First Paper Assignment: Final Draft with Imitatio and Original Speech Included

Imitatio of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen: A Reflection

            In the process of finding an ancient speech to imitate, I came across the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias: a speech in the defense of Helen, the woman who seemingly started the Trojan War. I was inspired by this piece of ancient rhetoric and applied it to the contemporary Lindsay Lohan, a modern actress whom I thought would be a good comparison to Helen due to the amount of trouble she causes within public affairs. Shortly after being compelled by the subject matter of the Encomium, I found the introduction of the speech to be the most effective due to various appeals given by the speaker, specifically pathos, and thought it strong enough to be applied to any modern situation. I used the introduction of the original as my template, and the strength of the ancient Gorgias’ pathos, ehthos and logos as my inspiration to apply it to something in the now.

            The Encomium of Helen caught my attention and this is why I decided to use this speech above the others. When laying out an argument, the ability of catching the audience’s attention right away is very important, and this is something that the Encomium of Helen does by specifically addressing the audience, and making a connection with them right away. Gorgias makes it clear in the beginning of his speech that he is particularly addressing those who find Helen to be guilty. By making this connection with the specific audience, stasis was able to effectively occur, and then Gorgias was able to start making claims.

            The first claim he made touched on the ethos of Helen herself. He states in the third paragraph that “it is clear that her mother was Leda, and her father was in fact a god, Zeus, but allegedly a mortal, Tyndareus, of whom the former was shown to be her father because he was and the later was disproved because he was said to be, and the one was the most powerful of men and the other the lord of all”(44). Here Gorgias is saying that Helen is a credible individual because of her stance as the daughter of a God. He goes on to address those who disagree with this idea that Zeus is her father by saying that the mortal who is also said to be her father is the most powerful among men. Whatever the truth may be about who Helen’s father is, Gorgias has made it clear that either way she is to be held in a high standard simply for who she is.

            Secondly, Gorgias resorts to the emotion of the audience by saying that whatever happened was no fault of Helens, because she had no control of her rank as a human being, and it wasn’t her fault that she had god-like beauty which perhaps forced the men to take her away to Troy. In a way, Gorgias combined pathos with ethos while making this point because he brings up her social rank again while saying that whatever happened was because the gods wanted it that way. Such a statement appeals to the emotions of the audience because it touches on their religious beliefs, and back then it was not acceptable to disagree with the gods for the fear of what they might do. 

            Finally, Gorgias appeals logically to the audience by bringing up every possibility that could have happened in the case of Helen going off to Troy with a man other than her husband, and explaining why it wasn’t her fault in each situation.  For example, he explains how she could have been physically forced by these men, or even forced by the persuasion of speech. Gorgias makes the point that speech can be just as powerful as the physicality of forcing someone to do something.

            In the process of finding a speech and imitating it, I found it the most challenging to apply the Encomium of Helen to something modern. I am not someone who reads the news regularly, so I really had to dig to find something that was somewhat parallel to the context of the original speech. The situation of Lindsay Lohan isn’t very similar with Helen, but I found that I could use the speech in such a modern context anyway by using the tactics of logos, ethos, and pathos that Gorgias used in the original. For example, the simplicity in the logic of Helen being persuaded to leave to Troy in the original was turned into the simple logic of Lindsay Lohan making a casual mistake in the imitation.

            While imitating the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias, I learned that the persuasive power of ancient rhetoric is the same thing that leads us to make the decisions we make in our every day lives. I think that the most direct resemblance in the modern world to Gorgias’ Encomium would be the type of work that is done by today’s lawyers in the court of law. Similarly, we see enormous amounts of pathos everywhere we look. For example, an appeal is being made to our emotions in any kind of advertisement. I noticed that pathos played a very important role in the original speech, and couldn’t help but notice how familiar I actually am with it, since we all encounter it so often. Overall, I discovered that that the ancient rhetoric of Gorgias Encomium of Helen is the same rhetoric that we use today, just under the context of the modern world.

Imitatio of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen: The Encomium of Lindsay Lohan

What is ideal to a human being may be attaining the highest knowledge, obtaining the most wealth, or perhaps being beautiful in every physical aspect. What is ideal to Lindsay Lohan is nothing other than living a life without crime. However, what seems ideal to each individual may be far from the reality that each individual faces. The one who wishes to have the most knowledge may be the one who struggles in school or perhaps socially. Is this one to blame for their shortcoming or do we blame the education system for the lack of opportunity? The one who wishes to have the most wealth may be the one who lives pay check to pay check because they have a wife and three small children to support. Do we blame this one for their lack of skill without first taking environmental reasons into account? The one who wishes for physical beauty may be the one who has never been admired, but rather slandered for their features. Do we blame this one, or do we blame nature for its cruelty? We may see these things that can’t be helped as flaws, but who among us is flawless? In the same way, Lindsay Lohan is the one who wishes for a life with no crime, but this wish falls short of reality for her. Do we blame her for this? No we do not, for her lack of ability to conform to her wish is no different than what seems to be the flaw of being unintelligent, or the flaw of not being beautiful. Since we all as human beings possess the same nature, then how do we dare call these things flaws? How then can we blame her for missing alcohol classes, and thus breaking her probation? We cannot blame her, for which among us has never missed a class in their lifetime?

Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen

(1) What is becoming to a city is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom, to an action virtue, to a speech truth, and the opposites of these are unbecoming. Man and woman and speech and deed and city and object should be honored with praise if praiseworthy and incur blame if unworthy, for it is an equal error and mistake to blame the praisable and to praise the blamable. (2) It is the duty of one and the same man both to speak the needful rightly and the refute the unrightfully spoken. Thus it is right to refute those who rebuke Helen, a woman about whom the testimony of inspired poets has become univocal and unanimous as has the ill omen of her name, which has become a reminder of misfortunes. For my part, by introducing some reasoning into my speech, I wish to free the accused of blame and, having reproved her detractors as prevaricators and proved the truth, to free her from their ignorance.
(3) Now it is not unclear, not even to a few, that in nature and in blood the woman who is the subject of this speech is preeminent among preeminent men and women. For it is clear that her mother was Leda, and her father was in fact a god, Zeus, but allegedly a mortal, Tyndareus, of whom the former was shown to be her father because he was and the latter was disproved because he was said to be, and the one was the most powerful of men and the other the Lord of all. (4) Born from such stock, she had godlike beauty, which taking and not mistaking, she kept. In many did she work much desire for her love, and her one body was the cause of bringing together many bodies of men thinking great thoughts for great goals, of whom some had greatness of wealth, some the glory of ancient nobility, some the vigor of personal agility, some command of acquired knowledge. And all came because of a passion which loved to conquer and a love of honor which was unconquered. (5) Who it was and why and how he sailed away, taking Helen as his love, I shall not say. To tell the knowing what they know shows it is right but brings no delight.
Having gone beyond the time once set for my speech, I shall go on to the beginning of my future speech, and I shall set forth the causes through which it is likely that Helen's voyage to Troy should take place. (6) For either by will of Fate and decision of the gods and vote of Necessity did she do what she did, or by force reduced or by words seduced or by love possessed.
Now if through the first, it is right for the responsible one to be held responsible; for god's predetermination cannot be hindered by human premeditation. For it is the nature of things, not for the strong to be hindered by the weak, but for the weaker to be ruled and drawn by the stronger, and for the stronger to lead and the weaker to follow. God is a stronger force than man in might and in wit and in other ways. If then one must place blame on Fate and on a god, one must free Helen from disgrace.
(7) But if she was raped by violence and illegally assaulted and unjustly insulted, it is clear that the raper, as the insulter, did the wronging, and the raped, as the insulted, did the suffering. It is right then for the barbarian who undertook a barbaric undertaking in word and law and deed to meet with blame in word, exclusion in law, and punishment in deed. And surely it is proper for a woman raped and robbed of her country and deprived of her loved ones to be pitied rather than pilloried. He did the dread deeds; she suffered them. It is just therefore to pity her but to hate him.
(8) But if it was speech which persuaded her and deceived her heart, not even to this is it difficult to make an answer and to banish blame as follows. Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity. I shall show how this is the case, since (9) it is necessary to offer proof to the opinion of my hearers: I both deem and define all poetry as speech with meter. Fearful shuddering and tearful pity and grievous longing come upon its hearers, and at the actions and physical sufferings of others in good fortunes and in evil fortunes, through the agency of words, the soul is wont to experience a suffering of its own. But come, I shall turn from one argument to another. (10) Sacred incantations sung with words are bearers of pleasure and banishers of pain, for, merging with opinion in the soul, the power of the incantation is wont to beguile it and persuade it and alter it by witchcraft. There have been discovered two arts of witchcraft and magic: one consists of errors of soul and the other of deceptions of opinion. (11) All who have and do persuade people of things do so by molding a false argument. For if all men on all subjects had both memory of things past and awareness of things present and foreknowledge of the future, speech would not be similarly similar, since as things are now it is not easy for them to recall the past nor to consider the present nor to predict the future. So that on most subjects most men take opinion as counselor to their soul, but since opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those employing it into slippery and insecure successes. (12) What cause then prevents the conclusion that Helen similarly, against her will, might have come under the influence of speech, just as if ravished by the force of the mighty? For it was possible to see how the force of persuasion prevails; persuasion has the form of necessity, but it does not have the same power. For speech constrained the soul, persuading it which it persuaded, both to believe the things said and to approve the things done. The persuader, like a constrainer, does the wrong and the persuaded, like the constrained, in speech is wrongly charged. (13) To understand that persuasion, when added to speech, is wont also to impress the soul as it wishes, one must study: first, the words of Astronomers who, substituting opinion for opinion, taking away one but creating another, make what is incredible and unclear seem true to the eyes of opinion; then, second, logically necessary debates in which a single speech, written with art but not spoken with truth, bends a great crowd and persuades; and, third, the verbal disputes of philosophers in which the swiftness of thought is also shown making the belief in an opinion subject to easy change. (14) The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions form the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion.
(15) It has been explained that if she was persuaded by speech she did not do wrong but was unfortunate. I shall discuss the fourth cause in a fourth passage. For if it was love which did all these things, there will be no difficulty in escaping the charge of the sin which is alleged to have taken place. For the things we see do not have the nature which we wish them to have, but the nature which each actually has. Through sight the soul receives an impression even in its inner features. (16) When belligerents in war buckle on their warlike accouterments of bronze and steel, some designed for defense, others for offense, if the sight sees this, immediately it is alarmed and it alarms the soul, so that often men flee, panic stricken from future danger as though it were present. For strong as is the habit of obedience to the law, it is ejected by fear resulting from sight, which coming to a man causes him to be indifferent both to what is judged honorable because of the law and to the advantage to be derived from victory. (17) It has happened that people, after having seen frightening sights, have also lost presence of mind for the present moment; in this way fear extinguishes and excludes thought. And many have fallen victim to useless labor and dread diseases and hardly curable madnesses. In this way the sight engraves upon the mind images of things which have been seen. And many frightening impressions linger, and what lingers is exactly analogous to what is spoken. (18) Moreover, whenever pictures perfectly create a single figure and form from many colors and figures, they delight the sight, while the creation of statues and the production of works of art furnish a pleasant sight to the eyes. Thus it is natural for the sight to grieve for some things and to long for others, and much love and desire for many objects and figures is engraved in many men. (19) If, therefore, the eye of Helen, pleased by the figure of Alexander, presented to her soul eager desire and contest of love, what wonder? If, being a god, Love has the divine power of the gods, how could a lesser being reject and refuse it? But if it is a disease of human origin and a fault of the soul, it should not be blamed as a sin, but regarded as an affliction. For she came, as she did come, caught in the net of Fate, not by the plans of the mind, and by the constraints of love, not by the devices of art.
How then can one blame of Helen as unjust, since she is utterly acquitted of all charge, whether she did what she did through falling in love or persuaded by speech or ravished by force or constrained by divine constraint?
I have by means of speech removed disgrace from a woman; I have observed the procedure which I set up at the beginning of the speech; I have tried to end the injustice of blame and the ignorance of opinion; I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.

Cicero

Out of the assigned readings, I found the section about Cicero to be the most interesting due to his life history. Cicero was not born in the upper class, but he was such a profound speaker as a young man that he was able to break the class barrier, and was looked highly upon by many. He lived at the time when the government in Rome was going through a serious change as it was turning from a republic to an empire. Because of this change, the ability of rhetoricians to speak in public places also changed dramatically. At the beginning of his life, Cicero was one who spoke frequently in the streets and was followed by many due to his eloquence and profound ability to convey rhetoric. However, later in his life it was difficult for Cicero among other orators to speak in public because they were disallowed by the empire.  Cicero began to lose his following in his later years as the government continued to dramatically change, and shortly after his death the government was no longer a republic. Due to his stance in his works, I think that if we could relate Cicero to a modern politician he would be very much a liberal simply because of how he viewed rhetoric. Cicero did not study rhetoric to seek absolute truth of any kind, but rather to simply discuss matters.

Aristotle's Rhetoric

After reading Aristotle's first book in his Rhetoric, I found the 9th chapter to be very interesting as he described all the various elements of what we now know of as ethos. He began this chapter by defining what is noble, and what is virtue and how the two tie into each other. The writing talks about how things that are noble are good, and things that are of virtue are pleasant due to their being good. Therefore, if one takes heed to these things and sticks to them than others will believe them simply because good things cannot be blamed.
This stood out to me in the terms of argument because according to Aristotle, if we consider what things are considered as noble and virtuous by others, and apply these elements to our argument then our "hearers will take the required view of our own characters"(197). This means that if we conform our argument to what is accepted as good to our audience, then they will be persuaded by what we have to say. Aristotle goes on to explain the power of ethos, and how it not only works to persuade regarding human and divine things, but also works in arguments that involve the most minuscule things of importance, or inanimate objects.

Response to the reading about Plato and his Gorgias

In the reading about Plato, I was very interested in finding out more about what Plato believed rhetoric was and how these beliefs were portrayed in Gorgias and in Phaedrus. I found the Gorgias to be the most interesting out of the two dialogues, so I will focus the most on that one of the two.
In class the other day, we focused on the differences between the Sophists and what Plato believed to be true rhetoric, and saw that this reading almost mirrored that discussion. Plato was obviously against the Sophists and embodied the Sophists as Gorgias in the first dialogue. In Gorgias, Plato makes a statement about what false rhetoric consists of, while rather in Phardrus, he portrays what real rhetoric is (82).

I got out of the text that Plato believed into truth as knowledge rather than truth as belief. This means that according to Plato, something would be true whether or not a person believed it was true. This logic reminded me of the riddle, "If a tree falls down in the middle of a forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does the tree still make a sound?" If Plato were to answer that question, I believe he would say yes, the tree still makes a sound because it is true that trees make a sound when they fall down, ten times out of ten.
In contrast to this thought, Sophists did not believe that humans have the ability to obtain absolute knowledge, and concerned themselves with probabilities and things that according to Plato only had the appearance of truth (81). If  a Sophist were to answer that riddle, they may say no, the tree may not have made a sound because we have no proof that sound still exists when we aren't around to hear it. Plato believed that rhetoric was absolute truth, regardless if someone believed in it or not. The sophists on the other hand changed this definition that rhetoric is only belief.