Etymologiae, Book I, chapter 37: De tropis
Chapter XXXVII. On tropes The grammarians use the Greek name tropoi, which in Latin are interpreted as modes of speech. They arise from the proper signification to an improper likeness. It is most difficult to note down the names of them all, but of them all Donatus has written thirteen to be handed on for use. Metaphor is a borrowed transfer of some word, as when we say “the crops billow,” “the vines bud,” though in these things we find neither billows nor buds, from which sources these words are transferred. But these and other tropical expressions are covered with figured garments for the things that are to be understood, in order to exercise the reader’s sense, and lest, bare and ready to hand, they grow cheap. Metaphors occur in four ways: from animate to animate, as: “He mounted the winged horses.” Speaking metaphorically, he mingled the wings of a bird with a four-footed animal, and: “By what course she sought the deserts”; he mingled the course of a quadruped with a flying creature. From inanimate to inanimate, as: “The pine ploughs the sea, the deep keel presses the furrow.” He mingled the use of the land with the waters, though ploughing and pressing a furrow belong to the land, not to the sea. From inanimate to animate, as “flowery youth”; he mingled inanimate flowers with youth, which has a soul. From animate to inanimate, as: “You, father Neptune, whose hoary temples, girt with the roaring brine, resound, from whose perpetual chin great Oceanus flows, and rivers wander in his locks.” For chin, temples and locks do not belong to the Ocean, but to men. So also other names of things are most fittingly transferred from one kind to another for the sake of grace, that speech may be adorned. A metaphor is either of one part only, as “the crops billow” (you cannot say “the billows crop”), or is antistropha, that is, reciprocal, as “the rowing of wings.” For both the wings of ships and the rowing of wings are spoken of. Catachresis is the application of the name of another thing.
This differs from metaphor in that the latter bestows a word on one that has it, whereas this, because it has no proper name, uses another’s, as: “In face most like a laurel”; and: “The Centaur; now both are borne on together with joined brows, and with long keel furrow the salt shallows,” though face and brow belong equally to animals and men. If the poet had not applied this name to the ship, he would have had none proper to say of the same part. Metalepsis is a trope from the preceding to what follows, as: “What hand comes to the paper and the knotted reed.” For by the hand words, by the reed letters, are signified. Metonymy is a renaming, carried over from one signification to another that is near. It occurs in many ways. For it shows either the contained through that which contains, as “the theatres applaud,” “the meadows low,” though there men applaud and here cattle low; or the contrary, the container through the contained, as: “Now next door Ucalegon burns,” when it was not he but his house that burned. Likewise the thing found through the inventor, as: “Without Ceres and Liber, Venus grows cold”; and: “Vulcan sends the mingled ash to the stars.” For he means by Ceres, the discoverer of grain, bread; by Liber, the discoverer of the vine, wine; by Venus, lust; by Vulcan, fire. Conversely it shows the inventor through the thing found, as: “We pray to wine,” for Liber, who among the Greeks discovered wine. Likewise through the cause that produces, the thing produced, as “sluggish cold,” which makes men sluggish, and “pale fear,” because it makes men pale. Conversely through what is produced, the producer, as: “The father of gold yokes the horses and puts foaming bits on the wild creatures.” He said foaming bits, though the bits themselves do not make the foam, but the horse that wears them sprinkles them with poured-out foam. Antonomasia is put for the name, that is, in place of the name, as “born of Maia” for Mercury. This trope occurs in three ways: from the mind, as: “And the great-souled son of Anchises”; from the body, as: “He himself, towering”; from outside, as: “The unhappy boy, unequal in the encounter with Achilles.” The epithet is a “super-name.” For it is placed before a proper name, as “kindly Ceres,” “foul hounds and ill-omened birds.” Between antonomasia and epithet this is the difference, that antonomasia is put in place of the name, but the epithet is never without a name.
By these two tropes we either censure someone, or point him out, or praise him. Synecdoche is a conception, when the whole is understood from the part, or the part from the whole. In this way both the genus is shown through the species and the species through the genus; but the species is a part, the genus a whole. The part is understood from the whole, as: “As many birds as gather when the cold year drives them over the sea.” For not the whole year is cold, but a part of the year, that is, winter. Conversely the whole from the part, as: “When the royal stern had borne up the flames.” Here not the stern only but the ship, and not the ship but those in it, and not all but one, bore up the flames. Onomatopoeia is a name fashioned to imitate the sound of a confused voice, as the creaking of doors, the neighing of horses, the lowing of oxen, the bleating of sheep. Periphrasis is a circumlocution, when one thing is signified by very many words, as: “He draws the vital breezes.” For he has signified by a coupling of words one thing, that is, “he lives.” This trope is twofold. For it either brings out the truth splendidly, or avoids a foulness by a circuit. It brings out the truth splendidly, as: “And now the early Dawn, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, was sprinkling the lands with new light.” He means to say: “it was now growing light,” or “day had risen.” It avoids foulness by a circuit, as: “And he sought the sleep he was pleased with, poured out in his wife’s lap.” By this circuit he avoids obscenity and decently shows the marriage-bed. Hyperbaton is a transposition, when a word or sentence is changed in order. Its species are five: anastrophe, hysteron proteron, parenthesis, tmesis, synthesis.
Anastrophe is a preposterous order of words, as: “litora circum” for “circum litora.” Hysteron proteron is a sentence with its order changed, as: “After he touched the deep waves, and came to the seas.” For first he came to the seas, and so touched the waves. Parenthesis is where we interpose our own sentence, the removal of which from the midst leaves the speech entire, as: “Aeneas—for his fatherly love would not suffer his mind to rest—sends swift Achates to the ships.” For the order is: “Aeneas sends swift Achates.” The rest in the middle is the parenthesis. Tmesis is the cutting of one word by the interposition of words, as: “Much of cloud the goddess poured around (as) a veil,” for “circumfudit.” Synthesis is where the words are confused in every part, as in that line: “Young men, bravest of hearts in vain, if you have a settled desire to follow me in daring the last, you see what fortune is in our affairs. All the gods by whom this empire stood have gone, leaving shrines and altars; you succour a burning city; let us die and rush into the midst of arms.” The order is: “Young men, bravest of hearts, in vain you succour the burning city, because the gods have departed. Hence if you have a settled desire to follow me daring the last, let us rush into the midst of arms and die.” Hyperbole is an elevation exceeding belief beyond what is to be believed, as: “The wave strikes the stars”; and: “It opens the earth among the waves.” In this way something is magnified beyond belief, and yet the path of signifying the truth is not left, although the words employed exceed it, so that the will of the speaker appears to be that of one not deceiving. By this trope something is not only magnified but also diminished: magnified, as “swifter than the East wind”; diminished, as “softer than a feather,” “harder than rock.” Allegory is “other-speaking.” For one thing sounds and another is understood, as: “He sees three stags wandering on the shore.” Here three leaders of the Punic war, or three Punic wars, are signified. And in the Bucolics: “I sent ten golden apples,” that is, to Augustus ten eclogues of shepherds. Of this trope there are several species, of which seven stand out: irony, antiphrasis, enigma, charientismos, paroemia, sarcasm, astysmos. Irony is a sentence which by its delivery has the contrary understanding. For by this trope something is said cunningly either by way of accusation or by way of insult, as in that line: “Your houses, Eurus; let Aeolus vaunt himself in that hall, and reign in the closed prison of the winds.” And how can it be a hall if it is a prison? It is resolved by the delivery. For “prison” is the delivery: “let him vaunt” and “hall” are irony; and the whole is announced by contrary delivery under the species of irony, which derides by praising. Antiphrasis is speech to be understood by its contrary, as lucus (grove), because it lacks light (lux) through the excessive shade of the trees; and manes, that is, gentle (though they are ungentle) and modest, though they are terrible and monstrous; and Parcae and Eumenides, the Furies, because they spare no one or do good. By this trope dwarfs are called Atlases, the blind clear-sighted, and the common people call Ethiopians silvery. Between irony and antiphrasis this is the difference, that irony indicates by delivery alone what it wishes to be understood, as when we say to one who does everything badly: “It is good, what you are doing!”; antiphrasis, however, signifies the contrary not by the voice of the speaker but only by its own words, whose origin is contrary. An enigma is an obscure question that is hard to understand unless it is opened, as in that line (Judges 14:14): “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,” signifying the honeycomb drawn from the lion’s mouth. Between allegory and enigma this is the difference, that the force of allegory is twofold and under some things indicates another figuratively; but an enigma is only an obscure sense, shadowed through certain images. Charientismos is a trope by which hard things are uttered more gracefully, as when to those asking, “Has anyone inquired for us?” the answer is: “Good Fortune.” From which it is understood that no one has inquired for us. A paroemia is a proverb adapted to things and times. To things, as “to kick against the goad,” when it is signified that adversities must be resisted. To times, as “the wolf in the story.” For countryfolk say that a man loses his voice if a wolf has seen him first. Hence this proverb is said to one who suddenly falls silent: “The wolf in the story.” Sarcasm is hostile derision with bitterness, as: “You will report this, then, and go a messenger to the son of Peleus, my father; remember to tell him my sad deeds and the degenerate Neoptolemus.” Contrary to this is astysmos, urbanity without anger, as in that line: “Whoever does not hate Bavius, let him love your songs, Maevius, and let him also yoke foxes and milk he-goats.” That is: let it befall him who does not hate Bavius, as a penalty, to love Maevius. Maevius and Bavius were the worst of poets, and enemies of Virgil. Whoever therefore loves them, let him do things against nature, that is, yoke foxes and milk he-goats. Homoeosis is interpreted in Latin as likeness, through which the demonstration of a less known thing is set forth by the likeness of one that is better known. Its species are three: icon, parable, paradigm, that is, image, comparison, example. An icon is an image, when we try to express the figure of a thing from a like kind, as: “In all things like Mercury, in voice and colour and yellow hair and limbs fair with youth.” For the likeness is fitting from the species whose person is introduced. A parable is a comparison from dissimilar things, as: “Like the lion seen in the fields of sultry Libya, who crouches when the foe is near”; where he compared Caesar to a lion, making the likeness not from his own but from another kind. A paradigm is an example of some saying or deed, fitting either from a like or from a dissimilar kind to the matter we propose, thus: “Scipio died as bravely at Hippo as Cato at Utica.” Likeness occurs in three ways: from the equal, from the greater, from the less. From the equal: “And as when in a great people sedition has often arisen”; from the greater to the less: “Like the thunderbolt driven through the clouds by the winds”; from the less to the greater: “If Orpheus could call up the shades of his wife, relying on his Thracian lyre and tuneful strings”; as if to say, by a small and brief thing, that is, if he relying on the lyre, I on piety.