[41]
But its decorative effect is greatest
when it is metaphorical, as in the phrases “unbridled
greed”1 or “those mad piles of masonry.”2 The
epithet is generally made into a trope by the addition
of something to it, as when Virgil speaks of “disgraceful poverty” or “sad old age.”3 But the nature
of this form of embellishment is such that, while
style is bare and inelegant without any epithets
at all, it is overloaded when a large number are
employed.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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