To Aristaenetus. (360?)
You ask me to be honest about your latest speech, and I shall try -- though honesty between friends in matters of literary judgment is harder than either honesty or friendship taken alone.
The opening is excellent. You state the case with clarity and force, and the audience would have been captured from the first sentence. The middle section is where I have reservations. You multiply your arguments where you should be deepening them, and the effect is of a man proving the same point six times rather than one man proving six different points. Trim the redundancies, and what remains will be far more powerful.
The conclusion is strong -- perhaps your best. You have a gift for the kind of closing sentence that stays in the listener's mind long after the rest has faded. It is a rare talent, and you should trust it more.
There. I have been honest, and I hope I have not been hurtful. If I have, blame the honesty you asked for and forgive the friend who provided it.
You ask me to be honest about your latest speech, and I shall try -- though honesty between friends in matters of literary judgment is harder than either honesty or friendship taken alone.
The opening is excellent. You state the case with clarity and force, and the audience would have been captured from the first sentence. The middle section is where I have reservations. You multiply your arguments where you should be deepening them, and the effect is of a man proving the same point six times rather than one man proving six different points. Trim the redundancies, and what remains will be far more powerful.
The conclusion is strong -- perhaps your best. You have a gift for the kind of closing sentence that stays in the listener's mind long after the rest has faded. It is a rare talent, and you should trust it more.
There. I have been honest, and I hope I have not been hurtful. If I have, blame the honesty you asked for and forgive the friend who provided it.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.