The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero Part 27

_Siet_ is the word at full length; _sit_ is the contracted form. One may use either; and so we find in the same pa.s.sage,--

"Quam cara sint, quae post carendo intelligunt, Quamque attinendi magni dominatus sient."

Nor should I find fault with

"Scripsere alii rem."

I am aware that _scripserunt_ is the more correct form; but I willingly comply with a fashion which is agreeable to the ears.

"Idem campus habet,"

says Eunius; and in another place he has given us,--

"In templis isdem;"

but _eisdem_ would be more regular; but yet it would not have been so musical: and _iisdem_ would have sounded ill. But custom has sanctioned our departing from strict rules for the sake of euphony; and I should prefer saying _pomeridianas quadrigas_ to _postmeridianas_, and _mehercule_ to _mehercules. Non scire_ already appears a barbarism; _nescire_ is sweeter. The word _meridiem_ itself, why is it not _medidiem_?

I suppose because it sounded worse. There is one preposition, _abs_, which has now only an existence in account books; but in all other conversation of every sort is changed: for we say _amovit_, and _abegit_, and _abstulit_, so that you cannot now tell whether _ab_ is the correct form or _abs_. What shall we say if even _abfugit_ has seemed inadmissible, and if men have discarded _abfer_ and preferred _aufer_? and that preposition is found in no word whatever except these two verbs. There were the words _noti_, and _navi_, and _nari_, and when _in_ was forced to be prefixed to them, it seemed more musical to say _ignoti, ignavi, ignari_, than to adhere to the strict rules. Men say _ex usu_ and _republica_, because in the one phrase a vowel followed the preposition, and in the other there would have been great harshness if you had not removed the consonant, as in _exegit, edixit, effecit, extulit, edidit_. And sometimes the preposition has sustained an alteration, regulated by the first letter of the verb to which it is added, as _suffugit, summutavit, sustulit_.

XLVIII. What are we to say of compound words? How neat is it to say _insipientem_, not _insapientem_; _iniquum_, not _incequum_; _tricipitem_, not _tricapitem_; _concisum_, not concoesum! and, because of this last instance, some people wish also to say _pertisum_; but the same fashion which regulates the other changes, has not sanctioned this one. But what can be more elegant than this, which is not caused by nature, but by some regular usage?--we say _inclytus_, with the first letter short; _insa.n.u.s_, with the first letter long; _ink.u.ma.n.u.s_, with a short letter; _infelix_, with a long one: and, not to detain you with many examples, in those words in which the first letters are those which occur in _sapiente_ and _felice_, it is used long; in all others it is short. And so, too, we have _composuit, consuevit, concrvpuit, confecit_. Consult the truth, it will reprove you; refer the matter to your ears, they will sanction the usage. Why so? Because they will say that that sound is the most agreeable one to them; and an oration ought to consult that which gives pleasure to the ears. Moreover, I myself, as I knew that our ancestors spoke so as never to use an aspirate except before a vowel, used to speak in this way: _pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem_; when at last, and after a long time, the truth was forced upon me by the admonition of my own ears, I yielded to the people the right of settling the rule of speaking; and was contented to reserve to myself the knowledge of the proper rules and reasons for them. Still we say _Orcivii_, and _Matones_ and _Otones, Coepiones, sepulchra, coronas, lacrymas_, because that p.r.o.nunciation is always sanctioned by the judgment of our ears.

Ennius always used _Burrum_, never _Pyrrhum_: he says,--

"Vi patefecerunt Bruges;"

not _Phryges_; and so the old copies of his poems prove, for they had no Greek letters in them. But now those words have two; and though when they wanted to say _Phrygum_ and _Phrygibus_, it was absurd either to use a Greek character in the barbarous cases only, or else in the nominative case alone to speak Greek, still we say _Phrygum_ and _Phrygibus_ for the sake of harmonizing our ears. Moreover (at present it would seem like the language of a ploughman, though formerly it was a mark of politeness) our ancestors took away the last letter of those words in which the two last letters were the same, as they are in _optumus_, unless the next word began with a vowel. And so they avoided offending the ear in their verse; as the modern poets avoid it now in a different manner. For we used to say,--

"Qui est omnibu' princeps," not "omnibus princeps;"

and--

"Vita illa, dignu' locoquc," not "dignus."

But if unlettered custom is such an artist of euphony, what must we think is required by scientific art and systematic learning?

I have put all this more briefly than if I were discussing this matter by itself; (for this topic is a very extensive one, concerning the use and nature of words;) but still I have been more prolix than the plan I originally proposed to myself required.

XLIX. But because the choice of subjects and words is in the department of prudence, but of sounds and rhythm it is the ears that are the judges; because the one is referable to one's understanding, the other only to one's pleasure; therefore in the one case it is reason and in the other sensation that has been the inventor of the system. For it was necessary for us either to disregard the pleasure of those men by whom we wished to be approved of; or else it was necessary to discover a system by which to gain their good-will.

There are then two things which soothe the ears; _sound_ and _rhythm_.

Concerning rhythm we will speak presently; at this moment we are inquiring into sound. As I said before, words must be selected which as much as possible shall sound well; but they must not be, like the words of a poet, sought purely for sound, but taken from ordinary language.

"Qua ponto a h.e.l.les"

is an extravagant expression; but

"Auratua aries Colehorum"

is a verse illuminated with splendid names. But the next verse is polluted by ending with a most inharmonious letter;

"Frugifera et ferta arva Asiae tenet."

Let us therefore use the propriety of words of our own language, rather than the brilliancy of the Greeks; unless perchance we are ashamed of speaking in such a way as this--

"Qua tempestate Paris Helenam,"

and the rest of that sentence. Let us, I say, pursue that plan and avoid harshness of sound.

"Habeo istam ego perterricrepam....

Versutiloquas malitias."

Nor is it enough to have one's words arranged in a regular system, but the terminations of the sentences must be carefully studied, since we have said that that is a second sort of judgment of the ears. But the harmonious end of a sentence depends on the arrangement itself, which is so of its own accord, if I may so express myself, or on some particular cla.s.s of words in which there is a certain neatness; and whether such words have cases the terminations of which are similar, or whether one word is matched with another which resembles it, or whether contrary words are opposed to one another, they are harmonious of their own nature, even if nothing has been done on purpose. In the pursuit of this sort of neatness Gorgias is reported to have been the leader; and of this style there is an example in our speech in defence of Milo: "For this law, O judges, is not a written one, but a natural one, one which we have not learnt, or received from others, or gathered from books; but which we have extracted, and pressed out, and imbibed from nature itself; it is one in which we have not been educated, but born; we have not been brought up in it, but imbued with it. For these sentences are such that, because they are referred to the principles to which they ought to be referred, we see plainly that harmony was not the thing that was sought in them, but that which followed of its own accord. And this is also the case when contraries are opposed to one another; as those phrases are by which not only a harmonious sentence, but even a verse is made.

"Eam, quam nihil accusas, d.a.m.nas."

A man would say _condemnas_ if he wished to avoid making a verse.

"Bene quam meritam esse autumas, dicis male mereri.

Id, quod scis, prodest nihil; id, quod nescis, obest."

The very relation of the contrary effects makes a verse that would be harmonious in a narration.

"Quod scis, nihil prodest; quod nescis, multum obest."

These things, which the Greeks call [Greek: ant.i.theta], as in them contraries are opposed to contraries, of sheer necessity produce oratorical rhythm; and that too without any intention on the part of the orator that they should do so.

This was a kind of speaking in which the ancients used to take delight, even before the time of Isocrates; and especially Gorgias; in whose orations his very neatness generally produces an harmonious rhythm. We too frequently employ this style; as in the fourth book of our impeachment of Verres:--"Compare this peace with that war; the arrival of this praetor with the victory of that general; the debauched retinue of this man, with the unconquerable army of the other; the l.u.s.t of this man with the continence of that one; and you will say that Syracuse was founded by the man who in reality took it; and was stormed by this one, who in reality received it in an admirable and settled condition."

This sort of rhythm then must be well understood.

L. We must now explain that third kind of an harmonious and well-arranged speech, and say of what character it is; and what sort of ears those people have who do not understand its character, or indeed what there is in them that is like men at all, I do not know.

My ears delight in a well-turned and properly finished period of words, and they like conciseness, and disapprove of redundancy. Why do I say my ears? I have often seen a whole a.s.sembly raise a shout of approval at hearing a musical sentence. For men's ears expect that sentences shall be strung together of well-arranged words. This was not the case in the time of the ancients. And indeed it was nearly the only thing in which they were deficient: for they selected their words carefully, and they gave utterance to dignified and sweet sounding ideas; but they paid little attention to arranging them or filling them up. "This is what delights me," one of them would say. What are we to say if an old primitive picture of few colours delights some men more than this highly finished one? Why, I suppose, the style which succeeds must be studied again; and this latter style repudiated.

People boast of the names of the ancients. But antiquity carries authority with it in precedents, as old age does in the lives of individuals; and it has indeed very great weight with me myself. Nor am I more inclined to demand from antiquity that which it has not, than to praise that which it has; especially as I consider what it has as of more importance than what it has not. For there is more good in well chosen words and ideas in which they excel, than in the rounding off of phrases in which they fail. It is after their time that the working up of the termination of a sentence has been introduced; which I think that those ancients would have employed, if it had been known and employed in their day; as since it has been introduced we see that all great orators have employed it.

LI. But it looks like envy when what we call "number," and the Greeks [Greek: ruthmos] is said to be employed in judicial and forensic oratory. For it appears like laying too many plots for the charming of people's ears if rhythm is also aimed at by the orator in his speeches. And relying on this argument those critics themselves utter broken and abrupt sentences, and blame those men who deliver well rounded and neatly turned discourses. If they blame them because their words are ill adapted and their sentiments are trifling, they are right; but if their arguments are sound, their language well chosen, then why should they prefer a lame and halting oration to one which keeps pace with the sentiments contained in it? For this rhythm which they attack so has no other effect except to cause the speaker to clothe his ideas in appropriate language; and that was done by the ancients also, not unusually by accident, and often by nature; and those speeches of theirs which are exceedingly praised, are so generally because they are concisely expressed. And it is now near four hundred years since this doctrine has been established among the Greeks; we have only lately recognised it. Therefore was it allowable for Ennius, despising the ancient examples, to say:--

"In verses such as once the Fauns And ancient poets sang:"

and shall it not be allowed me to speak of the ancients in the same manner? especially as I am not going to say, "Before this man ..." as he did; nor to proceed as he did, "We have ventured to open ..." For I have read and heard of some speakers whose orations were rounded off in an almost perfect manner. And those who cannot do this are not content with not being despised; they wish even to be praised for their inability. But I do praise those men, and deservedly too, whose imitators they profess to be; although I see something is wanting in them. But these men I do not praise at all, who imitate nothing of the others except their defects, and are as far removed as possible from their good qualities.