Of digressions or excursions immediately after the statement, § 1-3. Not always unreasonable, 4-8. Some preparation often necessary before proceeding to proof, 9-11. Digressions may be made in any part of a speech, but those in the middle should be short, 12-17. 1. IN the order of things, the confirmation follows the statement, for we must prove what we stated only that it might be proved. But before I proceed to treat of this part, I must make a few observations on the opinions of certain rhetoricians. It is the custom of most speakers, when the order of facts is set forth, to make a digression to some pleasing and attractive moral topic, so as to secure us much favorable attention as possible from the audience. 2. This practice had its rise in the declamatory ostentation of the schools and passed from thence into the forum, after causes began to be pleaded not to benefit the parties going to law, but to enable the advocates to make a display. The apprehension is, I suppose, that if the stubbornness of argument should immediately follow the dry conciseness of narrative (such as is often necessary), and the gratification of eloquent diction should be too long withheld, their whole oration would appear cold and repulsive. 3. To this custom there is this objection: that the speakers indulge in it without making due distinction of causes and what particular causes require, but as if such displays of eloquence were always expedient or even necessary. In consequence, they force into their digression matters taken from other parts to which they properly belong, so that many things must either be said over again, or, as they have been said in a place to which they had no right, cannot be said in their own. 4. I admit, however, that this sort of excursion may be advantageously introduced, not only after the statement of the case, but after the different questions in it, altogether or sometimes severally, when the subject requires or at least permits it. I think that a speech is by such means greatly set off and embellished, provided that the dissertation aptly follows and adheres to what precedes and is not forced in like a wedge, separating what was naturally united. 5. For no part of a speech ought to be more closely attached to any other part than the proof is to the statement, unless indeed the digression be intended either as the end of the statement or as the beginning of the proof. There will therefore sometimes be room for it; for instance, if our statement, towards the conclusion, contains something very heinous, we may enlarge upon it, as if our indignation, like our breath, must necessarily have vent. 6. This, however, ought to be done only when the matter does not admit of doubt; else it is of more importance to make your charge true than atrocious, because the enormity of an accusation is in favor of the accused as long as it remains unproved, for belief in the commission of a heinous crime is extremely difficult. 7. A digression may also be made with advantage, if, for example, when you have spoken of services rendered to the opposite party, you proceed to inveigh against ingratitude, or if, when you have set forth a variety of charges in your statement, you show how much danger in consequence threatens yourself. 8. But all these must be signified briefly, for the judge, when he has learned the order of the facts, is impatient for the proof of them and desires as soon as possible to settle his opinion. You must be cautious, also, that your exposition of the case be not forgotten, through the attention of the judge being turned to something else or fatigued with useless delay. 9. But though such digression is not always a necessary sequel to a statement of facts, it is yet frequently a useful preparation for the consideration of the question, for instance, if the case appears, at first sight, unfavorable to us, if we have to uphold a severe law, or if we enforce penal inflictions. There will then be room, as it were, for a second exordium to prepare the judge for our proofs, or to soothe or excite him, and this may be done the more freely and forcibly in this place, as the case is already known to him. 10. With these lenitives, so to speak, we may soften whatever is offensively hard in our statement, that the ears of the judge may the more readily admit what we may have to say afterwards, and that he may not be averse to concede us justice, for judges are not easily convinced of anything against their will. 11. On these occasions, however, the disposition of the judge must also be ascertained, that we may know whether he is more inclined to law or to equity, for according to his inclination, our representations will be more or less necessary. The same subject may also serve as a kind of peroration after the question. 12. This part the Greeks call the παρἀκβασις (parekbasis), the Latins the egressus or egressio. But such sallies, as I remarked, are of several kinds and may be directed to different subjects from any part of the cause, as eulogies of men and places, descriptions of countries, or recitals of occurrences true or fictitious 13. Of which sort, in the pleadings of Cicero against Verres, are the praises of Sicily, and the rape of Proserpine; in his speech for Caius Cornelius, the well-known celebration of the merits of Cneius Pompey, which the divine orator, as if the course of his pleading had been suspended at the very name of the heroic leader, suddenly turns aside to pronounce, breaking away from the matter on which he had entered. 14. As to the definition of the παρἀκβασις, it is, in my opinion, a dissertation on any subject relating to the interest of the cause, digressing from the order of facts. I do not see, therefore, why they assign it to that part of a speech, above all others, which immediately follows the statement of the case any more than why they think that name belongs to a digression only when something is to be stated in it, as a speech may swerve from the right path in so many ways. 15. For whatever goes beyond those five parts of a speech which we have specified is a digression, whether it be an expression of indignation, pity, detestation, reproach, apology, conciliation, or reply to invective. Similarly digressive is everything that does not lie within the question, and all amplification, extenuation, and excitement of the passions, as well as those moral observations concerning luxury, avarice, religion, duty, which contribute so much to the agreeableness and ornament of a speech, but which, however, as they are attached to cognate subjects and naturally cohere with them, do not appear to be digressions. 16. But there are numbers of remarks introduced into matters that have no connection with them, remarks by which the judge is excited, admonished, appeased, intreated; or commended, Instances of them are innumerable; some we carry with us ready prepared; some we utter on the spur of the moment, or from necessity; if, for instance, anything extraordinary occurs while we are speaking, as an interruption, the sudden arrival of any person, or a disturbance. 17. From such a cause Cicero was obliged to make a digression in his exordium, when he was speaking for Milo, as appears from the short speech which he pronounced on the occasion. But he that prepares something to precede the question, and he that adds something to his proofs as in support of them, may make a somewhat longer digression. He, however, who makes a sally from the middle of his speech ought soon to return to the point from which he started.
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