The Characters of Theophrastus, Newly Edited and Translated by J.M
THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY T. E. PAGE, LITl-.D. E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, i.ttt.d. THE CHARACTERS OF THEOPHRASTUS HERODES, CERCIDAS, AND THE GREEK CHOLIAMBIC POETS (except callimachus and babrius) THE CHARACTEKS OF THEOPHRASTUS NEWLY EDITED AND TRANSLATED J. M. EDMONDS LATE FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS MCMXXIX PA PREFACE The Characters of Theophrastus are a good wine that needs no bush, but it has been bottled anew, and new bottles may need a word of recommendation. The mere existence of an early English translation such as Healey's would hardly justify an archaistic rendering, but the Character, in the hands of Hall, Overbury, and Earle, has become a native genre, and that, I think, is enough to make such a rendering the most palatable. And this style of translation, taunts of ' Wardour Street ' notwithstanding, has a great advantage. Greek, being itself simple, goes best into a simple style of English ; and in the seventeenth century it was still easy to put things simply without making them bald. A simple trans- lation into our modern dialect, if it is to rise above Translator's English, is always difficult and often unattainable. In preparing the text I have discarded rfluch of my earlier work, in the belief, shared no doubt by many scholars, that the discovery of papyrus frag- ments of ancient Greek books has shifted the editor's PREFACE bearings from Constantinople to Alexandria. With the ' doctrine of the normal line,' exploded by A.
[Show full text]