Henr. Stephani Dialogus de bene instituendis Graecae linguae studiis

COR. I had forgotten those places where the same Moschopoulos includes three different spellings under one and the same heading. Among them is this: "Which words beginning with the syllable m are written with ι, which with η, and which with ε and the diphthong?" PH. Certainly, concerning these places, that same answer could be given, and that same excuse (if indeed the role of apologist is not being played by me in vain) could be offered. COR. To some extent, what you bring forward satisfies me, and at the same time it makes me greatly doubt the pronunciation of that time. The Greek language was already very inclined and had undergone great changes in the age of Eustathius (as is evident from many of his passages, and specifically those in which he mentions certain words of the speech he calls ἰδιωτικὸν vernacular/vulgar), which not undeservedly also increases that doubt. For Eustathius lived under the Emperor Andronicus, about the year of the birth of Christ 1180. PH. I infer from what you have brought forward from him that Eustathius is otherwise much more trustworthy than Moschopoulos, and was worth much more in judgment. COR. You are not mistaken at all. For Moschopoulos is everywhere consistent with himself. Just as, for example, we missed judgment in him for deriving κῦρος authority/power from κυέω to conceive/be pregnant, so also elsewhere, with no greater judgment, we see him deriving πόεις from πείζω. Moreover, memory or learning fails him in certain matters: as when he writes that ὥρα signifies two things, as well as φροντίδα care/thought and ὀμορφίαν beauty. But how ought he to have been ignorant, or forgotten, that while ὥραν signifies those two things, it does so in a different spelling? For it is agreed that the Greeks were accustomed to write ὥραν for beauty, but ὥραν for care; and from this comes not only ὀλιγωρῶ to neglect (as if one were to say "I have little care": just as Hesiod said "the care is small"—which seems to have provided the occasion for inventing those first two words of that compound)...