CHAPTER V NO GRAMMATICAL ORDER PRESCRIBED BY NATURE
Well, my notion was that we ought to follow mother nature to the utmost, and to link together the parts of speech according to her promptings. For example, I thought I must place nouns before verbs: the former, you see, indicate the substance, the latter the accident, and in the nature of things the substance takes precedence of its accidents! Thus we find in Homer:—
The hero to me chant thou, Song-queen, the resourceful man;[102]
and
The Wrath sing, Goddess, thou;[103]
and
The sun leapt up, as he left;[104]
and other lines of the same kind, where the nouns lead the way and the verbs follow. The principle is attractive, but I came to the conclusion that it was not sound. At any rate, a reader might confront me with other instances in the same poet where the arrangement is the opposite of this, and yet the lines are no less beautiful and attractive. What are the instances in point?
1 δὲ PV 3 ἀγνοία F 6 ἐκείνηι βεβούληται P 7 πρῶτα post ὀνόματα om. PMV || ἡγούμην PMV: ἠξίουν F || πρὸ ante τῶν add. PMV 8 οὐσίαν FV: αἰτίαν PM || δηλοῖ F 9 δε P, V || τῇ φύσει om. F 10 ταυτί om. PMV 18 παράσχοιτ’ ἄν τις PMV: παράσχοι τις ἂν F 19 τ(ω) αυτ(ω) P 20 δὲ Sauppius: τε libri
5. There seems to be a touch of quiet humour in Dionysius’ retrospection (during this causerie of his) on the simplicity which had led him to think that he could frame a priori rules as to Nature’s Order. Cp. 102 15 in particular.
7. F’s reading, πρῶτα τῶν ῥημάτων, receives some support from 174 18 infra. But cp. Steph. s.v. πρῶτος.—F’s reading ἠξίουν is probably due to some corrector who was unaware that there is good classical authority for ἡγοῦμαι = ἡγοῦμαι δεῖν.
The following passage of Quintilian (ix. 4. 23-27) illustrates this chapter in many ways: “est et alius naturalis ordo, ut viros ac feminas, diem ac noctem, ortum et occasum dicas potius quam retrorsum. quaedam ordine permutato fiunt supervacua, ut fratres gemini; nam si gemini praecesserint, fratres addere non est necesse. illa nimia quorundam fuit observatio, ut vocabula verbis, verba rursus adverbiis, nomina appositis et pronominibus essent priora. nam fit contra quoque frequenter non indecore. nec non et illud nimiae superstitionis, uti quaeque sint tempore, ita facere etiam ordine priora; non quin frequenter sit hoc melius, sed quia interim plus valent ante gesta ideoque levioribus superponenda sunt. verbo sensum cludere, multo, si compositio patiatur, optimum est. in verbis enim sermonis vis est. si id asperum erit, cedet haec ratio numeris, ut fit apud summos Graecos Latinosque oratores frequentissime. sine dubio erit omne, quod non cludet, hyperbaton, et ipsum hoc inter tropos vel figuras, quae sunt virtutes, receptum est. non enim ad pedes verba dimensa sunt, ideoque ex loco transferuntur in locum, ut iungantur, quo congruunt maxime. sicut in structura saxorum rudium etiam ipsa enormitas invenit, cui applicari et in quo possit insistere. felicissimus tamen sermo est, cui et rectus ordo et apta iunctura et cum his numerus opportune cadens contigit.”
8. πρότερον: probably adverbial; cp. Hom. Il. vii. 424 and ix. 551.
15. The completed line (Odyss. iii. 1) is: ἠέλιος δ’ ἀνόρουσε, λιπὼν περικαλλέα λίμνην κτλ.
18. παράσχοιτ’ ἄν τις: for the middle voice cp. 214 6 and 122 14.
20. Usener’s οἷά τινα seems a needless and somewhat violent change for the manuscript reading τίνα οὖν. No doubt οἷά ἐστι ταῦτα is found in 100 27; but (1) Dionysius’ love of μεταβολή in style should be remembered, (2) οἷά τινα is not a usual phrase, (3) the lively rhetorical question is characteristic.
κλῦθί μευ, αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος Ἀτρυτώνη
καὶ
ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι, Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι ...
μνῆσαι πατρὸς σεῖο, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ.
ἐν γὰρ τούτοις ἡγεῖται μὲν τὰ ῥήματα, ὑποτέτακται δὲ τὰ 5
ὀνόματα· καὶ οὐδεὶς ἂν αἰτιάσαιτο τὴν σύνταξιν αὐτῶν ὡς
ἀηδῆ.
ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις ἄμεινον ἐδόκουν εἶναι τὰ ῥήματα πρότερα
τάττειν τῶν ἐπιρρημάτων, ἐπειδὴ πρότερόν ἐστι τῇ φύσει τὸ
ποιοῦν ἢ πάσχον τῶν συνεδρευόντων αὐτοῖς, τρόπου λέγω καὶ 10
τόπου καὶ χρόνου καὶ τῶν παραπλησίων, ἃ δὴ καλοῦμεν
ἐπιρρήματα, παραδείγμασι χρώμενος τούτοις·
τύπτε δ’ ἐπιστροφάδην, τῶν δὲ στόνος ὤρνυτ’ ἀεικής ...
ἤριπε δ’ ἐξοπίσω, ἀπὸ δὲ ψυχὴν ἐκάπυσσεν ...
ἐκλίνθη δ’ ἑτέρωσε, δέπας δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε χειρός. 15
ἐν ἅπασι γὰρ δὴ τούτοις ὕστερα τέτακται [ἅμα] τῶν ῥημάτων
τὰ ἐπιρρήματα. καὶ τοῦτο πιθανὸν μὲν ὡς τὸ πρῶτον, οὐκ
ἀληθὲς δὲ ὡς οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνο. τάδε γὰρ δὴ παρὰ τῷ αὐτῷ ποιητῇ
ἐναντίως ἢ ἐκεῖνα εἴρηται·
βοτρυδὸν δὲ πέτονται ἐπ’ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσι ... 20
σήμερον ἄνδρα φάοσδε μογοστόκος Εἰλείθυια
ἐκφανεῖ.
ἆρ’ οὖν τι χείρω γέγονε τὰ ποιήματα ὑποταχθέντων ἐνταῦθα
τοῖς ἐπιρρήμασι τῶν ῥημάτων; οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴποι.
ἔτι καὶ τόδε ᾤμην δεῖν μὴ παρέργως φυλάττειν, ὅπως τὰ 25
πρότερα τοῖς χρόνοις καὶ τῇ τάξει πρότερα λαμβάνηται· οἷά
ἐστι ταυτί·
[101]
Hear me, thou Child of the Aegis-bearer, unwearied Power;[105]
and
Tell to me, Muses, now in Olympian halls that abide;[106]
and
Remember thy father, Achilles, thou godlike glorious man.[107]
In these lines the verbs are in the front rank, and the nouns stationed behind them. Yet no one would impugn the arrangement of the words as unpleasant.
Moreover, I imagined it was better to place verbs in front of adverbs, since in the nature of things what acts or is acted upon takes precedence of those auxiliaries, modal, local, temporal, and the like, which we call adverbs. I relied on the following as examples:—
Smote them on this side and on that, and arose the ghastly groan;[108]
Fell she backward-reeling, and gasped her spirit away;[109]
Reeled he backward: the cup from his hand-grasp fell to the floor.[110]
In all these cases the adverbs are placed after the verbs. This principle, like the other, is attractive; but it is equally unsound. For here are passages in the same poet expressed in the opposite way:
Clusterwise hover they ever above the flowers of spring;[111]
To-day shall Eileithyia the Queen of Travail bring
A man to the light.[112]
Well, are the lines at all inferior because the verbs are placed after the adverbs? No one can say so.
Once more, I imagined that I ought always most scrupulously to observe the principle that things earlier in time should be inserted earlier in the sentence. The following are examples:—
3 ἕσπετε F || ἔχουσαι. καὶ M 4 σοῖο Hom. 5 τὰ prius om. PMV 6 αὐτῶν PMV: ταύτην F 8 πρότερα τάττειν PMV: προτάττειν F 9 ἐστι πρότερον F 10 πάσχειν F1 12 παραδείγμασιν P 13 ὄρνυτ’ PMV 16 γὰρ δὴ F: γὰρ PMV || ἅμα τῶν FPM: καὶ τῶν V1: τῶν V2 18 οὐδὲ PMV || τάδε γὰρ δὴ F: καὶ γὰρ δὴ καὶ ταῦτα PMV || αὐτῶι F: om. PMV 19 ἢ ἐκεῖνα PMV: ἐκείνοις F 21 φάος δὲ F: φάωσδε P || εἰλήθυια PM 23 χείρω τι PMV || γέγονεν P || ἐνταῦθα PMV: ἐνθάδε F 24 οὐδεὶς ἂν εἴποι F: om. PMV 25 τόδε Sylburgius: τάδε libri || ὠιμην F, M: ὠιόμην P, V 26 τῆι τάξει καὶ τοῖς χρόνοις F 27 ταυτί PMV: ταῦτα F
8. πρότερα τάττειν ... ἐπειδὴ πρότερον ἐστι: probably this pointed repetition is intentional on the part of Dionysius. πρότερα τάττειν might afterwards be changed to προτάττειν for the sake of brevity.
18. ταῦτα (PMV) may be right, as ταῦτα in Dionysius can be used of what follows as well as of what precedes; cp. n. on 106 5. So in Plato Rep. vi. 510 ῥᾷον γὰρ τούτων προειρημένων μαθήσει, and Xen. Anab. iii. 1. 41 ὡς μὴ τοῦτο μόνον ἐννοῶνται τί πείσονται ἀλλὰ καὶ τί ποιήσουσι. For Thucydides’ usage cp. Shilleto’s note on Thucyd. i. 31 § 4. In 100 16- 102 25 (and further) there are several instances in which F’s readings (though given in the text) may emanate from some early Greek editor rather than from Dionysius himself: cp. 100 24 with 112 5.
26. Cp. Ter. Andr. i. 1. 100 “funus interim | procedit: sequimur; ad sepulcrum venimus; | in ignem impositast; fletur.”
αὖ ἔρυσαν μὲν πρῶτα καὶ ἔσφαξαν καὶ ἔδειραν
καὶ
λίγξε βιός, νευρὴ δὲ μέγ’ ἴαχεν, ἆλτο δ’ ὀϊστός
καὶ
σφαῖραν ἔπειτ’ ἔρριψε μετ’ ἀμφίπολον βασίλεια· 5
ἀμφιπόλου μὲν ἅμαρτε, βαθείῃ δ’ ἔμβαλε δίνῃ.
νὴ Δία, φαίη τις ἄν, εἴ γε μὴ καὶ ἄλλα ἦν πολλὰ οὐχ οὕτω
συντεταγμένα ποιήματα οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ ταῦτα καλά·
πλῆξε δ’ ἀνασχόμενος σχίζῃ δρυός, ἣν λίπε κείων.
πρότερον γὰρ δήπου τὸ ἐπανατείνασθαί ἐστι τοῦ πλῆξαι. καὶ 10
ἔτι
ἤλασεν ἄγχι στάς, πέλεκυς δ’ ἀπέκοψε τένοντας
αὐχενίους.
πρῶτον γὰρ δήπου προσῆκεν τῷ μέλλοντι τὸν πέλεκυν
ἐμβάλλειν εἰς τοὺς τένοντας τοῦ ταύρου τὸ στῆναι αὐτοῦ 15
πλησίον. ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις ἠξίουν τὰ μὲν ὀνοματικὰ προτάττειν
τῶν ἐπιθέτων, τὰ δὲ προσηγορικὰ τῶν ὀνοματικῶν,
τὰς δ’ ἀντονομασίας τῶν προσηγορικῶν, ἔν τε τοῖς ῥήμασι
φυλάττειν, ἵνα τὰ ὀρθὰ τῶν ἐγκλινομένων ἡγῆται καὶ τὰ
παρεμφατικὰ τῶν ἀπαρεμφάτων, καὶ ἄλλα τοιαῦτα πολλά. 20
πάντα δὲ ταῦτα διεσάλευεν ἡ πεῖρα καὶ τοῦ μηδενὸς ἄξια
ἀπέφαινε. τοτὲ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ τούτων ἐγίνετο καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων
αὐτοῖς ἡδεῖα ἡ σύνθεσις καὶ καλή, τοτὲ δ’ ἐκ τῶν μὴ τοιούτων
ἀλλ’ ἐναντίων. διὰ ταύτας μὲν δὴ τὰς αἰτίας τῆς τοιαύτης
θεωρίας ἀπέστην. ἐμνήσθην δ’ αὐτῶν καὶ νῦν οὐχ ὡς σπουδῆς 25
[103]
They drew back the beasts’ necks first, then severed the throats and flayed;[113]
and
Clangeth the horn, loud singeth the sinew, and leapeth the shaft;[114]
and
The ball by the princess was tossed thereafter to one of her girls;
But it missed the maid, and was lost in the river’s eddying swirls.[115]
“Certainly,” a reader might reply,—“if it were not for the fact that there are plenty of other lines not arranged in this order of yours, and yet as fine as those you have quoted; as
And he smote it, upstrained to the stroke, with an oak-billet cloven apart.[116]
Surely the arms must be raised before the blow is dealt! And further:—
He struck as he stood hard by, and the axe through the sinews shore
Of the neck.[117]
Surely a man who is about to drive his axe into a bull’s sinews should take his stand near it first!”
Still further: I imagined it the correct thing to put my substantives before my adjectives, appellatives before substantives, pronouns before appellatives; and with verbs, to be very careful that primary should precede secondary forms, and indicatives infinitives,—and so on. But trial invariably wrecked these views and revealed their utter worthlessness. At one time charm and beauty of composition did result from these and similar collocations,—at other times from collocations not of this sort but the opposite. And so for these reasons I abandoned all such speculations as the above. Nor is it for any serious value it
3 ἆλτο P 5 ἔρριψεν P 7 εἴ γε μὴ F: εἰ PM || καὶ ἄλλα PMV: οὐχ * F1: ἄλλα suprascr. F2 || ἦν πολλὰ F: πολλὰ ἦν PMa || οὕτως FP1 8 ἢ FV: ἦ M: ἦν P 9 πλῆξε δ’ F: πλῆξεν PMV: κόψε δ’ Hom. || ἣν λίπε] κάλλιπε P || κιών libri 14 προσῆκεν F: προσήκει PMV 16 τούτοις καὶ MVs || ἠξίου P 18 δὲ PMV || ἀντωνομασίας PF2M2: ὠνομασίας M1: ἀντωνυμίας F1V || ῥήμασιν P 19 ἐγκεκλιμένων PMV 20 ἀπαρεμφατικὰ PV || παρεμφατικῶν P 21 διεσάλευσεν MV 22 ἀπέφαινεν P: ἀπέφηνε MV 23 τότε δ’ F: τοτὲ δὲ PV: τὸ δὲ M 24 ἀλλ’] μηδ’ F || τοιαύτης F: om. PMV 25 δὲ PMV
1. In Homer αὖ ἔρυσαν should probably be printed as one word, αὐέρυσαν. Cp. note on 71 21 supra.
7. All this passage is in close correspondence with Quintil. ix. 4. 24, as quoted in the note on 98 7 supra.
9. Homer’s line actually begins with κόψε δ’ ἀνασχόμενος. Here Dionysius gives πλῆξε δ’ ἀνασχόμενος, while in Antiqq. Rom. vii. 62 he has κόψε δ’ ἀπαρχόμενος. In both cases he is, doubtless, quoting from memory.
10. The order actually adopted by Homer in these passages is that which the rhetoricians describe as πρωθύστερον, ὕστερον πρότερον, ὑστερολογία.
16. ἠξίουν τὰ μὲν ὀνοματικὰ προτάττειν τῶν ἐπιθέτων: the Greek adjective (unless emphatic) is usually placed after the noun. But it could easily be shown from the varying usage of the modern European nations that there is no ‘law of nature,’ one way or the other, on the subject. In general, however, these logical notions of grammatical order which Dionysius felt himself prompted to reject on behalf of Greek (which is synthetic in character) tally with the actual practice of the modern analytical languages.
ἀξίων, καὶ τὰς διαλεκτικὰς παρεθέμην τέχνας οὐχ ὡς ἀναγκαίας,
ἀλλ’ ἵνα μηδεὶς δοκῶν ἔχειν τι αὐτὰς χρήσιμον εἰς τὴν
παροῦσαν θεωρίαν περὶ πολλοῦ ποιῆται εἰδέναι, θηρευθεὶς ταῖς
ἐπιγραφαῖς τῶν πραγματειῶν ὁμοιότητά τινα ἐχούσαις καὶ τῇ
δόξῃ τῶν συνταξαμένων αὐτάς. 5
ἐπάνειμι δ’ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὑπόθεσιν ἀφ’ ἧς εἰς ταῦτ’
ἐξέβην, ὅτι πολλὴ πρόνοια τοῖς ἀρχαίοις ἦν καὶ ποιηταῖς καὶ
συγγραφεῦσι φιλοσόφοις τε καὶ ῥήτορσι τῆς ἰδέας ταύτης, καὶ
οὔτε τὰ ὀνόματα τοῖς ὀνόμασιν οὔτε τὰ κῶλα τοῖς κώλοις
οὔτε τὰς περιόδους ἀλλήλαις εἰκῇ συνάπτειν ᾤοντο δεῖν, τέχνη 10
δέ τις ἦν παρ’ αὐτοῖς καὶ θεωρήματα οἷς χρώμενοι συνετίθεσαν
εὖ. τίνα δ’ ἦν τὰ θεωρήματα ταῦτα, ἐγὼ πειράσομαι διδάσκειν,
ὡς ἂν οἷός τε ὦ, ὅσα μοι δύναμις ἐγένετο συνεξευρεῖν,
οὐχ ἅπαντα λέγων ἀλλ’ αὐτὰ τὰ ἀναγκαιότατα.
