IIIOther Matters arising in thede Compositione

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 onSome 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 ofsyntax,rhetoric, andeuphony. In the course of a carefully reasoned exposition, he corrects and supplements many of Weil’s observations.

The full title of Weil’s book isDe 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 theTransactions of the American Philological Associationvol. 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’sEnglish-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 toStudies 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’sApology), or various dissertations such as Th. Harmsende verborum collocatione apud Aeschylum, Sophoclem, Euripidem capita selecta, Ph. Bothde Antiphontis et Thucydidis genere dicendi, J. J. Braunde collocatione verborum apud Thucydidem observationes, F. Darpede verborum apud Thucydidem collocatione; and in Latin such elaborate studies as Hilberg’sDie 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’sde M. T. Cicerone Graecorum Interprete. InHarvard Studies in Classical Philologyvol. 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 theMémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Parisvol. 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.

Readers of thede Compositionecannot 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 firstpage 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(20018; cp.15420).

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 theRhetoric, 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 simplyappearto 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.

MarloweDoctor Faustus.

Killed with report that old man eloquent.

MiltonSonnets.

Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben.

GoetheFaust.

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 theAristocrates, 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 predilectionappears both in their rendering of the Bible and in the Book of Common Prayer:—

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.26613 ff.,26812), 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, sedremissius numerosamesse 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’sBiographia Literaria(ed. Shawcross, Clarendon Press, 1907) is likely long to hold its unique position. Theodore Watts-Dunton’s article on “Poetry” in theEncyclopaedia Britannicacontains an appreciative estimate of the good service done to criticism by Dionysius in thede Compositione. The article by Louis Havet onLa Prose métrique(inLa Grande Encyclopédie, xxvii. 804-806) deals with what we should call “rhythmical prose,” the French terminology differing here from our own. Some account ofenjambement(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.; WestphalScript. Metr. Graecii. 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 tracedback to the regular movements of the limbs in dancing. The views of Blass on ancient prose rhythm are given in hisDie attische Beredsamkeit,Die Rhythmen der attischen Kunstprosa(Isokrates, Demosthenes, Platon), andDie 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, toHermathena(“On Attic Prose Rhythm”HermathenaNo. 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).

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.; WestphalScript. Metr. Graecii. 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 tracedback to the regular movements of the limbs in dancing. The views of Blass on ancient prose rhythm are given in hisDie attische Beredsamkeit,Die Rhythmen der attischen Kunstprosa(Isokrates, Demosthenes, Platon), andDie 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, toHermathena(“On Attic Prose Rhythm”HermathenaNo. 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).

For the modern student there is perhaps no more valuable chapter of thede Compositionethan that (c. 11) which treats of the musical element in Greek speech. It helps to bring homethe 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,12420). 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 (25216). 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 enchantmentsof 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’sTheorie 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 on1947), and the edition of Plutarch’sde Musicaby H. Weil and Th. Reinach. The articles, by W. H. Frere and H. S. Macran, on Greek Music in the new edition of Grove’sDictionary of Music and Musiciansshould also be consulted, as well as the essay, by H. R. Fairclough, on “The Connexion between Music and Poetry in Early Greek Literature” inStudies in Honour of Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve. The close connexion between music and verbal harmony is brought out in Longinusde Sublim.cc. 39-41. In Grenfell and Hunt’sHibeh 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.

If there were any doubt that the Greek accent was an affair of pitch rather than of stress, the eleventh chapter of this treatise would go far to remove it. It is clear that Dionysius describes the difference between the acute and the grave accent as a variation of pitch, and that he considers this variation tobe approximately the same as the musical interval of a fifth, or (as he himself explains) three tones and a semitone. Similarly Aristoxenus (Harm.i. 18) writes λέγεται γὰρ δὴ καὶ λογῶδές τι μέλος, τὸ συγκείμενον ἐκ τῶν προσῳδιῶν τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὀνόμασιν· φυσικὸν γὰρ τὸ ἐπιτείνειν καὶ ἀνιέναι ἐν τῷ διαλέγεσθαι (‘for there is a kind of melody in speech which depends upon the accent of words, as the voice in speaking rises and sinks by a natural law,’ Macran). The expression προσῳδία itself (cp. τάσεις φωνῆς αἱ καλούμεναι προσῳδίαι,19616) implies a melodic character, and the adjectives (ὀξύς and βαρύς) which denote ‘acute’ and ‘grave’ are used regularly in Greek music for what we call ‘high’ and ‘low’ pitch.[62]It would be hard to believe that βαρύς could ever have indicated anabsence of stress.

That such a musical pitch—such a rising or falling of tone—can be quite independent of quantity seems to be proved by the analogy of Vedic Sanskrit, inasmuch as, when reciting verses in that language, the native priests are said to succeed in keeping quantity and musical accent altogether distinct. “We cannot now say exactly how Homer’s verse sounded in the ears of the Greeks themselves; and yet we can tell even this more nearly than Matthew Arnold imagined. Sanskrit verse, like Greek, had both quantity and musical accent; and the recitation of the Vedic poems, as handed down by immemorial tradition, and as it may be heard to-day, keeps both these elements clear. It is a sort of intoned recitative, most impressive and agreeable to the sensitive ear.”[63]

A useful handbook on the general subject of Greek Accentuation (including its musical character) is Vendryes’Traité d’accentuation grecque, which is prefaced by a bibliographical list. The volume is noticed, in theClassical Reviewxix. 363-367, by J. P. Postgate, who supplements it in some important directions. There is also a discussion of the nature and theory of the Greek accent in Hadley’sEssayspp. 110-127. As Monro (Modesp. 113) remarks, it is our habit of using Latin translations of the terms of Greek grammar that has tended to obscure the fact that those terms belong in almost every case to the ordinary vocabulary of music. The point of the illustration drawn from theOrestes, in theC.V.c. 11, is that the musical setting in question neglected entirely the natural tune, or accent, of the words. It is not to be assumed that Dionysius approved (except within narrow limits) of this practice or of thecorresponding neglect of syllabic quantity (12819). He probably regarded such excesses as innovations due to inferior schools of music and rhythm. In the hymns found at Delphi (and also in an inscription discovered by W. M. Ramsay) there is a remarkable correspondence between the musical notes and the accentuation of the words, as was pointed out by Monro (Modespp. 90, 91, 116, 141; andClassical Reviewix. 467-470). It is the hymns to Apollo (belonging probably to the early part of the third centuryB.C.), in which the acute accents usually coincide with a rise of pitch, that Dionysius would doubtless have regarded as embodying the classical practice. In early times, it must be remembered, words and music were written by the same man; cp. G. S. FarnellGreek Lyric Poetrypp. 41, 42. The chief surviving fragments of Greek music (including the recent discoveries at Delphi) will be found in C. Jan’sMusici Scriptores Graeci(with Supplement), as published by Teubner.

Thede Compositioneis not a treatise on Greek Pronunciation, or even on Greek Phonetics. The sections which touch upon these subjects are strictly subsidiary to the main theme; they are literary rather than philological in aim. There was, in fact, no independent study of phonetics in Greek antiquity; the subject was simply a handmaid in the service of music and rhetoric. Hence the reference early in c. 14 to the authority of Aristoxenus “the musician,” and the constant endeavour to rank the letters according to standards of beautiful sound. Still, though Dionysius’ object in describing the way in which the different letters are produced is not scientific but aesthetic and euphonic, much praise is due to the rigorous thoroughness which led him to undertake such an investigation at all. And it has had important incidental results.

One modern authority claims that, notwithstanding difficulties in the interpretation of thede Compositionedue either to vague statements in the text or to defective knowledge on our own part, it is possible to reconstruct, with essential accuracy, the “Dionysian Pronunciation of Greek,” or (in other words) the pronunciation current among cultivated Greeks during the fifty years preceding the birth of Christ; while another authority has given a transliteration of the Lord’s Prayer, according to the original text, in the Hellenistic pronunciation of the first centuryA.D.[64]It is, further, maintained that, thanks to the general progress of philologicalresearch, we can in the main reproduce with certainty the sounds (including even the aspirates) actually heard at Athens in the fourth centuryB.C.—with such certainty, at all events, as will suffice for the practical purposes of the modern teacher.[65]

Two circumstances render it unsafe to lean unduly on Dionysius’ evidence in determining the pronunciation of the earlier Greek period. Although he studied with enthusiasm the literature produced by Greece in her prime, and would certainly desire to read it to his pupils in the same tones as might have been used by its original authors, it is hardly likely that the pronunciation of the language had changed less in three or four hundred years than that (say) of English has changed since the days of Shakespeare.[66]The other circumstance is the uncertainty which attends some of his statements, quite apart from any question of the period which they may be supposed to cover. This uncertainty is due to the fact that there was no science of phonetics in his day, and that consequently his explanations are sometimes obscure, either in themselves or at all events to their modern interpreters. But in many other cases he is, fortunately, explicit and easily understood. One example only shall be given, but that an important one: the pronunciation of ζ. In1449-12, it is clearly indicated that ζ is a double letter, and that it is composed of σ and δ (in that order): διπλᾶ δὲ τρία τό τε ζ̄ καὶ τὸ ξ̄ καὶ τὸ ψ̄. διπλᾶ δὲ λέγουσιν αὐτὰ ἤτοι διὰ τὸ σύνθετα εἶναι τὸ μὲν ζ̄ διὰ τοῦ σ̄ καὶ δ̄, τὸ δὲ ξ̄ διὰ τοῦ κ̄ καὶ σ̄, τὸ δὲ ψ̄ διὰ τοῦ π̄ καὶ σ̄, κτλ. The manuscript testimony is here in favour of σ̄ καὶ δ̄ (rather than the reverse order), and it may be noticed that the similar reading, ὐπασ̅δ̅εύξαισα, is well supported in Sappho’sHymn to Aphrodite(2389). The statement is not in any way contradicted by the further statements in1465 and1486; and taken together with other evidence (e.g. such forms as συρίσδειν = συρίζειν, κωμάσδειν = κωμάζειν, Ἀθήναζε = Ἀθήνασδε), it seems to establish this asat least one pronunciation of ζ. The actual pronunciation may well have varied at different times and in different places. Some authorities think that in fifth-century Greece the sound was like that of Englishzdin the word ‘glazed,’ while in the fourth century it roughly resembleddzin the word ‘adze’ (Arnold and Conway,op. cit.pp. 6, 7).

The book which deals most directly with thede Compositionein relation to Greek pronunciation is A. J. Ellis’English, Dionysian, and Hellenic Pronunciation of Greek, considered in reference to School and College Use. In applying great phonetic skill to the interpretation of Dionysius’ statements, the author of this pamphlet has done much service; but he abandons too lightly any attempt to recover a still earlier pronunciation, and shows an uncritical spirit in so readily believing (p. 4) that Erasmus could be hoaxed in the matter of Greek pronunciation. A more trustworthy work is F. Blass’Pronunciation of Ancient Greek(translated by W. J. Purton), in which the scientific aids towards a reconstruction of the old pronunciation are marshalled with much force. Arnold and Conway’sRestored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, and Giles’Manual of Comparative Philology(pp. 114-118: especially p. 115 for ζ), contain a succinct statement of probable results. There is also a good article, by W. G. Clark, on Greek Pronunciation and Accentuation in theJournal of Philologyi. pp. 98-108; with which should be compared the papers by Wratislaw and Geldart in vol. ii. of the same journal. The entire conflict on the subject of Greek pronunciation, as waged by the early combatants in England and Holland, is reflected in Havercamp’s two volumes entitledSylloge Scriptorum qui de linguae Graecae vera et recta pronuntiatione commentarios reliquerunt, videlicet Adolphi Mekerchi, Theodori Bezae, Jacobi Ceratini et Henrici Stephani(Leyden, 1736), and hisSylloge Altera Scriptorum qui ... reliquerunt, videlicet Desiderii Erasmi, Stephani Vintoniensis Episcopi, Cantabrigiensis Academiae Cancellarii, Joannis Checi, Thomae Smith, Gregorii Martini, et Erasmi Schmidt(Leyden, 1740). Erasmus’ dialoguede recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronunciatione(Basle, 1528) was, in its way, a true work of science in that it laid stress on the fact that variety of symbols implied variety of sounds, and that diphthongal writing implied a diphthongal pronunciation. Attention has lately been directed to the fact that Erasmus claims no originality for his views on this subject, and that he had been anticipated, in varying degrees, by Jerome Aleander in France, by Aldus Manutius in Italy, and (earlier still) by the Spanish humanist, Antonio of Lebrixa (BywaterThe Erasmian Pronunciation of Greek and its PrecursorsOxford, 1908). It may be noted, in passing, that when enumerating the errors of his Byzantine contemporaries, Antonio mentions that they pronounced Ζ “as a single letter, whereasit was really composite, and stood for SD” (Bywater, p. 20). Among the immediate successors of Erasmus in this field the most interesting, perhaps, is Sir Thomas Smith (1513-1577), who, like Cheke, was one of the “etists” and so incurred the wrath of Stephen Gardiner and drew out that edict which threatened various penalties (including corporal punishment for boys) against the practice of unlawful innovations in the province of Greek pronunciation. It was Smith who, in his treatisede recta et emendata linguae Graecae pronuntiatione(Havercamp, ii. 542), detected a lacuna in the text ofC.V.14016 as current in his time, and secured the right sense by the insertion of δύο δὲ βραχέα τό τε ε̄ καὶ τὸ ο̄ after τὸ ω̄ (in l. 17). Echoes, more or less distinct, of the long dispute as to the pronunciation of the ancient classical languages may be heard in such various quarters as: (1) [Beaumont and] Fletcher’sElder Brotherii. 1, “Though I can speak no Greek, I love the sound on’t; it goes so thundering as it conjur’d devils”; (2) King James I. (in an address to the University of Edinburgh, delivered at Stirling), “I follow his [George Buchanan’s] pronunciation, both of his Latin and Greek, and am sorry that my people of England do not the like; for certainly their pronunciation utterly fails the grace of these two learned languages”; and (3) Gibbon’s reference to “our most corrupt and barbarous mode of uttering Latin.” In modern times a constant effort is being made to get nearer to the true pronunciation of the two classical languages; and (to speak of Greek alone) some interesting side-lights have been shed on the subject by the discovery of Anglo-Saxon or Oriental transliterations (cp. HadleyEssayspp. 128-140, and Bendall inJournal of Philologyxxix. 199-201). The application of well-ascertained results to the teaching of Greek pronunciation could be injurious only if it were allowed to impede the principal object of Greek study—contact with the great minds of the past. But an attempt to recapture some part of the music of the Greek language is hardly likely to have this disastrous effect.

Grammar, like phonetics, was by the ancients often regarded as a part of “music.”[67]It would not, therefore, seem unnatural to his readers that, in a treatise on euphony, Dionysius should continually be referring to theparts of speech(τὰ μόρια τοῦ λόγου). He also uses freely such technical terms of grammar as: πτῶσις, ἔγκλισις, ἀπαρέμφατος, πληθυντικῶς, ὕπτιος, ἀρρενικός, θηλυκός, οὐδέτερος, ἄρθρον, ὄνομα, πρόθεσις, σύνδεσμος, etc. Though himself concerned more immediately with the euphonic relationsof words, he is fully alive to the phenomena of their syntactical relations. His remarks on grammatical points show, as might have been expected, many points of contact with the brief treatise of another Dionysius—Dionysius Thrax, who was born a full century earlier than himself. Dionysius Thrax was a pupil of Aristarchus, and produced the earliest formal Greek Grammar. Some interesting hints as to the successive steps in grammatical analysis which had made such a Grammar possible may be found in the second chapter of thede Compositione, where special mention is made of Theodectes, Aristotle, and “the leaders of the Stoic School.” In c. 5, a useful protest is raised against the tyranny of grammar, which so often seeks to control by iron “rules” the infinite variety and living flexibility of language.

The standard edition ofDionysii Thracis Ars Grammaticais that by Uhlig (Leipzig, 1883). The whole question of ancient views on grammar can be studied in Steinthal’sGeschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Logik(2nd ed., Berlin, 1890-91).

It must strike every reader of the treatise, that Dionysius combines some assertion of originality with many acknowledgments of indebtedness to predecessors. In this there is, of course, no necessary inconsistency. The work covers a wide field, and implies an acquaintance with many special studies. While referring with gratitude and respect to the admitted authorities in these various branches of learning or science, Dionysius claims for himself a certain originality of idea and of treatment. He is among the first to have written a separate treatise on this particular subject, and he is the first to have attempted an adequate treatment of it.[68]

In making these acknowledgments, Dionysius does not specify any Latin writers, nor indeed any recent writers whatsoever. When Quintilian, in the fourth chapter of his Ninth Book, is himself writing a shortde Compositione, he mentions “Halicarnasseus Dionysius” and (with special respect) “M. Tullius.”[69]But Dionysius says not a word about Cicero or Horace, although the former was partly and the latter fully contemporary with himself, and although they, like himself, were students of literary composition. As his work on early Roman history shows, Dionysius was not ignorant of Latin; and it is unfortunate that he did not think of comparing Greek writers with Latin. But the comparative method of literary criticism hardly existed in Greek antiquity, notwithstanding the reference to Cicero and Demosthenes in thede Sublimitate, whose author (it may be added here) not only treats of σύνθεσις in two of his chapters, but also tells us that he had already dealt with the subject in two separate treatises.[70]

To his Greek predecessors Dionysius often refers in general terms. For example, they are called οἱ πρὸ ἡμῶν in1407, οἱ πρότερον in967, and οἱ ἀρχαῖοι in689. The last term best suggests Dionysius’ habitual attitude, which was that of looking to the past for the finest work in criticism as well as in literature.[71]And so it will be found that, though thede Compositione Verborumcontains incidental references to the Stoics and to other leaders of thought, its highest respect seems to be reserved for Aristotle and his disciples Theophrastus and Aristoxenus.[72]But the question of Dionysius’ obligations to his predecessors (and to the Peripatetics particularly) is so large and far-reaching that it must be treated separately elsewhere. Meanwhile, let it be noted how considerably his various writings illustrate, and are illustrated by, theRhetoricof Aristotle.[73]

As to its originality, the book may well be left to answer for itself. It does not read like a dull compilation. The learning is there, but it is lightly borne, and none can doubt that the writer has long thought over his subject and can give to others the fruits of his reflexions with verve and a contagious enthusiasm. The work has an easy flow of its own, as though it had been rapidly (but not carelessly) written, out of a well-stored mind, while its author was busywith his teaching and with the many literary enterprises to which he so often refers. It must be conceded that a literary critic who deals with so difficult, many-sided, and elusive a subject as that of composition can hardly avoid some errors of detail, since he cannot hope to be a master in all the accessory sciences upon which he has to lean. But we may well be content if he preserves for later ages much invaluable literature and teaching which would otherwise have been lost,—if he himself maintains (amid corrupting influences) high standards in his literary preferences and in his own writing,—and if he sheds a ray of light upon many a hidden beauty of Greek style which would but for him be shrouded in darkness.

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