THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 165 



to be written. One "specialist" says that for some unknown reason 

 the early Athenians used H instead of E for IKCLTOV] The history 

 of the transition to the later system is needed for purposes of textual 

 criticism. The date of the well-known couplet on the eg wpai of labor 

 would aid in the solution of several problems, fixing the terminus 

 ante quern for the new system, the use of wpa for "hour," and the 

 imperative ZfiOi. 



The names of animals and plants are troublesome. The aiXovpos 

 and the yaXi/, with the later Kdrra and Karros, have a literature of 

 their own, and yet the cat problem remains unsolved. Despite 

 volumes on Greek birds, the make-up of the chorus in the Aves is 

 not altogether settled. And now, to pass on to plants, we are told 

 that the vaKwOos could not have been the hyacinth, that ^yo's was 

 probably not the oak, that the KWUOV with its painless death 

 could not have been the conium maculatum nor the dcuta virosa. 

 But there is scarcely any end to such questions. 



The inflection of words still has its problems. It is sufficient to 

 refer to the controversy over the dative plural in Homer, and the 

 question to what extent ^v was plural and eW singular. Our gram- 

 mars change from year to year. Now we have the long delayed 

 TeOrjKa; shall we ever have -ocr#a>j/ as an alternative for -e'o-floji/? 

 There are still questions enough as to forms, and even as to accents, 

 as in the case of the so-called proclitics; but I must hasten on. 



Syntax and style are closely bound together. Of style proper I 

 shall say as little as possible. Style relates to different ways of saying 

 the same thing. If a change in a sentence adds to or takes from its 

 sense, it is not a purely stylistic change. Publishers once, to suppress 

 my egotism, changed "I do not know" into "It is not known." We 



Can say either CTrA^yr/v Trporepov rj eTrarafa or Trpdrepos CTrA^yrp rj 7raraa, 



but the latter says more than the former, and the difference 

 does not pertain to style. The delicate tints of stylistic coloring are 

 very elusive, and the distinctions drawn, I fear, are sometimes 

 illusory. Much depends on the mental characteristics, natural and 

 acquired, of the individual. Association particularly plays an im- 

 portant part. If the Greek scholars should each write down three 

 brief passages that are respectively most impressive, most touching, 

 and most beautiful to him, the list would be very interesting. Prob- 

 ably only one person here would select as the most impressive eW/3a\ov 



ts TT/V 'ATTIKTJV, ^yeiro 8c 'Ap^t'Sa/xos 6 ZcvfiSa/tou, Aa/ceSatyioviW /3acriAevs. 



Usually, as in the example cited, the subject-matter is the main fac- 

 tor of impressiveness; but the very sound of words may have a 

 powerful influence, that of some words on some people, that of others 

 on others. 



Do not, then, judge me too severely when I confess that on me 

 the ^0os of the Greek cases is to a great extent lost. To my mind the 



