Institutio Oratoria

He will not do this by way of censuring the poets for such peculiarities, for poets are usually the servants of their metres and are allowed such licence that faults are given other names when they occur in poetry: for we style them metaplasms, [*]( The formation of cases of nouns and tenses of verbs from a non-existent nom. or pres.: or more generally any change in the forms of a word. ) schematisms and schemata, [*](schematismus and schemata both seem to mean the same, sc. figures. ) as I have said, and make a virtue of necessity. Their aim will rather be to familiarise the pupil with the artifices of style and to stimulate his memory.

Further in the elementary stages of such instruction it will not be unprofitable to show the different meanings which may be given to each word. With regard to glossemala, that is to say words not in common use, the teacher must exercise no ordinary diligence,

while still greater care is required in teaching all the tropes [*](See Book VIII. chap. vi.) which are employed for the adornment more especially of poetry, but of oratory as well, and in making his class acquainted with the two sorts of schemata or figures known as figures of speech and figures of thought. [*]( See Book chaps. i. and ii. A trope is an expression used in a sense which it cannot strictly bear. A figure is a form of speech differing from the ordinary method of expression; see IX i. 4. ) I shall however

Above all he will impress upon their minds the value of proper arrangement, and of graceful treatment of the matter in hand: he will show what is appropriate to the various characters, what is praiseworthy in the thoughts or words, where copious diction is to be commended and where restraint.

In addition to this he will explain the various stories that occur: this must be done with care, but should not be encumbered with superfluous detail. For it is sufficient to set forth the version which is generally received or at any rate rests upon good authority. But to ferret out everything that has ever been said on the subject even by the most worthless of writers is a sign of tiresome pedantry or empty ostentation, and results in delaying and swamping the mind when it would be better employed on other themes.

The man who pores over every page even though it be wholly unworthy of reading, is capable of devoting his attention to the investigation of old wives' tales. And yet the commentaries of teachers of literature are full of such encumbrances to learning and strangely unfamiliar to their own authors.

It is, for instance, recorded that Didymus, who was unsurpassed for the number of books which he wrote, on one occasion objected to some story as being absurd, whereupon one of his own books was produced which contained the story in question.

Such abuses occur chiefly in connexion with fabulous stories and are sometimes carried to ludicrous or even scandalous extremes: for in such cases the more unscrupulous commentator has such full scope for invention, that he can tell lies

IX. I have now finished with two of the departments, with which teachers of literature profess to deal, namely the art of speaking correctly and the interpretation of authors; the former they call nethodicē, the latter historiē We must however add to their activities instruction in certain rudiments of oratory for the benefit of those who are not yet ripe for the schools of rhetoric.