Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

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

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in such cases it is always used with greater restraint. For whatever might have been expressed with greater brevity, but is expanded for purposes of ornament, is a periphrasis, to which we give the name circumlocution, though it is a term scarcely suitable to describe one of the virtues of oratory. But it is only called periphrasis so long as it produces a decorative effect: when it passes into excess, it is known as perissology: for whatever is not a help, is a positive hindrance.

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.