Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
I. What the Greeks call φράσιν we in Latin call elocuio or style. Style is revealed both in individual words and in groups of words. As regards the former, we must see that they are Latin, clear, elegant and well-adapted to produce the desired effect. As regards the latter, they must be correct, aptly placed and adorned with suitable figures.
I have already, in the portions of the first book dealing with the subject of grammar, said all that is necessary on the way to acquire idiomatic and correct speech. But there my remarks were restricted to the prevention of positive faults, and it is well that I should now point out that our words should have nothing provincial or foreign about them. For you will find
for all his astounding eloquence, showed traces of the idiom of Padua. Therefore, if possible, our voice and all our words should be such as to reveal the native of this city, so that our speech may seem to be of genuine Roman origin, and not merely to have been presented with Roman citizenship.
Clearness results above all from propriety in the use of words. But propriety is capable of more than one interpretation. In its primary sense it means calling things by their right names, and is consequently sometimes to be avoided, for our language must not be obscene, unseemly or mean.
Language may be described as mean when it is beneath the dignity of the subject or the rank of the speaker. Some orators fall into serious error in their eagerness to avoid this fault, and are afraid of all words that are in ordinary use, even although they may be absolutely necessary for their purpose. There was, for example, the man who in the course of a speech spoke of
Iberian grass,a meaningless phrase intelligible only to himself. Cassius Severus, however, by way of deriding his affectation, explained that he meant Spanish broom.
Nor do I see why a certain distinguished orator thought
fishesa more elegant phrase than the word which he avoided. [*](Probably salsamenta.) But while there is no special merit in the form of propriety which consists in calling things by their real names, it is a fault to fly to the opposite extreme. This fault we call impropriety,v7-9 p.199conserved in brine
while the Greeks call it ἄκυρον As examples I may cite the Virgilian, [*](Aen. IV. 419. )
Never could I have hoped for such great woe,or the phrase, which I noted had been corrected by Cicero in a speech of Dolabella's,
To bring death,or again, phrases of a kind that win praise from some of our contemporaries, such as,
His words fell from the cross.[*]( Presumably in the sense, He spoke like one in bodily pain. ) On the other hand, everything that lacks appropriateness will not necessarily suffer from the fault of positive impropriety, because there are, in the first place, many things which have no proper term either in Greek or Latin.
For example, the verb iaculari is specially used in the sense of
to throw a javelin,whereas there is no special verb appropriated to the throwing of a ball or a stake. So, too, while lapidare has the obvious meaning of
to stone,there is no special word to describe the throwing of clods or potsherds.
Hence abuse or catachresis of words becomes necessary, while metaphor, also, which is the supreme ornament of oratory, applies words to things with which they have strictly no connexion. Consequently propriety turns not on the actual term, but on the meaning of the term, and must be tested by the touchstone of the understanding, not of the ear.
The second sense in which the word propriety is used occurs when there are a number of things all called by the same name: in this case the original term from which the others are derived is styled the proper term.
are employed as names of fish, to mention no other cases. [*]( Lit. i. e. in the proper sense the sole of the foot and a thrush. ) The third kind of propriety is found in the case where a thing which serves a number of purposes has a special name in some one particular context; for example, the proper term for a funeral song is naenia, and for the general's tent augurale. Again, a term which is common to a number of things may be applied in a proper or special sense to some one of them. Thus we use urbs in the special sense of Rome, venales in the special sense of newly-purchased slaves, and Corinthia in the special sense of bronzes, although there are other cities besides Rome, and many other things which may be styled venales besides slaves, and gold and silver are found at Corinth as well as bronze. But the use of such terms implies no special excellence in an orator.
There is, however, a form of propriety of speech which deserves the highest praise, that is to say, the employment of words with the maximum of significance, as, for instance, when Cato [*](Suet. Caes. 53. ) said that
Caesar was thoroughly sober when he undertook the task of overthrowing the constitution,or as Virgil [*](Ecl. vi. 5. ) spoke of a
thin-drawn strain,and Horace [*](Odes I. xii. 1, and III. vi. 36. ) of the
shrill pipe,and
dread Hannibal.
Some also include under this head that form of propriety
sweet unfermented wine,or
with white teeth.But of this sort of propriety I shall have to speak elsewhere. [*](SC. ch. vi. )