Institutio Oratoria

Sometimes, again, we may speak in mockery when we say the opposite of what we desire to be understood, as in Cicero's denunciation of Clodius [*]( From the lost speech in Clodium et Curionem. ) :

Believe me, your well known integrity has cleared you of all blame, your modesty has saved you, your past life has been your salvation.

Further, we may employ allegory, and disguise bitter taunts in gentle words I y way of wit, or we may indicate our meaning by saying exactly the contrary or. . . [*]( The passage is hopelessly corrupt. The concluding portion of the sentence must have referred to the use of proverbs, of which it may have contained an example. This is clear from the next sentence. Sarcasm, urbane wit and contradiction are covered by the first three clauses, but there has been no allusion to proverbs such as παροιμία demands. ) If the Greek names for these

There are, however, some writers who deny that these are species of allegory, and assert that they are actually tropes in themselves: for they argue shrewdly that allegory involves an element of obscurity, whereas in all these cases our meaning is perfectly obvious. To this may be added the fact that when a genus is divided into species, it ceases to have any peculiar properties of its own: for example, we may divide tree into its species, pine, olive, cypress, etc., leaving it no properties of its own, whereas allegory always has some property peculiar to itself. The only explanation of this fact is that it is itself a species. But this, of course, is a matter of indifference to those that use it.

To these the Greeks add μυκτηρισμός or mockery under the thinnest of disguises. When we use a number of words to describe something for which one, or at any rate only a few words of description would suffice, it is called periphrasis, that is, a circuitous mode of speech. It is sometimes necessary, being of special service when it conceals something which would be indecent, if expressed in so many words: compare the phrase

To meet the demands of nature