his in dudgeon, and straightway bade the children of Heracles
to depart. 'Behold, I can give you no help; lest, therefore, ye perish
yourselves and bring hurt upon me also, get ye forth into some other
land.'"
3
There is a different use of the change of persons in the speech of
Demosthenes against Aristogeiton, which places before us the quick turns
of violent emotion. "Is there none to be found among you," he asks, "who
even feels indignation at the outrageous conduct of a loathsome and
shameless wretch who,--vilest of men, when you were debarred from
freedom of speech, not by barriers or by doors, which might indeed be
opened,"[2] etc. Thus in the midst of a half-expressed thought he makes
a quick change of front, and having almost in his anger torn one word
into two persons, "who, vilest of men," etc., he then breaks off his
address to Aristogeiton, and seems to leave him, nevertheless, by the
passion of his utterance, rousing all the more the attention of the
court.
[Footnote 2: _c. Aristog._ i. 27.]
4
The same feature may be observed in a speech of Penelope's--
"Why com'st thou, Medon, from the wooers proud?
Com'st thou to bid the handmaids of my lord
To cease their tasks, and make for them good cheer?
Ill fare their wooing, and their gathering here!
Would God that here this hour they all might take
Their last, their latest meal! Who day by day
Make here your muster, to devour and waste
The substance of my son: have ye not heard
When children at your fathers' knee the deeds
And prowess of your king?"[3]
[Footnote 3: _Od._ iv. 681.]
XXVIII
None, I suppose, would dispute the fact that periphrasis tends much to
sublimity. For, as in music the simple air is rendered more pleasing by
the addition of harmony, so in language periphrasis often sounds in
concord with a literal expression, adding much to the beauty of its
tone,--provided always that it is not inflated and harsh, but agreeably
blended.
2
To confirm this one passage from Plato will suffice--the opening words
of his Funeral Oration: "In deed these men have now received from us
their due, and that tribute paid they are now passing on their destined
journey, with the State speeding them all and his own friends speeding
each one of them on his way."[1] Death, you see, he calls the "destined
journey"; to receive the rites of burial is to be publicly "sped on your
way" by the State. And these turns of language le
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