Chiasmus: Rhetorical Balance

Chiasmus is a type of rhetorical balance in which the second of two parallel phrases or clauses reverses the order of the syntactic elements in the first. Skillfully used, it can produce a successful dramatic or oratorical effect, as in many passages in the Bible and in other great literature.

A simple example of chiasmus is in the nursery rhyme line “Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he.” The two syntactic elements in the first clause are “Old King Cole was” (which can be labeled the A element) and “a merry old soul” (B). In the second clause, A and B are reversed to become B and A: “a merry old soul (B) was he (A).”

Etymology of Chiasmus
The word chiasmus (pronounced ki-AZ-mus) entered English in the 19th century as a New Latin construction based on Greek chiasmos (“crossing, diagonal arrangement,” hence “chiasmus”), from the verb chiazein (“to mark with a chi”). A chi was the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet and looked similar to the English letter X.

The rhetorical device was so named because it forms, in a sense, a crisscross pattern resembling an X: one line from A in the first clause to A in the second clause, and another other line from B in the first clause to B in the second clause. A graphic depiction would look something like this:

A – B
– X –
B – A

The plural of chiasmus is chiasmi, and the adjective form is chiastic.

Chiasmus in the Bible
Chiasmus was a common device in ancient literature, especially in Semitic languages such as Hebrew. The Old Testament of the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was originally written in either Greek or Aramaic, both of which, however, often reflect Hebrew language patterns in the New Testament.

Below are some examples of chiasmus in the Bible. The first one exemplifies a type of chiasmus in which the second clause uses words that are closely related to, but not exact repetitions of, the words in the first clause.

Isaiah 28:15: “We have made a covenant (A) with death (B), and with hell (B) are we at agreement (A).”

Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts (A), neither are your ways my ways (B), saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways (B), and my thoughts than your thoughts (A).”

Matthew 13:15: “For this people’s heart (A) is waxed gross, and their ears (B) are dull of hearing, and their eyes (C) they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes (C), and hear with their ears (B), and should understand with their heart (A).

John 1:1-2: “In the beginning (A) was (B) the Word (C), and the Word (D) was (E) with God (F), and the Word (D) was (E) God (F). The same (the Word, C) was (B) in the beginning (A) with God.” Here, D-E-F is repeated, but notice that the key words of the second D-E-F (“the Word was God”) are the same as F-E-D (“God was the Word”), which fits the chiasmus.

1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed from death (A) unto life, because we love (B) the brethren. He that loveth (B) not his brother, abideth in death (A).”

Chiasmus in Literature
Here are some examples of chiasmus by noted authors. The first one, like the first biblical quotation above, exemplifies the use of new but related words in the second clause to extend and enrich the meaning of the parallelism.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888): “The will (A) is free (B): strong (B) is the soul (A).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): “Flowers (A) are lovely (B); love (B) is flowerlike (A).

Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774): ” to stop (A) too fearful (B), and too faint (B) to go (A).”

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good (A) is not original (B), and the part that is original (B) is not good (A).

Ovid (43 B.C.-c. A.D. 17): “I flee (A) who chases (B) me, and chase (B) who flees (A) me.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): “Fair (A) is foul (B), and foul (B) is fair (A).”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947): “The art of progress is to preserve order (A) amid change (B) and to preserve change (B) amid order (A).”

Chiasmus Elsewhere
Chiasmus makes a good oratorical effect in politics, as in Barack Obama’s “My job is not to represent Washington (A) to you (B), but to represent you (B) to Washington (A).”

Chiasmus also attracts attention and produces a memorable effect in the world of advertising, as in this jingle for bandages: “I am stuck (A) on Band-Aid (B), and Band-Aid’s (B) stuck on me (A).”

Multiple Chiasmi
To intensify the dramatic effect of this rhetorical device, authors will sometimes put together multiple chiasmi.

For example, one chiastic parallelism may immediately follow another, as in these lines from the poem “The Death Bed” by Thomas Hood (1799-1845):

Our very hopes belied (A) our fears (B),
Our fears (B) our hopes belied (A);
We thought her dying (C) when she slept (D),
And sleeping (D) when she died (C).

Three or more such parallelisms may be strung together. In the following passage from the Bible (Isaiah 5:20), three consecutive chiasmi are condensed into three clauses:

Wo unto them that call evil (A) good (B) and good (B) evil (A);
that put darkness (C) for light (D), and light (D) for darkness (C);
that put bitter (E) for sweet (F), and sweet (F) for bitter (E)!

One of the rarest and most complicated forms of this rhetorical device consists of presenting two separate pairs of syntactic elements in the first clause and then reversing the elements within each pair in the second clause. Here is an example by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519):

Painting (A) is poetry (B) that is seen (C) rather than felt (D),
and poetry (B) is painting (A) that is felt (D) rather than seen (C).
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Bernstein, Theodore M. The Careful Writer. New York: Free Press-Simon & Schuster, 1998.

The Bible. King James Version.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004 (CD-ROM).

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.