On Style

Just as poetry is divided up by its metres — into half-lines, hexameters, and the rest — so too the framing of discourse in prose is divided and articulated by what are called clauses (cola), which serve as it were to give the speaker pause, and to give pause to the things said as well, marking off the discourse at many points; otherwise it would be long and boundless and would simply leave the speaker breathless.

These clauses, however, aim to round off a thought — sometimes a complete thought, as when Hecataeus says at the beginning of his History, "Hecataeus of Miletus tells this tale"; for here a whole thought is contained in a whole clause, and the two come to an end together. Sometimes, though, the clause does not complete a whole thought, but only a whole part of a whole. For just as the hand is a whole, and its parts — fingers, forearm — are themselves whole parts of that whole (since each of these parts has its own outline and its own parts), so too, when a thought is whole and large, certain parts of it may be included within it which are themselves complete in their own right.

So it is at the opening of Xenophon's Anabasis, in this passage: "Of Darius and Parysatis" down to "and the younger Cyrus." This is a complete thought; but the clauses within it are each a part of it, while a thought is fulfilled in each, having its own limit. Take "Of Darius and Parysatis were born sons": the thought here has a certain completeness in itself, namely that sons were born to Darius and Parysatis. And likewise the other clause, "the elder Artaxerxes, the younger Cyrus." So the clause, as I say, will in every case contain some thought, either a whole one or a whole part of a whole.

The clauses must not be made too long, for then the composition becomes disproportionate or hard to follow; not even poetry went beyond the hexameter, except in a few cases, since it is absurd for the measure to be measureless and for us, when the measure ends, to have forgotten when it began. Just as great length in the clauses is unsuited to discourse because of its want of measure, so too is excessive shortness, for then there arises what is called a dry composition, like this: "Life is short, art is long, the moment is fleeting." For such a composition seems chopped up and broken into bits, and contemptible because everything in it is small.

Yet there is sometimes a place for the long clause, as in passages of grandeur. Thus Plato says: "For at one time God himself guides this whole universe on its course and helps to wheel it round." For the discourse is here lifted up along with the length of the clause. This is also why the hexameter is named "heroic," from its length, and is fitting for heroes; nor could anyone fittingly write Homer's Iliad in the short measures of Archilochus, such as "Grieving staff" and "Who has unstrung your wits?", nor in those of Anacreon, like "Bring water, bring wine, boy"; for that rhythm is simply that of a drunken old man, not of a fighting hero.

So there is sometimes a place for the long clause, for these reasons; and there may also be a place for the short one, as when we are saying something slight, as Xenophon says that "the Greeks came to the river Teleboas; and this was not large, but it was beautiful." For by the shortness and the abrupt cutting-off of the rhythm there appeared at once both the smallness of the river and its charm. But if he had drawn it out and said, "and this river was less in size than most, but in beauty surpassed them all," he would have missed what was fitting, and would have produced what is called frigidity. But about frigidity we must speak later.

Short clauses have their use in forceful writing as well; for what is shown in little is more forceful and more vehement, which is why the Spartans are men of few words out of forcefulness. To give a command is brief and short, and every master is a man of one syllable to his slave; whereas to entreat and to lament are long. The Prayers, in Homer, are lame and wrinkled with slowness — that is, with long-windedness — and old men are long-winded because of their weakness.

An example of short composition is "The Lacedaemonians to Philip: Dionysius in Corinth." For it appears far more forceful, put so briefly, than if they had drawn it out at length and said, "Dionysius, who was once a great tyrant like yourself, nevertheless now lives as a private man in Corinth." For said in many words it would no longer have seemed a rebuke, but a narrative, more like instructing than terrifying. Drawn out in this way, the passion and vehemence of the discourse is dissolved. Just as wild beasts gather themselves up to fight, so there is, as it were, a coiling of discourse for force, like a spring drawn taut.

This kind of brevity in composition is called a phrase (comma). They define it thus: a phrase is what is shorter than a clause, such as the example just given, "Dionysius in Corinth," and "Know thyself," and "Follow God" — the sayings of the wise. For brevity is also fit for maxims and aphorisms, and it is wiser to gather much thought into little, just as in seeds lie the powers of whole trees; whereas if one spins out the maxim at length, it becomes a kind of lecture or piece of rhetoric instead of a maxim.

When such clauses and phrases are put together in relation to one another, there arise what are called periods. For the period is a system made up of clauses or phrases, well rounded off so as to complete the thought that underlies it, as in: "Chiefly because I think it advantageous to the city that the law be repealed, and then for the sake of Chabrias' son, I agreed to support these men as far as I am able." For this period, made up of three clauses, has a certain turn and rounding at its end.

Aristotle defines the period thus: "A period is an expression that has a beginning and an end" — a very fine and fitting definition. For the man who speaks a period at once makes it plain that he has begun from somewhere and will end somewhere, and is pressing on toward some goal, like runners released from the starting-line; for in their case too the end is indicated together with the beginning of the race. From this it is named "period," likened to roads that are circular and traversed about. In general the period is nothing but a particular kind of composition. If indeed its circuit were undone and it were recomposed, the matter remains the same, but there will be no period. For instance, if one were to reverse the period of Demosthenes quoted above and say something like this: "I will support these men, Athenians; for the son of Chabrias is a friend of mine, and much more than he, the city, which it is just that I should support" — the period is then nowhere to be found.

Its origin is this. Of expression, one kind is called compact, that which is arranged in periods, as is that of the rhetoric of Isocrates and Gorgias and Alcidamas; for these are wholly composed of continuous periods, no less than Homer's poetry is of hexameters. The other kind of expression is called disjointed, that which is broken up into clauses not much connected with one another, as is the manner of Hecataeus and most of Herodotus and the whole of the ancients generally. An example of it: "Hecataeus of Miletus tells this tale. I write these things as they seem to me to be true; for the stories of the Greeks are many and ridiculous, as they appear to me." For here the clauses seem heaped one upon another and thrown together, having no binding nor mutual support, and not helping one another as they do in periods.

So the clauses of periodic style resemble the stones that prop up and hold together vaulted roofs, while those of disjointed style resemble stones merely flung down near one another and not built together.

Hence the older style has something trimmed and compact about it, like the ancient statues, whose art seemed to lie in compactness and slenderness, whereas the style of later writers resembles the works of Phidias, having now something both grand and exact at once.

For my part I approve neither of stringing together the whole discourse in periods, like Gorgias, nor of having it all disjointed, like the ancients, but rather of mixing the two. For thus it will be at once elaborate and simple, and pleasant from both; and neither too commonplace nor too sophistic. Those who speak in dense periods do not even keep their heads steady, like men in their cups, and the listeners feel queasy through the implausibility, and sometimes even shout out the ends of the periods in advance, foreseeing them, and cry them out before they come.

Of periods, the smaller are composed of two clauses, the largest of four; anything beyond four would no longer fall within periodic proportion.

There are also periods of three clauses, and even of a single clause, which they call simple periods. For when the clause has both length and a turn at its end, then a single-clause period arises, as in this: "The setting-forth of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is this." And again, "For clear expression sheds much light upon the understandings of the hearers." The simple period is constituted by both together, both the length and the turn at its end; by either one alone, never.

In composite periods the last clause ought to be longer, and as it were to embrace and enclose the rest. For thus the period will be grand and dignified, ending in a dignified and long clause; otherwise it will be cut short and resemble a cripple. An example of such a period: "For to speak well is not the fine thing, but to do, when one has spoken, the things one has said."

There are three kinds of period: the historical, the conversational, and the rhetorical. The historical is neither too rounded nor too relaxed, but between the two, so that it may not appear rhetorical and unconvincing through its circuit, but has dignity and a historical quality from its simplicity, as in this: "Of Darius and Parysatis were born" down to "the younger Cyrus." For its laying down resembles a settled and secure conclusion.

The rhetorical period is compact and circular in form, and requires a rounded mouth and a hand swung round in time with the rhythm, as in: "Chiefly because I think it advantageous to the city that the law be repealed, and then for the sake of Chabrias' son, I agreed to support these men as far as I am able." For almost from the very beginning such a period has something compact about it and gives notice that it will not end in a simple close.

The conversational period is yet more relaxed and simpler than the historical, and barely shows that it is a period, as in this: "I went down yesterday to the Piraeus" down to "as now holding it for the first time." For the clauses are thrown one upon another, as in disjointed discourse, and when they have come to an end we can barely tell at the close that what was said was a period. The conversational period must be written between disjointed and compact expression, mixed and resembling both. Of periods, then, the kinds are these.

There are also periods made of opposed clauses, opposed either in their matter, as in "sailing through the mainland, walking through the sea," or in both, in expression and in matter at once, as the same period runs.

Clauses opposed in their words alone are such as these, as when he who compares Helen with Heracles says: "For him he made a life laborious and full of dangers, but her nature he set up as admired and contended for." For article is opposed to article, conjunction to conjunction, like to like, and the rest in the same way: to "he made," "he set up"; to "laborious," "admired"; to "full of dangers," "contended for"; and in general, one against one, like against like, in correspondence.

There are clauses which, though not opposed, show a certain antithesis through being written antithetically in form, as in that jest in the poet Epicharmus: "At one time I was among them, at another time beside them I was." For the same thing is said, and there is nothing contrary; but the manner of the expression, mimicking antithesis, is like someone leading you astray. But this man perhaps set up his antithesis so as to raise a laugh, and at the same time to mock the orators.

There are also parallel clauses, parallel either at the beginning, as in "Givers they were, and yielding to entreaties of words," or at the end, like the opening of the Panegyric: "Often have I marvelled at those who convened the festal gatherings and established the gymnastic contests." A species of the parallel is the equal-membered (isocolon), when the clauses have an equal number of syllables, as in Thucydides: "neither thinking the deed unworthy of those of whom they inquired, nor reproaching those to whom it was a concern to know." This is equal-membered.

Clauses with like endings (homoeoteleuton) are those that end in similar fashion, either in the same words, as in "and while he was living you spoke ill of him, and now that he is dead you write ill of him," or when they end in the same syllable, as in the passages from the Panegyric quoted above.

The use of such clauses is precarious. They are not suited to forceful speaking, for the artifice and care bestowed on them dissolves the force. Theopompus makes this clear to us; for, accusing the friends of Philip, he says, "Murderers by nature, they were panders in their ways; called companions, they were really courtesans." For the similarity and antithesis about the clauses dissolves the force through the bad artistry. For anger needs no art, but in such accusations the words ought to be in a way spontaneous and simple.

So such devices are not useful in forceful writing, as I have shown, nor in passion and character; for passion wants to be simple and unartificial, and likewise character. At any rate, in Aristotle's work On Justice, the man lamenting the city of the Athenians, if he were to say, "What city of the enemy of such a kind did they take, as their own city that they lost?", would have spoken with passion and lamentation; but if he makes it parallel — "What city of the enemy did they take such as their own that they cast away?" — by Zeus he will stir no passion nor pity, but what is called laughter-amid-tears. For to play amid mourners, as the proverb has it, is to use bad artistry in matters of passion.

Yet such devices sometimes become useful, as Aristotle says: "I came from Athens to Stageira because of the great king, and from Stageira to Athens because of the great storm." If you take away one of the "greats," you take away the charm together with it. For such clauses cooperate with grandeur of utterance, like the many antitheses of Gorgias and of Isocrates. So much, then, about parallel clauses.

The enthymeme differs from the period in this, that the period is a certain rounded composition, from which it takes its name, whereas the enthymeme has its force and constitution in the thought; and the period is, as it were, the circuit of the enthymeme, as of other matters too, while the enthymeme is a thought stated either from conflict or in the form of a consequence.

Here is the proof. If you dissolve the composition of the enthymeme, you have made the period disappear, but the enthymeme remains the same; for instance, if someone were to dissolve this enthymeme in Demosthenes: "For just as, if any of those men had been convicted, you would not have written these things, so, if you are now convicted, no other will write them." Dissolve it thus: "Do not permit those who write illegal measures; for if they had been prevented, this man would not now be writing these things, nor will another write hereafter, this man being now convicted." Here the circuit of the period has been dissolved, but the enthymeme remains the same.

And in general the enthymeme is a kind of rhetorical syllogism, whereas the period draws no conclusion at all, but is merely put together; and we place periods in every part of the discourse, as in the prefaces, but enthymemes not in every part; and the one, the enthymeme, is as it were added on, while the period is spoken in its own right; and the one is a kind of incomplete syllogism, whereas the period concludes neither anything whole nor anything incomplete.

So it is an accident of the enthymeme that it is also a period, because it is composed periodically, but it is not a period — just as it is an accident of a thing being built that it is also white, if it happens to be white, yet what is being built is not white. So much, then, about the difference between enthymeme and period.

Aristotle defines the clause thus: "A clause is one of the two parts of a period"; then he adds, "but there is also a simple period." Having defined it thus — "one of the two parts" — he clearly wished the period to be of two clauses. But Archedemus, gathering up Aristotle's definition and the addition to the definition, defined it more clearly and more completely thus: "A clause is either a simple period or a part of a composite period."

What a simple period is, has been said; but having called it a part of a composite period, he seems to define the period not by two clauses, but by three and more. We, however, have set out the measure of the period; let us now speak of the styles of expression.

There are four simple styles: the plain, the grand, the elegant, and the forceful, and besides these the styles compounded of them. Not every style mixes with every other, but the elegant mixes both with the plain and with the grand, and the forceful likewise with both; only the grand does not mix with the plain, but they stand as it were in fullest contrast and are most opposed. Hence some hold that there are only these two styles, and that the remaining two lie between them, assigning the elegant rather to the plain and the forceful to the grand, on the ground that the elegant has a certain smallness and prettiness, while the forceful has bulk and magnitude.

But such an account is absurd. For we see — except in the case of the contrary styles named — all mixing with all, as in Homer's verse and the discourses of Plato and Xenophon and Herodotus and many others, which have much grandeur mixed in, and much forcefulness and charm. So the number of styles is as has been stated. And the style suited to each would be of the following sort.

I shall begin with the grand, which is now called the elevated. Grandeur lies in three things: in thought, in expression, and in suitable composition. Grand composition, as Aristotle says, is the paeonic. There are two kinds of paeon: the initial, in which a long begins and three shorts close, as in this — "ērxato dē" — and the final, the reverse of the other, in which three shorts begin and one long closes, as in "Arabia."

In the clauses of grand discourse the initial paeon ought to begin the clauses, and the final to follow. An example of them is this passage of Thucydides: "ērxato de to kakon ex Aithiopias" ("the plague began from Ethiopia"). Why, then, did Aristotle arrange it thus? Because both the entry of the clause and its beginning ought to be grand at once, and its end likewise; and this will be so if we begin from a long and end in a long. For the long is by nature grand, and being uttered first, it strikes at once, and ending on something great, it leaves the hearer in greatness. We all, at any rate, especially remember the first things and the last, and are moved by them, but less by what lies between, as though it were hidden away or made to vanish.

This is clear in Thucydides; for in him grandeur is produced in almost everything by the length of the rhythm, and it may well be that, while grandeur in this man is of every sort, this kind of composition alone, or above all, secures the greatest.

We must reckon, however, that even if we cannot exactly set both paeons round our clauses on either side, we shall at any rate make the composition paeonic in general by beginning from longs and ending in longs. For this is what Aristotle too seems to enjoin, having otherwise treated the twofold paeon in technical detail for the sake of precision. Hence Theophrastus has set out as an example of grandeur such a clause as this: "of those who philosophize about things worth nothing." For it is not made of paeons exactly, but it is paeonic in character. Still, one should bring the paeon into discourse, since it is a mixed and safer measure, taking grandeur from the long and the prose-like quality from the shorts.

As for the others: the heroic measure is dignified and not prose-like, but resounding; nor is it rhythmical, but unrhythmical, as in this: "Having come to our land." For the density of the longs falls beyond the prosaic measure.

The iambus is cheap and like the speech of ordinary people; many indeed speak in iambic measures without knowing it. The paeon is intermediate between the two and moderate, and as it were a blend. The paeonic composition, then, in grand passages would be taken up somewhat in this way.

The lengths of the clauses also produce grandeur, as in "Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians," and "Of Herodotus of Halicarnassus this is the setting-forth of his inquiry." For to fall silent quickly upon a short clause diminishes the dignity of the discourse, even if the underlying thought be grand, and even the words.

It is also grand to speak with a circuit in the composition, as Thucydides does: "For the river Achelous, flowing from Mount Pindus through Dolopia and the Agraeans and the Amphilochi, and passing above by the city of Stratus into the sea by Oeniadae, and making a marsh around their city with its waters, renders it impossible to campaign in winter because of the flood." For all such grandeur arises from the circuit, and from the speaker's giving rest, with difficulty, to himself and to the hearer.

But if one were to undo it and say thus: "For the river Achelous flows from Mount Pindus, and discharges into the sea by Oeniadae; and before its mouth it makes a marsh of the plain of the Oeniadae, so that the water becomes for them a bulwark and defence against the winter inroads of the enemy" — if anyone were thus to alter and express it, he will give the discourse many resting-points, but will take away its grandeur.

For just as continuous lodgings make long roads seem short, while desolate stretches give an impression of length even to short roads, the very same thing would happen with the clauses.

Harshness of composition also in many cases produces grandeur, as in "But great Ajax ever at Hector of the brazen helm." For in another respect the clashing of the letters is perhaps unpleasant to the ear, yet the excess shows the greatness of the hero; for smoothness and pleasantness of sound have no great place in grandeur, except in a few instances. And Thucydides everywhere all but shuns the smooth and even in composition, and always seems rather to be stumbling against something, like men walking rough roads, as when he says, "the year, as was agreed, happened to be free of disease as regards the other ailments." For one might have said it more easily and pleasantly thus: "happened to be free of disease as regards the other ailments," but its grandeur would have been taken away.

For just as a rough word produces grandeur, so does composition. Rough words are such as "screaming" instead of "shouting," and "bursting" instead of "borne along," all of which Thucydides uses, making his words like his composition and his composition like his words.

One ought to arrange the words in this way: place first those that are not very vivid, and place second and last the more vivid. For thus we shall hear the first as vivid, and the one after it as more vivid still. Otherwise we shall seem to have grown weak and, as it were, to have collapsed from the stronger to the weaker.

An example is the passage in Plato: "whenever someone yields himself to music to be played upon and have it poured down through his ears." For the second word is much more vivid than the first. And again, going on, he says, "and when, pouring down, he does not let up but bewitches, then after this he melts and dissolves." For "dissolves" is more emphatic than "melts" and nearer to poetry. But if he had brought it out first, the following "melts" would have appeared weaker.

Homer too, in the case of the Cyclops, ever heightens the hyperbole and seems to be climbing upon it, as in this: For he was not like a bread-eating man, but like a wooded peak, and further "of a high mountain that overtops the others." For the earlier things, great as they are, always appear lesser, when greater ones are brought on after them.

The conjunctions, too, ought not to be answered too exactly, as the conjunction "men" by "de"; for exactness is petty. Rather, one should use them somewhat irregularly, as Antiphon does somewhere: "For the island that we hold is plain even from afar, lofty and rugged; and the useful, cultivable parts of it are small, while the unworked parts are many, small though the island is." For to three "men" one "de" is answered.

Often, however, conjunctions placed one after another make even small things great, as in Homer the names of the Boeotian cities, being cheap and small, have a certain bulk and grandeur because of the conjunctions placed one after another, so many of them, as in: "Schoenus and Scolus, and Eteonus of many ridges."

Expletive conjunctions ought to be used not as empty additions and, as it were, excrescences or scrapings — as some use "indeed" to no purpose, and "now" and "before" — but only if they contribute something to the grandeur of the discourse,

as in Plato: "Great Zeus indeed in heaven"; and in Homer: "But when indeed they came to the ford of the fair-flowing river." For the conjunction, set at the head and detaching what follows from what went before, has wrought something grand. For many openings produce dignity. But if he had said, "But when they came to the ford of the river," he would have seemed to be speaking pettily and still as of a single thing.

This conjunction is also often taken in a way that expresses passion, as in Calypso's words to Odysseus: "Zeus-born son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus, so then to your home and dear native land?" If you take away the conjunction, you take away the passion together with it. For in general, as Praxiphanes says, such conjunctions were employed in place of groans and sighs, like "ah, ah," and "alas," and the kind of thing he himself means in "and surely it would have been fitting for those who mourn," which has a certain impression of a piteous word.

But those who fill out the conjunction to no purpose, he says, are like the actors who insert "this" and "that" into a verse to no purpose, as if one were to speak thus: "This land of Calydon, of the soil of Pelops, alas, holding a happy plain across the strait, ah, ah." For just as the "ah, ah" and the "alas" drag along here to no purpose, so too does the conjunction everywhere flung in vainly.

So the conjunctions make the composition grand, as has been said; and the figures of speech are themselves also a kind of composition. For to say the same things twice over by doubling, or by anaphora, or by interchange, resembles arranging and recomposing. We must allot to each style the figures appropriate to it; thus to the grand, which is our present subject, these:

first, the interchange of cases (hypallage), as in Homer, "And of the two crags, the one reaches broad heaven." For it is much grander thus, with the case altered, than if he had said, "Of the two crags, the one reaches broad heaven"; for that would be the ordinary way of saying it. And all that is ordinary is petty, and therefore unremarkable.

Nireus, who was himself small and whose affairs were smaller still — three ships and a few men — Homer made great, and his small affairs great, and his few many, by using a double and mixed figure of anaphora and asyndeton. For he says, "Nireus led three ships; Nireus the son of Aglaia; Nireus, who was the fairest man." For the recurrence of the word upon the same name, Nireus, and the asyndeton, give an impression of a multitude of things, although there are but two or three.

And though Nireus is named almost only once in the drama, we remember him no less than Achilles and Odysseus, who are spoken of in well-nigh every line. The cause is the power of the figure. But if he had said thus, "Nireus the son of Aglaia led three ships from Syme," he would have seemed to pass Nireus over in silence. For just as at banquets a few dishes, arranged in a certain way, appear many, so too in discourse.

In many places, however, the opposite of disjunction — namely conjoining — becomes a cause of grandeur rather, as in "There were on the campaign Greeks and Carians and Lycians and Pamphylians and Phrygians." For the repeated placing of the same conjunction gives an impression of a boundless multitude.

But such a phrase as "swollen, white-crested" turns out grander by the removal of the conjunction "and" than if he had said, "swollen and white-crested."

It is grand, too, in figures, not to remain in the same case, as in Thucydides: "And being the first to disembark upon the gangway, he fainted, and as he fell to the outrigger" — for it is much grander thus than if, keeping the same case, he had said, "he fell to the outrigger and dropped his shield."

The doubling of a word also produced grandeur, as Herodotus says, "There were somewhere serpents in the Caucasus, in size, both in size and in number." "Size," said twice, gave a certain bulk to the expression.

The figures ought not to be used densely; for that is in bad taste and shows a certain unevenness in the discourse. The ancients, at any rate, who set many figures in their discourses, are more natural than those without figures, because they set them with art.

About the clashing of vowels men have held different views. Isocrates and his school guarded against letting them collide; others struck them together as chance dictated, and altogether. But one ought neither to make the composition resounding by striking them together artlessly and as chance dictates — for that resembles a tearing-apart and scattering of the discourse — nor yet to guard entirely against the continuity of the letters; for thus the composition will perhaps be smoother, but less musical and downright dull, having been robbed of the great euphony that arises from the clash.

We must first consider that usage itself strikes these letters together in words, although it especially aims at euphony, as in "Aeacus" and "snow" (chiōn). And it composes many words through vowels alone, like "Aeaeē" and "Euius," and these are no more unpleasant in sound than the others, but perhaps even more musical.

The poetic forms, indeed — such as "ēelios," divided and clashing on purpose — are more euphonious than "hēlios," and "oreōn" than "orōn" (of mountains). For the loosening and clashing has a kind of song supervening upon it. Many other words, too, harsh when spoken in elision, become more euphonious when divided and clashed, as in "All things that are young are also fair" (panta men ta nea kai kala estin). But if you should say it with elision, "kala 'stin," what is said will be more unpleasant in sound and cheaper.

In Egypt the priests hymn the gods through the seven vowels, sounding them one after another, and instead of the pipe and the lyre the sound of these letters is heard for its euphony, so that whoever removes the clash removes simply, as it were, a melody and music from the discourse. But this is perhaps not the time to expatiate on these matters.

In the grand style, clash would be fittingly admitted either through longs, as in "the rock up he pushed," for the verse acquired a certain length from the clash, and it imitated the lifting and force of the stone; likewise the Thucydidean "lest it be mainland." Diphthongs too clash with diphthongs, as in "This the Corcyraeans settled; and the founder was."

So the clash of the same longs produces grandeur, and so do the same diphthongs. But the clashes of different ones together produce both grandeur and variety from the diversity of sounds, as in "ēōs" (dawn); while in "hoiēn" (such) not only are the letters different, but the breathings too, the one rough, the other smooth, so that there is much unlikeness.

In songs, too, the trills are made on the one same long letter, as when songs are thrown upon songs, so that the clash of like letters will be a little part of a song and a trill. So much, then, about clashing, and how grand composition may arise.

There is grandeur in subject matter too, if there is a great and conspicuous land-battle or sea-fight, or a discourse about the heavens or the earth. For he who hears of a great subject at once supposes the speaker too to be speaking grandly, though he is mistaken; for one ought to consider not the things said but how they are said. For it is possible, by saying great things meanly, to make them unfitting to the subject. Hence some are said to be forceful, like Theopompus, who speak of forceful things without force.

Nicias the painter used to say this also was no small part of the painter's art: to take a subject of good size and paint it, and not to chop the art up into small things, such as little birds or flowers, but battles of horse and battles of ship, where one might show many postures of horses, some running, some standing upright in resistance, others crouching, and many men hurling javelins, and many of the riders falling; for he thought that the subject itself was a part of the painter's art, as the myths are of the poets'. No wonder, then, if in discourses too grandeur arises from great subjects.

The diction in this style ought to be elaborate and unusual and rather uncommon; for thus it will have bulk, whereas the proper and ordinary, though clear, is thin and contemptible.

First, then, one must use metaphors; for these above all contribute both pleasure and grandeur to discourse — not, however, densely, since then we are writing a dithyramb instead of prose; nor yet from far afield, but from the spot and from the like, as a general, a steersman, and a charioteer resemble one another, for all of these are rulers. So one will speak safely who calls the general the steersman of the city, and conversely who calls the steersman the ruler of the ship.

Not all metaphors, however, can be reversed, like those just mentioned. For though the poet could call the lower slope of Ida the "foot," he could not still call a man's foot the "lower slope."

When the metaphor seems risky, let it be turned into a simile; for thus it becomes safer. A simile is an extended metaphor, as if, in the case of Python the orator "flowing against you" at that time, one were to add and say "like one flowing against you." For thus a simile is made and the discourse is safer; in the other way it is a metaphor and more risky. This is why Plato seems to do something precarious in using metaphors rather than similes, whereas Xenophon uses similes rather.

Aristotle thinks the best metaphor is the so-called active one, when inanimate things are introduced doing something as though animate, as in the case of the arrow: "sharp-pointed, longing to fly into the crowd," and "swollen, white-crested." For all these — "white-crested" and "longing" — resemble living activities.

Some things, indeed, are said more clearly and more properly in metaphors than in the proper terms themselves, as in "the battle shuddered." For one could not, transforming it into proper terms, say it either more truly or more clearly. For the clash of spears and the soft sound continuously arising from them he called a "shuddering battle," and at the same time he has caught hold somehow of the active metaphor mentioned before, by saying the battle "shudders" as though it were a living thing.

One must not fail to notice, however, that some metaphors produce pettiness rather than grandeur, even though the metaphor is taken for the sake of bulk, as in "And about it the great heaven trumpeted." For one ought not to have likened the whole heaven resounding to a resounding trumpet — unless indeed one should plead on Homer's behalf, saying that the great heaven resounded as the whole heaven would resound if it trumpeted.

Let us consider, then, another metaphor that becomes a cause of smallness rather than grandeur. For one ought to transfer from the greater to the small, not the reverse, as when Xenophon says, "And as they marched, a part of the phalanx surged out." For he likened and named the swerving of the formation to a surging sea. But if anyone, transforming it, were to say "the sea phalanxed out," perhaps he would transfer it unsuitably, and in any case altogether pettily.

Some make their metaphors safe by adding epithets, when the metaphors seem to them risky, as Theognis applies to the bow a "stringless lyre," of one shooting with the bow; for the "lyre" is risky as applied to the bow, but by "stringless" it is made safe.

Usage, indeed, is in all other matters, and above all in metaphors, our teacher; for it transfers nearly everything without our noticing, because it transfers safely, calling a voice "white" and a man "sharp," a character "rough" and an orator "long," and all the rest that are thus musically transferred, so as to seem like proper terms.

This I lay down as the canon of metaphor in discourse — the art, or nature, of usage. For usage has so well transferred some things that we no longer have any need of the proper terms, but the metaphor has remained holding the place of the proper term, as "the eye of the vine," and any other such.

The "vertebra" (sphondylos), the "collarbone" (kleis), and the "comb" (ktenes) of the body, however, are not named by metaphor, but by resemblance, because the one part is like a comb, the other like a key, the other like a whorl.

When we make a metaphor into a simile, as said before, we must aim at brevity, and at setting down nothing beyond the "like"; otherwise, instead of a simile, there will be a poetic comparison, as in Xenophon's: "And as a noble hound rushes unwarily upon a boar, and as a horse let loose prances proudly through the plain, kicking up its heels." For these no longer resemble similes, but poetic comparisons.

Such comparisons must not be lightly set in prose, nor without the greatest caution. So much about metaphor, to speak summarily.

We must also take up compound words — not those put together dithyrambically, like "god-portended wanderings," nor "the spear-fiery host of the stars," but those resembling words put together by usage. For in general I make this the canon of all naming, the usage that says "lawgivers" and "master-builders," and safely puts together many other such words.

The compound word will have at once a certain variety from the composition, and grandeur, and at the same time a certain brevity. For a single word will be set in place of a whole phrase, as if you call the conveyance of grain "grain-conveyance"; for thus it is much greater. And perhaps if the word were undone into a phrase it might in another way become greater, as "conveyance of grain" instead of "grain-conveyance."

A single word is set in place of a phrase, as when Xenophon says, "It was not possible to take a wild ass unless the horsemen, standing apart, hunted it in relays" — by a word, as it were, "in relays," instead of saying, "some pursued from behind, while others rode forward to meet it, so that the ass was caught in the middle." One must guard, however, against setting double words doubly; for this passes beyond the kind that belongs to prose.

Coined words are defined as those uttered in imitation of an emotion or a thing, as "sizzled" and "lapping."

They produce grandeur above all because they resemble noises, and especially because of their strangeness; for the poet does not speak words that exist, but ones that come into being at the moment, and at the same time the coining of a new word appears as something clever, like that of usage. So the word-maker resembles those who first established the words.

We must aim first at clarity and naturalness in the coined word, and then at likeness to existing words, so that one may not seem to be talking Phrygian or Scythian in the midst of Greek words.

We must coin words either for the unnamed — as the man who called the drums and the other instruments of the effeminate "instruments of debauchery," and Aristotle "the elephant-driver" — or by deriving them from existing words, as someone called the man rowing a skiff (skaphē) a "skiffsman" (skaphitēs), and Aristotle "the alone-one" (autitēs), meaning him who is alone by himself.

Xenophon says, "the army raised the alala-cry" (ēlelixe), coining a word from the "eleleu" shout that the army shouted continuously. The thing is precarious, however, as I said, even for the poets themselves. And the double word too would be a species of coined word; for everything compounded has plainly come into being out of something.

Allegory too is something grand, and especially in threats, as Dionysius said, that "the cicadas shall sing to them from the ground."

If he had said it thus simply, that "he will lay waste the land of Locris," he would have appeared both more wrathful and meaner. But as it is, he has used the allegory as it were as a veil over the discourse; for everything hinted at is more terrifying, and one man conjectures one thing, another another; whereas what is clear and manifest is likely to be despised, like men stripped bare.

Hence the mysteries too are uttered in allegories, for amazement and shuddering, as in darkness and night. And allegory itself resembles darkness and night.

We must guard, however, even in this against the continuous use of it, lest the discourse become a riddle for us, like that about the medical cupping-glass: "I saw a man weld bronze upon a man with fire." The Spartans too said many things in allegories, terrifying their hearers, like the "Dionysius in Corinth" to Philip, and not a few other such.

Brevity is in one way grand, and especially aposiopesis; for some things, left unsaid, appear greater and are imagined the more. In another way it is petty. For grandeur arises even from repetition, as in Xenophon: "And the chariots were borne along, some through their own men, the friendly, and some through the very men of the enemy." For thus it is much greater than if he had said, "both through the friendly and through the enemy themselves."

Often, too, the oblique is greater than the direct, as in "The intention was that they should drive into the ranks of the Greeks and cut through them," instead of "they intended to drive in and cut through."

Resemblance of words contributes too, and apparent harshness; for the harsh is in many places weighty, as in "But great Ajax ever at Hector." For the clash of the two letters showed Ajax much greater than his sevenfold-hide shield.

The so-called epiphonema one might define as an expression that adorns; and it is the grandest thing in discourse. For of expression one part serves, the other adorns. The serving part is such as this: "As mountain shepherds tread the hyacinth beneath their feet"; the adorning part is what is brought on, "and on the ground its purple bloom." For this is brought upon what went before as a clear ornament and beauty.

Homer's poetry is full of these, as in: "He set it from the smoke, since it no longer resembled those that of old Odysseus left when he went to Troy. And besides, the god put yet this greater thing into his mind, lest, made drunk, raising a quarrel among yourselves, you wound one another." Then he adds the epiphonema: "For of itself iron draws a man on."

And in general the epiphonema resembles the displays of the rich — I mean cornices and triglyphs and broad purples; for it too is a kind of sign of wealth in discourse.

The enthymeme might seem to be a kind of epiphonema, though it is not; for it is taken up not for the sake of ornament, but of proof, except that it is added on in the manner of an epiphonema.

Likewise the maxim resembles something added by way of epiphonema upon what went before; but neither is this an epiphonema, for it is often spoken first, though it sometimes takes the place of an epiphonema.

The line "Fool, he was not destined to escape the evil fates," would not itself be an epiphonema either; for it is not added on, nor does it adorn, nor does it at all resemble an epiphonema, but rather an address or a taunt.

That the poetic quality in discourse is grand, even a blind man can see, as they say; except that some employ a quite naked imitation of the poets — or rather not imitation but transference, like Herodotus.

Thucydides, however, even if he takes something from a poet, by using it in his own way makes what he takes his own. For instance, the poet said of Crete, "There is a land, Crete, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, fair and rich, sea-girt." Now the poet used "sea-girt" with reference to greatness, whereas Thucydides thinks it fine for the Sicilians to be of one mind, being of one land and sea-girt; and though he said all the same things — "land" instead of "island" and "sea-girt" likewise — yet he seems to say something different, because he used it not with reference to greatness but to concord. So much, then, about grandeur.

Just as certain base things lie close to certain refined ones — as recklessness to courage, and shamelessness to modesty — so too, alongside the styles of expression, lie certain faulty kinds. First, then, we shall speak of the one that borders on the grand. Its name is "frigid," and Theophrastus defines the frigid thus: "The frigid is that which exceeds the expression proper to it," as in "A bottomless cup is not put on the table," instead of "A cup without a base is not set on the table." For the matter being small does not admit so great a bulk of expression.

Frigidity, too, like grandeur, arises in three things. For it arises in the thought, as in the case of the Cyclops hurling stones at the ship of Odysseus, when someone said that, as the stone was being borne along, "goats grazed upon it." For from the excess and impossibility of the thought comes frigidity.

In the expression, Aristotle says, it arises in four ways: as Alcidamas' "moist sweat." Or in the compound, when the doubling of the word is put together dithyrambically, as someone said "desert-wandering," and any other thing so overblown. Frigidity arises also in metaphor, "trembling and pale matters." So, then, in expression it would arise in four ways.

Composition is frigid when it is not rhythmical, but unrhythmical, and has longs throughout, as in this: "Having come to our land, all of ours being upright." For it has nothing prose-like nor steady, because of the continuity of the long syllables.

It is frigid, too, to set continuous metres, as some do, not concealed by the continuity; for an ill-timed poem is frigid, as is the overlong.

And in general, of whatever sort boastfulness is, of that sort too is frigidity. For just as the boaster vaunts of things not belonging to him as though they did belong, so the man who throws bulk around small matters resembles one boasting in small things. And of whatever sort the pestle decked out in the proverb is, of that sort too is the thing exalted in expression amid small matters.

Yet some say one ought to speak of small things grandly, and consider this a sign of surpassing power. For my part, I allow Polycrates the orator, eulogizing some such figure as Agamemnon in antitheses and metaphors and all the eulogistic devices; for he was at play, not in earnest, and the very bulk of the writing is itself a plaything. Let there be play, then, as I say; but in everything one must observe what is fitting, that is, express things suitably — small things meanly, great things grandly.

Thus Xenophon, of the river Teleboas, which was small and beautiful, says, "And this river was not large, but it was beautiful." For by the brevity of the composition and the close ending in the bare "but," he has all but shown us a small river. But someone else, expressing himself about a river like the Teleboas, said that "rising from the Lauric mountains it discharges into the sea," as though describing the Nile cascading down or the Ister pouring out. All such things, then, are called frigidity.

Yet small things become great in another way, not through impropriety, but sometimes from necessity: as when we wish to exalt a general who has won small successes as having won great ones; or, for instance, that an ephor in Lacedaemon scourged the man who played ball over-elaborately and not in the local fashion. For upon this matter, slight as it is to hear, we heighten the tone tragically, saying that those who tolerate small bad habits open a road to greater evils, and that one ought rather to punish small transgressions than great ones. And we shall bring in the proverb, "Well begun is half done," as fitting this small evil — or even that "no evil is small."

So in this way one may exalt even a small success as great, not, however, so as to do anything unfitting, but just as the great is often usefully diminished, so too the small might be exalted.

Hyperbole of all things is most frigid. It is of three kinds: it is uttered either by likeness, as in "running like the winds"; or by superiority, as in "whiter than snow"; or by impossibility, as in "her head she fixed in heaven."

Now every hyperbole is impossible; for nothing could be whiter than snow, nor anything like the wind in running. Yet that last hyperbole mentioned is specially called impossible. And it is precisely because every hyperbole resembles the impossible that it seems above all frigid.

For this very reason the comic poets too use it most, because from the impossible they draw the laughable, as when, exaggerating the greed of the Persians, someone said that "they shat out whole plains," and that "they carried oxen in their jaws."

Of the same kind are "balder than a calm sky" and "sounder than a gourd." But the Sapphic "more golden than gold" is itself also said in hyperbole and impossibly, except that by the very impossibility it has charm, not frigidity. And this above all one might marvel at in the divine Sappho, that she used a thing by nature risky and hard to bring off, with grace. So much, then, about frigidity and hyperbole. Now let us speak of the elegant style.

The elegant discourse is graceful and cheerful discourse. Of graces, some are greater and more dignified, those of the poets, and others rather cheap and more comic, resembling jests — such as the graces of Aristotle and Sophron and Lysias. For "you might more easily count her teeth than her fingers," about the old woman; and "he received as many drachmas as he deserved blows" — such witticisms differ in no way from jests, and are not far from buffoonery.

But this: "And with her the Nymphs together play; and Leto rejoices in her heart"; and "easily is she known; and all are fair" — these are the so-called dignified and great graces.

Homer uses them sometimes even for terror and emphasis, and when at play he is more terrible, and seems to have been the first to discover terrible graces, as in the case of the most graceless of persons, in the case of the Cyclops: "Noman I will eat last," and the rest first — the Cyclops' guest-gift. For he did not show him so terrible from anything else, when he dines on two of his companions, nor from his door-stone or his club, as from this witticism.

Xenophon too uses this kind, and himself introduces terrible effects out of graces, as in the case of the armed dancing-girl, when, asked by the Paphlagonian whether the women too fought along with them, he said: "These very ones routed the king." For from the grace a twofold terror appears: the one, that it was not women who followed them but Amazons; the other, against the king, that he was so weak as to flee before women.

Such, then, and so many, are the kinds of graces. Some are graces in the things themselves, as bridal gardens, marriage-songs, loves, the whole poetry of Sappho. For such things, even if uttered by Hipponax, are graceful, and the matter is of itself cheerful. For no one would sing a marriage-song in anger, nor make Eros a Fury or a giant by his expression, nor laughter weeping.

So there is a grace in the things, while expression also makes some things more graceful, as in: "As when the daughter of Pandareus, the green-throated nightingale, sings beautifully, at the new beginning of spring." For here both the nightingale is a graceful little bird, and spring is by nature graceful; but it is much adorned by the expression, and is more graceful by the calling of the bird "green-throated" and "the daughter of Pandareus," which are the poet's own.

Often, too, the things are by nature unpleasant and gloomy, but by the speaker become cheerful. This seems to have been first discovered by Xenophon. For taking a laughterless and gloomy character, Aglaitadas the Persian, he found out of him a graceful laugh, saying that "it is easier to strike fire from you than a laugh."

This is the most powerful grace, and especially in the speaker. For the matter was by nature gloomy and hostile to grace, like Aglaitadas himself; yet the speaker, as it were, shows that even out of such things one can make play — just as one may be chilled by heat, and warmed by cold things.

Now that the kinds of graces have been shown, what they are and in what they consist, let us next point out the sources from which the graces come. There were for us some in the expression, and some in the things. We shall point out, then, the sources under each head; and first those of the expression.

The first grace, then, is that which comes from brevity, when the same thing, drawn out, becomes graceless, but through speed becomes graceful, as in Xenophon: "In truth this man has no share in Greece, for I saw him, like a Lydian, with both ears pierced; and so it was." For the added phrase, "and so it was," makes the grace through its brevity; whereas if it had been drawn out at length — "that he was speaking the truth, for he was clearly pierced" — it would have become a bare narrative instead of a grace.

Often, too, two things are expressed through one to produce grace, as when, of the sleeping Amazon, someone said that "her bow lay strung, and her quiver full, the shield upon her head; but their girdles they do not loose." For in this both the law about the girdle is stated, and the fact that she did not loose her girdle — two things through a single expression. And from this brevity there is something elegant.

The second source is that from arrangement. For the same thing, placed first or in the middle, becomes graceless, but at the end graceful, as Xenophon says of Cyrus: "And he gives him gifts as well, a horse and a robe and a necklace, and that his land should no longer be plundered." For in these the last is what makes the grace, "that his land should no longer be plundered," because of the strangeness and peculiarity of the gift. The cause of the grace is the position. For if it had been placed first, it would have been less graceful, as in: "He gives him gifts, both that his land should no longer be plundered, and a horse and a robe and a necklace." But as it is, having mentioned first the customary gifts, he brought on last the strange and unusual one, out of all which the grace is gathered.

The graces from figures are clear and most abundant in Sappho, as from the anadiplosis, where the bride says to her maidenhood, "Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither are you gone, leaving me?" and the other answers her in the same figure, "Never again will I come to you, never again will I come." For more grace appears than if it had been said once and without the figure. And yet anadiplosis seems rather to have been invented for terrible effects, but Sappho turns even the most terrible to graceful use.

She is graceful too, sometimes, from anaphora, as in the case of the Evening Star: "Hesperus, you bring all things, she says, you bring the sheep, you bring the goat, you bring the child to its mother." For here too the grace comes from the word "you bring" referred again and again to the same point.

One might adduce many other graces too. There are graces also from a word, or from metaphor, as in the case of the cicada: "and from beneath its wings it pours a shrill song, whenever the flaming sun... it pipes upon, flying down."

Or from a compound and dithyrambic word: "Lord Pluto of the black wings, this terrible thing, before the wings, do it." These are above all comic playthings and satyric.

It arises too from an ordinary word, as in Aristotle: "For the more solitary I am, the more fond of myths I have become." And from a coined word, as the same author in the same work: "For the more I am an alone-one and solitary, the more fond of myths I have become." For "solitary" is of more ordinary usage, but "alone-one" is coined from "alone" (autos).

Many words, too, are graceful from being applied to something, as in "For this bird is a flatterer and a rogue." Here the grace comes from mocking the bird as if it were a man, and from setting unusual names upon the bird. Such graces, then, lie in the words themselves.

From comparison, of the man pre-eminent, Sappho says, "Pre-eminent, as when the Lesbian singer among foreigners." For here the comparison made grace rather than grandeur, though she might have said, "pre-eminent as the moon among the other stars," or "the sun, brighter," or whatever else is more poetic.

Sophron too, in the same kind, says, "Behold, how many leaves and twigs the boys pelt the men with, even as, they say, my dear, the Trojans pelted Ajax with mud." For here too the comparison is graceful, mocking the Trojans, as it were, like boys.

There is a grace peculiarly Sapphic, from change, when, having said something, she alters it and, as it were, repents, as she says, "Raise high the roof, builders; the bridegroom enters, equal to Ares, far greater than a great man" — as though catching herself, because she had used an impossible hyperbole, and because no one is equal to Ares.

Of the same kind too is the passage about Telemachus, that "two hounds were tied before the courtyard, and I can even tell the names of the hounds; but what would these names mean to me?" For here too, changing midway, he made his witticism by passing the names over in silence.

Grace arises too from another's verse, as when Aristophanes, mocking Zeus somewhere because he does not blast the wicked with his thunderbolt, says that "he strikes his own temple, and Sunium, the height of Athens." For thus it is no longer Zeus that seems to be mocked, but Homer and the Homeric verse, and from this the grace is the greater.

Some allegories too have something glib about them, as in "Delphians, your hound carries off your child." And the words of Sophron about old men: "Here I too, among you my fellows of like hair, ride at anchor, expecting a sea-voyage; for the anchors are already ready for men of such an age." And all that he allegorizes about women, as of fish: "Razor-shells, the sweet-fleshed cockle, the dainty of widow women." Such things are more mimic and shameful.

There is also a grace from the unexpected, as the Cyclops': "I will eat Noman last." For neither Odysseus nor the reader expected such a guest-gift. And Aristophanes, of Socrates, says, "Having melted wax, then taking a pair of compasses, he filched a cloak from the wrestling-school."

Here, indeed, the grace arose from two sources. For it was not only brought on unexpectedly, but it also did not follow from what went before; and such inconsequence is called a "riddle," like the Boulias who plays orator in Sophron. For he says nothing consequent with himself; and likewise the prologue of the Messenian Woman in Menander.

Often, too, similar clauses produced grace, as in Aristotle: "From Athens, he says, I came to Stageira because of the great king; from Stageira to Athens because of the great storm." For by ending both clauses in the same word he made the grace. But if you cut "great" from one clause, you take away the grace along with it.

And hidden accusations sometimes resemble graces, as in Xenophon, where Heracleides, the man with Seuthes, going up to each of the fellow-diners, persuades them to give Seuthes whatever they have; for this shows a certain grace and is at the same time a hidden accusation.

Such, then, and so many, are the graces of expression and their sources. In the things themselves, graces are taken from proverbs. For a proverb is by nature a graceful thing, as Sophron says, "Epioles, who strangled his father." And elsewhere he says, "For he painted the lion from the claw"; "he carved a ladle"; "he sawed cumin." For he uses two or three proverbs in succession, so that his graces are multiplied upon him; and one could pick out nearly all the proverbs from his dramas.

A fable too, taken up at the right moment, is graceful, either an existing one, as Aristotle says of the eagle, that it dies of hunger, its beak curving in upon itself; and it suffers this because, being once a man, it wronged a stranger. So he has used an existing and common fable.

But we also invent many fables ourselves, suitable and proper to our subjects, as someone, speaking of the cat, said that it wastes away with the moon and grows fat with it, and added the invention that hence comes the fable that the moon gave birth to the cat. For not only in the very invention will there be grace, but the fable too shows something graceful, making the cat the moon's child.

Often, too, grace arises from fear transformed, when one is frightened for nothing, as at a strap as if it were a serpent, or an oven as if it were a chasm of the earth — which things too are more comic.

Likenings too are graceful, if you liken the cock to a Mede, because it bears its crest upright; and to the king, because it is purple, or because, when the cock crows, we leap up as at the king's command, and are afraid.

From hyperboles especially come the graces in comedies, every hyperbole being impossible, as Aristophanes, of the greed of the Persians, says that "they roasted oxen in the oven instead of loaves." And of the Thracians another says that "Medoces the king carried a whole ox in his jaw."

Of the same kind too are such things as "sounder than a gourd," and "balder than a calm sky," and the Sapphic "far sweeter-singing than a lyre," "more golden than gold." For all such graces are found from hyperboles.

The laughable and the graceful differ first in their material. For the material of graces is bridal gardens, loves, which are not laughed at; but of laughter, Irus and Thersites. So they will differ as much as Thersites from Eros.

They differ also in the expression itself. For the graceful is brought out with ornament and through beautiful words, which above all make the graces, as in "the much-crowned earth is variously adorned," and "the green-throated nightingale"; whereas the laughable consists of cheap and more common words, as in "For the more I am an alone-one and solitary, the more fond of myths I have become."

Further, the laughable is made to vanish by the ornament of the expression, and instead of laughable becomes a marvel. The graces are accompanied by moderation; but to express laughable things in detail is like decking out an ape.

Hence Sappho, when she sings of beauty, is herself beautiful in her words and sweet, and so of loves and spring and the halcyon; and every beautiful word is woven into her poetry, some of which she herself wrought.

But she mocks the boorish bridegroom and the doorkeeper at the wedding in a very cheap way, and in prosaic rather than poetic words, so that these poems of hers are more to be spoken than sung, nor would they suit a chorus or the lyre, unless there were some conversational chorus.

They differ most of all in intention. For the graceful man and the buffoon do not intend the same thing, but the one to give delight, the other to be laughed at. And from their consequences too; for the one gets laughter, the other praise.

And from their place. For in the one place are the arts of laughter and of graces, in the satyr-play and in comedies. Tragedy admits graces in many places, but laughter is an enemy of tragedy; for no one would conceive of a tragedy at play, since he would be writing a satyr-play instead of a tragedy.

The prudent will sometimes use laughable things, for suitable occasions, as at festivals and at banquets, and even in rebukes addressed to the more luxurious, as "the far-shining bag," and the poetry of Crates, and if someone should read a "Praise of Lentil-soup" among prodigals. Such, for the most part, is the Cynic manner too; for such laughable things take the rank of useful counsel and of a maxim.

There is also a revelation of character from laughable things, of either playfulness or licentiousness, as when someone, checking the wine that had been poured out, called it "Peleus" instead of "Oeneus." For the antithesis about the words and the care show a certain frigidity of character and ill-breeding.

As for jests — a jest is a kind of likening; for the antithesis is witty. They will use such likenings, as "an Egyptian vine-shoot," of a tall, dark man, and "the sea-sheep," of the fool in the sea. Such things they will use; otherwise we shall shun jests as we shun abuse.

What are called beautiful words also make the expression graceful. Theophrastus defined them thus: "The beauty of a word is that which is pleasant to the hearing or to the sight, or that which is honourable to the understanding."

Pleasant to the sight are such as these: "rose-coloured," "of flower-bearing hue." For all things seen with pleasure are also beautiful when spoken. Pleasant to the hearing is "Callistratus," "Annoön"; for the clash of the lambdas has something resonant, and so does that of the letter nu.

And in general the Athenians drag in the nu for euphony, saying "Demosthenēn" and "Sōkratēn." Honourable to the understanding are such words as "the ancients" (archaioi) rather than "the old" (palaioi); for the ancient men are more honoured.

Among the musicians one word is called smooth, another rough, another well-compacted, another bulky. A smooth word is one that goes through vowels, either all or most, like "Aias"; a rough one, like "bebrōken" ("he has devoured"); and this rough word too is brought out in imitation of itself. The well-compacted is the one ambiguous between the two and mixed equally in its letters.

The bulky lies in three things: breadth, length, and shaping, as "bronta" instead of "brontē" (thunder); for it has roughness from the first syllable, and from the second both length, through the long, and breadth, through the Dorism; for the Dorians pronounce all things broadly. This is why they did not perform comedy in Doric, but acted Attic with a sharp edge; for the Attic tongue has something compact and democratic about it, and suited to such wit.

Let these things be technically noted in passing. Of the words mentioned, the smooth alone must be taken, as having something elegant.

Elegance arises also from composition. Now it is not easy to speak of such a manner; for none of our predecessors has spoken of elegant composition. Nevertheless, as far as is possible, the attempt must be made.

For there will perhaps be a certain pleasure and grace if we fit the composition together out of metres, either whole or half — not, however, so that they appear as metres in the linking of the words, but so that, if one were to separate and distinguish each one by one, then indeed they would be detected by us as being metres.

And even if it be only metre-like, it will produce the same grace; and the grace from such pleasure slips in unobserved. This kind is most abundant among the Peripatetics and in Plato and in Xenophon and Herodotus, and perhaps in Demosthenes too in many places; but Thucydides has shunned the kind.

One might take such examples as this, in Dicaearchus: "In Elea, he says, of Italy, being already of advanced age" — for the endings of both clauses have something metre-like, but by the linking and the connection the metrical quality is hidden, while no little pleasure attends it.

Plato, indeed, in many places is elegant by the very rhythm, somewhat extended, and having neither a firm seat nor length; for the plain is also the forceful, and length is grand. But the clauses are like something gliding, neither wholly in metre nor without metre, as in the discourse on music when he says, "We were just now saying."

And again: "humming and brightened by the song, he passes his whole life." And again: "and at first, if he had any spirited quality, like iron he softened it." For thus it is elegant and clearly song-like; but if you should reverse it and say, "he softened it like iron," or "he passes his whole life," you pour out the grace of the discourse, which lies in the rhythm itself; for it lies neither in the thought nor in the words.

And about the musical instruments again he has fitted things together gracefully, where he says, "a lyre, then, is left to you in the city"; for if you should reverse it and say "in the city it is left," you will make it like a man re-tuned. And he adds this: "and again in the country, for the shepherds there might be some pipe." For by the extension and the length he has very gracefully imitated, in a way, the sound of a pipe. This will be plain if one should recompose and so speak this too.

So much, then, about elegance as it appears in composition, difficult as the subject is. We have spoken too of the elegant style, in what respects and how it arises. Just as the frigid style lay beside the grand, so beside the elegant lies a certain faulty one. I name it by the common term "affected" (cacozelon, "bad-mannered"). It too would arise in three things, like all the rest.

In the thought, as the man who said "a Centaur riding himself"; and of Alexander deliberating whether to compete in the race at Olympia, someone said thus: "Alexander, run the name of your mother" (Olympias).

In the words it would arise thus, as in "Somewhere a sweet-hued rose laughed"; for both the metaphor "laughed" is very unfittingly transferred, and the compound "sweet-hued" no one in his right mind would set even in a poem. Or as someone said that "with light breezes the pine whistled." So much, then, about the expression.

Anapaestic composition is affected, and especially that which resembles the broken and indecent metres, like the Sotadean above all, because of its softness, as "Having dried up with heat, cover him," and "Brandishing the Pelian ash upon the right shoulder" instead of "brandishing the Pelian ash along the right shoulder." For the verse resembles something transformed, like those said in the myths to change from male to female. So much also about affectation.

As for the plain style, we may perhaps have certain subjects too that are small and suited to the style, as in Lysias: "I have a little house of two storeys, the upper equal to the lower." The whole expression ought to be in the proper and ordinary terms; for the more ordinary is the smaller of all, and the unusual and transferred is grand.

One should set down neither double words — for these belong to the opposite style — nor coined ones, nor anything else that makes for grandeur; but above all the expression ought to be clear. And clarity lies in many things.

First in proper words, then in connected ones. For what is without conjunctions and wholly disjointed is altogether unclear; for the beginning of each clause is uncertain because of the disjunction, as in the writings of Heraclitus; for these too the disjunction makes obscure for the most part.

Disjointed expression is perhaps more suited to debate, and the same is also called the actor's style; for disjunction provokes acting. But the written style is the easily readable one, and this is the connected style, secured as it were by the conjunctions. For this reason actors perform Menander, who is disjointed in most places, while they read Philemon.

That disjunction belongs to the actor's style, let this example be set down: "I conceived, I bore, I rear him, dear one." For so disjointed it will compel even the unwilling man to act, because of the disjunction. But if you should connect it and say, "I conceived and bore and rear him," you will throw in along with the conjunctions much impassivity. And the impassive is altogether unactable.

There are other actor's devices too, like the Ion in Euripides, who snatches up his bow and threatens the swan, the bird that fouls the statues. For the running to the bow and the upward gaze of his face as it speaks to the swan, and all the rest of the figuring, is contrived for the actor. But our present discourse is not about acting.

Clear writing should shun ambiguities too, and should use the figure called epanalepsis. Epanalepsis is the repetition of the same conjunction in clauses brought on at long intervals, as in: "All that Philip did, and how he subdued Thrace, and took the Chersonese, and besieged Byzantium, and did not give back Amphipolis — these I shall pass over." For the conjunction brought on again has all but reminded us of the proposition and set us back at the beginning.

For the sake of clarity, too, one must often say a thing twice; for what is briefer is somehow more pleasant than what is clearer; for just as men passing by are sometimes overlooked, so too the expression is misheard because of its speed.

One should shun oblique constructions too; for this is also unclear, like the diction of Philistus. A briefer example of oblique and therefore unclear diction is the one in Xenophon: "And that he heard triremes were sailing round from Ionia to Cilicia, with Tamos holding those of the Lacedaemonians and of Cyrus himself." For this would be said in the direct way somewhat thus: "Many triremes were expected at Cilicia, many Laconian, many Persian, built for Cyrus for this very purpose. They were sailing from Ionia; and a captain, Tamos the Egyptian, was set over them." It became longer thus, perhaps, but clearer.

And in general one should use the natural order of words, as in "Epidamnus is a city on the right as you sail into the Ionian gulf"; for first is named the thing about which, then what it is — that it is a city — and the rest in succession.

The reverse might be done too, as in "There is a city, Ephyre." For we do not approve this order in every case, nor disapprove the other; we are merely setting out the natural kind of order.

In narratives one must begin either from the nominative, "Epidamnus is a city," or from the accusative, as in "It is said that Epidamnus, the city..." The other cases will furnish a certain obscurity and torment both to the speaker himself and to the hearer.

One must try not to extend the circuits to great length: "For the Achelous, flowing from Mount Pindus, above by the city of Stratus passes through to the sea" — but to break off then and give the hearer rest, thus: "For the Achelous flows from Mount Pindus, and goes out into the sea"; for it is much clearer thus, like roads that have many signposts and many resting-places. For the signposts resemble guides, whereas the unmarked and monotonous road, even if it be short, seems uncertain.

So much, then, about clarity — a little out of much — and one must use it above all in plain discourse.

In the composition of this style one must shun first the lengths of clauses; for all length is grand, just as among the metres the hexameter is called heroic from its greatness and fitting for heroes, while the New Comedy has contracted itself into the trimeter.

So for the most part we shall use trimeter clauses and sometimes phrases, as Plato says, "I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon"; for the resting-points and pauses are frequent. And Aeschines: "We were sitting, he says, on the seats in the Lyceum, where the stewards of the games arrange the contest."

The ends of the clauses ought to have a secure seat and base, as in the passages quoted; for the extensions at the close are grand, like those of Thucydides, "The river Achelous, flowing from Mount Pindus," and what follows.

One must shun, then, in this style the clashes of long letters and of diphthongs; for all extension is bulky. And if anywhere shorts must clash with shorts, as in "All things that are young are fair"; or shorts with longs, as in "ēelios"; or somehow through shorts. And in general such a manner of expression appears contemptible and commonplace, and made for these very ends.

Let it shun, too, conspicuous figures; for everything marked is unusual and not commonplace. But this style will above all admit vividness and persuasiveness. Of vividness, then, and of persuasiveness we must speak.

First about vividness. Vividness arises first from precise detail and from omitting and cutting out nothing, as in "And as when a man, a channel-cutter," and that whole comparison; for it has vividness from everything that happens being told, and nothing left out.

And the horse-race for Patroclus, in the passage where he says, "with the breath of Eumelus his back," and "for ever they seemed as though about to mount his chariot." All this is vivid from nothing being omitted of the things happening and that happened.

So that often repetition produces vividness rather than saying a thing once, as in "And while he was living you spoke ill of him, and now that he is dead you write ill of him." For "ill," set down twice, signifies the slander more vividly.

As for what they charge Ctesias with, that he is too garrulous because of his repetitions, in many places perhaps they charge him rightly, but in many they fail to perceive the man's vividness; for he sets down the same thing because by often doing so he makes more impression.

Such are passages like this: "A certain Stryangaeus, a Median man, having thrown a Sacian woman from her horse — for the women among the Sacae fight like the Amazons — beholding the Sacian woman fair and in her bloom, let her go to save herself. And after this, when a truce was made, falling in love with the woman, he failed of his desire. He resolved to starve himself; but first he writes a letter to the woman, reproaching her, of this sort: 'I saved you, and you indeed were saved through me; but I through you am undone.'"

Here perhaps someone fancying himself a man of few words would object that "I saved" and "you were saved through me" were set down twice to no purpose; for both mean the same thing. But if you should take away one, you take away the vividness too, and the passion that comes from the vividness. And the following "I am undone" instead of "I am being undone" is more vivid by its very completion; for the accomplished fact is more terrible than the future or the still-becoming.

And in general this writer — one might fairly call him a poet — is a craftsman of vividness in his whole writing.

As in such passages: one must not at once tell things that have happened — that they happened — but little by little, keeping the hearer in suspense and compelling him to share the anxiety. Ctesias does this in his report about Cyrus' death. For the messenger, on coming, does not at once say that Cyrus has died, before Parysatis — for this is the so-called "speech from the Scythians"; rather he first reported that Cyrus is victorious, and she rejoiced and was anxious. After this she asks, "And how fares the king?" He says, "He has fled." And she rejoins, "For this Tissaphernes is to blame to him." And again she asks, "And where is Cyrus now?" The messenger answers, "Where good men ought to bivouac." Going on little by little and step by step, barely at last, as the saying is, he broke it out — most expressively in character and vividly, both showing the messenger reporting the calamity unwillingly, and throwing the mother into anxiety, and the hearer too.

Vividness also arises from telling the concomitants of things, as someone said of the boor walking, that "the noise of his feet was heard from afar as he approached, as though he were not walking, but as it were kicking the earth."

And what Plato says of Hippocrates, "blushing — for day had already begun to show somewhat — so that he became visible," that this is most vivid is plain to everyone; and the vividness has arisen from the care about the account and from recalling that Hippocrates had come to him by night.

Cacophony too is often vivid, as in "He smote, and out the brain," and "and many an up-slope, down-slope"; for by the cacophony it has imitated the unevenness; and all imitation has something vivid.

Coined words too produce vividness, through being brought out in imitation, as "lapping." But if he had said "drinking," he would neither have imitated the dogs drinking, nor would any vividness have arisen. And the "with their tongues" added to "lapping" makes the passage yet more vivid. So much about vividness, to speak summarily.

Persuasiveness lies in two things, in the clear and in the ordinary; for the unclear and the unusual is unpersuasive. So one must pursue, in persuasiveness, an expression that is neither elaborate nor overblown, and likewise a composition that is steady and has nothing rhythm-like.

Persuasiveness lies in these, then, and in what Theophrastus says, that one ought not to discourse at full length and with precision about everything, but to leave some things for the hearer too to understand and reckon out for himself. For when he has understood what was left out by you, he becomes not merely your hearer but your witness, and at the same time more well-disposed. For he thinks himself intelligent through you, who gave him the occasion to understand; whereas to tell everything as to a fool is like passing judgment that the hearer is witless.

Since the epistolary style too requires plainness, we shall speak about it as well. Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle, says that one ought to write a dialogue and letters in the same manner, for the letter is, as it were, one half of the dialogue.

And he says something, perhaps, but not the whole. For the letter ought to be somewhat more carefully wrought than the dialogue; for the dialogue imitates a man speaking offhand, whereas the letter is written and sent as a gift, in a way.

Who, then, would converse with a friend as Aristotle does, writing to Antipater on behalf of the exiled old man, when he says, "But if this man is gone, an exile to all the ends of the earth, so as not to be brought back, it is plain that no one grudges those who wish to go down to Hades"? For one who converses thus resembles a man making a display rather than talking.

Frequent disjunctions, too, do not befit letters; for disjunction is unclear in writing, and the imitative quality is not so proper to writing as to debate, as in the Euthydemus: "Who was it, Socrates, with whom you were conversing yesterday in the Lyceum? Surely a great crowd stood round you." And a little further on he adds, "But he seems to me to be some stranger, the man you were conversing with; who was it?" For all such expression and imitation would befit an actor rather than written letters.

Let the letter have a great deal of the ethical character, like the dialogue; for nearly everyone writes a kind of image of his own soul in the letter. From every other kind of discourse too one can see the character of the writer, but from none so well as from a letter.

Let the size of the letter be kept within bounds, as also the expression. Those that are too long, and moreover too bulky in their expression, would not in truth be letters, but treatises with "Greetings" written at the head — like many of Plato's, and that of Thucydides.

And let it be rather loosely constructed; for it is absurd to build periods, as though one were writing not a letter but a forensic speech. And it is not merely absurd, but not even friendly, to practice such things in letters, when, as the proverb says, one should be "calling figs figs."

One must know that not only the expression but also certain subjects are epistolary. Aristotle, at any rate, who seems above all to have succeeded in the epistolary, says, "This I do not write to you, for it was not epistolary."

For if anyone should write sophistries and natural philosophy in a letter, he writes indeed, but he does not write a letter. For the letter aims to be a kind of brief friendly greeting, and the setting-out of a simple matter in simple words.

Its beauty lies in friendly courtesies and in the close-set proverbs in it; and let this alone of cleverness be in it, since the proverb is something popular and common, whereas the man who utters maxims and exhorts seems no longer to be talking through a letter, but from a stage-machine.

Aristotle, however, sometimes uses even proofs in an epistolary way, as when, wishing to teach that one ought to do good to great cities and small alike, he says, "For the gods are equal in both; so that, since the Graces are goddesses, equal ones will be laid up for you with both." For both what he proves is epistolary, and the proof itself.

Since we sometimes write to cities and to kings, let such letters be a little elevated. For one must take into account the person to whom one writes; elevated, however, not so as to be a treatise instead of a letter, like the letters of Aristotle to Alexander, and Plato's to the kinsfolk of Dion.

In general let the letter be mixed, in respect of expression, out of these two styles, the graceful and the plain. So much about the letter, and at the same time about the plain style.

Beside the plain too lies a faulty style, the so-called dry. This too arises in three things. In the thought, as someone said of Xerxes, that "Xerxes came down with all his own folk." For he greatly diminished the matter, saying "with all his own folk" instead of "with all Asia."

The dry arises in the expression when one reports a great matter in small words, as the Gadarene does of the sea-fight at Salamis; and of Phalaris the tyrant someone said, "For Phalaris was annoying the Acragantines somewhat." For so great a sea-fight, and the savagery of tyrants, one ought not to express by the word "somewhat" nor by "annoying," but in great words befitting the underlying matter.

The dry arises in composition either when the phrases are dense, as in the Aphorisms: "Life is short, but art is long, the moment is fleeting, experience treacherous"; or when, in a great matter, the clause is cut short and not full, as when someone, accusing Aristides because he did not come to the sea-fight at Salamis but came uninvited, said that "Demeter came and fought at sea too, but Aristides did not." For the cutting-off is both unfitting and untimely. Such cuttings-off must be used in other contexts.

Often, indeed, the thought itself is frigid and, as we now call it, affected, but the composition is cut short and steals away the offensiveness of the thought, as in the case of the man who lay with a dead woman, when someone said that "he does not, in turn, lie with the woman." For the thought is plain even to a blind man, they say, but the composition, contracted, somehow steals the offence of the matter, and produces what now has the name "dry affectation," compounded of two faults: of affectation through the matter, and of dryness through the composition.

And the points about forcefulness would now be clear from what has been said before, that it too would arise in the three things in which the previous styles arise. For some subjects are of themselves forceful, so that those who speak of them seem forceful, even if they do not speak forcefully, as Theopompus, speaking of the flute-girls in the Piraeus and the brothels and the flute-players and singers and dancers — all these being forceful words, even though he spoke weakly, seems forceful.

In respect of composition, this style would arise first if it should have phrases instead of clauses; for length dissolves vehemence, whereas much shown in little is more forceful. An example is the "Of the Lacedaemonians to Philip, Dionysius in Corinth"; but if they had drawn it out, "Dionysius, fallen from his rule, lives as a beggar in Corinth teaching letters," it would have been a narrative almost rather than an abuse.

In other matters too the Spartans were by nature brief in speech; for the brief and commanding is more forceful, whereas long-windedness suits entreating and begging.

Hence symbols too have forcefulness, because they resemble brief sayings; for from what is briefly said one must infer the most, as from symbols. So too the "From the ground the cicadas shall sing to you" is more forceful, said allegorically, than if it were said plainly, "Your trees shall be cut down."

The periods, indeed, must be tightly drawn at the end; for the circuit is forceful, whereas the loose ending is simpler and a sign of an honest character, like the whole of the ancient style; for the ancients were simple.

So in forcefulness one must shun the archaic, both in character and in rhythm, and take refuge above all in the forcefulness now in fashion. So the layings-down of clauses such as "I agreed to support these men as far as I am able" hold closely to the rhythm I have mentioned.

A certain violence in the composition also produces forcefulness; for in many places the ill-sounding too is forceful, like uneven roads. An example is the Demosthenic "that you should have it in your power to give to you."

Antitheses and parallelisms in periods must be shunned; for they produce bulk, not forcefulness, and in many places frigidity instead of forcefulness, as Theopompus, speaking against the companions of Philip, dissolved the force by the antithesis, saying, "Murderers by nature, they were panders in their ways." For through the over-artistry — or rather bad artistry — the hearer's attention is drawn off and he falls outside all anger.

Yet often, as it were compelled by the very matters, we shall compose roundly and forcefully, as in that Demosthenic passage: "For just as, if any of those men had been convicted, you would not have written these things, so, if you are now convicted, no other will write them." For the very matter and its order had clearly a composition grown together with it, and not even by force could anyone easily have composed it otherwise. For in many matters we compose, like men running down a slope, dragged along by the very things.

It is productive of forcefulness, too, to set the most forceful thing at the end; for, enclosed in the middle, it is blunted, as in the Antisthenic, "for a man will be pained, all but, who rises from brushwood." For if one should recompose it thus, "for a man rising from brushwood will, all but, be pained," though he says the same thing, he will no longer be thought to say the same.

The antithesis I spoke of in the case of Theopompus did not suit the Demosthenic passages either, where he says, "You initiated, but I was initiated; you taught, but I attended; you played third parts, but I was a spectator; you broke down, but I hissed." For he resembles a man practicing bad artistry through the correspondence, or rather playing, not being indignant.

Density of periods suits forcefulness, though in the remaining styles it is unsuitable; for, set down continuously, it will be likened to a metre spoken in succession, and that a forceful metre, like the limping iambics.

Yet let them be at once dense and brief — I mean of two clauses; since, being of many clauses, they will furnish beauty rather than forcefulness.

Brevity is so useful to the style that even to fall silent is in many places more forceful, as Demosthenes: "But I — I do not wish to say anything harsh — this man accuses out of his abundance." Almost the man who fell silent here is more forceful than any speaker would have been.

And, by the gods, obscurity too is in many places forcefulness; for what is hinted at is more forceful, whereas what is unfolded is despised.

There is a case where cacophony produces forcefulness, and especially if the underlying matter requires it, like the Homeric "And the Trojans shuddered, when they saw the gleaming serpent." For one might have saved the metre by speaking more euphoniously, "And the Trojans shuddered, when they saw the gleaming serpent" (in altered order); but then neither would the speaker have seemed forceful, nor the serpent itself.

Following this example, then, we shall aim also at the other like effects, as, instead of "he would have written all," "all he would have written"; and instead of "he was not present," "present he was not."

Sometimes, too, we may end even in conjunctions, "de" or "te," though one is enjoined to avoid such an ending; yet in many places such a thing would be useful, as in "He did not praise him, though he deserved it, but dishonoured him"; or as in "Schoenus and Scolus." But in the Homeric passages the ending in conjunctions produced grandeur.

It might sometimes also produce forcefulness, if one should say thus, "And he overturned, out of his folly and out of his impiety, both things sacred and things holy." For in general smoothness and pleasantness of sound belong to elegance, not to forcefulness; and these styles seem most opposed.

Yet often, from playfulness mingled in, a certain forcefulness appears, as in comedies, and all the Cynic manner, as in Crates' "There is a city, Wallet, in the midst of the wine-dark vapour."

And Diogenes' saying at Olympia, when, the runner in armour having run, Diogenes himself ran on and proclaimed himself victor in the Olympic games over all men in nobility. For the saying is at once laughed at and admired, and bites gently, somehow, when spoken.

And what he said to the handsome youth: for as Diogenes wrestled with a fair boy, he was somehow stirred, and when the boy, frightened, leapt away, "Take heart, my child," he said; "I am not like that." For the surface of the saying is laughable, but the hidden suggestion is forceful. And in general, to put it briefly, the whole kind of Cynic discourse resembles something that fawns and bites at once.

The orators too will sometimes use it, and have used it: Lysias, against the man in love with the old woman, saying that "it was easier to count her teeth than her fingers"; for he showed the old woman both most forcefully and most laughably. And Homer with the "Noman I will eat last," as written above.

As for how forcefulness might arise from figures too, let us speak. From the figures of thought, then, first from what is called paraleipsis, thus: "Olynthus indeed and Methone and Apollonia and thirty-two cities on the Thracian coast I pass over." For in this he has both said everything he wished, and says that he passes them over, as having other and more forceful things to say.

And the aposiopesis mentioned before, holding to the same character, will make the discourse more forceful.

As a figure of thought, what is called prosopopoeia might be taken up for forcefulness, as "Imagine that your ancestors reproach you and say such and such things," or Greece, or the fatherland, taking the form of a woman.

As in the funeral oration Plato says, "O children, that you are of good fathers," speaking not from his own person, but from that of the fathers; for things appear much more vivid and forceful from the persons, or rather become simply dramas.

The kinds and figures of thought, then, might be taken up as has been said; for the examples mentioned are so many for the sake of illustration. As for the figures of expression, by selecting them with more variety one can make the discourse more forceful — both from the anadiplosis, as "Thebes, Thebes, a neighbouring city, has been snatched up out of the midst of Greece"; for the name spoken twice produces forcefulness.

And from what is called anaphora, as in "Against yourself you call, against the laws you call, against the democracy you call." This figure mentioned is threefold; for it is anaphora, as has been said, because the same word is referred back to the same beginning; and asyndeton, for it is spoken without conjunctions; and homoeoteleuton, through the recurring ending in "you call." And forcefulness is gathered from the three. But if one should say thus, "Against yourself and the laws and the democracy you call," together with the figures he will take away the forcefulness too.

Above all things one must know that disjunction is the worker of forcefulness, as in "He walks through the marketplace puffing out his cheeks, raising his brows, stepping in time with Pythocles." For if these be joined with conjunctions, they will be milder.

The so-called climax might also be taken up, as in Demosthenes: "I did not say these things and then not write them; nor did I write them and then not go on the embassy; nor did I go on the embassy and then not persuade the Thebans." For the discourse all but resembles a man climbing ever higher upon higher things; but if one should say these things thus, "Having spoken and written, I went on the embassy and persuaded the Thebans," he will speak a narrative only, but nothing forceful.

And in general the figures of expression furnish the speaker with acting and contention, especially the disjointed — that is, forcefulness. So much about figures of both kinds.

Let all the diction be taken up that is taken in the grand style too, except not toward the same end; for it is possible by metaphors also to make forceful effects, as in "to Python, who is bold and flows in full flood against you."

And by speaking similes, as in the Demosthenic, "This decree caused the danger that then beset the city to pass by, like a cloud."

Comparisons are not suited to forcefulness, because of their length, as in "And as a noble hound, untrained, rushes unwarily upon a boar"; for a beauty and a certain precision appears in these, whereas forcefulness wishes for something vehement and brief, and resembles men striking from close at hand.

Forcefulness arises from a compound word too, as usage too compounds many words forcefully, "the streetwalker" and "the half-struck" and any other such; and among the orators too one might find many such.

One should try to speak words fittingly to the matters, as, of the man who acted by force and villainy, "he forced his way through"; of the man who acted by force and openly and with desperation, "he cut out, he tore away"; of the man who acted craftily and secretly, "he bored through," or "slipped through," or any such word suited to the matters.

To be lifted up somehow, when taken up, produces not only grandeur but also forcefulness, as in "One must not speak with the hand inside, Aeschines, but go on an embassy with the hand inside."

And the "But that man, who appropriated Euboea." For the rising up is not for the sake of making the discourse great, but forceful. And this happens when, lifted up midway, we accuse someone; for as it were the accusation is of Aeschines, but it is Philip's.

It is forceful, too, to say some things asking the hearers, and not declaring, as in "But that man, who appropriated Euboea and built a fortress against Attica — in doing these things was he wronging us and breaking the peace, or not?" For he as it were brings the hearer into a difficulty, resembling a man being refuted and having nothing to answer. But if one should alter it and say, "He was wronging us and breaking the peace," he would resemble a man teaching plainly, not refuting.

The so-called dwelling (epimone) is expression beyond the matter, and would contribute greatly to forcefulness; an example of it is the Demosthenic, "For a disease, Athenians, a terrible one, has fallen upon Greece" — it would not have been so forceful otherwise.

Perhaps the so-called euphemism too would share in forcefulness, both the man who makes ill-omened things well-omened, and impieties pieties, as the man who urged that the golden Victories be melted down and the money spent on the war did not say it offhand, "Let us cut up the Victories for the war"; for so it would have been ill-omened and like one abusing the goddesses; but more auspiciously, "We shall make use of the Victories for the war"; for so spoken it does not resemble one cutting up the Victories, but one making them into allies.

The sayings of Demades too are forceful, although they seem to have a peculiar and strange manner; and their forcefulness arises from the suggestions, and from something allegorical taken up, and thirdly from hyperbole.

Such is "Alexander is not dead, Athenians; for the inhabited world would stink of the corpse." For the "would stink" instead of "would perceive" is at once allegorical and hyperbolic; and that the inhabited world should perceive is expressive of the power of Alexander; and at the same time the saying has something astounding, gathered from the three; and all astonishment is forceful, since it is fearful.

Of the same kind are "This decree I did not write, but the war wrote it with Alexander's spear"; and "The Macedonian power, having lost Alexander, resembles the blinded Cyclops."

And elsewhere, "a city, not the one of our ancestors that fought at sea, but an old woman, wearing sandals and slurping barley-gruel." For the "old woman" is an allegory for the weak and now spent, and at the same time shows her feebleness hyperbolically; while "slurping barley-gruel" suggests that, living at that time amid distributions of meat and full feastings, she was squandering the military funds.

About the Demadean forcefulness, then, this is enough, though it has something precarious and not very easy to imitate; for there is something poetic too in the kind, if allegory and hyperbole and suggestion are poetic — but a poetic mixed with comedy.

What is called the figured discourse the orators of today do absurdly, with an ignoble emphasis at once and, as it were, a reminding one; but the true figure of discourse is spoken with these two qualities, propriety and safety.

With propriety, as when Plato, wishing to abuse Aristippus and Cleombrotus for feasting in Aegina while Socrates lay bound at Athens for many days, and not sailing across to their comrade and teacher, though they were not a full two hundred stades distant from Athens — all this he did not say outright, for the discourse would have been abuse; but somehow with propriety in this manner. For Phaedo, asked who were present with Socrates, and having listed each, on being further asked whether Aristippus and Cleombrotus too were present, says, "No, they were in Aegina." For all the things mentioned before are suggested by the "they were in Aegina"; and the discourse seems much more forceful, the matter itself suggesting the force, not the speaker. So Plato abused the circle of Aristippus in a figure, since it was perhaps safe to abuse them.

Often, conversing with a tyrant or some other violent man, and setting out to reproach him, we need of necessity a figure of discourse, as Demetrius of Phalerum did toward Craterus the Macedonian, when he sat raised on high upon a golden couch, in a purple cloak, and received the embassies of the Greeks haughtily. Demetrius, in a figure, said reproachfully, "We too once received as ambassadors these men, and this Craterus." For in the demonstrative "this Craterus" is suggested all the haughtiness of Craterus, reproached in a figure.

Of the same kind too is Plato's saying to Dionysius, who lied and denied it: "I, Plato, agreed nothing with you; but you, by the gods—" For he is convicted of lying, and the discourse has a figure at once grand and safe.

In many places, however, they are ambiguous; to which, if one wished to liken them, blames may also be idle blames; an example is Aeschines' passage about Telauges. For nearly the whole account of Telauges would furnish a difficulty, whether it is admiration or mockery. Such a kind is ambiguous, and though not irony, has nevertheless a certain impression of irony.

One might use a figure in yet another way, thus: since rulers, men and women, hear of their own faults unpleasantly, in counselling them not to do wrong we shall not speak directly, but either we shall blame certain others who have done the like — as, toward Dionysius the tyrant, we shall speak against Phalaris the tyrant and the cruelty of Phalaris; or we shall praise certain men who have done the opposite to Dionysius, as Gelon or Hiero, that they were like fathers and teachers to Sicily. For he is at once admonished as he hears, and is not abused, and grows jealous of the praised Gelon, and reaches out himself too for praise.

There are many such things with tyrants. Philip, for instance, because he was one-eyed, grew angry if anyone in his presence named the Cyclops, or the eye at all; and Hermias, who ruled Atarneus, though in other respects mild, as it is said, would not easily have borne anyone naming a little knife, or cutting, or excision, because he was a eunuch. These things I have said, wishing above all to show the despotic character, as needing most of all safe discourse, which is called figured.

And yet often great and strong democracies too need such a kind of discourse, like the tyrants — as the people of Athens, ruler of Greece and rearing flatterers like the Cleons and Cleophons. To flatter is shameful, and to censure is precarious, but best is the middle course, that is, the figured.

And sometimes we shall praise the wrongdoer himself, not for the things in which he did wrong, but for those in which he has not done wrong: as the angry man, that yesterday he was praised for appearing mild over the faults of so-and-so, and that as one to be emulated he keeps company with the citizens. For each man gladly imitates himself, and wishes to join praise to praise, or rather to make one even praise.

And in general, just as from the same wax one man modelled a dog, another an ox, another a horse, so too with the same matter one man, declaring and accusing, says, "Men leave money to their children, but do not leave behind knowledge with it, the knowledge that will use what is left." This kind of discourse is called Aristippean. Another will set forth the same thing hypothetically, as for the most part Xenophon does, thus: "For one ought to leave one's children not money only, but also the knowledge that will use it for them."

The kind especially called Socratic, which Aeschines and Plato seem above all to have emulated, would recast this matter just mentioned into a question, somewhat thus: "Tell me, child, how much money did your father leave you? A great deal, not easily counted? A great deal, Socrates. Then did he also leave you the knowledge that will use it?" For at once it has cast the boy unawares into a difficulty, and reminded him that he is without knowledge, and exhorted him to be educated — all this in character and in tune, and not, as the saying goes, "from the Scythians."

Such discourses prospered when they were first discovered — or rather astounded, by the imitative and the vivid and the admonitory joined with high-mindedness. So much about the figuring of discourse and figured speech.

The smoothness about composition, such as those of the school of Isocrates especially use, guarding against the clash of vowel letters, is not very suitable to forceful discourse; for many things would become more forceful from the very clash, as in "For when the Phocian war broke out — not through me, for I was not yet taking part in public life then." But if one, altering and joining it, should say thus, "When the Phocian war broke out, not through me, for I was not yet taking part in public life then," he will take away no little of the forcefulness; for in many places the resonance of the clash will perhaps be more forceful.

For the unstudied and, as it were, spontaneous quality will present a certain forcefulness, especially when we show ourselves angry or wronged. But care about smoothness and harmony belongs not to an angry man, but to one at play and making a display rather.

And just as the disjointed figure produces forcefulness, as has been said before, so will a wholly disjointed composition. A sign is that of Hipponax. For wishing to abuse his enemies, he broke the metre, and made it limping instead of straight, and unrhythmical — that is, fitting for forcefulness and for abuse; for the rhythmical and pleasant-sounding would befit eulogies rather than censures. So much also about clashing.

Beside the forceful style too there lies, as is natural, a faulty one, called the graceless. It arises in the things, when one says shameful and unspeakable things openly, as the man accusing Timandra of having played the harlot heaped upon the court the basin and the obols and the rush mat and much such foul language.

The composition appears graceless if it resembles something torn apart, as the man who said, "Things being thus, this and that — to kill." And when the clauses have no connection with one another, but resemble things broken off. And periods that are continuous and long and stifle the speakers are not only cloying but also unpleasant.

By the naming, too, things that are graceful often appear more unpleasant, as Cleitarchus, speaking of the wasp, an animal resembling a bee: "It grazes, he says, the mountain country, and flies into the hollow oaks" — as though speaking of a wild ox or the Erymanthian boar, and not of some bee, so that the discourse becomes at once graceless and frigid. And both of these somehow lie close to one another.