Note 39 — INTRODUCTION

I should like if possible to anticipate criticism by frankly stating that the text of this edition makes no claims to being based on scientific principles. I have followed Birt not because I think him invariably right but because his is at present the standard text. Where I differ from him (and this is but in a few places) I do so not because I prefer the authority of another MS. or because I am convinced of the rightness of a conjecture, but because Birt’s conservatism commits him (in my opinion) to untranslatable readings, in which cases my choice of a variant is arbitrary. Of the principle of difficilior lectio I pragmatically take no account.