The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

too, ought to set the scene
before our eyes; for events ought to be seen in progress rather
than in prospect. So we must aim at these three points: Antithesis,
Metaphor, and Actuality.
    Of the four kinds of Metaphor the most taking is the
proportional kind. Thus Pericles, for instance, said that the
vanishing from their country of the young men who had fallen in the
war was ‘as if the spring were taken out of the year’. Leptines,
speaking of the Lacedaemonians, said that he would not have the
Athenians let Greece ‘lose one of her two eyes’. When Chares was
pressing for leave to be examined upon his share in the Olynthiac
war, Cephisodotus was indignant, saying that he wanted his
examination to take place ‘while he had his fingers upon the
people’s throat’. The same speaker once urged the Athenians to
march to Euboea, ‘with Miltiades’ decree as their rations’.
Iphicrates, indignant at the truce made by the Athenians with
Epidaurus and the neighbouring sea-board, said that they had
stripped themselves of their travelling money for the journey of
war. Peitholaus called the state-galley ‘the people’s big stick’,
and Sestos ‘the corn-bin of the Peiraeus’. Pericles bade his
countrymen remove Aegina, ‘that eyesore of the Peiraeus.’ And
Moerocles said he was no more a rascal than was a certain
respectable citizen he named, ‘whose rascality was worth over
thirty per cent per annum to him, instead of a mere ten like his
own’.There is also the iambic line of Anaxandrides about the way
his daughters put off marrying—
My daughters’ marriage-bonds are overdue.
    Polyeuctus said of a paralytic man named Speusippus that he
could not keep quiet, ‘though fortune had fastened him in the
pillory of disease’. Cephisodotus called warships ‘painted
millstones’. Diogenes the Dog called taverns ‘the mess-rooms of
Attica’. Aesion said that the Athenians had ‘emptied’ their town
into Sicily: this is a graphic metaphor. ‘Till all Hellas shouted
aloud’ may be regarded as a metaphor, and a graphic one again.
Cephisodotus bade the Athenians take care not to hold too many
‘parades’. Isocrates used the same word of those who ‘parade at the
national festivals.’ Another example occurs in the Funeral Speech:
‘It is fitting that Greece should cut off her hair beside the tomb
of those who fell at Salamis, since her freedom and their valour
are buried in the same grave.’ Even if the speaker here had only
said that it was right to weep when valour was being buried in
their grave, it would have been a metaphor, and a graphic one; but
the coupling of ‘their valour’ and ‘her freedom’ presents a kind of
antithesis as well. ‘The course of my words’, said Iphicrates,
‘lies straight through the middle of Chares’ deeds’: this is a
proportional metaphor, and the phrase ‘straight through the middle’
makes it graphic. The expression ‘to call in one danger to rescue
us from another’ is a graphic metaphor. Lycoleon said, defending
Chabrias, ‘They did not respect even that bronze statue of his that
intercedes for him yonder’.This was a metaphor for the moment,
though it would not always apply; a vivid metaphor, however;
Chabrias is in danger, and his statue intercedes for him-that
lifeless yet living thing which records his services to his
country. ‘Practising in every way littleness of mind’ is
metaphorical, for practising a quality implies increasing it. So is
‘God kindled our reason to be a lamp within our soul’, for both
reason and light reveal things. So is ‘we are not putting an end to
our wars, but only postponing them’, for both literal postponement
and the making of such a peace as this apply to future action. So
is such a saying as ‘This treaty is a far nobler trophy than those
we set up on fields of battle; they celebrate small gains and
single successes; it celebrates our triumph in the war as a whole’;
for both trophy and treaty are signs of victory. So is ‘A country
pays a heavy reckoning in being condemned by the judgement of
mankind’, for a reckoning is damage deservedly incurred.
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    It has already been mentioned that liveliness is got by using
the proportional type of metaphor and being making (ie. making your
hearers see things). We have still to explain what we mean by their
‘seeing things’, and what must be done to effect this. By ‘making
them see things’ I mean using expressions that represent things as
in a state of