Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

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
v10-12 p.343
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:
  1. Thou this poor kingdom dost on me bestow.
Aen. i. 78.
and
  1. Thou vanquish him in song?
Ecl. iii. 25.
and
  1. Art thou, then, that Aeneas?
Aen i. 617.
and
  1. And of fear,
  2. 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.