Chapter 26: Change of Person

Similarly, the change of person makes for a sense of involvement in the struggle and often gives the audience the opinion that it is embroiled in the middle of the dangers:

You would say that they were unwearied, untired
Opposing these in war, so eagerly they battled.

And Aratus says:

May you never plunge into the sea in this month.

2. And Herodotus somewhere says:

From the city of Elephantine you will sail upstream, and then you will come to a smooth plain. Having crossed the plain, embarking again in another ship, you will sail for two days; then you will come to a great city named Meroe.

Do you see, fellow-pupil, how he takes your soul and leads it through these places, turning the sense of hearing into the sense of sight? All such addresses, fixed on the persons themselves, put the audience right into the action as it is worked on. 3. And whenever you do not talk to all of the audience, but to one person only—

You would not know on which side the son of Tydeus stood—

you will make him more emotionally stirred and at the same time more attentive and fuller of a sense of the struggle, waking him up by these personal addresses.