Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Consequently, where necessary, we must borrow the pompous effect produced by the spondees and iambi which compose the greater portion of the rhythms of tragedy, as in the line,

  1. En, impero Argis, sceptra mi liquit Pelops.
From an unknown tragedian. [*](Lo, I am lord at Argos, where to me I Pelops the sceptre left.)
But the comic senarius, styled trochaic, contains a number of pyrrhics and trochees, which others call tribrachs, but loses in dignity what it gains in speed,

as for example in the line,

  1. quid igiturfaciam? non earn, ne nunc quidem?
Ter. Eun. I. i. 1. [*](What shall I do then? Not go even now?) The pyrrhic never forms a separate foot, but does form part of the anapaest, tribrach and dactyl and it is in this connexion that it is mentioned by Quintilian.
Violent and abusive language, on the other hand, even in verse, as I have said, employs the iambic for its attack: e.g.,
  1. Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,
  2. nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo?
Cat. xxix. 1. [*](Who save a lecherous gambling glutton can endure to gaze on such a sight as this)
As a general rule, however,

if the choice were forced upon me, I should prefer my rhythm to be harsh and violent rather than nerveless and effeminate, as it is in so many writers, more especially in our own day, when it trips along in wanton measures that suggest the accompaniment of castanets. Nor will any rhythm ever be so admirable that it ought to be

v7-9 p.589
continued with the same recurrence of feet.

For we shall really be indulging in a species of versification if we seek to lay down one law for all varieties of speech: further, to do so would lay us open to the charge of the most obvious affectation, a fault of which we should avoid even the smallest suspicion, while we should also weary and cloy our audience by the resulting monotony; the sweeter the rhythm, the sooner the orator who is detected in a studied adherence to its employment, will cease to carry conviction or to stir the passions and emotions. The judge will refuse to believe him or to allow him to excite his compassion or his anger, if he thinks that he has leisure for this species of refinement.