[Sidenote: Auxesis, or the Auancer] It happens many times that to vrge and enforce the matter we speake of, we go still mounting by degrees and encreasing our speech with wordes or with sentences of more waight one then another, & is a figure of great both efficacie & ornament, as he that declaring the great calamitie of an infortunate prince, said thus: He lost besides his children and his wife, His realme, ronowne, liege, libertie and life.
By which it appeareth that to any noble Prince the losse of his estate
ought not to be so greeuous, as of his honour, nor any of them both like
to the lacke of his libertie, but that life is the dearest detriment of
any other. We call this figure by the Greeke originall the Auancer or
figure of encrease because every word that is spoken is one of more weight
then another. And as we lamented the crueltie of an inexorable and
unfaithfull mistresse.
If by the lawes of love it be a falt,
The faithfull friend, in absence to forget:
But if it be (once do thy heart but halt,)
A secret sinne: what forfet is so great:
As by despute in view of every eye,
The solemne vowes oft sworne with teares so salt,
As holy Leagues fast seald with hand and hart:
For to repeale and breake so wilfully?
But now (alas) without all iust desart,
My lot is for my troth and much goodwill,
To reape disdaine, hatred and rude refuse,
Or if ye would worke me some greater ill:
And of myne earned ioyes to feele no part,
What els is this (o cruell) but to vse,
Thy murdring knife to guiltlesse bloud to spill.
Where ye see how she is charged first with a fault, then with a secret
sinne, afterward with a foule forfet, last of all with a most cruel &
bloudy deede. And thus againe in a certaine lovers complaint made to the
like effect.
They say it is a ruth to see thy lover neede,
But you can see me weepe, but you can see me bleede:
And neuer shrinke nor shame, ne shed no teare at all,
You make my wounds your selfe, and fill them up with gall:
Yea you can see me sound, and faint for want of breath,
And gaspe and grone for life, and struggle still with death,
What can you now do more, sweare by your maydenhead,
The for to flea me quicke, or strip me being dead.
In these verses you see how one crueltie surmounts another by degrees till it come to very slaughter and beyond, for it is thought a despite done to a dead carkas to be an euidence of greater crueltie then to haue killed him.
[Sidenote: Meiosis, or the Disabler.] After the Auancer followeth the abbaser working by wordes and sentences of extenuation or diminution. Whereupon we call him the Disabler or figure of Extenuation: and this extenuation is vsed to diuers purposes, sometimes for modesties sake, and to auoide the opinion of arrogancie, speaking of our selues or of ours, as he that disabled himselfe to his mistresse thus. Not all the skill I haue to speake or do, Which litle is God wot (set loue apart:) Liueload nor life, and put them both thereto, Can counterpeise the due of your desart.
It may be also be done for despite to bring our aduersaries in contempt,
as he that sayd by one (commended for a very braue souldier) disabling him
scornefully, thus.
A iollie man (forsooth) and fit for the warre,
Good at hand grippes, better to fight a farre:
Whom bright weapon in shew as is said,
Yea his owne shade; hath often made afraide.
The subtilitie of the scoffe lieth in these Latin wordes [eminus & cominus pugnare.] Also we vse this kind of Extenuation when we take in hand to comfort or cheare any perillous enterprise, making a great matter seeme small, and of litle difficultie, & is much vsed by captaines in the warre, when they (to giue courage to their souldiers) will seeme to disable the persons of their enemies, and abase their forces, and make light of euery thing than might be a discouragement to the attempt, as Hanniball did in his Oration to his souldiers, when they should come to passe the Alpes to enter Italie, and for sharpnesse of the weather, and steepnesse of the mountaines their hearts began to faile them.
We vse it againe to excuse a fault, & to make an offence seeme lesse then it is, by giuing a terme more fauorable and of lesse vehemencie then the troth requires, as to say of a great robbery, that it was but a pilfry matter: of an arrant ruffian that he is a tall fellow of his hands: of a prodigall foole, that he is a kind hearted man: of a notorious vnthrift, a lustie youth, and such like phrases of extenuation, which fall more aptly to the office of the figure Curry fauell before remembred.
And we vse the like termes by way of pleasant familiaritie, and as it were for Courtly maner of speach with our egalls or inferiours, as to call a young Gentlewoman Mall for Mary, Nell for Elner: Iack for Iohn_, Robin for Robert: or any other like affected termes spoken of pleasure, as in our triumphals calling familiarly vpon our Muse, I called her Moppe. But will you weet, My litle muse, nay prettie moppe: If we shall algates change our stoppe, Chose me a sweet.
Vnderstanding by this word (Moppe) a litle prety Lady, or tender young thing. For so we call litle fishes, that be not come to their full growth (moppes), as whiting moppes, gurnard moppes.