highest importance. The present editor desires here to acknowledge the debt he owes to their admirable apparatus criticus, the exhaustiveness of which he has not attempted to equal, though he has thought it desirable to report (with their aid) a good many seemingly insignificant errors or variants which may serve to throw some light on the comparative value of the chief documentary authorities. He may add that he has himself collated, for the purposes of the present recension, the best Paris manuscript (P 1741, which contains Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, Demetrius de Elocutione, Dionysius de Compositione Verborum and Ep. ii. ad Amm., etc.), and that he has explained on pages [56]-60 his views with regard to some of the textual problems presented by the treatise.

It is a pleasure further to acknowledge the ever ready aid he has received from his personal friends—-from Dr. A. S. Way, who has not only contributed the verse-translations throughout the treatise but has given help of unusual range and worth in other directions also, and from Mr. L. H. G. Greenwood, Mr. G. B. Mathews, Mr. P. N. Ure, and Professor T. Hudson Williams, who have read the proofs and made most valuable suggestions. Nor should the great care shown in the printing of the book by Messrs. R. & R. Clark’s able staff of compositors and readers be passed over without a word of grateful mention.

It may perhaps not be out of place to state in conclusion that the editor hopes next to publish, in continuation of this series of contributions to the study of the Greek literary critics, a number of essays and dissertations grouped round the Rhetoric of Aristotle. The Rhetoric is a remarkable product of its great author’s maturity, in reading which constant reference should be made to Aristotle’s other works, to the writings of his predecessors, and to those later Greek and Roman critics who illustrate it in so many ways. Studies of the kind indicated ought to contain much of modern and permanent interest. Not long ago a distinguished man of science wrote, ‘one literary art, the art of rhetoric, may be weakened and lost when the scientific spirit becomes predominant—that sort of rhetoric, I mean, which may be fitly described as insincere eloquence. Rhetoric seeks above all to persuade, and in a completely scientific age men will only allow themselves to be persuaded by force of reason.’ The writer seems to recognize that there may be a good as well as a bad rhetoric, but perhaps it hardly falls within his scope to make it clear that the Greeks, from whom the art and the term come, were themselves well aware of this fact, even though the age in which they lived might not be completely scientific. The vicious type of rhetoric which he justly censures is exemplified in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. In this book—for whose date the antiquity of a recently-discovered manuscript (published in the Hibeh Papyri i. 114 ff.) suggests the age of Aristotle, though Aristotle himself is certainly not the author—the aim of rhetoric is assumed to be persuasion at any price. But how different is the spirit of Plato in the Phaedrus and the Gorgias, and of Aristotle in the Rhetoric. To take Aristotle only. He looks at rhetoric with the sincerity of a lover of truth and with the breadth of a lover of wisdom. He recognizes that the art may be abused; but ‘so may all good things except virtue itself, and particularly the most useful things, such as strength, health, wealth, generalship.’ Its function is ‘not to persuade, but to ascertain in any given case the available means of persuasion.’ Mental self-defence is a duty no less than physical self-defence; but though it is necessary to know bad arguments in order to be ready to parry them, we must not use them ourselves (for ‘one must not be the advocate of evil’), nor must we try to warp the feelings of the judge (for this would be like ‘making crooked a carpenter’s rule which you are about to use’). Season must be our weapon, and we must have confidence that the truth will prevail (for ‘truth and justice are by nature stronger than their opposites’ and ‘what is true and better is by nature the easier to prove and the more convincing’). The whole work is conceived in the same spirit—that of attention to truth rather than to mere persuasion, to matter rather than to manner, to the solid facts of human nature rather than to the shallow blandishments of style. The author of the most scientific treatise that has yet been written on rhetoric manifestly held a lofty view of his subject; and so far from commending an insincere eloquence, he says less than we could wish about literary beauties and the arts of style. Here Dionysius, in his various critical works, happily serves to supplement him. Though he has the art of speaking specially in view, Dionysius draws his literary illustrations from so wide a field that the art of literature may be regarded as his theme. The method he inculcates is that which every literary aspirant follows, consciously or unconsciously, in regard to his own language—the reading and imitation of the great writers by whom its capacities have been enlarged. To us, no less than to his Roman pupil Rufus, the practice and the precepts of those Greeks who attained an unsurpassed excellence in the art of literature have an enduring interest. For they help the fruitful study of our own literature; and that literature, we all rejoice to think, has not only a great past behind it but a great future in store for it.

The University, Leeds,
December 6, 1909.

INTRODUCTION

I
Summary of the de Compositione

A general account of the life and literary activities of Dionysius will be found in the volume entitled Dionysius of Halicarnassus: the Three Literary Letters, where the de Compositione Verborum is briefly described in connexion with the other critical essays of its author. Here a fuller summary of the treatise seems necessary before an attempt is made to estimate its value and to follow up some of the highly interesting questions which it raises.

The date of the de Compositione is not known, but may be conjectured to lie between the years 20 and 10 B.C. The book is a birthday offering from Dionysius, as a teacher of rhetoric in Rome, to his pupil Rufus Metilius.

c. 1. This book is a birthday present which deals with the art of speech, and so will be found particularly useful to youths who look forward to a public career. Oratorical excellence depends on skill exercised in two directions—in the sphere of subject matter and in the sphere of expression (πραγματικὸς τόπος and λεκτικὸς τόπος). In the former sphere, maturity of judgment and experience is required: in the latter the young are more at home, but they need careful guidance at the start. The λεκτικὸς τόπος has two subdivisions, ἐκλογὴ ὀνομάτων and σύνθεσις ὀνομάτων. The composition of words is to be treated now: the choice of words is to be treated next year, if Heaven keeps the author “safe and sound.” The chief headings in the present treatise are to be the following:—

(1) The nature of composition, and its effect;

(2) Its aims, and how it attains them;

(3) Its varieties, with their characteristic features and the author’s preferences among them;

(4) The poetical element in prose and the prose element in verse, and the means of cultivating both—of imparting the flavour of poetry to prose and the ease of prose to poetry.

c. 2. “Composition is, as the very name indicates, a certain mutual arrangement of the parts of speech, or elements of diction, as some prefer to call them.” The parts of speech recognized by Theodectes and Aristotle and their contemporaries were three in number, viz. nouns, verbs, and connectives. The number was raised, by the Stoics and others, to four through the separation of the article from the connectives. Later were added the adjective, the pronoun, the adverb, the preposition, the participle, and certain other subdivisions. These principal parts of speech form, when joined and set side by side, the cola (‘members,’ ‘clauses’). The union of cola completes the “periods,” and these make up the entire discourse. The functions of composition are to arrange the words fittingly, to assign the proper structure to the cola, and to divide the discourse carefully into periods.

In its effects, though not in order of time, the composition of words comes before the choice of words.

c. 3. Our thoughts are uttered either in verse or in prose. In both alike, composition can invest the lowliest words with charm and distinction. By way of foretaste, two passages (one of poetry, the other of prose) may be quoted in illustration. The first is from the opening of the 16th Odyssey, where the lines allure not by elaborate language or lofty theme, but by the sheer beauty with which the words are grouped. The prose example is furnished by that passage of Herodotus (i. 8-10) which describes the unworthy behaviour of Candaules towards his wife. Here, too, the charm resides not in the incident nor in the words which describe it, but in the deft arrangement of the language.

c. 4. The powerful effect of composition will be still further realized if some choice passages of verse and prose be taken and the order of the words disturbed. Homer and Herodotus once more provide examples. Certain lines in the twelfth and thirteenth books of the Iliad are chosen, and transformed, with disastrous effects, from hexameters into two varieties of tetrameters. A short passage of Herodotus is turned about in a similar way, one of the two versions being in the style of Thucydides, the other in the odious manner of Hegesias. Composition may in fact be likened to the Homeric Athena, who with a touch of her magic wand could make the same Odysseus resemble either a beggar or a gallant prince. The neglect of composition has lamentable results in writers like Duris, Polybius, Chrysippus, and others. Failing to find the subject satisfactorily treated by previous authors, Dionysius has himself endeavoured to discover some natural principle to form a starting-point (φυσικὴ ἀφορμή). He has not succeeded, but he will describe his attempt.

c. 5. It had occurred to him that, in a natural order, verbs would follow nouns and precede adverbs, while things which happened first in time would come first in narration. But these (and other) rules were seen to be untrustworthy, when tested by the actual practice of the great authors.

c. 6. As far as words (or elements of discourse) are concerned, the art of composition operates in three ways—through (1) the choice of elements likely to combine effectively; (2) the discernment of the particular shapes or constructions (i.e. singular or plural number, nominative or oblique case, active or passive voice, etc.) to be given to each element in order that the structure may be improved; (3) the perception of the modification which these shapes need in view of the materials. Each of the processes can be illustrated from the arts of house-building and ship-building—of civil and marine architecture. This analogy is developed at some length.

c. 7. In the case of the cola, the processes are two. (1) The cola must be rightly arranged. For instance, in a passage of Thucydides (iii. 57) the order in which they come makes all the difference. So, too, in Demosthenes de Corona § 119.

c. 8. (2) The right “turn,” or “shaping,” must be given to the cola, so that they may faithfully reflect the various aims and moods of the speaker or writer. A good example will be found in Demosthenes de Corona § 179.

c. 9. Under (2) it is to be noted that the cola may be lengthened or shortened for the sake of literary effect. Examples are given from Demosthenes, Plato, Sophocles, and again Demosthenes.—The same remarks will apply to periods as to cola. Further, the art of composition must determine when it is fitting to employ periods and when not.

c. 10. Next come the aims and methods of good composition. The two chief aims are charm and beauty or nobility: the ear craves these in composition, just as the eye in a work of pictorial art. The two qualities are, however, not identical. Thucydides, for example, and Antiphon possess beauty but lack charm. Ctesias, on the other hand, and Xenophon are charming (pleasing, agreeable), but deficient in beauty. Herodotus combines the two excellences.

c. 11. The chief sources of charm and beauty (or nobility) are four: music, rhythm, variety, and propriety. Charm and beauty, themselves, have many subdivisions. The instinctive appreciation of music and rhythm on the part of a popular audience may be noticed during a performance in some house of entertainment. Variety, too, and propriety are indispensable. As to the music of speech, it is to be observed that there is a sort of oratorical cadence which differs from music proper in quantity only, not in quality. The speaking voice does not rise in pitch above three tones and a half: it confines itself to the interval of the Fifth. The singing voice, on the other hand, uses a greater number of intervals, not only the Fifth but (beginning with the Octave) the Fifth, the Fourth, the Tone, and the Semitone, and, as some think, still slighter intervals. Other points of difference are that, in singing, the words are subordinate to the air, and the length of the syllables is regulated by the musical time. So the speaking voice can show good melody without being “melodic,” and show good rhythms without being “rhythmic.” There is, in fact, music in speech, but not the whole of music.

c. 12. Various sounds affect the ear in various ways. The cause lies in the nature of the letters; and as their nature cannot be changed, there should be a judicious intermixture of pleasant with unpleasant sounds. Short words, too, must be mingled with long, and long with short. The same variety, too, must be practised in the use of figures, and in other ways. But even variety must not be carried to excess: uniformity is sometimes equally pleasant. Tact is needed, and to impart tact is no easy task. It is to be remembered that not even the commonest words need be shunned by good writers: they can all be dignified by means of composition, as is seen in Homer’s poems.

c. 13. Beauty of composition will be attained by the same means as charm of composition,—by melody, rhythm, variety, propriety. And the nature of the letters themselves will play an equal part in determining the character of the composition.

c. 14. The twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet are now examined from the phonetic point of view. The object is to trace to some of its ultimate elements the secret of the variety and music found in beautiful language. The nature and the qualities of the letters must be understood by the writer who would know how to vary his style in an ever-changing and musical way. The letters (γράμματα), or elements (στοιχεῖα), may be divided into vowels (φωνήεντα, φωναί) and consonants (ψόφοι), and the consonants into semivowels (ἡμίφωνα) and mutes (ἄφωνα). The vowels can be pronounced by themselves; the semivowels sound best when combined with vowels; the mutes cannot be uttered at all except in combination. There are seven vowels: two short, ε and ο; two long, η and ω; and three common,—α, ι, and υ. The semivowels are eight in number: five single, viz. λ, μ, ν, ρ, ς, and three double, viz. ζ, ξ, ψ. The nine mutes may be classified as: ψιλά (tenues) κ, π, τ; δασέα (aspiratae) χ, φ, θ; and μέσα (mediae) γ, β, δ. Or they may be arranged according to the part chiefly concerned in their production: whether it is the lip,—π, φ, β; the teeth,—τ, θ, δ; or the throat,—κ, χ, γ. That is to say, Dionysius recognizes (though he does not use the technical adjectives) a division into labials, dentals, and gutturals. Among these various letters a regular hierarchy is established by him. Long vowels are held to be more euphonious than short vowels. The order of euphony for the vowels is, from the top downwards, as follows: ᾱ, η, ω, υ, ι, ο, ε; and (for the semivowels) first the double consonants, then λ, μ, ν, ρ, and lastly ς, which is condemned in strong terms. Among the mutes, the rough (the aspirates) are regarded as superior to the middle, and the middle to the smooth. The physiological processes by which the several letters are produced are described with some particularity in the light of the phonetics of the day.

c. 15. Syllables, as well as letters considered singly, contribute to variety of style. Of the syllables (or small groups of letters) there are many different kinds. The principal difference is that some are short and others long. But the difference does not end there, since some are shorter than the short and others longer than the long. The fact is that, from the metrical point of view, the vowels and final consonants alone count in determining the length of a syllable, whereas in actual delivery the initial consonants also have to be considered. For instance, a speaker will find that the initial syllable of στρόφος takes more time to utter than that of τρόπος; and so with τρόπος by the side of Ῥόδος, and with Ῥόδος by the side of ὁδός. In the same way, σπλήν is really longer than the vowel η standing by itself. And further: syllables differ not only in quantity but in sound, some being pleasant and others unpleasant, according to the nature of the letters which compose them. Great poets and prose-writers have an instinctive perception of these facts, and skilfully adapt their very syllables and letters to the emotions which they wish to portray; e.g. Homer in Odyss. ix. 415, 416, and in Il. xvii. 265, xxii. 220, 221, 476, xviii. 225.

c. 16. Poets and prose-writers frame, or borrow from their predecessors in earlier generations, such imitative forms (words whose sound suggests their sense) as ῥοχθεῖ, κλάγξας, βρέμεται, σμαραγεῖ, ῥοῖζος: all of which are found in Homer. Nature is here the great teacher; she prompts us to use, in their right connexion, words so expressive as μύκημα, χρεμετισμός, φριμαγμός, βρόμος, πάταγος, συριγμός, and the like. The first writer to broach the subject of etymology was Plato, particularly in his Cratylus.

With regard to the music of sounds, the general conclusion is that variety and beauty of style depend upon variety and beauty of words, syllables, and letters. To clinch the matter, Dionysius quotes (with appropriate comments) further illustrations from Homer—Odyssey xvii. 36, 37, vi. 162, 163, etc. Theophrastus, in his work on Style, has distinguished two classes of words—those which are beautiful (or noble) and those which are mean and paltry. Our aim should be to intermingle the latter kind, when we are forced to employ them (as sometimes we are), with the better sort, as has been done by Homer (Il. ii. 494-501) in his enumeration of the Boeotian towns.

c. 17. Rhythm, also, is an important element in good composition. For our present purpose, a rhythm and a foot may be regarded as synonymous. Of disyllabic and trisyllabic feet the following descriptive list is given:—

Various lines are quoted from the poets in order to illustrate the effect of these several feet.

c. 18. As each word has a rhythmical value (great or small) which cannot be changed, all depends on the skill with which we arrange the words at our disposal so as to blend artistically the inferior with the better. To illustrate his meaning, Dionysius quotes, and gives a rhythmical analysis of, passages from Thucydides, Plato, and Demosthenes. The excerpt from Thucydides is a part of the Funeral Oration attributed to Pericles (ii. 35). The rhythms here used are shown to be dignified ones, such as spondees, anapaests, dactyls, etc. Thucydides, we are told, deservedly has a name for elevation and for choice language, since he habitually introduces noble rhythms. From Plato is taken a short passage of the Menexenus (236 D); and this too is shown to owe its dignity and beauty to the beautiful and striking rhythms that compose it. If Plato had only been as clever in the choice of words as he is unrivalled in the art of combining them, he “had even outstript” Demosthenes, as far as beauty of style is concerned, or “had left the issue in doubt.” Demosthenes is the foremost of orators, and may be regarded as a model alike in his choice of words and in the beauty with which he arranges them. The opening of the Crown, with its careful avoidance of all ignoble rhythms, will prove his pre-eminence. Deficiency in this respect can be illustrated just as conspicuously by the writings of Hegesias, who would seem to have shunned good rhythms out of sheer wilfulness. A passage is quoted from Hegesias’ History—a passage which, if well written, would have moved to sympathetic tears rather than to derisive laughter. With it are contrasted some famous lines of the Iliad (xxii. 395-411) which, we are told, owe their nobility largely to the beauty of their rhythms.

c. 19. The third element in good composition is variety (ἡ μεταβολή). In the use of rhythms to impart variety, prose enjoys much greater freedom than poetry. Epic poets must needs employ the hexameter line: the writers of lyric verse must make antistrophe correspond to strophe, however greatly they may strive for liberty in other respects. That prose style is best which exhibits the greatest variety in the way of periods, clauses, rhythms, figures, and the like; and its charm is all the greater if the art that fashions it lies hidden. In point of variety, Herodotus, Plato and Demosthenes hold the foremost place: Isocrates and his followers are distinguished rather by monotony of style.

c. 20. The fourth element is fitness or propriety (τὸ πρέπον). Propriety is described as the harmony which an author establishes between his style, and the actions and persons of which he treats. Common experience proves that ordinary people, in describing an event, will vary the order of their words (and the point here is the arrangement, not the choice of words) in accordance with the emotions which it excites in them. Similarly, artistic writers should follow their own aesthetic instincts in the matter. Homer has done so with surpassing effect. A fine instance is furnished by the lines (Odyssey xi. 593-598) which depict the torment of Sisyphus—the slow upheaval of his rock, and its rapid rolling down the hill once it has reached the top.

c. 21. After these theoretical and technical discussions there arises the question: what are the different kinds of composition or arrangement,—what are the different harmonies? The answer given is that there are three: (1) the austere (αὐστηρά), (2) the smooth (γλαφυρά), (3) the harmoniously blended (εὔκρατος) or intermediate (κοινή).

c. 22. The characteristic features of austere composition are set forth in considerable detail: both generally and in reference to words, clauses, periods. Among its principal representatives are mentioned: Antimachus of Colophon and Empedocles in epic poetry, Pindar in lyric, Aeschylus in tragic; in history, Thucydides; in oratory, Antiphon. The beginning of a Pindaric dithyramb and the opening sentences of the introduction to Thucydides’ History are minutely examined from this point of view. [Any attempt to summarize fully this chapter and those which follow is hardly possible owing to the nature of the subject matter. The chapters are important, and will repay a careful study.]

c. 23. Smooth composition is next characterized in a similar way. Its chief representatives may be taken to be: Hesiod, Sappho, Anacreon, Simonides, Euripides, Ephorus, Theopompus, Isocrates. In illustration are quoted (with sundry comments) Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite and the introductory passage from Isocrates’ Areopagiticus.

c. 24. “The third, the mean of the two kinds already mentioned, which I call harmoniously blended (or intermediate) for lack of a proper and better name, has no form peculiar to itself, but is a judicious blend of the other two and a selection from the most effective features of each.” This third is the best variety of composition because it is a kind of golden mean; and its highest representative is Homer, in whom we find a union of the severe and the polished forms of arrangement. On a lower plane are other votaries of the golden mean: among lyric poets Stesichorus and Alcaeus, among tragedians Sophocles, among historians Herodotus, among orators Demosthenes, and among philosophers Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. Illustrative examples are, in this case, unnecessary.

c. 25. These discussions lead up to a final question,—that of the relations between prose and poetry. And first: in what way can prose be made to resemble a beautiful poem or lyric? It is in metre, even more than in the choice of words, that poetry differs from prose. Consequently prose cannot become like metrical and lyrical writing, unless it contains, though not obtrusively, metres and rhythms within it. It must not be manifestly in metre or in rhythm (for in that case it will be a poem or a lyric and will desert its own specific character), but it is enough that it should simply appear rhythmical and metrical. It will thus be poetical, although not a poem; lyrical, although not a lyric. Passages are then taken from the opening of the Aristocrates and the Crown of Demosthenes and are subjected to a minute metrical analysis. The result of the scrutiny is (it is claimed) to show that many metrical lines are latent in good prose, the author having taken care to disguise slightly their metrical character. In an eloquent passage Dionysius then submits that the great end in view warranted all these anxious pains on the part of Demosthenes. Demosthenes was no mere peddler, but a consummate artist who had the judgment of posterity always before his mind. Isocrates, also, and Plato spent no less trouble on their writings, as witness the story about the opening passage of the Republic. It is, further, to be noticed that such careful processes, though deliberate at first, become in the end unconscious and almost instinctive, just as accomplished musicians do not think of every note they strike on their instrument, nor skilled readers of every single letter which meets their eyes in the book that lies open before them.

c. 26. Secondly (and lastly) comes a question which is the counterpart of that asked in c. 25: namely, in what way can a poem or lyric be made to resemble beautiful prose? The two principal means are: (1) so to arrange the clauses that they do not invariably begin and end together with the lines; (2) to vary the clauses and periods in length and form. These things are more difficult to do where the metre is uniform, as in heroic and iambic verse. In lyric poems the task is easier, since the variety of their metres brings them a point nearer to prose. At the same time, while avoiding monotony and while generally causing his verse to resemble beautiful prose, the poet must remember that the so-called “prosaic character” is a defect. We are, however, here thinking not of vulgar prose but of the highest civil oratory. In order to show that, in poetry, clauses can be of different sorts and sizes, and can also be so far independent of the metre as almost to give the effect of an unbroken prose-narrative, Dionysius draws some concluding illustrations from the 14th Odyssey, the Telephus of Euripides, and the Danaë of Simonides.

The following Tabular Analysis may help to make the general structure of the treatise still clearer:—

I. Chapters 1-5. Introductory. The nature of composition, and its effect.—Instances of the fatal neglect of composition.—The secret of composition not to be found in grammatical rules.

II. Chapters 6-20. General Theory and Technique of Composition:—

1. cc. 6-9:

(α) Three processes in the art of composition, c. 6.
(β) Grouping of clauses, c. 7.
(γ) Shaping of clauses, c. 8.
(δ) Lengthening and shortening of clauses and periods, c. 9.

2. cc. 10-20: Charm and beauty of composition, and the four means of attaining these qualities:—

(α) Preliminary remarks, cc. 10-13.
(β) Four means:
(1) μέλος, cc. 14-16.
(2) ῥυθμός, cc. 17, 18.
(3) μεταβολή, c. 19.
(4) τὸ πρέπον, c. 20.

III. Chapters 21-24. Three Modes of Composition:—

(1) σύνθεσις αὐστηρά, c. 22.
(2) σύνθεσις γλαφυρά, c. 23.
(3) σύνθεσις εὔκρατος (or κοινή), c. 24.

IV. Chapters 25, 26. Relation of Prose to Poetry, and of Poetry to Prose.

Note.—The existing division into chapters is not always a happy one. As a help to the reader, a few words of summary have been prefixed to each chapter of the English Translation.

The Greek Epitome is about one-third the length of the original. It is of early but uncertain date (cp. Usener de Dionysii Halicarnassensis Libris Manuscriptis p. viii, n. 7), and is preserved in the following codices: Darmstadiensis, Monacensis, Rehdigeranus, Vaticanus Urbinas. It has survived along with the original; and instead of superseding and extinguishing the unabridged work, as ancient epitomes seem often to have done, it contributes not a little to its elucidation. Had it been preserved at the expense of the original, we should have still possessed the Sappho, but should have lost the Simonides. Towards the end, the Epitome is executed with less care than at the beginning.

II
The Order of Words in Greek

The strong and the weak points of the de Compositione Verborum will appear from the foregoing summary, and still more from the treatise itself and the notes appended to it. Dionysius’ book is unique: no other of its kind has come down to us from classical antiquity. Its immediate subject is the Order of Words in Greek. But its author is happily led to raise fundamental questions such as the relations between Prose and Poetry, together with incidental points of Greek Pronunciation and Accentuation; and generally to take so wide a range that no English title less comprehensive than On Literary Composition seems to fit the contents of the work.[3] The discursive enthusiasm of the writer is obvious. Not less striking, however, is the sound literary taste which converts his quotations into a true anthology and preserves some priceless remains of Sappho and Simonides. It will be necessary to point out certain weaknesses of Dionysius from time to time. But his weaknesses are far more than counterbalanced by his great excellences. Some of his shortcomings are those of his age,—an age which was a stranger to the modern method of comparison as applied to literary investigation. Others, again, are more apparent than real. When, for example, certain omissions are observable in some directions along with ample expatiations in others, it is to be remembered (1) that Dionysius is dealing with the department of expression and not with that of subject matter, (2) that, in the department of expression, he is concerned with the composition (or arrangement) of words and not with their selection, and (3) that, in regard to composition, he is here interested primarily not in lucidity nor in emphasis, but in euphony. Hence we must not expect him to dwell on that great governing principle of literary composition,—logical connexion. To its importance, however, he is fully alive, as is clear from a passage in his essay on Isocrates: “The thought” [in Isocrates, who pays excessive heed to smoothness of style and a pleasant cadence] “is often the slave of rhythmical expression, and truth is sacrificed to elegance.... But the natural course is for the expression to follow the ideas, not the ideas the expression.”[4] And though, in the de Compositione, it is his business to discourse rather upon sound than upon sense, yet the orderly way in which the subject matter of the treatise is presented shows in itself that Dionysius was well aware that the chief essential for a book is a basis of clear thinking and broad logical arrangement, and that, as a consequence, its excellence is to be sought even more in its chapters and its paragraphs than in its flowing periods.[5] It may be well to touch, with a similar regard to sequence and with occasional references to modern parallels or contrasts, upon one or two aspects of his main theme which his own treatment of it suggests as suitable for further discussion and elucidation.

A. Freedom and Elasticity

In his fifth chapter Dionysius shows, with no difficulty and with much vivacity, that it is impossible to lay down universal rules governing the order of words in Greek. He admits that he had been inclined to entertain a priori views on the question of the natural precedence of certain parts of speech and to hold that nouns should precede verbs, verbs adverbs, and so forth.[6]

But he had proceeded, with that sound practical judgment which distinguishes him, to test his theories in the light of Homer’s usage. He had then found them wanting. “Trial invariably wrecked my views and revealed their utter worthlessness.” The examples of variety in word-order which he quotes from the Iliad and the Odyssey are most interesting and instructive. But a modern reader, familiar with languages whose paucity of inflexions often offers freedom only at the price of ambiguity, has more cause than any ancient writer to wonder at the liberty which Greek enjoys in this respect. No doubt the long gap between πολὺν and χρόνον in the Frogs has, and is intended to have, a comic effect. But there is no sort of ambiguity in the sentence, since the poet takes care to use no noun with which the adjective could agree until the right noun at length comes and relieves the listener of his suspense and growing curiosity,—

εἰ δ’ ἐγὼ ὀρθὸς ἰδεῖν βίον ἀνέρος ἢ τρόπον ὅστις ἔτ’ οἰμώξεται,
οὐ πολὺν οὐδ’ ὁ πίθηκος οὗτος ὁ νῦν ἐνοχλῶν,
Κλειγένης ὁ μικρός,
ὁ πονηρότατος βαλανεὺς ὁπόσοι κρατοῦσι κυκησιτέφρου
ψευδολίτρου κονίας
καὶ Κιμωλίας γῆς,
χρόνον ἐνδιατρίψει.

Aristophanes Ranae 706-13.

Here as many as twenty-one words divide an adjective from its noun, though noun and adjective are usually placed close together.[7] But, even in serious poetry, the same thing is to be noticed, though on a less surprising scale. For example:

ἦν δ’ οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς οὔτε χείματος τέκμαρ
οὔτ’ ἀνθεμώδους ἦρος οὔτε καρπίμου
θέρους βέβαιον.

Aeschylus Prometheus Vinctus 454-6.

Here the adjective follows the noun, but (as before) there is no ambiguity, though there is much added emphasis due to the apparent afterthought. Similarly:

ἐν δὲ νομὸν ποίησε περικλυτὸς ἀμφιγυήεις
ἐν καλῇ βήσσῃ μέγαν οἰῶν ἀργεννάων.[8]

Homer Iliad xviii. 587, 588.

And in prose the dependence of a genitive may be quite clear, though the distance between it and the words on which it depends be great: e.g.

τῶν μὲν οὖν λόγων, οὓς οὗτος ἄνω καὶ κάτω διακυκῶν ἔλεγε περὶ τῶν παραγεγραμμένων νόμων, οὔτε μὰ τοὺς θεοὺς οἶμαι ὑμᾶς μανθάνειν οὔτ’ αὐτὸς ἐδυνάμην συνεῖναι τοὺς πολλούς.

Demosthenes de Corona § 111 (cp. § 57).

In prose, again, the extremely antithetic and artificial arrangement of words possible (without complete loss of clearness) in a highly inflected language may be illustrated from Thucydides:—

καὶ οὐ περὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἄρα οὔτε οὗτοι τῶν Ἑλλήνων οὔθ’ οἱ Ἕλληνες τῆς ἑαυτῶν τῷ Μήδῳ ἀντέστησαν, περὶ δὲ οἱ μὲν σφίσιν ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐκείνῳ καταδουλώσεως, οἱ δ’ ἐπὶ δεσπότου μεταβολῇ οὐκ ἀξυνετωτέρου, κακοξυνετωτέρου δέ.

Thucydides vi. 76.[9]

The following sentence of Demosthenes, with its carefully chosen position for the main subject Φίλιππος and the main verb ἐπηγγείλατο, shows how well suspense and the period can be worked in such a language:—

ὡς δὲ ταλαιπωρούμενοι τῷ μήκει τοῦ πολέμου οἱ τότε μὲν βαρεῖς νῦν δ’ ἀτυχεῖς Θηβαῖοι φανεροὶ πᾶσιν ἦσαν ἀναγκασθησόμενοι καταφεύγειν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς, Φίλιππος, ἵνα μὴ τοῦτο γένοιτο μηδὲ συνέλθοιεν αἱ πόλεις, ὑμῖν μὲν εἰρήνην ἐκείνοις δὲ βοήθειαν ἐπηγγείλατο.

Demosthenes de Corona § 19.[10]

In an analytical language such as English a separate introductory sentence[11] would be almost necessary in order to bring out the point of a familiar passage in the Cyropaedia:—

παῖς μέγας μικρὸν ἔχων χιτῶνα ἕτερον παῖδα μικρὸν μέγαν ἔχοντα χιτῶνα, ἐκδύσας αὐτόν, τὸν μὲν ἑαυτοῦ ἐκεῖνον ἠμφίεσε, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνου αὐτὸς ἐνέδυ.

Xenophon Cyropaedia i. 3. 17.

And the force and variety gained by juxtaposition, or by chiastic arrangement, is obvious in such examples as:—

(1) τίπτε με, Πηλέος υἱέ, ποσὶν ταχέεσσι διώκεις,
αὐτὸς θνητὸς ἐὼν θεὸν ἄμβροτον;

Homer Iliad xxii. 8, 9.

(2) τί δῆτα, ὦ Μέλητε; τοσοῦτον σὺ ἐμοῦ σοφώτερος εἶ τηλικούτου ὄντος τηλικόσδε ὤν;

Plato Apology 25 D.

(3) οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ κρίσει μέν τις δικασθεὶς οὐκ ἂν ἐπὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ καλῶν ἐλεύθερος καὶ ὑγιὴς ἂν κριτὴς γένοιτο· ἀνάγκη γὰρ τῷ δωροδόκῳ τὰ οἰκεῖα μὲν φαίνεσθαι καλὰ καὶ δίκαια.

Longinus de Sublimitate c. xliv.

(4) καὶ τῶν κώλων ... ἀνίσων τε ὄντων καὶ ἀνομοίων ἀλλήλοις ἀνομοίους τε καὶ ἀνίσους ποιούμενοι τὰς διαιρέσεις.

Dionys. Halic. de Comp. Verb. c. xxvi.

The two last examples of elegant variation might, no doubt, be closely reproduced in modern languages. To the more important matter of emphasis, which arises in some of the other instances, a separate section must be devoted later.[12]

B. Normal Order

Though Dionysius does right to deny the existence of a natural or inevitable order in Greek and to emphasize the essential freedom of the language, he might well have recognized more explicitly that there is what may be termed a normal or usual order, and that it is precisely the departure from this normal usage which does much to give a definite character (good or bad, as the case may be) to the style of individual Greek authors. For instance, it is usual in Greek for an adjective to follow its noun, and for a negative to precede the word or words which it qualifies. There are, further, certain customary positions for the article (according as it is attributive or predicative); for the demonstrative pronouns in conjunction with the article; for αὐτός, according to the meaning which it bears; for the particles; for prepositions, conjunctions, and relative pronouns; and so forth. There is, in short, a grammatical order sanctioned by prevailing usage, an order which might be shown to hold good, commonly though not universally, in some of the grammatical constructions indicated by Dionysius in his fifth chapter. Now between this normal order, and lucidity of expression, there exists a close connexion.

C. Lucidity

It might easily be concluded, by a reader who knew the de Compositione alone among Dionysius’ critical essays, that he set little store by that clear writing which, as it presupposes clear thinking, is a rare and cardinal excellence of style. As the noun σαφήνεια occurs but once in the treatise and the adjective σαφής not much oftener, it might be supposed that he underrated a quality to which Aristotle and other writers of antiquity assign so high a place. Aristotle, indeed, regards it as a first essential of good style, which must be “clear without being mean” (λέξεως δὲ ἀρετὴ σαφῆ καὶ μὴ ταπεινὴν εἶναι, Aristot. Poet. xxii. 1: cp. Rhet. iii. 2. 1). Similarly Cicero puts clearness (sermo dilucidus) before ornament, asking how it is possible, “qui non dicat quod intellegamus, hunc posse quod admiremur dicere” (Cic. de Orat. iii. 9. 38). Horace’s approving reference to lucidus ordo has become proverbial.[13] And Quintilian allots the primacy to the same great quality: “nobis prima sit virtus perspicuitas, propria verba, rectus ordo, non in longum dilata conclusio; nihil neque desit neque superfluat” (Inst. Or. viii. 2. 22), and puts a high and not always attainable ideal before the orator in relation to his judicial auditor: “quare non, ut intellegere possit, sed, ne omnino possit non intellegere, curandum” (ibid. viii. 2. 24).

If Dionysius in the present treatise says little about lucidity, the sole reason is that he assumes it as a necessary and indispensable quality of style. In the de Thucydide c. 23 it is classed (together with purity and brevity) as one of the ἀρεταὶ ἀναγκαῖαι (in contradistinction to the ἀρεταὶ ἐπίθετοι, such as ἐνάργεια, ἡ τῶν ἠθῶν τε καὶ παθῶν μίμησις, etc.). The Greek critics recognized, however, that the plainer styles were more likely than the more elaborate ones to excel in lucidity,—that, in this respect, a Herodotus and a Lysias might be expected to surpass a Thucydides and a Demosthenes.[14] Among these authors let us choose Lysias and Thucydides, and see what praise or blame Dionysius awards to them upon this score. In the fourth chapter of the de Lysia, the lucidity of Lysias is contrasted with the obscurity often found in Thucydides and Demosthenes; and it is pointed out that this excellence is, in him, all the more admirable in that it is combined with a studious brevity, an opulent vocabulary, and a mind of great native force. And no finer example of pellucid clearness of narration could well be imagined than that quoted from Lysias in the sixth chapter of the de Isaeo: ἀναγκαῖόν μοι δοκεῖ εἶναι, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, περὶ τῆς φιλίας τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ τῆς Φερενίκου πρῶτον εἰπεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, κτλ. To the obscurities of Thucydides, on the other hand, as seen in his History and particularly in his Speeches, constant and mournful reference is made in the essay which has the historian for its subject. “You can almost count on your fingers,” says Dionysius, “the people who are capable of comprehending the whole of Thucydides; and not even they can do so without occasional recourse to a grammatical commentary.”[15] Dionysius, further, gives it as his opinion that the language of Thucydides was unique even in his own day; and he combats the view that a historian (as distinguished, say, from an advocate) may plead in excuse for an artificial style that he does not write for “people in the market-place, in workshops or in factories, nor for others who have not shared in a liberal education, but for men who have reached rhetoric and philosophy after passing through a full curriculum of approved studies, to whom therefore none of these expressions will appear unfamiliar.”[16] Obscurity and eccentricity, he says in effect, are not virtues except in the eyes of literary coteries; presumably a speaker speaks, and a writer writes, in order to be understood.[17]

D. Emphasis

Dionysius’ inadequate recognition of a normal order is naturally attended by some uncertainty in his attitude towards that kind of emphasis which a departure from the normal order produces. It may, indeed, be thought that the effect of emphasis, and the best means of attaining it, are considered at the opening of the sixth chapter of the treatise, and that it comes under the heading both of σχηματισμός and of ἁρμονία. In the fifth chapter, however, we should have welcomed a clearer recognition of the emphasis which, as it seems to modern readers, falls upon ἄνδρα, μῆνιν, and ἠέλιος, when they come at the beginning of the line and so are the first words to accost the ear. Certainly in his own writing Dionysius shows that he appreciates the emphasis gained by thrusting a word to the front of the sentence: e.g. καιροῦ δὲ οὔτε ῥήτωρ οὐδεὶς οὔτε φιλόσοφος εἰς τόδε χρόνου τέχνην ὥρισεν ([132] 21). Towards the end of chapter 7 he quotes from Demosthenes the words τὸ λαβεῖν οὖν τὰ διδόμενα ὁμολογῶν ἔννομον εἶναι, τὸ χάριν τούτων ἀποδοῦναι παρανόμων γράφῃ. He changes the order to ὁμολογῶν οὖν ἔννομον εἶναι τὸ λαβεῖν τὰ διδόμενα, παρανόμων γράφῃ τὸ τούτων χάριν ἀποδοῦναι, and then asks whether the passage will be ὁμοίως δικανικὴ καὶ στρογγύλη. To us it would seem that the chief loss is the loss of emphasis which is entailed (in Greek) by removing from the beginning of the clauses the important and contrasted phrases τὸ λαβεῖν τὰ διδόμενα and τὸ χάριν τούτων ἀποδοῦναι. Possibly this loss of emphasis is implied (among other things) in the words “δικανικὴ καὶ στρογγύλη.”[18]

Where it occurs in Dionysius, the word ἔμφασις bears the sense of ‘hint,’ ‘suggestion,’ ‘soupçon’ (de Thucyd. c. 16 ῥᾳθύμως ἐπιτετροχασμένα καὶ οὐδὲ τὴν ἐλαχίστην ἔμφασιν ἔχοντα τῆς δεινότητος ἐκείνης): a sense which is akin to its technical use of ‘hidden meaning’ (“significatio maior quam oratio,” Cic. Orat. 40. 139; cp. Quintil. viii. 3. 83, ix. 2. 3, 64).[19] In our sense of emphasis due to position, the word ἔμφασις is perhaps hardly used even in the scholiasts; and it is possible that Greek has no single term to express the idea, though it may doubtless be one of the elements in view when a writer uses such expressions as ἁρμονία, σχηματισμός, and ὑπερβατόν.

A modern student of Greek, having to feel his way with practically no help from ancient authorities, will probably reach the conclusion that the rhetorical emphasis he has in mind is attained by placing a word in one of the less usual positions open to it. The word thus emphasized may come at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence, the real point being that the position should be (for that particular word) a little out of the ordinary. In Greek, however, as contrasted with English, the emphasis tends to fall on the earlier rather than the later words.[20] In delivery, it would seem that the Greeks found it more natural to stress the beginning than the conclusion of a sentence. But an emphatic word may be found at the end as well as at the beginning, and may sometimes be placed neither at the end nor at the beginning.[21]

Allusion has already been made to the rhetorical emphasis which falls upon the opening words of the Iliad and the Odyssey. As with “arma virumque cano” in the Aeneid, the words μῆνιν and ἄνδρα seem to strike the keynote of the following Epics. And, in a less degree, a certain emphasis due to initial position (and contributing either to emotional effect or to logical clearness) is to be discerned throughout the poems: e.g. in the sixth book of the Iliad:—

δυστήνων δέ τε παῖδες ἐμῷ μένει ἀντιόωσιν.

Homer Iliad vi. 127.

and

πέπλον δ’, ὅς τίς τοι χαριέστατος ἠδὲ μέγιστος
ἔστιν ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ καί τοι πολὺ φίλτατος αὐτῇ,
τὸν θὲς Ἀθηναίης ἐπὶ γούνασιν ἠϋκόμοιο, κτλ.

Homer Iliad vi. 271.

Similarly with the following ten miscellaneous examples of various emphasis, taken chiefly from Dionysius’ favourite speech:—

(1) ἐκεῖνος γὰρ πολλοὺς ἐπιθυμητὰς καὶ ἀστοὺς καὶ ξένους λαβών, οὐδένα πώποτε μισθὸν τῆς συνουσίας ἐπράξατο, ἀλλὰ πᾶσιν ἀφθόνως ἐπήρκει τῶν ἑαυτοῦ.

Xenophon Memorabilia i. 2. 60.

(2) καὶ ταραχώδης ἦν ἡ ναυμαχία, ἐν ᾗ αἱ Ἀττικαὶ νῆες παραγιγνόμεναι τοῖς Κερκυραίοις, εἴ πῃ πιέζοιντο, φόβον μὲν παρεῖχον τοῖς ἐναντίοις, μάχης δὲ οὐκ ἦρχον δεδιότες οἱ στρατηγοὶ τὴν πρόρρησιν τῶν Ἀθηναίων.[22]

Thucydides i. 49.

(3) Ἀναξαγόρου οἴει κατηγορεῖν, ὦ φίλε Μέλητε, κτλ.

Plato Apology 26 D.

(4) οὐ γὰρ τὰ ῥήματα τὰς οἰκειότητας ἔφη βεβαιοῦν, μάλα σεμνῶς ὀνομάζων, ἀλλὰ τὸ ταὐτὰ συμφέρειν.

Demosthenes de Corona § 35.

(5) οἱ μὲν κατάπτυστοι Θετταλοὶ καὶ ἀναίσθητοι Θηβαῖοι φίλον, εὐεργέτην, σωτῆρα τὸν Φίλιππον ἡγοῦντο· πάντ’ ἐκεῖνος ἦν αὐτοῖς· οὐδὲ φωνὴν ἤκουον εἴ τις ἄλλο τι βούλοιτο λέγειν.

id. ib. § 43.

(6) οὓς σὺ ζῶντας μέν, ὦ κίναδος, κολακεύων παρηκολούθεις, τεθνεώτων δ’ οὐκ αἰσθάνει κατηγορῶν.

id. ib. § 162.

(7) καὶ τότ’ εὐθὺς ἐμοῦ διαμαρτυρομένου καὶ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ “πόλεμον εἰς τὴν Ἀττικὴν εἰσάγεις, Αἰσχίνη, πόλεμον Ἀμφικτυονικόν, κτλ.”

id. ib. § 143.

(8) ὃς γὰρ ἐμοῦ φιλιππισμόν, ὦ γῆ καὶ θεοί, κατηγορεῖ, τί οὗτος οὐκ ἂν εἴποι;

id. ib. § 294.

(9) ἀλλ’ οἶμαι οὐ δυνάμεθα· ἐλεεῖσθαι οὖν ἡμᾶς πολὺ μᾶλλον εἰκός ἐστίν που ὑπὸ ὑμῶν τῶν δεινῶν ἢ χαλεπαίνεσθαι.

Plato Republic i. 336 E.

(10) μηδ’ εἵμασι στρώσασ’ ἐπίφθονον πόρον
τίθει· θεούς τοι τοῖσδε τιμαλφεῖν χρεών.

Aeschylus Agamemnon 921.

It will be seen from some of the above examples that words may have emphasis if, though not actually placed at the very beginning of a sentence or a clause, they come as early as they well can. The three following passages will further illustrate this point:—

(1) καὶ ἐς Νικίαν τὸν Νικηράτου στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἀπεσήμαινεν, ἐχθρὸς ὢν καὶ ἐπιτιμῶν, ῥᾴδιον εἶναι παρασκευῇ, εἰ ἄνδρες εἶεν οἱ στρατηγοί, πλεύσαντας λαβεῖν τοὺς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ, καὶ αὐτός γ’ ἄν, εἰ ἦρχε, ποιῆσαι τοῦτο.

Thucydides iv. 27.

(2) ὅ τι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα· ἐγὼ δ’ οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην· οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον. καίτοι ἀληθές γε, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲν εἰρήκασιν.

Plato Apology init.

(3) ἀλλὰ μὴν τὸν τότε συμβάντα ἐν τῇ πόλει θόρυβον ἴστε μὲν ἅπαντες, μικρὰ δ’ ἀκούσατε ὅμως, αὐτὰ τἀναγκαιότατα ... οἱ δὲ τοὺς στρατηγοὺς μετεπέμποντο καὶ τὸν σαλπιγκτὴν ἐκάλουν, καὶ θορύβου πλήρης ἦν ἡ πόλις.

Demosthenes de Corona §§ 168, 169.

Sometimes, however, emphatic words will be thrust right to the front through such devices as the postponement of an interrogative particle: e.g.

ἑστάναι, εἶπον, καὶ κινεῖσθαι τὸ αὐτὸ ἅμα κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ ἆρα δυνατόν;

Plato Republic iv. 436 C.

and

οἷον δίψα ἐστὶ δίψα ἆρά γε θερμοῦ ποτοῦ ἢ ψυχροῦ, ἢ πολλοῦ ἢ ὀλίγου, ἢ καὶ ἑνὶ λόγῳ ποιοῦ τινος πώματος;

id. ib. iv. 437 D.[23]

An uninflected language may well envy the grammatical resources which enable Greek or Latin poets to secure at once clearness and the utmost height of emotion in such lines as:

Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἀλλὰ σὺ ῥῦσαι ὑπ’ ἠέρος υἷας Ἀχαιῶν,
ποίησον δ’ αἴθρην, δὸς δ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδέσθαι·
ἐν δὲ φάει καὶ ὄλεσσον, ἐπεί νύ τοι εὔαδεν οὕτως.

Homer Iliad xvii. 645.

Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum,
O Rutuli.

Virgil Aeneid ix. 427.[24]

The end as well as the beginning of a clause or sentence may bring emphasis when it is an unusual position for the particular word or phrase which stands there. Illustrations may perhaps be drawn from expressions conveying the idea of “death,” which (according to Dionysus in the Frogs) is the “heaviest of ills,” and which (be that as it may) is as little likely as any to be entertained lightheartedly, or to be mentioned without some degree of feeling and emphasis. At the beginning of a sentence, τεθνᾶσι clearly has emphasis in

τεθνᾶσ’ ἀδελφοὶ καὶ πατὴρ οὑμὸς γέρων.

Euripides Hercules Furens 539.

And in the following passage of Plato, it will be seen that the τὸν θάνατον which comes near the beginning of a clause is more emphatic than the τὸν θάνατον which comes at the end of a clause:—

οἶσθα δ’, ἦ δ’ ὅς, ὅτι τὸν θάνατον ἡγοῦνται πάντες οἱ ἄλλοι τῶν μεγάλων κακῶν;—καὶ μάλ’, ἔφη.—οὐκοῦν φόβῳ μειζόνων κακῶν ὑπομένουσιν αὐτῶν οἱ ἀνδρεῖοι τὸν θάνατον, ὅταν ὑπομένωσιν;—ἔστι ταῦτα.

Plato Phaedo 68 D.

The τὸν θάνατον before ἡγοῦνται is here emphatic on the same principle as the θάνατον before εἰσέθηκε in the passage (already alluded to) of the Frogs:—

θάνατον γὰρ εἰσέθηκε βαρύτατον κακόν.

Aristophanes Ranae 1394.

But a word like θάνατος may also come with emphasis at the end of a sentence, if that order is rendered unusual by the interposition of additional words or by any other means which create a feeling of suspense and even of afterthought. For example:

τί δέ; τὰν Αἵδου ἡγούμενον εἶναί τε καὶ δεινὰ εἶναι οἴει τινὰ θάνατου ἀδεῆ ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἐν ταῖς μάχαις αἱρήσεσθαι πρὸ ἥττης τε καὶ δουλείας θάνατον;

Plato Republic iii. 386 B.

Here the θάνατον seems intended to repeat with emphasis the preceding θανάτου to which, itself, a considerable degree of prominence is assigned. So, perhaps,

ἀλλὰ νόμον δημοσίᾳ τὸν ταῦτα κωλύσοντα τέθεινται τουτονὶ καὶ πολλοὺς ἤδη παραβάντας τὸν νόμον τοῦτον ἐζημιώκασιν θανάτῳ.

Demosthenes Midias § 49.

and

... καὶ φοβερωτέρας ἡγήσεται τὰς ὕβρεις καὶ τὰς ἀτιμίας, ἃς ἐν δουλευούσῃ τῇ πόλει φέρειν ἀνάγκη, τοῦ θανάτου.

Demosthenes de Corona § 205.

Some miscellaneous examples of words coming emphatically at the end of a clause or sentence are:—

(1) αἰτοῦμαι δ’ ὑμᾶς δοῦναι καὶ νῦν παισὶ μὲν καὶ γυναικὶ καὶ φίλοις καὶ πατρίδι εὐδαιμονίαν, ἐμοὶ δὲ οἷόν περ αἰῶνα δεδώκατε τοιαύτην καὶ τελευτὴν δοῦναι.

Xenophon Cyropaedia viii. 7.

(2) ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτους κολυμβηταὶ δυόμενοι ἐξέπριον μισθοῦ.[25]

Thucydides vii. 25.

(3) ὑψοῦ δὲ θάσσων ὑψόθεν χαμαιπετὴς
πίπτει πρὸς οὖδας μυρίοις οἰμώγμασι
Πενθεύς.[26]

Euripides Bacchae 1111.

(4) ἴστε γὰρ δήπου τοῦθ’ ὅτι πάντες οἱ ξεναγοῦντες οὗτοι πόλεις καταλαμβάνοντες Ἑλληνίδας ἄρχειν ζητοῦσιν, καὶ πάντων, ὅσοι περ νόμοις οἰκεῖν βούλονται τὴν αὑτῶν ὄντες ἐλεύθεροι, κοινοὶ περιέρχονται κατὰ πᾶσαν χώραν, εἰ δεῖ τἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν, ἐχθροί.

Demosthenes Aristocrates § 139.

(5) δεῖ δὲ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας ἐγχειρεῖν μὲν ἅπασιν ἀεὶ τοῖς καλοῖς, τὴν ἀγαθὴν προβαλλομένους ἐλπίδα, φέρειν δ’ ἃν ὁ θεὸς διδῷ γενναίως.[27]

Demosthenes de Corona § 97.

(6) εἶθ’ οὗτοι τὰ ὅπλα εἶχον ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν ἀεί.

id. ib. § 235.

(7) εἰ γὰρ ταῦτα προεῖτ’ ἀκονιτεί, περὶ ὧν οὐδένα κίνδυνον ὅντιν’ οὐχ ὑπέμειναν οἱ πρόγονοι, τίς οὐχὶ κατέπτυσεν ἂν σοῦ; μὴ γὰρ τῆς πόλεώς γε, μηδ’ ἐμοῦ.

id. ib. § 200.

(8) ... ἡμῖν δὲ τοῖς λοιποῖς τὴν ταχίστην ἀπαλλαγὴν τῶν ἐπηρτημένων φόβων δότε καὶ σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ.[28]

id. ib. § 324.

It may be added that, occasionally, both the earlier and the later positions are emphatic in the same clause or sentence: e.g.

(1) τέκνα γὰρ κατακτενῶ
τἄμ’.[29]

Euripides Medea 792.

(2) ὦτα γὰρ τυγχάνει ἀνθρώποισι ἐόντα ἀπιστότερα ὀφθαλμῶν.[30]

Herodotus i. 8.

(3) νῦν δὲ τὸ μὲν παρὸν ἀεὶ προϊέμενοι, τὰ δὲ μέλλοντ’ αὐτόματ’ οἰόμενοι σχήσειν καλῶς, ηὐξήσαμεν, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, Φίλιππον ἡμεῖς, καὶ κατεστήσαμεν τηλικοῦτον ἡλίκος οὐδείς πω βασιλεὺς γέγονεν Μακεδονίας. [31]

Demosthenes Olynthiacs i. § 9.

(4) πολλάκις δὲ τοῦ κήρυκος ἐρωτῶντος οὐδὲν μᾶλλον ἀνίστατ’ οὐδείς, ἁπάντων μὲν τῶν στρατηγῶν παρόντων, κτλ.

Demosthenes de Corona § 117.

(5) καὶ μὴν καὶ Φερὰς πρώην ὡς φίλος καὶ σύμμαχος εἰς Θετταλίαν ἐλθὼν ἔχει καταλαβών, καὶ τὰ τελευταῖα τοῖς ταλαιπώροις Ὠρείταις τουτοισὶ ἐπισκεψομένους ἔφη τοὺς στρατιώτας πεπομφέναι κατ’ εὔνοιαν· πυνθάνεσθαι γὰρ αὐτοὺς ὡς νοσοῦσι καὶ στασιάζουσιν, συμμάχων δ’ εἶναι καὶ φίλων ἀληθινῶν ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις καιροῖς παρεῖναι.

Demosthenes Philippics iii. § 12.

(6) οὐ λίθοις ἐτείχισα τὴν πόλιν οὐδὲ πλίνθοις ἐγώ, οὐδ’ ἐπὶ τούτοις μέγιστον τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ φρονῶ.

Demosthenes de Corona § 299.

(7) ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν πεπολίτευσαι πάντα, ἐγὼ δ’ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος.

id. ib. § 265.

In connexion with the imperfect appreciation which the de Compositione Verborum shows of a normal order and of an emphasis produced by departure from it, attention may be drawn to the fact that the treatise contains no reference to the ‘figure’ hyperbaton; and this although the figure had been recognized long before Dionysius’ time, and continued to be recognized long afterwards. It is first mentioned by Plato, who probably took over the notion from the Sophists: ἀλλ’ ὑπερβατὸν δεῖ θεῖναι ἐν τῷ ᾄσματι τὸ “ἀλαθέως” (Plato Protag. 343 E, where the reference is to a poem of Simonides). The author of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum (c. 30) indicates it in the following terms: ἐὰν μὴ ὑπερβατῶς αὐτὰ [sc. τὰ ὀνόματα] τιθῶμεν, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τὰ ἐχόμενα ἑξῆς τάττωμεν. Quintilian treats of it in the passage beginning “Hyperbaton quoque, id est verbi transgressionem, quoniam frequenter ratio comparationis et decor poscit, non immerito inter virtutes habemus” (Inst. Or. viii. 6. 62).[32] The author of the Treatise on the Sublime describes and defines it thus: ἔστι δὲ λέξεων ἢ νοήσεων ἐκ τοῦ κατ’ ἀκολουθίαν κεκινημένη τάξις καὶ οἱονεὶ χαρακτὴρ ἐναγωνίου πάθους ἀληθέστατος (Longinus de Sublim. c. 22).[33] And, later still, Hermogenes and other writers on rhetoric are well acquainted with the figure. Dionysius, however, mentions it but seldom in any of his writings, and even then (e.g. τὰς ὑπερβατοὺς καὶ πολυπλόκους καὶ ἐξ ἀποκοπῆς πολλὰ σημαίνειν πράγματα βουλομένας καὶ διὰ μακροῦ τὰς ἀποδόσεις λαμβανούσας νοήσεις, de Thucyd. c. 52; cp. c. 31 ibid.) is clearly thinking not of desirable but of highly undesirable “inversions.” He may have thought that its proper place was in poetry rather than in prose.

E. Euphony

A modern writer on style would probably lay more stress on clearness and emphasis than on euphony. The ancient critics, on the other hand, seem to have taken the two former elements more or less for granted. Because they were easily attainable in languages so fully inflected as Greek and Latin, their attainment was regarded as an important matter indeed, but one which called for no special recognition of any kind. As Quintilian says, in reference to clearness, “nam emendate quidem ac lucide dicentium tenue praemium est, magisque ut vitiis carere quam ut aliquam magnam virtutem adeptus esse videaris” (Inst. Or. viii. 3. 1).[34] Dionysius, too, in the de Compositione Verborum, passes more readily over the two qualities of clearness and emphasis because he is not concerned with the πραγματικὸς τόπος.[35] He keeps rigorously to his real subject; and that is not the relation of words to the ideas of which they are the symbols. It is, rather, their relation to their own constituent elements (letters and syllables of diverse qualities and quantities) and to the pleasant impression which the apt collocation of many various words can make upon the ear. His task is to investigate the emotional power of the sound-elements of language when alone and when in combination—their euphonic and their symphonic effects. Hence the constant recurrence, throughout the treatise, of words like εὐφωνία, εὐρυθμία, εὐστομία, λειότης, ἁρμονία, σύνθεσις. The illustrative excerpts which he gives are so numerous and so happily chosen that no others need be added here.[36] A careful study of his examples, in the context in which they occur, will suggest many reflexions upon the freedom and adaptability of Greek order. But no absolute test of euphony

can be based upon them. Dionysius himself formulates no invariable rules upon the subject. In the last resort, the court of appeal must, as he sees, be the instinctive judgment of the ear (τὸ ἄλογον τῆς ἀκοῆς πάθος).[37] The part played by the ear has been well described by Quintilian: “ergo quem in poëmate locum habet versificatio, eum in oratione compositio. optime autem de illa iudicant aures, quae plena sentiunt et parum expleta desiderant et fragosis offenduntur et levibus mulcentur et contortis excitantur et stabilia probant, clauda deprehendunt, redundantia ac nimia fastidiunt” (Inst. Or. ix. 4. 116). Naturally the ear in question must be the individual ear (“aurem tuam interroga, quo quid loco conveniat dicere,” Aulus Gellius Noctes Att. xiii. 21); the criterion is subjective, not absolute.[38] But it is assumed that the ear in question has been trained and attuned by constant converse with the great masters, and that (like Flaubert in modern times) an author never writes without repeating the words aloud to himself. Thus trained, the ear will work in harmony with the mind: “aures enim vel animus aurium nuntio naturalem quandam in se continet vocum omnium mensionem” (Cic. Orat. 53. 177). Both Cicero and Dionysius are well aware that style is personal and individual,—that it is no uniform and mechanical thing. Dionysius’ own position has been misunderstood by those who have judged the de Compositione as if it were a complete treatise on the entire subject of style. In the eyes of Dionysius, words are not what dead stone and timber are in the eyes of the ordinary workman. They are, rather, the living elements which, in the secret places of his mind, the master-builder views as potential parts of some great temple.[39] They are what an individual makes them. Hence, just as Cicero writes “qua re sine, quaeso, sibi quemque scribere,

Suam quoíque sponsam, míhi meam; suum quoíque amorem, míhi meum”:

so Dionysius long ago anticipated the saying that the style is the man.[40]

Among the minor debts we owe to him is the fact that his minute analysis of rhythms, or feet, in passages of Thucydides, Pindar and others, helps to disclose the inner workings of the beautiful Greek language and to impress us with the importance attached by the ancients to what we moderns find it so hard fully to appreciate,—the effect on a Greek ear of syllabic quantity in prose as well as verse. And he insists no less upon the charm of variety,—the paramount necessity of avoiding monotony. He saw, for example, that the Greek inflexions (notwithstanding the many advantages which they brought with them) had at least one drawback: they are apt to lead to a certain sameness in case-endings. Accordingly he would, for instance, have approved (though he does not mention this particular passage) of the separation of the words σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ from the other accusatives at the end of the de Corona: ἡμῖν δὲ τοῖς λοιποῖς τὴν ταχίστην ἀπαλλαγὴν τῶν ἐπηρτημένων φόβων δότε καὶ σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ.[41] Further reference to these minutiae of style may fitly be made later, when the topics of “rhythm” and “music” are considered.[42]

F. Greek and Latin compared with Modern Languages, in regard to Word-Order

Something has already been said, incidentally, about certain differences in word-order between the ancient and the modern European languages. In such a comparison Greek and Latin may be placed upon the same footing, as their points of contact are vastly more numerous than their points of divergence, considerable though these are.[43]

The points of contact become manifest when an attempt is made to translate into Latin, and into English, the sentence from Herodotus which Dionysius quotes, and twice recasts, in his fourth chapter:—

(1) Κροῖσος ἦν Λυδὸς μὲν γένος, παῖς δ’ Ἀλυάττου, τύραννος δ’ ἐθνῶν τῶν ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ· ὃς ῥέων ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας μεταξὺ Σύρων τε καὶ Παφλαγόνων ἐξίησι πρὸς βορέαν ἄνεμον εἰς τὸν Εὔξεινον καλούμενον πόντον.

Herodotus i. 6.

Croesus genere quidem fuit Lydus, patre autem Alyatte; earum vero nationum tyrannus, quae intra Halym amnem sunt: qui, a meridie Syros ac Paphlagones interfluens, contra ventum Aquilonem in mare, quid vocant Euxinum, evolvitur.

(2) Κροῖσος ἦν υἱὸς μὲν Ἀλυάττου, γένος δὲ Λυδός, τύραννος δὲ τῶν ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ ἐθνῶν· ὃς ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας ῥέων μεταξὺ Σύρων καὶ Παφλαγόνων εἰς τὸν Εὔξεινον καλούμενον πόντον ἐκδίδωσι πρὸς βορέαν ἄνεμον.

Croesus erat filius quidem Alyattis, genere autem Lydus, tyrannusque earum, quae intra sunt Halym amnem nationes; qui, a meridie interfluens Syros ac Paphlagones, in mare, quod vocant Euxinum, evolvitur contra ventum Aquilonem.

(3) Ἀλυάττου μὲν υἱὸς ἦν Κροῖσος, γένος δὲ Λυδός, τῶν δ’ ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ τύραννος ἐθνῶν· ὃς ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας ῥέων Σύρων τε καὶ Παφλαγόνων μεταξὺ πρὸς βορέαν ἐξίησιν ἄνεμον ἐς τὸν καλούμενον πόντον Εὔξεινον.

Alyattis quidem filius erat Croesus, genere autem Lydus, earum, quae intra sunt Halym amnem, tyrannus nationum; qui, a meridie fluens Syros inter ac Paphlagones, contra Boream erumpit ventum in mare, quod vocant Euxinum.

In these sentences the Latin follows the Greek order closely, and might be made to follow it still more faithfully were it not that it seems better to diverge occasionally for special reasons: e.g. it is desirable, in rendering the original passage of Herodotus, to secure (as far as possible) a good rhythm. In English, on the other hand, the choice lies between a wide deviation and a rendering which is ambiguous and possibly grotesque. In fact (to recur once more to the main point) the freedom with which the order of words can be varied in a Greek or Latin sentence is without parallel in any modern analytical language, and the attendant gain in variety, rhythm, and nicety of emphasis is incalculable.[44]

Still, the modern languages have great powers, in this as in other ways: powers which will be incidentally illustrated later. M. Jules Lemaître has written, with reference to Ernest Renan: “Je trahis peut-être sa pensée en la traduisant; tant pis! Pourquoi a-t-il des finesses qui ne tiennent qu’à l’arrangement des mots?”[45] These finesses are perhaps, as is here implied, hardly communicable, even though an earlier French writer has commended Malherbe as an author who

D’un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir.[46]

It may well be that these matters, if not altogether the “mysteries” which Dionysius terms them, are eternally elusive because they depend upon the infinite variety of the human mind. Yet some studies in English literary theory, such as might be suggested by Dionysius’ treatise, could not fail to be of interest, and might be instructive also. Something of the kind has been already done, without reference to Dionysius or other Greek critics, by Robert Louis Stevenson in his essay on Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature.[47] Each language has, in truth, a rhetoric of its own. But the various languages, ancient and modern, can help one another in the way of comparison and contrast.

These methods of comparison and contrast have—as regards word-order—been excellently applied to the ancient and the modern languages by Henri Weil and T. D. Goodell. Weil’s chief service is to have pointed out so clearly the principle that the order of syntax must be separated in thought from the order of ideas, and was by both Greeks and Romans freely so separated in practice, whereas in the modern languages (owing to the lack of inflexions) this practical separation is less frequent. Goodell, starting from the postulate that the order of words in a language represents the order in which the speaker or writer chooses, for various reasons, to bring his ideas before the mind of another, discusses (with constant reference to modern languages) the order of words in Greek, from the standpoint of syntax, rhetoric, and euphony. In the course of a carefully reasoned exposition, he corrects and supplements many of Weil’s observations.

The full title of Weil’s book is De l’ordre des mots dans les langues anciennes comparées aux langues modernes: question de grammaire générale (3rd edition, Paris, 1879). There is an English translation by C. W. Super (Boston, 1887), with notes and additions. Goodell’s paper on “The Order of Words in Greek” is printed in the Transactions of the American Philological Association vol. xxi. Other writings on the subject are: Charles Short’s “Essay on the Order of Words in Attic Greek Prose,”—prefixed to Drisler’s edition of C. D. Yonge’s English-Greek Lexicon,—which is an extensive collection of examples, but is weak in scientific classification and in clear enunciation of principles; H. L. Ebeling’s “Some Statistics on the Order of Words in Greek,” contributed to Studies in Honour of Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, and including some valuable investigations into the order in which subject, object, and verb usually come in Greek; inquiries into the practice of individual authors, e.g. Spratt on the “Order of Words in Thucydides” (Spratt’s edition of Thucydides, Book VI.), and Riddell on the “Arrangement of Words and Clauses in Plato” (Riddell’s edition of Plato’s Apology), or various dissertations such as Th. Harmsen de verborum collocatione apud Aeschylum, Sophoclem, Euripidem capita selecta, Ph. Both de Antiphontis et Thucydidis genere dicendi, J. J. Braun de collocatione verborum apud Thucydidem observationes, F. Darpe de verborum apud Thucydidem collocatione; and in Latin such elaborate studies as Hilberg’s Die Gesetze der Wortstellung im Pentameter des Ovid. An interesting book which compares Cicero’s Latin translations (prose and verse) with their Greek originals is V. Clavel’s de M. T. Cicerone Graecorum Interprete. In Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol. vii. pp. 223-233, J. W. H. Walden discusses Weil’s statement that “an emphatic word, if followed by a word which, though syntactically necessary to the sentence, is in itself unemphatic, receives an access of emphasis from the lingering of the attention which results from the juxtaposition of the two.” Reference may also be made to A. Bergaigne’s “Essai sur la construction grammaticale considérée dans son développement historique, en Sanskrit, en Grec, en Latin, dans les langues romanes et dans les langues germaniques,” in the Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris vol. vii. The subject is, further, glanced at in the Greek Grammars of Kühner and others. But in modern times, as in those of Dionysius, it has on the whole failed to receive the attention which its importance would seem to demand.

G. Prose and Poetry: Rhythm and Metre

Readers of the de Compositione cannot fail to notice that, catholic as he is in his literary tastes, Dionysius reserves his highest admiration for two authors,—Homer in poetry and Demosthenes in prose; and that he seems to regard them as equally valid authorities for the immediate purpose which he has in view. Homer is quoted throughout the treatise, on the first page and on the last; and Demosthenes inspires (in c. 25) its most eloquent passage. That outburst is a triumphant vindication of Demosthenes’ methods as a sedulous artist. Dionysius sees that he is one of those men who spare no pains over the art they love—that Demosthenes, like Homer, φιλοτεχνεῖ ([200] 18; cp. [154] 20).

In seeming thus to draw no very clear line between verse and prose, Dionysius is at one with most of the Greek and Roman critics; and this attitude is readily intelligible in the light of the historical development of Greek literature, in which Homer (who was a master of oratory[48] as well as of poetry) heralds the intellectual life of all Greece, while Demosthenes is the last great voice of free Athens. But the approximations of prose to poetry, and of poetry to prose, which Dionysius describes in his twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters should not create the impression that, in his opinion, the prose-writer was free to borrow any and every weapon from the armoury of the poet. Of one poetical artifice he says, in c. 6, “this principle can be applied freely in poetry, but sparingly in prose”; and elsewhere he calls attention to qualities which he regards as over-poetical in the styles of Thucydides and Plato.[49] Yet he did clearly wish that good prose should borrow as much as possible from poetry, while still remaining good prose. And although he agrees, in general, with Aristotle’s exposition of the formal differences between prose and poetry, he does not adhere quite firmly to the Aristotelian principles.[50]

In the Rhetoric, Aristotle insists that the styles of poetry and prose are distinct. The difference is this: “prose should have rhythm but not metre, or it will be poetry. The rhythm, however, should not be of too marked a character: it should not pass beyond a certain point.”[51] In the same way, Dionysius (C.V. c. 25) declares that prose must not be manifestly metrical or rhythmical, lest it should desert its own specific character. It should simply appear to be the one and the other, so that it may be poetical although not a poem, and lyrical although not a lyric. But, in practice, Dionysius is found to cast longing eyes upon the formal advantages which poetry possesses, and to wish to infuse into public speeches a definite metrical element, which seems alien to the genius of prose, and which would have failed to gain the sanction of Aristotle, though this appears to be claimed for it.[52] It is not here a question of the ordinary methods of imparting force and variety to word-arrangement. In regard to these, Dionysius’ precepts are, in general, sound and helpful enough; and if, now and then, the process is extolled in what may seem extravagant terms, we have only to think of the vast difference which slight variations of word-order will make even in our modern analytical languages. For example:

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight.

Marlowe Doctor Faustus.

Killed with report that old man eloquent.

Milton Sonnets.

Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.

Goethe Faust.

The effect of these lines would be sadly marred if we were to read “the branch is cut,” “that eloquent old man,” and “ich war auch schön.”[53] In Greek prose, no less than in Greek poetry, inversions like those just quoted would be quite legitimate. This at least we can affirm, though it would be rash to attempt to lay down any general rules with regard to the differences between Greek order in verse and in prose. It is better to follow Dionysius’ example and to cull illustrations from both alike impartially, with only two qualifications. First, the Greek word-arrangement is even freer in verse than in prose, though the clause-arrangement and the sentence-arrangement of Greek poetry show (as Dionysius implies in c. 26) a general tendency to coincide with the metrical arrangement. Second, an absolutely metrical arrangement is foreign to the best traditions of Greek prose. It is the second point that is of importance here; and notwithstanding the almost furtive character which he attributes to the metrical lines detected by him in the Aristocrates, it is obvious that Dionysius has in mind a very close and deliberate approximation to the canons of verse and is prepared to strain his material in order to attain it.[54] Here, again, some modern illustrations may be of interest. The writers of the Tudor period seem to have had a special fondness for, and an ear attuned to, what may be roughly regarded as hexameter measures. This predilection appears both in their rendering of the Bible and in the Book of Common Prayer:—

How art thou | fallen from | Heaven, O | Lucifer, | son of the | morning.
How art | thou cut | down to the | ground, which didst | weaken the | nations.[55]
Why do the | heathen | rage, and the | people im | agine a | vain thing?
(He) poureth con | tempt upon | princes and | weakeneth the | strength of the | mighty.
God is gone | up with a | shout, the | Lord with the | sound of a | trumpet.
(The) kings of the | earth stood | up, and the | rulers took | counsel to | gether.
Dearly be | loved | brethren, the | Scripture | moveth us |.

The rhythms into which modern prose-writers drop are usually iambic or trochaic. This is so with Ruskin and Carlyle, and it would be easy to quote examples from their writings.[56] But, as in ancient so in modern times, the best criticism looks with favour on rhythmical, with disfavour on metrical prose. Prose, it is held, loses its true character—as the minister primarily of reason rather than of emotion—if it is made to conform to the rigid laws of metre.

If Dionysius fails to prove that metrical lines, thinly disguised, are a marked feature of the style of Demosthenes, no greater fortune has attended some attempts made in our own day to establish such exact rhythmical laws as that of the systematic avoidance, in Greek oratory, of a number of short syllables in close succession. It is clear that Demosthenes’ ear, with that kind of instinct which comes from musical aptitude and long training (cp. C.V. [266] 13 ff., [268] 12), shunned undignified accumulations of short syllables, but not with so pedantic a persistency that he could not on occasion use forms like πεφενάκικεν or διατετέλεκεν or προσαγαγόμενον. If he formulated to himself a principle, instead of trusting to inspiration controlled by long experience, this principle would be that which Cicero attributes to a critic who was almost contemporary with Demosthenes: “namque ego illud adsentior Theophrasto, qui putat orationem, quae quidem sit polita atque facta quodam modo, non astricte, sed remissius numerosam esse oportere” (Cic. de Orat. iii. 48. 184).[57] The necessary limits to be observed in these curious inquiries are well indicated by Quintilian, who utters some sensible warnings against any attempts continually to scent metre in prose or to ban some feet while admitting others: “neque enim loqui possumus nisi syllabis brevibus ac longis, ex quibus pedes fiunt ... miror autem in hac opinione doctissimos homines fuisse, ut alios pedes ita eligerent aliosque damnarent, quasi ullus esset, quem non sit necesse in oratione deprehendi” (Quintil. Inst. Or. ix. 4. 61 and 87).[58]

On the subject of prose and poetry, Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (ed. Shawcross, Clarendon Press, 1907) is likely long to hold its unique position. Theodore Watts-Dunton’s article on “Poetry” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica contains an appreciative estimate of the good service done to criticism by Dionysius in the de Compositione. The article by Louis Havet on La Prose métrique (in La Grande Encyclopédie, xxvii. 804-806) deals with what we should call “rhythmical prose,” the French terminology differing here from our own. Some account of enjambement (with ancient and modern illustrations) will be found in the Notes, pp. 270 ff. The recent writings on Greek rhythm and metre are almost endless. Some of them will be suggested by the names of: Rossbach, Westphal, Weil, Schmidt, Christ, Gleditsch, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Goodell, Masqueray, Blass.

With regard to the relation between metre and rhythm, there is not a little suggestiveness in the saying of the historical Longinus: μέτρου δὲ πατὴρ ῥυθμὸς καὶ θεός (Proleg. in Heph. Ench.; Westphal Script. Metr. Graeci i. 82). There is also, in our day, an increasing recognition of the intimate alliance between Greek poetry and Greek music; it is more and more seen that lyric stanzas are formed out of figures and phrases, rather than from mere mechanical feet. Nor is it to be forgotten that poetic rhythm may probably be traced back to the regular movements of the limbs in dancing. The views of Blass on ancient prose rhythm are given in his Die attische Beredsamkeit, Die Rhythmen der attischen Kunstprosa (Isokrates, Demosthenes, Platon), and Die Rhythmen der asianischen und römischen Kunstprosa (Paulus, Hebräerbrief, Pausanias, Cicero, Seneca, Curtius, Apuleius); and some of them are summarized in an article which he contributed, shortly before his death, to Hermathena (“On Attic Prose Rhythm” Hermathena No. xxxii., 1906). Probably his tendency was to seek after too much uniformity in such matters as the avoidance of hiatus and of successive short syllables, or as the symmetrical correspondences between clauses within the period. The best Attic orators were here guided, more or less consciously, by two principles to which Dionysius constantly refers: (1) μεταβολή, or the love of variety; (2) τὸ πρέπον, or the sense of propriety. This sense of propriety rejected all such obvious and systematic art as should cause a speech to seem, in Aristotle’s words, πεπλασμένος and ἀπίθανος (Rhet. iii. 2. 4; 8. 1). Still, Demosthenes’ greatest speeches were no doubt carefully revised before they were given to the world; and so the blade may have been cold-polished, after leaving the forge of the imagination. It is to be noticed that, in the matter of hiatus, for example, some of the best manuscripts of Demosthenes do seem to observe a strict parsimony; and this careful avoidance of open vowels may be due ultimately rather to Demosthenes himself than to an early scholar-editor. Whatever the final judgment on Blass’s work may be, he will have done good service by directing attention anew to a point so hard for the modern ear to appreciate as the great part played in artistic Greek prose by the subtle use of time,—of long and short syllables arranged in a kind of general equipoise rather than in any regular and definite succession. How singularly important that part was reckoned to be, such passages of Dionysius as the following help to indicate: οὐ γὰρ δὴ φαῦλόν τι πρᾶγμα ῥυθμὸς ἐν λόγοις οὐδὲ προσθήκης τινὸς μοῖραν ἔχον οὐκ ἀναγκαίας, ἀλλ’ εἰ δεῖ τἀληθές, ὡς ἐμὴ δόξα, εἰπεῖν, ἁπάντων κυριώτατον τῶν γοητεύειν δυναμένων καὶ κηλεῖν τὰς ἀκοάς (de Demosth. c. 39).

III
Other Matters arising in the de Compositione

A. Greek Music: in Relation to the Greek Language

For the modern student there is perhaps no more valuable chapter of the de Compositione than that (c. 11) which treats of the musical element in Greek speech. It helps to bring home the fact that, among the ancient Greeks, “the science of public oratory was a musical science, differing from vocal and instrumental music in degree, not in kind” (μουσικὴ γάρ τις ἦν καὶ ἡ τῶν πολιτικῶν λόγων ἐπιστήμη τῷ ποσῷ διαλλάττουσα τῆς ἐν ᾠδῇ καὶ ὀργάνοις, οὐχὶ τῷ ποιῷ, [124] 20). The extraordinary sensitiveness of Greek audiences to the music of sounds is described by Dionysius, who also indicates the musical intervals observed in singing and in speaking, and touches on the relation borne by the words to the music in a song. His statements, further, give countenance to the view that “the chief elements of utterance—pitch, time, and stress—were independent in ancient Greek speech, just as they are in music. And the fact that they were independent goes a long way to prove our main contention, viz. that ancient Greek speech had a peculiar quasi-musical character, and consequently that the difficulty which modern scholars feel in understanding the ancient statements on such matters as accent and quantity is simply the difficulty of conceiving a form of utterance of which no examples can now be observed.”[59] Even Aristotle, Greek though he was, seems to have felt imperfectly those harmonies of balanced cadence which come from the poet, or artistic prose-writer, to whom words are as notes to the musician. And if Aristotle, a Greek though not an Athenian, shows himself not fully alive to the music of the most musical of languages, it is hardly matter for wonder that writers of our own rough island prose should be far from feeling that they are musicians playing on an instrument of many strings, and should be ready, as Dionysius might have said in his most serious vein, εἰς γέλωτα λαμβάνειν τὰ σπουδαιότατα δι’ ἀπειρίαν ([252] 16). It is true that, on the other side, we have R. L. Stevenson, who writes: “Each phrase of each sentence, like an air or recitative in music, should be so artfully compounded out of longs and shorts, out of accented and unaccented syllables, as to gratify the sensual ear. And of this the ear is the sole judge.”[60] Dionysius and Stevenson are, admittedly, slight names to set against that of Aristotle. But this is no reason why they should not be allowed to supplement his statements when he is too deeply concerned with matter and substance to say much about manner and the niceties and enchantments of form. And Dionysius is—it must in justice be conceded—no mere word-taster but a man genuinely alive to the great issues that dignify and ennoble style. He can, for example, thus describe the effect, subsequent and immediate, of Demosthenes’ speeches: “When I take up one of his speeches, I am entranced and am carried hither and thither, stirred now by one emotion, now by another. I feel distrust, anxiety, fear, disdain, hatred, pity, good-will, anger, jealousy. I am agitated by every passion in turn that can sway the human heart, and am like those who are being initiated into wild mystic rites.... When we who are centuries removed from that time, and are in no way affected by the matters at issue, are thus swept off our feet and mastered and borne wherever the discourse leads us, what must have been the feelings excited by the speaker in the minds of the Athenians and the Greeks generally, when living interests of their own were at stake, and when the great orator, whose reputation stood so high, spoke from the heart and revealed the promptings of his inmost soul?”[61]

In addition to D. B. Monro’s book on Greek music, reference may be made to such works as Rossbach and Westphal’s Theorie der musischen Künste der Hellenen, H. S. Macran’s edition of Aristoxenus’ Harmonics (from the Introduction to which a quotation of some length will be found in the note on [194] 7), and the edition of Plutarch’s de Musica by H. Weil and Th. Reinach. The articles, by W. H. Frere and H. S. Macran, on Greek Music in the new edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians should also be consulted, as well as the essay, by H. R. Fairclough, on “The Connexion between Music and Poetry in Early Greek Literature” in Studies in Honour of Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve. The close connexion between music and verbal harmony is brought out in Longinus de Sublim. cc. 39-41. In Grenfell and Hunt’s Hibeh Papyri, Part i. (1906), p. 45, there is a short “Discourse on Music” which the editors are inclined to attribute to Hippias of Elis, the contemporary of Socrates.