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c. 1. This book is a birthday present which deals with the art of speech, and so will be found particularly useful to youths who look forward to a public career. Oratorical excellence depends on skill exercised in two directions—in the sphere of subject matter and in the sphere of expression (πραγματικὸς τόπος and λεκτικὸς τόπος). In the former sphere, maturity of judgment and experience is required: in the latter the young are more at home, but they need careful guidance at the start. The λεκτικὸς τόπος has two subdivisions, ἐκλογὴ ὀνομάτων and σύνθεσις ὀνομάτων. The composition of words is to be treated now: the choice of words is to be treated next year, if Heaven keeps the author “safe and sound.” The chief headings in the present treatise are to be the following:—

c. 2. “Composition is, as the very name indicates, a certain mutual arrangement of the parts of speech, or elements of diction, as some prefer to call them.” The parts of speech recognized by Theodectes and Aristotle and their contemporaries were three in number, viz. nouns, verbs, and connectives. The number was raised, by the Stoics and others, to four through the separation of the article from the connectives. Later were added the adjective, the pronoun, the adverb, the preposition, the participle, and certain other subdivisions. These principal parts of speech form, when joined and set side by side, the cola (‘members,’ ‘clauses’). The union of cola completes the “periods,” and these make up the entire discourse. The functions of composition are to arrange the words fittingly, to assign the proper structure to the cola, and to divide the discourse carefully into periods.

In its effects, though not in order of time, the composition of words comes before the choice of words.

c. 3. Our thoughts are uttered either in verse or in prose. In both alike, composition can invest the lowliest words with charm and distinction. By way of foretaste, two passages (one of poetry, the other of prose) may be quoted in illustration. The first is from the opening of the 16th Odyssey, where the lines allure not by elaborate language or lofty theme, but by the sheer beauty with which the words are grouped. The prose example is furnished by that passage of Herodotus (i. 8-10) which describes the unworthy behaviour of Candaules towards his wife. Here, too, the charm resides not in the incident nor in the words which describe it, but in the deft arrangement of the language.

c. 4. The powerful effect of composition will be still further realized if some choice passages of verse and prose be taken and the order of the words disturbed. Homer and Herodotus once more provide examples. Certain lines in the twelfth and thirteenth books of the Iliad are chosen, and transformed, with disastrous effects, from hexameters into two varieties of tetrameters. A short passage of Herodotus is turned about in a similar way, one of the two versions being in the style of Thucydides, the other in the odious manner of Hegesias. Composition may in fact be likened to the Homeric Athena, who with a touch of her magic wand could make the same Odysseus resemble either a beggar or a gallant prince. The neglect of composition has lamentable results in writers like Duris, Polybius, Chrysippus, and others. Failing to find the subject satisfactorily treated by previous authors, Dionysius has himself endeavoured to discover some natural principle to form a starting-point (φυσικὴ ἀφορμή). He has not succeeded, but he will describe his attempt.

c. 5. It had occurred to him that, in a natural order, verbs would follow nouns and precede adverbs, while things which happened first in time would come first in narration. But these (and other) rules were seen to be untrustworthy, when tested by the actual practice of the great authors.

c. 6. As far as words (or elements of discourse) are concerned, the art of composition operates in three ways—through (1) the choice of elements likely to combine effectively; (2) the discernment of the particular shapes or constructions (i.e. singular or plural number, nominative or oblique case, active or passive voice, etc.) to be given to each element in order that the structure may be improved; (3) the perception of the modification which these shapes need in view of the materials. Each of the processes can be illustrated from the arts of house-building and ship-building—of civil and marine architecture. This analogy is developed at some length.

c. 7. In the case of the cola, the processes are two. (1) The cola must be rightly arranged. For instance, in a passage of Thucydides (iii. 57) the order in which they come makes all the difference. So, too, in Demosthenes de Corona § 119.

c. 8. (2) The right “turn,” or “shaping,” must be given to the cola, so that they may faithfully reflect the various aims and moods of the speaker or writer. A good example will be found in Demosthenes de Corona § 179.

c. 9. Under (2) it is to be noted that the cola may be lengthened or shortened for the sake of literary effect. Examples are given from Demosthenes, Plato, Sophocles, and again Demosthenes.—The same remarks will apply to periods as to cola. Further, the art of composition must determine when it is fitting to employ periods and when not.

c. 10. Next come the aims and methods of good composition. The two chief aims are charm and beauty or nobility: the ear craves these in composition, just as the eye in a work of pictorial art. The two qualities are, however, not identical. Thucydides, for example, and Antiphon possess beauty but lack charm. Ctesias, on the other hand, and Xenophon are charming (pleasing, agreeable), but deficient in beauty. Herodotus combines the two excellences.

c. 11. The chief sources of charm and beauty (or nobility) are four: music, rhythm, variety, and propriety. Charm and beauty, themselves, have many subdivisions. The instinctive appreciation of music and rhythm on the part of a popular audience may be noticed during a performance in some house of entertainment. Variety, too, and propriety are indispensable. As to the music of speech, it is to be observed that there is a sort of oratorical cadence which differs from music proper in quantity only, not in quality. The speaking voice does not rise in pitch above three tones and a half: it confines itself to the interval of the Fifth. The singing voice, on the other hand, uses a greater number of intervals, not only the Fifth but (beginning with the Octave) the Fifth, the Fourth, the Tone, and the Semitone, and, as some think, still slighter intervals. Other points of difference are that, in singing, the words are subordinate to the air, and the length of the syllables is regulated by the musical time. So the speaking voice can show good melody without being “melodic,” and show good rhythms without being “rhythmic.” There is, in fact, music in speech, but not the whole of music.

c. 12. Various sounds affect the ear in various ways. The cause lies in the nature of the letters; and as their nature cannot be changed, there should be a judicious intermixture of pleasant with unpleasant sounds. Short