63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

224 tobias reinhardt
readership. 32 We have already encountered various devices which engage
the audience in a way that is unusual for epic poetry, and the impact of some
of these devices is enhanced by the fact that they are colloquialisms in some
sense. To these we add now a number of first-person verbs of saying and
thinking in parenthesis; 33 thesearecommonincomedy,butareotherwise
mostly absent from poetry, except for specific contexts (speeches in epic,
e.g. Verg. Aen. 1.387, 6.368; addresses to the girl in love elegy; dialogical
bucolic poems, e.g. Verg. Ecl. 3.10). They are also used in oratory, which is
not surprising given their function (see below):
ut opinor seventeen times, e.g. 2.184, 3.626, 3.676, 3.876, 3.963; cf.Pl.
Am. 574, Aul. 77, Ter.Hec. 598 (ut ego opinor), Eu. 563, An. 179.
opinor without ut, 1.396, 2.201;cf.Pl.Aul. 782, Bac. 774,Ter.Ph. 615–16,
693, 678–9.
credo, 5.175 (following after 5.174 quidve mali fuerat nobis non esse creatis,
on which see above, p. 212); cf. Pl. Aul. 110, Capt. 889,Ter.Ph. 140.
inquam, 2.257, 3.341, 5.620;cf.Pl.Am. 94, Cist. 606,Ter.Hau. 694, An.
715.
ut dico, 4.1207; cf.Ter.Ph. 479.
All of these are ‘expressions of contact’ (sc. with the addressee), cf. Anna
Chahoud’s remarks above (pp. 58–9). They are, however, not equivalent
in function: on a superficial level, (ut) opinor and credo convey caution,
modesty, and hesitation; inquam is more forceful and assertive. Müller
(1997: 177–86) has pointed out with reference to Terence that (ut) opinor is
used by sociologically inferior speakers when addressing someone of higher
status, among equals, and in self-address. It would not normally be used by
a superior speaker addressing an inferior one, as there is usually no need for
qualification of the speaker’s remarks. Credo is similar but more forceful,
and expresses a stronger longing for approval or consideration of what is
being said. Inquam is used by sociologically superior speakers, who can
afford highmindedness or aloofness.
In Lucretius these parentheses can (i) be devices of realism which add
to the characterisation of the narrator persona by making him sound
conversational (in 5.620 the narrator refers back in a self-conscious way to
the beginning of the paragraph in 5.614), modest, clever, or sardonic (5.175),
as well as modulate his status relative to the addressee by making him sound
by turns humble and authoritative, (ii) play a role in the presentation of an
argument, in that they can assert or draw attention to the plausibility of an
assumption (3.341, 3.676; in3.963 iure, ut opinor, agat ‘[Nature] would be
32 See Mitsis 1994 and the entire collection of which it forms part; Fowler 2000.
33 Hofmann and Szantyr discuss parenthesis under syntax (H–S 472–3) and style (H–S 728–9).