Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79)

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  To what shore, to what grove shall I flee for refuge?

  To the former of these two feet the name of bacchius is assigned by the metrists, to the other that of hypobacchius. These are the twelve fundamental rhythms and feet which measure all language, metrical or unmetrical, and from them are formed lines and clauses. All other feet and rhythms are but combinations of these. A simple rhythm, or foot, will not be less than two syllables, nor will it exceed three. I do not know that more need be said on this subject.

  CHAPTER XVIII. EFFECT OF VARIOUS RHYTHMS

  The reason why I have been led to make these preliminary remarks (for certainly it was no part of my design to touch without due cause on metrical and rhythmical questions, but only so far as it was really necessary) is this, that it is through rhythms which are noble and dignified, and contain an element of greatness, that composition becomes dignified, noble, and splendid, while it is made a paltry and unimpressive sort of thing by the use of those rhythms that are ignoble and mean, whether they are taken severally by themselves, or are woven together according to their mutual affinities. If, then, it is within human capacity to frame the style entirely from the finest rhythms, our aspirations will be realized; but if it should prove necessary to blend the worse with the better, as happens in many cases (for names have been attached to things in a haphazard way), we must manage our material artistically. We must disguise our compulsion by the gracefulness of the composition: the more so that we have full liberty of action, since no rhythm is banished from non-metrical language, as some are from metrical.

  It remains for me to produce proofs of my statements, in order that my argument may carry conviction. Wide as the field is, a few proofs will suffice. Thus it is surely beyond dispute that the following passage in the Funeral Speech of Thucydides is composed with dignity and grandeur: “Former speakers on these occasions have usually commended the statesman who caused an oration to form part of this funeral ceremony: they have felt it a fitting tribute to men who were brought home for burial from the fields of battle where they fell.” What has made the composition here so impressive? The fact that the clauses are composed of impressive rhythms. For the three feet which usher in the first clause are spondees, the fourth is an anapaest, the next a spondee once more, then a cretic, — all stately feet. Hence the dignity of the first clause. The next clause, “have usually commended the statesman who caused an oration to form part of this funeral ceremony,” has two hypobacchii as its first feet, a cretic as its third, then again two hypobacchii, and a syllable by which the clause is completed; so that this clause too is naturally dignified, formed as it is of the noblest and most beautiful rhythms.

  The third clause, “they have felt it a fitting tribute to men who were brought home for burial from the fields of battle where they fell,” begins with the cretic foot, has an anapaest in the second place, a spondee in the third, in the fourth an anapaest again, then two dactyls in succession, closing with two spondees and the terminal syllable. So this passage also owes its noble ring to its rhythmical structure; and most of the passages in Thucydides are of this stamp; indeed, there are few that are not so framed. So he thoroughly deserves his reputation for loftiness and beauty of language, since he habitually introduces noble rhythms.

  Again, take the following passage of Plato. What can be the device that produces its perfect dignity and beauty, if it is not the beautiful and striking rhythms that compose it? The passage is one of the best known and most often quoted, and it is found near the beginning of our author’s Funeral Speech: “In very truth these men are receiving at our hands their fitting tribute: and when they have gained this guerdon, they journey on, along the path of destiny.” Here there are two clauses which constitute the period, and the feet into which the clauses fall are as follows: — The first is a bacchius, for certainly I should not think it correct to scan this clause as an iambic line, bearing in mind that not swift, tripping movements, but retarded and slow times are appropriate to those over whom we make mourning. The second is a spondee; the next is a dactyl, the vowels which might coalesce being kept distinct; after that, a spondee; next, what I should call a cretic rather than an anapaest; then, according to my view, a spondee; in the last place a hypobacchius or, if you prefer to take it so, an anapaest; then the terminal syllable. Of these rhythms none is mean nor ignoble. In the next clause, “when they have gained this guerdon, they journey on, along the path of destiny,” the two first feet are cretics, and next after them two spondees; after which once more a cretic, then lastly a hypobacchius. Thus the discourse is composed entirely of beautiful rhythms, and it necessarily follows that it is itself beautiful. Countless instances of this kind are to be found in Plato as well as in Thucydides. For this author has a perfect genius for discovering true melody and fine rhythm, and if he had only been as able in the choice of words as he is unrivalled in the art of combining them, he “had even outstript” Demosthenes, so far as beauty of style is concerned, or “had left the issue in doubt.” As it is, he is sometimes quite at fault in his choice of words; most of all when he is aiming at a lofty, unusual, elaborate style of expression. With respect to this I explain myself more explicitly elsewhere. But he does most assuredly put his words together with beauty as well as charm; and from this point of view no one could find any fault with him.

  I will cite a passage of one other writer, — the one to whom I assign the palm for oratorical mastery. Demosthenes most certainly forms a sort of standard alike for choice of words and for beauty in their arrangement. In the Speech on the Crown there are three clauses which constitute the first period; and the rhythms by which they are measured are as follows: “first of all, men of Athens, I pray to all the gods and goddesses.” A bacchius begins this first clause; then follows a spondee; next an anapaest, and after this another spondee; then three cretics in succession, and a spondee as the last foot. In the second clause, “that all the loyal affection I bear my whole life through to the city and all of you,” first comes a hypobacchius; then a bacchius or, if you prefer to take it so, a dactyl; then a cretic; after which there are two composite feet called paeons. Next follows a molossus or a bacchius, for it can be scanned either way. Last comes the spondee. The third clause, “may as fully be accorded by you to support me in this trial,” is opened by two hypobacchii. A cretic follows, to which a spondee is attached. Then again a bacchius or a cretic; last a cretic once more; then the terminal syllable. Is not a beautiful cadence inevitable in a passage which contains neither a pyrrhic, nor an iamb, nor an amphibrachys, nor a single choree or trochee? Still, I do not affirm that none of those writers ever uses the more ignoble rhythms also. They do use them; but they have artistically masked them, and have only introduced them at intervals, interweaving the inferior with the superior.

  Those authors who have not given heed to this branch of their art have published writings which are either mean, or flabby, or have some other blemish or deformity. Among them the first and midmost and the last is the Magnesian, the sophist Hegesias. Concerning him, I swear by Zeus and all the other gods, I do not know what to say. Was he so dense, and so devoid of artistic feeling, as not to see which the ignoble or noble rhythms are? or was he smitten with such soul-destroying lunacy, that though he knew the better, he nevertheless invariably chose the worse? It is to this latter view that I incline. Ignorance often blunders into the right path: only wilfulness never does. At all events, in the host of writings which the man has left behind him, you will not find one single page successfully put together. He seems, indeed, to have regarded his own methods as better than those of his predecessors, and to have followed them with enthusiasm; and yet anybody else, if he were to be driven into such errors in an impromptu speech, would blush for them, were he a man of any self-respect. Well, I will quote a passage from him also, taken from his History, in order to make clear to you, by means of a comparison, how splendid noble rhythms are, and how disgraceful are their opposites. The following is the subject treated by the sophist.
Alexander when besieging Gaza, an unusually strong position in Syria, is wounded during the assault and takes the position after some delay. In a transport of anger he massacres all the prisoners, permitting the Macedonians to slay all who fall in their way. Having captured their commandant, a man of distinction for his high station and good looks, he gives orders that he should be bound alive to a war-chariot and that the horses should be driven at full speed before the eyes of all; and in this way he kills him. No one could have a story of more awful suffering to narrate, nor one suggesting a more horrible picture. It is worth while to observe in what style our sophist has represented this scene — whether with gravity and elevation or with vulgarity and absurdity: —

  “The King advanced, at the head of his division. It seems that the leaders of the enemy had formed the design of meeting him as he approached. For they had come to the conclusion that, if they overcame him personally, they would be able to drive out all his host in a body. Now this hope ran with them on the path of daring, so that never before had Alexander been in such danger. One of the enemy fell on his knees, and seemed to Alexander to have done so in order to ask for mercy. Having allowed him to approach, he eluded (not without difficulty) the thrust of a sword which he had brought under the skirts of his corselet, so that the thrust was not mortal. Alexander himself slew his assailant with a blow of his sabre upon the head, while the king’s followers were inflamed with a sudden fury. So utterly was pity, in the breasts of those who saw and those who heard of the attempt, banished by the desperate daring of the man, that six thousand of the barbarians were cut down at the trumpet-call which forthwith rang out. Baetis himself, however, was brought before the king alive by Leonatus and Philotas. And Alexander seeing that he was corpulent and huge and most grim (for he was black in colour too), was seized with loathing for his very looks as well as for his design upon his life, and ordered that a ring of bronze should be passed through his feet and that he should be dragged round a circular course, naked. Harrowed by pain, as his body passed over many a rough piece of ground, he began to scream. And it was just this detail which I now mention that brought people together. The torment racked him, and he kept uttering outlandish yells, asking mercy of Alexander as ‘my lord’; and his jargon made them laugh. His fat and his bulging corpulence suggested to them another creature, a huge-bodied Babylonian animal. So the multitude scoffed at him, mocking with the coarse mockery of the camp an enemy who was so repulsive of feature and so uncouth in his ways.”

  Is this description, I ask, comparable with those lines of Homer in which Achilles is represented as maltreating Hector after his death? And yet the suffering in the latter case is less, for it is on a mere senseless body that the outrage is inflicted. But it is worth while, nevertheless, to note the vast difference between the poet and the sophist: —

  He spake, and a shameful mishandling devised he for Hector slain;

  For behind each foot did he sunder therefrom the sinews twain

  From the ankle-joint to the heel: hide-bands through the gashes he thrust;

  To his chariot he bound them, and left the head to trail in the dust.

  He hath mounted his car, and the glorious armour thereon hath he cast,

  And he lashed the horses, and they with eager speed flew fast.

  And a dust from the haling of Hector arose, and tossed wide-spread

  His dark locks: wholly in dust his head lay low — that head

  Once comely: ah then was the hero delivered over of Zeus

  In his very fatherland for his foes to despitefully use.

  So dust-besprent was his head; but his mother was rending her hair

  The while, and she flung therefrom her head-veil glistering-fair

  Afar, and with wild loud shriek as she looked on her son she cried;

  And in piteous wise did his father wail, and on every side

  Through the city the folk brake forth into shriek and wail at the sight.

  It was like unto this above all things, as though, from her topmost height

  To the ground, all beetling Troy in flame and in smoke were rolled.

  That is the way in which a noble corpse and terrible sufferings should be described by men of feeling and understanding. But after the fashion of this Magnesian they could be described by women only or effeminate men, and even by them not in earnest, but in a spirit of derision and mockery. To what, then, is due the nobility of these lines, as compared with the miserable absurdities of the other passage? Chiefly, if not entirely, to the difference in the rhythms. In the quotation from Homer there is not one unimpressive or unworthy verse, while in that from Hegesias every single sentence will prove offensive.

  Having now discussed the importance of rhythm, I will pass on to the topics that remain.

  CHAPTER XIX. ON VARIETY

  The third cause of beautiful arrangement that was to be examined is variety. I do not mean the change from the better to the worse (that would be too foolish), nor yet that from the worse to the better, but variety among things that are similar. For satiety can be caused by all beautiful things, just as by things sweet to the taste, when there is an unvarying sameness about them; but if diversified by changes, they always remain new. Now writers in metre and in lyric measures cannot introduce change everywhere; or rather, I should say, cannot all introduce change, and none as much as they wish. For instance, epic writers cannot vary their metre, for all the lines must necessarily be hexameters; nor yet the rhythm, for they must use those feet that begin with a long syllable, and not all even of these. The writers of lyric verse cannot vary the melodies of strophe and antistrophe, but whether they adopt enharmonic melodies, or chromatic, or diatonic, in all the strophes and antistrophes the same sequences must be observed. Nor, again, must the rhythms be changed in which the entire strophes and antistrophes are written, but these too must remain unaltered. But in the so-called epodes both the tune and the rhythm may be changed. Great freedom, too, is allowed to an author in varying and elaborating the clauses of which each period is composed by giving them different lengths and forms in different instances, until they complete a strophe; but after that, similar metres and clauses must be composed for the antistrophe. Now the ancient writers of lyric poetry — I refer to Alcaeus and Sappho — made their strophes short, so that they did not introduce many variations in the clauses, which were few in number, while the use they made of the epode was very slight. Stesichorus and Pindar and their schools framed their periods on a larger scale, and divided them into many measures and clauses, simply from the love of variety. The dithyrambic poets used to change the modes also, introducing Dorian and Phrygian and Lydian modes in the same song; and they varied the melodies, making them now enharmonic, now chromatic, now diatonic; and in the rhythms they continually showed the boldest independence, — I mean Philoxenus, Timotheus, Telestes, and men of their stamp, — since among the ancients even the dithyramb had been subject to strict metrical laws.

  Prose-writing has full liberty and permission to diversify composition by whatever changes it pleases. A style is finest of all when it has the most frequent rests and changes of harmony; when one thing is said within a period, another without it; when one period is formed by the interweaving of a larger number of clauses, another by that of a smaller; when among the clauses themselves one is short, another longer, one roughly wrought, another more finished; when the rhythms take now one form, now another, and the figures are of all kinds, and the voice-pitches — the so-called “accents” — are various, and skilfully avoid satiety by their diversity. There is considerable charm, among efforts of this kind, in what is so composed that it does not seem to be artificially composed at all. I do not think that many words are needed on this point. Everybody, I believe, is aware that, in prose, variety is full of charm and beauty. And as examples of it I reckon all the writings of Herodotus, all those of Plato, and all those of Demosthenes. It is impossible to find other writers who have introduced more episodes than these, or better-timed variation
s, or more multiform figures: the first in the narrative form, the second in graceful dialogue, the third in the practical work of forensic oratory. As for the methods of Isocrates and his followers, they are not to be compared with the styles of those writers. The Isocratic authors have composed much with charm and distinction; but in regard to change and diversity they are anything but happy. We find in them one continually recurring period, a monotonous order of figures, the invariable observance of vowel-blending, and many other similar things which fatigue the ear. I cannot approve that school on this side. In Isocrates himself, it may be conceded, many charms were displayed which helped to hide this blemish. But among his successors, by reason of their fewer redeeming excellences, the fault mentioned stands out more glaringly.

  CHAPTER XX. ON APPROPRIATENESS

  It still remains for me to speak about appropriateness. All the other ornaments of speech must be associated with what is appropriate; indeed, if any other quality whatever fails to attain this, it fails to attain the main essential, — perhaps fails altogether. Into the question as a whole this is not the right time to go; it is a profound study, and would need a long treatise. But let me say what bears on the special department which I am actually discussing; or if not all that bears on it, nor even the largest part, at all events as much as is possible.

  It is admitted among all critics that appropriateness is that treatment which suits the actors and actions concerned. Just as the choice of words may be either appropriate or inappropriate to the subject matter, so also surely must the composition be. This statement I had best illustrate from actual life. I refer to the fact that we do not put our words together in the same way when angry as when glad, nor when mourning as when afraid, nor when under the influence of any other emotion or calamity as when conscious that there is nothing at all to agitate or annoy us.