Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

But the utterance must be fuller, slower, and consequently sweeter, when the orator says, [*](Phil. ii. xxv. 63. )

But in an assembly of the Homan people, and when he was performing his official functions.

In this passage every sound should e drawn out, we should dwell upon the vowel-sounds and speak fill-throated. Still fuller should be the stream of our voice in the invocation, [*](pro Mil. xxxi. 85. )

You, hills and groves of Alba

; while a tone not far removed from chanting, and dying away to a cadence, should be employed in delivering the phrase, [*](pro Arch. viii. 19. )

Rocks and solitudes answer to the voice.

These are the modulations denounced by Demosthenes [*](de Cor. 90.) and Aeschines, [*](In Ctes. 72. ) but they do not necessarily for that reason merit our disapprobation. For as each of these orators taunts the other with making use of them, it is clear that they were employed by both. We may be sure that Demosthenes did not restrict himself to his ordinary simplicity of tone when he swore by those that fought for their country at Marathon, Plataea and Salamis, [*](De Cor. 60. ) nor did Aeschines employ a colloquial utterance when he lamented for the fate of Thebes. [*](In Ctes. 49. )

There is also an entirely different tone, which might be described as lying almost

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outside the range of the instrument. The Greeks call it bitterness, and it consists in an extravagant acerbity almost beyond the compass of the human voice. It is employed in passages such as, [*](pro Rab. perd. vi. 18. )

Why do you not restrain those cries, the proof of your folly and the evidence of your small numbers?

But the extravagance of which I spoke will come in at the opening, where the orator cries,

Why do you not restrain?

The peroration, if it involves a recapitulation, requires an even utterance of short, clear-cut clauses. If, on the other hand, it is designed to stir the emotions of the judges, it will demand some of the qualities already mentioned. If it aims at soothing them, it should How softly; if it is to rouse them to pity, the voice must be delicately modulated to a melancholy sweetness, which is at once most natural and specially adapted to touch the heart. For it may be noted that even orphans and widows have a certain musical quality in the lamentations which they utter at funerals.

A muffled voice, such as Cicero [*](Brutt. xxxviii. 141. ) says was possessed by Antonius, will also be exceedingly effective under such circumstances, since it has just the natural tone which we seek to imitate. Appeals to pity are, however, of two kinds: they may be marked by an admixture of indignation, as in the passage just quoted [*](§ 162.) describing the condemnation of Philodamus, or they may be coupled with appeals for mercy, in which case their tone will be more subdued.

Therefore although there is a suggestion of the chanting tone in the delivery of such passages as

In an assembly of the Roman people

(for he did not utter these words in a contentious tone), or in

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Ye hills and groves of Alba

(for he did not say this as though he were appealing to them or calling them to witness), the ensuing phrases [*](pro Mil. xxxvii. 102. ) require infinitely greater modulation and longer-drawn harmonies:

Ah, woe is me, unhappy that I am!

and

What shall I reply to my children?

and

You, Milo, had the power to recall me to my country with the aid of these men, and shall I be powerless by their aid to keep you in that same country, your native land and mine?

or when he offers to sell the property of Gaius Rabirius at one sesterce,

Ah, what a sad and bitter task my voice is called on to perform!

[*](pro Rab. Post, xvii. 46. addicit, lit. knocks down : praeconium, lit. the task of the public crier. ) Again,

it is a most effective device to confess in the peroration that the strain of grief and fatigue is overpowering, and that our strength is sinking beneath them, as Cicero does in his defence of Milo: [*](pro Mil. xxxviii. 105. )

But here I must make an end: I can no longer speak for tears.

And in such passages our delivery must conform to our words.

It may be thought that there are other points which should be mentioned in connexion with the duties of the orator in this portion of his speech, such as calling forward the accused, lifting up his children for the court to see, producing his kinsfolk, and rending his garments; but they have been dealt with in their proper place. [*](VI. i. 30.) Such being the variety entailed by the different portions of our pleading, it is sufficiently clear that our delivery must be adapted to our matter, as I have already shown, and sometimes also, though not always conform to our actual words, as I have just remarked. [*](§ 173.)

For instance, must not the words,

This poor wretched, poverty-stricken man,

be uttered in a low, subdued tone, whereas,

A hold and violent fellow and a robber,

is a phrase

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requiring a strong and energetic utterance? For such conformity gives a force and appropriateness to our matter, and without it the expression of the voice will be out of harmony with our thought.

Again, what of the fact that a change of delivery may make precisely the same words either demonstrate or affirm, express reproach, denial, wonder or indignation, interrogation, mockery or depreciation? For the word

thou

is given a different expression in each of the following passages:

Thou this poor kingdom dost on me bestow.
Aen. i. 78.

and

Thou vanquish him in song?
Ecl. iii. 25.

and

Art thou, then, that Aeneas?
Aen i. 617.

and

And of fear,
Do thou accuse me, Drances!
Aen. xi. 383.

To cut a long matter short, if my reader will take this or any other word he chooses and run it through the whole gamut of emotional expression, he will realise the truth of what I say.

There is one further remark which I must add, namely, that while what is becoming is the main consideration in delivery, different methods will often suit different speakers. For this is determined by a principle which, though it is obscure and can hardly be expressed in words, none the less exists: and, though it is a true saying [*](de Or. I. xxix. 132 ) that

the main secret of artistic success is that whatever we do should become us well,

none the less, despite the fact that such success cannot be

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attained without art, it is impossible entirely to communicate the secret by the rules of art.