[40]
The remaining tropes are employed solely to
adorn and enhance our style without any reference
to the meaning. For the epithet, of which the correct
translation is appositum, though some call it sequens,
[p. 325]
is clearly an ornament. Poets employ it with special
frequency and freedom, since for them it is sufficient
that the epithet should suit the word to which it is
applied: consequently we shall not blame them
when they speak of “white teeth” or “liquid
wine.”1 But in oratory an epithet is redundant
unless it has some point. Now it will only have
point when it adds something to the meaning, as for
instance in the following: “O abominable crime, O
hideous lust!”
1 Georg. III. 364.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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