Kitap 9
3.3
Whilst he was discoursing thus, Zopyrion the grammarian sneered and muttered something between his teeth; and, as soon as he had done, cried out that he most egregiously trifled; for it was mere chance, and not design, that gave such a number and order to the letters, as it was mere chance that the first and last verses of Homer’s Iliads have just as many syllables as the first and last of his Odysseys.
Question IV. WHICH OF VENUS’S HANDS DIOMEDES WOUNDED. HERMEAS, ZOPYRION, MAXIMUS.
4.1
HERMEAS would have replied to Zopyrion, but we desired him to hold; and Maximus the rhetorician proposed to him this far-fetched question out of Homer, Which of Venus’s hands Diomedes wounded. And Zopyrion presently asking him again, Of which leg was Philip lame?—Maximus replied, It is a different case, for Demosthenes hath left us no foundation upon which we may build our conjecture. But if you confess your ignorance in this matter, others will show how the poet sufficiently intimates to an understanding man which hand it was. Zopyrion being at a stand, we all, since he made no reply, desired Maximus to tell us.
