Henrici Stephani Epistola, qua ad multas multorum amicorum respondet, de suae typographiae statu, nominatimque de suo Thesauro linguae graecae. In posteriore autem ejus parte, quam misera sit hoc tempore veterum scriptorum conditio, in quorundam typographorum prela incidentium, exponit. Index librorum qui ex officina ejusdem Henrici Stephani hactenus prodierunt

EPIST. AD QVOSDAM AM.

By an error indeed entirely similar to these, there is read in them Ἐπώλειος, made from ἐπ' αὐλείου at the courtyard, which exists in the same poet, Odyssey α, στῆ δ' Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ πτωξύροις Ὀδυσῆος, οὐδ’ ἐπ' αὐλείου he stood in the district of Ithaca, at the gates of Odysseus, not at the courtyard. Among these must be placed also Πολυκέρδιον, from those places of the same poet in which is read πολὺ κέρδιον much more profitable. As Iliad η, πολὺ κέρδιον εἴη it would be much more profitable. And Iliad ε, and elsewhere, ἦ τ' αὖ πολὺ κέρδιον ἦεν it was indeed much more profitable. But lest we think they have snatched the occasion from Homer's words alone to invent these new words, and to enrich not only the lexicons but the Greek language in a new way: behold for you also other much more monstrous and prodigious things which are read in them: Γολαωνικῶ, and Ἀβραδούλη, and Ἀκονήλιτος, and Ἀμφιθερμοπύλας, and Ἀπυρωθερή, and Ἀρεικάτοχος, and Ἀναυλαπόντες, and Σφιτιθίω, and others which it would be a long task to recount all. But if Homer would not understand those former words of his that were depraved, what shall we say of these? Are they of such a kind that he could understand them? Indeed, let Hesiod and Orpheus come forth with Homer, let Theocritus come forth, let the learned Callimachus come forth, let that marvelous fabricator of words, Nicander, come forth, let finally whoever the poets were who once existed come forth, and with them the orators, the historians, whoever the writers in any kind Greece ever had: they will be stupefied and dumbfounded by those words of the vulgar Greek-Latin lexicons, hundred-times-re-compiled. What? Is this not to be given as great praise to those compilers, that they have certain words peculiar to themselves, to understand which the school of those most celebrated writers must be sought? What? Do they not merit well of the Greek language, who enrich it, otherwise lacking in words, with so many words? But that I may speak more seriously about a serious matter, I will add the meaning of each of these words which is held in those lexicons: and at the same time, I will show how the error comes about in each one.