De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Book V (De rhetorica), part 3 of 4 (about §§ 504-531)
The hearers are moved, then, by pity or hatred or envy or fear or hope or anger and the like. By pity, when we treat someone’s calamities with great grief, when we recall the injustice of the time or the greatness of the danger, as in the seventh Verrine: “These fathers, whom you see, judges, were mourning on the threshold, and wretched mothers spent the night at the door of the prison, shut out from the last sight of their children, who asked for nothing else than to be allowed to receive with their lips their children’s last breath.” By hatred, when the adversary’s deed is shown to be execrable either to good men or to the judges, as when the corruption of the judges is shown to be boasted of by Verres. Likewise: “he thinks that you are like himself in avarice, crime and perjury.” Envy is that which infects the hearers with a certain venom, as: “because, as regards friendship with yourself and with other great and noble men, the wickedness and audacity of that man find an easier hearing than the virtue and integrity of any of us.” Likewise: “that man, though everything has been snatched from him on every side, mocking with impunity, flows around and abounds.” That thing too can inflame the minds of the hearers, as if you magnify someone’s tyrannical spirit or intolerable power. Fear, however, you will excite by dangers either one’s own or common ones. One’s own, as: “this is the trial in which you will judge the accused, the Roman people will judge you.” Common, as: “I seem to see this city, the light of the world, the citadel of all nations, suddenly falling in one conflagration.” The minds are also disturbed by hope when benefits or services are promised, as when he pledges the loyalty of Milo to Pompey and: “you will have the service of Caelius bound to you and your children in his whole life.” Anger also violently disturbs minds, as when Tully magnifies it and cries out that in the senate-house sit the accomplices of Catiline: “O immortal gods, in what part of the world are we? What republic have we? In what city do we live? Here, here are among us, conscript fathers...” Other like affections are mingled with these, which, though they avail very greatly for persuasion, are yet outside the cause and ought not to appear in the orator too manifestly, lest he seem to take the judge by snares, not to lead him by reason.
These things, then, having been prudently found for making belief, the order of the matters must be joined, which part is called arrangement, by which we prudently consider what must be said and in what place, what must be altogether omitted, and also how and when and where. The reason of this part is twofold. For the order is either natural or is arranged by the orator’s art: natural when after the beginning follow the narration, partition, proposition, argumentation, conclusion and epilogue; by the orator’s art when we distribute what is to be said through the members of the oration. And this we join from the advantage of the cause, not from the sequence of time, as was done in the speech for Milo, when he brought in certain questions before the narration in order to refute prejudgments, which he changed not from the order of nature but from the advantage of the cause; and in the first speech for Cornelius the crimes which followed the tribunate were refuted first, afterward recourse was made to the tribunate itself, which arrangement is called, as we said, artificial. In the Verrines, however, he kept the natural order of times, so as to charge first the quaestorship, then the legateship, then his two praetorships, with the order of times observed, which, unless the advantage of the cause resists, we shall necessarily follow. But where the greater and more invidious matters especially are to be cleared, from these the beginning of the refutation is taken, as in the speech for Cluentius, where, the parts of conjecture having been dispatched, he came to the prescription of the law, the order evidently changed, lest, if he defended Cluentius by assertion of the law, he should seem to flee the cause through distrust. These two parts of the office having been finished, the care of ELOCUTION must be set forth. Since it consists in the attention to single words, it is separated from the name of eloquence in this, that eloquence is the virtue of the whole oratorical work, while this is held to be a part of the office, of which Cicero says there are two as it were foundations and two summits. The foundations are to speak Latin and to speak plainly, of which you learned one when Grammar spoke, when her subtlety was set before you. The summits are to speak copiously and ornately, which is not of genius but of the greatest labor and also of long exercise, by which a faculty is acquired not only richer but also more illustrious.
The reason of this matter is twofold: one, by which the light appears in single words; the other, that the dignity of utterance be preserved by the grace of the joining itself. In single words either the proper or the transferred and borrowed is sought. Proper words are chiefly the old. For when the chiefs either did not know these ornaments of speech or did not dare to seek them, they used proper words. But since the use of old words has now grown out of date, those which have changed with age are not to be used too boldly. And so, passing by alucinari, cerritus, caperatus and the like, we shall use those which custom will receive, yet not the vulgar, except when the force of the matter and sentence demands it, as when Cicero, wishing to make odium for cruelty, says “with their throats cut out they left them,” and to cut the Roman people with rods. Nor unseemly does Virgil, in his hunt for avoiding lowliness, say lychnoi for lamps. But if a thing has no proper words of its own, they must be made new or foreign ones used. Words are made new in two ways: by some fiction, or by assumed derivation, or composed by the conjunction of two which are in use. They are mostly fashioned when we transfer, as those who called poiotetes QUALITIES, which name had never been in Latin, by which both the ears must be tempered and strangeness avoided. Avoiding which Cicero did not wish to name a savior salvator but says “who gave salvation.” For that seemed too strange. Words are also made by derivation, which the grammarians have called paragoge, as we say “flowery fields” and “plains white with bones,” which in a rather crisp inflection Horace says “are whitening.” Poets often use these, although Tully says “grandiferous possessions” and “grandiloquent orators.”
To this diligence is joined the care of TRANSFERRED words, when a thing either does not find words of its own or when we wish something to be set out more splendidly. Words are transferred, then, either for want or for ornament: for want, when we say “the vine buds” and “the crops luxuriate.” For proper words are lacking and borrowed ones have been taken for convenience. For ornament, as “war suddenly blazed up,” when it could have been said “arose.” And likewise we can borrow from all the senses: from the eyes, “the light of liberty”; from smell, “the savor of the laws”; and “laws are silent amid arms”; and from taste, “O sweet name of liberty.” But this affectation of transferred and foreign words ought not to be pursued without moderation. Nor should the transferred be far-fetched, as if you say “luxurious Charybdis.” It must also be avoided that the use of likeness be foul, as if you say “the republic castrated by the death of Africanus” or Clodius “the dung of the senate.” In this kind of transferring the poets especially have woven allegory also. And Cicero when he [says]: “you had cast the senate from the helm, driven the Roman people from the ship, and yourself, a chief pirate with a most impure crew of robbers, sailed with full sails.” And against Piso: “should I, who in the greatest storms and waves of the republic had steered the ship and placed it safe in harbor, fear the little cloud on your brow and the polluted breath of your colleague?” By using these, then, he expressed at once with many words things which he would perhaps have said more narrowly or more meanly with their own. Likewise some are transferred in a certain manner which show either the whole from the part, or the part from the whole, or many from one, or single from many. The whole from the part, as “he strikes the stern,” or “that I am safe with you within the same walls” for “the same house.” This trope the grammarians call metonymia, and the Greeks also katachresis, which we call abuse, as when we speak of “the nature of the gods” for “substance.” In joined words and in the context of speech these things must be observed: that a compact construction and a perfect conclusion result and that the diction be graced by some figure.
Now I shall run through the precepts of COMPOSITION, whose greatest fault is not to avoid gaping and harsh sounds, and also the brakes, iotacisms, mytacisms, labdacisms, homoeoprophora, dysprophora and polysigma, or the assiduity of any letter repeated to disgust, as “the rocks resounded with the salt” and “Cassandra sang the chances.” MYTACISM is when the joining of words is collided by the assiduity of the letter M, as if you say “I love my mother herself as my own soul.” LABDACISM is where L sounds most discordantly, as if you say “the sun and the moon shine with white light, smooth, milky.” IOTACISM, as if you say “Iunius Iuno rightly is angry with Iove.” POLYSIGMA is where the letter S is doubled rather often: “Sosia in the solarium was mending his own sandals.” HOMOEOPROPHORON is when it is said: “Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.”
DYSPROPHORON, as if someone should say “persuasive, deceptive and seducing witches.” HARSH sounds are chiefly to be avoided between the penultimate and the last word, of which an example is if you say “trappings taken away for nothing,” or if a charioteer says “through the reins, through the whips, through the bridles.” GAPING sounds are when in the part we have mentioned like vowels and similarly long ones make a colliding and hiatus structure, as if someone says “that he had begotten children with a favorable omen,” and as Tully says in the speech for Milo, “to arm by public authority.” This, concealing the art, he often seeks by will. It must likewise be avoided that we put in the same place three or four long and short syllables continuously, or found the structure upon the best known verses and chiefly heroic and iambic ones, although Cicero does not avoid them when he says “the senate understands this, the consul sees,” and does not decline the end or beginning of the heroic verses of Ennius when he says “O wretched man, to whom it was permitted to err,” and in the Academics, “all these things lie hid, Varro, obscured and wrapped in great darkness,” and in the Verrines he poured out a full verse, lacking one syllable only, when he says, “while I was speaking, such weeping and groaning arose.” Nor did he avoid the ending of the elegiac when he says “he hated the good.” He runs also into the petulance of the Phalaecian hendecasyllable when he says “Lucius Metellus succeeded you.” Yet this man is defended by long labor and by his own majesty. In clausulas, however, he is found most faulty. One must note, however, that in escaping the likeness of a verse we do not pass over a good clausula, as if you fear to say “and the noise of the blows,” since pla is long and has made a good clausula.
One must also avoid [in the same place] cacemphaton (indecent sound) by the interposition or exchange of words. For they are indecent examples, as “prick up your ears, Pamphilus” and “and the anger of the snatched maiden.” In these the speech grows foul. Brakes also are to be avoided, which are made of the harshest letters coming together into one, as Terence in the Hecyra: “By Pollux, how few lovers you will find, Syra, to prove faithful to courtesans.” And words beginning with the same letters, as: “that was not a judgment like a judgment, judges.” And those ending in the same, as fortissimorum, proximorum, fidelissimorumque sodorum, are held in the same fault. Likewise to be wholly avoided is to string together as many short syllables as possible, as in that of Serenus: “perishes, goes off, the little soul of the winged-footed hare.” These things briefly set forth, the feet must be stated to which clauses are suitably fitted. Cicero indeed disturbs these in a certain mixed confusion when he says now that one should close with a ditrochee, now approves the first paeon in those beginning, now the fourth in those ending, now the dochmiac, which consists of a short, two longs, a short and a long, of which he put the example “amicos lenes,” likewise the amphimacer foot and again praises the dactylic number. Now he praises the anapaestic, now the dithyramb, yet there is no certain opinion. I, however, shall run through the more compendious, so that in this forest I may seem to some to go ahead by certain paths.
In monosyllables one must look whether the final is long or short. For if it is long, a trochee ought to go before, as in Cicero: “not a written but a born law,” or “the first voice in the republic ought to be of laws,” which however is a fitting conclusion with the sense hanging. But if the monosyllable is short, an iamb or an anapaest should precede, as Sallust says: “the whole island is moderate and with various cultivations.” A short, however, following a short, or a long a long, is not without blame, as if you say “that thing is mine,” or the contrary, which Cicero in the speech for Ligarius: “not that you deprive him of his country, which he lacks, but you avoid it.” This the orator composed by will, not by error. But this earlier precept about the monosyllable we place better in a colon or comma, not at the end of a sentence.
Disyllables are not rightly closed with the iambic number, if a spondee is fitted at the penultimate and then an iamb, as if you say “slaves of mine,” or a pyrrhic for an iamb, as “the consul sees.” But a good clausula is of an iamb and a spondee, or with a final trochee, as if someone says “the fatherland holds good citizens” or declares “the head of the law.” One must beware, however, that neither two iambs nor an iamb and a pyrrhic be put at the end, as if someone says “young men fight for their parents.” One must beware also that a pyrrhic not come after a pyrrhic and make four shorts, as if someone says “I have lost my goods,” or after a pyrrhic a trochee or spondee, as if you say “he laments his deeds” or “madly imputes to himself.” But both a trochee and an iamb, or, for an iamb, a pyrrhic after a trochee make a bad clausula. For this basely renders the end of an elegiac pentameter. For what does it matter whether you say “you see all things indeed” or say “look at my deeds”? But well placed are either two trochees or a trochee and a spondee at the end of a clausula, as if someone says “this is the great care of good citizens” or “these are the things which the greatest leaders alone care for.”
For trisyllables ending a clausula there is a law, if you wish it to flow softly, that, with a trochee preceding as penultimate, a molossus follow, whether it have the last syllable long or short by metrical right, as in that of Tully: “the shore for the tossed, cast up by the sea.” A very bad clausula results if you place a spondee before in place of the penultimate trochee, as if you say “the rock for the sea-tossed, cast up.” Likewise worst if for the trochee you send ahead a pyrrhic, as if you say “the peak for the sea-tossed, cast up.” Likewise the conclusion is faulty if the first syllable of the final molossus becomes short, although a trochee has rightly been put before. For then a heroic comma is born, as if someone says “the shore to friends.” Likewise a good clausula is made if for the final molossus a lesser ionic is placed after a trochee, as if you say “the shore for the one who is driven.” But in this clausula one must beware lest a spondee be put for the penultimate trochee. For then, if you resolve the third of the molossus, you fall into fault, such as Cicero fell into when he says “if I once admit you to my chests.” But if, with the penultimate trochee, you resolve the middle of the molossus, you will have made a beautiful clausula, as if you say “the shore of Aemilia.” Likewise with the penultimate trochee the third of the molossus is also finely resolved, as if you say “the shore equable.” Likewise if we resolve the long of the penultimate trochee and the first of the final molossus, an elegant clausula arises, as “to rule the cares of minds.” IRONY is a simulation in which we signify one thing by words, another we feel in the thing itself, as the beginning in the speech for Ligarius: “a new charge, Gaius Caesar.” Paraleipsis is omission, when, as though passing over certain things, we none the less say them. Apostrophe is a pointed turning toward someone, frequent in Cicero and a noble figure. This is when we turn the action toward someone so as to teach the judges from it. Diaporesis is feigned doubt, a figure we use when, as though doubting, we ask the judges themselves for the plan of a beginning, as in the speech for Cluentius: “I truly do not know, judges, where to turn.” And for Cornelius: “shall I fight against the zeal, plans and designs of the most noble men, shall I disclose their reasons?” and the rest. Erotema is interrogation, a figure we use when by questioning we sharpen something and magnify its odium. Pysma is the inquiry, a figure which differs from the former in that to a question one can answer with one word only, but to an inquiry one cannot answer except with several, as when we say: “by what plan, then, shall we wage war? what aids shall be prepared for us? who will there be who is willing to help, when we have treated our allies so harshly?” Diatyposis is description or delineation, when, the things and persons subjected, we express both their forms and their habits, as Tully in the speech for Milo: “if you did not hear these things as done but saw them painted,” and he depicts Milo sitting in a carriage, cloaked, with his wife, and Clodius likewise coming out of the villa with a horse and chosen men, and the rest. Antikatallelon (counter-induction) is the contrary introduction. This figure is when something is difficult and we bring a contrary, as Cicero on King Ptolemy: “the plan of waging war is difficult, but full of good faith, full of piety” and the rest. Diasyrmos is lowering or pressing down. In this figure, praising, we dissolve the things said by the adversaries, such as in the speech for Murena that whole passage against Sulpicius on civil law. Metastasis is a transference, that is, when we transfer a matter from ourselves elsewhere but not so that we establish the whole cause there. Otherwise it begins to be a state, not a figure.
So far on the figures of sentences. Now let us pass to the FIGURES OF ELOCUTION. But I wish briefly to recall how many kinds of elocution there are and in how many ways it is to be used. There is one familiar to every kind of narration, which the Greeks call eiromene lexis (continuous style). It is so connected that the nearest always follows the earlier elocution. It suits history and narration and does not require a turned or circumscribed kind of speaking but a diffuse and continuous one, such as those passages in the speech for Milo: “I killed, I killed, not Spurius Maelius, who by the losses [incurred] in relieving the grain-supply...” and the rest. There is another which the Greeks call periodos, which defines and determines the sentence by a certain circumscription, such as in the Caecinian: “if as much as audacity can do in the country and deserted places, impudence could do in the forum and the courts, no less now would Aulus Caecina yield to the impudence of Sextus Aebutius than then, in the matter of violence, he yielded to his audacity.” It consists of many members, which the Greeks call kola, and of cuts, which they call komma.
A MEMBER is a part of the oration signifying something absolutely in several words, in this way: “although I fear, judges, that it is shameful, in beginning to speak for a most brave man, to be afraid.” A CUT is a part of the oration signifying nothing absolutely in two or more words. Although we call the speech cut when single words, of the same signification, are brought forth, as: “who is that Lollius, who is not even now with you without a sword? Who is that Lollius, Catiline’s armor-bearer, the guard of your person, the stirrer-up of shopkeepers, the cut-throat, the stoner of the senate-house?” and in the Verrines: “those chosen companions were your hands, the attendants, physicians, soothsayers, scribes were your hands.” The period above consists of two members, and of three and of four, sometimes also six. Although some think it can be completed from one member, which they call a one-member period, though it is rather a colon. The best oration will be made, then, if it is fitted now from the period’s compass, now from that continuation of perpetual elocution, sometimes interrupted by cuts, sometimes united with a colon. A figure of elocution differs from a figure of sentence in this, that a figure of sentence can remain with the order of the words changed, but a figure of elocution cannot remain, the order of the words itself being changed, although often it can happen that a figure of sentence is joined with a figure of elocution, as in irony, which is a figure of sentence, epanaphora is mingled, which is of elocution.
There are, then, figures of elocution fitted only to adorn and as it were to paint the speech, which we now use. Antitheton, that is composed of contraries, when words fighting with each other are collided in equal sounds or equals are opposed to equals, as in Cicero: “you lacked a house, but you had one; money was in excess, yet you were in want,” or if you say, “in peace most keen to harass citizens, in war most sluggish to storm the enemy.” Isokolon is equalised in members, which is made not [in] words fighting with each other but equalised equals, as if you say “he prepared a most beautiful and most strong fleet, chose a most handsome and brave army, got together a very great and most faithful band of allies.” Parison is nearly equalised. This figure differs from the former in that there the words of all the members are equal in number, here, with one or another added in any place, the rest run out. Homoioptoton is like in cases. It took its name from this, that all the cola fall into the same cases, as: “to this man accusing your allies and exhorting you to war and in all ways urging you to be in tumult.” Homoioteleuton is determined in a like manner. It differs from the former in that that determines the last words alike in case and sound, this is composed only by likeness of sound under any utterance of the word. Paronomasia is a slight alteration of a word or noun, that is, when a syllable or letter is changed and signifies different things, as if you say “this praetor, or rather predator.” Ploke is copulation, in which the same word or noun placed continuously signifies different things, as: “but yet to that day Memmius was Memmius.” Palillogia is iteration. This figure, a word or noun repeated, wishes not different things to be understood but signifies more vehemently by repetition, as: “we, we, I say plainly, we the consuls are lacking.” Epanalepsis is repetition. This figure differs from the former in that that is joined by the same part of speech repeated or with one or two words interposed; but this, not one part of speech but, as it pleases, with words joined, as: “it cannot, it can no longer be, that this free state exist.” Anadiplosis is REDUPLICATION. It is best when what are put last in the former member are repeated first in the latter, as that of Terence: “does Demipho deny that she is related to him? Does Demipho deny that she is related?” Prosapodosis is the return of the speech, that is, when the noun in the last part of the member, or any same part of speech, is rendered from which the same member began, as if you say: “the republic ought to charge calamities to you.” Epanaphora is relation, whenever the same part of speech is repeated through single members, in this way: “Verres set up calumniators, Verres took cognizance of the case, Verres pronounced judgment.” Antistrophe is conversion. This figure differs from the former in that in that it begins more often from the same part of speech, here it ends in the same, as in the speech for Fonteius: “a very great number of grain from Gaul, very ample forces of infantry from Gaul, cavalry in greatest number from Gaul.” Symploke is connection. For it both begins oftener from one part of speech and as often ends in one and the same, as: “who proposed the law? Rullus. Who created the ten men whom he wished? The same Rullus.” Polyptoton is from many cases, since, while the beginning is made oftener from the same part of speech, that very part is changed by declensions or numbers through the cases, as: “the senate ordered, it pleased the senate, it is certain the senate has commanded, he was chosen by the senate.” Synonymia is the communion of a noun, whenever with one word we do not sufficiently show the dignity or greatness of the matter and therefore bring together several for the same signification. Tautologia is the signification of the same thing by several words. It differs from the former in that there the same thing is signified by single words, in this by very many.