others together, and the women who were here distinguished, rivalled and even surpassed the men; Corinna and Myrtis did not yield either to Stesic̀horus,[1] or to Pindar; Sappho and Telesilla effaced Alcæus and Anacreon.[2]
It is said that the art with which Homer had put into action gods and men, had opposed heaven and earth, and depicted the combats of the passions; this art, being joined to the manner in which the rhapsodists declaimed his poems[3] by alternately relieving one another, and covering themselves with garments of different colours adapted to the situation, had insensibly given rise to dramatic style and to theatrical representation.[4] This, true in a sense, has need of a distinction: it will serve at the same time to throw light upon what I am about to say.
One should remember that the intellectual and rational poetry, or theosophical and philosophical, illustrated by Orpheus and which Homer had united with the enthusiasm of the passions in order to constitute epopœia, although
- ↑ It can be seen that I have placed in the word Stesic̀horus, an accent grave over the consonant c, and it will be noticed that I have used it thus with respect to many similar words. It is a habit I have contracted in writing, so as to distinguish, in this manner, the double consonant ch, in the foreign words, or in their derivatives, when it should take the guttural inflexion, in place of the hissing inflexion which we ordinarily give to it. Thus I accent the c̀ in Chio, c̀hœur, c̀horus, éc̀ho, c̀hlorose, c̀hiragre, c̀hronique, etc.; to indicate that these words should be pronounced Khio, khœur, khorus, ékho, khlorose, khiragre, khronique, with the aspirate sound of k, and not with that of the hissing c, as in Chypre, chaume, échope, chaire, etc. This accentuation has appeared to me necessary, especially when one is obliged to transcribe in modern characters many foreign words which, lacking usage, one knows not, at first, how to pronounce. It is, after all, a slight innovation in orthography, which I leave to the decision of the grammarians. I only say that it will be very difficult for them, without this accent, or any other sign which might be used, to know how one should pronounce with a different inflexion, Ac̀haïe and Achéen; Achille and Ac̀hilleïde; Achêron and ac̀hérontique; Bacc̀hus and bachique, etc.
- ↑ Vossius, De Inst. poët., l. iii., c. 15; Aristot., Rhet., l. ii., 23; Max. Tyr. Orat., viii., p. 86.
- ↑ Ælian., Var. Hist., l. xiii., c. 14, Court de Gébelin, Mond. prim., t. viii., p. 202.
- ↑ Plat., In Theæt.; ibid., De Republ., l. x.; Arist., De Poët., c. 4, etc.
