Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
[Transcriber's note: This book consists of themain text and a supplement ('Notes') which not only contains explanationson the background of some stories, but also explains less frequentwords (mostly in Greek). These refer to pages (and lines)of the main text. Therefore, the page numbers have been insertedby labels like '[Page x]' in the main text.
In the notes, refence is generally made to the first word of each noteor the first part (separated by '·') which is printed bold inthe text. To avoid distraction by too much formatting,they have only in a few exceptional cases marked by underscoreswhere the referenced words are not obvious.
Very few typos have also been marked,cf. notes in the text starting with 'typo'.]
OXFORDAT THE CLARENDON PRESS1909
This book contains most of Lucian's Dialogues,prepared for school use by certain omissions andchanges. The syntax has been changed where itdid not accord with the normal Attic (mostly inthe use of ἄν and a few particles), and rare or poeticalwords have sometimes been simplified. The style,however, is much what it was. It would not bepossible to make the style agree with the best Atticwithout a good deal of new writing; and, although thestyle of Lucian is more cumbrous than Plato's, yetthis very fault gives scope for paraphrase as a simplerstyle would not do. We shall see later how thiscomes into the question. It is a great comfort thatthe readers will forget most of the words and formsused, unless the master takes pains to fix them in thememory; in such cases he may fix the simpler paraphrase,leaving the verbiage to take care of itself. Ifthe pupils, after reading the book, can express themeaning of any passage in simpler words, they willunderstand the meaning, which is the essential thing;and if at the same time they are able to recognizeand understand certain long or ugly phrases, thatwill do them no harm. They will not be tempted touse these phrases rather than the simpler and easierphrases.
Moreover, such disadvantages as there are inLucian's style are many times outweighed by thelively interest that he inspires. I have found the Dialogues,as far as substance goes, an almost perfect bookfor a first author. Many of them are short enoughfor one lesson; all are full of wit, and such wit asthe boy's mind can enjoy. They also teach, or causeto be learnt, a good deal of mythology; and, sincethe humorous aspect of Olympus is natural to theGreek from Homer onwards, the reader will not geta false or unhistorical impression. He is not yetready to understand the serious side of Greekreligion, which will be impressed on him whenhe comes to read Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato.Moreover, the boy who leaves school after oneyear of Greek will carry with him from Luciana pleasant memory such as is not given by Greekgrammars and exercise-books. If he gives a secondyear to the study of Greek, he will have read someHomer or Herodotus, and Plato's Apology or someother prose work of value.
The notes are in Greek. They are meant to beused in a way shortly to be described; but anymaster who prefers to put them at once into the handsof his class will still find them useful. The boy isin that case given a choice of two things: either hemay read them, in which case some of his difficultiesare solved, but he has to read more Greek in orderto solve them; or he may look up the words andnames in his dictionary