What are some examples of hyperbaton?

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1126479

2026-03-18 13:36

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Hyperbaton is the rhetorical device of delivering Words in an unnatural order - usually to stress the Word in the unexpected position in some way.

Hyperbaton is commonplace and effective in heavily inflected langauges where Word-order is fluid (eg in Attic Greek, Latin and Sanskrit), but rarer and feebler in analytic languages (English, Chinese) which have less freedom to adjust Word-sequence.

Some wan examples of hyperbaton in English literature include:

And gone are all my Summer days (William Soutar) [All my summer days are gone]

Uneasy lies the head which wears a crown (Shakespeare: Henry IV.ii) [The head which wears a crown lies uneasily].

There are much clearer examples of hyperbaton in fully inflected languages, including this humdinger from Horace' Odes.1.v:

Quis multa gracilis te puer in Rosa

perfusus liquidis urget odoribus

grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?

[Pyrrha, quis gracilis puer perfusus liquidis odororibus te urget in multa Rosa sub grato antro?]

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