Chapter 8: The Five Springs of Sublimity
But since there are, one may say, five kinds of springs most productive of sublimity of address (although capacity for speaking is a kind of common foundation for these five ideas, without which generally there is nothing)—first and most powerful is a solid thrust of conception, as we have defined in our pages on Xenophon; second is an intense and enthusiastic emotion (these first two are for the most part self-bred constituents of sublimity, while those now left come also from technique); third isa sort of molding of figures, both figures of conception and those of style; in addition to these there is noble phrasing, the pans of which are the selection of words and the trope and “made up” elaboration of style; and the fifth spring responsible for greatness, which includes all before it, is the way things are put together in worth and loftiness—come, let us look to see for ourselves what is included in each of these, first saying only this, that of these five there are some which Caecilius left aside, as he left out emotion. 2. But if both of these, sublimity and emotion, actually were in his opinion one and were fundamentally together everywhere and grew together by nature, then he is thoroughly mistaken. You see, some emotions, standing far from sublimity, are actually found to be low, such as lamentation, pain, fright; and furthermore, there are many sublime passages without emotion, such as (in addition to tens of thousands of others) those exceedingly bold lines of the poet [i.e., Homer] about the Aloadae:
They both were eager to set Ossa on Olympus, on Ossa Pelion, shaker of woods, so that heaven might be passable to them.
And there is the still greater line after these:
And now they would have ended it.
3. For public speakers, of course, though encomia, ceremonial speeches, and “show” speeches have in all parts boldness and the sublime, for the most pan they lack emotion, as a result of which public speakers who are most part they lack emotion, as a result of which public speakers who are full of emotion are least apt to write encomia, while those who do write encomia are least emotional. 4. Again, if Caecilius wholly considered it a rule that emotion never ended up in sublimity and, on this account, did not consider it worthy of mention, he was very much misled. You see, I would confidently lay it down as a definition that nothing is so great in address as noble emotion-there in the place where it must be-breathing out enthusiastically as by a kind of madness and spirit which, as it were, made the speeches and writings oracularly Apollonian.
