Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
where the same word is used in two different meanings. When Proculeius reproached his son with waiting for his death, and the son replied that he was not waiting for it, the former retorted, Well then, I ask you to wait for it. Sometimes such difference in meaning is obtained not by using the same word, but one like it, as for example by saying that a man whom you think dignus supplicatione (worthy of supplication) is supplicio adficiendus. [*]( In old Latin supplicium was used as equivalent to suppliratio, and this use survives in Livy and Sallust. But in Augustan and post-Augustan language the normal meaning of supplicium was punishment, and the natural translation would be worthy of punishment. )
There are also other ways in which the same words may be used in different senses or altered by the lengthening or shortening of
Amari iucundum est, si curetur ne quid insit amari,[*]( Auct. ad Herenn. iv. 14: It is pleasant to be loved, but we must take care that there is no bitterness in that love. ) and Avium dulcedo ad avium ducit; [*](Birds' sweet song leads us into pathless places.) and again this jest from Ovid, [*]( Probably from a collection of epigrams: Furia, why should I not call you a fury? )
Cornificius calls this traductio,
- Cur ego non dicam, Furia, te furiam?
that is the transference of the meaning of one word to another. It has, however, greater elegance when it is employed to distinguish the exact meanings of things, as in the following example:
This curse to the state could be repressed for a time, but not suppressed for ever;[*](Cat. L xii. 30. ) the same is true when the meaning of verbs is reversed by a change in the preposition with which they are compounded: for example, Non emissus ex urbe, sed immissus in urbem esse videatur. [*](Cat. I. 11. 27: He would seem not so much to have been sent out from, but to have been launched against the city. ) The effect is better still and more emphatic when our pleasure is derived both from the figurative form and the excellence of the sense, as in the following instance: emit morte immortalitatem. [*](By his death he purchased undying fame.)