Henr. Stephani Dialogus de bene instituendis Graecae linguae studiis

A decorative initial letter O containing floral motifs.

HENRI ESTIENNE TO THE READER.

I have finally undertaken a burden, heavy in my own judgment as well as that of others: yet a certain hope of mine made it light for me. For I hoped that when I had unburdened myself of this, I would be relieved of another, which is much heavier than the former. For since many people, partly in person and partly by their letters, were asking me how they might best organize their Greek language studies: and I, believing that to dismiss them without any response would be interpreted as either rudeness or even arrogance, and yet thinking it not safe enough to answer them off the cuff: I stood, as the old proverb says, between the sacred and the stone meaning "between a rock and a hard place", such that I would neither dismiss them without a response nor give one that satisfied me: especially since I was giving it (whatever it was) without any meditation. Now, moreover, because it happened that I was often asked about the one and the same thing, and often had to respond, that same cabbage original: "crambe" - a reference to the proverb "crambe repetita" (warmed-over cabbage), meaning tedious repetition repeated on both sides was killing me. Wherefore I frequently thought to myself that I had to undertake another burden to lighten this one: that burden, I say, of giving public advice on that matter about which I was so often consulted privately: so that, by publishing a book, I might send inquirers to it as my deputy. Why then (you will say) did you delay this writing so long, that you have almost taken away our hope for it? I will hide nothing from you. A certain oknos hesitation/sluggishness, intervening with various occupations, long delayed this attempt of mine: but when a sudden event had disturbed my printing house after my return from the court of our king (to such an extent that I was even forced to interrupt the second edition of Thucydides) and thus, with my printing occupations halted, that oknos hesitation alone remained for me to overcome: the struggle I had with it was so intense that at some point it finally departed, overcome: and I, immediately after its departure, gave myself for ten whole days to this one work, having promised my labor to many other works.

But because, so that I might fully perform the duty of a good advisor, I saw it was necessary also to give notice concerning the untrustworthy teachers of the Greek language,