2
Now, that part of my essay which you may find to be the most erotic, so to speak, is on this topic, but the rest of it in part praises the lad himself and in part counsels about his education and his design for living.The author plainly hints at a threefold partition of his theme: the erotic part, Dem. 61.3-9, eulogy, Dem. 61.10-32, and the protrepticus, Dem. 61.36-55. Blass sees a twofold division only, eulogy and protrepticus. In either case the remaining sections serve as introduction, transition and epilogue. Exhortations to the study of philosophy were called protreptics. whole essay is written as one would put it into a book, because discourses intended to be delivered ought to be written simply and just as one might speak offhand, while those of the other kind, which are planned to last longer, are properly composed in the manner of poetry and ornately.There is a reference to these two styles in Isoc. 4.11, as Blass notes. The epideictic is akin to poetry in the use of figures of speech (see Dem. 61.11); the reference of ornately is chiefly to rhythm. In both the Funeral Speech (Dem. 60) and the Erotic Essay there is careful avoidance of hiatus; rhythmical clausulae are not infrequent; Gorgianic parallel clausulae occur (Dem. 61.32). For it is the function of the former to win converts and of the latter to display one’s skill. Accordingly, to avoid spoiling the essay for you or rehearsing my own opinions about these questions, I ask you to lend your attention, since you are immediately going to hear the essay itself, because Epicrates is also at hand, whom I wished to hear it.
