The third cause of beautiful arrangement that was to be examined is variety. I do not mean the change from the better to the worse (that would be too foolish), nor yet that from the worse to the better, but variety among things that are similar. For satiety can be caused by all beautiful things, just as by things sweet to the taste, when there is an unvarying sameness about them; but if diversified by changes, they always remain new. Now writers in metre and in lyric measures cannot introduce change everywhere; or rather, I should say, cannot all introduce change, and none as much as they wish. For instance, epic writers cannot vary their metre, for all the lines must necessarily be hexameters; nor yet the rhythm, for they must use those feet that begin with a long syllable, and not all even of these. The writers of lyric verse cannot vary the melodies of strophe and antistrophe, but whether they adopt enharmonic melodies, or chromatic, or diatonic, in all the strophes and antistrophes the same sequences must be observed. Nor, again, must the rhythms be changed in which the entire strophes and antistrophes are written, but these too must remain unaltered. But in the so-called epodes both the tune and the rhythm may be changed. Great freedom, too, is allowed to an author in varying and elaborating the clauses of which each period is composed by giving them different lengths and forms in different instances, until they complete a strophe; but after that, similar metres and clauses must be composed for the antistrophe. Now the ancient writers of lyric poetry — I refer to Alcaeus and Sappho — made their strophes short, so that they did not introduce many variations in the clauses, which were few in number, while the use they made of the epode was very slight. Stesichorus and Pindar and their schools framed their periods on a larger scale, and divided them into many measures and clauses, simply from the love of variety. The dithyrambic poets used to change the modes also, introducing Dorian and Phrygian and Lydian modes in the same song; and they varied the melodies, making them now enharmonic, now chromatic, now diatonic; and in the rhythms they continually showed the boldest independence, — I mean Philoxenus, Timotheus, Telestes, and men of their stamp, — since among the ancients even the dithyramb had been subject to strict metrical laws.
Prose-writing has full liberty and permission to diversify composition by whatever changes it pleases. A style is finest of all when it has the most frequent rests and changes of harmony; when one thing is said within a period, another without it; when one period is formed by the interweaving of a larger number of clauses, another by that of a smaller; when among the clauses themselves one is short, another longer, one roughly wrought, another more finished; when the rhythms take now one form, now another, and the figures are of all kinds, and the voice-pitches — the so-called “accents” — are various, and skilfully avoid satiety by their diversity. There is considerable charm, among efforts of this kind, in what is so composed that it does not seem to be artificially composed at all. I do not think that many words are needed on this point. Everybody, I believe, is aware that, in prose, variety is full of charm and beauty. And as examples of it I reckon all the writings of Herodotus, all those of Plato, and all those of Demosthenes. It is impossible to find other writers who have introduced more episodes than these, or better-timed variations, or more multiform figures: the first in the narrative form, the second in graceful dialogue, the third in the practical work of forensic oratory. As for the methods of Isocrates and his followers, they are not to be compared with the styles of those writers. The Isocratic authors have composed much with charm and distinction; but in regard to change and diversity they are anything but happy. We find in them one continually recurring period, a monotonous order of figures, the invariable observance of vowel-blending, and many other similar things which fatigue the ear. I cannot approve that school on this side. In Isocrates himself, it may be conceded, many charms were displayed which helped to hide this blemish. But among his successors, by reason of their fewer redeeming excellences, the fault mentioned stands out more glaringly.