Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/320

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246
APPENDIX

themselves, whatever guess the Scholiast may make at their remote meaning. So that the Doctor might as well prove his point from ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ. What shall we say now to such a hardy writer as this is; who can deny with such an air of confidence, what everybody's eyes can witness to be true? The very words of Pindar immediately preceding the passage I cited, are—

καὶ λογίοις καὶ ἀοιδοῖς,

which, by the nicest translation, means men of letters, and poets. And to be kind to such the poet exhorts Hiero in the paragraph just before

εὐανθεῖ δ᾽ ἐν ὀργᾷ παρμένων,
εἴπερ τι φιλεῖς ἀκοὰν ἁδεῖαν ἀ-
εὶ κλύειν, μὴ κάμνε λίαν δαπάναις.

That is, continue your generous temper, and if you desire immortal fame, do not be weary of being bountiful.

After he has denied that to be in Pindar, which is evidently and expressly there; the next and last advance he makes is to deny that to be in the letters, which he himself once knew to be there, if it was he