been to print first the Greek text, then the literal or prose translation, then a metrical version, adhering as nearly as possible to the meaning of the Greek, and finally, notes and commentary.
About twenty fragments consisting of one or two words only or such as are of doubtful authenticity, which are included by Wharton and others, have been omitted from the present arrangement.
With the kind permission of the Egypt Exploration Society, and of Mr. J. M. Edmonds the text with emendations of No. 3 has been included in the present volume. Other fragmentary poems which have from time to time been published by the Egypt Exploration Society, and emended and restored with very great industry and learning by several scholars, have not been reprinted. The amount of restoration is so great that the fragments, while of very great interest to the philologist and palaeographer, do not appeal very strongly to the general reader.
In the spelling of Greek proper names, when they are printed in Roman type, the form to which the English reader is accustomed has been adopted. Philological commentary and variant readings have, in nearly all cases, been omitted, as in the present state of the subject Mr. Edmond’s arrangement in his “Lyra Graeca” offers all that the classical student, as distinguished from the general reader, can expect.
