Propriety of words; words are proper in more than one sense, § 1-3. A word may not be exactly proper, is not always to be condemned as improper, 4-6. Some words may be proper, and yet have not oratorical merit, 7, 8. The excellence of significancy, 9-11. Concerning obscurity, 12, 13. Arises from the use of unusual words, or from faulty composition, 14-16. From circumlocution, 17, 18. From desire for brevity, 19-21. Perspicuity the chief excellence of language, 22-24. 1. Perspicuity in words arises from a certain propriety; but the word propriety itself is taken in more than one sense; for its first acceptation signifies the exact term for a thing, which term we shall not always use; for we shall avoid such as are obscene, or offensive, or mean. 2. Mean terms as such are beneath the dignity of a subject or of the persons to whom we address ourselves. But in avoiding meanness some speakers are in the habit of running into a very great error, as they shrink from all terms that are in common use, even though the necessity of their subject calls for them; as he, for example, who, in pleading a cause, spoke of an Iberian shrub, of which he himself would alone have known the meaning, had not Cassius Severus, in derision of his folly, observed that he meant to say Spanish broom. 3. Nor do I see why an eminent orator should have thought that duratos muriâ pisces, "fishes preserved in pickle," was more elegant than the very word which he avoided. But in that sort of propriety, which uses the exact word for everything, there is no merit; though that which is contrary to it is a fault, and is called with us improprium, and in Greek ἄκυον (akyron), "impropriety," as in Virgil, tatum sperare dolorem, "to hope so great pain." 4. Or the expression in the speech of Dolabella, which I have found corrected by Cicero, mortem ferre; or such as are now extolled by some people, decernere, verba ceciderunt. Yet a word which is not proper will not necessarily be chargeable with the fault of impropriety; because, above all, there are many things, both in Greek and Latin, that have no proper term. 5. He who hurls jaculum, "a javelin," is said jaculari, but he who hurls pilum, "a lance," or sudes, "a stake," finds no word peculiarly assigned to the act; and though it is manifest that lapidare means "to throw stones," the throwing of clods or tiles has no peculiar term. Hence what is called catachresis, the abuse of words, becomes necessary. 6. Metaphor, too, in which much of the ornament of speech consists, applies words to things to which they do not properly belong. Hence the propriety of which we are speaking, relates, not to a word absolutely, but to the sense in which it is used, and is to be estimated, not by the ear, but by the mind. 7. In the second place; when several things come under the same term, that is called the proper sense of the term from which all the other senses are derived: as the word vertex signifies water whirling round, or whatever is whirled round in a similar manner; hence from the twisting round of the hair, it means the top of the head; and, from its application to the head, it came to signify the highest peak of a hill. We very rightly call all these things vertices, but properly that to which it was first applied. So it is with soleae and turdi, names of fishes. 8. There is also a third sort of propriety, the reverse of the second, when a thing, common to many purposes, has a peculiar sense as applied to one of them; as a funeral song is called naenia, and a general's tent augurale. Also, a term which is common to many things, may be applied in a preeminent sense to some one of them; as we say urbs for Rome, venales for newly-purchased slaves, and Corinthia for Corinthian brass; though there are many other cities, many other things to which venales may be applied, and there are Corinthian gold and silver as well as brass. But in such a use of terms there is no peculiar exhibition of the ability of the orator. 9. There is a kind of propriety, however, which is greatly to be admired, and for which anything is extolled that is said with peculiar effect, that is, with the utmost possible significancy; as Cato said that Julius Caesar applied himself soberly to overthrow the republic; or as Virgil says deductum carmen, "a humble strain;" and Horace acrem tibiam, "a shrill pipe," and Hannibalem dirum, "dire Hannibal." 10. Under this kind of propriety is mentioned by some the appositeness of characteristic words, which are called epithets, as dulce mustum, "sweet new wine," and Cum dentibus albis, "with white teeth." Of this species of propriety I shall speak in another place. Terms that are happily applied in metaphor are also frequently called proper. 11. Sometimes, too, a term that is eminently characteristic of a person is called proper to him; thus Fabius, among his many military virtues, was called Cunctator, "the Delayer." Words that signify more than they actually express, might seem to be fitly mentioned under the head of perspicuity, as they assist the understanding; but I would rather place emphasis among the ornaments of speech, because it does not merely tend to make what is said understood, but causes more to be understood than what is said. 12. On the other hand, obscurity arises from the adoption of words remote from common use; as, for example, if a person should search into the commentaries of the pontiffs, the most ancient treaties, and the writings of obsolete authors, and make it his object that what he extracted from thence should not be understood. By such means some affect a character for erudition, endeavoring to prove themselves the only persons who comprehend certain subjects. 13. Words, too, that are more familiar to certain districts than to others, or peculiar to certain arts, produce obscurity, as the wind Atabulus, the ship Saccaria; and In malaco sanum; such expressions must either be avoided before a judge who is ignorant of their meaning, or must be explained, as is the case with terms that are called homonyma; as with regard to the word Taurus, for example, it cannot be understood, unless it be specified whether it signifies a mountain, a constellation in the heavens, the name of a man, or the root of a tree. 14. Yet still greater obscurity arises in the construction and concatenation of words, and there are still more sources of it. Let our periods, therefore, never be so long that attention cannot sustain itself throughout them; nor so clogged by transpositions of phrases, that the end of the sense is not to be discovered till we reach the end of a hyperbaton. A still worse fault than these is a confused mixture of words, as in the verse, Saxa vocant Itali mediis quae in fluctibus aras, 15. By parenthesis, also, (which both orators and historians frequently use, to interpose some remark in the middle of a period,) the sense is generally embarrassed, unless what is inserted be very brief. Thus Virgil, in the passage where he describes a young horse, after having said, Nec vanos horret strepitus, and after having interposed some remarks in another form, returns, at the fifth verse following, to his first thought, Tum si qua sonum procul arma dedêre, 16. But above all we must avoid ambiguity, not only that species of it of which I have spoken above, and which renders the meaning doubtful, as Chremetem audivi percussisse Demeam, but also that sort which, though it cannot perplex the sense, yet, as far as words are concerned, runs into the same fault with the other; for instance, if a person should say, visum â se hominem librum scribentem; for though it is certain that the book was being written by the man, yet the speaker would have put his words badly together, and rendered them ambiguous as far as was in his power. 17. In some writers, also, there are clouds of empty words; for while they shrink from common forms of expression, and are attracted by a fancied appearance of beauty, they involve all their thoughts, which they are unwilling to express straightforwardly, in verbose circumlocutions, and joining one of these tissues of words to another of a similar character, and mixing up others with them, they extend their periods to a length to which no breath can hold out. 18. Some labor even to attain this fault, a fault by no means of recent date; as I find in Livy that there was a teacher in his day who exhorted his scholars to obscure what they said, using the Greek word σκότισν (skotison), "Darken it": and from whom, I should suppose, proceeded that extraordinary eulogium, "So much the better; even I myself cannot understand it." 19. Some, again, too studious of brevity, exclude from their periods words necessary, even to the sense; and, as if it were enough for themselves to know what they wish to say, are regardless how far it concern others to understand them; for my own part, I call that composition abortive, which the reader has to understand by the exertion of his own ability; others, interchanging words perversely, secure the same fault through the aid of figures. 20. But the worst kind of obscurity is that which the Greeks call ἀδιανόητον (adianoēton), that is, when words that are plain in one sense, have another sense concealed in them; as Conductus est caecus secus viam stare; and as he who tore his body with his teeth is represented in the schools, supra se cubâsse, as having lain upon himself. 21. Such ingenious and daring phraseology is thought eloquent because of its ambiguity; and there is an opinion now prevalent with many, that they ought to think that only elegantly and exquisitely expressed which requires to be interpreted. But it is pleasing also to certain hearers, who, when they find out the meaning of it, are delighted with their own penetration, and applaud themselves as if they had not heard but invented it. 22. With me, however, let the first virtue of composition be perspicuity; let there be proper words, and a clear order; let not the conclusion of the sense be too long protracted; and let there be nothing either deficient or superfluous. Thus will our language both deserve the commendation of the learned, and be intelligible to the unlearned. These observations refer to perspicuity in our words; for how perspicuity in our matter is to be secured, I have shown in my rules concerning the statement of cases. 23. But the case is similar with regard to both; for if we say neither less nor more than we ought, nor anything ill-arranged or indistinct, what we state will be clear, and intelligible even to the moderately attentive hearer. We must bear in mind, indeed, that the attention of the judge is not always so much on the alert as to dispel of itself the obscurity of our language, and to throw the light of his intellect on our darkness, but that he is often distracted by a multiplicity of other thoughts, which will prevent him from understanding us, unless what we say be so clear that its sense will strike his mind as the rays of the sun strike the eyes, even though his attention be not immediately fixed upon it. 24. We must, therefore, take care, not merely that he may understand us, but that he may not be able not to understand us. It is for this reason that we often repeat what we fancy that those who are trying the cause may not have sufficiently comprehended; using such phrases as, That part of our cause, which, through my fault, has been stated but obscurely, etc., on which account I shall have recourse to plainer and more common language; since, when we pretend, occasionally, that we have not fully succeeded, the admission is sure to be well received from us.
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