3.7. Of Figures and figuratiue speaches.
As figures be the instruments of ornament in euery language, so be they also
in a sorte abuses or rather trespasses in speach, because they passe the
ordinary limits of common vtterance, and be occupied of purpose to deceiue
the eare and also the minde, drawing it from plainnesse and simplicitie to a
certaine doubleness, whereby our talke is the more guilefull & abusing,
for what els is your Metaphor but an inuersion of sence by transport;
your allegorie by a duplicitie of meaning or dissimulation vnder
couert and darke intendments: one while by common prouerbe or Adage
called Paremia: then by merry skoffe called Irona: then by
bitter tawnt called Sarcasmus: then by periphrase or circumlocution
when all might be said in a word or two: then by incredible comparison
giuing credit, as by your Hyperbole, and many other waies seeking to
inueigle and appassionate the mind: which thing made the graue iudges
Areopagites (as I find written) to forbid all manner of figuratiue
speaches to be vsed before them in their consistorie of Iustice, as meere
illusions to the minde, and wresters of vpright iudgement, saying that to
allow such manner of forraine & couloured talke to make the iudges
affectioned, were
all one as if the carpenter before he began to square his timber would make
his squire coroked: in so much as the straite and vpright mind of a Iudge is
the very rule of iustice till it be peruerted by affection. This no doubt is
true and was by them grauely considered: but in this case because our
maker or Poet is appointed not for a iudge, but rather for a pleader, and that
of pleasant & louely causes and nothing perillous, such as be those for
the triall of life, limme, or liuelyhood; and before iudges neither sower nor
seuere, but in the eare of princely dames, yong ladies, gentlewomen and
courtiers, beying all for the most part either meeke of nature, or of pleasant
humour, and that all his abuses tende but to dispose the hearers to mirth and
sollace by pleasant conueyance and efficacy of speach, they are not in truth
to be accompted vices but for vertues in the poetical science very
commendable. On the other side, such trespasses in speach (whereof there
be many) as geue dolour and disliking to the eare & minde, by any foule
indecencie or disproportion of sound, situation, or sence, they be called and
not without cause the vicious parts or rather heresies of language:
wherefore the matter resteth much in the definition and acceptance of this
word [
decorum] for whatsoeuer is so, cannot iustly be misliked. In
which respect it may come to passe that what the Grammarian setteth down
for a viciositee in speach may become a vertue and no vice, contrariwise his
commended figure may fall into a reprochfull fault: the best and most
assured remedy whereof is, generally to follow the saying of
Bias: ne
quid nimis. So as in keeping measure, and not exceeding nor shewing any
defect in the vse of his figures, he cannot lightly do amisse, if he haue
besides (as that must needes be) a speciall regard to all circumstances of
the person, place, time, cause and purpose he hath in hand, which being well
obserued it easily auoideth all the recited inconueniences, and maketh now
and then very vice goe for a formall vertue in the exercise of this Arte.
