Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

There is, therefore, good reason for the condemnation passed on a delivery which entails the continual alteration of facial expression, annoying restlessness of gesture and gusty changes of tone. And it was a wise saying that the ancient orators borrowed from the Greeks, as is recorded by Popilius Laenas, to the effect that there is too much

business

in such delivery.

The instructions given by Cicero on this subject, as on all others, are quite admirable; I allude to the passages

v10-12 p.349

which I have already quoted from his Orator, [*](§ 122.) while there are similar observations in the Brutus [*](Brut. xxxviii. 141. ) with reference to Marcus Antonius. But to-day a rather more violent form of delivery has come into fashion and is demanded of our orators: it is well adapted to certain portions of a speech, but requires to be kept under control. Otherwise, in our attempt to ape the elegances of the stage, we shall lose the authority which should characterise the man of dignity and virtue.

v10-12 p.353

I now come to what is by far the most arduous portion of the task which I have set myself to perform. Indeed had I fully realised the difficulties when I first designed this work, I should have considered betimes whether my strength was sufficient to support the load that now weighs upon me so heavily. But to begin with, I felt how shameful it would be to fail to perform what I had promised, and later, despite the fact that my labour became more and more arduous at almost every stage, the fear of stultifying what I had already written sustained my courage through every difficulty.

Consequently even now, though the burden that oppresses me is greater than ever, the end is in sight and I am resolved to faint by the wayside rather than despair. But the fact that I began with comparatively trivial details deceived me. Subsequently I was lured still further on my voyage by the temptations of the favouring breeze that filled my sails; but the rules which I was then concerned to give were still of a familiar kind and had been already treated by most writers of rhetorical textbooks: thus far I seemed to myself to be still in sight of shore and I had the company of many who had ventured to entrust themselves to the self-same winds.