|
Rhetoric
By Aristotle
Rhetoric
By Aristotle
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by W. Rhys Roberts
Part 1
In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing
persuasion; second, the style, or language, to be used; third, the proper
arrangement of the various parts of the speech. We have already specified
the sources of persuasion. We have shown that these are three in number;
what they are; and why there are only these three: for we have shown that
persuasion must in every case be effected either (1) by working on the
emotions of the judges themselves, (2) by giving them the right impression
of the speakers' character, or (3) by proving the truth of the statements
made.
Enthymemes also have been described, and the sources from which
they should be derived; there being both special and general lines of argument
for enthymemes.
Our next subject will be the style of expression. For it is not
enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought; much
help is thus afforded towards producing the right impression of a speech.
The first question to receive attention was naturally the one that comes
first naturally-how persuasion can be produced from the facts themselves.
The second is how to set these facts out in language. A third would be
the proper method of delivery; this is a thing that affects the success
of a speech greatly; but hitherto the subject has been neglected. Indeed,
it was long before it found a way into the arts of tragic drama and epic
recitation: at first poets acted their tragedies themselves. It is plain
that delivery has just as much to do with oratory as with poetry. (In connexion
with poetry, it has been studied by Glaucon of Teos among others.) It is,
essentially, a matter of the right management of the voice to express the
various emotions-of speaking loudly, softly, or between the two; of high,
low, or intermediate pitch; of the various rhythms that suit various subjects.
These are the three things-volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm-that
a speaker bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually
win prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now
count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life,
owing to the defects of our political institutions. No systematic treatise
upon the rules of delivery has yet been composed; indeed, even the study
of language made no progress till late in the day. Besides, delivery is-very
properly-not regarded as an elevated subject of inquiry. Still, the whole
business of rhetoric being concerned with appearances, we must pay attention
to the subject of delivery, unworthy though it is, because we cannot do
without it. The right thing in speaking really is that we should be satisfied
not to annoy our hearers, without trying to delight them: we ought in fairness
to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts: nothing, therefore,
should matter except the proof of those facts. Still, as has been already
said, other things affect the result considerably, owing to the defects
of our hearers. The arts of language cannot help having a small but real
importance, whatever it is we have to expound to others: the way in which
a thing is said does affect its intelligibility. Not, however, so much
importance as people think. All such arts are fanciful and meant to charm
the hearer. Nobody uses fine language when teaching
geometry.
When the principles of delivery have been worked out, they will
produce the same effect as on the stage. But only very slight attempts
to deal with them have been made and by a few people, as by Thrasymachus
in his 'Appeals to Pity'. Dramatic ability is a natural gift, and can hardly
be systematically taught. The principles of good diction can be so taught,
and therefore we have men of ability in this direction too, who win prizes
in their turn, as well as those speakers who excel in delivery-speeches
of the written or literary kind owe more of their effect to their direction
than to their thought.
It was naturally the poets who first set the movement going; for
words represent things, and they had also the human voice at their disposal,
which of all our organs can best represent other things. Thus the arts
of recitation and acting were formed, and others as well. Now it was because
poets seemed to win fame through their fine language when their thoughts
were simple enough, that the language of oratorical prose at first took
a poetical colour, e.g. that of Gorgias. Even now most uneducated people
think that poetical language makes the finest discourses. That is not true:
the language of prose is distinct from that of poetry. This is shown by
the state of things to-day, when even the language of tragedy has altered
its character. Just as iambics were adopted, instead of tetrameters, because
they are the most prose-like of all metres, so tragedy has given up all
those words, not used in ordinary talk, which decorated the early drama
and are still used by the writers of hexameter poems. It is therefore ridiculous
to imitate a poetical manner which the poets themselves have dropped; and
it is now plain that we have not to treat in detail the whole question
of style, but may confine ourselves to that part of it which concerns our
present subject, rhetoric. The other--the poetical--part of it has been
discussed in the treatise on the Art of Poetry.
Part 2
We may, then, start from the observations there made, including
the definition of style. Style to be good must be clear, as is proved by
the fact that speech which fails to convey a plain meaning will fail to
do just what speech has to do. It must also be appropriate, avoiding both
meanness and undue elevation; poetical language is certainly free from
meanness, but it is not appropriate to prose. Clearness is secured by using
the words (nouns and verbs alike) that are current and ordinary. Freedom
from meanness, and positive adornment too, are secured by using the other
words mentioned in the Art of Poetry. Such variation from what is usual
makes the language appear more stately. People do not feel towards strangers
as they do towards their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of
their feeling for language. It is therefore well to give to everyday speech
an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them, and are struck by what
is out of the way. In verse such effects are common, and there they are
fitting: the persons and things there spoken of are comparatively remote
from ordinary life. In prose passages they are far less often fitting because
the subject-matter is less exalted. Even in poetry, it is not quite appropriate
that fine language should be used by a slave or a very young man, or about
very trivial subjects: even in poetry the style, to be appropriate, must
sometimes be toned down, though at other times heightened. We can now see
that a writer must disguise his art and give the impression of speaking
naturally and not artificially. Naturalness is persuasive, artificiality
is the contrary; for our hearers are prejudiced and think we have some
design against them, as if we were mixing their wines for them. It is like
the difference between the quality of Theodorus' voice and the voices of
all other actors: his really seems to be that of the character who is speaking,
theirs do not. We can hide our purpose successfully by taking the single
words of our composition from the speech of ordinary life. This is done
in poetry by Euripides, who was the first to show the way to his
successors.
Language is composed of nouns and verbs. Nouns are of the various
kinds considered in the treatise on Poetry. Strange words, compound words,
and invented words must be used sparingly and on few occasions: on what
occasions we shall state later. The reason for this restriction has been
already indicated: they depart from what is suitable, in the direction
of excess. In the language of prose, besides the regular and proper terms
for things, metaphorical terms only can be used with advantage. This we
gather from the fact that these two classes of terms, the proper or regular
and the metaphorical-these and no others-are used by everybody in conversation.
We can now see that a good writer can produce a style that is distinguished
without being obtrusive, and is at the same time clear, thus satisfying
our definition of good oratorical prose. Words of ambiguous meaning are
chiefly useful to enable the sophist to mislead his hearers. Synonyms are
useful to the poet, by which I mean words whose ordinary meaning is the
same, e.g. 'porheueseai' (advancing) and 'badizein' (proceeding); these
two are ordinary words and have the same meaning.
In the Art of Poetry, as we have already said, will be found definitions
of these kinds of words; a classification of Metaphors; and mention of
the fact that metaphor is of great value both in poetry and in prose. Prose-writers
must, however, pay specially careful attention to metaphor, because their
other resources are scantier than those of poets. Metaphor, moreover, gives
style clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can: and it is
not a thing whose use can be taught by one man to another. Metaphors, like
epithets, must be fitting, which means that they must fairly correspond
to the thing signified: failing this, their inappropriateness will be conspicuous:
the want of harmony between two things is emphasized by their being placed
side by side. It is like having to ask ourselves what dress will suit an
old man; certainly not the crimson cloak that suits a young man. And if
you wish to pay a compliment, you must take your metaphor from something
better in the same line; if to disparage, from something worse. To illustrate
my meaning: since opposites are in the same class, you do what I have suggested
if you say that a man who begs 'prays', and a man who prays 'begs'; for
praying and begging are both varieties of asking. So Iphicrates called
Callias a 'mendicant priest' instead of a 'torch-bearer', and Callias replied
that Iphicrates must be uninitiated or he would have called him not a 'mendicant
priest' but a 'torch-bearer'. Both are religious titles, but one is honourable
and the other is not. Again, somebody calls actors 'hangers-on of Dionysus',
but they call themselves 'artists': each of these terms is a metaphor,
the one intended to throw dirt at the actor, the other to dignify him.
And pirates now call themselves 'purveyors'. We can thus call a crime a
mistake, or a mistake a crime. We can say that a thief 'took' a thing,
or that he 'plundered' his victim. An expression like that of Euripides'
Telephus,
"King of the oar, on Mysia's coast he landed,
"
is inappropriate; the word 'king' goes beyond the dignity of the subject,
and so the art is not concealed. A metaphor may be amiss because the very
syllables of the words conveying it fail to indicate sweetness of vocal
utterance. Thus Dionysius the Brazen in his elegies calls poetry 'Calliope's
screech'. Poetry and screeching are both, to be sure, vocal utterances.
But the metaphor is bad, because the sounds of 'screeching', unlike those
of poetry, are discordant and unmeaning. Further, in using metaphors to
give names to nameless things, we must draw them not from remote but from
kindred and similar things, so that the kinship is clearly perceived as
soon as the words are said. Thus in the celebrated riddle
"I marked
how a man glued bronze with fire to another man's body,
"
the process is nameless; but both it and gluing are a kind of application,
and that is why the application of the cupping-glass is here called a 'gluing'.
Good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors: for
metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good
metaphor. Further, the materials of metaphors must be beautiful; and the
beauty, like the ugliness, of all words may, as Licymnius says, lie in
their sound or in their meaning. Further, there is a third consideration-one
that upsets the fallacious argument of the sophist Bryson, that there is
no such thing as foul language, because in whatever words you put a given
thing your meaning is the same. This is untrue. One term may describe a
thing more truly than another, may be more like it, and set it more intimately
before our eyes. Besides, two different words will represent a thing in
two different lights; so on this ground also one term must be held fairer
or fouler than another. For both of two terms will indicate what is fair,
or what is foul, but not simply their fairness or their foulness, or if
so, at any rate not in an equal degree. The materials of metaphor must
be beautiful to the ear, to the understanding, to the eye or some other
physical sense. It is better, for instance, to say 'rosy-fingered morn',
than 'crimson-fingered' or, worse still, 'red-fingered morn'. The epithets
that we apply, too, may have a bad and ugly aspect, as when Orestes is
called a 'mother-slayer'; or a better one, as when he is called his 'father's
avenger'. Simonides, when the victor in the mule-race offered him a small
fee, refused to write him an ode, because, he said, it was so unpleasant
to write odes to half-asses: but on receiving an adequate fee, he wrote
"Hail to you, daughters of storm-footed steeds?
"
though of course they were daughters of asses too. The same effect is attained
by the use of diminutives, which make a bad thing less bad and a good thing
less good. Take, for instance, the banter of Aristophanes in the Babylonians
where he uses 'goldlet' for 'gold', 'cloaklet' for 'cloak', 'scoffiet'
for 'scoff, and 'plaguelet'. But alike in using epithets and in using diminutives
we must be wary and must observe the mean.
Part 3
Bad taste in language may take any of four forms:
(1) The misuse of compound words. Lycophron, for instance, talks of
the 'many visaged heaven' above the 'giant-crested earth', and again the
'strait-pathed shore'; and Gorgias of the 'pauper-poet flatterer' and 'oath-breaking
and over-oath-keeping'. Alcidamas uses such expressions as 'the soul filling
with rage and face becoming flame-flushed', and 'he thought their enthusiasm
would be issue-fraught' and 'issue-fraught he made the persuasion of his
words', and 'sombre-hued is the floor of the sea'.The way all these words
are compounded makes them, we feel, fit for verse only. This, then, is
one form in which bad taste is shown.
(2) Another is the employment of strange words. For instance, Lycophron
talks of 'the prodigious Xerxes' and 'spoliative Sciron'; Alcidamas of
'a toy for poetry' and 'the witlessness of nature', and says 'whetted with
the unmitigated temper of his spirit'.
(3) A third form is the use of long, unseasonable, or frequent
epithets. It is appropriate enough for a poet to talk of 'white milk',
in prose such epithets are sometimes lacking in appropriateness or, when
spread too thickly, plainly reveal the author turning his prose into poetry.
Of course we must use some epithets, since they lift our style above the
usual level and give it an air of distinction. But we must aim at the due
mean, or the result will be worse than if we took no trouble at all; we
shall get something actually bad instead of something merely not good.
That is why the epithets of Alcidamas seem so tasteless; he does not use
them as the seasoning of the meat, but as the meat itself, so numerous
and swollen and aggressive are they. For instance, he does not say 'sweat',
but 'the moist sweat'; not 'to the Isthmian games', but 'to the world-concourse
of the Isthmian games'; not 'laws', but 'the laws that are monarchs of
states'; not 'at a run', but 'his heart impelling him to speed of foot';
not 'a school of the Muses', but 'Nature's school of the Muses had he inherited';
and so 'frowning care of heart', and 'achiever' not of 'popularity' but
of 'universal popularity', and 'dispenser of pleasure to his audience',
and 'he concealed it' not 'with boughs' but 'with boughs of the forest
trees', and 'he clothed' not 'his body' but 'his body's nakedness', and
'his soul's desire was counter imitative' (this's at one and the same time
a compound and an epithet, so that it seems a poet's effort), and 'so extravagant
the excess of his wickedness'. We thus see how the inappropriateness of
such poetical language imports absurdity and tastelessness into speeches,
as well as the obscurity that comes from all this verbosity-for when the
sense is plain, you only obscure and spoil its clearness by piling up
words.
The ordinary use of compound words is where there is no term for
a thing and some compound can be easily formed, like 'pastime' (chronotribein);
but if this is much done, the prose character disappears entirely. We now
see why the language of compounds is just the thing for writers of dithyrambs,
who love sonorous noises; strange words for writers of epic poetry, which
is a proud and stately affair; and metaphor for iambic verse, the metre
which (as has been already' said) is widely used to-day.
(4) There remains the fourth region in which bad taste may be shown,
metaphor. Metaphors like other things may be inappropriate. Some are so
because they are ridiculous; they are indeed used by comic as well as tragic
poets. Others are too grand and theatrical; and these, if they are far-fetched,
may also be obscure. For instance, Gorgias talks of 'events that are green
and full of sap', and says 'foul was the deed you sowed and evil the harvest
you reaped'. That is too much like poetry. Alcidamas, again, called philosophy
'a fortress that threatens the power of law', and the Odyssey 'a goodly
looking-glass of human life',' talked about 'offering no such toy to poetry':
all these expressions fail, for the reasons given, to carry the hearer
with them. The address of Gorgias to the swallow, when she had let her
droppings fall on him as she flew overhead, is in the best tragic manner.
He said, 'Nay, shame, O Philomela'. Considering her as a bird, you could
not call her act shameful; considering her as a girl, you could; and so
it was a good gibe to address her as what she was once and not as what
she is.
Part 4
The Simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight. When
the poet says of Achilles that he
"Leapt on the foe as a lion,
"
this is a simile; when he says of him 'the lion leapt', it is a metaphor-here,
since both are courageous, he has transferred to Achilles the name of 'lion'.
Similes are useful in prose as well as in verse; but not often, since they
are of the nature of poetry. They are to be employed just as metaphors
are employed, since they are really the same thing except for the difference
mentioned.
The following are examples of similes. Androtion said of Idrieus
that he was like a terrier let off the chain, that flies at you and bites
you-Idrieus too was savage now that he was let out of his chains. Theodamas
compared Archidamus to an Euxenus who could not do geometry-a proportional
simile, implying that Euxenus is an Archidamus who can do geometry. In
Plato's Republic those who strip the dead are compared to curs which bite
the stones thrown at them but do not touch the thrower, and there is the
simile about the Athenian people, who are compared to a ship's captain
who is strong but a little deaf; and the one about poets' verses, which
are likened to persons who lack beauty but possess youthful freshness-when
the freshness has faded the charm perishes, and so with verses when broken
up into prose. Pericles compared the Samians to children who take their
pap but go on crying; and the Boeotians to holm-oaks, because they were
ruining one another by civil wars just as one oak causes another oak's
fall. Demosthenes said that the Athenian people were like sea-sick men
on board ship. Again, Demosthenes compared the political orators to nurses
who swallow the bit of food themselves and then smear the children's lips
with the spittle. Antisthenes compared the lean Cephisodotus to frankincense,
because it was his consumption that gave one pleasure. All these ideas
may be expressed either as similes or as metaphors; those which succeed
as metaphors will obviously do well also as similes, and similes, with
the explanation omitted, will appear as metaphors. But the proportional
metaphor must always apply reciprocally to either of its co-ordinate terms.
For instance, if a drinking-bowl is the shield of Dionysus, a shield may
fittingly be called the drinking-bowl of Ares.
Part 5
Such, then, are the ingredients of which speech is composed. The
foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under
five heads. (1) First, the proper use of connecting words, and the arrangement
of them in the natural sequence which some of them require. For instance,
the connective 'men' (e.g. ego men) requires the correlative de (e.g. o
de). The answering word must be brought in before the first has been forgotten,
and not be widely separated from it; nor, except in the few cases where
this is appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the
one required. Consider the sentence, 'But as soon as he told me (for Cleon
had come begging and praying), took them along and set out.' In this sentence
many connecting words are inserted in front of the one required to complete
the sense; and if there is a long interval before 'set out', the result
is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style lies in the right use of connecting
words. (2) The second lies in calling things by their own special names
and not by vague general ones. (3) The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless,
indeed, you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing
to say but are pretending to mean something. Such people are apt to put
that sort of thing into verse. Empedocles, for instance, by his long circumlocutions
imposes on his hearers; these are affected in the same way as most people
are when they listen to diviners, whose ambiguous utterances are received
with nods of acquiescence-
"Croesus by crossing the Halys will
ruin a mighty realm. "
Diviners use these vague generalities about the matter in hand
because their predictions are thus, as a rule, less likely to be falsified.
We are more likely to be right, in the game of 'odd and even', if we simply
guess 'even' or 'odd' than if we guess at the actual number; and the oracle-monger
is more likely to be right if he simply says that a thing will happen than
if he says when it will happen, and therefore he refuses to add a definite
date. All these ambiguities have the same sort of effect, and are to be
avoided unless we have some such object as that mentioned. (4) A fourth
rule is to observe Protagoras' classification of nouns into male, female,
and inanimate; for these distinctions also must be correctly given. 'Upon
her arrival she said her say and departed (e d elthousa kai dialechtheisa
ocheto).' (5) A fifth rule is to express plurality, fewness, and unity
by the correct wording, e.g. 'Having come, they struck me (oi d elthontes
etupton me).'
It is a general rule that a written composition should be easy
to read and therefore easy to deliver. This cannot be so where there are
many connecting words or clauses, or where punctuation is hard, as in the
writings of Heracleitus. To punctuate Heracleitus is no easy task, because
we often cannot tell whether a particular word belongs to what precedes
or what follows it. Thus, at the outset of his treatise he says, 'Though
this truth is always men understand it not', where it is not clear with
which of the two clauses the word 'always' should be joined by the punctuation.
Further, the following fact leads to solecism, viz. that the sentence does
not work out properly if you annex to two terms a third which does not
suit them both. Thus either 'sound' or 'colour' will fail to work out properly
with some verbs: 'perceive' will apply to both, 'see' will not. Obscurity
is also caused if, when you intend to insert a number of details, you do
not first make your meaning clear; for instance, if you say, 'I meant,
after telling him this, that and the other thing, to set out', rather than
something of this kind 'I meant to set out after telling him; then this,
that, and the other thing occurred.'
Part 6
The following suggestions will help to give your language impressiveness.
(1) Describe a thing instead of naming it: do not say 'circle', but 'that
surface which extends equally from the middle every way'. To achieve conciseness,
do the opposite-put the name instead of the description. When mentioning
anything ugly or unseemly, use its name if it is the description that is
ugly, and describe it if it is the name that is ugly. (2) Represent things
with the help of metaphors and epithets, being careful to avoid poetical
effects. (3) Use plural for singular, as in poetry, where one finds
"Unto
havens Achaean, "
though only one haven is meant, and
"Here are my letter's many-leaved
folds. "
(4) Do not bracket two words under one article, but put one article
with each; e.g. 'that wife of ours.' The reverse to secure conciseness;
e.g. 'our wife.' Use plenty of connecting words; conversely, to secure
conciseness, dispense with connectives, while still preserving connexion;
e.g. 'having gone and spoken', and 'having gone, I spoke', respectively.
(6) And the practice of Antimachus, too, is useful-to describe a thing
by mentioning attributes it does not possess; as he does in talking of
Teumessus
"There is a little wind-swept knoll...
"
A subject can be developed indefinitely along these lines. You may apply
this method of treatment by negation either to good or to bad qualities,
according to which your subject requires. It is from this source that the
poets draw expressions such as the 'stringless' or 'lyreless' melody, thus
forming epithets out of negations. This device is popular in proportional
metaphors, as when the trumpet's note is called 'a lyreless
melody'.
Part 7
Your language will be appropriate if it expresses emotion and character,
and if it corresponds to its subject. 'Correspondence to subject' means
that we must neither speak casually about weighty matters, nor solemnly
about trivial ones; nor must we add ornamental epithets to commonplace
nouns, or the effect will be comic, as in the works of Cleophon, who can
use phrases as absurd as 'O queenly fig-tree'. To express emotion, you
will employ the language of anger in speaking of outrage; the language
of disgust and discreet reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety
or foulness; the language of exultation for a tale of glory, and that of
humiliation for a tale of and so in all other cases.
This aptness of language is one thing that makes people believe
in the truth of your story: their minds draw the false conclusion that
you are to be trusted from the fact that others behave as you do when things
are as you describe them; and therefore they take your story to be true,
whether it is so or not. Besides, an emotional speaker always makes his
audience feel with him, even when there is nothing in his arguments; which
is why many speakers try to overwhelm their audience by mere
noise.
Furthermore, this way of proving your story by displaying these
signs of its genuineness expresses your personal character. Each class
of men, each type of disposition, will have its own appropriate way of
letting the truth appear. Under 'class' I include differences of age, as
boy, man, or old man; of sex, as man or woman; of nationality, as Spartan
or Thessalian. By 'dispositions' I here mean those dispositions only which
determine the character of a man's for it is not every disposition that
does this. If, then, a speaker uses the very words which are in keeping
with a particular disposition, he will reproduce the corresponding character;
for a rustic and an educated man will not say the same things nor speak
in the same way. Again, some impression is made upon an audience by a device
which speech-writers employ to nauseous excess, when they say 'Who does
not know this?' or 'It is known to everybody.' The hearer is ashamed of
his ignorance, and agrees with the speaker, so as to have a share of the
knowledge that everybody else possesses.
All the variations of oratorical style are capable of being used
in season or out of season. The best way to counteract any exaggeration
is the well-worn device by which the speaker puts in some criticism of
himself; for then people feel it must be all right for him to talk thus,
since he certainly knows what he is doing. Further, it is better not to
have everything always just corresponding to everything else-your hearers
will see through you less easily thus. I mean for instance, if your words
are harsh, you should not extend this harshness to your voice and your
countenance and have everything else in keeping. If you do, the artificial
character of each detail becomes apparent; whereas if you adopt one device
and not another, you are using art all the same and yet nobody notices
it. (To be sure, if mild sentiments are expressed in harsh tones and harsh
sentiments in mild tones, you become comparatively unconvincing.) Compound
words, fairly plentiful epithets, and strange words best suit an emotional
speech. We forgive an angry man for talking about a wrong as 'heaven-high'
or 'colossal'; and we excuse such language when the speaker has his hearers
already in his hands and has stirred them deeply either by praise or blame
or anger or affection, as Isocrates, for instance, does at the end of his
Panegyric, with his 'name and fame' and 'in that they brooked'. Men do
speak in this strain when they are deeply stirred, and so, once the audience
is in a like state of feeling, approval of course follows. This is why
such language is fitting in poetry, which is an inspired thing. This language,
then, should be used either under stress of emotion, or ironically, after
the manner of Gorgias and of the passages in the Phaedrus.
Part 8
The form of a prose composition should be neither metrical nor
destitute of rhythm. The metrical form destroys the hearer's trust by its
artificial appearance, and at the same time it diverts his attention, making
him watch for metrical recurrences, just as children catch up the herald's
question, 'Whom does the freedman choose as his advocate?', with the answer
'Cleon!' On the other hand, unrhythmical language is too unlimited; we
do not want the limitations of metre, but some limitation we must have,
or the effect will be vague and unsatisfactory. Now it is number that limits
all things; and it is the numerical limitation of the forms of a composition
that constitutes rhythm, of which metres are definite sections. Prose,
then, is to be rhythmical, but not metrical, or it will become not prose
but verse. It should not even have too precise a prose rhythm, and therefore
should only be rhythmical to a certain extent.
Of the various rhythms, the heroic has dignity, but lacks the tones
of the spoken language. The iambic is the very language of ordinary people,
so that in common talk iambic lines occur oftener than any others: but
in a speech we need dignity and the power of taking the hearer out of his
ordinary self. The trochee is too much akin to wild dancing: we can see
this in tetrameter verse, which is one of the trochaic
rhythms.
There remains the paean, which speakers began to use in the time
of Thrasymachus, though they had then no name to give it. The paean is
a third class of rhythm, closely akin to both the two already mentioned;
it has in it the ratio of three to two, whereas the other two kinds have
the ratio of one to one, and two to one respectively. Between the two last
ratios comes the ratio of one-and-a-half to one, which is that of the
paean.
Now the other two kinds of rhythm must be rejected in writing prose,
partly for the reasons given, and partly because they are too metrical;
and the paean must be adopted, since from this alone of the rhythms mentioned
no definite metre arises, and therefore it is the least obtrusive of them.
At present the same form of paean is employed at the beginning a at the
end of sentences, whereas the end should differ from the beginning. There
are two opposite kinds of paean, one of which is suitable to the beginning
of a sentence, where it is indeed actually used; this is the kind that
begins with a long syllable and ends with three short ones, as
"Dalogenes
| eite Luki | an, "
and
"Chruseokom | a Ekate | pai Dios. "
The other paean begins, conversely, with three short syllables and ends
with a long one, as
"meta de lan | udata t ok | eanon e | oanise
nux. "
This kind of paean makes a real close: a short syllable can give no effect
of finality, and therefore makes the rhythm appear truncated. A sentence
should break off with the long syllable: the fact that it is over should
be indicated not by the scribe, or by his period-mark in the margin, but
by the rhythm itself.
We have now seen that our language must be rhythmical and not destitute
of rhythm, and what rhythms, in what particular shape, make it
so.
Part 9
The language of prose must be either free-running, with its parts
united by nothing except the connecting words, like the preludes in dithyrambs;
or compact and antithetical, like the strophes of the old poets. The free-running
style is the ancient one, e.g. 'Herein is set forth the inquiry of Herodotus
the Thurian.' Every one used this method formerly; not many do so now.
By 'free-running' style I mean the kind that has no natural stopping-places,
and comes to a stop only because there is no more to say of that subject.
This style is unsatisfying just because it goes on indefinitely-one always
likes to sight a stopping-place in front of one: it is only at the goal
that men in a race faint and collapse; while they see the end of the course
before them, they can keep on going. Such, then, is the free-running kind
of style; the compact is that which is in periods. By a period I mean a
portion of speech that has in itself a beginning and an end, being at the
same time not too big to be taken in at a glance. Language of this kind
is satisfying and easy to follow. It is satisfying, because it is just
the reverse of indefinite; and moreover, the hearer always feels that he
is grasping something and has reached some definite conclusion; whereas
it is unsatisfactory to see nothing in front of you and get nowhere. It
is easy to follow, because it can easily be remembered; and this because
language when in periodic form can be numbered, and number is the easiest
of all things to remember. That is why verse, which is measured, is always
more easily remembered than prose, which is not: the measures of verse
can be numbered. The period must, further, not be completed until the sense
is complete: it must not be capable of breaking off abruptly, as may happen
with the following iambic lines of Sophocles-
"Calydon's soil is
this; of Pelops' land
"(The smiling plains face us across the strait.)
"
By a wrong division of the words the hearer may take the meaning
to be the reverse of what it is: for instance, in the passage quoted, one
might imagine that Calydon is in the Peloponnesus.
A Period may be either divided into several members or simple.
The period of several members is a portion of speech (1) complete in itself,
(2) divided into parts, and (3) easily delivered at a single breath-as
a whole, that is; not by fresh breath being taken at the division. A member
is one of the two parts of such a period. By a 'simple' period, I mean
that which has only one member. The members, and the whole periods, should
be neither curt nor long. A member which is too short often makes the listener
stumble; he is still expecting the rhythm to go on to the limit his mind
has fixed for it; and if meanwhile he is pulled back by the speaker's stopping,
the shock is bound to make him, so to speak, stumble. If, on the other
hand, you go on too long, you make him feel left behind, just as people
who when walking pass beyond the boundary before turning back leave their
companions behind So too if a period is too long you turn it into a speech,
or something like a dithyrambic prelude. The result is much like the preludes
that Democritus of Chios jeered at Melanippides for writing instead of
antistrophic stanzas-
"He that sets traps for another man's feet
"Is like to fall into them first;
"And long-winded preludes
do harm to us all,
"But the preluder catches it worst.
"
Which applies likewise to long-membered orators. Periods whose members
are altogether too short are not periods at all; and the result is to bring
the hearer down with a crash.
The periodic style which is divided into members is of two kinds.
It is either simply divided, as in 'I have often wondered at the conveners
of national gatherings and the founders of athletic contests'; or it is
antithetical, where, in each of the two members, one of one pair of opposites
is put along with one of another pair, or the same word is used to bracket
two opposites, as 'They aided both parties-not only those who stayed behind
but those who accompanied them: for the latter they acquired new territory
larger than that at home, and to the former they left territory at home
that was large enough'. Here the contrasted words are 'staying behind'
and 'accompanying', 'enough' and 'larger'. So in the example, 'Both to
those who want to get property and to those who desire to enjoy it' where
'enjoyment' is contrasted with 'getting'. Again, 'it often happens in such
enterprises that the wise men fail and the fools succeed'; 'they were awarded
the prize of valour immediately, and won the command of the sea not long
afterwards'; 'to sail through the mainland and march through the sea, by
bridging the Hellespont and cutting through Athos'; 'nature gave them their
country and law took it away again'; 'of them perished in misery, others
were saved in disgrace'; 'Athenian citizens keep foreigners in their houses
as servants, while the city of Athens allows her allies by thousands to
live as the foreigner's slaves'; and 'to possess in life or to bequeath
at death'. There is also what some one said about Peitholaus and Lycophron
in a law-court, 'These men used to sell you when they were at home, and
now they have come to you here and bought you'. All these passages have
the structure described above. Such a form of speech is satisfying, because
the significance of contrasted ideas is easily felt, especially when they
are thus put side by side, and also because it has the effect of a logical
argument; it is by putting two opposing conclusions side by side that you
prove one of them false.
Such, then, is the nature of antithesis. Parisosis is making the
two members of a period equal in length. Paromoeosis is making the extreme
words of both members like each other. This must happen either at the beginning
or at the end of each member. If at the beginning, the resemblance must
always be between whole words; at the end, between final syllables or inflexions
of the same word or the same word repeated. Thus, at the beginning
"agron
gar elaben arlon par' autou "
and
"dorhetoi t epelonto pararretoi t epeessin
"
At the end
"ouk wethesan auton paidion tetokenai,
"all
autou aitlon lelonenai, "
and
"en pleiotals de opontisi kai en elachistais elpisin
"
An example of inflexions of the same word is
"axios de staoenai
chalkous ouk axios on chalkou; "
Of the same word repeated,
"su d' auton kai zonta eleges kakos
kai nun grafeis kakos. "
Of one syllable,
"ti d' an epaoes deinon, ei andrh' eides arhgon;
"
It is possible for the same sentence to have all these features together-antithesis,
parison, and homoeoteleuton. (The possible beginnings of periods have been
pretty fully enumerated in the Theodectea.) There are also spurious antitheses,
like that of Epicharmus-
"There one time I as their guest did stay,
"And they were my hosts on another day. "
Part 10
We may now consider the above points settled, and pass on to say
something about the way to devise lively and taking sayings. Their actual
invention can only come through natural talent or long practice; but this
treatise may indicate the way it is done. We may deal with them by enumerating
the different kinds of them. We will begin by remarking that we all naturally
find it agreeable to get hold of new ideas easily: words express ideas,
and therefore those words are the most agreeable that enable us to get
hold of new ideas. Now strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words convey
only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold
of something fresh. When the poet calls 'old age a withered stalk', he
conveys a new idea, a new fact, to us by means of the general notion of
bloom, which is common to both things. The similes of the poets do the
same, and therefore, if they are good similes, give an effect of brilliance.
The simile, as has been said before, is a metaphor, differing from it only
in the way it is put; and just because it is longer it is less attractive.
Besides, it does not say outright that 'this' is 'that', and therefore
the hearer is less interested in the idea. We see, then, that both speech
and reasoning are lively in proportion as they make us seize a new idea
promptly. For this reason people are not much taken either by obvious arguments
(using the word 'obvious' to mean what is plain to everybody and needs
no investigation), nor by those which puzzle us when we hear them stated,
but only by those which convey their information to us as soon as we hear
them, provided we had not the information already; or which the mind only
just fails to keep up with. These two kinds do convey to us a sort of information:
but the obvious and the obscure kinds convey nothing, either at once or
later on. It is these qualities, then, that, so far as the meaning of what
is said is concerned, make an argument acceptable. So far as the style
is concerned, it is the antithetical form that appeals to us, e.g. 'judging
that the peace common to all the rest was a war upon their own private
interests', where there is an antithesis between war and peace. It is also
good to use metaphorical words; but the metaphors must not be far-fetched,
or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect.
The words, too, ought to set the scene before our eyes; for events ought
to be seen in progress rather than in prospect. So we must aim at these
three points: Antithesis, Metaphor, and Actuality.
Of the four kinds of Metaphor the most taking is the proportional
kind. Thus Pericles, for instance, said that the vanishing from their country
of the young men who had fallen in the war was 'as if the spring were taken
out of the year'. Leptines, speaking of the Lacedaemonians, said that he
would not have the Athenians let Greece 'lose one of her two eyes'. When
Chares was pressing for leave to be examined upon his share in the Olynthiac
war, Cephisodotus was indignant, saying that he wanted his examination
to take place 'while he had his fingers upon the people's throat'. The
same speaker once urged the Athenians to march to Euboea, 'with Miltiades'
decree as their rations'. Iphicrates, indignant at the truce made by the
Athenians with Epidaurus and the neighbouring sea-board, said that they
had stripped themselves of their travelling money for the journey of war.
Peitholaus called the state-galley 'the people's big stick', and Sestos
'the corn-bin of the Peiraeus'. Pericles bade his countrymen remove Aegina,
'that eyesore of the Peiraeus.' And Moerocles said he was no more a rascal
than was a certain respectable citizen he named, 'whose rascality was worth
over thirty per cent per annum to him, instead of a mere ten like his own'.There
is also the iambic line of Anaxandrides about the way his daughters put
off marrying-
"My daughters' marriage-bonds are overdue.
"
Polyeuctus said of a paralytic man named Speusippus that he could not keep
quiet, 'though fortune had fastened him in the pillory of disease'. Cephisodotus
called warships 'painted millstones'. Diogenes the Dog called taverns 'the
mess-rooms of Attica'. Aesion said that the Athenians had 'emptied' their
town into Sicily: this is a graphic metaphor. 'Till all Hellas shouted
aloud' may be regarded as a metaphor, and a graphic one again. Cephisodotus
bade the Athenians take care not to hold too many 'parades'. Isocrates
used the same word of those who 'parade at the national festivals.' Another
example occurs in the Funeral Speech: 'It is fitting that Greece should
cut off her hair beside the tomb of those who fell at Salamis, since her
freedom and their valour are buried in the same grave.' Even if the speaker
here had only said that it was right to weep when valour was being buried
in their grave, it would have been a metaphor, and a graphic one; but the
coupling of 'their valour' and 'her freedom' presents a kind of antithesis
as well. 'The course of my words', said Iphicrates, 'lies straight through
the middle of Chares' deeds': this is a proportional metaphor, and the
phrase 'straight through the middle' makes it graphic. The expression 'to
call in one danger to rescue us from another' is a graphic metaphor. Lycoleon
said, defending Chabrias, 'They did not respect even that bronze statue
of his that intercedes for him yonder'.This was a metaphor for the moment,
though it would not always apply; a vivid metaphor, however; Chabrias is
in danger, and his statue intercedes for him-that lifeless yet living thing
which records his services to his country. 'Practising in every way littleness
of mind' is metaphorical, for practising a quality implies increasing it.
So is 'God kindled our reason to be a lamp within our soul', for both reason
and light reveal things. So is 'we are not putting an end to our wars,
but only postponing them', for both literal postponement and the making
of such a peace as this apply to future action. So is such a saying as
'This treaty is a far nobler trophy than those we set up on fields of battle;
they celebrate small gains and single successes; it celebrates our triumph
in the war as a whole'; for both trophy and treaty are signs of victory.
So is 'A country pays a heavy reckoning in being condemned by the judgement
of mankind', for a reckoning is damage deservedly incurred.
Part 11
It has already been mentioned that liveliness is got by using the
proportional type of metaphor and being making (ie. making your hearers
see things). We have still to explain what we mean by their 'seeing things',
and what must be done to effect this. By 'making them see things' I mean
using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity. Thus,
to say that a good man is 'four-square' is certainly a metaphor; both the
good man and the square are perfect; but the metaphor does not suggest
activity. On the other hand, in the expression 'with his vigour in full
bloom' there is a notion of activity; and so in 'But you must roam as free
as a sacred victim'; and in
"Thereas up sprang the Hellenes to
their feet, "
where 'up sprang' gives us activity as well as metaphor, for it at once
suggests swiftness. So with Homer's common practice of giving metaphorical
life to lifeless things: all such passages are distinguished by the effect
of activity they convey. Thus,
"Downward anon to the valley rebounded
the boulder remorseless; and "
"The (bitter) arrow flew; "
and
"Flying on eagerly; and "
Stuck in the earth, still panting to feed on the flesh of the heroes; and
"And the point of the spear in its fury drove
"full through
his breastbone. "
In all these examples the things have the effect of being active because
they are made into living beings; shameless behaviour and fury and so on
are all forms of activity. And the poet has attached these ideas to the
things by means of proportional metaphors: as the stone is to Sisyphus,
so is the shameless man to his victim. In his famous similes, too, he treats
inanimate things in the same way:
"Curving and crested with white,
host following
"host without ceasing. "
Here he represents everything as moving and living; and activity is
movement.
Metaphors must be drawn, as has been said already, from things
that are related to the original thing, and yet not obviously so related-just
as in philosophy also an acute mind will perceive resemblances even in
things far apart. Thus Archytas said that an arbitrator and an altar were
the same, since the injured fly to both for refuge. Or you might say that
an anchor and an overhead hook were the same, since both are in a way the
same, only the one secures things from below and the other from above.
And to speak of states as 'levelled' is to identify two widely different
things, the equality of a physical surface and the equality of political
powers.
Liveliness is specially conveyed by metaphor, and by the further
power of surprising the hearer; because the hearer expected something different,
his acquisition of the new idea impresses him all the more. His mind seems
to say, 'Yes, to be sure; I never thought of that'. The liveliness of epigrammatic
remarks is due to the meaning not being just what the words say: as in
the saying of Stesichorus that 'the cicalas will chirp to themselves on
the ground'. Well-constructed riddles are attractive for the same reason;
a new idea is conveyed, and there is metaphorical expression. So with the
'novelties' of Theodorus. In these the thought is startling, and, as Theodorus
puts it, does not fit in with the ideas you already have. They are like
the burlesque words that one finds in the comic writers. The effect is
produced even by jokes depending upon changes of the letters of a word;
this too is a surprise. You find this in verse as well as in prose. The
word which comes is not what the hearer imagined: thus
"Onward
he came, and his feet were shod with his-chilblains,
"
where one imagined the word would be 'sandals'. But the point should be
clear the moment the words are uttered. Jokes made by altering the letters
of a word consist in meaning, not just what you say, but something that
gives a twist to the word used; e.g. the remark of Theodorus about Nicon
the harpist Thratt' ei su ('you Thracian slavey'), where he pretends to
mean Thratteis su ('you harpplayer'), and surprises us when we find he
means something else. So you enjoy the point when you see it, though the
remark will fall flat unless you are aware that Nicon is Thracian. Or again:
Boulei auton persai. In both these cases the saying must fit the facts.
This is also true of such lively remarks as the one to the effect that
to the Athenians their empire (arche) of the sea was not the beginning
(arche) of their troubles, since they gained by it. Or the opposite one
of Isocrates, that their empire (arche) was the beginning (arche) of their
troubles. Either way, the speaker says something unexpected, the soundness
of which is thereupon recognized. There would be nothing clever is saying
'empire is empire'. Isocrates means more than that, and uses the word with
a new meaning. So too with the former saying, which denies that arche in
one sense was arche in another sense. In all these jokes, whether a word
is used in a second sense or metaphorically, the joke is good if it fits
the facts. For instance, Anaschetos (proper name) ouk anaschetos: where
you say that what is so-and-so in one sense is not so-and-so in another;
well, if the man is unpleasant, the joke fits the facts. Again, take-
"Thou
must not be a stranger stranger than Thou should'st.
"
Do not the words 'thou must not be', &c., amount to saying that
the stranger must not always be strange? Here again is the use of one word
in different senses. Of the same kind also is the much-praised verse of
Anaxandrides:
"Death is most fit before you do
"Deeds that
would make death fit for you. "
This amounts to saying 'it is a fit thing to die when you are not fit to
die', or 'it is a fit thing to die when death is not fit for you', i.e.
when death is not the fit return for what you are doing. The type of language
employed-is the same in all these examples; but the more briefly and antithetically
such sayings can be expressed, the more taking they are, for antithesis
impresses the new idea more firmly and brevity more quickly. They should
always have either some personal application or some merit of expression,
if they are to be true without being commonplace-two requirements not always
satisfied simultaneously. Thus 'a man should die having done no wrong'
is true but dull: 'the right man should marry the right woman' is also
true but dull. No, there must be both good qualities together, as in 'it
is fitting to die when you are not fit for death'. The more a saying has
these qualitis, the livelier it appears: if, for instance, its wording
is metaphorical, metaphorical in the right way, antithetical, and balanced,
and at the same time it gives an idea of activity.
Successful similes also, as has been said above, are in a sense
metaphors, since they always involve two relations like the proportional
metaphor. Thus: a shield, we say, is the 'drinking-bowl of Ares', and a
bow is the 'chordless lyre'. This way of putting a metaphor is not 'simple',
as it would be if we called the bow a lyre or the shield a drinking-bowl.
There are 'simple' similes also: we may say that a flute-player is like
a monkey, or that a short-sighted man's eyes are like a lamp-flame with
water dropping on it, since both eyes and flame keep winking. A simile
succeeds best when it is a converted metaphor, for it is possible to say
that a shield is like the drinking-bowl of Ares, or that a ruin is like
a house in rags, and to say that Niceratus is like a Philoctetes stung
by Pratys-the simile made by Thrasyniachus when he saw Niceratus, who had
been beaten by Pratys in a recitation competition, still going about unkempt
and unwashed. It is in these respects that poets fail worst when they fail,
and succeed best when they succeed, i.e. when they give the resemblance
pat, as in
"Those legs of his curl just like parsley leaves;
"
and
"Just like Philammon struggling with his punchball.
"
These are all similes; and that similes are metaphors has been stated often
already.
Proverbs, again, are metaphors from one species to another. Suppose,
for instance, a man to start some undertaking in hope of gain and then
to lose by it later on, 'Here we have once more the man of Carpathus and
his hare', says he. For both alike went through the said
experience.
It has now been explained fairly completely how liveliness is secured
and why it has the effect it has. Successful hyperboles are also metaphors,
e.g. the one about the man with a black eye, 'you would have thought he
was a basket of mulberries'; here the 'black eye' is compared to a mulberry
because of its colour, the exaggeration lying in the quantity of mulberries
suggested. The phrase 'like so-and-so' may introduce a hyperbole under
the form of a simile. Thus
"Just like Philammon struggling with
his punchball "
is equivalent to 'you would have thought he was Philammon struggling with
his punchball'; and
"Those legs of his curl just like parsley leaves
"
is equivalent to 'his legs are so curly that you would have thought they
were not legs but parsley leaves'. Hyperboles are for young men to use;
they show vehemence of character; and this is why angry people use them
more than other people.
"Not though he gave me as much as the dust
"or the sands of the sea...
"But her, the daughter of Atreus'
son, I never will marry,
"Nay, not though she were fairer than
Aphrodite the Golden,
"Defter of hand than Athene...
"
(The Attic orators are particularly fond of this method of speech.)
Consequently it does not suit an elderly speaker.
Part 12
It should be observed that each kind of rhetoric has its own appropriate
style. The style of written prose is not that of spoken oratory, nor are
those of political and forensic speaking the same. Both written and spoken
have to be known. To know the latter is to know how to speak good Greek.
To know the former means that you are not obliged, as otherwise you are,
to hold your tongue when you wish to communicate something to the general
public.
The written style is the more finished: the spoken better admits
of dramatic delivery-like the kind of oratory that reflects character and
the kind that reflects emotion. Hence actors look out for plays written
in the latter style, and poets for actors competent to act in such plays.
Yet poets whose plays are meant to be read are read and circulated: Chaeremon,
for instance, who is as finished as a professional speech-writer; and Licymnius
among the dithyrambic poets. Compared with those of others, the speeches
of professional writers sound thin in actual contests. Those of the orators,
on the other hand, are good to hear spoken, but look amateurish enough
when they pass into the hands of a reader. This is just because they are
so well suited for an actual tussle, and therefore contain many dramatic
touches, which, being robbed of all dramatic rendering, fail to do their
own proper work, and consequently look silly. Thus strings of unconnected
words, and constant repetitions of words and phrases, are very properly
condemned in written speeches: but not in spoken speeches-speakers use
them freely, for they have a dramatic effect. In this repetition there
must be variety of tone, paving the way, as it were, to dramatic effect;
e.g. 'This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you,
who meant to betray you completely'. This is the sort of thing that Philemon
the actor used to do in the Old Men's Madness of Anaxandrides whenever
he spoke the words 'Rhadamanthus and Palamedes', and also in the prologue
to the Saints whenever he pronounced the pronoun 'I'. If one does not deliver
such things cleverly, it becomes a case of 'the man who swallowed a poker'.
So too with strings of unconnected words, e.g.'I came to him; I met him;
I besought him'. Such passages must be acted, not delivered with the same
quality and pitch of voice, as though they had only one idea in them. They
have the further peculiarity of suggesting that a number of separate statements
have been made in the time usually occupied by one. Just as the use of
conjunctions makes many statements into a single one, so the omission of
conjunctions acts in the reverse way and makes a single one into many.
It thus makes everything more important: e.g. 'I came to him; I talked
to him; I entreated him'-what a lot of facts! the hearer thinks-'he paid
no attention to anything I said'. This is the effect which Homer seeks
when he writes,
"Nireus likewise from Syme (three well-fashioned
ships did bring),
"Nireus, the son of Aglaia (and Charopus, bright-faced
king),
"Nireus, the comeliest man (of all that to Ilium's strand).
"
If many things are said about a man, his name must be mentioned
many times; and therefore people think that, if his name is mentioned many
times, many things have been said about him. So that Homer, by means of
this illusion, has made a great deal of though he has mentioned him only
in this one passage, and has preserved his memory, though he nowhere says
a word about him afterwards.
Now the style of oratory addressed to public assemblies is really
just like scene-painting. The bigger the throng, the more distant is the
point of view: so that, in the one and the other, high finish in detail
is superfluous and seems better away. The forensic style is more highly
finished; still more so is the style of language addressed to a single
judge, with whom there is very little room for rhetorical artifices, since
he can take the whole thing in better, and judge of what is to the point
and what is not; the struggle is less intense and so the judgement is undisturbed.
This is why the same speakers do not distinguish themselves in all these
branches at once; high finish is wanted least where dramatic delivery is
wanted most, and here the speaker must have a good voice, and above all,
a strong one. It is ceremonial oratory that is most literary, for it is
meant to be read; and next to it forensic oratory.
To analyse style still further, and add that it must be agreeable
or magnificent, is useless; for why should it have these traits any more
than 'restraint', 'liberality', or any other moral excellence? Obviously
agreeableness will be produced by the qualities already mentioned, if our
definition of excellence of style has been correct. For what other reason
should style be 'clear', and 'not mean' but 'appropriate'? If it is prolix,
it is not clear; nor yet if it is curt. Plainly the middle way suits best.
Again, style will be made agreeable by the elements mentioned, namely by
a good blending of ordinary and unusual words, by the rhythm, and by-the
persuasiveness that springs from appropriateness.
This concludes our discussion of style, both in its general aspects
and in its special applications to the various branches of rhetoric. We
have now to deal with Arrangement.
Part 13
A speech has two parts. You must state your case, and you must
prove it. You cannot either state your case and omit to prove it, or prove
it without having first stated it; since any proof must be a proof of something,
and the only use of a preliminary statement is the proof that follows it.
Of these two parts the first part is called the Statement of the case,
the second part the Argument, just as we distinguish between Enunciation
and Demonstration. The current division is absurd. For 'narration' surely
is part of a forensic speech only: how in a political speech or a speech
of display can there be 'narration' in the technical sense? or a reply
to a forensic opponent? or an epilogue in closely-reasoned speeches? Again,
introduction, comparison of conflicting arguments, and recapitulation are
only found in political speeches when there is a struggle between two policies.
They may occur then; so may even accusation and defence, often enough;
but they form no essential part of a political speech. Even forensic speeches
do not always need epilogues; not, for instance, a short speech, nor one
in which the facts are easy to remember, the effect of an epilogue being
always a reduction in the apparent length. It follows, then, that the only
necessary parts of a speech are the Statement and the Argument. These are
the essential features of a speech; and it cannot in any case have more
than Introduction, Statement, Argument, and Epilogue. 'Refutation of the
Opponent' is part of the arguments: so is 'Comparison' of the opponent's
case with your own, for that process is a magnifying of your own case and
therefore a part of the arguments, since one who does this proves something.
The Introduction does nothing like this; nor does the Epilogue-it merely
reminds us of what has been said already. If we make such distinctions
we shall end, like Theodorus and his followers, by distinguishing 'narration'
proper from 'post-narration' and 'pre-narration', and 'refutation' from
'final refutation'. But we ought only to bring in a new name if it indicates
a real species with distinct specific qualities; otherwise the practice
is pointless and silly, like the way Licymnius invented names in his Art
of Rhetoric-'Secundation', 'Divagation', 'Ramification'.
Part 14
The Introduction is the beginning of a speech, corresponding to
the prologue in poetry and the prelude in flute-music; they are all beginnings,
paving the way, as it were, for what is to follow. The musical prelude
resembles the introduction to speeches of display; as flute players play
first some brilliant passage they know well and then fit it on to the opening
notes of the piece itself, so in speeches of display the writer should
proceed in the same way; he should begin with what best takes his fancy,
and then strike up his theme and lead into it; which is indeed what is
always done. (Take as an example the introduction to the Helen of Isocrates-there
is nothing in common between the 'eristics' and Helen.) And here, even
if you travel far from your subject, it is fitting, rather than that there
should be sameness in the entire speech.
The usual subject for the introductions to speeches of display
is some piece of praise or censure. Thus Gorgias writes in his Olympic
Speech, 'You deserve widespread admiration, men of Greece', praising thus
those who start,ed the festival gatherings.' Isocrates, on the other hand,
censures them for awarding distinctions to fine athletes but giving no
prize for intellectual ability. Or one may begin with a piece of advice,
thus: 'We ought to honour good men and so I myself am praising Aristeides'
or 'We ought to honour those who are unpopular but not bad men, men whose
good qualities have never been noticed, like Alexander son of Priam.' Here
the orator gives advice. Or we may begin as speakers do in the law-courts;
that is to say, with appeals to the audience to excuse us if our speech
is about something paradoxical, difficult, or hackneyed; like Choerilus
in the lines-
"But now when allotment of all has been made...
"
Introductions to speeches of display, then, may be composed of
some piece of praise or censure, of advice to do or not to do something,
or of appeals to the audience; and you must choose between making these
preliminary passages connected or disconnected with the speech
itself.
Introductions to forensic speeches, it must be observed, have the
same value as the prologues of dramas and the introductions to epic poems;
the dithyrambic prelude resembling the introduction to a speech of display,
as
"For thee, and thy gilts, and thy battle-spoils....
"
In prologues, and in epic poetry, a foretaste of the theme is given,
intended to inform the hearers of it in advance instead of keeping their
minds in suspense. Anything vague puzzles them: so give them a grasp of
the beginning, and they can hold fast to it and follow the argument. So
we find-
"Sing, O goddess of song, of the Wrath...
"Tell
me, O Muse, of the hero...
"Lead me to tell a new tale, how there
came great warfare to Europe
"Out of the Asian land...
"
The tragic poets, too, let us know the pivot of their play; if
not at the outset like Euripides, at least somewhere in the preface to
a speech like Sophocles-
"Polybus was my father...;
"
and so in Comedy. This, then, is the most essential function and distinctive
property of the introduction, to show what the aim of the speech is; and
therefore no introduction ought to be employed where the subject is not
long or intricate.
The other kinds of introduction employed are remedial in purpose,
and may be used in any type of speech. They are concerned with the speaker,
the hearer, the subject, or the speaker's opponent. Those concerned with
the speaker himself or with his opponent are directed to removing or exciting
prejudice. But whereas the defendant will begin by dealing with this sort
of thing, the prosecutor will take quite another line and deal with such
matters in the closing part of his speech. The reason for this is not far
to seek. The defendant, when he is going to bring himself on the stage,
must clear away any obstacles, and therefore must begin by removing any
prejudice felt against him. But if you are to excite prejudice, you must
do so at the close, so that the judges may more easily remember what you
have said.
The appeal to the hearer aims at securing his goodwill, or at arousing
his resentment, or sometimes at gaining his serious attention to the case,
or even at distracting it-for gaining it is not always an advantage, and
speakers will often for that reason try to make him
laugh.
You may use any means you choose to make your hearer receptive;
among others, giving him a good impression of your character, which always
helps to secure his attention. He will be ready to attend to anything that
touches himself and to anything that is important, surprising, or agreeable;
and you should accordingly convey to him the impression that what you have
to say is of this nature. If you wish to distract his attention, you should
imply that the subject does not affect him, or is trivial or disagreeable.
But observe, all this has nothing to do with the speech itself. It merely
has to do with the weak-minded tendency of the hearer to listen to what
is beside the point. Where this tendency is absent, no introduction wanted
beyond a summary statement of your subject, to put a sort of head on the
main body of your speech. Moreover, calls for attention, when required,
may come equally well in any part of a speech; in fact, the beginning of
it is just where there is least slackness of interest; it is therefore
ridiculous to put this kind of thing at the beginning, when every one is
listening with most attention. Choose therefore any point in the speech
where such an appeal is needed, and then say 'Now I beg you to note this
point-it concerns you quite as much as myself'; or
"I will tell
you that whose like you have never yet "
heard for terror, or for wonder. This is what Prodicus called 'slipping
in a bit of the fifty-drachma show-lecture for the audience whenever they
began to nod'. It is plain that such introductions are addressed not to
ideal hearers, but to hearers as we find them. The use of introductions
to excite prejudice or to dispel misgivings is universal-
"My lord,
I will not say that eagerly... "
or
"Why all this preface? "
Introductions are popular with those whose case is weak, or looks weak;
it pays them to dwell on anything rather than the actual facts of it. That
is why slaves, instead of answering the questions put to them, make indirect
replies with long preambles. The means of exciting in your hearers goodwill
and various other feelings of the same kind have already been described.
The poet finely says May I find in Phaeacian hearts, at my coming, goodwill
and compassion; and these are the two things we should aim at. In speeches
of display we must make the hearer feel that the eulogy includes either
himself or his family or his way of life or something or other of the kind.
For it is true, as Socrates says in the Funeral Speech, that 'the difficulty
is not to praise the Athenians at Athens but at Sparta'.
The introductions of political oratory will be made out of the
same materials as those of the forensic kind, though the nature of political
oratory makes them very rare. The subject is known already, and therefore
the facts of the case need no introduction; but you may have to say something
on account of yourself or to your opponents; or those present may be inclined
to treat the matter either more or less seriously than you wish them to.
You may accordingly have to excite or dispel some prejudice, or to make
the matter under discussion seem more or less important than before: for
either of which purposes you will want an introduction. You may also want
one to add elegance to your remarks, feeling that otherwise they will have
a casual air, like Gorgias' eulogy of the Eleans, in which, without any
preliminary sparring or fencing, he begins straight off with 'Happy city
of Elis!'
Part 15
In dealing with prejudice, one class of argument is that whereby
you can dispel objectionable suppositions about yourself. It makes no practical
difference whether such a supposition has been put into words or not, so
that this distinction may be ignored. Another way is to meet any of the
issues directly: to deny the alleged fact; or to say that you have done
no harm, or none to him, or not as much as he says; or that you have done
him no injustice, or not much; or that you have done nothing disgraceful,
or nothing disgraceful enough to matter: these are the sort of questions
on which the dispute hinges. Thus Iphicrates replying to Nausicrates, admitted
that he had done the deed alleged, and that he had done Nausicrates harm,
but not that he had done him wrong. Or you may admit the wrong, but balance
it with other facts, and say that, if the deed harmed him, at any rate
it was honourable; or that, if it gave him pain, at least it did him good;
or something else like that. Another way is to allege that your action
was due to mistake, or bad luck, or necessity as Sophocles said he was
not trembling, as his traducer maintained, in order to make people think
him an old man, but because he could not help it; he would rather not be
eighty years old. You may balance your motive against your actual deed;
saying, for instance, that you did not mean to injure him but to do so-and-so;
that you did not do what you are falsely charged with doing-the damage
was accidental-'I should indeed be a detestable person if I had deliberately
intended this result.' Another way is open when your calumniator, or any
of his connexions, is or has been subject to the same grounds for suspicion.
Yet another, when others are subject to the same grounds for suspicion
but are admitted to be in fact innocent of the charge: e.g. 'Must I be
a profligate because I am well-groomed? Then so-and-so must be one too.'
Another, if other people have been calumniated by the same man or some
one else, or, without being calumniated, have been suspected, like yourself
now, and yet have been proved innocent. Another way is to return calumny
for calumny and say, 'It is monstrous to trust the man's statements when
you cannot trust the man himself.' Another is when the question has been
already decided. So with Euripides' reply to Hygiaenon, who, in the action
for an exchange of properties, accused him of impiety in having written
a line encouraging perjury-
"My tongue hath sworn: no oath is on
my soul. "
Euripides said that his opponent himself was guilty in bringing into the
law-courts cases whose decision belonged to the Dionysiac contests. 'If
I have not already answered for my words there, I am ready to do so if
you choose to prosecute me there.' Another method is to denounce calumny,
showing what an enormity it is, and in particular that it raises false
issues, and that it means a lack of confidence in the merits of his case.
The argument from evidential circumstances is available for both parties:
thus in the Teucer Odysseus says that Teucer is closely bound to Priam,
since his mother Hesione was Priam's sister. Teucer replies that Telamon
his father was Priam's enemy, and that he himself did not betray the spies
to Priam. Another method, suitable for the calumniator, is to praise some
trifling merit at great length, and then attack some important failing
concisely; or after mentioning a number of good qualities to attack one
bad one that really bears on the question. This is the method of thoroughly
skilful and unscrupulous prosecutors. By mixing up the man's merits with
what is bad, they do their best to make use of them to damage
him.
There is another method open to both calumniator and apologist.
Since a given action can be done from many motives, the former must try
to disparage it by selecting the worse motive of two, the latter to put
the better construction on it. Thus one might argue that Diomedes chose
Odysseus as his companion because he supposed Odysseus to be the best man
for the purpose; and you might reply to this that it was, on the contrary,
because he was the only hero so worthless that Diomedes need not fear his
rivalry.
Part 16
We may now pass from the subject of calumny to that of
Narration.
Narration in ceremonial oratory is not continuous but intermittent.
There must, of course, be some survey of the actions that form the subject-matter
of the speech. The speech is a composition containing two parts. One of
these is not provided by the orator's art, viz. the actions themselves,
of which the orator is in no sense author. The other part is provided by
his namely, the proof (where proof is needed) that the actions were done,
the description of their quality or of their extent, or even all these
three things together. Now the reason why sometimes it is not desirable
to make the whole narrative continuous is that the case thus expounded
is hard to keep in mind. Show, therefore, from one set of facts that your
hero is, e.g. brave, and from other sets of facts that he is able, just,
&c. A speech thus arranged is comparatively simple, instead of being complicated
and elaborate. You will have to recall well-known deeds among others; and
because they are well-known, the hearer usually needs no narration of them;
none, for instance, if your object is the praise of Achilles; we all know
the facts of his life-what you have to do is to apply those facts. But
if your object is the praise of Critias, you must narrate his deeds, which
not many people know of...
Nowadays it is said, absurdly enough, that the narration should
be rapid. Remember what the man said to the baker who asked whether he
was to make the cake hard or soft: 'What, can't you make it right?' Just
so here. We are not to make long narrations, just as we are not to make
long introductions or long arguments. Here, again, rightness does not consist
either in rapidity or in conciseness, but in the happy mean; that is, in
saying just so much as will make the facts plain, or will lead the hearer
to believe that the thing has happened, or that the man has caused injury
or wrong to some one, or that the facts are really as important as you
wish them to be thought: or the opposite facts to establish the opposite
arguments.
You may also narrate as you go anything that does credit to yourself,
e.g. 'I kept telling him to do his duty and not abandon his children';
or discredit to your adversary, e.g. 'But he answered me that, wherever
he might find himself, there he would find other children', the answer
Herodotus' records of the Egyptian mutineers. Slip in anything else that
the judges will enjoy.
The defendant will make less of the narration. He has to maintain
that the thing has not happened, or did no harm, or was not unjust, or
not so bad as is alleged. He must therefor snot waste time about what is
admitted fact, unless this bears on his own contention; e.g. that the thing
was done, but was not wrong. Further, we must speak of events as past and
gone, except where they excite pity or indignation by being represented
as present. The Story told to Alcinous is an example of a brief chronicle,
when it is repeated to Penelope in sixty lines. Another instance is the
Epic Cycle as treated by Phayllus, and the prologue to the
Oeneus.
The narration should depict character; to which end you must know
what makes it do so. One such thing is the indication of moral purpose;
the quality of purpose indicated determines the quality of character depicted
and is itself determined by the end pursued. Thus it is that mathematical
discourses depict no character; they have nothing to do with moral purpose,
for they represent nobody as pursuing any end. On the other hand, the Socratic
dialogues do depict character, being concerned with moral questions. This
end will also be gained by describing the manifestations of various types
of character, e.g. 'he kept walking along as he talked', which shows the
man's recklessness and rough manners. Do not let your words seem inspired
so much by intelligence, in the manner now current, as by moral purpose:
e.g. 'I willed this; aye, it was my moral purpose; true, I gained nothing
by it, still it is better thus.' For the other way shows good sense, but
this shows good character; good sense making us go after what is useful,
and good character after what is noble. Where any detail may appear incredible,
then add the cause of it; of this Sophocles provides an example in the
Antigone, where Antigone says she had cared more for her brother than for
husband or children, since if the latter perished they might be replaced,
"But since my father and mother in their graves
"Lie dead,
no brother can be born to me. "
If you have no such cause to suggest, just say that you are aware that
no one will believe your words, but the fact remains that such is our nature,
however hard the world may find it to believe that a man deliberately does
anything except what pays him.
Again, you must make use of the emotions. Relate the familiar manifestations
of them, and those that distinguish yourself and your opponent; for instance,
'he went away scowling at me'. So Aeschines described Cratylus as 'hissing
with fury and shaking his fists'. These details carry conviction: the audience
take the truth of what they know as so much evidence for the truth of what
they do not. Plenty of such details may be found in Homer:
"Thus
did she say: but the old woman buried her face in her hands:
"
a true touch-people beginning to cry do put their hands over their
eyes.
Bring yourself on the stage from the first in the right character,
that people may regard you in that light; and the same with your adversary;
but do not let them see what you are about. How easily such impressions
may be conveyed we can see from the way in which we get some inkling of
things we know nothing of by the mere look of the messenger bringing news
of them. Have some narrative in many different parts of your speech; and
sometimes let there be none at the beginning of it.
In political oratory there is very little opening for narration;
nobody can 'narrate' what has not yet happened. If there is narration at
all, it will be of past events, the recollection of which is to help the
hearers to make better plans for the future. Or it may be employed to attack
some one's character, or to eulogize him-only then you will not be doing
what the political speaker, as such, has to do.
If any statement you make is hard to believe, you must guarantee
its truth, and at once offer an explanation, and then furnish it with such
particulars as will be expected. Thus Carcinus' Jocasta, in his Oedipus,
keeps guaranteeing the truth of her answers to the inquiries of the man
who is seeking her son; and so with Haemon in Sophocles.
Part 17
The duty of the Arguments is to attempt demonstrative proofs. These
proofs must bear directly upon the question in dispute, which must fall
under one of four heads. (1) If you maintain that the act was not committed,
your main task in court is to prove this. (2) If you maintain that the
act did no harm, prove this. If you maintain that (3) the act was less
than is alleged, or (4) justified, prove these facts, just as you would
prove the act not to have been committed if you were maintaining
that.
It should be noted that only where the question in dispute falls
under the first of these heads can it be true that one of the two parties
is necessarily a rogue. Here ignorance cannot be pleaded, as it might if
the dispute were whether the act was justified or not. This argument must
therefore be used in this case only, not in the others.
In ceremonial speeches you will develop your case mainly by arguing
that what has been done is, e.g., noble and useful. The facts themselves
are to be taken on trust; proof of them is only submitted on those rare
occasions when they are not easily credible or when they have been set
down to some one else.
In political speeches you may maintain that a proposal is impracticable;
or that, though practicable, it is unjust, or will do no good, or is not
so important as its proposer thinks. Note any falsehoods about irrelevant
matters-they will look like proof that his other statements also are false.
Argument by 'example' is highly suitable for political oratory, argument
by 'enthymeme' better suits forensic. Political oratory deals with future
events, of which it can do no more than quote past events as examples.
Forensic oratory deals with what is or is not now true, which can better
be demonstrated, because not contingent-there is no contingency in what
has now already happened. Do not use a continuous succession of enthymemes:
intersperse them with other matter, or they will spoil one another's effect.
There are limits to their number-
Friend, you have spoken as much as a sensible man would have spoken.
,as much' says Homer, not 'as well'. Nor should you try to make enthymemes
on every point; if you do, you will be acting just like some students of
philosophy, whose conclusions are more familiar and believable than the
premisses from which they draw them. And avoid the enthymeme form when
you are trying to rouse feeling; for it will either kill the feeling or
will itself fall flat: all simultaneous motions tend to cancel each other
either completely or partially. Nor should you go after the enthymeme form
in a passage where you are depicting character-the process of demonstration
can express neither moral character nor moral purpose. Maxims should be
employed in the Arguments-and in the Narration too-since these do express
character: 'I have given him this, though I am quite aware that one should
"Trust no man".' Or if you are appealing to the emotions: 'I do not regret
it, though I have been wronged; if he has the profit on his side, I have
justice on mine.'
Political oratory is a more difficult task than forensic; and naturally
so, since it deals with the future, whereas the pleader deals with the
past, which, as Epimenides of Crete said, even the diviners already know.
(Epimenides did not practise divination about the future; only about the
obscurities of the past.) Besides, in forensic oratory you have a basis
in the law; and once you have a starting-point, you can prove anything
with comparative ease. Then again, political oratory affords few chances
for those leisurely digressions in which you may attack your adversary,
talk about yourself, or work on your hearers' emotions; fewer chances indeed,
than any other affords, unless your set purpose is to divert your hearers'
attention. Accordingly, if you find yourself in difficulties, follow the
lead of the Athenian speakers, and that of Isocrates, who makes regular
attacks upon people in the course of a political speech, e.g. upon the
Lacedaemonians in the Panegyricus, and upon Chares in the speech about
the allies. In ceremonial oratory, intersperse your speech with bits of
episodic eulogy, like Isocrates, who is always bringing some one forward
for this purpose. And this is what Gorgias meant by saying that he always
found something to talk about. For if he speaks of Achilles, he praises
Peleus, then Aeacus, then Zeus; and in like manner the virtue of valour,
describing its good results, and saying what it is like.
Now if you have proofs to bring forward, bring them forward, and
your moral discourse as well; if you have no enthymemes, then fall back
upon moral discourse: after all, it is more fitting for a good man to display
himself as an honest fellow than as a subtle reasoner. Refutative enthymemes
are more popular than demonstrative ones: their logical cogency is more
striking: the facts about two opposites always stand out clearly when the
two are nut side by side.
The 'Reply to the Opponent' is not a separate division of the speech;
it is part of the Arguments to break down the opponent's case, whether
by objection or by counter-syllogism. Both in political speaking and when
pleading in court, if you are the first speaker you should put your own
arguments forward first, and then meet the arguments on the other side
by refuting them and pulling them to pieces beforehand. If, however, the
case for the other side contains a great variety of arguments, begin with
these, like Callistratus in the Messenian assembly, when he demolished
the arguments likely to be used against him before giving his own. If you
speak later, you must first, by means of refutation and counter-syllogism,
attempt some answer to your opponent's speech, especially if his arguments
have been well received. For just as our minds refuse a favourable reception
to a person against whom they are prejudiced, so they refuse it to a speech
when they have been favourably impressed by the speech on the other side.
You should, therefore, make room in the minds of the audience for your
coming speech; and this will be done by getting your opponent's speech
out of the way. So attack that first-either the whole of it, or the most
important, successful, or vulnerable points in it, and thus inspire confidence
in what you have to say yourself-
"First, champion will I be of
Goddesses...
"Never, I ween, would Hera... "
where the speaker has attacked the silliest argument first. So much for
the Arguments.
With regard to the element of moral character: there are assertions
which, if made about yourself, may excite dislike, appear tedious, or expose
you to the risk of contradiction; and other things which you cannot say
about your opponent without seeming abusive or ill-bred. Put such remarks,
therefore, into the mouth of some third person. This is what Isocrates
does in the Philippus and in the Antidosis, and Archilochus in his satires.
The latter represents the father himself as attacking his daughter in the
lampoon
"Think nought impossible at all,
"Nor swear that
it shall not befall... "
and puts into the mouth of Charon the carpenter the lampoon which begins
"Not for the wealth of Gyes... "
So too Sophocles makes Haemon appeal to his father on behalf of Antigone
as if it were others who were speaking.
Again, sometimes you should restate your enthymemes in the form
of maxims; e.g. 'Wise men will come to terms in the hour of success; for
they will gain most if they do'. Expressed as an enthymeme, this would
run, 'If we ought to come to terms when doing so will enable us to gain
the greatest advantage, then we ought to come to terms in the hour of
success.'
Part 18
Next as to Interrogation. The best moment to a employ this is when
your opponent has so answered one question that the putting of just one
more lands him in absurdity. Thus Pericles questioned Lampon about the
way of celebrating the rites of the Saviour Goddess. Lampon declared that
no uninitiated person could be told of them. Pericles then asked, 'Do you
know them yourself?' 'Yes', answered Lampon. 'Why,' said Pericles, 'how
can that be, when you are uninitiated?'
Another good moment is when one premiss of an argument is obviously
true, and you can see that your opponent must say 'yes' if you ask him
whether the other is true. Having first got this answer about the other,
do not go on to ask him about the obviously true one, but just state the
conclusion yourself. Thus, when Meletus denied that Socrates believed in
the existence of gods but admitted that he talked about a supernatural
power, Socrates proceeded to to ask whether 'supernatural beings were not
either children of the gods or in some way divine?' 'Yes', said Meletus.
'Then', replied Socrates, 'is there any one who believes in the existence
of children of the gods and yet not in the existence of the gods themselves?'
Another good occasion is when you expect to show that your opponent is
contradicting either his own words or what every one believes. A fourth
is when it is impossible for him to meet your question except by an evasive
answer. If he answers 'True, and yet not true', or 'Partly true and partly
not true', or 'True in one sense but not in another', the audience thinks
he is in difficulties, and applauds his discomfiture. In other cases do
not attempt interrogation; for if your opponent gets in an objection, you
are felt to have been worsted. You cannot ask a series of questions owing
to the incapacity of the audience to follow them; and for this reason you
should also make your enthymemes as compact as possible.
In replying, you must meet ambiguous questions by drawing reasonable
distinctions, not by a curt answer. In meeting questions that seem to involve
you in a contradiction, offer the explanation at the outset of your answer,
before your opponent asks the next question or draws his conclusion. For
it is not difficult to see the drift of his argument in advance. This point,
however, as well as the various means of refutation, may be regarded as
known to us from the Topics.
When your opponent in drawing his conclusion puts it in the form
of a question, you must justify your answer. Thus when Sophocles was asked
by Peisander whether he had, like the other members of the Board of Safety,
voted for setting up the Four Hundred, he said 'Yes.'-'Why, did you not
think it wicked?'-'Yes.'-'So you committed this wickedness?' 'Yes', said
Sophocles, 'for there was nothing better to do.' Again, the Lacedaemonian,
when he was being examined on his conduct as ephor, was asked whether he
thought that the other ephors had been justly put to death. 'Yes', he said.
'Well then', asked his opponent, 'did not you propose the same measures
as they?'-'Yes.'-'Well then, would not you too be justly put to death?'-'Not
at all', said he; 'they were bribed to do it, and I did it from conviction'.
Hence you should not ask any further questions after drawing the conclusion,
nor put the conclusion itself in the form of a further question, unless
there is a large balance of truth on your side.
As to jests. These are supposed to be of some service in controversy.
Gorgias said that you should kill your opponents' earnestness with jesting
and their jesting with earnestness; in which he was right. jests have been
classified in the Poetics. Some are becoming to a gentleman, others are
not; see that you choose such as become you. Irony better befits a gentleman
than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse himself, the buffoon to
amuse other people.
Part 19
The Epilogue has four parts. You must (1) make the audience well-disposed
towards yourself and ill-disposed towards your opponent (2) magnify or
minimize the leading facts, (3) excite the required state of emotion in
your hearers, and (4) refresh their memories.
(1) Having shown your own truthfulness and the untruthfulness of
your opponent, the natural thing is to commend yourself, censure him, and
hammer in your points. You must aim at one of two objects-you must make
yourself out a good man and him a bad one either in yourselves or in relation
to your hearers. How this is to be managed-by what lines of argument you
are to represent people as good or bad-this has been already
explained.
(2) The facts having been proved, the natural thing to do next
is to magnify or minimize their importance. The facts must be admitted
before you can discuss how important they are; just as the body cannot
grow except from something already present. The proper lines of argument
to be used for this purpose of amplification and depreciation have already
been set forth.
(3) Next, when the facts and their importance are clearly understood,
you must excite your hearers' emotions. These emotions are pity, indignation,
anger, hatred, envy, emulation, pugnacity. The lines of argument to be
used for these purposes also have been previously mentioned.
(4) Finally you have to review what you have already said. Here
you may properly do what some wrongly | |
