Synchysis is a rhetorical technique wherein words are intentionally scattered to create bewilderment, or for some other purpose.
By disrupting the normal course of a sentence, it forces the audience to consider the meaning of the words and the relationship between them.

Examples

*"I run and shoot, quickly and accurately." *"Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear" –

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

, "Epistle II. To a Lady" (1743) *"When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep, :Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep" –

, Essay on Man. :: (That is, "When earthquakes swallow towns to one grave, or when tempests sweep whole nations to the deep".)

In poetry

This poetry form was a favorite with Latin poets. It is described by the website Silva Rhetoricae as "Hyperbaton or anastrophe taken to an obscuring extreme, either accidentally or purposefully." It is doubtful, however, whether it could be correct to describe effects in Latin poetry, which was very carefully written, as accidental. Synchysis may be opposed to

chiasmus In rhetoric, chiasmus ( ) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek , "crossing", from the Greek , , "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of wor ...

, which is a phrase in the form A-B-B-A, either in the same line or in two consecutive lines. A line of Latin verse in the form ''adjective A - adjective B - verb - noun A - noun B'', with the verb in the center (or a corresponding chiastic line, again with the verb in the center), is known as a

golden line The golden line is a type of Latin dactylic hexameter frequently mentioned in Latin classrooms and in contemporary scholarship about Latin poetry, but which apparently began as a verse-composition exercise in schools in early modern Britain. Defin ...

. A highly common occurrence in

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

, an example is ''aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem'', "a golden clasp bound her purple cloak" (Virgil, Aeneid 4.139). Usually, synchysis is formed through the ''adjective A - adjective B - noun A - noun B'' structure, but it can also exist as ''adjective-noun-adjective-noun''. Today, it is mainly found in

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

, where poets use it to maintain

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

or rhyme.

Examples in Latin poetry

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...

notably made use of synchysis in his poetry. Catullus 75 has this line: :''Huc est mens deducta tuā mea Lesbia culpa'' Taking ''mea'' with ''Lesbia'' this line reads: :To this point, (my) mind is reduced by your guilt, my Lesbia. The correct way to translate the line, however, is to take it with the more distant ''mens'', observing Catullus's synchysis: :To this point, Lesbia, my mind is reduced by your guilt. Another example comes from Horace (Odes I.35, lines 5ff.), part of a hymn to a goddess: :''te pauper ambit sollicitā prece'' :''ruris colonus, te dominam aequoris'' ::''quicumque Tyrrhenā lacessit'' :::''Carpathium pelagus carinā''. The meaning is "thee, (the mistress) of the countryside, the poor farmer beseeches with anxious prayer, thee, the mistress of the ocean, whoever provokes the Carpathian sea in a Tyrrhenian boat (beseeches)", ''dominam'' being understood with ''ruris'' as well as ''aequoris''. Often, through failure to spot the synchysis, ''ruris'' is taken with ''colonus'', and the verse is incorrectly translated as "the poor farmer of the countryside".

References

Poetic forms Word order Ambiguity Obfuscation {{Ling-stub

Examples

In poetry

Examples in Latin poetry

See also

References