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Producing great sound for film and video expert tips from
preproduction to final mix Fourth Edition Rose Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Rose, Jay
ISBN(s): 9781510705494, 0415722071
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Language: english
Film & Video Production / Audio

PRODUCING GREAT SOUND for FILM & VIDEO Third Edition

PRODUCING GREAT
By Jay Rose, C.A.S.
Praise for the second edition: Rose
“…a one-stop source for digital filmmakers to learn everything they need to know…”

PRODUCING GREAT SOUND for FILM & VIDEO

—S. D. Katz, Millimeter Magazine
“Rose debunks common myths, shows the reader how to make do in limited-budget, time-constrained situations, and puts

SOUND for FILM

it all in context on a technical level…essential reading for anyone serious about making a living doing moving pictures.”
— Dominic Milano, Digital Video Magazine
“The most comprehensive, in-depth resource I’ve found for audio production in the desktop environment...a must-have
resource for professionals…”
— Randy Cates, Videography Magazine

& VIDEO
“The entire book is fascinating: it’s absolutely packed with useful information and tips…”
—Mike Caputo, Amazon.com staff reviewer
• Having trouble with your film or video’s soundtrack? The answer is in this best-selling guide
• Includes time-tested tips, techniques, secrets and shortcuts that work with any hardware or software Third Edition
• Audio CD, playable on your best stereo speakers and downloadable into your computer, includes diagnostics,
demos, and tutorials
Make your film or video sound as good as it looks with this complete training course by audio guru Jay Rose. You get
hundreds of professional, real-world solutions for every stage from pre-production through final mix. You’ll find plenty of
FAQs and how-to’s, as well as easy-to-understand technical explanations. You’ll get a primer on how sound and digital
audio work as well as technical setups, guidelines, and real solutions for:

• budgeting, scheduling, and pre-production planning

• microphones and room acoustics
• recording dialog, voice-overs, ADR, and effects
• postproduction hardware
• levels and digitizing
• working with music and sound effects
• producing the final mix
New to this edition:
• information on the new cameras and nonlinear field recorders
• expanded sections on single- and double-system, and new digital workflows
• extensive coverage of theatrical-style storytelling and dialog techniques, as well as traditional video tracks

About the author:

Jay Rose is a nationally respected sound designer and consultant whose Clio- and Emmy- winning career has included pro-
gram openers for NBC, documentaries and commercials for PBS and MGM, and close to a thousand independent film and
video projects. He’s a columnist for DV magazine, a popular lecturer at DV Expo and other conventions, a member of the Third
Cinema Audio Society and past section officer of the Audio Engineering Society.
Edition

www.focalpress.com Jay Rose

Producing Great Sound for Film and Video
Third Edition
 Producing Great Sound for
Film and Video
Third Edition

Jay Rose

FM-K80970.indd iii 1/31/2008 12:05:10 PM

 First published 1999 by Focal Press
This edition published 2008 by Focal Press
70 Blanchard Road, Suite 402, Burlington, MA 01803

Simultaneously published in the UK by Focal Press

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Focal Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2008 Jay Rose. Published by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

The right of Jay Rose to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are

used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Application submitted

ISBN 13: 978-0-240-80970-0 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-240-81050-8 (CD-ROM)

FM-K80970.indd iv 1/31/2008 12:05:10 PM

To Cat: you’re still my inspiration.
 Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
About This Book and Audio Postproduction xvii
How to Create a Great Soundtrack (in a Quarter of a Page) xix

SECTION I AUDIO BASICS 1

Chapter 1 How Sound Works 3
Music-Sicle? 3
The Life of a Sound 4
Fast Pressure Changes are Heard as Sounds 5
Somewhat Slower Pressure Changes are Heard
as Envelopes 9
Slow Changes of Pressure are Loudness 11
Echoes in Small Rooms 15
Very Slow Changes of Pressure are Weather 19
Chapter 2 How Digital Audio Works 20
Why Digital? 20
Turning Analog to Digital 23
Audio Data Reduction 36
Chapter 3 Audio on a Wire 41
Analog Wiring 41
Digital Wiring 54

SECTION II PLANNING AND PREPRO 59

Chapter 4 Planning for Sound 61
The Need for Sound 61
Think About The Overall Track 65
Elements of the Soundtrack 72
Spoken Words 72
Music 77
viii • Contents

Sound Effects 80
Special Effects and Processing 81
The Layers of a Track 82
Chapter 5 Budgeting, Scheduling, and Preproduction 83
Budgeting for Sound 84
Allow Time for Sound 90
Checking Locations 95

SECTION III PRODUCTION SOUND 103

Chapter 6 Microphones and Room Acoustics 105
About Microphones 106
Rooms and Recording 125
Chapter 7 Production Mic Technique 128
What Kind of Mic to Use? 129
Using Boom Mics 130
Using Lavalieres 140
Controlling Wind Noise 146
Using Wireless 147
Room Tone 156
Chapter 8 Production Recording 157
Getting Audio Into a Recorder 157
Camera Settings 164
Double System 172
Mixers and Preamps 177
Connecting to the Recorder 179
Adjusting the Volume 181
Chapter 9 Recording Voice-Overs, ADR, and Effects 184
Engineering a Voice Recording 185
Directing The Voice-over 195
Recording Sound Effects 206

SECTION IV POSTPRODUCTION 215

Chapter 10 Postproduction Workflow 217
Linear and Nonlinear Editing 217

Chapter 11 Postproduction Hardware 232

Monitoring 232
Computer Input/Output 243
The Mixer 244
Moving Signals Around the Editing Suite 254
Wiring The Postproduction Suite 256
Mixing -10 Dbv and +4 Dbu Equipment 259
 Contents • ix

Chapter 12 Levels and Digitizing 263

Digital Audio Transfers 264
Digitizing Analog Signals 271
Metering and Lineup Tones 278
Synchronization 283

Chapter 13 Editing Voices 293

The Right Tools for Editing Voice 294
Editing I: Cutting in Silences 296
Editing II: Sounds with Hard Attacks 297
Editing III: Hearing Phonemes 300
Editing IV: Theatrical Film Dialog 305
Editing V: The Tricks 308
Editing VI: Keeping Track of Sync 309
A Final Exercise 313

Chapter 14 Working with Music 314

Deciding What Music You’ll Need 315
Sources of Music 317
Selecting Music from a Library 328
Music Editing 330

Chapter 15 Sound Effects 339

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Reality 339
Sources for Sound Effects 341
Choosing Effects 344
Placing Sound Effects 345

Chapter 16 Processing 352

How any Effect can Wreck a Sound 353
When to Apply Processing 354
Equalizers 356
Compressors 363
Reverberation 369
Noise Reduction 375
Combining Effects 378
Learning More 379

Chapter 17 The Mix 380

Setting up for the Mix 381
Preparing for Someone Else to Mix 395
After the Mix 397
The Last Thing You Should Do 398

Chapter 18 “Help! It Doesn’t Sound Right!” 399

Problems With On-Camera Dialog 399
Too Many Background Noises 401
x • Contents

Dialog Problems Introduced by the Recorder 402

Postproduction Audio Issues 403
Narration Problems 406
Computer Doesn’t Play Audio Well 406
Editing Problems 407
Mix Problems 408
The Mix Sounded Great on the Desktop or
Mixing Studio, but Bad on the Air or in
the Conference Room 408
The Mix Proportions Were Right, but It Was
Too Soft/Loud/Distorted on the Air 408
Some Elements Sound Fine in Stereo, but
Disappear when the Tape Is Broadcast,
Played on VHS, or Seen on the Web 409
Other Common Questions 410

Appendix A Glossary 412

Appendix B Resources 418

Organizations 420

Appendix C CD Contents 422

Index 429
 Acknowledgments

This book is now in its third edition, and a lot of very fine people helped it get there.
Matt Kelsey and Dorothy Cox of CMP Books, and filmmaker and journalist Jim Feeley,
helped bridge the tremendous gap between my thinking about a book and actually
turning out the first edition; copy editor Lydia Linker provided tremendous support
for the second. I’m grateful for the working professionals who let me pick their brains
about the techniques they use. First among them would be location sound guru G. John
Garrett. I also got help from the late Bob Turner of Videography Magazine, veteran boom
operator Chris O’Donnell, and PBS narrators Wendie Sakakeeny and Don Wescott.
Omnimusic president Doug Wood contributed audio examples for the book’s CD.
Dave Talamas and Ramon Fabregas of Talamas Broadcast Equipment provided cameras
for my lab measurements.
Special thanks to Richard Pierce, noted audio design consultant, author, and
reviewer for the Audio Engineering Society, for the countless times he answered my
phone calls about the finer points of acoustics and digital audio. And thanks to Dave
Moulton, Grammy-nominated engineer, nationally-respected audio educator and
researcher, and author of Total Recording, for reviewing the first edition’s manuscript
and offering suggestions.
I’m particularly grateful to my new publisher and the technical experts
they assembled to review my ideas and manuscript. Elinor Actipis, Cara Anderson,
Robin Weston, and Paul Gottehrer of Focal Press provided the support and profes-
sionalism that made this edition possible. Steve Buss, Don Hall, Bart Weiss, Neil
Wilkes, and Chris Woolf—working filmmakers and college instructors—gave me valu-
able insights and suggested changes. Of course, any of their ideas I misinterpreted is
my own fault.
Thanks also to readers of my column at DV magazine, members to the online
Audio Solutions forum at www.DV.com, e-mail correspondents, and readers who have
posted critical comments of the first two editions at www.Amazon.com. Your sugges-
tions (and brickbats) helped shape this book.
It’s customary for authors to thank their families, and mine has been uniquely
helpful. My late wife Carla, who wrote some 32 successful books about computer
graphics during her career, taught me the practical realities of getting a manuscript out
the door. My son Dan, Assistant Chief Engineer at The WBUR Group and consultant
to other stations in the Boston area, continues to be my anchor to all things technical.
 Introduction

There’s a good chance you picked up this book because you’re working on a project and
having trouble with its sound. So we’ve included a list of Frequently Asked Questions:
common film and video sound problems, and either how to fix them or—if the fix is
complicated—where to go in this book for the answers.
This section is set apart with gray borders at the end of the book. Turn to it if you
have to put out fires in a hurry.
But read the rest of this book if you want tracks that are truly hot.

I’m going to try to guess some things about you. You may have taken a few film
or video courses, but most of your production knowledge is self-taught. You improve
your skills by watching projects you’ve produced, seeing what you don’t like, and
changing it the next time. You look at still frames of your own work and others, to
analyze lighting or composition. You compare your own editing techniques with what’s
on television and the movies you rent. Since you’re primarily an artist, your eyes are
your guide. You can see what you’ve done wrong.
One other guess: You’ve discovered it’s almost impossible to learn how to make
a good soundtrack that way. There are too many variables. If the finished mix has
dialog that’s hard to understand, there’s no intuitive way to tell whether it was because
the boom was placed badly, levels weren’t set properly in post, or if it was mixed on
the wrong kind of speakers. Often, trying to fix one sound problem makes some other
part of the track worse.
Even if you also play a musical instrument, your sense of aesthetics doesn’t bail
you out when the track isn’t working. There’s a reason for this:
• Good soundtracks aren’t just a question of art. You also have to understand the
science.
In this book, we cover both.
xiv • Introduction

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Don’t be scared about the science part. The math is mainly stuff you learned in elemen-
tary school, and the physics is common sense.
Don’t be scared of the art, either. This isn’t a book on the aesthetics of sound.
There are plenty of books with critical essays of classic directors and theories about
sound design, but they’re completely irrelevant to what we’re trying to do here. I’m
not going to try to change what you think is good.
And don’t be scared of me. The “art” of this book is the tricks, shortcuts, and
industry practices that have been developed over more than 75 years of talking
pictures, and that I’ve been working with personally for more than three decades. I’ve
dealt with everything from sales videos to theatrical features, engineered every kind
of facility from local stations to large post houses, helped design some of the industry’s
standard pieces of digital audio gear, and seen the projects I work on win Clios, an
Emmy, and hundreds of other awards. I’ve learned a lot, and had a lot of friends help
me. This book is an attempt to share as much as I can.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

The first section of this book is an explanation of how sound works. It covers the
physics of sound in space and the technology of digital recording. I’ve put this material
in front because it’s important. I’ve also put it in plain English, without jargon or com-
plicated formulas, and with plenty of drawings and examples. It shouldn’t take more
than a couple of evenings to read.
Then we get to step-by-step advice, which is the bulk of these pages. First, pre-
production: how to plan the track, figure the budget, and pick the location. Second,
acquisition: how microphones work and are affected by practical acoustics, how to use
them on location and in the studio, how to get the best audio results from cameras and
recorders, and how to work with the people and things that make sound. Finally,
postproduction: editing voices, adding and editing music and effects, processing for
the best possible sound, and mixing for various viewing situations.
There’s also an accompanying CD with examples and tutorials. I made it an audio
CD, playable on any standard stereo, rather than a CD-ROM because I wanted you to
be able to hear it on the best speakers you own. There should be no problem importing
the tutorials into your editing system.

DO IT YOURSELF?
There are a couple of simple projects in this book, for building helpful tools that aren’t
commonly available off-the-shelf. They require a little bit of soldering but no other
special techniques. If you don’t want to tackle them, ask a local high school hardware
hacker or amateur radio enthusiast. I’ve chosen parts that should be available at any
electronics store or Web site. I’ve also included Radio Shack part numbers for ordering
convenience. Parts from other sources will work just as well, but they sure have a lot of
stores—they claim more than 6,000 on their Web site—so they might be easiest to find.
 Introduction • xv

THOSE LITTLE ICONS

I wanted to call attention to a few points, so I asked the publisher to set them apart
(like this). They’re identified with little icons:

—The asterisk is for Tidbits, interesting little facts that may help you under-
stand the material better.
—The question marks are Queries, answers to questions I’m occasionally
asked about an unusual aspect of sound.
—The exclamation points are Warnings, to help you get through an operation
more efficiently.
—The lightning bolt identifies a Hazard, where you should be particularly
careful of electricity within the equipment.
—The camera shutter is Breaking News. Some upcoming laws may affect
our work; this points out what to look for.

These are fairly broad categories and subject to interpretation, so each icon has a
subhead explaining what its text is talking about.
 About This Book and Audio
Postproduction

The first edition of Producing Great Sound sold well enough that my publisher asked
for another, with much more detail about the postproduction process. That book, Audio
Postproduction, includes almost 150 pages just about processing: tutorials, explanations,
examples, practical tips, and specific recipes for equalization, compression, and the
other processes necessary to build a good mix, including a chapter on removing noise
from bad recordings. It also has long sections about editing, postproduction sound and
music sources, debugging sync and NLE problems, and soundproofing and wiring an
audio post setup. It comes with a one-hour audio CD of new diagnostics, examples,
and tutorials aimed at postproduction. But it doesn’t cover any aspect of location sound
at all.
With Audio Postproduction on the shelf, I felt free to expand the production side
of this book. There are sections on choosing microphones, boom and lav technique,
and wireless mics. There’s coverage of techniques used in creating a feature film
Hollywood style, shortcuts and timesavers that are often used on smaller productions,
and how to pick the best from both. There’s a chapter on getting the best results with
in-camera sound and with separate audio recorders, including specific measurements
and tips for some popular camera models. I’ve kept the chapters about audio post-
production that were in the first edition (with some updates to cover more elaborate
styles of filmmaking), so Producing Great Sound can still serve as a guide to the entire
production process.
Some parts of the two books necessarily overlap. The basics of sound, digital
recording, accurate monitoring, and editing belong in both books. But I’ve written
about them differently in each, to give you a better chance of understanding these
important concepts.
In other words, it’s entirely reasonable to own both Audio Postproduction and this
edition of Producing Great Sound. But if you can get only one:
• Choose this book for an overview of the entire audio process with a strong
emphasis on sound at the shoot;
• Choose Audio Postproduction for a complete discussion of turning that sound
into a polished, finished soundtrack.
xviii • About This Book and Audio Postproduction

STAYING UP-TO-DATE
While styles change, the techniques behind good audio remain constant. The physics
of sound aren’t going to change without a major overhaul of the universe. You should
be able to hang onto this book for a while.
My intention is to share the what and why, as well as the how. While there are
recommendations for getting the best results from some current cameras and other
equipment, I explain the principles involved so you can apply the information to next
year’s equipment. While I demonstrate editing techniques using software available
today, the step-by-step instructions aren’t designed for any particular program or
platform. The tutorials are appropriate for any decent program, Windows or Mac, and
just about any collection of software or hardware processors. You can use this book
with tools you have now, and keep using it when you upgrade.
For the most current information, check the magazines and online forums. I
particularly recommend DV magazine and their Web site www.DV.com. They’ve got
up-to-date product reviews, recommendations, and how-to features, and I’ve been
writing for them since late 1995. There are also tutorials, examples, and pointers to my
other writing at my own Web site: www.dplay.com
Or ask a friendly professional: we’re not territorial, and are usually willing to
share ideas and information. You can reach me through my Web site.
 How to Create a Great Soundtrack
(in a Quarter of a Page)

Here are the rules:

• Know what you’re doing before you start.
• Plan the sound as carefully as you plan the picture.
• Get good elements.
• Treat them with respect.
• Do as little processing as possible until the mix.
• Listen very carefully while you mix.
• Follow the tips in this book.
The rest is just details.
 Section I
Audio Basics

These three chapters are the technical stuff: How sound exists and what happens when
it gets to your brain, how it can be turned into electronic impulses and then computer
data, and how the impulses and the data can be carried over wires. It’s the foundation
for everything else in this book.
I’ve avoided formulas. If you made it through grade-school science and math,
and have normal common sense, you should be able to understand these concepts. I’ve
also used visual analogies in many of the explanations . . . my thinking is that if you
want to make films, you’re probably already pretty good at seeing the world.
But it is technical, and some people have a problem with that. You can skip this
material—if you must—and go directly to the practical tips and techniques that com-
prise this book’s other chapters. But I don’t recommend doing that. Once you’re read
these few chapters, the rest of the book makes a lot more sense. In fact, since you’ll
know how sound actually works, you’ll find yourself getting better tracks without
having to memorize a bunch of rules.
And that will make it easier to concentrate on the fun stuff.
 Chapter 1
How Sound Works

A brief note: This is the most technical chapter of the book. However, I’ve avoided
complex formulas and theorems; the only math and science you’ll need is stuff you
learned in grade school. Instead, you’ll use your visual imagination and common-sense
knowledge of how the world works.

Rose’s Rules

9 Sound is messy. It spreads out, bends around corners, and bounces off objects.
The way it bounces can hurt your track.
9 As sound spreads out, it gets drastically weaker. If you know how this happens,
you’ll find it easier to control the bounces and get better tracks.

MUSIC-SICLE?
“Architecture is frozen music.” When Friedrich von Schelling wrote that, he was being
poetic. The scientific truth is if there were such a thing as frozen music, or any kind of
sound, it would be pressure. This is usually air pressure, but it can also be pressure in
water, wood, or anything else that conducts sound.
It’s related to the pressure you feel when deadlines approach, when time feels
like it’s squeezed together. But it’s really about squeezed molecules, the tiny building
blocks of matter. They get pushed together. When conditions are right, we hear their
movement as sound. Something—a drum skin, human vocal cords, the cone of a loud-
speaker, or anything else that makes noise—starts vibrating back and forth. As its
surface moves toward us, it squeezes nearby molecules together. As it moves away, it
pulls the molecules apart. This motion bumps from one molecule to another, like bil-
4 • Producing Great Sound for Film and Video

liard balls on a table; eventually the vibrating mol-

ecules in the air carry it to our ears.
If we could freeze sound and see the individ-
ual molecules, they’d look like Figure 1.1.
Think of Figure 1.1 as a snapshot of a single
moment in the life of a sound. Air molecules are
represented as tiny black dots . . . and as we enlar-
ge sections of the picture, we can see individual
molecules.

Figure 1.1 If we could see sound,

THE LIFE OF A SOUND
it would look like this. Air
molecules are squeezed together The tuning fork vibrates back and forth. When its
and pulled apart by the vibrations surface moves toward the air molecules next to it,
of the tuning fork. it squeezes them together. Those compressed mol-
ecules push against the ones a little farther from the
tuning fork, and that squeezes the farther molecules
together. The farther molecules now push against ones even farther, and so on: as the
squeezing spreads out to successive layers of molecules, the pressure spreads out.
Air molecules, like everything else in the physical universe, take time to move
from one place to another. So even while the pressure is still spreading outward, the
tuning fork—which is vibrating back and forth—may start moving back in the other
direction. The air molecules next to the fork rush back in to fill the space where it was,
pulling them a little farther apart than normal. This very slight vacuum—engineers call
it rarefaction—pulls on the next layer of molecules a little farther from the tuning fork,
spacing them apart. And the process repeats to successive layers.

Everybody Feels the Pressure

As you can imagine, pent-up molecules try to push away from what’s squeezing them
together. They don’t necessarily push in a straight line from the sound source, so the
sound spreads in all directions. Remember that part in italics, because it means:

• You can point a light, but you can’t point a sound.

• You can aim a lens to avoid something out-of-frame, but you can’t effectively aim a
microphone to “miss” a distracting sound.

Eventually the waves of pressure and rarefaction reach our ears. The eardrum
vibrates in response, and the vibration is carried across tiny bones to a canal filled with
nerves. Different nerves are sensitive to vibrations at different speeds, so they tell the
brain how fast the vibrations are occurring. Those nerve messages—about the speed
of the vibrations and how strong they are—are what we hear as sound.
 Chapter 1 • How Sound Works • 5

It Matters How Frequently You Do It

Since sound is changes of pressure, its only characteristics can be how much pressure
exists at any moment, and how the pressure changes. Let’s deal with the “how it
changes” part first.
Think back to the imaginary world of Figure 1.1, where we could see individual
molecules. If we stand in one place, we would see waves of pressure and rarefaction
go past us. With an imaginary stopwatch, we could measure the time from the most
intense pressure of one wave to the most intense pressure of the next. This timing
reflects how quickly the tuning fork is vibrating, changing from pushing molecules in
one direction to pulling them back in the
other.
Figure 1.2 shows two peaks that are
one second apart. If the vibration contin-
ues at this rate, we could say it’s “vibrat-
ing with a frequency of one cycle per
second.” That’s a mouthful, so we use the
term Hertz (named after a 19th century
German physicist) or its abbreviation
Hz.
A Hertz is one complete cycle per
second. That’s too slow for us to hear as a
sound. Another measurement, kilohertz Figure 1.2 Timing from one pressure peak
(abbreviated kHz), represents 1,000 cycles to the next.
per second. That faster vibration is friend-
lier to our ears.

FAST PRESSURE CHANGES ARE HEARD AS SOUNDS

It’s generally accepted that humans can hear sounds in a range between 20 Hz and
20 kHz. This is a little like saying, “Humans can run a mile in four minutes”—maybe
some humans can, but I certainly can’t. A few exceptional humans can hear up to
20 kHz, though even the best hearing deteriorates as you get older. Fortunately, very
few useful sounds extend to these limits. If all you consider are basic vibrations:
• The highest note on a violin is about 3.5 kHz.
• The highest note on an oboe is around 1.8 kHz.
• In fact, of all the instruments in the orchestra, only the pipe organ can vibrate
faster than 5 kHz.
Figure 1.3 shows the basic vibration frequencies of various instruments.

Harmonics
The fastest that a violin string or oboe reed can vibrate is considerably less than 5 kHz.
But frequencies higher than that are still important. To see how, we need to refine how
we look at the pressure waves.
Other documents randomly have
different content
12. The sentences would doubtless have been easier still if
Plutarch had not felt bound to follow the fashion of the time
and elaborately avoid hiatus.

13. Perhaps this is why Plutarch, as seen through Amyot, appeared

to Montaigne ‘close and thorny,’ while his sense was
nevertheless ‘closely-jointed and pithily-continued’.

14. Stobaeus (sixth century) had access to much of Plutarch that is

now lost.

15. See an observation of Professor Summers, Seneca Select

Letters, Introduction, p. lxxiv.

16. Plutarch ‘is the theme of more than 230 allusions or direct
references on the part of Jeremy Taylor’ (Sandys, A History of
Classical Scholarship, i. 300).

17. He was familiar reading of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,

and appears in the Gesta Romanorum. Later the Adagia of
Erasmus draw freely upon him.

18. ‘Il a en quelque sorte créé Plutarque,’ says Demogeot.

19. Euphues appeared in 1579. Jusserand (The English Novel in

the Time of Shakespeare, p. 127) remarks that Euphues
‘addresses moral epistles to his fellow men to guide them
through life’, but he appears to be unaware that Lyly borrowed
this object, as well as so large a quantity of his matter, from
Plutarch.

20. We meet, for example, with the story of Zeno, ‘the olde man in
Athens that amiddest the pottes could hold his peace.’

21. History of Greek Classical Literature, ii. 427.

22. The Literature of Ancient Greece, p. 396.

23. Quoted by Sandys (A History of Classical Scholarship, i. 300).

24. The home of Bias.

25. According to another account he waited till the shadow was

equal in length to the stick. The pyramid was then also equal
in height to the length of its shadow.

26. The divinities of spring-water.

27. The title Lusios or Luaios was popularly interpreted Deliverer

(from care or difficulty).

28. See note on Amasis.

29. i.e. anointing himself, not in connexion with bathing, but with
exercise in the wrestling-schools.

30. The precise remark is uncertain, the text here being corrupt.

31. Equivalent to a command to ‘go weep’.

32. In antiquity these vessels were of bronze.

33. Which was bequeathed ‘to the wisest’. It was given to Thales,
who passed it on to another, and the process was repeated till
it came back to Thales, whereupon he dedicated it to Apollo.

34. The text here is corrupt.

35. i.e. Epicurean.

36. Member of a religious council which met at Delphi and

represented the chief states of all Greece.

37. Made of polished bronze.

38. Which contained ‘every charm: love, desire, and sweet
converse’ (Homer, Il. xiv. 214).

39. The use of oil to soften the hair was practically universal.

40. A common punishment for a slave was to put him to hard

labour in turning the mill, in place of a horse or ass.

41. A frequent pretence of ancient witches.

42. These were farmed.

43. The Homeric σιγαλόεντα (‘glossy’) is brought, either in error or

by a deliberate pun, into relation with σιγή (‘silence’).

44. The paedagogus, an attendant slave, who accompanied the

boy and watched over his conduct.

45. In his Phaedrus.

46. i. e. in the mixolydian mode, which was of a sad and dirgelike

character.

47. The rest of the essay is missing.

48. i.e. a rough and mountainous island.

49. A ‘satyric’ drama was a half-comic interlude or sequel to

tragedies.

50. In the Stoic sense of adiaphoria.

51. Since diagrams were often drawn with sticks in the dust.

52. The Greek jest does not admit of translation. The same word
may mean both ‘theft’ and a ‘stealthy act’.
53. The point lies in an ambiguity which is possible only in the
Greek. The words may equally mean: ‘You issued no invitation
when sacrificing your friends,’ and ‘when sacrificing, you did
not invite your friends’.

54. Or what French would call the gouverneur.

55. This article is in all probability not the work of Plutarch. See
the Introduction.

56. The play upon words (ēthikas, ‘moral’ and ĕthikas, ‘of habit’) is
not adequately translatable.

57. The Greek text is here corrupt; the translation represents the
probable sense.

58. The Greek text is again faulty. The sense here given is
approximate.

59. These maxims were probably in the first instance merely

hygienic, or even popular superstitions, but subsequently they
received recondite interpretations.

60. The Greek verse is doggerel, and no attempt is made to better

it in the English.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
Typographical errors were silently corrected.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent
only when a predominant form was found in this book.
Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are
linked for ease of reference.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED ESSAYS
OF PLUTARCH, VOL. I. ***

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