That isn't meant to be taken literally. It's figurative. By putting conquering in the same category as coming and seeing, Ceasor was saying it was like (simile) coming and seeing.
As opposed to, say,
I'm in France, I'm learning a lot, and I'm having a good time.
That's meant to be literal. It's just three things.
Is there a name for metaphor-by-conjunction? That's my question.
I wanted to call it zeugma. Then I discovered that most of the definitions and examples didn't follow that idea at all. So I wanted to tell people to ignore those definitions, but now I don't think I should fight the riptide, get involved in a land war in Asia, or call that zeugma.
Drawing a pentangle on the floor and summoning the spirit of extrinsic, but happy to catch whoever I can.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Apr 2018
| IP: Logged |
posted
The quote, "I came, I saw, I conquered. (Veni,vidi, vici)" is not a metaphor. It was a phrase Caesar is reputed to have used in a letter to the Roman senate when recounting his victory at Zela where he won a quick and easy fight. Rather than being a metaphor, it is a poetic recounting of the actual event.
He literally came to the battlefield, saw the enemy's dispositions and then defeated them.
Phil.
[ October 14, 2018, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Veni, vidi, vici, is an isocolon, or, specifically, tricolon: "Three parallel items of the same length occurring in a series" (Silva Rhetoricae, Gideon Burton, rhetoric.byu.edu). The English translation, I came, I saw, I conquered, is at best a loose tricolon, "I conquered" a three-syllable clause, and "I came" and "I saw" two syllables each, isocolon the first two parts. I came, I saw, I won, similar translation, of lesser emphasis amplification, is a true tricolon. Likewise, I arrived, I perceived, I conquered, true tricolon.
The grammatical figure is a compound subject and compound predicate sentence of a sequenced series of actions, a somewhat periodic sentence, too.
The translation is also an apt auxesis: "Arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing force" [emphasis, amplification] (Silva Rhetoricae). The original is not auxesis. ("I conquered," increased force, apt, indeed.)
Both the original and the translation are alliteration and assonance, too, the translation a loose consonance, "came" and "conquered," three hard C or K sounds; the Latin, true consonance, same sound V. The overall rhetorical schemes are amplification through repetition, parallelism, and catacosmesis' correct order of time sequence, though catacosmesis' true use is to place the most important item first and emphasis deescalate in an orderly sequence, opposite of climax and auxesis.
The statement is a schemed allusion to an event though not any way the trope metaphor's representational comparison. Use of the saying, a proverb, or gnome, too, could be for metalepsis, and imply metaphorical comparison. For example, I arrived, I observed, I wonkered -- alludes to and contrastively compares to the original in a strained and altered manner, such that the alluded comparison invokes both meanings and results in a synthesis intimation and inference of both.
"Metaphor by conjunction" could be composed schemes that allude and compare, as above. If allusion and comparison, though, is metaphor, simile, or similar tropes outright. Scheme figures that might serve there, too, are oxymoron and paradox, types of conjoint schemes. Those rhetorical figures, not mass culture's and other disciplines' manifold derivative meanings.
Oxymoron: "Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox." Example, "The Sounds of Silence." Paradox: "A statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless." "Whosoever loses his life, shall find it." (Silva Rhetoricae) Other conjoint schemes, too, anthimeria, paradiastole, polysyndeton, hendiatris, and hendiadys, figures of addition and substitution, generally.
Zeugma and syllepsis are conjoint schemes though might express metaphor or simile or other trope's allusive comparison. Open your wallets, your shops, your homes, not your eyes nor minds or hearts and souls, to charity.
"I don't think I should fight the riptide, get involved in a land war in Asia, or call that zeugma." Metalepsis at least, a strained and apt allusive comparison to a famous line from The Princess Bride, itself an allusion to gnomes from various military personages throughout history.
Oh my! how rhetoric does stack up meaning from an economy of words.
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: The quote, "I came, I saw, I conquered. (Veni,vidi, vici)" is not a metaphor. It was a phrase Caesar is reputed to have used in a letter to the Roman senate when recounting his victory at Zela where he won a quick and easy fight. Rather than being a metaphor, it is a poetic recounting of the actual event.
He literally came to the battlefield, saw the enemy's dispositions and then defeated them.
Phil.
thanks everyone.
Hi Phil, you are right about the literal meaning; the question is the meaning in that phrase.
No one seems to think this means only that he defeated someone. Wictionary says it means "I have gained a total and swift victory." Wiki suggests "The phrase is used to refer to a swift, conclusive victory." Thoughtco suggests it was "a bit of stylish bragging." I too think bragging and hyperbole.
If Ceasar had wanted to say he won, there were other ways. Vici would have worked by itself, right?
So, the question becomes, how did vici become a swift victory? It seems obvious to me that, because of the conjunction, vici acquires a different meaning than its literal meaning.
Which means it's a figurative expression. If it's not a metaphor, I have no trouble with defining things that way. But note the similarity to
I came, I saw, and with the same ease I conquered.
Now is it a metaphor?
Posts: 407 | Registered: Apr 2018
| IP: Logged |
posted
The original statement is only that, an indicative mood declaration, a process statement. "I have gained a total and swift victory" becomes a metaphor when it alludes and compares or contrasts to any other circumstance not of the original occasion's expression: I came, I saw, I conquered. Such metaphoric uses also then become cliché through trite and outworn use and, next succession, idiom.
The implied connection, not conjunction, between the saying and its interpretations and transliteration derivatives is the metaphor, allusion and comparison or contrast to the original.
Another saying illustrates: A picture is worth a thousand words. The statement first meant that a publication paid an engraver per half folio engraving the same pay rate as a writer for a thousand words, which consumed the same half page of newspaper content real estate, a commonplace routine, ordinary, unremarkable rhetorically. The saying became metaphor when used to mean a picture expresses as much or more than one thousand words. Looser interpretations then mean that a picture expresses more than words ever can, more truth, more detail, more content. Overuse and trite uses made the phrase cliché and, anymore, an idiom.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hi extrinsic. I am not sure what you are saying. Nowadays, if someone says that, or something like that, they are alluding to Caesar's statement. Sure.
But Caesar wasn't making an allusion.
Caesar was using a writing technique. We seem to be agreeing that the conjunction carries "vici" beyond it's literal meaning (that he won).
I used it too. ("I don't think I should fight the riptide, get involved in a land war in Asia, or call that zeugma")
Posts: 407 | Registered: Apr 2018
| IP: Logged |
posted
Caesar alluded to an event when he expressed that sentiment. However, did not compare or contrast the saying with another circumstance. Figurative expression due to other rhetorical figures, yes, though no tropes: simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, allegory, irony, etc.
The saying is comma-spliced independent clauses, not conjunctioned, or conjunction -- a part of speech (verb, noun, pronoun, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, interjection), not a rhetorical figure. Though syndeton is a figure, that is, polysyndeton or asyndeton, stylistic use or omission of conjunctions, respectively; might be apt or a vice of grammatical style. Conventional conjunctions: and, or, nor, but, for, so, yet, plus other types for numerous conjunction applications.
No conjunctions in the saying, actual or implied. At the least, if the commas are inferred to mean and, a verbal equivalent for the mark if a serial list, then: I came [and] I saw [and] I conquered. However, the sentence is the compound type, of compound clause subjects and predicates, not a serial list, though is a listed sequence.
For contemporary grammar principles, semicolons would separate the compound clauses, though, otherwise, a comma-spliced sentence, a grammar fault. A verbal equivalent for the semicolon is with this.
However, classic Latin punctuation use differs from Modern English, and tradition precedents want the original cite's punctuation and style. The semicolon was a much later introduction than Latin's heydays, circa 1500 CE, albeit introduced by an Italian. Circa 1600 CE, the colon mark; verbal equivalent, as follows.
posted
Emma, Caesar was both a politician and a renowned public orator. He chose his words with great care and with an eye for how the public would receive them. To conquer implies far more than, "I won an easy victory." It basically says, "Look at me! I AM GREAT!" Public perception was everything in both the Roman Republic and the Empire. The mob could raise you up as easily as it could tear you down.
Every public word Caesar said or wrote was weighed on his scales of personal advantage and reputational enhancement. The subtext of this declaration is simple; Resistance is futile, wherever I go, I conquer.
Phil.
[ October 15, 2018, 03:48 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Caesar was indeed a megalomaniac and cult of personality all himself's own. One remarkable facet of his feral masculist megalomania is successor Roman imperators (emperors) adopted the title "Caesar," his patrilineal family's surname.
Signs of megalomania (social discourse label for clinical narcissistic personality disorder):
Grandiosity with expectations of grand treatment from other people
Fixated on fantasies of power, success, wealth, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.
Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions (affinity, admiration, and even affection for thereof)
Need continual admiration from others
Sense of unconditional entitlement to special treatment and to unconditional obedience from others
Exploitative of others to achieve personal gain at their disproportionate loss and harm expense
Unwilling and unable to empathize with the emotions, sensibilities, sentiments, wishes, and needs of other people and consequent social dysfunction
Intensely envious of others, and belief that others are likewise envious of them
Pompous and arrogant demeanor
Prone to violent tantrums far out of proportion to causes, loss of emotional control when above expectations unmet
Few, if any, emotions other than the primitives anger, fear, and transient joy obtained from others' miseries (schadenfreude)
Schizoaffective, episodic mixed depressive-manic bouts, and paranoid, irrespective of if real or imagined threats
All of which Caesar exhibited exceptionally. The above for characterization development purposes (agonist, nemesis, villain), less so to demean the great celebrity personage.
posted
Rhetoric categories range from overall to broad to singular. No, per se, singular label for a "metaphor by conjunction." A broad category that applies to Caesar's cite and metaphor by conjunction is the Canon of Arrangement, its narrower category is figures of order (exordium), and includes:
Figures of Order * Figures of Parallelism * Figures of Amplification * Hyperbaton Anastrophe Synchysis Parecbasis Catacosmesis *
Several of which the cite evinces * and several others.
An expression that contains conjunctions; the rhetorical figures, polysyndeton, hendiadys, anthimeria, paradiastole, parallelism, alliteration, consonance, period, hyperbaton, and metaphor:
Marianna Headmother bore lively budded and blossomed and seeded and sowed to the wind nuts and fruits.
posted
To place Caesar's quote in context, the battle of Zela was in 47BCE, Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BCE, and incited the Roman civil war.
When taken together, one could surmise Caesar's intent was to warn rivals at home that regardless of any plans they might have to defy him he would always be victorious.
Roughly three years after the quote, Caesar was declared dictator for life.
Phil.
[ October 16, 2018, 02:52 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
