Institutio Oratoria

And if the danger can be avoided by any ambiguity of expression, tile speaker's cunning will meet with universal approbation. On the other hand, the actual business of the courts has never yet involved such necessity for silence, though at times they require something not unlike it, which is much more embarrassing for the speaker, as, for example, when he is hampered by the existence of powerful personages, whom he must censure if he is to prove his case.

Consequently he must proceed with greater wariness and circumspection; since the actual manner in which offence is given is a matter of indifference, and if a figure is perfectly obvious, it ceases to be a figure. Therefore such devices are absolutely repudiated by some authorities, whether the meaning of the figure be intelligible or not. But it is possible to employ such figuress in moderation, the primary consideration being that they should not be too obvious. And this fault can be avoided, if the figre does not depend on the employment of words of doubtful or double meaning, such, for instance, as the words which occur in the theme of the suspected daughter-in-law: [*](i.e. suspected of an intrigue with her father-in-law. )

I married the wife who pleased my father.

It is important, too, that the figure should

Who dishonoured you?

My father, do you not know?

The facts themselves must be allowed to excite the suspicions of the judge, and we must clear away all other points, leaving nothing save what will suggest the truth. In doing this we shall find emotional appeals, hesitation and words broken by silences most effective. For thus the judge will be led to seek out the secret which he would not perhaps believe if he heard it openly stated, and to believe in that which he thinks he has found out for himself. But however excellent our figures,