# On the Sublime/Chapter 22

XXII
The figure hyperbaton belongs to the same class. By hyperbaton we mean a transposition of words or thoughts from their usual order, bearing unmistakably the characteristic stamp of violent mental agitation. In real life we often see a man under the influence of rage, or fear, or indignation, or beside himself with jealousy, or with some other out of the interminable list of human passions, begin a sentence, and then swerve aside into some inconsequent parenthesis, and then again double back to his original statement, being borne with quick turns by his distress, as though by a shifting wind, now this way, now that, and playing a thousand capricious variations on his words, his thoughts, and the natural order of his discourse. Now the figure hyperbaton is the means which is employed by the best writers to imitate these signs of natural emotion. For art is then perfect when it seems to be nature, and nature, again, is most effective when pervaded by the unseen presence of art. An illustration will be found in the speech of Dionysius of Phocaea in Herodotus: "A hair's breadth now decides our destiny, Ionians, whether we shall live as freemen or as slaves—ay, as runaway slaves. Now, therefore, if you choose to endure a little hardship, you will be ​able at the cost of some present exertion to overcome your enemies."2 The regular sequence here would have been: "Ionians, now is the time for you to endure a little hardship; for a hair's breadth will now decide our destiny." But the Phocaean transposes the title "Ionians," rushing at once to the subject of alarm, as though in the terror of the moment he had forgotten the usual address to his audience. Moreover, he inverts the logical order of his thoughts, and instead of beginning with the necessity for exertion, which is the point he wishes to urge upon them, he first gives them the reason for that necessity in the words, "a hair's breadth now decides our destiny," so that his words seem unpremeditated, and forced upon him by the crisis.
3Thucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure, even breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and indivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in Demosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the elder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent transpositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags, as it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted clause.4 He often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense, meanwhile thrusting in between, ​in a position apparently foreign and unnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus made his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and forced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he is nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment, i.e. when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting for so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions he produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples, as they are too numerous to require it.