On the other hand, that class of allegory in which the meaning is contrary to that suggested by the words, involve an element of irony, or, as our rhetoricians call it, illusio. This is made evident to the understanding either by the delivery, the character of the speaker or the nature of the subject. For if any one of these three is out of keeping with the words, it at once becomes clear that the intention of the speaker is other than what he actually says In the majority of tropes it is, however,

important to bear in mind not merely what is said, but about whom it is said, since what is said may in another context be literally true. It is permissible to censure with counterfeited praise and praise under a pretence of blame. The following will serve as an example of the first. Cic. Pro Cluent. xxxiii. 91. Since Gaius Verres, the urban praetor, being a man of energy and blameless character, had no record in his register of this substitution of this man for another on the panel. As an example of the reverse process we may take the following: cp. § 20. We are regarded as orators and have imposed on the people.

Sometimes, again, we may speak in mockery when we say the opposite of what we desire to be understood, as in Cicero's denunciation of Clodius From the lost speech in Clodium et Curionem. : Believe me, your well known integrity has cleared you of all blame, your modesty has saved you, your past life has been your salvation.

Further, we may employ allegory, and disguise bitter taunts in gentle words I y way of wit, or we may indicate our meaning by saying exactly the contrary or. . . The passage is hopelessly corrupt. The concluding portion of the sentence must have referred to the use of proverbs, of which it may have contained an example. This is clear from the next sentence. Sarcasm, urbane wit and contradiction are covered by the first three clauses, but there has been no allusion to proverbs such as παροιμία demands. If the Greek names for these methods are unfamiliar to any of my readers, I would remind him that they are σαρκασμός, ἀστεϊσμός, ἀντίφρασις and παροιμία (sarcasm, urbane wit, contradiction and proverbs).

There are, however, some writers who deny that these are species of allegory, and assert that they are actually tropes in themselves: for they argue shrewdly that allegory involves an element of obscurity, whereas in all these cases our meaning is perfectly obvious. To this may be added the fact that when a genus is divided into species, it ceases to have any peculiar properties of its own: for example, we may divide tree into its species, pine, olive, cypress, etc., leaving it no properties of its own, whereas allegory always has some property peculiar to itself. The only explanation of this fact is that it is itself a species. But this, of course, is a matter of indifference to those that use it.

To these the Greeks add μυκτηρισμός or mockery under the thinnest of disguises. When we use a number of words to describe something for which one, or at any rate only a few words of description would suffice, it is called periphrasis, that is, a circuitous mode of speech. It is sometimes necessary, being of special service when it conceals something which would be indecent, if expressed in so many words: compare the phrase To meet the demands of nature from Sallust. Presumably from the Histories.

But at times it is employed solely for decorative effect, a practice most frequent among the poets: Now was the timeWhen the first sleep to weary mortals comesStealing its way, the sweetest boon of heaven.Aen. ii. 268.

Still it is far from uncommon even in oratory, though in such cases it is always used with greater restraint. For whatever might have been expressed with greater brevity, but is expanded for purposes of ornament, is a periphrasis, to which we give the name circumlocution, though it is a term scarcely suitable to describe one of the virtues of oratory. But it is only called periphrasis so long as it produces a decorative effect: when it passes into excess, it is known as perissology: for whatever is not a help, is a positive hindrance.

Again, hyperbaton, that is, the transposition of a word, is often demanded by the structure of the sentence and the claims of elegance, and is consequently counted among the ornaments of style. For our language would often be harsh, rough, limp or disjointed, if the words were always arranged in their natural order and attached each to each just as they occur, despite the fact that there is no real bond of union. Consequently some words require to be postponed, others to be anticipated, each being set in its appropriate place.

For we are like those who build a wall of unhewn stone: we cannot hew or polish our words in order to make them fit more compactly, and so we must take them as they are and choose suitable positions for them.

Further, it is impossible to make our prose rhythmical except by artistic alterations in the order of words, and the reason why those four words in which Plato At the beginning of the Repiblic. κατέβην χφὲς εἰς Πειραιᾶ. in the noblest of his works states that he had gone down to the Piraeus were found written in a number of different orders upon his wax tablets, was simply that he desired to make the rhythm as perfect as possible.

When, however, the transposition is confined to two words only, it is called anastrophe, that is, a reversal of order. This occurs in everyday speech in mecum and secure, while in orators and historians we meet with it in the phrase quibus de rebus. It is the transposition of a word to some distance from its original place, in order to secure an ornamental effect, that is strictly called hyperbaton: the following passage will provide an example: animadverti, indices, omnem accusatoris orationenm in duas divisam esse partes. Cic. pro Cluent. i. 1. ( I noted, gentlemen, that the speech of the accuser was divided into two parts. ) In this case the strictly correct order would be in duas partes divisam esse, but this would have been harsh and ugly.

The poets even go so far as to secure this effect by the division of words, as in the line: Hyperboreo septem subiecta trioni Georg. iii. 381. ( Under the Hyperborean Wain ), a licence wholly inadmissible in oratory. Still there is good reason for calling such a transposition a trope, since the meaning is not complete until the two words have been put together.