I found this item among some old files. I pass it along for your consideration…
CLIO’S DECALOGUE
or
THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE MUSE
- Thou shalt smite the Philistine’s hip and thigh with thy first sentence. This is the First Commandment
- Thou shalt love the active verb with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all they mind, and thou shalt have no passive verbs before me; the present tense moreover is an abomination to the muse.
- Thou shalt not take the names of thy cast in vain, for the muse will not hold himguiltless who faileth to fully demonstrate and clearly to identify in relation to his subjects all persons or incidents, be they Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, or the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Only after thou hast performed this ceremony of purification mayest thou use familiar terms like unto Wilson, Lamar, or the Duel to the Death.
- Remember the footnote, to keep it holy. In thy text shalt thou labor thy subject, nor discuss thy documents nor yet thy methodology. Footnotes were made for scholars and not scholars for footnotes; yea, verily, the greatest is not he who citeth the most obscure document nor yet he who pileth Ossa upon Pelion.
- Honor thy chronology, to keep it straight, and put thy time clause first, that thy days may be long upon the printed page.
- Thou shalt not kill thy reader, neither with the dangling participle, nor the split infinitive, nor with string of prepositional phrases, nor yet with adjectives and adverbs.
- Thou shalt not commit adulteration, neither with slang nor with jargon, yea though the words be favored of thine instructors.
- Thou shalt not steal thy reader’s attention by using this for the, nor the for a, neither shalt thou employ negations. Neither a no-er nor a not-er be, but rather an accentuator of the positive; in this respect shalt thou do as these Commandments say do and not as they, alas, do.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness, nor pass judgement upon mankind, nor yet pardon any man for anything; thou mayest seek the reason for his error but neither the excuse nor the blame. Vengeance is mine, saith the muse.
- Thou shalt not covet thy source’s prose, nor his imagery, nor yet his purple passage, nor anything that is thy sources, for lo, thou canst say it better thyself. Thou mayest quote only to season thy store, and that in fear and trembling.
