The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

writer must disguise
his art and give the impression of speaking naturally and not
artificially. Naturalness is persuasive, artificiality is the
contrary; for our hearers are prejudiced and think we have some
design against them, as if we were mixing their wines for them. It
is like the difference between the quality of Theodorus’ voice and
the voices of all other actors: his really seems to be that of the
character who is speaking, theirs do not. We can hide our purpose
successfully by taking the single words of our composition from the
speech of ordinary life. This is done in poetry by Euripides, who
was the first to show the way to his successors.
    Language is composed of nouns and verbs. Nouns are of the
various kinds considered in the treatise on Poetry. Strange words,
compound words, and invented words must be used sparingly and on
few occasions: on what occasions we shall state later. The reason
for this restriction has been already indicated: they depart from
what is suitable, in the direction of excess. In the language of
prose, besides the regular and proper terms for things,
metaphorical terms only can be used with advantage. This we gather
from the fact that these two classes of terms, the proper or
regular and the metaphorical-these and no others-are used by
everybody in conversation. We can now see that a good writer can
produce a style that is distinguished without being obtrusive, and
is at the same time clear, thus satisfying our definition of good
oratorical prose. Words of ambiguous meaning are chiefly useful to
enable the sophist to mislead his hearers. Synonyms are useful to
the poet, by which I mean words whose ordinary meaning is the same,
e.g. ‘porheueseai’ (advancing) and ‘badizein’ (proceeding); these
two are ordinary words and have the same meaning.
    In the Art of Poetry, as we have already said, will be found
definitions of these kinds of words; a classification of Metaphors;
and mention of the fact that metaphor is of great value both in
poetry and in prose. Prose-writers must, however, pay specially
careful attention to metaphor, because their other resources are
scantier than those of poets. Metaphor, moreover, gives style
clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can: and it is
not a thing whose use can be taught by one man to another.
Metaphors, like epithets, must be fitting, which means that they
must fairly correspond to the thing signified: failing this, their
inappropriateness will be conspicuous: the want of harmony between
two things is emphasized by their being placed side by side. It is
like having to ask ourselves what dress will suit an old man;
certainly not the crimson cloak that suits a young man. And if you
wish to pay a compliment, you must take your metaphor from
something better in the same line; if to disparage, from something
worse. To illustrate my meaning: since opposites are in the same
class, you do what I have suggested if you say that a man who begs
‘prays’, and a man who prays ‘begs’; for praying and begging are
both varieties of asking. So Iphicrates called Callias a ‘mendicant
priest’ instead of a ‘torch-bearer’, and Callias replied that
Iphicrates must be uninitiated or he would have called him not a
‘mendicant priest’ but a ‘torch-bearer’. Both are religious titles,
but one is honourable and the other is not. Again, somebody calls
actors ‘hangers-on of Dionysus’, but they call themselves
‘artists’: each of these terms is a metaphor, the one intended to
throw dirt at the actor, the other to dignify him. And pirates now
call themselves ‘purveyors’. We can thus call a crime a mistake, or
a mistake a crime. We can say that a thief ‘took’ a thing, or that
he ‘plundered’ his victim. An expression like that of Euripides’
Telephus,
King of the oar, on Mysia’s coast he landed,
    is inappropriate; the word ‘king’ goes beyond the dignity of the
subject, and so the art is not concealed. A metaphor may be amiss
because the very syllables of the words conveying it fail to
indicate sweetness of vocal utterance. Thus Dionysius the Brazen in
his elegies calls poetry ‘Calliope’s screech’. Poetry and
screeching are both, to be sure, vocal utterances. But the metaphor
is bad, because the sounds of ‘screeching’, unlike those of poetry,
are discordant and unmeaning. Further, in using metaphors to give
names to nameless things, we must draw them not from remote but
from kindred and similar things,