Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
The methods of hyperbole by attenuation are the same in number. Compare the Virgilian [*](Ecl. iii. 103. Describing a flock of starved sheep. )
or the lines from a humorous work [*](Unknown.) of Cicero's,
- Scarce cling they to their bones,
- Fundum Vetto vocat quem possit mittere funda;
- Ni tamen exciderit, qua cava funda patet.
But even here a certain proportion must be observed. For although every hyperbole involves the incredible, it must not go too far in this direction, which provides the easiest road to extravagant affectation.Vetto gives the name of farm to an estate which might easily be hurled from a sling, though it might well fall through the hole in the hollow sling, so small is it.
I shrink from recording the faults to which the lack of this sense of proportion has given rise, more especially as they are so well known and obvious. It is enough to say that hyperbole lies, though without any intention to deceive. We must therefore be all the more careful to consider how far we may go in exaggerating facts which our audience may refuse to believe. Again, hyperbole will often cause a laugh. If that was what the orator desired,
Hyperbole is employed even by peasants and uneducated persons, for the good reason that everybody has an innate passion for exaggeration or attenuation of actual facts, and no one is ever contented with the simple truth. But such disregard of truth is pardonable, for it does not involve the definite assertion of the thing that is not. Hyperbole is, moreover, a virtue,
when the subject on which we have to speak is abnormal. For we are allowed to amplify, when the magnitude of the facts passes all words, and in such circumstances our language will be more effective if it goes beyond the truth than if it falls short of it. However, I have said enough on this topic, since I have already dealt with it in my work on the causes of the decline of oratory.
In my last book I spoke of tropes. I now come to figures, called σχήματα in Greek, a topic which is naturally and closely connected with the preceding.
For many authors have considered figures identical with tropes, because whether it be that the latter derive their name from having a certain form or from the fact that they effect alterations in language (a view which has also led to their being styled motions ), it must be admitted that both these features are found in figures as well. Their employment is also the same. For they add force and charm to our matter. There are some again who call tropes figures, Artorius Proculus among them.
Further the resemblance between the two is so close that it is not easy to distinguish between them. For although certain kinds differ, while retaining a general resemblance (since both involve a departure from the simple and straightforward method of expression coupled with a certain rhetorical excellence), on the other hand some are distinguished by the narrowest possible dividing line: for example, while irony belongs to figures of thought just as much as to tropes, [*](See IX. ii. 44.) periphrasis, hyperbaton and onomatopoea [*]( VIII. vi. 59 sqq., 62, 31 respectively. ) have been ranked by distinguished authors as figures of speech rather than tropes.
It is therefore all the more necessary to point out the distinction between the two. The name of trope