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“The Voices of the Pages”: Contributions to the Question of Oral Reading and Writing

József Balogh
Traduction de Anne Kispal et Greg Brooks
p. 161-207

Notes de l’auteur

Translation of doctoral thesis titled “Voces paginarumAdalékok a hangos olvasás és irás kérdéséhez. Original published by Franklin and Company, the Official Hungarian Institute and Book Printing House, Budapest 1921. [http://real-eod.mtak.hu/6037/1/Voces_Paginarium.pdf]

Texte intégral

Körper und Stimme leiht die Schrift dem stummen Gedanken.Durch der Jahrhunderte Strom trägt ihn das redende Blatt.
Schiller

Writing lends body and voice to the silent thought. The speaking page carries it through the stream of centuries.(Translation by Greg Brooks)

1At this position in his 1921 dissertation Balogh reproduced the central section of a 4th century AD sarcophagus of a Greek doctor found in Rome. For details, see the “Notes on Balogh’s frontispiece” appended to this translation.

Sarcophagus with a Greek physician

Sarcophagus with a Greek physician

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1. The Question

2In his pamphlet “Against the ignorant book collector” (circa AD 170), the rhetorician Lucian criticised the practice of the indiscriminate purchase of worn out, worm-eaten books without any idea of their content:

ἵνα δέ σοι δῶ αὐτὰ ἐκεῖνα κεκρικέναι, ὅσα ὁ Καλλῖνος εἰς κάλλος ἢ ὁ ἀοίδιμος Ἀττικὸς σὺν ἐπιμελείᾳ τῇ πάσῃ ἔγραψαν, σοὶ τί ὄφελος, ὦ θαυμάσιε, τοῦ κτήματος οὔτε εἰδότι τὸ κάλλος αὐτῶν οὔτε χρησομένῳ ποτὲ οὐδὲν μᾶλλον ἢ τυφλὸς ἄν τις ἀπολαύσειε κάλλους παιδικῶν; σὺ δὲ ἀνεῳγμένοις μὲν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾷς τὰ βιβλία, καὶ νὴ Δία κατακόρως, καὶ ἀναγιγνώσκεις ἔνια πάνυ ἐπιτρέχων, φθάνοντος τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ τὸ στόμα· οὐδέπω δὲ τοῦτό μοι ἱκανόν, ἢν μὴ εἰδῇς τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ κακίαν ἑκάστου τῶν ἐγγεγραμμένων καὶ συνίῃς ὅστις μὲν ὁ νοῦς σύμπασιν, τίς δὲ ἡ τάξις τῶν ὀνομάτων. (Lucian of Samosata, Adversusindoctum, 2)

Yet suppose I grant you [Balogh interpolates: he writes] that you have selected the very éditions de luxe that were prepared by Callinus or by the famous Atticus with the utmost care. What good, you strange person, will it do you to own these treasures [Balogh interpolates: your library], when you do not understand their beauty and will never make use of it one whit more than a blind man would enjoy beauty in favourites? To be sure you look at your books with your eyes open and quite as much as you like, and you read some of them aloud with great fluency, keeping your eyes in advance of your lips; but I do not consider that enough, unless you know the merits and defects of each passage in their contents, unless you understand what every sentence means, how to construe the words… (Harmon 1921: 177)

  • 1  Translators’ notes: We have provided the Greek original of the whole passage. In his footnote (now (...)

3So, the ill-educated book snob’s mouth could not keep up with his eyes. The more educated reader clearly read with eyes and voice following the text in parallel. In other words, the educated man in Lucian’s time read aloud. Wieland, who translated Lucian’s works into German between 1788 and 1799, recognised the problem underlying the five Greek words which mean “the eye running ahead of the mouth”1, and wrote in a marginal note:

Diese Stelle beweiset, dünkt mich, deutlich genug, daß die Alten (wenigstens die Griechen) alle Bücher, die einen Werth hatten, laut zu lesen pflegten, und dass es bei Ihnen Regel war, ein gutes Buch müsse laut gelesen werden. Diese Regel ist so sehr in der Natur der Sache begründet, und daher so indispensabel, dass sich mit bestem Grunde behaupten lässt, alle Dichter und überhaupt alle Schriftsteller von Talent, und Geschmack müssen laut gelesen werden, wenn nicht die Hälfte ihrer Schönheiten für den Leser verloren gehen sollen. (Wieland 1788-1789, part 6: 35 note 3)

This passage shows quite clearly, in my opinion, that the ancients, at least the Greeks, customarily read aloud all books that had value for them, and that it was their rule that a good book must be read aloud. This rule was so well-justified in the nature of things, and therefore so indispensable, that it can be asserted with good reason that all poets, and in general all writers of talent and taste, had to be read aloud if half of their beauties were not to be lost to the reader. (Translated by Greg Brooks)

4To this very day, scholarship has neither noticed Wieland’s marginal note nor has it understood the meaning of Lucian’s statement (in fact, it was only rediscovered in 1898) and the matter of reading aloud came to the attention of Nietzsche one hundred years later, only in 1885, when he wrote:

Welche Marter sind deutsch geschriebene Bücher für Den, der das dritte Ohr hat!... Wie wenig der deutsche Stil mit dem Klange und mit den Ohren zu thun hat, zeigt die Thatsache, dass gerade unsre guten Musiker schlecht schreiben. Der Deutsche liest nicht laut, nicht für’s Ohr, sondern bloss mit den Augen: er hat seine Ohren dabei in’s Schubfach gelegt. Der antike Mensch las, wenn er las – es geschah selten genug – sich selbst etwas vor, und zwar mit lauter Stimme; man wunderte sich, wenn jemand leise las und fragte sich insgeheim nach Gründen. Mit lauter Stimme: das will sagen, mit all den Schwellungen, Biegungen, Umschlägen des Tons und Wechseln des Tempo’s, an denen die antike öffentliche Welt ihre Freude hatte. (Nietzsche 1886, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 247 note)

What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a THIRD ear!... How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the ear, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves write badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the ear, but only with his eyes; he has put his ears away in the drawer for the time. In antiquity when a man read – which was seldom enough – he read something to himself, and in a loud voice; they were surprised when any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it. In a loud voice: that is to say, with all the bombast, inflections, and variations of key and changes of TEMPO, in which the ancient PUBLIC world took delight. (Zimmern 1909: 202-203)

5Nietzsche’s note suffered the same fate as Wieland’s: no one paid any attention to the issue. In fact, over many years the readers of “Beyond Good and Evil” puzzled (if indeed anyone puzzled over this question at all) what Nietzsche meant when he wrote: “They were surprised when any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it.” Today we finally know that these words refer to a passage in St. Augustine’s Confessions which has since then – completely independently of Nietzsche – become famous and has in fact become the locus classicus of the entire problem.

  • 2 Translators’ note: In his dissertation Balogh provided only part of this passage from Augustine (fr (...)

6In AD 384 (two years before his conversion), St. Augustine arrived in Milan and put his Manichaean delusions to bed, but he was not yet a Christian. He became a great devotee of the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. It was the rhetoric – primarily the oratory – of this eminent preacher that interested Augustine, but Ambrose’s great words also sowed the seeds of faith in his heart. Philosophical scholarship, sectarian traditions, youthful grace, but above all an emerging faith all competed with each other here. Augustine’s only wish was to reveal his doubts to Ambrose but he never had the opportunity for this:2

nec iam ingemescebam orando ut subvenires mihi, sed ad quaerendum intentus et ad disserendum inquietus erat animus meus, ipsumque Ambrosium felicem quendam hominem secundum saeculum opinabar, quem sic tantae potestates honorarent; caelibatus tantum eius mihi laboriosus videbatur. quid autem ille spei gereret, et adversus ipsius excellentiae temptamenta quid luctaminis haberet quidve solaminis in adversis, et occultum os eius, quod erat in corde eius, quam sapida gaudia de pane tuo ruminaret, nec conicere noveram nec expertus eram, nec ille sciebat aestus meos nec foveam periculi mei. non enim quaerere ab eo poteram quod volebam, sicut volebam, secludentibus me ab eius aure atque ore catervis negotiosorum hominum, quorum infirmitatibus serviebat. cum quibus quando non erat, quod perexiguum temporis erat, aut corpus reficiebat necessariis sustentaculis aut lectione animum.Sed cum legebat, oculi ducebantur per paginas et cor intellectum rimabatur, vox autem et lingua quiescebant, sæpe, cum adessemus – non enim vetabatur quisque ingredi aut ei venientem nuntiari mos erat – sic eum legentem vidimus tacite et aliter nunquam sedentesque in diuturno silentio – quis enim tam intento esse oneri auderet? – discedebamus et coniectabamus eum parvo ipso tempore, quod reparandæ menti suæ nanciscebatur, feriatum ab strepitu causarum alienarum nolle in aliud avocari et cavere fortasse, ne auditore suspenso et intento, si qua obscurius posuisset ille quem legeret, etiam exponere esset necesse aut de aliquibus difficilioribus dissertare quæstionibus atque huic operi temporibus inpensis minus quam vellet voluminum evolveret, quamquam et causa servandae vocis, quæ illi facillime obtundebatur, poterat esse iustior tacite legendi. Quolibet tamen animo id ageret, bono utique ille vir agebat. (Augustine, Confessions, VI. 3)

Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldst help me; but my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restless to dispute. And Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom personages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore within him, what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very excellencies, or what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth of his spirit, when chewing the cud thereof, I neither could conjecture, nor had experienced. Nor did he know the tides of my feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I could not ask of him, what I would as I would, being shut out both from his ear and speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he served. With whom when he was not taken up (which was but a little time), he was either refreshing his body with the sustenance absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading. But when he was reading, his eye glided over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest. Ofttimes when we had come (for no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that any who came should be announced to him), we saw him thus reading silently, and never otherwise; and having long sat silent (for who durst intrude on one so intent?) we were fain to depart, conjecturing that in the small interval which he obtained, free from the din of others’ business, for the recruiting of his mind, he was loth to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded lest if the author he read should deliver anything obscurely, some attentive or perplexed hearer should desire him to expound it, or to discuss some of the harder questions; so that his time being thus spent, he could not turn over so many volumes as he desired; although the preserving of his voice (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the truer reason for his reading to himself. But with what intent soever he did it, certainly in such a man it was good. (Pusey 1937: 69-70, with one amendment: translation of tacite changed from “to himself” to “silently”)

7In Eduard Norden’s “Antike Kunstprosa” – the first systematic analysis of the problems of rhetoric – the practice of “reading aloud” was finally acknowledged. In the introduction to the work, Norden amongst other things wrote about the extent to which ancient man was receptive to the beauty of the living word. It is in this connection that he cited St. Augustine’s quotation above, to which his attention was first drawn by Otto Seeck:

Eine vielleicht wenigen bekannte Tatsache ist es dass man in Altertum laut zu lesen pflegte. Über derartige Dinge, die in den Augen der Menschen, die sie treiben, selbstverständlich sind, pflegt eine Tradition zu fehlen und so ist es denn in diesem Falle auch bezeichnend, dass an der einzigen Stelle, an welcher diese Sache erwähnt zu werden scheint, von dem leisen Lesen eines Mannes, als einer Abnormität gesprochen wird, wodurch die Stelle für uns um so lehrreicher und beweisender ist. (Norden Antike Kunstprosa, 1898, 6.1)

It is perhaps a too little-known fact that people in antiquity customarily read aloud. There is no tradition about things that are taken for granted in the eyes of the people who do them. For our present concern, it is therefore telling that, in the only place where this matter seems to be mentioned, a manʼs silent reading is spoken of as an abnormality, which makes the passage all the more instructive and probative for us. (Translated by Greg Brooks)

8In 1898, therefore, the practice of reading aloud was still only supported by one single piece of evidence. Twenty years later the number had greatly multiplied, although the nature of the phenomenon made systematic research impossible. Siegfried Sudhaus contributed some details in an essay on the related subject of praying aloud in 1906. In the meantime, Norden listed evidence communicated to him in his Antike Kunstprosa volumes II (1909) and III (1915). However, all of this is still rather little. The 15-20 excerpts from ancient writers that had been published thus far were also of varying value and of varying authoritativeness.

  • 3 When quoting evidence that has already been cited, I shall use the abbreviations AKpr to refer to N (...)

9For the first time, I will try to summarise and supplement everything we know about this peculiar phenomenon with the data I have collected since 1913.3

10My research questions are:

  • Is there evidence that everything that we are accustomed to reading silently nowadays was read aloud in antiquity?

  • For how long did this practice persist in the Middle Ages?

  • Was writing also a vocalised activity?

    • 4 I take the opportunity here to thank my former teachers: Dr Eduard Norden, University of Berlin, wh (...)

    What is the explanation for this peculiar phenomenon?4

2. Evidence

11If we consider the two dozen quotations taken from the writers of antiquity quoted so far in this work, very peculiar readers/writers come to life before us. Norden correctly observed that things that are unremarkable in the eyes of contemporaries are usually omitted from the history books. As a consequence, reading aloud can be proven primarily by sources that mention exceptions – cases when someone breaks with common practice and has special reasons for reading silently, or when someone is prevented from reading aloud by some circumstance or other. We indicated above that it was precisely these instances that alerted scholarship to the existence of this practice.

  • 5 I investigate this in greater detail in my work on St. Augustine’s Confessions (“Vasa lecta et pret (...)
  • 6 A.Kpr. R. Gottwald drew Norden’s attention to this text.

12As witnessed and recorded by St. Augustine, we see St. Ambrose, sitting in his room and, for inexplicable reasons, perhaps because of a sore throat, reading silently. Busy people were coming and going around him but, when they espied the bishop engrossed in a book, they stopped and stared in awe, only to proceed – later on – to discuss this remarkable phenomenon with each other at length. St. Augustine himself at the turning point in his life, in the moment of his conversion, hearing the words: tolle, lege (“take and read”), read silently the first verse of the Bible at which he happened to glance: “arripui (codicem), aperui et legi in silentio capitulum, quo primum coniecti sunt oculi mei” (“I seized [the book], opened it, and silently read the chapter that my eyes first fell upon”) (Confessions VIII. 29; translated by Greg Brooks).5 Zeal banished St. Augustine’s voice at this fateful moment, while that of St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ voice was stolen by a traumatic reading experience. “Whenever I read Jeremiah’s lamentations” – he wrote of himself – “my voice fails me”:6

Ἑγὼ γοῦν ὁσάκις ἂν ταύτην ἀναλάβω τὴν βίβλον, καὶ τοῖς θρήνοις συγγένωμαι, συγγίνομαι δ’ ὁσάκις ἂν εὐημερίαν σωφρονίσαι ἐθελήσω τῷ ἀναγνώσματι, ἐγκόπτομαι τὴν φωνὴν… (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 6, 18)

For myself, whenever I pick up this book and give myself over to Lamentations (which I do whenever I want through the reading to dampen excessive optimism), my voice chokes. (Vinson 2003: 17)

13Above we encountered Lucian’s book snob, whose mouth could not keep pace with his eyes or, in other words, read in fits and starts, but history tells us that even Socrates struggled with difficulties during reading and writing, laughably stuttering like a child:

…ἀλλ’ εἶναι γελοῖον, ὁπότε δε δέοι ἢ γράψαι ἢ ἀναγνῶναι, βατταρίζοντα, ὥσπερ τὰ παιδία. (Theodoretus, Græcarum affectionum curatio, I. 29)

But it was ridiculous, whenever he had to read or write, he stammered like a child.(Translation by Greg Brooks)

14The exceptional practice of silent reading was also mentioned by Suetonius in his biography of Augustus. Augustus introduced a systematic certification procedure in which Knights were to appear before a committee (consisting of Augustus and ten senators) and to report on their affairs. The committee distributed punishments and reprimands. The least severe of all punishments consisted of the guilty party being handed a list of all his misdemeanours and having to read them all in silence:

Impetratisque a senatu decem adiutoribus unum quemque equitum rationem vitæ reddere coegit atque ex improbatis alios poena, alios ignominia notavit, plures admonitione sed varia. Lenissimum genus admonitionis fuit traditio coram pugillarium, quos taciti et ibidem statim legerent; notavitque aliquos quod pecunias louioribus usuris mutuati graviore fænore collocassent. (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 39)

Having obtained ten assistants from the Senate, he compelled each Knight to render an account of his life, punishing some of those whose conduct was scandalous, and degrading others; but the greater part he reprimanded with varying degrees of severity. The mildest form of reprimand was to hand them a pair of tablets publicly, which they were to read in silence on the spot. He censured some because they had borrowed money at low interest and invested it at a higher rate. (Rolfe 1913: 208-209)

  • 7 SS.

15The fact that Suetonius deliberately stressed the word taciti (in silence) clearly demonstrates that reading was customarily carried out aloud. Apparently, it was a form of leniency for the accused to be allowed to read his criminal record, which was, of course, known to the members of the adjudicating council, silently: taciti indicating leniency and statim (immediately) indicating punishment.7

16Horace expressly emphasised that “silent reading brings him pleasure”:

ad quartam iaceo, post hanc vagor; aut ego, lecto
aut scripto quod me tacitum iuvet, unguor olivo. (Horace, Satires. I. 6.122-123)

  • 8   In relation to this quotation from Horace, Sudhaus further refers to the following lines of Draco (...)

I lie a-bed till ten; then I take a stroll, or after reading or writing something that will please me in quiet moments I anoint myself with oil.8 (Fairclough 1926: 86)

17The interpreter’s (L. Müller’s) remark (“tacitum: This means that during his studies no-one disturbed Horace”) is meaningless, as is this translation: “Was im Stillen mich belustigt” (“Something that amuses me in silence”) (Wieland).

18In another satire, we encounter a peculiar, subtly motivated case of silent reading. In Satires Book II, Satire V, lines 51-55, Tiresias provided Ulysses with cumbersome advice about how to remedy his dire financial situation by securing a rich inheritance. In the course of the discussion, there are two mentions of a legacy. The first time it is in general terms: if you get the chance – says Tiresias – to familiarise yourself with the will that may make you rich, keep your distance from it, but have a quick squint at it and extract the most important thing from it: whether your name is there, in the second row (amongst the heirs); and with a quick glance find out whether you will have to share your inheritance with others:

qui testamentum tradet tibi cumque legendum
abnuere et tabulas a te removere memento,
sic tamen ut
limis rapias quid prima secundo
cera velit versu, solus multisne coheres

veloci percurre oculo. (Horace, Satires II, V, 51-55)

If someone hands you his will to read, decline,
And remember to push the thing far from you,
But snatch a sidelong glance at the second line
Of page one: run your eye over it quickly to see
If you’re one of many. (Kline 2005: part 3)

19Horace was clearly alluding to some previous incident because he returned to the subject. On this occasion, he puts before us a scene to justify the advice above. After much persuasion, another legacy hunter (Nasica) eventually secured the will in his hands, ran silently through it and saw that he had been annulled from it:

tabulas socero dabit atque
ut legat orabit; multum Nasica negatas
accipiet tandem et
tacitus leget, invenietque
nil sibi legatum præter plorare suisque
 (Horace, Satires II, V, 66-69)

The son-in-law will hand his will to his father-in-law
To read: After many a refusal Nasica
Will take it at last and read it silently, finding
That nothing’s left to him and his, except lament. (Kline 2005: part 3)

  • 9   N.B. In Wieland’s translation, the word tacitus was translated as “verstohlenerweise” (furtively) (...)

20The first of these quotations explains the second. The words “snatch a sidelong glance” and “run your eye over it quickly” all culminate in the act of “read[ing] it silently”. The rogue, after much persuasion, makes a show of accepting the wax document while feigning complete indifference. Then later – at an opportune moment – with a lightning-quick glance, he pounces (rapit) on the document (primed to extract only the essential from it). It is not unfamiliar in ancient literature: that what was regarded as peculiar or unique (in this case being silent) does not strike us as peculiar at all.9

  • 10   Cydippe reads the letter from Acontius silently (Ovid, Heroides, XXI. i). Further discussion of t (...)

21In the cases listed here, reading aloud was replaced for different reasons by (faltering, hesitant, stumbling) silent reading.10

22In contrast to these, there are two cases in which reading aloud rises to passionate recitation. We find one of these in St. Augustine’s Confessions, where we have already found two pieces of evidence, and the other in the writings of St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

23After his conversion, Augustine withdrew with his holy mother and a fellow convert, Alypius, to the estate of a friend in Cassiciacum. Here, in this deeply religious environment, he read the psalms of David for the first time. Within Augustine there still resided a poet, a philosopher and a rhetorician. The poet was struck by the unaccustomed beauty of this work. The psalmist’s dialogue with God gave rise to dialectic discussion, while the rhetorician felt David’s prayers as a revelation, as a type of symbolic autobiography for the whole world that also represented his own destiny (probably inspiring the Confessions):

Quas tibi, deus meus, voces dedi, cum legerem psalmos David… Quas tibi uoces dabam in psalmis illis, et quomodo in te inflammabar ex eis, et accendebar eos recitare, si possem, toto orbi terrarum… (Augustine, Confessions IX.4)

Oh, what utterances did I send up unto You, my God, when I read the Psalms of David! Oh, what utterances did I send up unto You in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards You by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world… (Pusey 1876. [Translators’ note: Balogh does not give the Latin of this or the next paragraph in full; they are provided here for reference.])

24And how he wished that the Manichees, his former fellows in religious delusion, could now observe, without his knowledge, the change in his face and hear his voice as he read the fourth psalm:

Audirent ignorante me, utrum audirent, ne me propter se illa dicere putarent, quae inter haec verba dixerim, quia et re vera nec ea dicerem nec sic ea dicerem, si me ab eis audiri viderique sentirem… (Augustine, Confessions IX.4)

Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me… (Pusey 1876)

25It is clear from the description of this significant scene that St. Augustine was alone in his room: for he wished that his opponents were there and added – being a writer who was keen on psychological detail – that he would no doubt have spoken differently if anyone had been there to hear him. So, he was alone and reading the psalms in a loud voice (“Quas tibi voces dabam in psalmis illis” [“what utterances did I send up unto You in those Psalms”], “et audirent voces meas, quando legi psalmum” [“and would that they heard my utterances when I read the psalm”], “et exclamabam legens haec foris et agnoscens intus” [“and I uttered it outwardly as I read and experienced it inwardly”], “et clamabam in consequenti versu clamore alto cordis mei” [“and in the next verse I shouted with the high sound of my heart”]).

26And here and there he inserted his own thoughts and feelings into the verses of the psalm - also aloud, for the Manichees to hear if they had been there (“quae inter haec verba dixerim” [“which words I said among those”], “et haec omnia exibant per oculos et vocem meam …” [“and all these things were expressed through my eyes and my voice…”], “et insonui multa graviter et fortiter, […] quae utinam audissent” [“and I proclaimed many things gravely and loudly […] for any to hear”]).

27St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote of a similarly fiery recitation in his writings about his teacher, Basil. He took some of Basil’s texts line by line and recorded his reactions to each – a reaction that is similar to mystic ecstasy. Basil’s moral philosophy cleansed St. Gregory, body and soul. It transformed him into a temple worthy of admitting God, into an instrument which, touched by the Holy Spirit, sang the praises and powers of God. The reader was filled with rhythm and harmony; he became a completely different being; he underwent a divine transformation:

Ἑγὼ τоῦτо μόνον αὐτоῦ διηγήσоμαι, [ὅταν τὴν ἑξαήµερον αὐτοῦ µεταχειρίζωµαι] καὶ δία γλώσσης φέρω, μέτα τοῦ κτίστου γίνομαι, καὶ γινώσκω κτίστεως λόγους, καὶ θαυμάζω τὸν κτίστην πλέον ἢ πρότερον, ὄψει µόνῃ διδασκάλῳ χρώμενος. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, LXVII.I)

  • 11   Translators’ comment: The Greek text in Balogh’s original footnote 11 has a few transcription err (...)

I will say only this of him. [Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron,] and take its words on my lips, I am brought into the presence of the Creator, and understand the words of creation, and admire the Creator more than before, using my teacher as my only means of sight.11 (Brown & Swallow 1894: 417-418)

  • 12   The ancient Christian writers fought against this “unity”; the significance of the form was quest (...)

28An important piece of evidence for reading aloud is “I carry (it) on my tongue.” But even more important than the evidence is the context: we see how for ancient man the enjoyment of form and content, intellect and pathos became an indivisible unit.12 The style of text that the reader experienced in this way also required the writer to produce a different kind of creative work than that required by the silent reader of our time. As reading aloud was lost, so undoubtedly was the sensitivity to formal stylistic perfection, constituting one half of the writers art, revived only occasionally by later humanists, such as Flaubert and Walter Pater, who will be discussed below.

  • 13   For Augustine’s antitheses, see my work entitled Vasa lecta et pretiosa (“A chosen and precious v (...)

29Above, I quoted the following sentence from the chapter in his Confessions concerning Augustine’s ecstatic reading experience: “et exclamabam legens haec foris et agnoscens intus” (“and I uttered it outwardly as I read and experienced it inwardly”). This thoroughly typical Augustinian antithesis13 deserves special attention. “Reading on the outside, experiencing on the inside.” The distinction and the connection between these sensory and intellectual operations are only understandable in the context of reading aloud. That ancient man saw reading as a three-in-one function is demonstrated in the beginning of a letter from Augustine to Nebridius (Translators’ note: actually from Nebridius to Augustine): “I will take care of your letter as if it were the light of my eyes. Because its style is so beautiful that it is a pleasure to listen to; and it is so short that it is easy to read; and so wise that it is kind on the intellect.”

Epistulas tuas perplacet ita servare, ut oculus meos. Sunt enim magnæ, non quantitate, sed rebus et magnarum rerum magnas continent probationes. Illæ mihi Christum, illæ Platonem, illæ Plotinum sonabunt. Erunt igitur mihi et ad audiendum propter eloquentiam dulces et ad legendum propter brevitatem faciles, et ad intelligendum propter sapientiam salubres. (Nebridius, Letter to Augustine. Letter VI in Augustine, Letters)

  • 14   Translators’ note: Both Balogh’s 1921 thesis and the 1998 replika reprint contain the non-existen (...)

I shall take care of your letters as though they were my eyes. For they are significant, not in number but in content, and contain proofs of many great matters. They bring me the voices of Christ, Plato and Plotinus. So for me they will be a pleasure to hear because of their eloquence, easy to read because they are short, and healthy for the mind because of their wisdom.14 (Translated by Anne Kispal from Balogh’s translation into Hungarian)

  • 15   See below for evidence concerning acoustics.

30Firstly, of course, these sentences are evidence of reading aloud, not only because of the reference to “ad audiendum propter eloquentiam dulces” [“a pleasure to hear because of their eloquence”], but also because of the sentiment that the writer wishes to express in saying, “Illæ mihi Christum, illæ Platonem, illæ Plotinum sonabunt” [“Your letter awakens thoughts of Christ, Plato and Plotinus” (Translators’ note: This translation is loose – that given above is more accurate)]. In ancient man, the written letter primarily evokes an acoustic image, as he interprets writing largely by hearing it and therefore conveys the effect of the letter via the verb sonare.15 The citation from Augustine’s [Nebridius’s] letter also illuminates the three-part activity of audire-legere-intelligere (hearing-reading-understanding). We only have to recall Lucian’s fool, who sees the text with his eyes but whose lips cannot keep track – with understanding not even deserving of a mention. We will need to return to the three-in-one function of reading when we examine the reasons for reading aloud below.

31Although the exceptions listed so far are of evidential value, they are somewhat different from the normal technique of reading. In the following five scenes, we will be dealing with everyday reading events, which were recorded only because in each case the solitary reader was surprised by others who became witnesses by virtue of what they heard.

32The most surprising and at the same time the most beautiful of these is the scene which we find in Acts of the Apostles:

Ἄγγελος δὲ κυρίου ἐλάλησεν πρὸς Φίλιππον λέγων, Ἀνάστηθι καὶ πορεύου κατὰ μεσημβρίαν ἐπὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν καταβαίνουσαν ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλὴμ εἰς Γάζαν· αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος.
καὶ ἀναστὰς ἐπορεύθη· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ Αἰθίοψ εὐνοῦχος δυνάστης Κανδάκης βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων, ὃς ἦν ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς γάζης αὐτῆς, ὃς ἐληλύθει προσκυνήσων εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ,
ἦν τε ὑποστρέφων καὶ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τοῦ ἅρματος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀνεγίνωσκεν τὸν προφήτην Ἠσαΐαν.
εἶπεν δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα τῷ Φιλίππῳ, Πρόσελθε καὶ κολλήθητι τῷ ἅρματι τούτῳ.
προσδραμὼν δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος ἤκουσεν αὐτοῦ ἀναγινώσκοντος Ἠσαΐαν τὸν προφήτην, καὶ εἶπεν, ἆρά γε γινώσκεις ἃ ἀναγινώσκεις;
ὁ δὲ εἶπεν, Πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσει με; παρεκάλεσέν τε τὸν Φίλιππον ἀναβάντα καθίσαι σὺν αὐτῷ.
(Acts of the Apostles viii, 26-38)

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, “Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.” And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot reading Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, “Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.” And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” And he said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. (Translation taken from King James Bible, as most similar in style to quotation used by Balogh)

33Norden states that the interpreters of the Bible, being unfamiliar with the significance of reading aloud, misconstrued this scene (as they did with so many others).

34Mæcenas was often disturbed by others – often by Horace himself – “in the midst of reading or silent musing”:

Simplicior quis et est, qualem me saepe libenter
Obtulerim tibi, Maecenas, ut
forte legentem
Aut tacitum impellet quovis sermone molestus:
“Communi sensu plane caret” inquimus
.
(Horace, Satires, I.3.63-66)

Of one who’s unsophisticated, as I’ve often shown
Myself to be with you, Maecenas, interrupting you
Perhaps, while reading or thinking, with tiresome chatter:
We say: “He quite lacks the social graces.”
(Kline 2005: part 3)

35Norden took these lines from Horace as evidence of reading aloud. In truth, there are many arguments in favour of legentem aut tacitum (“reading OR silent”) being interpreted as an antithesis. But we do not necessarily have to see a contradiction in the phrase “in the midst of reading or silent musing”. Certainly, the modern reader will see nothing exceptional in it.

36We come across a very similar detail in John Cassian (circa AD 400) who, in his work entitled “De institutis cœnobiorum” (“On monastic rules”) focused on the organisation and customs of ancient Christian monastic communities. The monks, he writes in one place, immediately obey the call to prayer. If they are writing, they put the pen down in the middle of the letter. The virtue of obedience is valued by the monks above all else: not only above work and above reading, but also above quietude and the silence of the monastic cell. It is rated as the highest of all virtues:

…non tam operis compendia lucrave sectetur, quam obedientiae virtutem exsequi toto studio atque aemulatione festinet. Quam [sc. virtutem] non solum operi manuum, seu lectioni, vel silentio, et quieti cellae, verum etiam cunctis virtutibus ita praeferunt, ut huic iudicent omnia postponenda, et universa dispendia subire contenti sint, dummodo hunc bonum in nullo violasse videantur. (Cassian, De institutis cœnobiorum, IV.12)

…[each monk] seeks less the profit of the work than to compete in zeal to achieve obedience. Which virtue they prefer not only to the work of hands or to reading or silence or to the peace of the cell, but also to all other virtues, so that they judge that they must place everything else below it, and they are content to undergo any harm rather than seem to have transgressed it in any way. (This and two following translations of the Latin original by Greg Brooks in the light of the French translation by Guy, 1965; emphases based on Balogh’s)

37While the quotation from Horace above may allow room for some doubt (does it or does it not contain a contradiction?), there is no such doubt in Cassian, whose detail is founded on an unarguable contrast: reading or silence! This sentence is worth further investigation. What do silentium (silence) and quies cellae (the peace of the cell) signify for the monks? Meditation. Already at the beginning of the chapter, we encounter the contrast in work-meditation:

Itaque considentes intra cubicula sua, et operi, ac meditationi studium pariter impendentes, cum sonitum pulsantis ostium… audierint; ad orationem seu ad opus aliquod invitantis, certatim e cubilibus suis unusquisque prorumpit. (Cassian, De institutis cœnobiorum, IV.12)

So it is that, sitting inside their cells and applying their zeal equally to work and meditation, when they hear… the call to prayer or work each and every one bursts forth. (For translation see note above)

  • 16   The quotation taken from Cassian deserves attention for yet another reason. Scholarship has not y (...)

38This antithesis is then further articulated. He breaks “work” down into two constituent parts: writing (opus manuum, “the work of hands”) and reading (lectio) and contrasts these with silence, and then as if to avoid upsetting the balance of the parallel construction of the Latin sentence, he adds the peace of the cell (quies cellæ). Thus, one half of this parallel sentence refers to two actions that involve sound, while the other half refers to a silent action broken down into its elements. In my opinion, in this sentence we are dealing with a second interesting piece of evidence about writing aloud.16

39After this digression, I now return to the subject under investigation. The third piece of evidence was discovered by Sudhaus in the erotic letter writing of Aristaenetus from the fifth century. The beautiful Acontius falls in love with the delightful Cydippe. His decision: Cydippe or death. He espies the object of his desire in a garden; an apple, bearing an engraved message, suddenly rolls to the feet of her servant. The girl in her curiosity picks up the apple and hands it to her mistress. Then Cydippe – in keeping with Acontius’ devious plan – naturally reads aloud the message “I swear upon Artemis, it is Acontius I shall wed!”:

ἡ δὲ κόρη κομισαμένη καὶ τοῖς ὄμμασι περιθέουσα τὴν γραφὴν ἀνεγίνωσκεν ἔχουσαν ὧδε· “μὰ τὴν Ἄρτεμιν Ἀκοντίῳ γαμοῦμαι.” ἔτι διερχομένη τὸν ὅρκον εἰ καὶ ἀκούσιόν τε καὶ νόθον τὸν ἐρωτικὸν λόγον ἀπέρριψεν αἰδουμένη, καὶ ἡμίφωνον καταλέλοιπε λέξιν τὴν ἐπ’ ἐσχάτῳ κειμένην ἅτε διαμνημονεύουσαν γάμον, ὃν σεμνὴ παρθένος κἂν ἑτέρου λέγοντος ἠρυθρίασε. καὶ τοσοῦτον ἐξεφοινίχθη τὸ πρόσωπον, ὡς δοκεῖν ὅτι τῶν παρειῶν ἔνδον εἶχέ τινα ῥόδων λειμῶνα, καὶ τὸ ἐρύθημα τοῦτο μηδὲν τῶν χειλῶν αὐτῆς διαφέρειν. εἶπεν ἡ παῖς, ἀκήκοεν Ἄρτεμις· (Aristaenetus, Erotic Letters, 1, 10)

The girl took it and, running her eyes over the text, read the words it contained: “By Artemis, it is Acontius I shall wed.” While still uttering the oath – unintentional and illegitimate though it was – she flung the amorous text away in shame and left half-spoken the word at its very end, since it mentioned marriage; a word any modest virgin would blush at even if another were to utter it. And her face turned so red that a field of roses seemed to have blossomed on her cheeks, whose colour was now indistinguishable from her lips. The girl spoke; Artemis heard. (Bing & Höschele 2014: 21 & 23)

  • 17   S. Sudhaus (professor at the University of Kiel, who died an heroic death as a captain in 1915 [T (...)

40The interpretation of this piece of evidence is subtle. The decisive factor here is not that Cydippe read the inscription aloud (of course she did: her servant girl was present and had asked her mistress to do so as she handed her the apple), but that Acontius’ whole act was predicated on the natural assumption that, according to custom, the girl would definitely have to read the oath aloud. And, by the time Cydippe realises what she’s reading, it’s as if her voice has been cut and she utters only half of the last (Greek) word: “gam…”17

41Ovid picks up this tale. After Cydippe swears that involuntary oath, Acontius writes her a letter. She begins her reply by saying that his latest missive filled her with horror and, fearing another trick, she read it in silence:

pertimui scriptumque tuum sine murmure legi
iuraret ne quos inscia lingua deos.

(Ovid, Heroides, XXI. 3-4)

I was fearful, and read your letter without a murmur,
lest my tongue unknowingly swear by some god.
(Kline 2001: XXI)

42St. Anthony, the hermit of Thebes, is surprised by demons even in the midst of his reading: they repeat the reader’s words like an echo. St. Athanasius recorded this in his biography of Anthony. In the great speech which the hermit addresses to the first monks, he speaks of the demons thus:

∆όλιοι δέ εἰσι καὶ ἕτοιµοι πρὸς πάντα µεταβάλλεσθαι καὶ µετασχηµατίζεσθαι. Πολλάκις γοῦν καὶ ψάλλειν µετ’ ᾠδῆς προσποιοῦνται µὴ φαινόµενοι, καὶ µνηµονεύουσι τῶν ἀπὸ τῶν Γραφῶν λέξεων· ἔστι δὲ ὅτε καὶ ἀναγινωσκόντων ἡµῶν, εὐθὺς ὥσπερ ἠχὼ λέγουσιν αὐτοὶ τὰ αὐτὰ πολλάκις ἅπερ ἀνέγνωσται. (Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of St. Anthony of Thebes, Migne, Patrologia graeca, vol. XXVI. Col. 881)

  • 18   H. Mertel’s (1917) explanation “When we read aloud, they sometimes echo what was read aloud” is a (...)

Again they are treacherous, and are ready to change themselves into all forms and assume all appearances. Very often, also without appearing, they imitate the music of harp and voice, and recall the words of Scripture. Sometimes, too, while we are reading they immediately repeat many times, like an echo, what is read. (Brakke 2000: chap. 25)18

43The series of eavesdropping scenes can be concluded with a later quote. Grimmelshausen’s child Simplicissimus surprises the Hermit while reading the Bible aloud:

Als ich das erste Mal den Einsiedel in der Bibel lesen sahe, konte ich mir nicht einbilden, mit wem er doch ein solch heimlich und meinem Bedüncken nach sehr ernstlich Gespräch haben müste. Ich sahe wol die Bewegung seiner Lippen, hörte auch das Gebrummel, hingegen aber sahe und hörte ich niemand, der mit ihm redete, und obzwar ich nichts vom Lesen und Schreiben gewust, so merckte ich doch an seinen Augen, dass ers mit etwas im selbigem Buch zu thun hatte. (Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus, Book 1, chap.10)

Now when first I saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive with whom he should speak so secretly and, as I thought, so earnestly; for well I saw the moving of his lips, and heard him mumbling, yet neither saw nor heard any man that spake with him: and though I knew naught of reading or writing, nevertheless I marked by his eyes that he had to do with somewhat in the said book. (Anon. 1912: Book 1, chap. X, with “and heard him mumbling” [missing in source] added by Greg Brooks)

44The Simplicius Simplicissimus was published in 1670. This raises the question of whether reading aloud was therefore still habitual until this late date – a question we cannot answer.

45However, the practice of reading aloud not only had its witnesses, but also claimed some victims, those who, in the midst of their rest or activity, were forced to listen to the mumblings of a reader. This event was recorded for posterity in a sentence from the Rule of St. Benedict:

Post sextam autem surgentes a mensa, pausent in lectis suis cum omni silentio; aut forte qui voluerit legere, sibi sic legat ut alium non inquietet. (Rule of Saint Benedict, XLVIII.12)

  • 19 AKpr. – P. Manser O.S.B. brought this text to Norden’s attention; his notification, which also in (...)

When after the sixth hour the brothers arise from the table they should rest in complete silence on their beds; should anyone perhaps wish to read, they should do so in silence to avoid disturbing others.19 (Translated by Anne Kispal from Balogh’s translation into Hungarian)

46But it would seem that the relief provided by silent reading was limited by monastic law to only this single hour. An inscription, found in an 8th or 9th century monastic reading room, testifies to the fact that in the central Middle Ages reading aloud was a common monastic custom, and not only from the Bible, but from all other books, such as the lives of the saints and the laws of the order. This took place not only in the monks’ cells, but also in the library and the reading room. The inscription runs as follows:

In Lectorio
Hic normam sancti recitat lector Benedicti.
Ac Christi eloquium, plurima gesta patrum
.
(Carmina Centulensia CXVI)

In the reading room
Here the reader recites the rule of Saint Benedict,
The sayings of Christ, and many deeds of the fathers.
(Translated by Anne Kispal from Balogh’s translation into Hungarian)

47Although it is probable that recitare here serves to signify not only solitary but also communal, and therefore vocalised, reading, I still consider the inscription as characteristic.

48I have identified a series of pieces of evidence which, for the sake of brevity, I will call “acoustic data”. Based on each of the pieces of evidence I have presented thus far, we have been able to reconstruct with more or less certainty full scenes involving reading aloud. By contrast, the following quotations will all relate to the subtle use of single words for the acoustic effect of text.

49If one of Horace’s Odes relates Gaius Asinius Pollio working on his history of the second civil war in these terms:

audire magnos iam videor duces
(Horace Odes II.1.21)

Still I seem to hear those great leaders
(Translated by Greg Brooks)

  • 20   Peter Domony brought Birt’s work to my attention.

then Birt (1913: 102) rightly points out that such a picture is primarily explained by the habit of reading aloud.20

  • 21   Translators’ note: In his life of Augustine, Possidius does not (despite what Balogh says) claim (...)

50This category also includes a memorial epigram to St. Augustine penned by his contemporary and disciple Possidius:21

Vivere post obitum vatem vis nosse viator?
Quod legis ecce loquor, vox tua nempe mea est
.
(“Possidius”, Vita Sancti Augustini, chapter 31)

Wouldst know that poets live again, O traveller, after death?
These words thou readest, lo, I speak! Thy voice is but my breath.
(Weiskotten 1919)

51This verse was unarguably written aloud for reading aloud. Optatus of Milevis (circa AD 440) stated this idea: Scripture is read in its entirety; it is expressed in the following moving, mostly acoustic image:

bibliothecæ refertæ sunt libris; nihil deest ecclesiæ; per loca singula divinum sonat ubique præconium; non silent ora lectorum; manus omnium codicibus plenæ sunt; nihil deest populis doceri cupientibus. (Optatus of Milevis, Contra Parmenianum Donatistam, book 7, chapter 1)

The libraries are filled with books. Nothing is wanting to the Church. In different places the divine praises are everywhere proclaimed. The mouths of the lectors keep not silence. The hands of all are full of volumes [of Scripture]. Nothing is lacking to the people who wish to be taught. (Vassall-Phillips 1917: 303)

52Also peculiar is the acoustic image that Augustine uses to convey the following idea: A heretic (a Donatist who doubted the Catholicism of the church) – but a particularly sharp and benevolent heretic – kept turning the pages of the Holy Scriptures until he was persuaded that the Catholic position was indeed correct: startled from his heretical daze by roaring sounds coming towards him from the pages of Scripture:

Tychonius enim omnibus sanctarum paginarum vocibus circumtunsus evigilavit et vidit ecclesiam dei toto terrarum orbe diffusam, sicut prædictum est. (Augustine, Contra Epistulam Parmeniani, I.1)

  • 22   Georges (Translators’ note: reference not traced) did not pick up on this unique – and in this in (...)

For Tychonius awoke, thundered all around (circumtunsus22) by the sounds of Holy Writ, and he saw the Church of God spread through the whole world, as – – – it was foretold. (King 1872: 411)

  • 23   A frequently used expression: Jerome, Letters, 78. 1: “quasi aliud littera sonet, aliud spiritus (...)

53For ancient man, the pages of a book (indeed even the lifeless text) had a voice: The page speaks or is silent, but the letter sounds.23

54Thus, Luxorius (poem 4) recommended his collection of epigrams to his reader by saying that his little poems are short: barely open a “page” and it falls “silent”:

Nec mea concinno sic pagina displicet actu
Finito citius carmine clausa
silet.
(Luxorius, poem 4, 7-8 [Translators’ note: We give Rosenblum’s reading of concinno instead of earlier editors’, and Balogh’s, continuo])

If, therefore, my book displeases anybody because of its brevity,the sooner the poem is finished, the sooner the book is shut and silent. (Rosenblum 1961: 113)

55St. Jerome complained in a letter that Christian priests immersed themselves in the enjoyment of pagan writings:

At nunc etiam sacerdotes dei, omissis Evangeliis et Prophetis, videmus comoedias legere, Bucolicorum versuum verba cantare, tenere Vergilium, et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere voluptatis. (Jerome, Letter XXI. 13, 123-124)

But now we even see priests of God putting aside the Gospels and Prophets to read comedies, sing the words of bucolic verses, and grasp Virgil, and (whatever may be necessary in boys) commit the sin of debauchery against themselves. (Fremantle, Lewis & Martley 1893)

56Without doubt, the three verbs in this sentence are equivalent and all have the same meaning: legere = cantare = tenere (“read – sing – grasp”), and the acoustic element included in cantare can be extended to all three reading operations.

57A pleasing piece of evidence for the phenomenon discussed here can be found in a medieval example. Jacques de Vitry (d.1240), according to another source, mentions the case of a hermit who burnt the letters sent to him from his homeland: “He did not even take a glance into them, lest he should hear anything that might disturb the peace of his soul.”

De heremita qui combussit fasciculum litterarum
In Vita Patrum legitur de quodam solitario quod fasciculum litterarum sibi de patria sua transmissarum igne cremavit et noluit intueri, ne audiret aliqua quibus eius animus turbaretur et inquietudine rumorum a spirituali exercicio impediretur. Sabbatum quidem curiositatis et ocii atque torporis sancti homines valde metuunt. (Jacques de Vitry, Sermones feriales et communes, 47)

About the hermit who burnt a bundle of letters
In the Lives of the Fathers we read of a certain hermit who burnt a bundle of letters sent to him from his homeland, and refused to look into them, lest he hear anything to disturb his spirit, or a noisy rumour preventing him from his spiritual exercise. For holy men rightly fear a Sabbath of curiosity and leisure and laziness. (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

58This piece of data is especially noteworthy for its naivety of style; the writer directly connects intueri (“look into”) with audire (“hear”): to look at the written page and hear what has been read is one and the same thing for medieval man.

59We shall conclude this colourful collection of evidence with St. Francis. How did he read? Two biographers give the same answer; however, the wording of the two accounts is somewhat different.

A

B

Legebat quandoque in sacris libris, et quod animo semel iniecerat indelebiliter scribebat in corde. Memoriam pro libris habebat, quia non frustra semel capiebat auditus quod continua devotione ruminabat affectus. Hunc discendi legendique modum fructuosum dicebat, non per millenos evagari tractatus.(Thomas da Celano, Sancti Francisci Assisiensis vita et miracula, LXVIII, 102)

Legebat quandoque in sacris libris, et quod animo semel iniecerat tenaciter imprimebat memoriae, quia non frustra mentalis attentionis per cipiebat auditu, quod continuæ devotionis ruminabat affectus.(St. Bonaventure, Legendæ Duæ, 112)

At times he would read the sacred books, and what he put into his mind once he wrote indelibly in his heart. His memory substituted for books, for he did not hear a thing once in vain, for his love meditated upon it with constant devotion. This he would say was a fruitful way of learning and reading, not by wandering about through thousands of treatises.(Hermann 1988: 221)

At times he would read in the sacred books, and whatsoever had once been presented unto his mind became indelibly imprinted on his memory, for it was not in vain that he comprehended by hearing and by an attent mind that which he ever meditated upon with the love of an unceasing devotion.(Salter 1904: XI.1)

60The fact that these sentences are quite complicated becomes especially apparent when we wish to translate them. What they convey is that St. Francis read very seldom, but when he did, it was always with strained attention; he repeated a thousand times everything he had heard as he read and strove to preserve it as fully as possible. This is how he studied and this is how he read.

61What permits us to connect the words legebat (he would read) and auditus (hearing) from two different sentences and to interpret this as: “heard as he read”? A careful analysis of the quotations.

62In my opinion, the two sentences that constitute quotation A above are parallel to each other, which is supported by the fact that when Celano’s version was later reworked by Bonaventure, the latter combined the two sentences using the Latin conjunction quia (because). The schemas of the two sentences are:

α sentence

β sentence

I. animo iniecerat “put into his mind”
II. 
scribebat in corde “wrote in his heart”

=
=

auditus capiebat“grasped by hearing”
affectus ruminabat“meditated upon devotedly”

63In both sentences, as can be seen, there are two vaguely characterised actions: 1. “legebat” (“he would read”) and 2. “memoriam pro libris habebat” (“his memory substituted for books”). We are interested in the details of legere: “animo iniecerat” roughly translates as “to understand” (= percipere, “perceive”); so this refers to the intellectual component of reading; while “auditus capiebat” (“presented unto his mind”), on the other hand, refers to the sensory component. Bonaventure did not see through Celano’s complicated line of thought, omitting some words, changing others, finally combining the intellectual and sensory functions of “legere” and writing this:

non frustra mentalis attentionis (I. α) percipiebat auditu (I. β)
not in vain by an attent mind (I. α) he comprehended by hearing (I. β)

64Therefore “legere” (to read) is “audire” (to hear). This is not a case of reading out a text (to listeners) as that interpretation is ruled out by the beginning of the sentence: “At times he would read in the sacred books…” St. Francis undoubtedly read aloud to himself and for St. Bonaventure that was still quite natural.

65Related to the acoustic data are the three pieces of evidence, which I will group here as a separate category. I quote the first from a second-century poet, the second from the ninth, and the third from a sixteenth-century poet. Their common feature is that all three contain instructions to the reader which reveal evidence of reading aloud.

66The author of the first piece is Paulinus of Nola, contemporary of St. Augustine of Hippo. He sends an encouraging poem to young Licentius, the son of his friend, Romanianus, and the covering letter to accompany the poem concludes thus:

Vereor, fili, ne aures tuas asperitate temerarii sermonis offenderim et per aures animo etiam tuo tædii mei vulnus intulerim. sed in mentem venit epistulæ tuæ, qua te musicis familiarem modis intellexi, a quo studio ego ævi quondam tui non abhorrui. itaque mihi ad tuam mentem, si in aliquo exulcerassem, deleniendam remedium litteras tuas recordatus repperi, ut te ad dominum harmoniæ omniformis artificem modulamine carminis cuocarem, quæso te, ut aure audias neque causam salutis tuæ in verbis meis spernas, sed piam curam et mentem paternam etiam in despiciendis sermonibus libenter accipias… (Paulinus of Nola, Epistola VIII ad Licentium, 3)

My son, I fear that with my rash words I may offend your ears, and that through your ears I may afflict your mind also with boredom for me. But I have remembered your letter in which I discovered that you were acquainted with poetic measures, a pursuit which I, too, was far from disdaining at your age. So if I have hurt your mind in any way, by recalling your letter I have devised a remedy to soothe it. I should like to lead you to the Lord, the inventor of harmony, by the metres of poetry. Please listen, and do not neglect the cause of your salvation residing in my words, but willingly show a reverent interest, and respect for your father, even if you despise my speech. (Walsh 1966: 77-78)

  • 24   See my study: “Vasa lecta et pretiosathe Confessions of St. Augustine” (Balogh, 1918): 16 et s (...)

67May the offence caused to “the ears of Licentius”, by the ruthless voice of the letter, be put right by the poem. The young man should listen attentively to the poem and accept the poet’s paternal feeling, dressed in “mere words”. Here, too, as is often the case in Christian antiquity, the pagan passion for form struggles against the indifference with which Christianity views the vain perfection of classical form.24

68Charlemagne’s poet, Alcuin, provides the second instruction, when at the end of a poem, he turns to his reader with the words:

Tuque valeto legens, tibi maxima cura legenti
sit precor, ut recto resones caelestia sensu
verba Dei Christi, merces tibi magna manebit.
(Alcuin, Carmina, LXVI.1.20-22)

And may it profit you, reader, may it be your greatest care while reading, I beg, to exclaim with their correct meaning the heavenly words of Christ our God; a great reward shall await you. (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

69The final instruction is at the beginning of Ronsard’s works:

  • 25   See Rucktäschel (1889: 22): “Charakteristisch für Ronsard’s Anschauungen ist, dass er keine Buchp (...)

Je te supliray seulement d’une chose, lecteur, de vouloir bien prononcer mes vers et accomoder ta voix à leur passion, et non comme quelques uns les lisent, plustost à la façon d’une missive, ou quelques lettres royaux, que d’un poëme bien prononcé et te supplie encore de rechef, ou tu verras cette marque“!” vouloir un peu eslever ta voix pour donner grace à ce que tu liras. (Ronsard, “Au lecteur”)25

  • 26   This is one of the first instances of the use of an exclamation mark, and it has an interesting i (...)

I shall beg just one thing of you, reader: be willing to pronounce my verses and suit your voice to their passion, and not like some who read, more in the manner of a missive, or some royal letters, than a well pronounced poem, and yet again I beg you, where you shall see this sign “!”26 be willing to raise your voice a little to make more gracious what you are about to read. (Translated by Greg Brooks)

70In conclusion, I shall summarise the evidence for writing aloud. I have cited three instances above in connection with reading aloud. These are: Hor. Sat. I., 6, 122-123, and quotations taken from Theodoretus and John Cassian.

71While reading involves the eyes and mouth working together, here the mouth complements the work of the hand: manus et lingua (hand and tongue). A letter by St. Paulinus of Nola swelled up to the size of a small book, as was the custom in ancient Christian letter writing. At the beginning of the book, however, a page remained almost teasingly bare: this empty page, he writes, spurred his “tongue and hand” to write something on it as well.

Insertis his versiculis patens pagina sollicitavit linguam et manum, ut occuparet vacantia, et succurrit animo, esse quod scriberem. (Paulinus of Nola, Letter XXXII: 1)

When I had enclosed those poor verses, the open page made advances to my tongue and hand to fill out the empty spaces, and it struck me that I had something to write. (Walsh 1966: 125)

72Thomas à Kempis concludes a dissertation (which he calls a letter), thus:

Et quia excessum loquendi feci ad portum silentii iam remeo: lingua ergo manusque scribentis simul hoc iam fine silescant. (Thomas à Kempis, De solitudine et silentio II)

And because I have spoken too much, I return to the haven of silence: therefore may the writer’s tongue and hand now fall silent together at last. (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

  • 27   It is likely that within the following two centuries, these two aspects of writing had separated (...)

73Kempis regarded letter writing as speech; it was the joint work of the hand and mouth (simul – at the same time). The paradoxical manus silescit (the hand falls silent) is surprising: the physical aspect of writing was inseparable from the acoustic aspect even in the 16th century.27

74This is all the more true of rhetoric in antiquity: writing was just as much the antithesis of silence as speech was. Apollonius of Tyana was once asked by Euxenus why, given that he was such a wise and learned man, he had not yet written a book:

ἐρομένου δέ ποτε τὸν Ἀπολλώνιον τοῦ Εὐξένου, τί δῆτα οὐ ξυγγράφοικαίτοι γενναίως δοξάζων καὶ ἀπαγγελίᾳ χρώμενος δοκίμῳ καὶ ἐγηγερμένῃ ‘ὅτι’ ἔφη ‘οὔπω ἐσιώπησα.’ καὶ ἐνθένδε ἀρξάμενος σιωπᾶν ᾠήθη δεῖν, καὶ τὴν μὲν φωνὴν κατεῖχεν, οἱ δ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὶ καὶ ὁ νοῦς πλεῖστα μὲν ἀνεγίγνωσκον, πλεῖστα δὲ ἐς μνήμην ἀνελέγοντο. (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii: I.14)

On one occasion, Euxenus asked Apollonius why so noble a thinker as he and one who was master of a diction so fine and lively did not write a book. “I have not yet kept silence,” was Apollonius’ response. And forthwith he began to hold his tongue from a sense of duty, and kept absolute silence, though his eyes and his mind were taking note of very many things, and though most things were being stored in his memory. (Conybeare, 1912, with “nervous” replaced by “lively” as translation of ἐγηγερμένῃ, taking this to be a post-classical past participle passive of ἐγείρω; cf. Cambridge Greek Lexicon [2021] vol. 1, p. 414)

  • 28   Reading aloud was not just a Greco-Roman practice, but was also customary in the East. For the pr (...)

75The quotation that I shall use to conclude this bizarrely varied collection of evidence takes us to the East.28

  • 29   Unfortunately, I cannot read this in the original Syriac and so I am providing the latest German (...)

76In the verse29 on “monastic perfection” by the most prominent ecclesiastical poet in Syriac-language literature – Isaac of Antioch – we find beautiful and surprising evidence for reading and writing aloud:

Dies, mein Jünger, habe ich in geheimnisvoller Weise zu dir geredet: suche nun in das Verständnis einzudringen! In Gleichnissen habe ich dir diese Wahrheiten dargestellt, mein Sohn, gib mir nun dein Herz! Höre auf meine Worte, wie sie geschrieben sind, vernimm sie nach dem Sinn, der unter dem Gleichnis verborgen ist! Unterrichte dich über ihren Inhalt, denn sie haben viele Gesichter. Dein Mund möge lesen, was offen da liegt, dein Herz möge erforschen, was unter den Worten verborgen ist. Prüfe sie, wie im Glutofen und durchsuche sie, wie mit einer Lampe! Denn auch ich habe sie beim Lampenscheine geschrieben und in stiller Zelle vor mich hingeflüstert. Bei Nacht hat die Zither getönt, was du bei Tag liesest. – Dein Geist möge meine Worte nicht so eng auffassen, wie sie von den Lippen gelesen werden, sondern gib dir vielmehr die Mühe, ihren zweifachen Sinn zu verstehen, damit du ihren wahren Inhalt durchschaust! (Landersdorfer 1913: 201)

  • 30   Here I would like to draw attention to a very peculiar detail of Celsus’ medical work in which he (...)

This, my lad, I have spoken to you in a mysterious way: now seek to force it into your understanding! I have shown you these truths in parables, my son, now give me your heart! Listen to my words as they are written, hear them according to the meaning that is hidden under the parable! Educate yourself about their content because they have many faces! May your mouth read what is open, may your heart explore what is hidden beneath the words. Test them as in a crucible, and seek them as though with a lamp! Because I too wrote it by lamplight, and whispered to myself in a quiet cell. At night the zither sang what you are reading during the day. ... May your mind not take my words so narrowly as they are read by the lips; rather, make an effort to understand their twofold meaning so that you can see through to their true content!30 (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

3. The Natural History of Reading Aloud

77This long series of data provides evidence that reading and writing were vocalised operations in antiquity and, in all likelihood, even in the Middle Ages. Although there is some evidence of this practice from modern times, it is not yet possible to determine how the former vocalised reading became modern silent reading.

  • 31   See the following two works: Huey (1908) and Javal (1907).

78Experimental psychology has so far gathered information only on the elementary facts of reading psychology.31 Experiments have been limited to observing the operation of the eye during reading and discovering the nature of the so-called “inner speech” that accompanies modern silent reading. To the best of my knowledge, psychology has not addressed the matter of reading aloud. Although the author of this dissertation is unfamiliar with the field of experimental psychology, he concludes that the now undisputed fact of the transformation (“silence-ification”) of reading also suggests a remarkable underlying psychological shift.

79It goes without saying that reading aloud is the original and natural form of reading. Writing provides a record of live speech; reading melts the “frozen” word into living speech again. According to ancient philosophy, writing is, in fact, a musical note.

80St. Augustine expresses this thought perfectly, leaving no room for misunderstanding:

Omne verbum sonat. cum enim est in scripto, non verbum, sed verbi signum est; quippe inspectis a legente litteris occurrit animo, quid voce prorumpat. quid, enim aliud litteræ scriptæ, quam se ipsos oculis et præter se voces animo ostendunt. (Augustine, de dialectica, V. II)

Every word is a sound. Therefore, when it is written it is not a word, but the sign of a word; when the reader sees them, the letters impinge upon the mind, which breaks out in voice. For what else do written letters do but present themselves to the eye and, beyond themselves, voices to the mind. (This translation is from Marchand (1994), with the first sentence re-written from “Any word ‘sonat’ (sounds; is sounded)”.)

Every word sounds. Because when written, it is not a word, but merely a sign of the word (“musical note”). Seeing the letter suddenly reminds the reader of the appropriate sound. The written letter has a twofold effect: it presents itself to the reader’s eye and, above and beyond that, it presents the sound to the reader’s mind. (This translation, for comparison, is by Anne Kispal from Balogh’s translation into Hungarian; it seems part translation, part interpretation.)

81In this important detail, Norden believes he can detect a Stoic doctrine that Augustine may have learned through Varro’s mediation. I prefer to believe that St. Augustine, who was a keen observer of the life of the soul, merely drew on abundant experience here, as he did in so many of his works. I find it remarkable that, in his view, letters are instantly and instinctively transformed into sounds in the mind of the reader; this is conveyed by the verbs indicating rapid and violent movement: occurrit animo (literally, “runs into the mind”, = suddenly reminds), quid voce prorumpat (literally, “which breaks out by voice”).

82The instinctive nature, naturalness and originality of reading aloud is also evidenced by the fact that this practice is still seen today in children and simple uneducated people – e.g. peasants. But we can also find it nowadays as a means of superior artistic enjoyment and a conscious or unconscious means of artistic creation, especially among peoples of rhetorical temperament, and above all in speakers of Latin languages.

83I will mention two examples here:

84A modern writer:

[Flaubert, says Zola] n’écrivait pas pour les yeux, pour le lecteur qui lit du regard, au coin de son feu; il écrivait pour le lecteur qui déclame, qui lance les phrases à voix haute; même tout son système de travail se trouvait là. Pour éprouver ses phrases, il les “gueulait”, seul à sa table, et il n’en était content que lorsqu’elles avaient passé par son “gueuloir”, avec la musique qu’il leur voulait. À Croisset, cette méthode était bien connue, les domestiques avaient ordre de ne pas se déranger, quand ils entendaient monsieur crier; seuls, des bourgeois s’arrêtaient sur la route par curiosité, et beaucoup l’appelaient: “l’avocat”, croyant sans doute qu’il s’exerçait à l’éloquence. Rien n’est, selon moi, plus caractéristique que ce besoin d’harmonie. On ne connaît pas le style de Flaubert, si l’on n’a pas “gueulé” comme lui ses phrases. C’est un style fait pour être déclamé. La sonorité des mots, la largeur du rhythme, donnent alors des puissances étonnantes à l’idée, parfois par l’ampleur lyrique, parfois par l’opposition comique. (Zola 1881: 210)

  • 32   (See references).
  • 33   Flaubert’s successor in stylistic technique was the Englishman Walter Pater. “It may be said, the (...)

“Flaubert,” writes Zola32, wrote not for the eyes, not for the reader sitting by his hearth reading with his eyes, but for the reader who declaims, who projects his sentences out loud; this is the principle underlying Flaubert’s entire work. To get a feel for his sentences, he sat alone at his desk yelling them out, and was only satisfied when the sentences passed through his mouth with the precise musicality he was seeking. His method was well-known in his village of Croisset, and his servants had received orders not to trouble themselves if they heard their master shouting. Only curious members of the public would stop outside on the street, and many spoke of him as “the lawyer”, undoubtedly in the belief that he was practising eloquence. In my opinion, nothing is more characteristic than this longing for harmony. We will not be familiar with Flaubert’s style, unless we yell out his sentences as he did. His is a style written to be declaimed. The sounds of the words, the amplitude of the rhythm, give his thoughts miraculous power, sometimes by lyrical abundance, sometimes by comic contrast.33 (Translated by Greg Brooks)

85Modern readers:

On his travels in Italy, René Bazin finds himself staying with the family of a Venetian senator:
L’hôte qui entre est reçu aussitôt dans une sorte d’intimité touchante. On l’accueille en ami de la veille. Quelle opinion a-t-il du pays italien et de la chère Vicence? La première impression, au clair de lune, a-t-elle été bonne? Aime-t-il les pinsons rôtis sur canapé de mie de pain, qui sont un plat vénitien? Que de belles choses il verra demain, au grand jour, si le temps est beau! On parle aussi devant lui des élections dont quelques résultats sont déjà connus. Fréquemment un domestique apporte un télégramme ou un billet annonçant le succès ou l’échec d’un ami. Ce sont des explosions générales de joie ou de regret. Le sénateur prend son crayon, et, sur une page de carnet, il écrit la réponse, une phrase pesée, composée, jolie, qu’il lit à la famille avant de la remettre au valet de chambre: de vrais chefs-d’œuvre de ce style lapidaire, dont j’ai trouvé partout les Italiens friands. Ils dégustent un billet bien tourné, ils le reprennent, ils se donnent la satisfaction de le déclamer, afin d’en mieux saisir l’harmonie: Que c’est bien dit! font-ils, et ils se passent la page blanche, les uns aux autres, comme une bonbonnière pleine. (Bazin 1894: 50-51)

  • 34   (See references).

“The guest” he writes34 “is soon treated with touching intimacy. He is welcomed like a friend seen the previous day. What does he think of Italy and dear Vicenza? Was his first impression of the moonlit city agreeable? Does he like roast chaffinch served on toast, a Venetian dish? What nice things he will see tomorrow, in the daylight, if the weather is fine! He is included in conversations about the elections, from which a few of the results are already coming in. Telegrams and letters arrive frequently, each bringing news of one friend’s success or another’s failure. General expressions of pleasure or regret break out after each piece of news. The senator takes a pencil in his hand and on his notepad writes out each reply: well-considered, well-constructed, charming sentences which he reads aloud to his family before handing them to his valet. These are true masterpieces of the lapidary style of which, in my experience, Italians everywhere are so fond. They savour a well-turned note, they give themselves the satisfaction of declaiming it, in order to better enjoy its harmony. ‘How well it sounds!’ they say, as the white page is passed around like a full candy-box.” (Translated by Greg Brooks)

  • 35   Cim (1905, vol. II: 53n) recorded some special modern cases of reading aloud and their related ph (...)

86These extremely sparse modern examples35 may lead us to the fact that reading aloud has two roots: while an inexperienced reader (a child, a peasant) is motivated to read aloud because reading is hard for technical reasons, a talented reader may read aloud to get closer to the stylistic beauty of the writing. The reader of antiquity was thus inclined to read aloud not only through instinct but also for a combination of technical and aesthetic reasons. These technical and aesthetic reasons are related to phenomena studied on the one hand by paleography, on the other hand by rhetoric and metrics. Here it will suffice to refer to some general main points.

  • 36   Compare Huey’s work (1908: 17 et seq.)
  • 37   These lines, among many others, bear witness to the emphasis placed on fluent and flawless readin (...)

87I. The reading of books in antiquity was made extremely difficult by the unstructured nature of the lines, the fact that the words were not separated from each other and that punctuation developed extremely slowly. Observing the eye while reading has led modern psychology to the conclusion that reading a line of print takes place in regular bursts. The eye stops five to six times along an average line of print and reading takes place not during the movement of the eye but during pauses36. The eye progresses at the rate of 10-12 letters per burst. Undoubtedly, the boundary between bursts is often determined by the end of a word, i.e. the pause falls in the spaces between the letters, possibly where a punctuation mark occurs. These artificial tools to help articulate print were not available to the ancient reader. As such, correct and continuous reading did not consist simply of recognising letters; it was also necessary to identify word boundaries at speed. This meant that the skill of reading was dependent upon extended practice. Practice was provided through school education, of course37; only in this way was it possible for the dual sensory operations involved in reading (the work of the eye and the mouth) to merge into a single unity and to move in parallel or – in the case of Lucian – the mouth to lag a little behind.

88Antiquity, which was generally so poor in psychological observations, was surprisingly aware that continuous reading involved coordinating two distinct operations, each going at its own pace. Quintilian, speaking of the didactics of writing and reading, explains the harms of hurried, unfocused reading and emphasises that reading must be thorough and sure at first, and only later should the reader strive for continuity; slow reading will become flawless and fluent through practice. The ability to multi-task has to become established during reading, as the mouth and eyes are involved in two separate operations, with the eyes constantly glancing off to the right to anticipate what is to come next:

Incredibile est quantum moræ lectioni festinatione adiiciatur; hinc enim accidit dubitatio, intermissio, repetitio, plus quam possunt audientibus, deinde quum errarunt, etiam iis, quæ iam sciunt, diffidentibus. Certa sit ergo imprimis lectio, deinde coniuncta; et diu lentior, donec exercitatione contingat emendata velocitas. Nam prospicere in dextrum (quod omnes praecipiunt) et providere, non rationis modo, sed usus quoque est; quoniam sequentia intuenti priora dicenda sunt; et quod difficillimum est, dividenda intentio animi, ut aliud voce, aliud oculis agatur. (Quintilian, Institutio Oratorica I. i. 32-34)

You will hardly believe how much reading is delayed by undue haste. If the child attempts more than his powers allow, the inevitable result is hesitation, interruption and repetition, and the mistakes which he makes merely lead him to lose confidence in what he already knows. Reading must therefore first be sure, then connected, while it must be kept slow for a considerable time, until practice brings speed unaccompanied by error. For to look to the right, which is regularly taught, and to look ahead depend not so much on precept as on practice; since it is necessary to keep the eyes on what follows while reading out what precedes, with the resulting difficulty that the attention of the mind must be divided, the eyes and voice being differently engaged. (Butler 1920 [Translators’ note: Here too Balogh misunderstands the eye-voice span – see footnote 1])

89This “divisa intentio animi” (“divided attention of the mind"), which typifies the early stages of reading, is slowly eliminated through practice, or rather the two operations follow each other so rapidly that the difference in pace is no longer perceptible. It was probably this that represented perfect reading technique, according to the perceptions of antiquity.

90Petronius’ parvenu, Trimalchio, is so delighted with his scribe – who, incidentally, is a handsome boy – that he embraces him in the middle of a feast:

Puerum basiavi frugalissimum, non propter formam, sed quia frugi est: decem partes dicit, librum ab oculo legit… (Petronius, Satyricon, 75)

I kissed that worthy lad, not because he is handsome, but because he is worthy: he can recite the ten parts of speech, read books at sight… (Kline 2018)

  • 38   As the phrase ab oculo is untranslatable word for word into some languages, it is often misunders (...)

91Fluent reading was therefore a rare thing. Trimalchio’s language merits attention because it captures the analysis of the operation of reading (here, reading aloud), “ab oculo” (at sight) being another way of saying the opposite of “divisa intentio animi” (divided attention of the mind). In the domain of music, this would be described as “sight-reading”, i.e. coordinating the work of the eye and the mouth (the instrument).38

  • 39   But fluent reading (i.e. reading aloud) came into difficulties even later. We can see this from i (...)

92Here I must mention the abbreviations used in antiquity and especially in the Middle Ages, which undoubtedly made reading significantly more difficult.39

  • 40   Incidentally, I shall mention here that reading in ancient times was a cumbersome craft even in o (...)

93What can we learn from this? Even today, the way we commonly solve any difficulties encountered during reading – decoding foreign, unknown, difficult-to-read text – is instinctively to do it aloud. I have already cited children and uneducated individuals above. It is therefore probable that the technical difficulties involved in reading – which are largely unknown today – were contributory factors to reading aloud.40

94II. But it would be utterly inappropriate and misleading if I wanted to explain the habit of reading aloud, which is rooted in the soul of the ancient man, simply with such technical details. Reading aloud fits easily and naturally into the rhetorical world of Hellenistic-Roman antiquity, where the living, carefully crafted and articulated word was the common basis for public life, education, literature and science. In the wake of Norden’s great work, there is no further need to talk about the predisposition of ancient man to rhetoric and of the influence of this natural and centuries-old inclination on literature and on the development of prose. Here are some characteristic lines, highlighting the essential details, from an 1874 college of Nietzsche’s:

“Rhetorisch” nennen wir einen Autor, ein Buch, einen Stil, wenn ein bewusstes Anwenden von Kunstmitteln der Rede zu merken ist, immer mit einem leisen Tadel. Wir vermeinen, es sei nicht natürlich und mache den Eindruck des Absichtlichen. Nun kommt sehr viel auf den Geschmack des Urteilenden an und darauf, was ihm gerade “natürlich” ist. Im Allgemeinen erscheint uns, die wir rohe Sprachempiriker sind, die ganze antike Literatur etwas künstlich und rhetorisch, zumal die römische. Das hat auch darin seinen tieferen Grund, dass die eigentliche Prosa des Altertums durchaus Wiederhall der lauten Rede und anderen Gesetzen sich gebildet hat: während unsere Prosa immer mehr aus dem Schreiben zu erklären ist, unsere Stilistik sich als eine durchs Lesen zu percipirende giebt. Der Lesende und der Hörende wollen aber eine ganz andere Darstellungsform, und deshalb klingt uns die antike Litteratur “rhetorisch”: d. h. sie wendet sich zunächst ans Ohr, um es zu bestechen: ausserordentliche Ausbildung des rhythmischen Sinnes bei Griechen und Römern, im Hören des Gesprochenen bei ungeheurer fortwährenden Übung. Es steht hier ähnlich, wie bei der Poesie – wir kennen Litteraturpoeten die Griechen wirkliche Poesie ohne Vermittlung des Buches. Wir sind viel blasser und abstrakter. (Nietzsche 1912: 248)

“Rhetorical” is what we call an author, a book, a style, if a conscious application of the art of speech is to be noticed, always with a slight rebuke. We think it is not natural and gives the impression of being intentional. Now a lot depends on the taste of the judge and what is “natural” for him at the moment. Generally speaking, to us who are crude linguistic empiricists, all of ancient, especially Roman, literature appears somewhat artificial and rhetorical. Within that there is also a deeper reason, namely that the actual prose of antiquity was formed on echoes of overt speech and on its laws: while our prose is increasingly to be explained on the basis of writing, and our style offers itself as one to be perceived through reading. Readers and listeners want quite different forms of presentation, and that is why ancient literature sounds ‘rhetorical’ to us. That is, it most closely affects the ear in order to make its impression: an extraordinary development of the sense of rhythm in the Greeks and Romans, in hearing what has been spoken with tremendous continual practice. In this respect it is similar to poetry; we know that literary poets made true Greek poetry without needing to use books. We are much paler and more abstract. (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

  • 41   Ernst Bickel (1912: 612-615) has provided the briefest summary of the results of extremely extens (...)

95Philological research in recent decades has revealed the essence and rules of ancient rhythmic prose. Today we are familiar with the prosody of Greco-Latin prose, the established system of meter and rhythmic sentence endings.41

  • 42   For interestingly different interpretations of dictation and dictare, see Norden AKpr. pp.953. et (...)

96The product of this rhetorical-rhythmic spirit was the rhetorical book of antiquity, written aloud for reading aloud. The everyday form of writing consisted of dictation (dictare)42, while reading consisted of reading aloud (recitare).

  • 43   For more about these recitations, see summary by Boissier (1877).

97The familiar figure of the literate slave has been seen above. Quite different from this was the public reading of literary works, where the author assumed the role of reciter.43 The solitary act of reading and writing aloud is naturally and logically connected to this chain of acoustic (rhythmic-rhetorical) phenomena. The Middle Ages inherited the practice of reading aloud, although by that time it had lost much of its power. It was practised only through custom, no longer rooted in the soil of ancient rhetoric. And the elements of literacy – namely writing and reading – were practised mainly in monasteries where the ideal way of life was anti-rhetorical. One of the conditions of monastic perfection was silence, the silentium of the mystics. Within the walls of a monastery, writing became primarily an act of copying, and thus a craft (at best, a fine art). It goes without saying that the copyist – who often spent much time on a single letter – did not articulate what he was writing. By the fifth century, we have interesting evidence that the monastic copyist’s work occupied his mind, his hand and his eye – but not his mouth. In his verse hagiography of St. Martin, Paulinus of Périgueux (circa AD 470) described the work of a scribe thus:

Exercere artem prohibet, conceditur unum
scribendi studium, quod mentem, oculosque manusque
occupet, atque uno teneat simul omnia puncto
aspectum visu, cor sensibus, ordine dextram.
(Paulinus of Périgueux, de vita sancti Martini, 119-122)

The use of skills is not allowed. But one study is exempt – writing, because it occupies the mind, the eyes and the hand, and holds all these together in one point, the attention by sight, the heart by the senses, and the right hand by the ordained task. (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint)

  • 44   Letters composed by humanists were written for the reader’s ears: as Scaliger [the younger, Josep (...)

98Non-copy writing and reading, by contrast, still prevailed as vocalised activities. Interest in humanism turned again to the rhetorical beauty of ancient literature, and — although I cannot prove this with data today — I do not doubt that from Petrarch to Erasmus the solitary reader enjoyed Cicero aloud, carefully articulating his sentences as dictated by the full-stops, colons and commas.44

99I do not have any data on the technique of reading from the 16th century onwards. I find it probable that printing was a source of significant change in this area as well. The printing press, on the one hand, enabled quick and easy reading by creating clear lettering with regular boundaries between words, and eliminating the burdensome medieval abbreviations, while on the other hand it encouraged the reader to read quickly and superficially by producing an unprecedented amount of reading matter. Reading developed into a practice with which the reader’s voice could no longer easily cope. Perhaps this is the direction in which we should be looking to explain silent reading; today’s reading is related to the mechanisation of literacy.

100The process of this mechanisation began with printing and continues to this day without interruption. Typewriters, dictation machines, speech machines, on the one hand, as well as telegraphs and telephones, classified as so-called “means of transport”, on the other – all serve to mechanise the written and spoken human word; a special place among these belongs to the motion picture, which not only pushes the live word off the stage, but has to a certain extent also become the surrogate of the book. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that everything that was of individual, humanistic and artistic value in the human word – the noblest medium of human thought – is as if dying out. The recent age, which has made the statistics of writing and reading a measure of the degree of civilization, has naturally reduced the art of writing to a factory skill. The newspaper media, which developed to staggering proportions in the second half of the 19th century, are generally underestimated in their impact upon our language, style, thought, and education.

101In this dissertation, I pointed out that rhetoric underpinned public life, science and literature in antiquity. Nowadays, rhetoric has been replaced by the newspaper press, which with its formidable infrastructure dominates public opinion, society’s morals, and education. Ancient rhetoric gave voice and life to human words and imbued them with value; today’s journalism buries the human word in leaden letters and devalues it.

102The dead letter of today rightly gives rise to lifeless silent reading. But the letter of the past was alive, its pages echoing; this literature, from Homer to Ronsard, must be read aloud, and reading aloud is as much as “bringing the immortals back to life”–“ressusciter les immortels.” This beautiful phrase comes from Ernest Legouvé, the late master of artistic reading:

À la campagne, l’été, je m’en vais tous les jours à travers bois pendant plusieurs heures, courant non pas comme le naturaliste ou l’herborisateur après des papillons ou des plantes, mais après des intonations; je vais récitant, apprenant des vers, essayant de leur donner leur accent vrai. Combien grand est le plaisir de ces courses, vous ne pouvez vous le figurer! rien ne se marie mieux aux beaux paysages que les beaux vers, ils sont, eux aussi, des oiseaux du ciel, et quand ils chantent sous les branches, ils font très bien leur partie avec les chanteurs ailés! Aussi, quand je reviens le soir, la mémoire plein de mon mélodieux butin, et me répétant à demi-voix, tout en redescendant vers ma maison, quelques belles strophes que je me suis bien apprises, je me sens aussi fier que le chasseur qui rentre avec son carnier tout chargé de gibier… que dis-je, aussi fier! mille fois davantage! Car que fait le chasseur? Il tue! Que fait le naturaliste? Il tue! Que fait l’herborisateur? Il dessèche. Que fait le lecteur? Il ranime! au lieu d’éteindre la voix dans les gosiers les plus harmonieux, au lieu de frapper de mort les créatures les plus élégantes, il rend la vie de la parole aux créations les plus pures, aux pensées les plus sublimes, il ressuscite les immortels. (Legouvé, La Lecture en Action: 28)

In the country, in the summer, I walk out through the woods for several hours, coursing not like the naturalist or the herbalist seeking butterflies or plants, but seeking melodies; I recite as I walk, learning verses, trying to give them their true emphasis. You cannot imagine how great the pleasure of these outings is! Nothing suits better with beautiful landscapes than beautiful verses; they too are birds of the sky, and when they sing under the branches they merge so well with the singers on the wing! And so, when I return in the evening, my memory full of my tuneful booty, and, as I head down to my house, repeating to myself sotto voce some beautiful stanzas which I have learnt by heart, I feel as proud as the hunter who returns with his bag full of game… Did I say, as proud? A thousand times more so! For, what does the hunter do? He kills! What does the naturalist do? He kills! What does the herbalist do? He dessicates! What does the reader do? He brings back to life! Instead of extinguishing the voice in the most harmonious of throats, instead of beating to death the most elegant of creatures, he gives the life of speech back to the purest creations, to the most sublime thoughts, he brings the immortals back to life. (Translated by Greg Brooks)

Appendix. Notes on Balogh’s frontispiece

103In his 1921 dissertation, on the page following the title page and below the epigraph quotation from Schiller, there is a (rather indistinct) reproduction of what appears to be a tombstone. In the 1998 replika reprint there is a note about it, presumably added by Zoltán Ábrahám, which Varjú László Gyula of the Veritas organisation in Budapest kindly translated at Greg Brooks’s request:

The illustration that the reader sees on the [page following the] title page is a sarcophagus relief found in Rome. The drawing shown is a copy of figure 524 from Daremberg and Saglio: Dictionnaire des antiquités [see reference under Boissier, 1877]. The drawing found under no. 4886 in the same work and under no. 171 in Birt (1907) is more accurate. For a photograph of the sarcophagus, see Hall (1913: 8.1). For the text of the inscription that surrounds the relief, see Kaibel, Epigrammata Græca (1878) no. 712.

A Greek physician sits before an open bookcase (armarium) and reads from a scroll. The scrolls of the multivolume work have been arranged in a pyramid on the top shelf of the bookcase. A cup has been placed on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. On the top of the bookcase – according to our (old) figure – is some kind of pulpit. We discovered later that it is an open two-part folding case containing medical instruments.

104Greg Brooks located the Greek text, and asked Tim Whitmarsh, Regius Professor of Greek, Cambridge University, to translate it. He kindly provided not only a more accurate text and a translation (see below), but also the information that “The sarcophagus is now in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/​art/​collection/​search/​468268.”

105The note on that webpage is more informative and accurate than the endnote in replika, and the main photograph is very clear – it shows the whole side of the sarcophagus, not just the central section showing the Greek doctor. The second photograph, which enlarges the central section, shows much of the inscription, in its all-capitals form, which, however, does not name the doctor.

106Prof. Whitmarsh pointed out that the references in the original note in replika are out of date and in places inaccurate, as is the transcription in Kaibel (1878). The definitive modern edition is: Inscriptiones Graecae XIV.943 = Sacco, G. (ed.) (1984) Iscrizioni greche d’Italia: Porto, no.53. Sacco’ edition gives this corrected text of the inscription:

εἰ δ̣’ ἐπιτολμήσει τις τούτῳ συνθαπτέμεν ἄλλον
θήσει τῷ φίσκῳ τρὶς δύο χειλιάδας,
τόσσας καὶ Πόρτῳ καταθήσεται· ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτῆς
τείσοι ἀτασθαλίης βλαψιτάφου κόλασιν.

107The inscription is in the form of two elegiac couplets (dactylic hexameter + dactylic pentameter) as used widely by the ancient Greek lyric poets. Prof. Whitmarsh pointed out that there is nevertheless one syllable too many in the first line – “But hey ho, this is popular verse, and you get this kind of irregularity.” His translation runs:

If anyone dares to bury another person alongside this man /
he shall deposit three times two thousand in the public treasury /
That is the amount he must deposit for Portus; and he must pay /
the penalty for the folly of damaging tombs.

108He explains that “Portus” (“the port”), where the inscription comes from, is the separate mini-city to the West of Rome created by the emperor Constantine, covering the space between the ancient city and the port of Ostia. Thus the sarcophagus appears to date from the 4th century AD.

109Finally, we might wonder why Balogh chose this item for his frontispiece – perhaps to convey “I consider myself as learned as this man was.”

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Notes

1  Translators’ notes: We have provided the Greek original of the whole passage. In his footnote (now numbered 1) Balogh provided only the following sentence: σὺ δὲ ἀνεῳγμένοις μὲν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾷς τὰ βιβλία, καὶ νὴ Δία κατακόρως, καὶ ἀναγιγνώσκεις ἔνια πάνυ ἐπιτρέχων, φθάνοντος τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ τὸ στόμα, corresponding to “To be sure you look at your books with your eyes open and quite as much as you like, and you read some of them aloud with great fluency, keeping your eyes in advance of your lips” in the translation above. More literally, the last five, key words of this sentence mean “the eye anticipating the mouth”. Balogh was apparently unaware that in all fluent readers who read aloud “the eye runs ahead of the mouth”, a phenomenon known in modern psycholinguistics as “the eye-voice span”, the number of words which an oral reader will still be able to pronounce even after the text being read is covered or otherwise withdrawn. In classical times it was also alluded to by Quintilian – whom Balogh quotes below – a century before Lucian; the first report in the modern era was made by Quantz (1897).

2 Translators’ note: In his dissertation Balogh provided only part of this passage from Augustine (from “Sed cum legebat”) in the original Latin, even though he translated all of it into Hungarian. We have provided the whole passage in Latin.

3 When quoting evidence that has already been cited, I shall use the abbreviations AKpr to refer to Norden’s supplements in Antike Kunstprosa (“Ancient Literary Style”), and SS to refer to Siegfried Sudhaus’ work cited above. Incidentally, these two constitute all literature on the issue so far. Any citations for which no provenance is indicated come from my own collection and are published in this place for the first time.

4 I take the opportunity here to thank my former teachers: Dr Eduard Norden, University of Berlin, who has since 1913 tirelessly tracked my data collection, included my first findings in his Antike Kunstprosa, and encouraged me to write this work; and Dr Géza Némethy, university teacher, who kindly read the first handwritten draft of this work.

5 I investigate this in greater detail in my work on St. Augustine’s Confessions (“Vasa lecta et pretiosa” [A chosen and precious vessel] 1918). Thus, the world-renowned “tolle, lege” scene has become not only the manifestation of a religious conversion, but also an almost symbolic cornerstone of a more formal conversion (in Augustine’s departure from traditional literary culture). Augustine’s entire life so far had been conducted in the cult of oratory; the subject and instrument of this cult was: the spoken word. When – in the moment of tolle, lege – Augustine reads the apostle’s words in silence, he is breaking not only with a deeply rooted ritual – in culture and taste – but with an even deeper subconscious habit. And so, a new ideal replaces the old. Instead of verba (words), we have sententiae (sayings); instead of lingua exercitata (the tongue at work), it is cor castum (a pure heart); it is not what you hear that leads to the new empire, but what you feel: nouit non esse vocem ad aures dei nisi animi affectum (De catechizandis rudibus 9.13). (“They should also understand that there is no voice for the ears of God save the affection of the soul.” [Salmond 1887: 292]).

6 A.Kpr. R. Gottwald drew Norden’s attention to this text.

7 SS.

8   In relation to this quotation from Horace, Sudhaus further refers to the following lines of Dracontius: “Sed ne mæsta canens concludat carmen amoris / Post hæc vota parens quid sit factura Dione, / Murmuret os tacitum, Carales cum coeperit iri”. (Dracontius, Epithalamium Ioannis et Vitulae [Wedding Song of John and Vitula], 135-137). But lest this song about love end singing of sad things, let my silent mouth murmur what mother [of Aphrodite] Dione will be doing after this wedding, when the journey to Cagliari will have been started out. (Translation kindly provided by Helen Kaufmann, 27/7/21, Internationally recognised expert on the poet Dracontius). “Ein bezeichnender Ausdruck, den Dracontius von seiner dichterischen Production gebraucht” (“A telling expression that Dracontius used about his poetic production”) Sudhaus.

9   N.B. In Wieland’s translation, the word tacitus was translated as “verstohlenerweise” (furtively) in order to ensure comprehension in modern readers.

10   Cydippe reads the letter from Acontius silently (Ovid, Heroides, XXI. i). Further discussion of this later.

11   Translators’ comment: The Greek text in Balogh’s original footnote 11 has a few transcription errors (corrected here) and omits the phrase about Basil’s Hexaemeron, which we have restored in brackets from Patrologia graeca [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/02g/0329-0390,_Gregorius_Nazianzenus,_Funebris_oratio_in_laudem_Basilii_Magni_Caesareae_in_Cappado,_MGR.pdf accessed 27/1/23. A note in the 1998 replika reprint also mentions this discrepancy].

12   The ancient Christian writers fought against this “unity”; the significance of the form was questioned in principle, but the natural tendencies of ancient man and the literary traditions proved to be stronger than the theory. See below for an excerpt from a letter by St. Paulinus of Nola.

13   For Augustine’s antitheses, see my work entitled Vasa lecta et pretiosa (“A chosen and precious vessel”) 29 et seq.; for the outwardly-inwardly formula see 54 et seq.

14   Translators’ note: Both Balogh’s 1921 thesis and the 1998 replika reprint contain the non-existent word firopter before sapientem salubres. The original text in Patrologia latina [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/02m/0354-0430,_Augustinus,_Epistolae,_MLT.pdf, accessed 27/01/2023] has propter, which gives the required sense “because of”.

15   See below for evidence concerning acoustics.

16   The quotation taken from Cassian deserves attention for yet another reason. Scholarship has not yet clarified the question of when nurturing the classical past and culture in general became an integral part of the work plan of Western monasticism. Undoubtedly, this idea was not yet included in St. Benedict’s programme (Norden, AKpr. p. 665). Wattenbach (1896: 428) provides evidence that in the first centuries the priesthood was not concerned with the copying of the classics; he found the first signs of this in Jerome (Ep. 125) and in Sulpicius Severus (S. Martini Vita c.7). The excerpt from Cassian's work quoted here testifies that calligraphy was one of the regular occupations of monasteries as early as the 4th century. Even more interesting in this regard is another part of De institutis cœnobiorum (V. 39) which refers to an Italian monk who found himself stranded in Egypt and who had only one skill: copying (“Quo respondente, nihil se nec posse, nec praevalere ex his quae illic exercebantur a fratribus operari, praeter librariam manum.” [“He replied that he did not know how to and could not undertake any of the tasks which the brothers here applied themselves to, except copying”; for this translation see note above]). Thereupon, he received the materials needed for calligraphy and embarked upon writing out the Bible. (Clearly, he had to do this from memory, as he had no Latin Bible at his disposal.)

17   S. Sudhaus (professor at the University of Kiel, who died an heroic death as a captain in 1915 [Translators’ note: 1914 according to his Wikipedia entries]) wrote this to me in 1914: „dass Kydippe das letzte Wort auf der Inschrift des Apfels ἡμίφωνον spricht, scheint mir einer Notiz wert. Sie spricht also das Wort Ἀκοντίῳ halblaut”. [“If Cydippe left the last word of the inscription ‘half-spoken’, that seems to me worth a remark. So she spoke the word ‘Acontiussotto voce.” (translation by Greg Brooks)] This observation is based on two misunderstandings. The last word in the Greek is “I’ll marry”, not “Acontius”. Cydippe does not say this word quietly, but – as stated above – she utters only half of the word. This is evident from the phrase “She left the last word half-spoken…”. The Greek word ἡμίφωνον, according to dictionaries and Latin translations by Hercher, means “voice halved” (vox dimidiata in Latin) which moreover does not require explanation; the verb “left” and the following words: “since it mentioned marriage; a word any modest virgin would blush at even if another were to utter it” also support this. Sudhaus was wrong. [Translators’ note: We might suppose that, without the eye-voice span, Cydippe would have been unable to stop herself saying the whole word.]

18   H. Mertel’s (1917) explanation “When we read aloud, they sometimes echo what was read aloud” is arbitrary and unlikely. The demons were tempting the lone hermit. Incidentally, here too we run into the same difficulty as most ancient writers who write about reading: they did not perceive the difference between reading and reading aloud in antiquity, so they did not make any distinction: the two concepts have no separate expressions in Latin or Greek. In the Middle Ages, the Latin terminology was quite tortuous. The struggle with it is demonstrated in a peculiar sentence by Hugh of St. Victor: “lectio est, cum ex his quae scripta sunt, regulis et praeceptis informamur. trimodum est lectionis genus: docentis, discentis, vel per se inspicientis. dicimus enim ‘lego librum illi,’ et ‘lego librum ab illo,’ et ‘lego librum.’” (Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, Book 3, chapter 7). Reading consists of forming our minds upon rules and precepts taken from books, and is of three types: the teacher’s, the learner’s, and the independent reader’s. For we say, “I am reading the book to him”, “I am reading the book under him”, and “I am reading the book.” (Taylor 1961). Robert notes: “On le voit, legere désigne à la fois l’acte d’un professeur qui lit un livre, celui de l’éléve qui l’écoute, et celui de quelqu’un qui lit seul. Aussi Jean de Salisbury, trouvant le mot équivoque, proposait-il d’appeler la lecture du maître praelectio et la lecture particulière simplement lectio, mais il ne semble pas qu’on ait alors adopté cet usage.” (Robert 1909: 53). “We see that legere (to read) denotes both the act of a teacher who reads a book, that of the pupil who listens to him, and that of someone who reads alone. John of Salisbury also, finding the word ambiguous, suggested calling the reading of the master praelectio (reading aloud) and private reading simply lectio (reading), but this usage does not seem to have been adopted.” (Translated by Greg Brooks). Translators’ note: The actual text from the Metalogicon is not given by either Balogh or Robert. We provide here both the Latin original and a translation: “Sed quia legendi verbum aequivocum est, tam ad docentis et discentis exercitium quam ad occupationem per se scrutantis scripturas, alterum, id est quod inter doctorem et discipulum communicatur, ut verbo utamur Quintiliani dicatur praelectio. Alterum quod ad scrutinium meditantis accedit, lectio simpliciter appelletur.” (John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, I. XXIV, lines 6-10). “The word ‘reading’ is equivocal. It may refer either to the activity of teaching and being taught, or to the occupation of studying written things by oneself. Consequently, the former, the communication between teacher and learner, may be termed (to use Quintilian’s word), the “lecture”, or the scrutiny by the student, the “reading” simply so called.” (McGarry 1955). While, in Anthony’s case, the insidious spirits undoubtedly hear and repeat the voice of the lone reader, such an interpretation of a similar scene in Tertullian, in which there are also demons eavesdropping on a reader, is erroneous because it is based on a misconception. In his Apologeticus Tertullian says of the omnipresent, spying demons that: “Dispositiones etiam dei et tunc prophetis contionantibus exceperunt et nunc lectionibus resonantibus carpunt. Ita et hinc sumentes quadam temporum sortes aemulantur divinitatem, dum furantur divinationem.” (Tertullian, Apologeticus, XXII.9). “The purposes of God, too, they took up of old from the lips of the prophets, even as they spoke them; and they gather them still from their works, when they hear them read aloud. Thus getting, too, from this source some intimations of the future, they set themselves up as rivals of the true God, while they steal His divinations.”. (New Advent). I found this alleged piece of evidence in F. Di Capua (1913). He writes: “Frai i molti pasi degli antichi che dimostrano quest’uso [leggere ad alta voce] voglio citarne uno curioso dell’Apologetico. Quivi Tertulliano dice che i demoni possono annunziar prima alcuni avvenimenti, perche li conoscono dalle profezie che i cristiani leggono sonoramente ad alta voce, nell’ loro adunanze.” (Di Capua, 1913). “Among the many passages of the ancients which demonstrate this practice (reading aloud) I would cite a curious one from the Apologeticus. There Tertullian says that the demons can foretell certain events because they learn them from the prophecies which the Christians read out in a loud voice, in their assemblies.” (Translated by Greg Brooks). The readings in question here are standard scripture readings in services of worship since ancient Christian times. (See the entry for the key word “Lesungen” (“Readings”) in Kraus, 1886). Di Capua is aware of this too, as he writes: “in their assemblies”. It is of course natural that reading in religious services takes place aloud. (Lectio dicitur quia non cantatur ut psalmus vel hymnus, sed legitur tantum. Illic enim modulatio, hic sola pronuntiatio quæritur. [It is called reading because it is not sung like a psalm or a hymn, but is just read. In one there is a tune, in the other simply enunciation]. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 6, 19, 9 [Translated by Anne Kispal from Balogh’s translation into Hungarian]. cf. Gihr, 1902: 396 et seq.). It is completely clear, therefore, that this statement from Tertullian, which talks of readings in church, is not evidence of general reading aloud as a practice and it does not deserve a place here. Tertullian’s expression Lectiones resonantes (“resounding readings”), by the way, really is a thorny problem. In my view, Waltzing’s translation is incorrect: in resonare there is a suggestion of repetition, in ceremonial lectio the word of prophets resounds out loud. The basic idea of Kellner’s new translation is correct, but the cumbersome expression makes it almost incomprehensible; interestingly, his 1882 translation is still erroneous on this point.

19 AKpr. – P. Manser O.S.B. brought this text to Norden’s attention; his notification, which also includes literary observations, was also preserved in AKpr’s 1915 edition. However, in the interim, an excellent English Benedictine edition by Dom Cuthbert Butler (1912) was published, which sets out the text in the form given here. This rendered Manser's remark irrelevant. Butler (p.138I) rightly points to “sibi orare” (praying aloud) as the attendant to “sibi legere” (reading aloud): silent reading and silent prayer were equally exceptional at the time. [Translators’ notes: (1) “The sixth hour”, by ancient reckoning, equates to noon. (2) The “reading room” inscription in Latin is a well-turned elegiac couplet.]

20   Peter Domony brought Birt’s work to my attention.

21   Translators’ note: In his life of Augustine, Possidius does not (despite what Balogh says) claim authorship of the epigram (which is also a well-turned elegiac couplet, as are also the quotations from Ovid’s Heroides, above, and from Luxorius, below), ascribing it to ‘a secular poet’, though this may be modest self-effacement.

22   Georges (Translators’ note: reference not traced) did not pick up on this unique – and in this instance – untranslatable word (Translators’ note: Perhaps the modern English “Surround Sound” gives something of the flavour). But we can read an analogous verse in Virgil (Aeneid Book 4, line 447): The hero is buffeted (tunditur) by endless pleas from this side and that.

23   A frequently used expression: Jerome, Letters, 78. 1: “quasi aliud littera sonet, aliud spiritus clausum teneat.” [“As though the letter sounds one thing, and the spirit grasps another secretly.” Translators’ note: Balogh’s original reference (P. Jerome. Epist. 8. 1) appears to be erroneous (we have given the reference where the quotation is found), and to cast doubt on the authenticity of the letter – critical editions accept it.

24   See my study: “Vasa lecta et pretiosathe Confessions of St. Augustine” (Balogh, 1918): 16 et seq.

25   See Rucktäschel (1889: 22): “Charakteristisch für Ronsard’s Anschauungen ist, dass er keine Buchpoesie haben wollte, sondern meinte, dass die Gedichte laut und öffentlich gesprochen oder gesungen werden müssten. Der Dichter ist für ihn ein wirklicher Sänger, die Dichtkunst eine musikalische Kunst. Er gibt den vortrefflichen Rat.: de hautement prononcer tes vers, quand tu les feras, ou plus tost de les chanter, quelque voix que puisses avoir, car cela est bien une des principales parties que tu dois le plus curieusement observer.” (“It is typical of Ronsard’s opinions that he eschewed book poetry, and thought that poetry had to be spoken aloud or sung. For him, the poet was truly a singer, and rhyming a musical art. He gave this excellent advice: Pronounce your verses aloud when you are about to compose them, or rather sing them, with whatever voice you can, for this is certainly one of the principal aspects which you ought strictly to obey.” (Translated by Greg Brooks/Anne Kispal) (By kind permission of Dr A. Hauser, 1914.)

26   This is one of the first instances of the use of an exclamation mark, and it has an interesting implication. The history of punctuation has not yet been written. The oldest book in which “!” is used was published in Paris in 1536. In his dissertation, Bieling (1880) defines 1573 as the date when it was next seen. Thus, the 1572 preface of La Franciade cited above deserves attention in this respect as well. I shall also mention here that Lehmann (1918: 33) considers Erycius Puteanus to be the first theorist to prescribe the use of the exclamation mark. He quotes from Puteanus’ (1610) work entitled “Facula distinctionum” (A light shone on distinctions). In a work by the same writer, two years earlier, “Comus, sive Phagesiposia Cimmeria, somnium” (Puteanus 1608), I have already found the sign.

27   It is likely that within the following two centuries, these two aspects of writing had separated and writing had become a silent activity. See the conclusion of Boileau’s satire: “Mais c’est assez parlé, prenons un peu d’haleine, / Ma main pour cette fois commence à se lasser. / Finissons. Mais demain, Muse, à recommencer.” (Boileau, Satire VII: last three lines). “But that’s enough talk, let’s pause for breath. For now my hand begins to tire. Let’s stop. But tomorrow, Muse, start again.” (Translated by Greg Brooks). “Parler” (talking) by this time has no such acoustic connotation as Kempis’ verb “loqui” (to speak) had. Today we would say “no more words!” and we would then turn to writing.

28   Reading aloud was not just a Greco-Roman practice, but was also customary in the East. For the practice of reading aloud in the Jewish faith: Krauss (1910), vol. III, p. 163, 181, 227, 242 and 243.

29   Unfortunately, I cannot read this in the original Syriac and so I am providing the latest German translation.

30   Here I would like to draw attention to a very peculiar detail of Celsus’ medical work in which he mentions “reading aloud” as a health-friendly sport, along with fencing, ball games, walking, etc: “Quem interdiu vel domestica vel civilia officia tenuerunt, huic tempus aliquod servandum curationi corporis sui est. Prima autem curatio exercitatio est… Commode vero exercent clara lectio, arma, pila, cursus, ambulatio…” (Celsus, De medicina, I.2.5-6). “For those who have daily domestic or civil duties, some time should be given to care of the body. And the first part of such care is exercise… Definitely useful exercises are reading aloud, using weapons and spears, running, walking, …” (Translated by Greg Brooks). What is the basis for this? I cannot answer this question; nor do I know if anyone has studied this text; however, I find it indisputable that “clara voce” (in a loud voice) meant reading more forcefully than “non tacita lectio” (non-silent reading) – not just aloud, but almost shouting, perhaps expecting to clear the lungs. [Translators’ note: neither of these Latin phrases occurs as such in the passage translated just above.]

31   See the following two works: Huey (1908) and Javal (1907).

32   (See references).

33   Flaubert’s successor in stylistic technique was the Englishman Walter Pater. “It may be said, then, that Pater really struck out a new line in English prose, working on the principles enunciated by Flaubert in a widely different region. The essence of his attempt was to produce prose that had never before been contemplated in English, full of colour and melody, serious, exquisite, ornate. He devoted equal pains both to construction and ornamentation. His object was that every sentence should be weighted, charged with music, haunted with echoes; that it should charm and suggest, rather than convince or state. The triumph of his art is to be metrical without metre, rhythmical without monotony. To such as can apprehend, feel, enjoy, there is the pleasure of perfected art, of language that obeys and enriches the thought, of calculated effect, of realisation, with a supreme felicity of the intention of the writer.” (Benson 1906: 214)

34   (See references).

35   Cim (1905, vol. II: 53n) recorded some special modern cases of reading aloud and their related phenomena in his book entitled Comme preuve de “l’encouragement” donné par la parole, citons l’exemple du poète et philosophe anglais Pope, qui “ne composait jamais rien d’intéressant sans être obligé de déclamer longtemps à haute voix, et de s’agiter en tous sens pour exciter sa verve.” (Xavier de Maistre, 1795: VII. 118). Et Xavier de Maistre ajoute: “J’essayai à l’instant de l’imiter (Pope). Je pris les poésies d’Ossian et je les récitai tout haut, en me promenant à grands pas pour me monter à l’enthousiasme. Je vis, en effet, que cette méthode exaltait insensiblement mon imagination, et me donnait un sentiment secret de capacité poétique, dont j’aurais certainement profité pour composer…” etc. – “Relire, chaque matin, même au besoin de réciter à haute voix certaines pages favorites d’auteurs classiques… Chaque matin, pendant une ou deux demi-heures, il faut commencer avec les modèles, afin de se tenir l’oreille et la main constamment habituées au son pur et au pur tour de la langue française”: tel est le conseil donné “à un journaliste” par J. J. Weiss (see references). – Gustave Mouravit (1904) nous apprend, que Napoléon “aimait à lire à haute voix”, surtout des tragédies, celles notamment dont il savait de grandes tirades par cœur: Cinna, le Cid, la Mort de César.” (Translated by Greg Brooks: As proof of the “encouragement” given by speech, let us quote the example of the English poet and philosopher Pope, who ”never composed anything interesting without being obliged to declaim it in a loud voice at length, and restlessly involve all his senses to awake his verve.“ (Xavier de Maistre. 1795. VII. 118). And Xavier de Maistre adds: “I immediately tried to imitate him (Pope). I took the poems of Ossian and recited them aloud, while taking great strides to bring myself to a peak of enthusiasm. In fact, I saw that this method insensibly increased my imagination, and gave me a secret feeling of poetic ability from which my compositions would certainly have benefited…” etc. – “Re-read, every morning, even at the cost of reciting aloud some favourite pages from classic authors … Every morning, in order to keep the ear and the hand constantly used to pure sound and the pure vigour of the French language” is the advice given “to a journalist” by J.J. Weiss. – Gustave Mouravit (1904) tells us that Napoleon “loved to read aloud, especially tragedies, notably those from which he knew the monologues by heart: Cinna, le Cid, La Mort de César.”

36   Compare Huey’s work (1908: 17 et seq.)

37   These lines, among many others, bear witness to the emphasis placed on fluent and flawless reading in antiquity: “inde de hippodromo et palæstra ubi revenisses domum / cincticulo præcinctus in sella apud magistrum adsideres: / quom librum legeres, si unam peccavisses syllabam / fieret corium tam maculosum quam est nutricis pallium.” (Plautus, Bacchides 431-435). “Then when you had returned home from the track and field, all neat and trim you would sit on your chair before your teacher with your book: and while you were reading, if you had missed a single syllable, your hide would be made as spotted as a nurse’s gown.” (Nixon 1916)

38   As the phrase ab oculo is untranslatable word for word into some languages, it is often misunderstood. Only English satisfactorily reflects the original: “he can do division and read books at sight” (Heseltine 1913: 149). Among those languages which are obliged to somehow paraphrase this interesting phrase, the following come the closest to the original: Friedländer: “ohne zu stocken” (“fluently”; literally “without any break”); József Révay: “hiba nélkül” (“without error” 1919. Feb), and they thereby incorporate a meaning which was not in the original. Petronius was not mistaken when he described it as “stunning” reading. In Forcellini’s dictionary, this expression is translated as “in un colpo d’occhio” (= “d’un coup d’œil”), i.e. at a glance, which is a complete misunderstanding. [Translators’ note: Heseltine’s translation of decem partes (can do division) differs markedly from Kline’s (parts of speech) – see text. It seems to us unlikely that Petronius would refer to Trimalchio’s slave’s proficiency in arithmetic rather than to a second aspect of his literacy. Since the whole remark is ironic, it would be a further irony if Trimalchio thought there were 10 parts of speech rather than the (then) recognised eight.]

39   But fluent reading (i.e. reading aloud) came into difficulties even later. We can see this from instructions for reading issued by Gyraldus (1479-1552) in 1551 (p. 5) to his student: “Ades puer et ex schedis adfer huc quem dicit dialogum Antimachus et illum perlege alta et clara voce ac distincte, nec, ut soles, τραύλιζε, et cave, quanto amplius potes, a tuo cappacismo, sed expedite pronuntia.” [“Come here, boy, and from the shelves bring me the dialogue spoken by Antimachus. Read it aloud and in a clear voice and intelligibly, and don’t, as you usually do, lisp, and avoid, as far as you can, your cappacismo, but get on with your enunciation.” (Translated mainly by Anne Kispal, supplemented by Greg Brooks) Translators’ notes: (1) Balogh’s Hungarian translates τραύλιζε as ‘stuttering’, but his gloss ‘grammatical error, perhaps due to confusion between the letters ρ and λ in the Greek word’ equates better to the Cambridge Greek Lexicon’s (2021, vol. 2, p. 1389) citation from Plutarch implying Alcibiades lisped, ”mispronouncing ρ as λ“ – phoneticians would prefer to say “replacing phoneme /r/ with /l/”. (2) Balogh’s Hungarian translates cappacismo tentatively as ‘confusion between g and k?”, but the online Dizionario Italiano https://www.dizionario-italiano.it/dizionario-italiano.php?lemma=CAPPACISMO100 accessed 30/1/23 defines cappacismo as ”pronuncia difettosa dell’occlusiva velare sorda /k/, che viene in genere sostituita con il fonema /t/“ (‘defective pronunciation of the voiceless velar stop /k/, which is usually replaced with the phoneme /t/’).]

40   Incidentally, I shall mention here that reading in ancient times was a cumbersome craft even in other ways. The scroll was a long, heavy roll that had to be handled with care and required great practice. In ancient times, they read not only aloud, but walking up and down (apparently simultaneously gesturing); an unravelling scroll dropped on the ground could become an annoying, and even a “life-threatening” (Pliny the Younger, Letters II, 1. 8) obstacle. Translators’ note: Pliny says that Verginius Rufus, aged 83, dropped a heavy scroll and, stooping to pick it up, slipped, broke his collar-bone, and died of the injury. Thereafter, this heavy roll had to be held loosely, not pressed against the body or laid on the ground. Birt (1907: 165-166) writes extensively about these trivial details.

41   Ernst Bickel (1912: 612-615) has provided the briefest summary of the results of extremely extensive research in this field as well as a relevant literature review. Prose rhythm can, of course, be found in modern languages to some extent, including in Hungarian. See the article by János Horváth (1921) (unfortunately very short, a fragment of a longer dissertation).

42   For interestingly different interpretations of dictation and dictare, see Norden AKpr. pp.953. et seq.

43   For more about these recitations, see summary by Boissier (1877).

44   Letters composed by humanists were written for the reader’s ears: as Scaliger [the younger, Joseph Justus] wrote to Casaubon on Sept. 7th 1604 [Translators’ note: This date is erroneous. The original letter, held in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, clearly gives the date as “VII Octobris Iuliani M D CIIII” (= 7 October 1604, Julian calendar – or ”Old Style“, as Anglophone historians express this), with the corresponding Gregorian (or “New Style”) date given in the catalogue as 17 October 1604, the two systems being (at that time) discrepant by 10 days]: “Scio me in ære tuo esse, qui tot literas tibi debeo. Sed ineptus sim, si causas scripsero, quae indignae sunt oculis et auribus tuis.” [”I know I am in your debt because I owe you so many letters. But I cannot write if the reasons I would have for writing are unworthy of your eyes and ears.“ Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translation into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint.] To a greater extent, this is also true of the works of the humanist poets. As a typical example, I refer to a poet-sculptor of Hungarian humanism, the Italian Ugolinus Verinus, whose poems were published by Jenő Ábel (1890). His book of poetry has a mouth (348. i. “Ad librum”: “ore salutes” – “Address to the book: May you speak greetings”) and thus can speak (p.352. “Ad librum”: “dices, quæ tibi causa viæ est” – “Address to the book: May you declare your reason for existing.”) Incidentally, he recommended his extremely weak poems to King Mátyás (Matthias) thus: “Si quando, armipotens, tibi cessat bellica cura, / Ocia cum fuerint, carmina nostra lege. / Hic nihil obscenum inuenies, quod principis aures Offendat, sed quæ virgo Catoque legat. (Ugolinus Verinus, Epigrammata: 343). Warrior, if when your war concerns cease you have some leisure time, read my poems. You will find nothing obscene in them to offend the ears of a prince, but only what a maiden may read to Cato. And later on the same page: “Nil præter Christum carmina nostra sonant. / My poems sing nothing but Christ.” (Translated by Anne Kispal from Zoltán Ábrahám’s translations into Hungarian in the 1998 replika reprint).

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József Balogh, « “The Voices of the Pages”: Contributions to the Question of Oral Reading and Writing »Histoire Épistémologie Langage, 45-2 | 2023, 161-207.

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József Balogh, « “The Voices of the Pages”: Contributions to the Question of Oral Reading and Writing »Histoire Épistémologie Langage [En ligne], 45-2 | 2023, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2024, consulté le 17 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/hel/4429 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/hel.4429

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Anne Kispal

National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales, Slough, UK

Greg Brooks

Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Sheffield, UK

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