[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.1
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.2 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.
1 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.”
2 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）.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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