There are, one may say, five most fertile sources of sublimity in writing, with a faculty of expression presupposed beneath them all as a kind of common foundation, since without that nothing whatever is possible. The first and most powerful is a robust grasp of great conceptions, as we defined it in our work on Xenophon; the second, vehement and inspired passion. These two constituents of sublimity are, for the most part, native gifts; the rest depend partly upon art: a certain fashioning of figures (these being of two kinds, figures of thought and figures of speech); next, noble diction, which has as its parts in turn the choice of words and figurative or wrought-up language; and, fifth, the source of grandeur that gathers up all the rest, dignified and elevated composition. Let us now consider what each of these involves, premising only that of the five Caecilius has omitted some, the passionate, for instance, with no consideration whatever. §1
If indeed he supposed sublimity and the pathetic to be a single thing, and so always to coexist and grow together, he is in error: for some passions are found apart from sublimity and even mean, like pity, sorrow, fear; and conversely many sublimities have nothing to do with passion, as among countless other examples those daring lines in Homer about the Aloadae: ‘Ossa upon Olympus they were eager to set; and upon Ossa Pelion with its quivering leaves, that there might be a way up to heaven.’ And what follows is greater still: ‘And in truth they would have brought it to pass.’ §2
Among the orators encomia and ceremonial pieces and display speeches always contain bulk and elevation, but for the most part are bereft of passion. Hence the most passionate of orators are least the eulogists, and contrariwise the panegyrical least the passionate. §3
If, on the other hand, Caecilius thought wholly that the pathetic never contributes to sublimity, and on that account did not judge it worth mention, he is altogether deceived. For I would confidently affirm that nothing is so productive of grandeur as a noble passion, where it is needed, breathing out by a kind of madness and inspired wind, and well-nigh making the words speak with the breath of Apollo. §4