The letter which comes first a circle is,
With one soft eye; then come two upright lines
Of equal and exact proportions,
United by one middle transverse line;
The third is like a wreathed curl of hair;
The next a trident lying on its side;
The fifth two lines of equal length above,
Which below join together in one base;
The sixth, as I have said before, a curl.
And Sophocles has said something like this, in his Amphiaraus, which is a satyric drama, where he introduces an actor dancing in unison with his explanation of the letters.
81. But Neoptolemus the Parian, in his treatise on Inscriptions, says that this inscription is engraved on the tomb of Thrasymachus the sophist at Chalcedon—
My name is Theta, ro, alpha, and san,
Upsilon, mu, alpha, chi, ou, san again:
Chalcedon was my home, wisdom my trade.
And there is a poem of this kind upon Pan, by Castorion the Solensian, as Clearchus says: every foot[1] consists of one entire word, and so every line has its feet in pairs, so that they may either precede or follow each other; as for instance—
[Greek: se ton bolois niphoktypois dyscheimeron
naionth' hedos, thêronome Pan, Chthon' Arkadôn,
klêsô graphê têd' en sophê, pankleit' epê
syntheis, anax, dysgnôsta mê sophois klyein,
Mousopole thêr, kêrochyton hos meiligm' hieis.]
[Which may be translated thus—
O thou that dwellest on the lofty plain,
Stormy with deep loud-sounding falls of snow,
Th' Arcadian land,—lord of the forest kinds,
Thee, mighty Pan, will I invoke in this
Sagacious writing, carefully compounding
Words difficult for ignorant men to know,
Or rightly understand. Hail, friend o' the Muse,
Who pourest forth sweet sounds from waxen flute.]
And so on in the same manner. And in whatever order you place each of these pairs of feet it will give the same metre; as you may, for instance, transpose the first line, and instead of—
[Greek: se, ton bolois niphoktypois dyscheimeron],
you may read it—
[Greek: niphoktypois se ton bolois dyscheimeron].
- ↑ There is probably some corruption in the text here.
