English poetry -- History and criticism; Poetry -- Early works to 1800
Viz. to show. Where ye see the moode Indicatiue supply him selfe and an
Infinitiue. And the like in these other.
_I neuer yet failde you in constancie,
Nor neuer doo intend vntill I die._
Viz. [_to show_.] Thus much for the congruitie, now for the sence. One
wrote thus of a young man, who slew a villaine that had killed his father,
and rauished his mother.
_Thus valiantly and with a manly minde,
And by one feate of euerlasting fame,
This lustie lad fully requited kinde,
His fathers death, and eke his mothers shame._
Where ye see this word [_requite_] serue a double sence: that is to say,
to reuenge, and to satisfie. For the parents iniurie was reuenged, and the
duetie of nature performed or satisfied by the childe.
[Sidenote: _Hypozeuxis_, or the Substitute.]
But if this supplie be made to sundrie clauses, or to one clause sundrie
times iterated, and by seuerall words, so as euery clause hath his owne
supplie: then is it called by the Greekes _Hypozeuxis_, we call him the
substitute after his originall, and is a supplie with iteration, as thus:
_Vnto the king she went, and to the king she said,
Mine owne liege Lord behold thy poore handmaid._
Here [_went to the king_] and [_said to the king_] be but one clause
iterated with words of sundrie supply. Or as in these verses following.
_My Ladie gaue me, my Lady wist not what,
Geuing me leaue to be her Soueraine:
For by such gift my Ladie hath done that,
Which whilest she liues she may not call againe._
Here [_my Ladie gaue_] and [_my Ladie wist_] be supplies with iteration,
by vertue of this figure.
Ye haue another _auricular_ figure of defect, and is when we begin to
speake a thing, and breake of in the middle way, as if either it needed no
further to be spoken of, or that we were ashamed, or afraide to speake it
it out. It is also sometimes done by way of threatning, and to shew a
moderation of anger. The Greekes call him _Aposiopesis._ I, the figure of
silence, or of interruption, indifferently.
[Sidenote: _Aposiopesis_, or the Figure of silence.]
If we doo interrupt our speech for feare, this may be an example, where as
one durst not make the true report as it was, but staid halfe way for
feare of offence, thus:
_He said you were, I dare not tell you plaine
For words once out, neuer returne againe._
If it be for shame, or that the speaker suppose it would be indecent to
tell all, then thus: as he that said to his sweete hart, whom he checked
for secretly whispering with a suspected person.
_And did ye not come by his chamber dore?
And tell him that: goe to, I say no more._
If it be for anger or by way of manace or to show a moderation of wrath as
the graue and discreeter sort of men do, then thus.
_If I take you with such another cast
I sweare by God, but let this be the last._
Thinking to haue said further viz. I will punish you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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