Brutus ou Des orateurs illustres Passage 38

hic primus inflexit orationem et eam mollem teneramque reddidit et suavis, sicut fuit, videri maluit quam gravis; sed suavitate ea, qua perfunderet animos, non qua perfringeret, [et ] tantum ut memoriam concinnitatis suae, non, quem ad modum de Pericle scripsit Eupolis, cum delectatione aculeos etiam relinqueret in animis eorum a quibus esset auditus.

"He was the first to bend eloquence away from its former course and make it soft and tender. Delightful as he was, he preferred to seem pleasing rather than weighty, but pleasing with a charm that bathed men's minds rather than shattered them. Thus he left behind only the memory of his harmonious style, not, as Eupolis wrote of Pericles, stings also in the minds of those who had heard him, together with their pleasure."

«Le premier, il infléchit le discours, le rendit souple et tendre, et préféra paraître, comme il l'était, agréable plutôt que grave. Mais son agrément baignait les esprits sans les briser, [et] il laissait seulement le souvenir de son élégante harmonie, non pas aussi, comme Eupolis l'écrivit de Périclès, des aiguillons mêlés au plaisir dans l'âme de ceux qui l'avaient entendu.»