392 CLASSICAL LITERATURE 



compares and contrasts, and in the light of these passes judgment 

 on what the author of antiquity has done. 



But the student of classical literature, if he is to be also something 

 of an historian of this literature, has a further function: he is the 

 interpreter of the ancient writer, his interpretation finding expres- 

 sion in formal works on literary history, or in monographic studies 

 of special topics, or in the comment that accompanies editions of 

 classical books, or in translations into the vernacular. The inter- 

 preter's first qualification for his task is of course the understanding 

 of the work he would interpret in the spirit and to the extent already 

 indicated. But it is obvious that besides this qualification he needs 

 others that are very different, such as thorough knowledge of the lan- 

 guage of interpretation, and a mastery of the art of interpretation, 

 which involves among other things a knowledge of the audience 

 to which the interpretation is to be made not unlike his knowledge 

 of the audience for which the work was originally intended, and a 

 power effectively to reach and move that audience. The work of the 

 interpreter of classical authors can never be wholly done. It must 

 be renewed from age to age, from generation to generation. The 

 authors remain, and perhaps their text reaches its final form, but 

 with the discovery of new material, with the invention of new in- 

 struments of research, the knowledge that gathers about them 

 grows apace, and the new knowledge throws things into a new 

 perspective, and brings out unsuspected relations. With all this 

 must come new interpretations, demanded not only by the newer 

 light, but also by the incessant though almost unobserved changes 

 in the media of interpretation, in the meaning and values of language, 

 changes in the aesthetic standards that regulate expression, but yet 

 more changes in the audience to which the interpretation is addressed. 

 It has been so in the past. Again and again the phenomena of the 

 ancient world, as these have shimmered before us in literature, their 

 spirit and significance, have been imperfectly grasped and falsely 

 explained. Antiquity sometimes has been understood solely in terms 

 of the times in which it was passed in review, just as the ancient 

 languages have been pronounced by students of those languages ac- 

 cording to their own vernacular, students who thought, forsooth, they 

 were speaking Latin or Greek. The scholars of the early Christian 

 Church, some of the leaders of the Renaissance, the motley crew 

 of neo-Pagans, have each and all had their own understanding and 

 interpretation of antiquity how imperfect, how far from the 

 truth! Lack of sound and comprehensive knowledge and prepos- 

 session by subjective theory or fancy have caused the failure to 

 behold the truth. And yet even views that are only partially true, 

 or are dark, highly colored or distorted, or unsubstantial, have been 

 fraught with instruction. It is for these reasons and for others that 



