Etymologies & Works 1 part 8/8

are written of, or from their inventors, or from those who frequently employed them, or from the number of syllables. From feet, meters are named, as dactylic, iambic, trochaic. [6] For from the trochee the trochaic meter arises, from the dactyl the dactylic; and so the others from their own feet. From number, as hexameter, pentameter, trimeter. For we call them 'senarii' from the number of feet. These the Greeks,

because they strike in pairs, call 'trimeters.' Ennius is said to have been the first to compose Latin hexameters; and they call them 'long verses.' [7] Meters are said to be named from their inventors, as the Anacreontic, Sapphic, Archilochian. For Anacreon composed the Anacreontic meters; the woman Sappho brought forth the Sapphic; a certain Archilochus wrote the Archilochian; a Colophonian

practiced the Colophonian. The inventor of the Sotadean [meters], too, is Sotades, a Cretan by birth. The Simonidean meters also the lyric poet Simonides composed. [8] From those who frequently employed them, as the Asclepiadean. For Asclepius did not invent them, but they were so called for this reason, that he used them most elegantly [and most frequently]. [9] From the things that are written of, as the heroic, the elegiac, the bucolic.

For the song is called 'heroic' (heroicum) because by it the affairs and deeds of brave men are narrated. For heroes are called men, as it were, 'airy' (aerii) and worthy of heaven, on account of their wisdom and valor. This meter surpasses the rest in authority; alone of all it is as suited to the greatest works as to small ones, equally capable of charm and sweetness. [10] By which excellences alone it obtained the name,

so as to be called 'heroic,' namely for the commemorating of their deeds. For it is also held to be the simplest of all, and consists of two feet, the dactyl and the spondee, and often almost wholly of the one or of the other; save that it becomes most well-tempered by a mixture of both, rather than if it were built up out of single kinds. [11] It is also prior to all meters. Moses is proved to have first sung this in the song

of Deuteronomy, long before Pherecydes and Homer. Whence it appears that the study of poetry was more ancient among the Hebrews than among the Gentiles, since Job too, reckoned contemporary with Moses, runs on in hexameter verse, with the dactyl and the spondee. [12] Among the Greeks, Achatesius of Miletus is said to have first composed this [meter], or, as others think, Pherecydes of Syros.

This meter, before Homer, was called 'Pythian,' [but] after Homer it was named 'heroic.' [13] They hold that it was called 'Pythian' for this reason, that in this kind of meter the oracles of Apollo were delivered. For when on Parnassus he was pursuing the serpent Python with arrows, in vengeance for his mother, the Delphian dwellers urged him on in this meter, saying, as Terentianus reports (1591 K.): [IE PAIAN, IE

PAIAN, IE PAIAN]. [14] The elegiac [meter] is so called because the modulation of that kind of song befits the sorrowful. Terentianus is wont to call these verses 'elegies,' because such a closing cadence, as they report, is better suited to mournful measures. [15] But it is scarcely at all agreed by whom this was invented, save that among us Ennius was the first to use it. For among the Greeks the dispute of the grammarians still

hangs undecided, so that the matter is left under the judge's consideration. For some of them will have a certain Colophonian, others Archilochus, as its author and inventor. [16] The bucolic, that is, the pastoral song, most suppose to have been first composed by shepherds at Syracuse, some at Lacedaemon [Sparta]. For when Xerxes, king of the Persians, was crossing over into Thrace, and the Spartan maidens, in fear of the enemy,

could neither go out of the city nor perform, according to custom, the rustic procession and dance of Diana, a crowd of shepherds, lest the religious rite should lapse, celebrated the same goddess with unpolished songs. It is called 'Bucolic' from the greater part [of its subject, i.e., herdsmen], although the discourses and songs of shepherds and goatherds are also inserted into these poems. [17] It is manifest that the prophet David first composed and sang hymns in praise of God.

Then, among the Gentiles, Memmia Timothoe was the first to make [hymns] to Apollo and the Muses; she lived in the times of Ennius, long after David. Now 'hymns' are rendered from Greek into Latin as 'praises.' [18] Epithalamia are the songs of the wedded, which are chanted by the scholars (scholastici) in honor of the bridegroom and the bride. Solomon first brought these forth, in praise of the Church and

Christ. From this the Gentiles claimed the epithalamium for themselves, and this kind of song was taken up. This genre was at first performed by the Gentiles upon the stage, but afterward clung only to weddings. It is called 'epithalamium' because it is sung in the bridal chambers (thalami). [19] The 'threnos,' which in Latin we call a 'lament,' Jeremiah first composed in verse over the city of Jerusalem

[when it was overthrown] and for the people [of Israel] when [they were overthrown and] led away captive. After him, among the Greeks, [came] Simonides the lyric poet. Now these laments were employed at funerals and mournings; and likewise even now. [20] 'Epitaphium' in Greek is in Latin 'over the tomb' (supra tumulum). For it is the inscription of the dead, which is made at their falling-asleep, when they are now deceased. For there is written

their life, their character, and their age. [21] 'Poesis' is the Greek name for a work of many books; 'poema,' of one; 'idyllion,' of a few verses; 'distichon,' of two; 'monostichon,' of one. [22] An 'epigram' is an inscription, which is rendered into Latin as 'superscription' (superscriptio); for EPI means 'upon,' and GRAMMA is said to be a 'letter' or a 'writing.' [23] The 'epode' is a short closing clause in a poem. And it is so named

the epode, which is sung in the fashion of the elegiac, where, after one longer line is set first, a shorter one is composed after it, and to each of the greater lines the following lesser ones re-echo, as it were, like refrains. [24] The lyric poets call these 'clausulae' (closes), as being shortened verses placed beneath complete ones, as in Horace (Epodes 2,1): 'Happy the man who, far from business affairs,' and then follows

the shortened line: 'as the ancient race of mortals'; and so on in alternation, [lines] in which some part is lacking, themselves like the preceding ones but smaller. [25] Among the grammarians those are commonly called 'centos' who, from the poems of Homer or Virgil, in the cento fashion, out of many pieces gathered here and there, patch together into one body for their own works, according to the possibilities of each subject-matter. [26]

Finally Proba, the wife of Adelphius, most fully expressed a cento drawn from Virgil concerning the fashioning of the world and the Gospels, the subject-matter being composed to suit the verses, and the verses fitted to the subject-matter. So too a certain Pomponius, from the same poet, among the other leisure-works of his pen, composed a 'Tityrus' in honour of Christ, and likewise one from the Aeneid. XL. ON FABLE. [1] Fables

the poets named from 'speaking' (fari), because they are not things done but only things feigned in speech. They were introduced for this purpose: that through the imagined conversation of dumb animals among themselves a certain likeness of human life might be recognized. Alcmaeon of Croton is said to have first invented them, and they are called Aesopian, because Aesop excelled in this matter among the Phrygians. [2] Now fables are either

Aesopian or Libyan. They are Aesopian when dumb animals are imagined to have conversed among themselves, or things that have no soul, such as cities, trees, mountains, rocks, and rivers. But they are Libyan when an exchange of speech is imagined between men and beasts, or between beasts and men. [3] The poets feigned some fables for the sake of delight, some with reference to the nature of things,

and some they have expounded with reference to human morals. [Those] feigned for the sake of delight, such as the ones people commonly tell, or such as Plautus and Terence composed. [4] They invent fables about the nature of things, as 'Vulcan is lame,' because by nature fire is never straight; or that three-formed beast (Lucretius 5,903): 'A lion in front, a serpent behind, herself in the middle a Chimaera' - that is,

a she-goat, since [the poets] wished by this to distinguish the ages of human life: of these the first, youth, is fierce and bristling, like a lion; the middle span of life is most clear-sighted, like a she-goat, because it sees most keenly; then comes old age, bent by misfortunes, the serpent. [5] So too the fable of the Hippocentaur was fabricated - that is, a man mingled with a horse - to express the swiftness of human life, because

it is agreed that the horse is very swift. [6] [Fables composed] with reference to morals, as in Horace a mouse speaks to a mouse and a weasel to a little fox, so that through a feigned narrative a truthful meaning may be applied to the matter at hand. Hence too the fables of Aesop are of this kind, related for a moral end; or as in the book of Judges (9,8) the trees seek a king for themselves and speak to the olive and to the fig and to the vine and to

the bramble; all of which is certainly framed with reference to morals, so that, by a narrative feigned indeed but with a truthful meaning, one may arrive at the matter that is intended. [7] So too Demosthenes the orator used a fable against Philip, who, when he demanded of the Athenians that ten orators be handed over to him and [then] he would withdraw, [Demosthenes] devised this fable to dissuade them, saying that once the wolves

persuaded the shepherds, whose vigilance they wished to deceive, that they should come together in friendship - on this condition, however: that since the dogs were the cause of the quarrels, these should by right be handed over to them. The shepherds assented and, in hope of security, gave up the dogs, whom they had kept as the most watchful guardians of their sheep. Then the wolves, all fear removed, [tore to pieces] everything that was in the flocks

were, tore to pieces, not merely to satisfy hunger but even out of wantonness. [So] Philip too was demanding the leading men of the people, that he might the more easily crush the city once it was stripped of its guardians. XLI. ON HISTORY. [1] History is the narration of a deed accomplished, by which the things that were done in the past are discerned. In Greek it is called 'history,' apo tou historein (from inquiring), that is, from

seeing or knowing. For among the ancients no one wrote history except one who had been present and had seen the things that were to be recorded. For we grasp better with our eyes the things that happen than what we gather by hearing. [2] For the things that are seen are set forth without falsehood. This discipline belongs to Grammar, because whatever is worthy of memory is committed to letters.

[to letters]. Histories are called 'monuments' (monumenta) for this reason, that they bestow the memory (memoria) of deeds done. And 'series' is so called by a metaphor drawn from garlands (serta) of flowers linked one to another. XLII. ON THE FIRST AUTHORS OF HISTORIES. [1] Among us, Moses was the first to write a history, concerning the beginning of the world. But among the gentiles, Dares the Phrygian was the first to publish a history, about the Greeks and Trojans;

he published a history which, they report, was written by him on palm leaves. [2] After Dares, in Greece Herodotus was reckoned the first [writer of] history. After him Pherecydes flourished in those times when Ezra wrote out the Law. XLIII. ON THE USEFULNESS OF HISTORY. [1] The histories of the gentiles do not hinder their readers in the things they have said usefully. For many wise men

have set down in their histories the past deeds of men for the instruction of those now living, since indeed both the whole reckoning of past times and years is comprehended through history, and through the succession of consuls and kings many necessary things are investigated. XLIV. ON THE KINDS OF HISTORY. [1] The kind of history is threefold. For the doing of a single day is called 'ephemeris.' This among

us is called a 'diary' (diarium). For what the Latins call 'diurnum' the Greeks call 'ephemeris.' [2] Those are called 'calendaria' which are distributed into the several months. 'Annals' are the affairs of individual years. [3] For whatever things worthy of memory, in peace and war, by sea and land, were recorded through the years in registers, they named 'annals' from the yearly (anniversaria) deeds. [4] History, however, is of many

years or times, and by its diligence the yearly registers have been transferred into books. Between history and annals there is this difference: that history is of those times which we have seen, but annals are of those years which our own age has not known. Hence Sallust consists of history, while Livy, Eusebius, and Jerome consist of both annals and history. [5] Likewise, between

history, plot (argumentum), and fable there is a difference. For histories are true things that have happened; plots are things which, though they have not happened, can nevertheless happen; but fables are things which neither have happened nor can happen, because they are contrary to nature.