Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Of a similar kind, at any rate in my opinion, are those passages in which words are decently omitted to spare our modesty.

  1. You—while the goats looked goatish-we know who,
  2. And in what chapel—(but the kind Nymphs laughed).
Ecl. iii. 8.
v7-9 p.481
Some regard this as an aposiopesis, but wrongly.

For in aposiopesis it is either uncertain or at least requires an explanation of some length to show what is suppressed, whereas in the present case only one word, and that of an obvious character, is missing. If this, then, is an aposiopesis, all omissions will have a claim to the title.