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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: necessary in prose as well as in verse: clauses, sentences, paragraphs,
must be in due proportion. Metre and even rhyme may be rarely admitted;
though neither is a legitimate element of prose writing, they may help to
lighten a cumbrous expression (Symp.). The translation should retain as
far as possible the characteristic qualities of the ancient writer--his
freedom, grace, simplicity, stateliness, weight, precision; or the best
part of him will be lost to the English reader. It should read as an
original work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be
made of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently with
the first requirement of all, that it be English. Further, the translation
being English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without
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