Institutio Oratoria

But this is not always possible, especially in the case of an orator who most frequently has to write for immediate use, while some limit, after all, must be set to correction. For there are some who return to everything they write with the presumption that it is full of faults and, assuming that a first draft must necessarily be incorrect, think every change an improvement and make some alteration as often as they have the manuscript in their hands: they are, in fact, like doctors who use the knife even where the flesh is perfectly healthy. The result of their critical activities is that the finished work is full of scars, bloodless, and all the worse for their anxious care.

No! let there be something in all our writing which, if it does not actually please us, at least passes muster, so that the file may only polish our work, not wear it away. There must

My next task is to indicate what those should write whose aim is to acquire facility. [*](See x. i. 1. Ch. ix.) At this part of my work there is no necessity for me to set forth the subjects which should be selected for writing, or the order in which they should be approached, since I have already done this in the first book, [*](Ch. iv.) where I prescribed the sequence of studies for boys, and in the second book, where I did the same for young men. The point which concerns me now is to show from what sources copiousness and facility may most easily be derived. Our earlier orators thought highly of translation from Greek into Latin.

In the de Oratore [*](i. 155.) of Cicero, Lucius Crassus says that he practised this continually, while Cicero himself advocates it again and again, nay, he actually published translations of Xenophon and Plato, [*]( The ( Economicus of Xenophon, the Proutayorus and Timaeus of Plato. ) which were the result of this form of exercise. Messala likewise gave it his approval, and we have a number of translations of speeches from his hand; he even succeeded in coping with the delicacy of Hyperides' speech in defence of Phryne, a task of exceeding difficulty for a Roman.

The purpose of this form of exercise is obvious. For Greek authors are conspicuous for the variety of their matter, and there is much art in all their eloquence, while, when we translate them, we are at liberty to use the best words available,

But paraphrase from the Latin will also be of much assistance, while I think we shall all agree that this is specially valuable with regard to poetry; indeed, it is said that the paraphrase of poetry was the sole form of exercise employed by Sulpicius. For the lofty inspiration of verse serves to elevate the orator's style and the bold license of poetic language does not preclude [*](Lit.forestall the power of using the language of ordinary prose.) our attempting to render the same words in the language natural to prose. Nay, we may add the vigour of oratory to the thoughts expressed by the poet, make good his omissions, and prune his diffuseness.

But I would not have paraphrase restrict itself to the bare interpretation of the original: its duty is rather to rival and vie with the original in the expression of the same thoughts. Consequently, I disagree with those who forbid the student to parahrase speeches of our own orators, on the ground that, since all the best expressions have already been appropriated, whatever we express differently must necessarily be a change for the worse. For it is always possible that we may discover expressions which are an improvement on those which have already been used, and nature did not make eloquence such a poor and starveling thing, that there should be only one adequate expression for any one theme.