Brewer's: Bathos

[Greek, bathos, depth]. A ludicrous descent from grandiloquence to commonplace. A literary mermaid.

Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit ... ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne.

“Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

Horace: De Arte Poetica, line 139.

A good example is the well-known couplet:

And thou, Dalhousie, the great god of war, Lieutenant-general to the earl of Mar.

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