Page:Aristotle s Poetics Butcher.djvu/12

viii recognised as the true reading, the suppressed object being not the audience but the rhetoricians.

Once more, in xxiv. 9. 1460a 23, where Ac gives the meaningless Be, I read (as in the first edition), following the reviser of Ac. This reading, which was accepted long ago by Vettori, has been strangely set aside by the chief modern editors, who either adopt a variant or resort to conjecture, with the result that at the end of the sentence is forced into impossible meanings. A passage in the Rhetoric, i. 2. 1357a 17 ff., appears to me to determine the question conclusively in favour of. The passage runs thus: . The general idea is closely parallel to our passage of the Poetics, and the expression of it is similar, even the word (where the bare  might have been expected) in the duplicated phrase. One difficulty still remains. The subject to, is omitted. To supply it in thought is not, perhaps, impossible, but it is exceedingly harsh, and I have accordingly in this edition accepted Professor Tucker's conjecture, .