The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

And so on; for except when the flute-player is at hand to accompany them, those verses are very like prose. But the iambics of the common poets are, on account of their likeness to ordinary conversation, very often in such a very low style, that sometimes it is hardly possible to discover any metre, or even rhythm in them. And it may easily be understood that there is more difficulty in discovering the rhythm in an oration than in verses.

Altogether there are two things which season oratory—the sweetness of the language, and the sweetness of the rhythm. In the language is the material, and in the rhythm the polish. But, as in other things, the older inventions are the children of necessity rather than of pleasure; so also has it happened in this, that oratory was for many ages naked and unpolished, aiming only at expressing the meaning conceived in the mind of the speaker, before any system of rhythm for the sake of tickling the ears was invented.

LVI. Therefore Herodotus also, and his age, and the age preceding him, had no idea of rhythm, except at times by chance, as it seems. And the very ancient writers have left us no rules at all about rhythm, though they have given us many precepts about oratory. For that which is the more easy and the more necessary will always be the first thing known. Therefore, words used in a metaphorical sense, or inverted, or combined, were easily invented because they were derived from ordinary use, and from daily conversation. But rhythm was not drawn from a man's own house, nor had it any connexion of relationship to oratory. And therefore it was later in being noticed and observed, bringing as it did the last touch and lineaments to oratory. But if there is one style of oratory narrow and concise, and another more vague and diffuse, that must clearly be owing, not to the nature of letters, but to the difference between long and short paragraphs; because an oration made up and compounded of these two kinds is sometimes steady, sometimes fluent, and so each character must be kept up by corresponding rhythm. For that circuitous way of speaking, which we have often mentioned already, goes on more impetuously, and hurries along, until it can arrive at its end, and come to a stop. It is quite plain, therefore, that oratory ought to be confined to rhythm, and kept clear of metre.

But the next question is, whether this rhythm is poetical, or whether it is of some other kind. There is, then, no rhythm whatever that is not poetical; because the different kinds of rhythm are clearly defined. For all rhythm is one of three kinds. For the foot which is employed in rhythm is divided into three classes; so that it is necessary that one part of the foot must be either equal to the other part, or as large again, or half as large again. Accordingly, the dactyl is of the first class, the paeon of the last, the iambic of the second. And how is it possible to avoid such feet in an oration? And then when they are arranged with due consideration rhythm is unavoidably produced.

But the question arises, what rhythm is to be employed; either absolutely, or in preference to others. But that every kind of rhythm is at times suitable to oratory, may be seen from this,—that in speaking we often make a verse without intending it, (which, however, is a great fault, but we do not notice it, nor do we hear what we say ourselves;) and as for iambics, whether regular or Hipponactean, those we can scarcely avoid, for our common conversation often consists of iambics. But still the hearer easily recognises those verses, for they are the most usual ones. But at times we unintentionally let fall others which are less usual, but which still are verses; and that is a faulty style of oratory, and one which requires to be guarded against with great care.

Hieronymus, a Peripatetic of the highest character, out of all the numerous compositions of Isocrates, picked out about thirty verses, chiefly iambics, but some also anapaests. And what can be worse? Though in picking them out he acted in an unfair manner, for he took away sometimes the first syllable in the first word of a sentence; and again, he sometimes added to the last word the first syllable of the following sentence. And in this way he made that sort of anapaest which is called the Aristophanic anapaest. And such accidents as these cannot be guarded against, nor do they signify. But still this critic, in the very passage in which he finds this fault with him, (as I noticed when I was examining his work very closely,) himself makes an iambic without knowing it. This, then, may be considered as an established point, that there is rhythm also in prose, and that oratorical is the same as the poetical rhythm.

LVII. It remains, therefore, for us to consider what rhythm occurs most naturally in a well-arranged oration. For some people think that it is the iambic rhythm, because that is the most like a speech, on which account it happens that it is most frequently employed in fables, because of its resemblance to reality—because the dactylic hexameter rhythm is better suited to a lofty and magniloquent subject But Ephorus himself, an inconsiderable orator, though coming from an excellent school, inclines to the paeon, or dactyl, but avoids the spondee and trochee. For because the paeon has three short syllables and the dactyl two, he thinks that the words come more trippingly off on account of the shortness and rapidity of utterance of the syllables; and that a contrary effect is produced by the spondee and trochee, because the one consists of long syllables and the other of short ones; so that a speech made up of the one is too much hurried, it made up of the other is too slow; and neither is well, regulated. But those accents are all in the wrong, and Ephorus is wholly in fault. For those who pass over the paeon, do not perceive that a most delicate, and at the same time most dignified rhythm is passed over by them. But Aristotle's opinion is very different, for he considers that the heroic rhythm is a grander one than is admissible in prose, and that an iambic is too like ordinary conversation. Accordingly, he does not approve of a style which is lowly and abject, or of one which is too lofty and, as it were, on stilts: but still he wishes for one full of dignity, in order to strike those who hear it with the greater admiration. But he calls a trochee, which occupies the same time as a choreus, [Greek: kordax], because its contracted and brief character is devoid of dignity. Accordingly, he approves of the paeon; and says that all men employ it, but that all men are not themselves aware when they do employ it; and that there is a third or middle way between those two, but that those feet are formed in such a way, that in every one of them there is either a time, or a time and a half, or two times. Therefore, those men of whom I have spoken have considered convenience only, and disregarded dignity. For the iambic and the dactyl are those which are most usually employed in verse; and, therefore, as we avoid verses in making speeches, so also a recurrence of these feet must be avoided. For oratory is a different thing from poetry, nor are there any two things more contrary to one another than that is to verses. But the paeon is that foot which, of all others, is least adapted to verse, on which account oratory admits it the more willingly. But Ephorus will not even admit that the spondee, which he condemns, is equivalent to the dactyl, which he approves of. For he thinks that feet ought to be measured by their syllables, not by their quantity; and he does the same in regard to the trochee, which in its quantity and times is equivalent to an iambic; but which is a fault in an oration, if it be placed at the end, because a sentence ends better with a long syllable.

And all this, which is also contained in Aristotle, is said by Theophrastus and Theodectes about the paeon. But my opinion is, that all feet ought to be jumbled together and confused, as it were, in an oration; and that we could not escape blame if we were always to use the same feet; because an oration ought to be neither metrical, like a poem, nor inharmonious, like the conversation of the common people. The one is so fettered by rules that it is manifest that it is designedly arranged as we see it; the other is so loose as to appear ordinary and vulgar; so that you are not pleased with the one, and you hate the other.

Let oratory then be, as I have said above, mingled and regulated with a regard to rhythm; not prosaic, nor on the other hand sacrificed wholly to rhythm; composed chiefly of the paeon, (since that is the opinion of the wisest author on the subject,) with many of the other feet which he passes over intermingled with it.

LVIII. But what feet ought to be mingled with others, like purple, must be now explained; and we must also show to what kind of speech each sort of foot and rhythm is the best adapted. For the iambic is most frequent in those orations which are composed in a humble and lowly style; but the paeon is suited to a more dignified style; and the dactyl to both. Therefore, in a varied and long-continued speech these feet should be mingled together and combined. And in this way the fact of the orator aiming at pleasing the senses, and the careful attempt to round off the speech, will be the less visible, and they will at all times be less apparent if we employ dignified expressions and sentiments. For the hearers observe these two things, and think them agreeable: (I mean, expressions and sentiments.) And while they listen to them with admiring minds, the rhythm escapes their notice; and even if it were wholly wanting they would still be delighted with those other things.