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

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a syllable: this is a poor trick even when employed in jest, and I am surprised that it should be included in the text-books: the instances which I quote are therefore given as examples for avoidance, not for imitation. Here they are:

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? )

  1. Cur ego non dicam, Furia, te furiam?
Cornificius calls this traductio,

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.)

A more trivial effect is produced by the following: Non Pisonum, sed pistorum, [*](Not of the Pisos, but of the bakers.) and Ex oratore arator, [*](Phil III. ix. 22: Orator turned ploughman. ) while phrases such as Ne patres conscripti videantur circumscripti, [*]( Auct. ad Herenn, iv. 22. That the conscript fathers be not cheated. ) or raro evenit, sed vehenenter venit, [*](Meaning uncertain.) are the worst of all. It does, however, sometimes happen that a bold and vigorous conception may derive a certain charm from the contrast between two words not dissimilar in sound.

I do

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not know that there is any reason why modesty should prevent me from illustrating this point from my own family. My father, in the course of a declamation against a man who had said he would die on his embassy and then returned after a few days' absence without accomplishing anything, said, non exigo ut immoriaris legationi: immorare. [*](I (do not demand that you should die on your embassy; only stay there!) For the sense is forcible and the sound of the two words, which are so very different in meaning, is pleasant, more especially since the assonance is not far fetched, but presents itself quite naturally, one word being of the speaker's own selection, while the other is supplied by his opponent.

The old orators were at great pains to achieve elegance in the use of words similar or opposite in sound. Gorgias carried the practice to an extravagant pitch, while Isocrates, at any rate in his early days, was much addicted to it. Even Cicero delighted in it, but showed some restraint in the employment of a device which is not unattractive save when carried to excess, and, further, by the weight of his thought lent dignity to what would otherwise have been mere trivialities. For in itself this artifice is a flat and foolish affectation, but when it goes hand in hand with vigour of thought, it gives the impression of natural charm, which the speaker has not had to go far to find.