[169]
There is also an entirely different
tone, which might be described as lying almost
[p. 339]
outside the range of the instrument. The Greeks
call it bitterness, and it consists in an extravagant
acerbity almost beyond the compass of the human
voice. It is employed in passages such as,1 “Why
do you not restrain those cries, the proof of your
folly and the evidence of your small numbers?”
But the extravagance of which I spoke will come
in at the opening, where the orator cries, “Why do
you not restrain?”
1 pro Rab. perd. vi. 18.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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