Poetics. Aristotle. ed. Henry James Pye. London. 1792.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Henry James Pye, revised 1792) (OCR draft) (English) (Henry James Pye's revised 1792 English translation, corrected against the 1788 first edition, aligned to the Kassel reference edition, and supplied with a selective apparatus of substantive 1788 readings.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
18.
mvp-aristotle-comment-859
τῶν δ᾽ ὀνομάτων κτἑ.
A very similar distinction is made in
Rhet. 3. 3, 1406 a 1
:
χρησιμωτάτη ἡ διπλῆ λέξις τοῖς διθυραμβοποιοῖς· οὗτοι γὰρ ψοφώδεις· αἱ δὲ γλῶτται τοῖς ἐποποιοῖς· σεμνὸν γὰρ καὶ αὔθαδες· ἡ μεταφορὰ δὲ τοῖς ἰαμβείοις· τούτοις γὰρ νῦν χρῶνται.
18.
mvp-aristotle-comment-860
9
τοῖς διθυράμβοις:
comp. the fr. of
Philodemus published by
Gomperz (Vienna Academy,
Sitzungsberichte 123 p. 66):
τὸ μακροσύνθετον ἀνιᾶν μὲν ἐν τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ ἢ τοῖς ἔπεσι ... ἄλυπον δ᾽ ἐν τῷ διθυράμβῳ.—
Demetrius
De eloc. 91
ληπτέον δὲ καὶ τὰ σύνθετα ὀνόματα, οὐ τὰ διθυραμβικῶς συγκείμενα, οἷον θεοτεράτους πλάνας, οὐδὲ ἄστρων δορύπυρον στρατόν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐοικότα τοῖς ὑπὸ τῆς συνηθείας συγκειμένοις.
18.
mvp-aristotle-comment-861
10
τοῖς ἡρωικοῖς:
comp.
23, 1459 b 34
.
18.
mvp-aristotle-comment-862
12
τοῖς ἰαμβείοις:
i. e. the tragic dialogue (v.
4, 1449a 24
).
19.
mvp-aristotle-comment-529
208.
mvp-aristotle-comment-208
NOTE 208.
22.18
P. 113. THE DOUBLE ARE BEST SUITED TO DITHYRAMBIC POETRY, &C.
—Χρησιμωτάτη ἡ διπλῆ λέξις τοῖς διθυράμβοις· ὁυτοι γὰρ ψοφώδεις· ἀι δὲ γλῶτται, τοῖς ἐποποιοῖς· σεμνὸν γὰρ καὶ ἀυθάδες· ἡ μεταφορὰ δὲ, τοῖς ἰαμβείοις.
Rhet. III. 3, p. 587.
22.8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-95
22.18
COMPOUNDED WORDS SUIT BEST WITH DITHYRAMBIC, FOREIGN WORDS WITH HEROIC, AND METAPHORS WITH IAMBIC VERSE.
OF the almost exclusive claim that the lyric poet lays to compounded epithets, every English reader must be sufficiently apprized. The dithyrambic poets of Greece feem to have made an ample use of this privilege, which it appears they carried sometimes to a ridiculous excess [2]. Of the peculiar language of the epopee more will be said in the two next chapters. As for the language of the drama, the empaffioned parts of it will hardly admit of any other ornament but the metaphor. This figure is almost inseparable from expreffion of violent feeling. So Lear, in the frenzy of his rage cries out, ، 'Tremble thou wretch • That haft within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipp'd of justice; hide thee thou bloody hand, Close pent up guilt,
• Rive your concealing continents, and cry • These dreadful fummoners grace.' [Q] See Note 1. Chap. xxx. 3 K It
It would be endless to cite examples which every page of any good dramatic writer will afford us, as well as the natural language either of forrow or rage, especially among the common people, who are most likely to speak the genuine language of nature. What are such words as my little jewel,' ' you beaft, &c. but metaphors? Aristotle, in Chap. xxiv. objects to an ornamented style as injuring the effect of the empaffioned parts even of the epopee [R]; but in the less interesting parts he recommends a splendid language. In this the dramatic poet is more confined. In the uninteresting parts he may indeed polish his versification, but he must not give his diction too much ornament, for such parts are only the common discourse of the characters, but in the epopee they are confidered as the language of the poet, or if you will, of the muse. But though fimplicity of style, and precision of meaning, are peculiarly requifite to the dramatic muse, they are by no means to be neglected by her fisters. It is impossible that there can be any merit in writing or speaking so as not to be understood [s]. I do not make an exception even in favor of the lyric poet. The words of Pindar [T], [R] See Note VIII. Chap. xxiv. [9] 'To write obscurely requires no other talent or skill than to express one's meaning • imperfectly; or if that is not enough to write without any meaning at all.' ARMSTRONG. [1] Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν, ἐς Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἐρμηνέων Χατίζει. • Whose meaning to the wife alone reveal'd • Lie from the vulgar herd in mystic words conceal'd.' adopted
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. adopted as a motto to one of his odes by Gray, though I believe perfectly understood by him, have been in general mistaken by his readers; and the sense they have been supposed to convey has mifled many a modern Icarus who has tried to emulate the flight of the Theban fwan. But they cannot certainly allude to defective construction, or ambiguous phrafe, for who in that case would be the συνεται, the 'intelligent; to whom such a composition would be particularly clear ? Not the elegant and correct reader surely. Who is proverbially fo good an interpreter of an ungrammatical or an ill spelt letter as the person who writes in the same way himself? By those parts which speaking only to the intelligent escape the grosser sense of the ignorant and are not to be comprehended by the common herd of readers without explanation, the poet must mean the nice touches, sudden transitions, and frequent allufions to the various fables contained in the mythology and early history of Greece, that so frequently occur in the odes of Pindar, which however striking to the informed reader, must be totally incomprehensible to the ignorant and uninformed, and the dificulty that may at first attend the developement of these passages will excite that fort of pleasure arifing from a confciousness of acquiring a fort of knowledge, which Ariftotle mentions in his fourth chapter. Mr. Gray's incomparable Ode on the Destruction of the Welsh Bards will compleatly illustrate this to the English reader, and leave him neithet in this or any other cafe to regret his inability to confult his Grecian archetype. This composition, though full of allusions that relate to the annals of England only, Mr. Gray found so unintelligible to the many, so ' much caviare to the million,' that he was obliged to step forth as his own interpreter, and print it with explanatory notes; and yet as Dr. Beattie 3 K 2 obferves
observes [u], ' It is in the allufions only, and not in the words or ، ، images, (for these are most emphatical and picturesque) that the poem partakes of obfcurity, and even its allusions will hardly seem obfcure to those who are acquainted with the history of England. To mark more strongly what I mean by obfcurity of construction I will cite a passage from another, the most popular of Gray's works, his Elegy. Far from the madding crouds ignoble strife Their fober wishes never learn'd to stray.' The obvious conftruction of the words conveys a sense diametrically oppofite to that which, from the general tenor of the poem, and from that only, we difcover to be intended by the poet. The odes of Pindar must lose more than half their beauty even to the most accurate Greek scholar, for no modern can be so conversant with the numerous fables of Greece as not in many cafes to be one of the ἀσυνετὸι. [u] Effay on Poetry and Music, Part 11. Chap. 1. Sect. III. See also his Effay on Ima gination, page 167. A
CHAP.
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-166
Ritter, cap. 22 § 8
ἔτι δὲ ᾿Αρειφράδης - ἐκεῖνος δὲ τοῦτο 2) Bene Ammonius de Differentia affin. vocab.
τὸ μὲν γὰρ ὀλίγον ἐπ᾿ ἀριθμοῦ τὸ δὲ μικρὸν ἐπὶ μεγέθους τάσσεται,
ἠγνόει: quid attinebat obscurissimi hominis ineptissimam reprehensionem ex secreto secessu excitare? nihil nisi ut curiosi ineptique grammatici doctrina ostentaretur. nam quid ineptius excogitari potest quam tragicis poetis vitio dari (ex. gr. anastropham praepositionum) id quod omnium poetarum commune et ne a vulgari quidem locutione alienum est ? advertas etiam velim quam perturbate exempla afferantur: primum enim ponitur anastropha praepositionis
δομάτων ἄπο, tum tamquam singularia
σέθεν et viv, deinde quarto loco rursus anastrophae exemplum recurrit. advertas putidam diligentiam
δομάτων ἄπο ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀπὸ δομάτων, et rursus
᾿Αχιλλέως πέρι ἀλλὰ μὴ περὶ ᾿Αχιλλέως. tertium exemplum (viv) mire ita producitur, ut particula versus Sophoclei (Oed. Colon. 987) afferatur, sic
ἐγὼ δένιν ἄκων ἔγημα φθέγγομαί τ' ἄκων τάδε. quod equidem defendere nolim exemplo illo simili c. 21, 10.
μία γίνεται ἀμφοτέρων ὄψ. vide etiam quanto cum fastu doctus magistellus sententiam suam concludat:
ἐκεῖνος δὲ τοῦτο ἠγνόει. restat aliud. tragoediarum scriptores iste appellat
τραγῳδούς, sua sibi loquendi consuetudine, non Aristotelia. serioris aetatis scriptores minus accurate loquentes interdum haec nomina commiscent, ut Athenaeus qui II. p. 35 D. Chaeremonem tragicum poetam
τραγῳδὸν appellavit. -
᾿Αρειφράδης quis tandem sit nescimus. Aristophanes pluribus locis (Equit. 1281 sqq. Vesp. 1280 sqq. cf. Suidas s. v.)
᾿Αριφράδην Arignoti fratrem citharoedum insectatur, quippe qui nefandam linguam infandis locis turpiter admoverit, sed hic potius obscurus quidam grammaticus intelligitur. neque vero id diligentem lectorem effugiet, veram et dignam Aristotele disputationem his illatis non solum non iuvari sed importune interrumpi.