1 I shall however
[p. 155]
postpone discussion of
tropes and
figures till I come to
deal with the various ornaments of style.
[
17]
Above
all he will impress upon their minds the value of
proper arrangement, and of graceful treatment of
the matter in hand: he will show what is appropriate
to the various characters, what is praiseworthy in the
thoughts or words, where copious diction is to be
commended and where restraint.
[
18]
In addition to this he will explain the various
stories that occur: this must be done with care,
but should not be encumbered with superfluous
detail. For it is sufficient to set forth the version
which is generally received or at any rate rests upon
good authority. But to ferret out everything that
has ever been said on the subject even by the most
worthless of writers is a sign of tiresome pedantry
or empty ostentation, and results in delaying and
swamping the mind when it would be better
employed on other themes.
[
19]
The man who pores
over every page even though it be wholly unworthy
of reading, is capable of devoting his attention
to the investigation of old wives' tales. And yet
the commentaries of teachers of literature are full
of such encumbrances to learning and strangely
unfamiliar to their own authors.
[
20]
It is, for instance,
recorded that Didymus, who was unsurpassed for
the number of books which he wrote, on one occasion
objected to some story as being absurd, whereupon
one of his own books was produced which contained
the story in question.
[
21]
Such abuses occur chiefly in
connexion with fabulous stories and are sometimes
carried to ludicrous or even scandalous extremes:
for in such cases the more unscrupulous commentator
has such full scope for invention, that he can tell lies
[p. 157]
to his heart's content about whole books and authors
without fear of detection: for what never existed
can obviously never be found, whereas if the subject
is familiar the careful investigator will often detect
the fraud. Consequently I shall count it a merit in
a teacher of literature that there should be some
things which he does not know.
IX. I have now finished with two of the
departments, with which teachers of literature profess to deal, namely the art of speaking correctly
and the interpretation of authors; the former they
call
nethodicē, the latter
historiē We must however
add to their activities instruction in certain rudiments
of oratory for the benefit of those who are not yet
ripe for the schools of rhetoric.
[
2]
Their pupils should
learn to paraphrase Aesop's fables, the natural successors of the fairy stories of the nursery, in simple
and restrained language and subsequently to set
down this paraphrase in writing with the same simplicity of style: they should begin by analysing
each verse, then give its meaning in different
language, and finally proceed to a freer paraphrase in
which they will be permitted now to abridge and
now to embellish the original, so far as this may be
done without losing the poet's meaning.
[
3]
This is no
easy task even for the expert instructor, and the
pupil who handles it successfully will be capable of
learning everything. He should also be set to write
aphorisms, moral essays (chriae) and
delineations of character (ethologiae),
2 of which the teacher will first give
the general scheme, since such themes will be drawn
from their reading. In all of these exercises the
general idea is the same, but the form differs:
aphorisms are general propositions, while
ethologiae
[p. 159]
are concerned with persons
[
4]
. Of
moral essays there
are various forms: some are akin to
aphorisms and
commence with a simple statement “he said” or “he
used to say”: others give the answer to a question
and begin “on being asked” or “in answer to this
he replied,” while a third and not dissimilar type
begins, “when someone has said or done something.”
Some hold that a
moral essay may take some action
as its text;
[
5]
take for example the statement “Crates
on seeing an ill-educated boy, beat his
paedagogus,” or
a very similar example which they do not venture
actually to propose as a theme for a
moral essay, but
content themselves with saying that it is of the
nature of such a theme, namely “Milo, having
accustomed himself to carrying a calf every day,
ended by carrying it when grown to a bull.” All
these instances are couched in the same grammatical form
3 and deeds no less than sayings may
be presented for treatment.
[
6]
Short stories from the
poets should in my opinion be handled not with
a view to style but as a means of increasing knowledge. Other more serious and ambitious tasks
have been also imposed on teachers of literature by
the fact that Latin rhetoricians will have nothing to
do with them: Greek rhetoricians have a better
comprehension of the extent and nature of the tasks
placed on their shoulders.