[65]
When, however, the transposition is confined to two words only, it is called anastrophe, that
is, a reversal of order. This occurs in everyday
[p. 339]
speech in mecum and secure, while in orators and
historians we meet with it in the phrase quibus de
rebus. It is the transposition of a word to some
distance from its original place, in order to secure
an ornamental effect, that is strictly called hyperbaton: the following passage will provide an example:
animadverti, indices, omnem accusatoris orationenm in duas
divisam esse partes.1 (“I noted, gentlemen, that the
speech of the accuser was divided into two parts.”）
In this case the strictly correct order would be in duas
partes divisam esse, but this would have been harsh
and ugly.
1 Cic. pro Cluent. i. 1.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.