Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator), 6.3.48

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[48] I say this not because I object absolutely to all play on words capable of two different meanings, but because such jests are rarely effective, unless they are helped out by actual facts as well as similarity of sound. For example, I regard the jest which Cicero levelled against that same Isauricus, whom I mentioned above, as being little less than sheer buffoonery.

I wonder,

he said,

why your father, the steadiest of men, left behind him such a stripy gentleman as yourself.

Institutio Oratoria. Quintilian. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator). Cambridge, Mass.. 1920-1922.

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Current edition Perseus

Institutio Oratoria (English) (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.)

Editions (1)

Institutio Oratoria Perseus (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, editor. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.) — 6.3.48 focus

[48] non quia excludenda sint omnino verba duos sensus significantia, sed quia raro belle respondeant, nisi cum prorsus rebus ipsis adiuvantur. quare non hoc modo¹ paene et ipsum scurrile Ciceronis est in eundem, de quo supra dixi, Isauricum: miror , quid sit, quod pater tuus, homo constantissimus, te nobis varium reliquit.

Notes on the current edition

Institutio Oratoria

1. Here again the pun is virtually untranslatable. Varium is used in the double sense of unstable or mottled, with reference to the story that he had been scourged by his father. See above §25.

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 6.3.48

Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator)

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