The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville - Pot-pourri

64 I.xxxvii.32–xxxix.6 Isidore of Seville
model. 32. Icon(icon, cf. , “image”) is an image
(imago), when we attempt to explain the shape of a thing
from a similar kind as (Vergil, Aen. 4.558):
Similar to Mercury in all respects: in voice and color and
blonde hair and graceful youthful limbs.
Thus similarity with regard to appearance is fitting for
the one whose character is introduced. 33. Parabola
(parabola) isacomparison (comparatio) fromdissimilar
things, as (Lucan, Civil War 1.205):
Like a lion seen hard by in the fields of heat-bearing
Libya, he beset the enemy,
where he compares Caesar to a lion, making a comparison,
not from his own kind, but from another. 34.
Paradigm (paradigma)isamodel(exemplum)ofsomeone’s
word or deed, or something that is appropriate to
the thing that we describe either from its similar or from
its dissimilar nature, thus: “Scipio perished at Hippo as
bravely as did Cato at Utica.”
35. Acomparison (similitudo) maybemadein three
ways: from an equal, from a greater, from a lesser. From
an equal (Vergil, Aen. 1.148):
And just as often when rebellion has broken out in a
great populace.
From a greater to a lesser (Lucan, Civil War 1.151):
Just as lightning is forced down by the winds through
the clouds.
And fromalesser to a greater (Vergil, Aen. 6.119):
If Orpheus could summon the spirit of his wife, relying
on a Thracian cithara and its melodious strings,
as if he meant, relying on a small unimportant object;
that is, if he relies on a cithara, I rely on my piety.
xxxviii. Prose (De prosa) 1. Prose (prosa) is an
extended discourse, unconstrained by rules of meter.
The ancients used to say that prose is extended (productus)andstraightforward
(rectus). 44 Whence Varro in
his work on Plautus says that prosis lectis (read asprose)
means ‘straightforwardly,’ and thus a discourse that is
not inflected by meter, but is straightforward, is called
prose in that it extends (producere) directly.Others say
that prose is so called because it is profuse (profusus),
or because it ‘rushes forth’ (proruere) and runs expansively
with no set limit to it. 2.Moreover,forthe Greeks
as well as the Romans, the interest in poems was far
more ancient than in prose, for at first all things used
to be set in verse, and enthusiasm for prose flourished
later. Among the Greeks, Pherecydes of Syros was first to
write with unmetered speech, and among the Romans,
Appius Caecus, in his oration against Pyrrhus, was first
to use unmetered speech. Straightway after this, others
competed by means of eloquence in prose.
xxxix. Meters (De metris) 1. Meters(metrum) areso
called because they are bounded by the fixed measures
(mensura)andintervals of feet, and they do not proceed
beyond the designated dimension of time – for measure
is called in Greek. 2.Verses are so called because
when they are arranged in their regular order into feet
they are governed within a fixed limit through segments
that are called caesurae (caesum) andmembers (membrum).
Lest these segments roll on longer than good
judgment could sustain, reason has established a measure
from which the verse should be turned back; from
this ‘verse’ (versus) itself is named, because it is turned
back (revertere, ppl. reversus). 3. Andrelated to this is
rhythm (rhythmus), which is not governed by a specific
limit, but nevertheless proceeds regularly with ordered
feet. In Latin this is called none other than ‘number’
(numerus), regarding which is this (Vergil, Ecl. 9.45):
Irecall the numbers (numerus), if I could grasp the
words!
4.Whateverhasmetric feet is called a ‘poem’ (carmen).
People suppose that the name was given to it either
because it was pronounced ‘in pieces’ (carptim), just as
today we say that wool that the scourers tear in pieces is
carded (carminare), or because they used to think that
people who sang those poems had lost (carere) their
minds.
5.Meters are named either after their feet, or after the
topics about which they are written, or after their inventors,
or after those who commonly use them, or after the
number of syllables. 6. Metersnamed after feet are, for
example, dactylic, iambic, trochaic, for trochaic meter is
constructed from the trochee, dactylic from the dactyl,
and others similarly from their feet. Meters are named
after number, as hexameter, pentameter, trimeter – as
44 In fact the old form of the word prorsus, “straight on,” was
prosus, the source of the word prosa.