On the Sublime/Chapter 23

by Longinus

XXIII

The juxtaposition of different cases, the enumeration of particulars, and the use of contrast and climax, all, as you know, add much vigour, and give beauty and great elevation and life to a style. The diction also gains greatly in diversity and movement by changes of case, time, person, number, and gender.

2With regard to change of number: not only is the style improved by the use of those words which, though singular in form, are found on inspection to be plural in meaning, as in the lines—

 

"A countless host dispersed along the sand
With joyous cries the shoal of tunny hailed,"

 

but it is more worthy of observation that plurals for singulars sometimes fall with a more impressive dignity, rousing the imagination by the mere sense of vast number.3 Such is the effect of those words of Oedipus in Sophocles—

 

"Oh fatal, fatal ties!

Ye gave us birth, and we being born ye sowed
The self-same seed, and gave the world to view
Sons, brothers, sires, domestic murder foul,
Brides, mothers, wives. … Ay, ye laid bare
The blackest, deepest place where Shame can dwell."^[1]

 

Here we have in either case but one person, first Oedipus, then Jocasta; but the expansion of number into the plural gives an impression of multiplied calamity. So in the following plurals—

 

"There came forth Hectors, and there came Sarpedons."

 

And in those words of Plato's (which we have already adduced elsewhere),4 referring to the Athenians: "We have no Pelopses or Cadmuses or Aegyptuses or Danauses, or any others out of all the mob of Hellenised barbarians, dwelling among us; no, this is the land of pure Greeks, with no mixture of foreign elements,"^[2] etc. Such an accumulation of words in the plural number necessarily gives greater pomp and sound to a subject. But we must only have recourse to this device when the nature of our theme makes it allowable to amplify, to multiply, or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or passion. To overlay every sentence with ornament^[3] is very pedantic.

1. O. R. 1403.
2. Menex. 245 D.
3. Lit. "To hang bells everywhere," a metaphor from the bells which were attached to horses' trappings on festive occasions.