59. Your narratives, my
opponent says, are overrun with barbarisms and solecisms, and
disfigured by monstrous blunders. A censure, truly, which shows a
childish and petty spirit; for if we allow that it is reasonable, let
us cease to use certain kinds of fruit because they grow with prickles
on them, and other growths useless for food, which on the one hand
cannot support us, and yet do not on the other hinder us from enjoying
that which specially excels, and which nature has designed to be most
wholesome for us. For how, I pray you, does it interfere with or
retard the comprehension of a statement, whether anything be
pronounced smoothly3358
| 3358
So Orelli and Hildebrand, reading glabre from a conjecture
of Grotius, for the ms.
grave. |
or with uncouth roughness? whether
that have the
grave accent which ought to have the acute, or that have
the acute which ought to have the
grave? Or how is the
truth of a
statement diminished, if an error is made in number or case, in
preposition, participle, or conjunction? Let that pomposity of
style and strictly regulated diction be reserved for
public assemblies,
for lawsuits, for the forum and the
courts of
justice, and by all means
be handed over to those who, striving after the soothing influences of
pleasant sensations, bestow all their care upon splendour of
language.
But when we are discussing matters
far removed
from mere display, we should consider what is said, not with what charm
it is said nor how it tickles the
ears, but what benefits it confers on
the hearers, especially since we know that some even who
devoted
themselves to philosophy, not only disregarded refinement of style, but
also purposely
adopted a vulgar meanness when they might have spoken
with greater elegance and richness, lest forsooth they might impair the
stern gravity of
speech and
revel rather in the pretentious show of the
Sophists. For indeed it evidences a worthless
heart to
seek
enjoyment in matters of importance; and when you have to deal with
those who are
sick and
diseased, to pour into their
ears dulcet sounds,
not to apply a remedy to their
wounds. Yet, if you consider the
true
state of the case, no
language is naturally
perfect, and in like
manner none is faulty. For what
natural reason is there, or what
law written in the constitution of the
world, that
paries should
be called
hic,
3359
| 3359
i.e., that the one should be masculine, the other feminine. |
and
sella hæc?—since
neither have they sex distinguished by male and
female, nor can the
most
learned man tell me what
hic and
hæc are, or
why one of them denotes the male sex while the other is applied to the
female. These conventionalities are man’s, and certainly
are not indispensable to all persons for the use of forming their
language; for
paries might perhaps have been called
hæc, and
sella hic, without any fault being found,
if it had been agreed upon at first that they should be so called, and
if this
practice had been maintained by following generations in their
daily conversation. And yet, O you who charge our writings with
disgraceful
blemishes, have you not these solecisms in those most
perfect and wonderful books of yours? Does not one of you make
the plur. of
uter, utria? another
utres?
3360
| 3360
i.e., does not one of you make the plural of uter masc., another
neut.? [Note the opponent’s witness to the text of the
Gospels.] |
Do you
not also say
cœlus and
cœlum, filus and
filum, crocus and
crocum, fretus and
fretum?
Also
hoc pane and
hic panis, hic sanguis and
hoc
sanguen? Are not
candelabrum and
jugulum in
like manner written
jugulus and
candelaber? For if
each noun cannot have more than one
gender, and if the same word cannot
be of this
gender and of that, for one
gender cannot pass into the
other, he
commits as great a blunder who utters masculine genders under
the laws of feminines, as he who applies masculine articles to feminine
genders. And yet we see you using masculines as feminines, and
feminines as masculines, and those which you call neuter both in this
way and in that, without any distinction. Either, therefore, it
is no blunder to employ them indifferently, and
in that case it
is vain for you to say that our works are disfigured with monstrous
solecisms; or if the way in which each ought to be employed is
unalterably fixed, you also are involved in similar errors, although
you have on your side all the Epicadi, Cæsellii, Verrii, Scauri,
and Nisi.
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