PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
when,, after less than two years, the first edition of this
book had sold out, war-time conditions made reprinting
impossible, I had, at any rate, decided that a mere reprint
would not do The book needed revision and extension I was
dissatisfied with a great number of passages, and more were
brought to my notice by the criticisms of friends and reviewers
Looking back to the time when I was preparing the first
edition I sometimes wonder at my own — and the publisher's
— courage I had been enabled, largely through the help of
friends and colleagues, to overcome most of the set-backs
which resulted from my emigration But I had overestimated
my ability — since improved, I hope — of writing idiomatic
English, and had underestimated the difficulties before those
friends of mine who had generously offered their help, in
correcting a manuscript already much corrected and all the
time being altered, corrected and extended In the night-
marish process of shaping and re-shaping the text I was
unable to pay equal attention to the matter and the manner of
the book, thus a number of obscurities and errors were over-
looked This is my excuse, for what it is worth, for some of the
shortcomings of the earlier edition
The first principle to rule this new edition was to produce
a book which would be more readable For that purpose I
removed from the text all words in Greek letters, and —more
important — also those tedious obstacles to smooth reading,
the references in brackets scattered throughout the text They
can now all be found (and, if desired, easily skipped), together
with the notes, at the foot of the page, and I trust that this
arrangement, however old-fashioned and unpleasant to look
at, will be the lesser evil, and make the book easier to read both
to the general reader and to the scholar
Apart from this re-arrangement, the book has gone through
an intense revision of both style and contents Some arguments
have been expanded, some interpretations clarified, others
added, some sections completely re-written. References have
been checked and mistakes corrected Euripides has now been
added to my subsidiary sources — an omission in the first
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