Platonicae quaestiones

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Brown, R., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

WHY SAID PLATO, THAT SPEECH WAS COMPOSED OF NOUNS AND VERBS?[*](Plato’s Sophist, p. 262 A.)

For he seems to make no other parts of speech but them. But Homer in a sportive humor has comprehended them all in one verse:

  1. Αὐτός ἰὼν κλισίηνδε τὸ σὸν γέρας, ὄφρ᾽ εὖ εἰδῇς.
    2. [*](Il. I. 185.)
For in it there is pronoun, participle, noun, preposition, article, conjunction, adverb, and verb, the particle -δε being put instead of the preposition εἰς; for κλισίηνδε, to the tent, is said in the same sense as Ἀθηνάζε to Athens. What then shall we say for Plato?

Is it that at first the ancients called that λόγος, or speech, which once was called protasis and now is called axiom or proposition,—which as soon as a man speaks, he speaks either true or false? This consists of a noun and verb, which logicians call the subject and predicate. For when we hear this said, Socrates philosophizeth or Socrates is changed, requiring nothing more, we say the one is true, the other false. For very likely in the beginning men wanted speech and articulate voice, to enable them to express clearly at once the passions and the patients, the actions and the agents. Now, since actions and affections are sufficiently expressed by verbs, and they that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify. And one may say, the rest signify not. For instance, the groans and shrieks of stage-players, and even their smiles and reticence, make their discourse more emphatic. But they have no necessary power to signify any thing, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of letters. This the ancients have made manifest, whom sixteen letters sufficed to speak and write any thing.

Besides, we must not neglect to observe, that Plato says that speech is composed of these, not by these; nor must we blame Plato for leaving out conjunctions, prepositions, and the like, any more than we should cavil at a man who should say such a medicine is composed of wax and galbanum, because fire and utensils are omitted, without which it cannot be made. For speech is not composed of these; yet by their means, and not without them, speech must be composed. As, if a man pronounce beats or is beaten, and put Socrates and Pythagoras to the same, he offers us something to conceive and understand. But if a man pronounce indeed or for or about, and no more,

none can conceive any notion of a body or matter; and unless such words as these be uttered with verbs and nouns, they are but empty noise and chattering. For neither alone nor joined one with another do they signify any thing. And join and confound together conjunctions, articles, and prepositions, supposing you would make something of them; yet you will be taken to babble, and not to speak sense. But when there is a verb in construction with a noun, the result is speech and sense. Therefore some do with good reason make only these two parts of speech; and perhaps Homer is willing to declare himself of this mind, when he says so often,
  1. Ἐπος τ᾽ ἔφατ᾽ ἔκ τ᾽ ὀνόμαζεν.
For by ἔπος he usually means a verb, as in these verses.
Ὦ γύναι, ἤ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος θυμαλγές ἔειπες,
and,
  1. Χαῖρε, πάτερ, ὦ ξεῖνε, ἔπος δ᾽ εἴπερ τι λέλεκται
  2. Δεινὸν, ἄφαρ τὸ φέροιεν ἀναρπάξασαι ἄελλαι.
    3. [*](Odyss. XXIII. 183; VIII. 408.)
For neither conjunction, article, nor preposition could be called δεινόν (terrible) or θυμαλγές (soul-grieving), but only a verb expressing a base action or a foolish passion of the mind. Therefore, when we would praise or dispraise poets or writers, we are wont to say, such a man uses Attic nouns and good verbs, or else common nouns and verbs; but none can say that Thucydides or Euripides used Attic or good or common articles.

What then? may some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to speech? I answer, They conduce, as salt does to victuals, or water to barley cakes. And Euenus calls fire the best sauce. Though sometimes there is neither occasion for fire to boil, nor for salt to season our food, which we have always occasion for. Nor has speech always occasion for articles. I think I may say

this of the Latin tongue, which is now the universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions, saving a few, nor does it use any articles, but leaves its nouns (as it were) without skirts and borders. Nor is it any wonder, since Homer, who in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only to a few nouns, like handles to cans, or crests to helmets. Therefore these verses are remarkable wherein the articles are expressed:
  • Αἴαντι δὲ μάλιστα δαΐφρονι θυμὸν ὄρινε
  • Τῷ Τελαμωνιάδῃ·
    • [*](Il. XIV. 459.)
    and,
  • Ποίεον ὄφρα τὸ κῆτος ὑπεκπροφυγὼν ἀλέαιτο
    • [*](Il. XX. 147.)
    and some few besides. But in a thousand others, the omission of the articles hinders neither perspicuity nor elegance of phrase.

    Now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor any thing else is more fine, efficacious, or graceful, for the loss of a part. Yet speech, by taking away conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as here:

  • One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;
  • One held a living foe, that freshly bled
  • With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead.
    • [*](Il. XVIII. 536.)
    And this of Demosthenes:

    A bully in an assault may do much which his victim cannot even describe to another person,—by his mien, his look, his voice,—when he stings by insult, when he attacks as an avowed enemy, when he smites with his fist, when he gives a blow on the face. These rouse a man; these make a man beside himself who is unused to such foul abuse.

    And again:

    Not so with Midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he shouts. Is there an election of magistrates?

    Midias the Anagyrrasian is nominated. He is the advocate of Plutarchus; he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him.[*](Demosthenes against Midias, p. 537, 25, and p. 578, 29.)

    Therefore the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is highly commended by writers of rhetoric. But such as keep overstrict to the law, and (according to custom) omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without any variety in it. And inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and Ulysses wanted withs to tie Cyclop’s sheep; this shows they are not parts of speech, but a conjunctive instrument thereof, as the word conjunction imports. Nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as are not spoken simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of a book, or distribution of money part of the government. For Demades says, that money which is given to the people out of the exchequer for public shows is the glue of a democracy. Now what conjunction does so of several propositions make one, by knitting and joining them together, as marble joins iron that is melted with it in the fire Yet the marble neither is nor is said to be part of the iron; although in this case the substances enter into the mixture and are melted together, so as to form a common substance from many and to be mutually affected. But there be some who think that conjunctions do not make any thing one, but that this kind of discourse is merely an enumeration, as when magistrates or days are reckoned in order.

    Moreover, as to the other parts of speech, a pronoun is manifestly a sort of noun; not only because it has cases like the noun, but because some pronouns, when they are applied to objects heretofore defined, by their mere utterance give the most distinct and proper designation of them.

    Nor do I know whether he that says Socrates or he that says this one does more by name declare the person.

    The thing we call a participle, being a mixture of a verb and noun, is nothing of itself, as are not the common names of male and female qualities (i.e. adjectives), but in construction it is put with others, in regard of tenses belonging to verbs, in regard of cases to nouns. Logicians call them ἀνάκλαστοι,(i.e. reflected),—as φρονῶν comes from φρόνιμος and σωφονῶν from σώφρονος,—having the force both of nouns and appellatives.

    And prepositions are like to the crests of a helmet, or footstools and pedestals, which (one may rather say) do belong to words than are words themselves. See whether they rather be not pieces and scraps of words, as they that are in haste write but dashes and pricks for letters. For it is plain that ἐμβῆναι and ἐκβῆναι are abbreviations of the whole words ἐντὸς βῆναι and ἐκτὸς βῆναι, προγενέσθαι for πρότερον γενέσθαι, and καθίζειν for κάτω ἵζειν. As undoubtedly for haste and brevity’s sake, instead of λίθους βάλλειν and τοίχους ὀρύττειν men first said λιθοβολεῖν and τοιχωρυζεῖν.

    Therefore every one of these is of some use in speech; but nothing is a part or element of speech (as has been said) except a noun and a verb, which make the first juncture admitting of truth or falsehood, which some call a proposition or protasis, others an axiom, and which Plato called speech.