Book 8
3.23
especially in the schools, and often turn the laugh against the speaker, particularly in the present day, when declamation has become so far removed from reality and labours under such an extravagant fastidiousness in the choice of words that it has excluded a good half of the language from its vocabulary.
3.24
Words are proper, newly-coined or metaphorical. In the case of proper words there is a special dignity conferred by antiquity, since old words, which not everyone would think of using, give our style a venerable and majestic air: this is a form of ornament of which Virgil, with his perfect taste, has made unique use.
3.25
For his employment of words such as olli, Archaic for illi. quianam, Because. moerus, Archaic for murus (Aen. x. 24.). pone Behind. and pellacia Deceitfulness ( Aen. ii. 90). gives his work that impressive air of antiquity which is so attractive in pictures, but which no art of man can counterfeit. But we must not overdo it, and such words must not be dragged out from the deepest darkness of the past. Quaeso is old enough: what need for us to say quaiso? quaeso = pray, oppido quite, exactly. Oppido was still used by my older contemporaries, but I fear that no one would tolerate it now. At any rate, antegerio, Quite, very. which means the same, would certainly never be used by anyone who was not possessed with a passion for notoriety.
