Seite - 2319 - in The Complete Aristotle

in existence; still the metaphor may be used. For instance, to scatter seed is called sowing: but the action of the sun in scattering his rays is nameless. Still this process bears to the sun the same relation as sowing to the seed. Hence the expression of the poet ‘sowing the god-created light.’ There is another way in which this kind of metaphor may be employed. We may apply an alien term, and then deny of that term one of its proper attributes; as if we were to call the shield, not ‘the cup of Ares,’ but ‘the wineless cup’. A newly-coined word is one which has never been even in local use, but is adopted by the poet himself. Some such words there appear to be: as ernyges, ‘sprouters,’ for kerata, ‘horns’; and areter, ‘supplicator’, for hiereus, ‘priest.’ A word is lengthened when its own vowel is exchanged for a longer one, or when a syllable is inserted. A word is contracted when some part of it is removed. Instances of lengthening are: poleos for poleos, Peleiadeo for Peleidou; of contraction: kri, do, and ops, as in mia ginetai amphoteron ops, ‘the appearance of both is one.’ An altered word is one in which part of the ordinary form is left unchanged, and part is recast: as in dexiteron kata mazon, ‘on the right breast,’ dexiteron is for dexion. Nouns in themselves are either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Masculine are such as end in N, R, S, or in some letter compounded with S—these being two, PS and X. Feminine, such as end in vowels that are always long, namely E and O, and—of vowels that admit of lengthening—those in A. Thus the number of letters in which nouns masculine and feminine end is the same; for PS and X are equivalent to endings in S. No noun ends in a mute or a vowel short by nature. Three only end in I—meli, ‘honey’; kommi, ‘gum’; peperi, ‘pepper’; five end in U. Neuter nouns end in these two latter vowels; also in N and S. XXII The perfection of style is to be clear without being mean. The clearest style is that which uses only current or proper words; at the same time it is mean— witness the poetry of Cleophon and of Sthenelus. That diction, on the other hand, is lofty and raised above the commonplace which employs unusual words. By unusual, I mean strange (or rare) words, metaphorical, lengthened —anything, in short, that differs from the normal idiom. Yet a style wholly composed of such words is either a riddle or a jargon; a riddle, if it consists of metaphors; a jargon, if it consists of strange (or rare) words. For the essence of a riddle is to express true facts under impossible combinations. Now this cannot be done by any arrangement of ordinary words, but by the use of 2319