Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

There are some four different forms of play upon verbal resemblances. The first occurs when we select some word which is not very unlike another, as in the line of Virgil

  1. vuppesque tuae pubesque tuorum,
Aen. i. 399. [*](Your ships and the flower of your young warriors.)
or, sic in hac calamitosa fama quasi in aliqua perniciosissim flamma, [*](Pro Cluent. i. 4. In the midst of this disastrous defamation, which may be compared to a disastrous conflagration. ) and non enim tarn spes laudanda quam
v7-9 p.491
res est. [*]( From Cic. de Republica. For it is performance rather that promise that claims our praise. ) Or at any rate the words selected will be of equal length and will have similar terminations, as in non verbis, sed armis. [*](Rutil. ii. xii. Not with words, but with arms. )

A good effect may also be produced by an artifice such as the following, so long as the thought which it expresses be vigorous: quantum possis, in eo semper experire ut prosis. [*](Always try in such cases to make your efforts as useful as possible.) The name commonly applied to this is πάροσον though the Stoic Theon thinks that in cases of πάρισον the correspondence between the clauses must be exact.