[Greek: GRIPHOI .]
You may also remark that each pair of feet consists of ten[1] letters; and you may produce the same effect not in this way, but in a different one, so as to have many ways of putting one line; for instead you may read—
[Greek: metron phrason moi, tôn podôn metron labôn;]
or this way—
[Greek: labôn metron moi tôn podôn, metron phrasôn.]
[And you may take this line too—]
[Greek: ou boulomai gar tôn podôn metron labein,]
[and transpose it thus—]
[Greek: labein metron gar tôn podôn ou boulomai.]
82. But Pindar, with reference to the ode which was composed without a [Greek: s] in it, as the same Clearchus tells us, as if some griphus had been proposed to him to be expressed in a lyric ode,—as many were offended because they considered it impossible to abstain from the [Greek: s], and because they did not approve of the way in which the idea was executed, uttered this sentence—
Before long series of songs were heard,
And the ill-sounding san from out men's mouths.
And we may make use of this observation in opposition to those who pronounce the sigma-less ode of Lasus of Hermione to be spurious, which is entitled The Centaurs. And the ode which was composed by Lasus to the Ceres in Hermione, has not a [Greek: s] in it, as Heraclides of Pontus says, in the third book of his treatise on Music, which begins—
I sing of Ceres and her daughter fair,
The bride of Clymenus.
83. And there are great numbers of other griphi. Here is one—
In a conspicuous land I had my birth,
The briny ocean girds my country round,
My mother is the daughter fair of Number.
By the conspicuous land ([Greek: phanera]) he means Delos (as [Greek: dêlos] is synonymous with [Greek: phaneros]), and that is an island surrounded by the sea. And the mother meant is Latona, who is the daughter of Coius, and the Macedonians use [Greek: koios] as synonymous with [Greek: arithmos]. And the one on barley-water ([Greek: ptisanê])—
Mix the juice of peel'd barley, and then drink it.
And the name [Greek: ptisanê] is derived from the verbs [Greek: ptissô], to
- ↑ There is some mistake here, for they consist of eleven.
