Institutio Oratoria

What can be more fatal to any emotional appeal than that the speaker should, when the situation calls for grief, anger, indignation or pity, not merely avoid the expression of those emotions which require to be kindled in the judge, but outrage the dignity of the courts with noises such as are dear to the Lycians and Carians? For Cicero [*](Or. xviii. 57. ) has told us that the rhetoricians of Lycia and Caria come near to singing in their perorations. But, as a matter of tact, we have somewhat overstepped the limits imposed by the more restrained style of singing.

I ask you, does anyone sing, I will not say when his theme is murder, sacrilege or parricide, but at any rate when he deals with figures or accounts, or, to cut a long story short, when he is pleading in any kind of lawsuit whatever? And if such a form of intonation is to be permitted at all, there is really no reason why the modulations of the voice should not be accompanied by harps and flutes, or even by cymbals, which would be more appropriate to the revolting exhibitions of which I am speaking.

And yet we show no reluctance in indulging this vicious practice. For no one thinks his own singing hideous, and it involves less trouble than genuine pleading. There are, moreover, some persons who, in thorough conformity with their other vices, are possessed with a perpetual passion for hearing something that will soothe their ears. But, it may be urged, does not

But it is now high time for me to explain what I mean by appropriate delivery. Such appropriateness obviously lies in the adaptation of the delivery to the subjects on which we are speaking. This quality is, in the main, supplied by the emotions themselves, and the voice will ring as passion strikes its chords. But there is a difference between true emotion on the one hand, and false and fictitious emotion on the other. The former breaks out naturally, as in the case of grief, anger or indignation, but lacks art, and therefore requires to be formed by methodical training.