The figure hyperbaton belongs to the same class. By hyperbaton we mean a
transposition of words or thoughts from their usual order, bearing
unmistakably the characteristic stamp of violent mental agitation. In
real life we often see a man under the influence of rage, or fear, or
indignation, or beside himself with jealousy, or with some other out of
the interminable list of human passions, begin a sentence, and then
swerve aside into some inconsequent parenthesis, and then again double
back to his original statement, being borne with quick turns by his
distress, as though by a shifting wind, now this way, now that, and
playing a thousand capricious variations on his words, his thoughts, and
the natural order of his discourse. Now the figure hyperbaton is the
means which is employed by the best writers to imitate these signs of
natural emotion. For art is then perfect when it seems to be nature, and
nature, again, is most effective when pervaded by the unseen presence of
art. An illustration will be found in the speech of Dionysius of Phocaea
in Herodotus: "A hair's breadth now decides our destiny, Ionians,
whether we shall live as freemen or as slaves--ay, as runaway slaves.
Now, therefore, if you choose to endure a little hardship, you will be
able at the cost of some present exertion to overcome your enemies."[1]
[Footnote 1: vi. 11.]
2
The regular sequence here would have been: "Ionians, now is the time for
you to endure a little hardship; for a hair's breadth will now decide
our destiny." But the Phocaean transposes the title "Ionians," rushing
at once to the subject of alarm, as though in the terror of the moment
he had forgotten the usual address to his audience. Moreover, he inverts
the logical order of his thoughts, and instead of beginning with the
necessity for exertion, which is the point he wishes to urge upon them,
he first gives them the reason for that necessity in the words, "a
hair's breadth now decides our destiny," so that his words seem
unpremeditated, and forced upon him by the crisis.
3
Thucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure,
even breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and
indivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in
Demosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the
elder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent
transpositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags,
as it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted
clause.
4
He often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense,
meanwhile thrusting in between, in a position apparently foreign and
unnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus
made his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and
forced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he
is nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment,
_i.e._ when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting
for so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions
he produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples,
as they are too numerous to require it.