63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

184 j. g. f. powell
auspiciis utuntur coactis (27)
et augurum et haruspicum comprobat disciplinam (33)
auctoritatem habet vetustatis (34).
In the next example Quintus stresses a rather unexpected or unpalatable
aspect of his Stoic doctrine, that we should adopt divination because it
works, even if we do not know why, for Nature does not reveal her secrets;
hence the focus on obscuritate naturae:
latet fortasse obscuritate involuta naturae (35).
Finally the following example calls for more complex elucidation. At
first sight this seems to be a counter-example to the thesis that short-range
hyperbaton encodes focus, since the main point of contrast is obviously
se, notmaturam – ‘that he himself should meet an early death, rather than
Africanus’ young daughter’:
aequius esse censuit se maturam oppetere mortem quam P. Africani filiam adulescentem
(36).
But an extra subtlety is gained from supposing that maturam also is focused,
for matura mors does not mean precisely a ‘speedy death’ (as the Loeb
translator has it); it means a timely death, and it can then be seen that
there is a further contrast between maturam and adulescentem: ‘he thought
it was fairer that he himself should meet death in the fullness of his age,
than that Africanus’ daughter should meet it while still a young girl’. This
interpretation is not special pleading, because it not only works in context
but enriches our understanding of the passage. I would expect further
applications of the principle to bear similar fruit.
4 conclusion
It appears to emerge provisionally from the above preliminary exploration –
further research may confirm or amend this picture – that, as far as the Latin
usage of Cicero goes, there is no firm reason to suppose that hyperbaton is,
in itself, either a formal rhetorical feature or a colloquial feature. Rather, it
has uses in both formally rhetorical and informally conversational genres
of writing, but its frequency in any given text varies primarily on the basis
of the detailed communicative function. I am tempted to surmise that
it is, in fact, a generalised oral feature which surfaces in those kinds of
written prose texts (letters, dialogues, and the less formal parts of speeches)
which approach most closely the character of a reasonably close imitation
or evocation of oral discourse.