Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

He also points out that a metaphor must not be too great for its subject or, as is more frequently the case, too little, and that it must not be inappropriate. Anyone who realises that these are faults, will be able to detect instances of them only too frequently. But excess in the use of metaphor is also a fault, more especially if they are of the same species.

Metaphors may also be harsh, that is, far-fetched, as in phrases like

the snows of the head
or
  1. Jove with white snow the wintry Alps bespewed.
From Furius, an old epic poet of the second century (not Furius Bibaculus), cp. Hor. S. ii. v. 11.
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The worst errors of all, however, originate in the fact that some authors regard it as permissible to use even in prose any metaphors that are allowed to poets, in spite of the fact that tile latter aim solely at pleasing their readers and are compelled in many cases to employ metaphor by sheer metrical necessity.

For my own part I should not regard a phrase like

the shepherd of the people
as admissible in pleading, although it has the authority of Homer, nor would I venture to say that winged creatures
swim through the air,
despite the fact that this metaphor has been most effectively employed by Virgil to describe the flight of bees and of Daedalus.1 For metaphor should always either occupy a place already vacant, or if it fills the room of something else, should be more impressive than that which it displaces.

What I have said above applies perhaps with even greater force to synecdocheè. For while metaphor is designed to move the feelings, give special distinction to things and place them vividly before the eye, synecdocheè has the power to give variety to our language by making us realise many things from one, the whole from a part, the genus from a species, things which follow from things which have preceded; or, on the other hand, the whole procedure may be reversed. It may, however, be more freely employed by poets than by orators.

For while in prose it is perfectly correct to use macro, the point, for the whole sword, and tectum, roof, for a whole house, we may not employ puppis, stern, to describe a ship, nor abies, fir, to describe planks; and again, though ferrunm, the steel, may be used to indicate a sword, quadrupes cannot be used in the

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sense of horse. It is where numbers are concerned that synecdocheè can be most freely employed in prose. For example, Livy frequently says,
The Roman won the day,
when he means that the Romans were victorious; on the other hand, Cicero in a letter to Brutus [*](This letter is lost.) says,
We have imposed on the people and are regarded as orators,
when he is speaking of himself alone.

This form of trope is not only a rhetorical ornament, but is frequently employed in everyday speech. Some also apply the term synecdoche when something is assumed which has not actually been expressed, since one word is then discovered from other words, as in the sentence,

  1. The Arcadians to the gates began to rush;
Aen. xi. 142. A false explanation of the historic infinitive as involving the omission of some such word as coeperunt.
when such omission creates a blemish, it is called an ellipse.

For my own part, I prefer to regard this as a figure, and shall therefore discuss it under that head. Again, one thing may be suggested by another, as in the line,

  1. Behold, the steers
  2. Bring back the plough suspended from the yoke,
Ed. ii. 61
from which we infer the approach of night. I am not sure whether this is permissible to an orator except in arguments, when it serves as an indication of some fact. However, this has nothing to do with the question of style.

It is but a short step from synecdocheè to metonymy, which consists in the substitution of one name for another, and, as Cicero [*](Orat. xxvii. 93. ) tells us, is called hypallage by the rhetoricians. These devices are employed to indicate an invention by substituting the name of

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the inventor, or a possession by substituting the name of the possessor. Virgil, for example, writes: [*](Aen. i. 177. )
  1. Ceres by water spoiled,
and Horace:
  1. Neptune admitted to the land
  2. Protects the fleets from blasts of Aquilo.
A. P. 63.
If, however, the process is reversed, the effect is harsh.