Institutio Oratoria

There is a further drawback resulting from the faulty arrangement of words, with which we are all familiar, namely, that it leads to ambiguity. The above remarks will, I think, suffice as a brief summary of the points which require notice in connexion with order. If the order is

I will follow the natural order and will begin by pointing out that there are some blemishes so obvious that even the uneducated regard them as worthy of censure; I refer to occasions when two consecutive words form some unseemly expression by the coalescence of the last syllable of the first word and the first of the second. [*](cp. VIII. 45. ) Again, there are occasions when vowels clash. When this happens, the language is broken by gaps and interstices and seems to labour. The most unpleasing effects of sound will be produced by the juxtaposition of the same long vowels, while the worst hiatus occurs between vowels which are pronounced hollow- or open-mouthed. [*](i.e. A, O, U. )

E has a flatter, i a narrower sound, and consequently such blemishes are less noticeable where they are concerned. It is a less serious fault to place short vowels after long, a statement which applies even more strongly to placing short vowels before long. But the least unsatisfactory combination is that of two short vowels. And in all conjunctions of vowels, the resulting sound will be proportionately soft or harsh according as they resemble or differ from each other in the method of utterance.

On the other hand, hiatus is not to be regarded as so very terrible a crime: in fact I do not know which is the worse fault in this connexion, carelessness or a pedantic

On the other hand Demosthenes and Cicero show a sense of proportion in the way in which they face the problem. For the coalescence of two letters, known as συναλοιφή, may make our language run more smoothly than if every word closed with its own vowel, while sometimes hiatus may even prove becoming and create an impression of grandeur, as in the following case, pulchra oratione ista iacta te. [*](Boast yourself of that fine speech of yours.) For syllables which are naturally long and rich in sound gain something from the time which intervenes between two vowels, as though there were a perceptible pause.

I cannot do better than quote the words of Cicero [*](Or. xxiii. 77. ) on this subject. Hiatus, he says, and the meeting of vowels produce a certain softness of effect, such as to suggest a not unpleasing carelessness on the part of the orator, as though he were more anxious about his matter than his words. But consonants also are liable to conflict at the juncture of words, more especially those letters which are comparatively harsh in sound; as for instance when the final s of one word clashes with x at the opening of the next. Still more unpleasing is the hissing sound produced by the collision between a pair of these consonants, as in the phrase ars studiorum.

This was the reason why Servius, as he