Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Who would tolerate me if in a work such as this I were to prescribe avoidance of exposure to sun, wind, rain or parching heat? If we are called upon to speak in the sun or on a windy, wet or warm day, is that a reason for deserting the client whom we have undertaken to defend? While as for the warning given by some that the orator should not speak when dyspeptic, replete or drunk, or immediately after vomiting, I think that no sane person would dream of declaiming under such circumstances.

There is, however, good reason for the rule prescribed by all authorities, that the voice should not be overstrained in the years of transition between boyhood and manhood, since at that period it is naturally weak, not, I think, on account of heat, as some allege (for there

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is more heat in the body at other periods), but rather on account of moisture, of which at that age there is a superabundance.

For this reason the nostrils and the breast swell at this stage, and all the organs develop new growth, with the result that they are tender and liable to injury. However, to return to the point, the best and most realistic form of exercise for the voice, once it has become firm and set, is, in my opinion, the practice of speaking daily just as we plead in the courts. For thus, not merely do the voice and lungs gain in strength, but we acquire a becoming deportment of the body and develop grace of movement suited to our style of speaking.

The rules for delivery are identical with those for the language of oratory itself. For, as our language must be correct, clear, ornate and appropriate, so with our delivery; it will be correct, that is, free from fault, if our utterance be fluent, clear, pleasant and

urbane,

that is to say, free from all traces of a rustic or a foreign accent.

For there is good reason for the saying we so often hear,

He must be a barbarian or a Greek

: since we may discern a man's nationality from the sound of his voice as easily as we test a coin by its ring. If these qualities be present, we shall have those harmonious accents of which Ennius [*](Ann. ix. 305 (Vahlen). ) expresses his approval when he describes Cethegus as one whose

words rang sweetly,

and avoid the opposite effect, of which Cicero [*](Brut. xv. 58. ) expresses his disapproval by saying,

They bark, not plead.

For there are many faults of which I spoke in the first book [*]( I. i. 37; v. 32; viii. 1 and xi. 1 sqq. ) when I discussed the method in which the speech of children should be formed, since I thought it more appropriate to mention them in connexion with a period of life when it is still possible to correct them.

Again, the

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delivery may be described as correct if the voice be sound, that is to say, exempt from any of the defects of which I have just spoken, and if it is not dull, coarse, exaggerated, hard, stiff, hoarse or thick, or again, thin, hollow, sharp, feeble, soft or effeminate, and if the breath is neither too short nor difficult to sustain or recover.

The delivery will be clear if, in the first place, the words are uttered in their entirety, instead of being swallowed or clipped, as is so often the case, since too many people fail to complete the final syllables through over-emphasising the first. But although words must be given their full phonetic value, it is a tiresome and offensive trick to pronounce every letter as if we were entering them in an inventory.