Platonicae quaestiones

What then? may some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to speech? I answer, They conduce, as salt does to victuals, or water to barley cakes. And Euenus calls fire the best sauce. Though sometimes there is neither occasion for fire to boil, nor for salt to season our food, which we have always occasion for. Nor has speech always occasion for articles. I think I may say

this of the Latin tongue, which is now the universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions, saving a few, nor does it use any articles, but leaves its nouns (as it were) without skirts and borders. Nor is it any wonder, since Homer, who in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only to a few nouns, like handles to cans, or crests to helmets. Therefore these verses are remarkable wherein the articles are expressed:

Αἴαντι δὲ μάλιστα δαΐφρονι θυμὸν ὄρινε

Τῷ Τελαμωνιάδῃ·

[*](Il. XIV. 459.)

and,

Ποίεον ὄφρα τὸ κῆτος ὑπεκπροφυγὼν ἀλέαιτο

[*](Il. XX. 147.)

and some few besides. But in a thousand others, the omission of the articles hinders neither perspicuity nor elegance of phrase.

Now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor any thing else is more fine, efficacious, or graceful, for the loss of a part. Yet speech, by taking away conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as here:

One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;

One held a living foe, that freshly bled

With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead.

[*](Il. XVIII. 536.)

And this of Demosthenes:

A bully in an assault may do much which his victim cannot even describe to another person,—by his mien, his look, his voice,—when he stings by insult, when he attacks as an avowed enemy, when he smites with his fist, when he gives a blow on the face. These rouse a man; these make a man beside himself who is unused to such foul abuse.

And again:

Not so with Midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he shouts. Is there an election of magistrates?

Midias the Anagyrrasian is nominated. He is the advocate of Plutarchus; he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him.[*](Demosthenes against Midias, p. 537, 25, and p. 578, 29.)

Therefore the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is highly commended by writers of rhetoric. But such as keep overstrict to the law, and (according to custom) omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without any variety in it. And inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and Ulysses wanted withs to tie Cyclop’s sheep; this shows they are not parts of speech, but a conjunctive instrument thereof, as the word conjunction imports. Nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as are not spoken simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of a book, or distribution of money part of the government. For Demades says, that money which is given to the people out of the exchequer for public shows is the glue of a democracy. Now what conjunction does so of several propositions make one, by knitting and joining them together, as marble joins iron that is melted with it in the fire Yet the marble neither is nor is said to be part of the iron; although in this case the substances enter into the mixture and are melted together, so as to form a common substance from many and to be mutually affected. But there be some who think that conjunctions do not make any thing one, but that this kind of discourse is merely an enumeration, as when magistrates or days are reckoned in order.