§8.3.69tum illa profanorum sacrorumque direptio, efferentium praedas repetentiumque discursus et acti ante suum quisque praedonem catenati et conata retinere infantem suum mater et, sicubi maius lucrum est, pugna inter victores.
Then that plundering of things profane and sacred, the running to and fro of those carrying away spoils and those seeking them back, the fettered captives driven each before his own captor, the mother endeavoring to retain her infant, and, wherever there is greater booty, the fight among the victors.
licet enim haec omnia, §8.3.70ut dixi, complectatur eversio, minus est tamen totum dicere quam omnia.
For although all these things, as I said, the destruction of a city embraces, yet to state the whole is less than to declare all the details.
consequemur autem, ut manifesta sint, si fuerint veri similia; et licebit etiam falso adfingere quidquid fieri solet.
Moreover, we shall achieve that they become manifest, if they are likely to be true; and it will even be allowed to invent falsely whatever is accustomed to happen.
continget eadem claritas etiam ex accidentibus:
"
mihi frigidus horror
membra quatit, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis. "
et
"
et trepidae mares pressere ad pectora natos. "
Atque huius summae, iudicio quidem meo, §8.3.71virtutis facillima est via.
The same vividness will also result from accompanying circumstances: "A cold horror shakes my limbs, and my icy blood curdles with fear." and "And the trembling mothers pressed their children to their breasts." And of this highest, in my judgment indeed, virtue, the path is very easy.
naturam intueamur, hanc sequamur.
Let us look upon nature, let us follow her.
omnis eloquentia circa opera vitae est, ad se refert quisque quae audit, et id facillime accipiunt animi, quod agnoscunt.
All eloquence is concerned with the activities of life; everyone refers what he hears to himself, and minds receive most easily that which they recognize.
§8.3.72praeclare vero ad inferendam rebus lucem repertae sunt similitudines; quarum aliae sunt, quae probationis gratia inter argumenta ponuntur, aliae ad exprimendam rerum imaginem compositae, quod est huius loci proprium:
"
inde lupi ceu
raptores atra in nebula. "
et
"
avi similis, quae circum litora, circum
piscosos scopulos humilis volat aequora iuxta. "
Quo in genere id est praecipue custodiendum,
Indeed, similitudes have been most excellently devised for bringing light to things; of which some are placed among arguments for the sake of proof, others are composed for expressing the image of things, which is the proper subject of this place: "Thence like wolves, ravagers in a dark mist." and "Like a bird, which flies low near the waters, around the shores, around the fish-abundant rocks." In which kind this is especially to be guarded against, lest that which we have adopted for the sake of similitude should be either obscure or unknown.
§8.3.73ne id, quod similitudinis gratia adscivimus, aut obscurum sit aut ignotum. debet enim, quod illustrandae alterius rei gratia assumitur, ipsum esse clarius eo quod illuminat.
For that which is assumed for the sake of illustrating another thing ought itself to be clearer than that which it illuminates.
quare poetis quidem permittamus sane eiusmodi exempla:
"
qualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta
deserit aut Delum maternam invisit Apollo. "
Non idem oratorem decebit, ut occultis aperta demonstret.
Therefore, let us indeed permit poets examples of this kind: "As when Apollo leaves winter Lycia and the streams of Xanthus, or visits his maternal Delos." The same will not befit an orator, to demonstrate clear things by means of obscure ones.
§8.3.74sed illud quoque, de quo in argumentis diximus, similitudinis genus ornat orationem facitque sublimem, floridam, iucundam, mirabilem.
But that kind of similitude also, of which we spoke under the head of arguments, adorns speech and makes it sublime, florid, pleasant, and admirable.
nam quo quaeque longius petita est, hoc plus adfert novitatis atque inexspectata magis est.
For the further fetched each one is, the more novelty it brings and the more unexpected it is.
§8.3.75illa vulgaria videntur et utilia tantum ad conciliandam fidem: ut terram cultu, sic animum disciplinis meliorem uberioremque fieri, et Vt medici abalienata morbis membra praecidant, ita turpes ac perniciosos, etiamsi nobis sanguine cohaereant, amputandos.
Those other similitudes seem common and useful only for winning belief: that as the earth becomes better and more fertile by cultivation, so the mind by learning, and that as physicians cut off limbs alienated by disease, so the base and noxious, even if connected to us by blood, must be amputated.
iam sublimius illud pro Archia; saxa atque solitudines voci respondent, bestiae saepe immanes cantu flectuntur atque consistunt et cetera.
Already more sublime is that passage in *Pro Archia*: "Rocks and deserts respond to the voice, savage beasts are often turned and stand still by song," and the rest.
§8.3.76quod quidem genus a quibusdam declamatoria maxime licentia corruptum est.
Which kind indeed has been corrupted by some through the greatest declamatory license.
nam et falsis utuntur nec illa iis, quibus similia videri volunt, applicant.
For they both use false ones and do not apply them to those things to which they wish them to seem similar.
quorum utrumque in his est, quae me iuvene ubique cantari solebant, magnorum fluminum navigabiles fontes sunt, et generosioris arboris statim planta cum fructu est. §8.3.77at omni autem parabole aut praecedit similitudo, res sequitur, aut praecedit res et similitudo sequitur.
Both of these faults are in those sayings which, when I was a young man, used to be chanted everywhere: "The sources of great rivers are navigable," and "The sapling of a nobler tree is immediately with fruit." But in every parabole, either the similitude precedes and the subject follows, or the subject precedes and the similitude follows.
sed interim libera et separata est; interim, quod longe optimum est, cum re, cuius est imago, connectitur, collatione invicem respondente, quod facit redditio contraria, quae ἀνταπόδοσις dicitur.
But sometimes it is free and separate; sometimes, which is by far the best, it is connected with the subject of which it is the image, with a mutual correspondence of comparison, which is effected by the contrary return, which is called antapodosis.
§8.3.78praecedit similitudo illa, cuius modo feci mentionem:
"
inde lupi ceu
raptores atra in nebula. "
Sequitur in primo Georgicon post longam de bellis civilibus atque externis conquestionem:
"
ut, cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,
addunt in spatia; et frustra retinacula tendens
fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas. "
Sed hae sunt sine antapodosi.
That similitude which I just now mentioned precedes: "Thence like wolves, ravagers in a dark mist." There follows in the first book of the *Georgics*, after a long lamentation concerning civil and foreign wars: "As when the chariots have poured forth from the barriers, they gather speed in their courses; and in vain holding the reins, the charioteer is carried away by the horses, nor does the chariot heed the reins." But these are without antapodosis.
§8.3.79redditio autem illa rem utramque, quam comparat, velut subiicit oculis et pariter ostendit.
But that return places both things which it compares, as it were, before the eyes and shows them together.
cuius praeclara apud Vergilium multa reperio exempla, sed oratoriis potius utendum est.
I find many excellent examples of this in Vergil, but we should rather use oratorical ones.
dicit Cicero pro Murena, ut aiunt in Graecis artificibus eos auloedos esse, qui citharoedi fieri non potuerint, sic apud nos videmus, qui oratores evadere non potuerint, eos ad iuris studium devenire.
Cicero says in *Pro Murena*: "As they say among Greek artists, that those are flute-players who could not become lyre-players, so among us we see that those who could not turn out orators, turn to the study of law."