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SYMPLOCE (most often pronounced sim-plo-see, though respectable sources don’t always agree, and the more sensible pronunciation as a matter of etymology is sim-plo-kee) combines anaphora and epistrophe: words are repeated at the start of successive sentences or clauses, and other words are repeated at the end of them, often with just a small change in the middle. The nearly complete repetition lends itself to elegant effects. It also locks the speaker into a small number of possible patterns, so our treatment of them can be brief.

1. Corrections; reversals of direction. Symploce is useful for highlighting the contrast between correct and incorrect claims. The speaker changes the word choice in the smallest way that will suffice to separate the two possibilities; the result is conspicuous contrast between the small tweak in wording and the large change in substance. Some simple cases of correction, in which the symploce serves to emphasize a surprising change in direction:

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

I am not afraid of you; – but I am afraid for you.

Trollope, The Prime Minister (1876)

The order may as easily be reversed: the correct statement followed by the incorrect one, which is negated:

We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone.

Churchill, London radio broadcast (1940)

This construction also can emphasize the opposite nature of two claims, as here:

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

By keeping the statements parallel and nearly identical – the same nouns and verbs in the same order, with a change only in the words that relate them to each other – Chesterton causes the rhetoric to reflect the perfect reversal of understanding he means to suggest in substance.

[T]he right honourable gentleman has in a very ingenious manner twined and twisted the paragraph in question, to make it appear to be a libel; and I hope that I may be allowed to try if I cannot twine and twist it till it appears not to be a libel.

Flood, speech in the House of Commons (circa 1764)

2. Parallel elaboration. Symploce can be used to make a second statement elaborate on the first. The speaker offers two claims, using the same vocabulary and structure for each; a minor variation in the middle makes them distinct, but rhetorically as well as conceptually parallel.

Everything in the English government appears to me the reverse of what it ought to be, and of what it is said to be.

Paine, The American Crisis (1783)

For he who does not love art in all things does not love it at all, and he who does not need art in all things does not need it at all.

Wilde, The English Renaissance of Art (1882)

He spoke with consummate ability to the bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed.

Choate, eulogy for Daniel Webster (1853)

This form of the device is often used to express continuity despite a change in tense.

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

I here challenge any person in his five wits to tell me what that woman was sent to prison for. Either it was for being poor, or it was for being ill. Nobody could suggest, nobody will suggest, nobody, as a matter of fact, did suggest, that she had committed any other crime.

Chesterton, The Mad Official (1912)

3. Extended uses. Most of the examples so far have involved two claims with minor variations in the middle of them. More extended patterns also are possible, usually involving three or four parts. The typical idea then isn’t to ring in a correction or twist on the first statement; it is to present a series of claims in a way that throws their commonality or connection into relief.

a. Changes of a noun; as when describing several things as similar or as meeting the same fate.

In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing nothing particular, number two doing nothing particular, number three doing nothing particular.

Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby. . . .

Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)

Those examples involve changes in the subject of the sentence; here is the same idea with a change made in the object:

They will have their courts still; they will have their ballot-boxes still; they will have their elections still; they will have their representatives upon this floor still; they will have taxation and representation still; they will have the writ of habeas corpus still; they will have every privilege they ever had and all we desire.

Baker, speech in the Senate (1861)

The general effect in all the cases just seen is similar. The differences between the examples are made subordinate to the points they have in common. That last passage could as easily – probably more easily – have been written by putting still closer to the middle of each clause (they will still have, etc.); pushing it to the end lends the word more weight and makes the statements seem more completely parallel. And think a bit about the sound of the word. Still is a single accented syllable ending with a liquid consonant – meaning, for our purposes, a consonant that is made without friction and that can be sustained when it is said, almost like a vowel (unlike, say, ck, which stops, or p, which explodes). If still goes into the middle of a sentence it can easily be truncated, with its ending lost in the movement to the next word. When it ends a sentence, still gets sounded out more completely and it invites a little pause afterwards. So the use of epistrophe gives the word a more forceful sound as well as a more forceful placement.

b. Changes of a modifier; as when describing the same thing several ways.

They were not respectable people – they were not worthy people – they were not learned and wise and brilliant people – but in their breasts, all their stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding!

Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Each modifier gets its own clause, and the thing under discussion is carved up into categories as the speaker goes along. These constructions also tend to give the modifiers more power than they would have had if strung on a list. When most of the words in each clause are the same, the stress in reading or speaking them falls hard on the changed adjective.

I’ll state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is.

Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

I believe, in spite of recent events, there is as great a store of kindness in the German peasant as in any peasant in the world. But he has been drilled into a false idea of civilization, – efficiency, capability. It is a hard civilization; it is a selfish civilization; it is a material civilization.

Lloyd George, International Honour (1914)

The same theme is useful for comparing the same two things in different respects:

I am a donkey, that’s what I am. I am as obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like to kick like one.

Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

c. Changes of the verb; as when describing the same person doing or not doing different things in the same way.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11

He confiscates, as your fathers did; he banishes as they did; he debases as they did; he violates the instincts of human nature, and from the parent tears the child, as they did; and he inflicts upon a Catholic people a church alien to their national habits, feelings, and belief as you do.

Sheil, speech in the House of Commons (1836)

[T]he legislature shall pass no act directly and manifestly impairing private property and private privileges. It shall not judge by act. It shall not decide by act. It shall not deprive by act. But it shall leave all these things to be tried and adjudged by the law of the land.

Webster, argument in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1818)

You knew what was going to happen. You intended it to happen. You wanted it to happen. You are glad it has happened; and it serves you right.

Shaw, The Irrational Knot (1905)

4. Independent statements followed by identical commentaries; as when various deeds by the same actor lead to the same outcome or judgment.

We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good.

Chesterton, Heretics (1905)

The repetition of the verbal pattern matches the claim that seemingly different acts serve the same purpose.

There is an agreement that the boards of accounts and stamps should be united; that agreement they violated. There is an agreement that the revenue board should be confined to seven commissioners; that agreement they violate. There is a King’s letter, declaring that the salaries of the ordnance shall be reduced; that declaration they violate. There are principles and law against the sale of honours; those principles and law they have violated.

Grattan, speech in the Irish Parliament (1790)

Buonaparte, it seems, is to reconcile every thing by the gift of a free constitution. He took possession of Holland, he did not give her a free constitution; he took possession of Spain, he did not give her a free constitution; he took possession of Switzerland, whose independence he had guaranteed, he did not give her a free constitution; he took possession of Italy, he did not give her a free constitution; he took possession of France, he did not give her a free constitution; on the contrary, he destroyed the directorial constitution, he destroyed the consular constitution, and he destroyed the late constitution, formed on the plan of England!

Grattan, speech in the House of Commons (1815)

A related construction applies symploce to statements of an “if, then” character: again a variety of possibilities all come to the same result in sound and substance.

The Conservative party are accused of having no programme of policy. If by a programme is meant a plan to despoil churches and plunder landlords, I admit we have no programme. If by a programme is meant a policy which assails or menaces every institution and every interest, every class and every calling in the country, I admit we have no programme.

Disraeli, speech at Manchester (1872)

If, living in Italy, you admire Italian art while distrusting Italian character, you are a tourist, or cad. If, living in Italy, you admire Italian art while despising Italian religion, you are a tourist, or cad. It does not matter how many years you have lived there.

Chesterton, The Aristocratic ’Arry (1912)

5. Lengthenings. As with all other figures of repetition, the impact of symploce often is increased when it is combined with variety in the length or rhythm of the phrases involved. One possibility, familiar from earlier chapters, is to lengthen the last section. The repetition at the start and end continues, but the structure is varied:

That Angelo’s forsworn, is it not strange?

That Angelo’s a murderer, is’t not strange?

That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,

Is it not strange and strange?

Measure for Measure, 5, 1

O, what men dare do! what men may do! what

men daily do, not knowing what they do!

Much Ado about Nothing, 4, 1

In this last case two types of variety are introduced in the last part: a longer syllable (daily instead of dare and may); and a longer separation between what men and the last word of the sentence. Both changes gently disrupt the expectations that the first two rounds of repetition had created.

Is not the maintaining so numerous an army in time of peace to be condemned? Is not the fitting out so many expensive and useless squadrons to be condemned? Are not the encroachments made upon the Sinking Fund; the reviving the salt duty; the rejecting many useful bills and motions in Parliament, and many other domestic measures, to be condemned?

Pitt, speech in the House of Commons (1742)

By the time the third sentence arrives here, the listener has learned how the end of the pattern goes, so the speaker can afford to stack up more examples before getting there. Postponing the conclusion in this way makes it more climactic. This passage also illustrates a useful bit of technique in working with symploce: repeating the same grammatical structure within the middle part even as the words change. Here the use of gerunds mostly repeats (the maintaining . . . the fitting out . . . the reviving . . . the rejecting). This helps to sustain the sense of parallelism, especially when there is some distance between the repeated words at the beginning and end of each sentence.

6. Abandonment. Symploce also can be abandoned entirely and to good effect after it has conditioned the listener’s expectations. We saw some examples in passing earlier in the chapter; here are a few others.

He was there before the murder; he was there after the murder; he was there clandestinely, unwilling to be seen.

Webster, argument in the murder trial of John Francis Knapp (1830)

[T]here is nothing in the way of your liberty except your own corruption and pusillanimity; and nothing can prevent your being free except yourselves. It is not in the disposition of England; it is not in the interest of England; it is not in her arms.

Grattan, speech in the Irish Parliament (1790)

Mrs. Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking through an open window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs. Sparkler, looking at another window where her husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view. Mrs. Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of that view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other two.

Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

And if this Germanic sociology is indeed to prevail among us, I think some of the broad-minded thinkers who concur in its prevalence owe something like an apology to many gallant gentlemen whose graves lie where the last battle was fought in the Wilderness; men who had the courage to fight for it, the courage to die for it and, above all, the courage to call it by its name.

Chesterton, The Crimes of England (1915)

Notice that in these cases the repetition is sustained at the start of every clause straight through to the end. The abandonment comes just at the finish of the last part. The device also can be abandoned for a moment somewhere in the middle, as here:

And, as to the man, is Mr. Hastings a man, against whom a charge of bribery is improbable? Why, he owns it. He is a professor of it. He reduces it into scheme and system. He glories in it.

Burke, argument in the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings (1788)

Taking a break from the symploce (by ending a sentence with scheme and system) avoids monotony and also gives the harangue a more spontaneous sound. The speaker isn’t trying too hard to hold to a pattern; he is too excited for that. Hastings later said of this speech, “For half an hour I looked at the orator in a reverie of wonder, and actually felt myself the most culpable man on earth.”