Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/16

xiv on one's mind by writers who adhere to the Latin forms of names, and by those, in our own country or in Germany, who return, as far as may be, to the Greek, the more I feel that the latter give one a sense of a distinct nationality and life which is wanting in the former. It is a gain, I believe, to get rid even of the Latinised termination in -us, and to reproduce the original in -os.

(5.) I have thought it right to meet the wishes of many readers by prefixing to each play a short argument, giving so much and no more of the story, as may enable one who starts with but little previous knowledge to take up the action of the drama at the point at which it opens, and follow it without difficulty to the end. I have, in like manner, acted on the suggestion that for such readers it is desirable to give, here and there, brief explanatory notes, enabling them to understand local or mythological allusions for which they would otherwise have to refer to a classical dictionary.

(6.) Lastly, I have indicated by brackets [] lines which are looked on by one or more critics of repute as spurious, and by an asterisk (*) the more prominent passages in which the text is so uncertain, or the construction so difficult, that the rendering must be looked on as, at best, somewhat uncertain.