Institutio Oratoria

The remaining tropes are employed solely to adorn and enhance our style without any reference to the meaning. For the epithet, of which the correct translation is appositum, though some call it sequens,

is clearly an ornament. Poets employ it with special frequency and freedom, since for them it is sufficient that the epithet should suit the word to which it is applied: consequently we shall not blame them when they speak of

white teeth

or

liquid wine.

[*](Georg. III. 364. ) But in oratory an epithet is redundant unless it has some point. Now it will only have point when it adds something to the meaning, as for instance in the following:

O abominable crime, O hideous lust!

But its decorative effect is greatest when it is metaphorical, as in the phrases

unbridled greed

[*]( Cic. in Cat. I. x. 25. ) or

those mad piles of masonry.

[*]( Pro Mil. xx. 53. ) The epithet is generally made into a trope by the addition of something to it, as when Virgil speaks of

disgraceful poverty

or

sad old age.

[*](Aen. vi. 276 and 275. Here the addition is metonymy, turpis and tristis both substituting effect in place of cause: cp. § 27. ) But the nature of this form of embellishment is such that, while style is bare and inelegant without any epithets at all, it is overloaded when a large number are employed.

For then it becomes long-winded and cumbrous, in fact you might compare it to an army with as many camp-followers as soldiers, an army, that is to say, which has doubled its numbers without doubling its strength. None the less, not merely single epithets are employed, but we may find a number of them together, as in the following passage from Virgil: [*](Aen. iii. 475. I have translated 476 ( cura deum, bis Pergameis erepte ruinis ) as well to bring out Quintilian's meaning. Quintilian assumes the rest of quotation to be known. )

1. Anchises, worthy deigned
2. Of Venus' glorious bed, [beloved of heaven,
3. Twice rescued from the wreck of Pergamum.]

Be this as it may, two epithets directly attached to one noun are unbecoming even in verse. There are some writers who refuse to regard an epithet as a trope, on the ground that it involves no change. It

is not always a trope, but if separated from the word to which it belongs, it has a significance of its own and forms an antonomasia. For if you say,

The man who destroyed Numantia and Carthage,

it will be an antonomasia, whereas, if you add the word

Scipio,

the phrase will be an epithet. An epithet therefore cannot stand by itself.

Allegory, which is translated in Latin by inversio, either presents one thing in words and another in meaning, or else something absolutely opposed to the meaning of the words. The first type is generally produced by a series of metaphors. Take as an example:

1. O ship, new waves will bear thee back to sea.
2. What dost thou? Make the haven, come what may,

Hor. Od. i. xiv. 1.

and the rest of the ode, in which Horace represents the state under the semblance of a ship, the civil wars as tempests, and peace and good-will as the haven.

Such, again, is the claim of Lucretius: [*](Lucr. IV. 1. )

1. Pierian fields I range untrod by man,

and such again the passage where Virgil says,

1. But now
2. A mighty length of plain we have travelled o'er;
3. 'Tis time to loose our horses' steaming necks.

Georg. II. 541.

On the other hand, in the Bucolics [*](Buc. IX. 7. ) he introduces an allegory without any metaphor:

1. Truth, I had heard
2. Your loved Menalcas by his songs had saved
3. All those fair acres, where the hills begin
4. To sink and droop their ridge with easy slope
5. Down to the waterside and that old beech
6. With splintered crest.

For in this passage, with the exception of the proper name, the words bear no more than their literal meaning. But the name does not simply denote the shepherd Menalcas, but is a pseudonym for Virgil himself. Oratory makes frequent use of such allegory, but generally with this modification, that there is an admixture of plain speaking. We get allegory pure and unadulterated in the following passage of Cicero: [*](From an unknown speech.)

What I marvel at and complain of is this, that there should exist any man so set on destroying his enemy as to scuttle the ship on which he himself is sailing.

The following is an example of the commonest type, namely, the mixed allegory: [*](Pro Mil. ii, 5. )

I always thought that Milo would have other storms and tempests to weather, at least in the troubled waters of political meetings.

Had he not added the words

at least in the troubled waters of political meetings,

we should have had pure allegory: their addition, however, converted it into a mixed allegory. In this type of allegory the ornamental element is provided by the metaphorical words and the meaning is indicated by those which are used literally.

But far the most ornamental effect is produced by the artistic admixture of simile, metaphor and allegory, as in the following example: [*](Pro Mur. xvii. 35. )

What strait, what tide-race, think you, is full of so many conflicting motions or vexed by such a variety of eddies, waves and fluctuations, as confuse our popular elections with their wild ebb and flow? The passing of one day, or the interval of a single night, will often throw everything into confusion, and one little breath of rumour will sometimes turn the whole trend of opinion.

For it is all-important to follow the principle illustrated by this passage and never to mix your metaphors. But there are many who, after beginning with a tempest, will end with a fire or a falling house, with the result that they produce a hideously incongruous effect.

For the rest, allegory is often used by men of little ability and in the conversation of everyday life. For those hackneyed phrases of forensic pleading,

to fight hand to hand,

to attack the throat,

or

to let blood

are all of them allegorical, although they do not strike the attention: for it is novelty and change that please in oratory, and what is unexpected always gives special delight. Consequently we have thrown all restraint to the wind in such matters, and have destroyed the charm of language by the extravagant efforts which we have made to attain it.

Illustrative examples also involve allegory if not preceded by an explanation; for there are numbers of sayings available for use like the

Dionysius is at Corinth,

[*]( The allusion must be to the fact that Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse, on his expulsion from the throne, migrated to Corinth and set up as a schoolmaster. Its application is uncertain, but it would obviously be a way of saying How are the mighty fallen I ) which is such a favourite with the Greeks. When, however, an allegory is too obscure, we call it a riddle: such riddles are, in my opinion, to be regarded as blemishes, in view of the fact that lucidity is a virtue; nevertheless they are used by poets, as, for example, by Virgil [*](Ecl. iii. 104; the solution is lost. ) in the following lines:

1. Say in what land, and if thou tell me true,
2. I'll hold thee as Apollo's oracle,
3. Three ells will measure all the arch of heaven.

Even orators sometimes use them,

as when Caelius [*]( The references are to the licentious character of Clodia. Coa was probably intended to suggest coitus, while nola is best derived from nolle, and is to be regarded as the opposite of coa. ) speaks of the

Clytemnestra who sold her favours for a farthing, who was a Coan in the dining-room and a Nolan in her bedroom.

For although we know the answers, and although they were better known at the time when the words were uttered, they are riddles for all that; and other riddles are, after all, intelligible if you can get someone to explain them.