Kitap 9
2.4
If a speaker use them sparingly and only as occasion demands, they will serve as a seasoning to his style and increase its attractions. If, on the other hand, he strains after them overmuch, he will lose that very charm of variety which they confer. Some figures, however, are so generally accepted that they have almost ceased to be regarded as figures: consequently however frequently they may be used, they will make less impression on the ear, just because it has become habituated to them.
2.5
For abnormal figures lying outside the range of common speech, while they are for that very reason more striking, and stimulate the ear by their novelty, prove cloying if used too lavishly, and make it quite clear that they did not present themselves naturally to the speaker, but were hunted out by him, dragged from obscure corners and artificially piled together. Figures, then,
2.6
may be found in connexion with the gender of nouns; for we find oculis capti talpale Georg. i. 183. (blind moles) and timidi damae Ecl. viii. 28. (timid deer) in Virgil; but there is good reason for this, since in these cases both sexes are covered by a word of one gender, and there is no doubt that there are male moles and deer as well as female. Figures may also affect verbs: for example, we find such phrases as fabricatus est glatdium Cic. pro Rab Post. iii. 7. He made a sword. or inimicum poenitus es. pro Mil. xiii. 33. You punished an enemy.
