Institutio Oratoria

The reading of tragedy also is useful, and lyric poets will provide nourishment for the mind, provided not merely the authors be carefully selected, but also the passages from their works which are to be read. For the Greek lyric poets are often licentious and even in Horace there are passages which I should be unwilling to explain to a class. Elegiacs, however, more especially erotic elegy, and hendecasyllables, which are merely sections of Sotadean verse [*]( One form of Sotadean is ZZZ The Hendecasyllable runs ZZZ,= the Sotadean minus the first three syllables. Both metres were frequently used for indecent lampoons. For Sotades see index. ) (concerning which latter I need give no admonitions), should be entirely banished, if possible; if not absolutely banished, they should be reserved for pupils of a less impressionable age. As to comedy, whose contribution to eloquence may be of no small importance,