178 NOTES ON STYLE 



ft ffoi ra fj.T)rpbs Kal trarplis XP 6 ^ 7 ? 

 $>v olivet K<po$e'i fj.e. TOUT' 4y& 



Had we known nothing of (Edipus and his impendent doom, 

 the rhetoric of this keen indignant invective would be felt 

 in its fierce volubility and broken pauses the alternation of 

 verses wrought in monosyllables with verses of long billowy 

 words the compressed force of crasis and elision rapidly 

 exchanged for the same verbal elements deployed with full 

 syllabic emphasis. 



I have observed that ponderosity is not the note of Greek 

 eloquence. Yet two great poets, early in this literature, 

 revealed the possibilities of a massive Greek style. These 

 were Pindar and ^Eschylus. Pindar builds with blocks of 

 words in the manner of Cyclopean masonry. 



TOS Se 0eoeVou d/fTtVcts irpoartairov napfjutpi&iffas 

 VTOS 

 KapSiav 



Carrying on this figure of architectural structure, we might 

 point out that Pindar uses hardly any mortar ; dispenses with 

 the connecting particles, prepositions, expletives, in which 

 Greek style is usually redundant; works by collocation of 

 huge wedge-like phrases. 



The massiveness of ^Bschylus assumes a different form. 

 Aristophanes described that manner in a passage of the 

 * Frogs,' which shows that Attic taste regarded it already as 

 archaic : 



8' liriro\6<p<i)v re \6yuv KopvQaio\a vcttcy, 



j/ Te Trapa6via, cr/iuAevjuaTa r' fpyuv, 

 a/j.vvofjifvov (ppevoTfKTOvos avSpbs 



f)-flp.ara 



This pomp, as of heavy cavalry charging with plumes in air 

 and plunging horses, this effort, as of a Titan tearing bolted 



