[29]
It is most unbecoming
for an orator to distort his features or use uncouth
gestures, tricks that arouse such merriment in farce.
No less unbecoming are ribald jests, and such as
are employed upon the stage. As for obscenity, it
should not merely be banished from his language,
but should not even be suggested. For even if our
[p. 455]
opponent has rendered himself liable to such a
charge, our denunciation should not take the form
of a jest.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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.