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copy of the original and another, but exclusively concerns the best way of representing what is admitted to be in the original. One rendering conveys the meaning more readily or more precisely than another, and to ring the changes on fair alternatives is often very helpful, supplying a breadth or an exactness which can be had in no other way. Sometimes a rendering is too literal for the text, yet not too literal for the margin. Questions of decorum and euphemism may be allowed some influence. Humorous translations may sometimes do good service in the margin which could never be tolerated in the text. Moreover, a freer rendering may the sooner be allowed in the text, provided a more literal one be placed at the foot of the page. So much for "alternative renderings." "Various readings" are a very different matter. They have sole regard to variations which, in the course of transmission from an earlier age, have crept into different copies of or witnesses to the original. Concerning these, more information will be found in Chapter III. of this Introduction.

1. "Strike, but hear me!" exclaimed an ancient orator to an infuriated mob; that is, "Strike, if you will; but hear me first." In reading aloud this citation, some little stress is instinctively laid on the two words "strike" and "hear," thereby assisting the ear to catch the plainly intended contrast. A few years since, the same saying was modified in sense by a change of emphasis. A trade strike was pending, when an illustrated paper, giving an imposing figure representing "Law," put beneath the figure the legend, "Strike, but hear !" in this way not only investing the word "strike" with a modern significance, but suggesting, by the emphasis laid on the word "me," a timely contrast—as much as to say, "You have listened to other advisers: before you act on their counsel, hearken to me—consider whether your contemplated strike would be legal". This new point put into the old words would perhaps scarcely have been caught, even with the help of the symbolic figure of the cartoon, but for the outward and visible sign of emphasis attached to the closing word "me."

2. It is freely granted that context and circumstance, when known and considered, are in many cases alone sufficient to guide to correct emphasis, whether it be in ordinary