cataplexis cataplexis
 kat-a-pleex'-is Gk. "a striking down, terrifying menace"

Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.
 
Examples
  In the following quote from The Tempest, Caliban's curse is rewarded with a threatening prophecy, or cataplexis, from Prospero:

Caliban:
As wicked-dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o'er!
Prospero:
For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches, that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.
—Shakespeare, The Tempest 1.2.321-329

Related Figures
 

Related Topics of Invention
 

 
  Sources:


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University
Please cite "Silva Rhetoricae" (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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