“Off, off, I say! I know thee who thou art,
One of the fiends that haunt me: I feel thine arms
About me cast, to drag me down to hell,”[46]
these are the hallucinations of a madman?
9 Wherein, then, lies the force of an oratorical image? Doubtless in adding energy and passion in a hundred different ways to a speech; but especially in this, that when it is mingled with the practical, argumentative parts of an oration, it does not merely convince the hearer, but enthralls him. Such is the effect of those words of Demosthenes:[47] “Supposing, now, at this moment a cry of alarm were heard outside the assize courts, and the news came that the prison was broken open and the prisoners escaped, is there any man here who is such a trifler that he would not run to the rescue at the top of his speed? But suppose some one came forward with the information that they had been set at liberty by the defendant, what then? Why, he would be lynched on the spot!” 10 Compare also the way in which Hyperides excused himself, when he was proceeded against for bringing in a bill to liberate the slaves after Chaeronea. “This measure,” he said, “was not drawn up by any orator, but by the battle of Chaeronea.” This striking image, being thrown in by the speaker in the midst of his proofs, enables him by one bold stroke to carry all mere logical objection before him. 11 In all such cases our nature is drawn towards that which affects it most powerfully: hence an image lures us away from an argument: judgment is paralysed, matters of fact disappear from view, eclipsed by the superior blaze. Nor is it surprising that we should be thus affected; for when two forces are thus placed in juxtaposition, the stronger must always absorb into itself the weaker.
12 On sublimity of thought, and the manner in which it arises from native greatness of mind, from imitation, and from the employment of images, this brief outline must suffice.[48]
[XVI]
The subject which next claims our attention is that of figures of speech. I have already observed that figures, judiciously employed, play an important part in producing sublimity. It would be a tedious, or rather an endless task, to deal with every detail of this subject here; so in order to establish what I have laid down, I will just run over, without further preface, a few of those figures which are most effective in lending grandeur to language.
2 Demosthenes is defending his policy; his natural line of argument would have been: “You did not do wrong, men of Athens, to take upon yourselves the struggle for the liberties of Hellas. Of this you have home proofs. They did not wrong who fought at Marathon, at Salamis, and Plataea.” Instead of this, in a sudden moment of supreme exaltation he bursts out like some inspired prophet with that famous appeal to the mighty dead: “Ye did not, could not have done wrong. I swear it by the men who faced the foe at Marathon!”[49] He employs the figure of adjuration, to which I will here give the name of Apostrophe. And what does he gain by it? He exalts the Athenian ancestors to the rank of divinities, showing that we ought to invoke those who have fallen for their country as gods; he fills the hearts of his judges with the heroic pride of the old warriors of Hellas; forsaking the beaten path of argument he rises to the loftiest altitude of grandeur and passion, and commands assent by the startling novelty of his appeal; he applies the healing charm of eloquence, and thus “ministers to the mind diseased” of his countrymen, until lifted by his brave words above their misfortunes they begin to feel that the disaster of Chaeronea is no less glorious than the victories of Marathon and Salamis. All this he effects by the use of one figure, and so carries his hearers away with him. 3 It is said that the germ of this adjuration is found in Eupolis—
“By mine own fight, by Marathon, I say,
Who makes my heart to ache shall rue the day!”[50]
But there is nothing grand in the mere employment of an oath. Its grandeur will depend on its being employed in the right place and the right manner, on the right occasion, and with the right motive. In Eupolis the oath is nothing beyond an oath; and the Athenians to whom it is addressed are still prosperous, and in need of no consolation. Moreover, the poet does not, like Demosthenes, swear by the departed heroes as deities, so as to engender in his audience a just conception of their valour, but diverges from the champions to the battle—a mere lifeless thing. But Demosthenes has so skilfully managed the oath that in addressing his countrymen after the defeat of Chaeronea he takes out of their minds all sense of disaster; and at the same time, while proving that no mistake has been made, he holds up an example, confirms his arguments by an oath, and makes his praise of the dead an incentive to the living. 4 And to rebut a possible objection which occurred to him—“Can you, Demosthenes, whose policy ended in defeat, swear by a victory?”—the orator proceeds to measure his language, choosing his very words so as to give no handle to opponents, thus showing us that even in our most inspired moments reason ought to hold the reins.[51] Let us mark his words: “Those who faced the foe at Marathon; those who fought in the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium; those who stood in the ranks at Plataea.” Note that he nowhere says “those who conquered,” artfully suppressing any word which might hint at the successful issue of those battles, which would have spoilt the parallel with Chaeronea. And for the same reason he steals a march on his audience, adding immediately: “All of whom, Aeschines,—not those who were successful only,—were buried by the state at the public expense.”