On the Sublime
his arguments by an oath, and makes his praise of the dead an incentive
to the living.
[Footnote 2: In his (lost) "Demis."]
4
And to rebut a possible objection which occurred to him--"Can you,
Demosthenes, whose policy ended in defeat, swear by a victory?"--the
orator proceeds to measure his language, choosing his very words so as
to give no handle to opponents, thus showing us that even in our most
inspired moments reason ought to hold the reins.[3] Let us mark his
words: "Those who _faced the foe_ at Marathon; those who _fought in the
sea-fights_ of Salamis and Artemisium; those who _stood in the ranks_ at
Plataea." Note that he nowhere says "those who _conquered_," artfully
suppressing any word which might hint at the successful issue of those
battles, which would have spoilt the parallel with Chaeronea. And for
the same reason he steals a march on his audience, adding immediately:
"All of whom, Aeschines,--not those who were successful only,--were
buried by the state at the public expense."
[Footnote 3: Lit. "That even in the midst of the revels of Bacchus
we ought to remain sober."]
XVII
There is one truth which my studies have led me to observe, which
perhaps it would be worth while to set down briefly here. It is this,
that by a natural law the Sublime, besides receiving an acquisition of
strength from figures, in its turn lends support in a remarkable manner
to them. To explain: the use of figures has a peculiar tendency to rouse
a suspicion of dishonesty, and to create an impression of treachery,
scheming, and false reasoning; especially if the person addressed be a
judge, who is master of the situation, and still more in the case of a
despot, a king, a military potentate, or any of those who sit in high
places.[1] If a man feels that this artful speaker is treating him like
a silly boy and trying to throw dust in his eyes, he at once grows
irritated, and thinking that such false reasoning implies a contempt of
his understanding, he perhaps flies into a rage and will not hear
another word; or even if he masters his resentment, still he is utterly
indisposed to yield to the persuasive power of eloquence. Hence it
follows that a figure is then most effectual when it appears in
disguise.
[Footnote 1: Reading with Cobet, +kai pantas tous en huperochais+.]
2
To allay, then, this distrust which attaches to the use of figures we
must call in the powerful aid of sublimity and passion. For art, once
associated with these great allies, will be overshadowed by their
grandeur and beauty, and pass beyond the reach of all suspicion. To
prove this I need only refer to the passage already quoted: "I swear it
by the men," etc. It is the very brilliancy of the orator's figure which
blinds us to the fact that it _is_ a figure. For as the fainter lustre
of the stars is put out of sight by the all-encompassing rays of the
sun, so when sublimity sheds its light all round the sophistries of
rhetoric they become invisible.
3
A similar illusion is produced by the painter's art. When light and
shadow are represented in colour, though they lie on the same surface
side by side, it is the light which meets the eye first, and appears not
only more conspicuous but also much nearer. In the same manner passion
and grandeur of language, lying nearer to our souls by reason both of a
certain natural affinity and of their radiance, always strike our mental
eye before we become conscious of the figure, throwing its artificial
character into the shade and hiding it as it were in a veil.
XVIII
The figures of question and interrogation[1] also possess a specific
quality which tends strongly to stir an audience and give energy to the
speaker's words. "Or tell me, do you want to run about asking one
another, is there any news? what greater news could you have than that a
man of Macedon is making himself master of Hellas? Is Philip dead? Not
he. However, he is ill. But what is that to you? Even if anything
happens to him you will soon raise up another Philip."[2] Or this
passage: "Shall we sail against Macedon? And where, asks one, shall we
effect a landing? The war itself will show us where Philip's weak places
lie."[2] Now if this had been put baldly it would have lost greatly in
force. As we see it, it is full of the quick alternation of question and
answer. The orator replies to himself as though he were meeting another
man's objections. And this figure not only raises the tone of his words
but makes them more convincing.
[Footnote 1: See Note.]
[Footnote 2: _Phil._ i. 44.]
2
For an exhibition of feeling has then most effect on an audience when it
appears to flow naturally from the occasion, not to have been laboured
by the art of the speaker; and this device of questioning and replying
to himself reproduces the moment of passion. For as a sudden question
addressed to an individual will sometimes startle him into a reply which
is an unguarded expression of his genuine sentiments, so the figure of
question and interrogation blinds the judgment of an audience, and
deceives them into a belief that what is really the result of labour in
every detail has been struck out of the speaker by the inspiration of
the moment.
There is one passage in Herodotus which is generally credited with
extraordinary sublimity....
XIX
... The removal of connecting particles gives a quick rush and "torrent
rapture" to a passage, the writer appearing to be actually almost left
behind by his own words. There is an example in Xenophon: "Clashing
their shields together they pushed, they fought, they slew, they
fell."[1] And the words of Eurylochus in the _Odyssey_--
"We passed at thy command the woodland's shade;
We found a stately hall built in a mountain glade."[2]
Words thus severed from one another without the intervention of stops
give a lively impression of one who through distress of mind at once
halts and hurries in his speech. And this is what Homer has expressed by
using the figure _Asyndeton_.
[Footnote 1: Xen. _Hel._ iv. 3. 19.]
[Footnote 2: _Od._ x. 251.]
XX
But nothing is so conducive to energy as a combination of different
figures, when two or three uniting their resources mutually contribute
to the vigour, the cogency, and the beauty of a speech. So Demosthenes
in his speech against Meidias repeats the same words and breaks up his
sentences in one lively descriptive passage: "He who receives a blow is
hurt in many ways which he could not even describe to another, by
gesture, by look, by tone."
2
Then, to vary the movement of his speech, and prevent it from standing
still (for stillness produces rest, but passion requires a certain
disorder of language, imitating the agitation and commotion of the
soul), he at once dashes off in another direction, breaking up his words
again, and repeating them in a different form, "by gesture, by look, by
tone--when insult, when hatred, is added to violence, when he is struck
with the fist, when he is struck as a slave!" By such means the orator
imitates the action of Meidias, dealing blow upon blow on the minds of
his judges. Immediately after like a hurricane he makes a fresh attack:
"When he is struck with the fist, when he is struck in the face; this is
what moves, this is what maddens a man, unless he is inured to outrage;
no one could describe all this so as to bring home to his hearers its
bitterness."[1] You see how he preserves, by continual variation, the
intrinsic force of these repetitions and broken clauses, so that his
order seems irregular, and conversely his irregularity acquires a
certain measure of order.
[Footnote 1: _Meid._ 72.]
XXI
Supposing we add the conjunctions, after the practice of Isocrates and
his school: "Moreover, I must not omit to mention that he who strikes a
blow may hurt in many ways, in the first place by gesture, in the second
place by look, in the third and last place by his tone." If you compare
the words thus set down in logical sequence with the expressions of the
"Meidias," you will see that the rapidity and rugged abruptness of
passion, when all is made regular by connecting links, will be smoothed
away, and the whole point and fire of the passage will at once
disappear.
2
For as, if you were to bind two runners together, they will forthwith be
deprived of all liberty of movement, even so passion rebels against the
trammels of conjunctions and other particles, because they curb its free
rush and destroy the impression of mechanical impulse.
XXII
The figure hyperbaton belongs to the same class. By hyperbaton we mean a
transposition of words or thoughts from their usual order, bearing
unmistakably the characteristic stamp of violent mental agitation. In
real life we often see a man under the influence of rage, or fear, or
indignation, or beside himself with jealousy, or with some other out of
the interminable list of human passions, begin a sentence, and then
swerve aside into some inconsequent parenthesis, and then again double
back to his original statement, being borne with quick turns by his
distress, as though by a shifting wind, now this way, now that, and
playing a thousand capricious variations on his words, his thoughts, and
the natural order of his discourse. Now the figure hyperbaton is the
means which is employed by the best writers to imitate these signs of
natural emotion. For art is then perfect when it seems to be nature, and
nature, again, is most effective when pervaded by the unseen presence of
art. An illustration will be found in the speech of Dionysius of Phocaea
in Herodotus: "A hair's breadth now decides our destiny, Ionians,
whether we shall live as freemen or as slaves--ay, as runaway slaves.
Now, therefore, if you choose to endure a little hardship, you will be
able at the cost of some present exertion to overcome your enemies."[1]
[Footnote 1: vi. 11.]
2
The regular sequence here would have been: "Ionians, now is the time for
you to endure a little hardship; for a hair's breadth will now decide
our destiny." But the Phocaean transposes the title "Ionians," rushing
at once to the subject of alarm, as though in the terror of the moment
he had forgotten the usual address to his audience. Moreover, he inverts
the logical order of his thoughts, and instead of beginning with the
necessity for exertion, which is the point he wishes to urge upon them,
he first gives them the reason for that necessity in the words, "a
hair's breadth now decides our destiny," so that his words seem
unpremeditated, and forced upon him by the crisis.
3
Thucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure,
even breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and
indivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in
Demosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the
elder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent
transpositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags,
as it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted
clause.
4
He often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense,
meanwhile thrusting in between, in a position apparently foreign and
unnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus
made his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and
forced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he
is nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment,
_i.e._ when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting
for so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions
he produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples,
as they are too numerous to require it.
XXIII