The difference between music and speech having thus been shown, some other points remain to be mentioned. If the melody of the voice—not the singing voice, I mean, but the ordinary voice—has a pleasant effect upon the ear, it will be called melodious rather than in melody. So also symmetry in the quantities of words, when it preserves a lyrical effect, is rhythmical rather than in rhythm. On the precise bearing of these distinctions I will speak at the proper time. For the present I will pass on to the next question, and try to show how a style of civil oratory can be attained which, simply by means of the composition, charms the ear with its melody of sound, its symmetry of rhythm, its elaborate variety, and its appropriateness to the subject. These are the headings which I have set before myself.
CHAPTER XII
HOW TO RENDER COMPOSITION CHARMING
It is not in the nature of all the words in a sentence to affect the ear in the same way, any more than all visible objects produce the same impression on the sense of sight, things tasted on that of taste, or any other set of stimuli upon the sense to which they correspond. No, different sounds affect the ear with many different sensations of sweetness, harshness, roughness, smoothness, and so on. The reason is to be found partly in the many different qualities of the letters which make up speech, and partly in the extremely various forms in which syllables are put together. Now since words have these properties, and since it is impossible to change the fundamental nature of any single one of them, we can only mask the uncouthness which is inseparable from some of them, by means of
3 δὴ τῆς PMV: τῆς F 4 τὸ μὲν] μὲν τὸ F 5 ἐὰν Us.: κἂν PV: ὃ μὲν FM || διατίθησι FM 6 εὐμενὲς P 7 συμμετρία σώζουσα FPM: συμμετριάζουσα V 8 πῆ F: τῆι P || ἀλλήλων om. P 14 ἐπειδὴ δὲ ταῦθ’ F 18 αὐτὴν τινὲς EF: τινες αὐτὴν PMV 20 ἥ τε] ἡ EF 23 δὴ] ἤδη F: δὲ ἤδη E 25 τὸ τῆι F, E: τῆι P, MV 25 καὶ τῆι κράσει F 26 συγκρύπτειν EF || ἀτοπίαν om. F
1. The subject of ἀπευθύνουσι is, of course, ἡ μουσική τε καὶ ῥυθμική.
7. συμμετρία: cp. l. 12 τὰς συμμετρίας τῶν ῥυθμῶν, and [254] 10 τεταγμένους σῴζουσα ῥυθμούς.
9. κατὰ τὸν οἰκεῖον καιρόν: i.e. in cc. 25, 26.
10. παρ’ αὐτὴν τὴν σύνθεσιν. With this use of παρά cp. [156] 12 παρ’ οὐδὲν οὕτως ἕτερον ἢ τὰς τῶν συλλαβῶν κατασκευάς, [160] 9 παρὰ τὰς τῶν γραμμάτων συμπλοκάς κτλ., [202] 11 καὶ παρὰ τί γέγονε τούτων ἕκαστον;—In αὐτὴν τὴν σύνθεσιν the contrast implied is with ἡ ἐκλογὴ τῶν ὀνομάτων: cp. [252] 21 κατὰ γοῦν τὴν σύνθεσιν αὐτήν· ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡ ἐκλογὴ τῶν ὀνομάτων μέγα τι δύναται.
23. If ἤδη be read (with F and E) the meaning will be, “the data being the letters with their invariable qualities.” Cp. the German schon.
25. Quintil. ix. 91 “miscendi ergo sunt, curandumque, ut sint plures, qui placent, et circumfusi bonis deteriores lateant. nec vero in litteris syllabisque natura mutatur, sed refert, quae cum quaque optime coeat.”