[Footnote 2: _De Cor._ 296.]

3
And to effect this Aristotle and Theophrastus recommend the softening of
harsh metaphors by the use of some such phrase as “So to say,” “As it
were,” “If I may be permitted the expression,” “If so bold a term is
allowable.” For thus to forestall criticism[3] mitigates, they assert,
the boldness of the metaphors.

[Footnote 3: Reading ὑποτίμησις.]

4
And I will not deny that these have their use. Nevertheless I must
repeat the remark which I made in the case of figures,[4] and maintain
that there are native antidotes to the number and boldness of metaphors,
in well-timed displays of strong feeling, and in unaffected sublimity,
because these have an innate power by the dash of their movement of
sweeping along and carrying all else before them. Or should we not
rather say that they absolutely demand as indispensable the use of
daring metaphors, and will not allow the hearer to pause and criticise
the number of them, because he shares the passion of the speaker?

[Footnote 4: Ch. xvii.]

5
In the treatment, again, of familiar topics and in descriptive passages
nothing gives such distinctness as a close and continuous series of
metaphors. It is by this means that Xenophon has so finely delineated
the anatomy of the human frame.[5] And there is a still more brilliant