1. For he seems to make no other parts of speech but them. But Homer in
a sportive humor has comprehended them all in one verse:
Αὐτὸς ἰὼν κλισίηνδε τὸ σὸν γέρας, ὄφρ’ εὖ εἰδῇς.[168]
For in it there is pronoun, participle, noun, preposition, article,
conjunction, adverb, and verb, the particle -δε being put instead of
the preposition εἰς; for κλισίηνδε, _to the tent_, is said in the same
sense as Ἀθήναζε, _to Athens_. What then shall we say for Plato?
Is it that at first the ancients called that λόγος, or speech, which
once was called protasis and now is called axiom or proposition,—which
as soon as a man speaks, he speaks either true or false? This consists
of a noun and verb, which logicians call the subject and predicate.
For when we hear this said, “Socrates philosophizeth” or “Socrates
is changed,” requiring nothing more, we say the one is true, the
other false. For very likely in the beginning men wanted speech and
articulate voice, to enable them to express clearly at once the
passions and the patients, the actions and the agents. Now, since
actions and affections are sufficiently expressed by verbs, and they
that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify.
And one may say, the rest signify not. For instance, the groans and
shrieks of stage-players, and even their smiles and reticence, make
their discourse more emphatic. But they have no necessary power to
signify any thing, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious
power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and
quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of
letters. This the ancients have made manifest, whom sixteen letters
sufficed to speak and write any thing.
2. Besides, we must not neglect to observe, that Plato says that speech
is composed _of_ these, not _by_ these; nor must we blame Plato for
leaving out conjunctions, prepositions, and the like, any more than
we should cavil at a man who should say such a medicine is composed
of wax and galbanum, because fire and utensils are omitted, without
which it cannot be made. For speech is not composed of these; yet by
their means, and not without them, speech must be composed. As, if a
man pronounce _beats_ or _is beaten_, and put Socrates and Pythagoras
to the same, he offers us something to conceive and understand. But
if a man pronounce _indeed_ or _for_ or _about_, and no more, none
can conceive any notion of a body or matter; and unless such words
as these be uttered with verbs and nouns, they are but empty noise
and chattering. For neither alone nor joined one with another do
they signify any thing. And join and confound together conjunctions,
articles, and prepositions, supposing you would make something of them;
yet you will be taken to babble, and not to speak sense. But when there
is a verb in construction with a noun, the result is speech and sense.
Therefore some do with good reason make only these two parts of speech;
and perhaps Homer is willing to declare himself of this mind, when he
says so often,
Ἔπος τ’ ἔφατ’ ἔκ τ’ ὀνόμαζεν.
For by ἔπος he usually means a verb, as in these verses:
Ὦ γύναι, ἢ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος θυμαλγὲς ἔειπες,
and,
Χαῖρε, πάτερ, ὦ ξεῖνε, ἔπος δ’ εἴπερ τι λέλεκται
Δεινὸν, ἄφαρ τὸ φέροιεν ἀναρπάξασαι ἄελλαι.[169]
For neither conjunction, article, nor preposition could be called
δεινόν (_terrible_) or θυμαλγές (_soul-grieving_), but only a verb
expressing a base action or a foolish passion of the mind. Therefore,
when we would praise or dispraise poets or writers, we are wont to say,
such a man uses Attic nouns and good verbs, or else common nouns and
verbs; but none can say that Thucydides or Euripides used Attic or good
or common articles.
3. What then? may some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to
speech? I answer, They conduce, as salt does to victuals, or water to
barley cakes. And Euenus calls fire the best sauce. Though sometimes
there is neither occasion for fire to boil, nor for salt to season our
food, which we have always occasion for. Nor has speech always occasion
for articles. I think I may say this of the Latin tongue, which is
now the universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions,
saving a few, nor does it use any articles, but leaves its nouns (as it
were) without skirts and borders. Nor is it any wonder, since Homer,
who in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only to a
few nouns, like handles to cans, or crests to helmets. Therefore these
verses are remarkable wherein the articles are expressed:
Αἴαντι δὲ μάλιστα δαΐφρονι θυμὸν ὄρινε
Τῷ Τελαμωνιάδῃ·[170]
and,
Ποίεον ὄφρα τὸ κῆτος ὑπεκπροφυγὼν ἀλέαιτο·[171]
and some few besides. But in a thousand others, the omission of the
articles hinders neither perspicuity nor elegance of phrase.
4. Now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor any thing else
is more fine, efficacious, or graceful, for the loss of a part. Yet
speech, by taking away conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as
here:
One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;
One held a living foe, that freshly bled
With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead.[172]
And this of Demosthenes:
“A bully in an assault may do much which his victim cannot even
describe to another person,—by his mien, his look, his voice,—when he
stings by insult, when he attacks as an avowed enemy, when he smites
with his fist, when he gives a blow on the face. These rouse a man;
these make a man beside himself who is unused to such foul abuse.”
And again:
“Not so with Midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he
shouts. Is there an election of magistrates?
Midias the Anagyrrasian is nominated. He is the advocate of Plutarchus;
he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him.”[173]
Therefore the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is
highly commended by writers of rhetoric. But such as keep overstrict to
the law, and (according to custom) omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians
blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without any variety in it.
And inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining
together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and Ulysses
wanted withs to tie Cyclop’s sheep; this shows they are not parts of
speech, but a conjunctive instrument thereof, as the word conjunction
imports. Nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as are not spoken
simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of
a book, or distribution of money part of the government. For Demades
says, that money which is given to the people out of the exchequer for
public shows is the glue of a democracy. Now what conjunction does
so of several propositions make one, by knitting and joining them
together, as marble joins iron that is melted with it in the fire? Yet
the marble neither is nor is said to be part of the iron; although
in this case the substances enter into the mixture and are melted
together, so as to form a common substance from many and to be mutually
affected. But there be some who think that conjunctions do not make any
thing one, but that this kind of discourse is merely an enumeration, as
when magistrates or days are reckoned in order.
5. Moreover, as to the other parts of speech, a pronoun is manifestly a
sort of noun; not only because it has cases like the noun, but because
some pronouns, when they are applied to objects heretofore defined, by
their mere utterance give the most distinct and proper designation of
them.
Nor do I know whether he that says _Socrates_ or he that says _this
one_ does more by name declare the person.
6. The thing we call a participle, being a mixture of a verb and noun,
is nothing of itself, as are not the common names of male and female
qualities (i.e. adjectives), but in construction it is put with others,
in regard of tenses belonging to verbs, in regard of cases to nouns.
Logicians call them ἀνάκλαστοι, (i.e. _reflected_),—as φρονῶν comes
from φρόνιμος, and σωφρονῶν from σώφρονος,—having the force both of
nouns and appellatives.
7. And prepositions are like to the crests of a helmet, or footstools
and pedestals, which (one may rather say) do belong to words than are
words themselves. See whether they rather be not pieces and scraps
of words, as they that are in haste write but dashes and pricks for
letters. For it is plain that ἐμβῆναι and ἐκβῆναι are abbreviations of
the whole words ἐντὸς βῆναι and ἐκτὸς βῆναι, προγενέσθαι for πρότερον
γενέσθαι, and καθίζειν for κάτω ἵζειν. As undoubtedly for haste and
brevity’s sake, instead of λίθους βάλλειν and τοίχους ὀρύττειν men
first said λιθοβολεῖν and τοιχωρυχεῖν.
8. Therefore every one of these is of some use in speech; but nothing
is a part or element of speech (as has been said) except a noun and a
verb, which make the first juncture admitting of truth or falsehood,
which some call a proposition or protasis, others an axiom, and which
Plato called speech.