Three Books on Harmonics by Claudius Ptolemy

PREFACE.

manuscripts I often see it marked: ) and thus dia e for dia touto through this; but hoti g' for hoti estin that it is; and similarly in others: (if it occurs elsewhere, it is an error:) however, in the notes (since I found that it was inconvenient for the typesetters to always append that in smaller letters), we have omitted placing the line above, but the reader should understand it as if it were appended.

Regarding punctuation; since they were often (in all these codices) either omitted or incorrectly placed (and thus either of no use or even a hindrance), I have used the liberty to change them at my discretion, and to restore them in such a way that (as much as I could) they serve to clarify the meaning. This was a task of no small labor: for in countless places where punctuation marks were either entirely missing or (which is worse) were incorrectly and confusedly placed, it was not easy to conjecture (especially in longer sentences, and ones full of errors and teeming with mistakes simultaneously) to what each part refers and to what they cohere.

And since different people use different methods of punctuating; and it is quite difficult to fix certain laws for this business, since much must be permitted to judgment: lest I appear to have done it without any reason if perhaps I have sometimes done it otherwise than another might wish; I have decided to say briefly what I have proposed for myself in this matter.

There is no one who doubts that complete periods must be closed with a full stop (as they call it); and indeed, for the most part, followed by a capital letter; at least unless a new sentence, appended to the preceding one, adheres to it so that it seems as if suspended from it; in which case, the following lowercase letter warns us that we should consider the meaning as hardly yet perfect, at least less perfect than it will soon be.

But where a period needs to be distributed into several members, and perhaps each of these into several clauses, and these into several particles, or even further subdivided (which happens often here in the Greek text): I have attempted to distinguish the members of the first distribution with a larger point; the clauses of these with a smaller one; and the parts of these with an even smaller one; and so on, as far as the scarcity of points allowed: so that a larger point, where it occurs, hints at a look-back beyond those things that had previously been distinguished by smaller points; and a larger punctuation mark rarely occurs (and only when forced) between some parts of a clause than had been at the beginning of that clause.

However, I consider a colon to be a larger point than a comma; and that with a following capital letter, rather than with a following lowercase letter; likewise in Latin (but not in Greek) another mark is often placed between a colon and a comma (which is smaller than the former, and larger than the latter); as if mixed from both; but the largest of all is the Period, unless there is use (besides such points) of paragraphs, sections, and other larger distinctions of this kind.

For this reason, which I have stated; when a common word needs to be referred to two or more things (distinguished by a point); (whether that common word precedes or follows;) I am accustomed to separate it with a point as well (perhaps differently than others do), so that it is immediately apparent to the eye that it should be referred to each, or to the individuals.

Likewise, where the subject of a proposition (as they say), or the predicate (or another similar thing), consists of several words, which nevertheless are held as one term, I not infrequently close it with a comma (or even place it between two commas), so that it is immediately perceived how far it reaches.

I do the same (there are many uses of commas, indeed) if it were ever ambiguous whether some word should be considered to cohere with what precedes or what follows; for, with a comma thus inserted, the hesitation is removed.