“Qua ponto a Helles”

is an extravagant expression; but

“Auratua aries Colehorum”

is a verse illuminated with splendid names.  But the next verse is polluted by ending with a most inharmonious letter;

“Frugifera et ferta arva Asiae tenet.”

Let us therefore use the propriety of words of our own language, rather than the brilliancy of the Greeks; unless perchance we are ashamed of speaking in such a way as this—­

“Qua tempestate Paris Helenam,”

and the rest of that sentence.  Let us, I say, pursue that plan and avoid harshness of sound.

  “Habeo istam ego perterricrepam.... 
  Versutiloquas malitias.”

Nor is it enough to have one’s words arranged in a regular system, but the terminations of the sentences must be carefully studied, since we have said that that is a second sort of judgment of the ears.  But the harmonious end of a sentence depends on the arrangement itself, which is so of its own accord, if I may so express myself, or on some particular class of words in which there is a certain neatness; and whether such words have cases the terminations of which are similar, or whether one word is matched with another which resembles it, or whether contrary words are opposed to one another, they are harmonious of their own nature, even if nothing has been done on purpose.  In the pursuit of this sort of neatness Gorgias is reported to have been the leader; and of this style there is an example in our speech in defence of Milo:  “For this law, O judges, is not a written one, but a natural one, one which we have not learnt, or received from others, or gathered from books; but which we have extracted, and pressed out, and imbibed from nature itself; it is one in which we have not been educated, but born; we have not been brought up in it, but imbued with it.  For these sentences are such that, because they are referred to the principles to which they ought to be referred, we see plainly that harmony was not the thing that was sought in them, but that which followed of its own accord.  And this is also the case when contraries are opposed to one another; as those phrases are by which not only a harmonious sentence, but even a verse is made.

“Eam, quam nihil accusas, damnas.”

A man would say condemnas if he wished to avoid making a verse.

  “Bene quam meritam esse autumas, dicis male mereri. 
  Id, quod scis, prodest nihil; id, quod nescis, obest.”

The very relation of the contrary effects makes a verse that would be harmonious in a narration.

“Quod scis, nihil prodest; quod nescis, multum obest.”

These things, which the Greeks call [Greek:  antitheta], as in them contraries are opposed to contraries, of sheer necessity produce oratorical rhythm; and that too without any intention on the part of the orator that they should do so.