Aristotle Rhetoric 3.10

[1] Having settled these questions, we must next state the sources of smart and popular sayings. They are produced either by natural genius or by practice; to show what they are is the function of this inquiry.

[2] Let us therefore begin by giving a full list of them, and let our starting-point be the following. Easy learning is naturally pleasant to all, and words mean something, so that all words which make us learn something are most pleasant. Now we do not know the meaning of strange words, and proper terms we know already. It is metaphor, therefore, that above all produces this effect; for when Homer ¹ calls old age stubble, he teaches and informs us through the genus; for both have lost their bloom.

[3] The similes of the poets also have the same effect; wherefore, if they are well constructed, an impression of smartness is produced. For the simile, as we have said, is a metaphor differing only by the addition of a word, ² wherefore it is less pleasant because it is longer; it does not say that this is that, so that 20 the mind does not even examine this.

[4] Of necessity, therefore, all style and enthymemes that give us rapid information are smart. This is the reason why superficial enthymemes, meaning those that are obvious to all and need no mental effort, and those which, when stated, are not understood, are not popular, but only those which are understood the moment they are stated, or those of which the meaning, although not clear at first, comes a little later; for from the latter a kind of knowledge results, from the former neither the one nor the other. ³

[5] In regard to the meaning of what is said, then, such enthymemes are popular. As to style, popularity of form is due to antithetical statement; for instance, accounting the peace that all shared to be a war against their private interests, ⁴ where war is opposed to peace;

[6] as to words, they are popular if they contain metaphor, provided it be neither strange, for then it is difficult to take in at a glance, nor superficial, for then it does not impress the hearer; further, if they set things before the eyes; for we ought to see what is being done rather than what is going to be done. We ought therefore to aim at three things—metaphor, antithesis, actuality.

[7] Of the four kinds of metaphor ⁵ 1411a 1 the most popular are those based on proportion. Thus, Pericles said that the youth that had perished during the war had disappeared from the State as if the year had lost its springtime. ⁶ Leptines, speaking of the Lacedaemonians, said that he would not let the Athenians stand by and see Greece deprived of one of her eyes. When Chares was eager to have his accounts for the Olynthian war examined, Cephisodotus indignantly exclaimed that, now he had the people by the throat, he was trying to get his accounts examined ⁷ ; on another occasion also he exhorted the Athenians to set out for Euboea without delay and provision themselves there, like the decree of Miltiades. ⁸ After the Athenians had made peace with Epidaurus and the maritime cities, Iphicrates indignantly declared that they had deprived themselves of provisions for the war. ⁹ Pitholaus called the Paralus ¹⁰ the bludgeon of the people, and Sestos the corn-chest ¹¹ of the Piraeus . Pericles recommended that Aegina , the eyesore of the Piraeus , should be removed. Moerocles, mentioning a very respectable person by name, declared that he was as much a scoundrel as himself; for whereas that honest man played the scoundrel at 33 per cent. he himself was satisfied with 10 per cent. ¹² And the iambic of Anaxandrides, ¹³ on girls who were 20 slow to marry, And the saying of Polyeuctus ¹⁴ upon a certain paralytic named Speusippus, that he could not keep quiet, although Fortune had bound him in a five-holed pillory of disease. Cephisodotus called the triremes parti-colored mills, ¹⁵ and [Diogenes] the Cynic used to say that the taverns ¹⁶ were the messes of Attica . Aesion ¹⁷ used to say that they had drained the State into Sicily , ¹⁸ which is a metaphor and sets the thing before the eyes. His words so that Greece uttered a cry are also in a manner a metaphor and a vivid one. And again, as Cephisodotus bade the Athenians take care not to hold their concourses too often; and in the same way Isocrates, who spoke of those who rush together in the assemblies. ¹⁹ And as Lysias says in his Funeral Oration, that it was right that Greece should cut her hair at the tomb of those who fell at Salamis , since her freedom was buried along with their valor. If the speaker had said that it was fitting that Greece should weep, her valor being buried with them, it would have been a metaphor and a vivid one, 1411b 1 whereas freedom by the side of valor produces a kind of antithesis. And as Iphicrates said, The path of my words leads through the center of the deeds of Chares; here the metaphor is proportional and the words through the center create vividness. Also, to say that one calls upon dangers to help against dangers is a vivid metaphor. And Lycoleon on behalf of Chabrias said, not even reverencing the suppliant attitude of his statue of bronze, ²⁰ a metaphor for the moment, not for all time, but still vivid; for when Chabrias is in danger, the statue intercedes for him, the inanimate becomes animate, the memorial of what he has done for the State. And in every way studying poorness of spirit, ²¹ for studying a thing implies to increase it. ²² And that reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul, for both the words reason and light make something clear. For we do not put an end to wars, but put them off, ²³ for both ideas refer to the future—putting off and a peace of such a kind. And again, it is a metaphor to say that such a treaty is a trophy far more splendid than those gained in war; for the latter are raised in memory of trifling advantages and a single favor of fortune, but the former commemorates the end of the whole war; ²⁴ for both treaty and trophy are signs of victory. Again, that cities also render 20 a heavy account to the censure of men; for rendering an account ²⁵ is a sort of just punishment.