Institutio Oratoria

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

But at times it is employed solely for decorative effect, a practice most frequent among the poets:

1. Now was the time
2. When the first sleep to weary mortals comes
3. Stealing its way, the sweetest boon of heaven.

Aen. ii. 268.

Still it is far from uncommon even in oratory, though

Again, hyperbaton, that is, the transposition of a word, is often demanded by the structure of the sentence and the claims of elegance, and is consequently counted among the ornaments of style. For our language would often be harsh, rough, limp or disjointed, if the words were always arranged in their natural order and attached each to each just as they occur, despite the fact that there is no real bond of union. Consequently some words require to be postponed, others to be anticipated, each being set in its appropriate place.

For we are like those who build a wall of unhewn stone: we cannot hew or polish our words in order to make them fit more compactly, and so we must take them as they are and choose suitable positions for them.

Further, it is impossible to make our prose rhythmical except by artistic alterations in the order of words, and the reason why those four words in which Plato [*]( At the beginning of the Repiblic. κατέβην χφὲς εἰς Πειραιᾶ. ) in the noblest of his works states that he had gone down to the Piraeus were found written in a number of different orders upon his wax tablets, was simply that he desired to make the rhythm as perfect as possible.

When, however, the transposition is confined to two words only, it is called anastrophe, that is, a reversal of order. This occurs in everyday

I noted, gentlemen, that the speech of the accuser was divided into two parts.

The poets even go so far as to secure this effect by the division of words, as in the line:

1. Hyperboreo septem subiecta trioni [*](Georg. iii. 381. )
2. (

   Under the Hyperborean Wain

   ),

On the other hand, when the transposition makes no alteration in the sense, and merely produces a variation in the structure, it is rather to be called a verbal figure, as indeed many authorities have held. Of the faults resulting from long or confused hyperbata have spoken in the appropriate place. [*](VIII. ii. 14.) I have kept hyperbole to the last, on the ground of its boldness. It means an elegant straining of the truth, and may be employed indifferently for exaggeration or attenuation. It can be used in various ways.

We may say more than the actual facts, as when Cicero says, [*](Phil. II. xxv. 63. ) "He vomited and filled his lap and the whole tribunal with fragments of food, or when Virgil speaks of

1. win rocks that threaten heaven.

Aen. i. 162.

1. Thou wouldst have deemed
2. That Cyclad isles uprooted swam the deep.

Aen. viii. 691.

Or we may produce the same result by introducing a comparison, as in the phrase:

1. Swifter than the levin's wings;

Aen. v. 319.

1. She would fly
2. Even o'er the tops of the unsickled corn,
3. Nor as she ran would bruise the tender ears.

Aen. vii. 808.