There
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
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or figured language.
_Oratio imago animi_. --Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see
thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is
the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form
or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as
we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in
the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.
_Structura et statura_, _sublimis_, _humilis_, _pumila_. --Some men are
tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are
chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution
plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are
little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and
flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.
_Mediocris plana et placida_. --The middle are of a just stature.
There
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
_Vitiosa oratio_, _vasta_--_tumens_--_enormis_--_affectata_--_abjecta_. --The
vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: when it
contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as it
affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And
according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for
that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast
and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was
even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and
humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great
councillor of State in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse
cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet
gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things,
by which we find the degrees.
_Figura_. --The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in
language--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of
short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm,
which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and
weighed.
_Cutis sive cortex_. _Compositio_. --The third is the skin and coat, which
rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas
it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your
finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid,
rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped: after these, the flesh, blood, and
bones come in question.
_Carnosa_--_adipata_--_redundans_. --We say it is a fleshy style, when there
is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than
enough, it grows fat and corpulent: _arvina orationis_, full of suet and
tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their
sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--_oratio uncta_, _et bene
pasta_. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are
faulty and vicious:--_Redundat sanguine_, _quia multo plus dicit_, _quam
necesse est_. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the
words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is
juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor,
starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.
_Oratio imago animi_. --Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see
thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is
the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form
or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as
we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in
the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.
_Structura et statura_, _sublimis_, _humilis_, _pumila_. --Some men are
tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are
chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution
plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are
little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and
flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.
_Mediocris plana et placida_. --The middle are of a just stature.
There
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
_Vitiosa oratio_, _vasta_--_tumens_--_enormis_--_affectata_--_abjecta_. --The
vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: when it
contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as it
affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And
according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for
that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast
and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was
even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and
humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great
councillor of State in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse
cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet
gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things,
by which we find the degrees.
_Figura_. --The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in
language--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of
short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm,
which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and
weighed.
_Cutis sive cortex_. _Compositio_. --The third is the skin and coat, which
rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas
it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your
finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid,
rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped: after these, the flesh, blood, and
bones come in question.
_Carnosa_--_adipata_--_redundans_. --We say it is a fleshy style, when there
is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than
enough, it grows fat and corpulent: _arvina orationis_, full of suet and
tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their
sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--_oratio uncta_, _et bene
pasta_. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are
faulty and vicious:--_Redundat sanguine_, _quia multo plus dicit_, _quam
necesse est_. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the
words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is
juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor,
starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.
