οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν(35)ταῦθά ἐστι τὸ εὖ [ἢ] τὸ ταχὺ ἢ τὸ συντόμως, ἀλλὰ τὸ με(36)τρίως·
τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶ τὸ λέγειν ὅσα δηλώσει τὸ πρᾶγμα, (1417a1) ἢ ὅσα ποιήσει ὑπολαβεῖν γεγονέναι ἢ βεβλαφέναι ἢ ἠδι(2)κηκέναι, ἢ τηλικαῦτα ἡλίκα βούλει, τῷ δὲ ἐναντίῳ τὰ (3) ἐναντία·
παραδιηγεῖσθαι δὲ ὅσα εἰς τὴν σὴν ἀρετὴν φέρει (4) (οἷον “ἐγὼ δ’ ἐνουθέτουν, ἀεὶ τὰ δίκαια λέγων, μὴ τὰ τέκνα (5) ἐγκαταλείπειν”),
ἢ θατέρου κακίαν· “ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατό μοι ὅτι, (6) οὗ ἂν ᾖ αὐτός, ἔσται ἄλλα παιδία”, ὃ τοὺς ἀφισταμένους (7) Αἰγυπτίους ἀποκρίνασθαί φησιν ὁ Ἡρόδοτος·
ἢ ὅσα ἡδέα (8) τοῖς δικασταῖς.
We are not to make long narrations, just as we are not to make long introductions or long arguments.
Here, again, rightness does not consist either in rapidity or in conciseness, but in the happy mean;
that is, in saying just so much as will make the facts plain, or will lead the hearer to believe that the thing has happened, or that the man has caused injury or wrong to some one, or that the facts are really as important as you wish them to be thought: or the opposite facts to establish the opposite arguments.
You may also narrate as you go anything that does credit to yourself, e.g. ’I kept telling him to do his duty and not abandon his children’;
or discredit to your adversary, e.g. ’But he answered me that, wherever he might find himself, there he would find other children’, the answer Herodotus’ records of the Egyptian mutineers.
