The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  [30] King of the oar, on Mysia’s coast he landed,1

  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 [35] metaphors to give names to nameless things, we must draw them not from remote but from kindred and similar things, so that the kinship is clearly perceived as soon as the words are said. Thus in the celebrated riddle

  I marked how a man glued bronze with fire to another man’s body,2 [1405b1]

  the process is nameless; but both it and gluing are a kind of application, and that is why the application of the cupping-glass is here called a ‘gluing’. Good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors; for metaphors imply riddles, and [5] therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor. Further, the materials of metaphors must be beautiful; and the beauty, like the ugliness, of all words may, as Licymnius says, lie in their sound or in their meaning. Further, there is a third consideration—one that upsets the fallacious argument of the sophist Bryson, that there is no such thing as foul language, because in whatever words you put a given [10] thing your meaning is the same. This is untrue. One term may describe a thing more truly than another, may be more like it, and set it more intimately before our eyes. Besides, two different words will represent a thing in two different lights; so on this ground also one term must be held fairer or fouler than another. For both of two [15] terms will indicate what is fair, or what is foul, but not simply their fairness or their foulness, or if so, at any rate not in an equal degree. The materials of metaphor must be beautiful to the ear, to the understanding, to the eye or some other physical sense. It is better, for instance, to say ‘rosy-fingered morn’, than ‘crimson-fingered’ or, [20] worse still, ‘red-fingered morn’. The epithets that we apply, too, may have a bad and ugly aspect, as when Orestes is called a mother-slayer; or a better one, as when he is called his father’s avenger.3 Simonides, when the victor in the mule-race offered him a small fee, refused to write him an ode, because, he said, it was so unpleasant [25] to write odes to half-asses; but on receiving an adequate fee, he wrote

  Hail to you, daughters of storm-footed steeds,

  though of course they were daughters of asses too. The same effect is attained by the use of diminutives, which make a bad thing less bad and a good thing less good. Take, for instance, the banter of Aristophanes in the Babylonians where he uses [30] ‘goldlet’ for ‘gold’, ‘cloaklet’ for ‘cloak’, ‘scofflet’ for ‘scoff’, and ‘plaguelet’. But alike in using epithets and in using diminutives we must be wary and must observe the mean.

  3 · Frigidities in language may take any of four forms:—The misuse of compound words. Lycophron, for instance, talks of the ‘many-visaged heaven’ [35] above the ‘giant-crested earth’, and again the ‘strait-pathed shore’; and Gorgias of [1406a1] the ‘pauper-poet flatterer’ and ‘oath-breaking and ever-oath-keeping’. Alcidamas uses such expressions as ‘the soul filling with rage and face becoming flameflushed’, and ‘he thought their enthusiasm would be issue-fraught’ and ‘issue-fraught [5] he made the persuasion of his words’, and ‘sombre-hued is the floor of the sea’. The way all these words are compounded makes them, we feel, fit for verse only. This, then, is one form in which bad taste is shown.

  Another is the employment of strange words. For instance, Lycophron talks of ‘the towering Xerxes’ and ‘spoliative Sciron’, Alcidamas of ‘a toy for poetry’ and [10] ‘the witlessness of nature’, and says ‘whetted with the unmitigated temper of his spirit’.

  A third form is the use of long, unseasonable, or frequent epithets. It is appropriate enough for a poet to talk of ‘white milk’, but in prose such epithets are sometimes lacking in appropriateness or, when spread too thickly, plainly reveal the author turning his prose into poetry. Of course we must use some epithets, since [15] they lift our style above the usual level and give it an air of distinction. But we must aim at the due mean, or the result will be worse than if we took no trouble at all; we shall get something actually bad instead of something merely not good. That is why the epithets of Alcidamas seem so frigid; he does not use them as the seasoning of [20] the meat, but as the meat itself, so numerous and swollen and obtrusive are they. For instance, he does not say ‘sweat’, but ‘the moist sweat’; not ‘to the Isthmian games’, but ‘to the world-concourse of the Isthmian games’; not ‘laws’, but ‘the laws that are monarchs of states’; not ‘at a run’, but ‘his heart impelling him to speed of foot’; not ‘a school of the Muses’, but ‘Nature’s school of the Muses had he [25] inherited’; and so ‘frowning care of heart’, and ‘achiever’ not of ‘popularity’ but of ‘universal popularity’, and ‘dispenser of pleasure to his audience’, and ‘he concealed it’ not ‘with boughs’ but ‘with boughs of the forest trees’, and ‘he clothed’ not ‘his [30] body’ but ‘his body’s nakedness’, and ‘his soul’s desire was counter-imitative’ (this at one and the same time a compound and an epithet, so that it seems a poet’s effort), and ‘so extravagant the excess of his wickedness’. We thus see how the inappropriateness of such poetical language imports absurdity and frigidity into speeches, as well as the obscurity that comes from all this verbosity—for when the [35] sense is plain, you only obscure and spoil its clearness by piling up words.

  The ordinary use of compound words is where there is no term for a thing and some compound can be easily formed, like ‘pastime’ (χρoνoτριβεῖν); but if this is [1406b1] much done, the prose character disappears entirely. We now see why the language of compounds is just the thing for writers of dithyrambs, who love sonorous noises; strange words for writers of epic poetry, which is a proud and stately affair; [and metaphor for iambic verse, the metre which (as has been already said) is widely used to-day.]4

  [5] There remains the fourth region in which frigidity may be shown, metaphor. Metaphors like other things may be inappropriate. Some are so because they are ridiculous; they are indeed used by comic as well as tragic poets. Others are too grand and theatrical; and these, if they are far-fetched, may also be obscure. For instance, Gorgias talks of ‘events that are green and full of sap’, and says ‘foul was the deed you sowed and evil the harvest you reaped’. That is too much like poetry. [10] Alcidamas, again, called philosophy ‘a bulwark of the laws’, and the Odyssey ‘a goodly looking-glass of human life’, and talked about ‘offering no such toy to poetry’: all these explanations fail, for the reasons given, to carry the hearer with them. The address of Gorgias to the swallow, when she had let her droppings fall on [15] him as she flew overhead, is in the best tragic manner. He said, ‘Nay, shame, O Philomela’. Considering her as a bird, you could not call her act shameful; considering her as a girl, you could; and so it was a good gibe to address her as what she was once and not as what she is.

  4 · The simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight. When the poet [20] says:

  He leapt on the foe as a lion,5

  this is a simile; when he says of him ‘the lion leapt’, it is a metaphor—here, since both are courageous, he has transferred to Achilles the name of ‘lion’. Similes are useful in prose as well as in verse; but not often, since they are of the nature of [25] poetry. They are to be employed just as metaphors are employed, since they are really the same thing except for the difference mentioned.

  The following are examples of similes. Androtion said of Idrieus that he was like a terrier let off the chain, that flies at you and bites you—Idrieus too was savage now that he was let out of his chains. Theodamas compared Archidamus to [30] a Euxenus who could not do geometry—a proportional simile, implying that Euxenus is an Archidamus who can do geo
metry. In Plato’s Republic those who strip the dead are compared to curs which bite the stones thrown at them but do not touch the thrower; and there is the simile about the Athenian people, who are compared to a ship’s captain who is strong but a little deaf; and the one about poets’ [35] verses, which are likened to persons who lack beauty but possess youthful freshness—when the freshness has faded the charm perishes, and so with verses when broken up into prose.6 Pericles compared the Samians to children who take [1407a1] their pap but go on crying; and the Boeotians to holm-oaks, because they were ruining one another by civil wars just as one oak causes another oak’s fall. Demosthenes said that the Athenian people were like sea-sick men on board ship. [5] Again, Democrates compared the political orators to nurses who swallow the bit of food themselves and then smear the children’s lips with the spittle. Antisthenes compared the lean Cephisodotus to frankincense, because it was his consumption that gave one pleasure. All these ideas may be expressed either as similes or as [10] metaphors; those which succeed as metaphors will obviously do well also as similes, and similes, with the explanation omitted, will appear as metaphors. But the [15] proportional metaphor must always apply reciprocally to either of its co-ordinate terms. For instance, if a drinking bowl is the shield of Dionysus, a shield may fittingly be called the drinking-bowl of Ares.

  5 · Such, then, are the ingredients of which speech is composed. The [20] foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under five heads. First, the proper use of connecting words, and the arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of them require. For instance, the connective μέν (e.g. ἐγὠ μέν) requires the correlative δέ (e.g. ό δέ). The answering word must be brought in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely separated from it; nor, [25] except in the few cases where this is appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the one required. Consider the sentence, ‘But I, as soon as he told me (for Cleon had come begging and praying), took them along and set out’. In this sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the one required to [30] complete the sense; and if there is a long interval, the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style lies in the right use of connecting words. The second lies in calling things by their own special names and not by vague general ones. The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless, indeed, you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing to say but are pretending to mean something. Such [35] people are apt to put that sort of thing into verse. Empedocles, for instance, by his long circumlocutions imposes on his hearers; these are affected in the same way as most people are when they listen to diviners, whose ambiguous utterances are received with nods of acquiescence—

  Croesus by crossing the Halys will ruin a mighty realm.

  [1407b1] Diviners use these vague generalities about the matter in hand because their predictions are thus, as a rule, less likely to be falsified. We are more likely to be right, in the game of ‘odd and even’, if we simply guess ‘even’ or ‘odd’ than if we guess at the actual number; and the oracle-monger is more likely to be right if he simply says that a thing will happen than if he says when it will happen, and [5] therefore he refuses to add a definite date. All these ambiguities have the same sort of effect, and are to be avoided unless we have some such object as that mentioned. A fourth rule is to observe Protagoras’ classification of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter; for these distinctions also must be correctly given. ‘Upon her arrival she said her say and departed (ἡ δ’ ἐλθoῦσα καἰ διαλεχθεἰσα ᾤχετo)’. A fifth [10] rule is to express the singular and the plural by the correct wording, e.g. ‘Having come, they struck me (oἱ δ’ ἐλθὀντες ἔτυπτόν με)’.

  It is a general rule that a written composition should be easy to read and therefore easy to deliver. This cannot be so where there are many connecting words or clauses, or where punctuation is hard, as in the writings of Heracleitus. To [15] punctuate Heracleitus is no easy task, because we often cannot tell whether a particular word belongs to what precedes or what follows it. Thus, at the outset of his treatise he says, ‘Though this truth is always men understand it not’, where it is not clear to which of the two clauses the word ‘always’ belongs. Further, solecism will result if you annex to two terms a third which does not suit them both. Thus if you are talking of sound and colour ‘perceive’ will apply to both, ‘see’ will not. [20] Obscurity is also caused if, when you intend to insert a number of details, you do not first make your meaning clear; for instance, if you say, ‘I meant, after telling him this, that, and the other thing, to set out’, rather than something of this ‘I meant to set out after telling him; then this, that, and the other thing occurred’. [25]

  6 · The following suggestions will help to give your language impressiveness. Describe a thing instead of naming it: do not say ‘circle’, but ‘that surface which extends equally from the middle every way’. To achieve conciseness, do the opposite—put the name instead of the description. When mentioning anything ugly or unseemly, use its name if it is the description that is ugly, and describe it if it is [30] the name that is ugly. Represent things with the help of metaphors and epithets, being careful to avoid poetical effects. Use plural for singular, as in poetry, where one finds

  Unto havens Achaean,7

  though only one haven is meant, and

  Here are my letter’s many-leaved folds.8 [35]

  Do not bracket two words under one article, but put one article with each; e.g. τῆς γυναικὀς τῆς ἡμετέρας. The reverse to secure conciseness; e.g. τῆς ἡμετέρας γυναικὀς. Use plenty of connecting words; conversely, to secure conciseness, dispense with connectives, while still preserving connexion; e.g. ‘having gone and spoken’, and [1408a1] ‘having gone, I spoke’, respectively. And the practice of Antimachus, too, is useful—to describe a thing by mentioning attributes it does not possess; as he does in talking of Teumessus—

  There is a little wind-swept knoll. . .

  A subject can be developed indefinitely along these lines. You may apply this method of treatment by negation either to good or to bad qualities, according to [5] which your subject requires. It is from this source that the poets draw expressions such as the ‘stringless’ or ‘lyreless’ melody, thus forming epithets out of negations. This device is popular in proportional metaphors, as when the trumpet’s note is called ‘a lyreless melody’.

  7 · Your language will be appropriate if it expresses emotion and character, [10] and if it corresponds to its subject. ‘Correspondence to subject’ means that we must neither speak casually about weighty matters, nor solemnly about trivial ones; nor must we add ornamental epithets to commonplace nouns, or the effect will be comic, as in the works of Cleophon, who can use phrases as absurd as ‘queenly [15] fig-tree’. To express emotion, you will employ the language of anger in speaking of outrage; the language of disgust and discreet reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety or foulness; the language of exultation for a tale of glory, and that of humiliation for a tale of pity; and so in all other cases.

  [20] This aptness of language is one thing that makes people believe in the truth of your story: their minds draw the false conclusion that you are to be trusted from the fact that others behave as you do when things are as you describe them; and therefore they take your story to be true, whether it is so or not. Besides, an emotional speaker always makes his audience feel with him, even when there is [25] nothing in his arguments; which is why many speakers try to overwhelm their audience by mere noise.

  Furthermore, this way of proving your story by displaying these signs of its genuineness expresses your personal character. Each class of men, each type of disposition, will have its own appropriate way of letting the truth appear. Under ‘class’ I include differences of age, as boy, man, or old man; of sex, as man or woman; of nationality, as Spartan or Thessalian. By ‘dispositions’ I here mean those [30] dispositions only which de
termine the character of a man’s life, for it is not every disposition that does this. If, then, a speaker uses the very words which are in keeping with a particular disposition, he will reproduce the corresponding character; for a rustic and an educated man will not say the same things nor speak in the same way. Again, some impression is made upon an audience by a device which speech-writers employ to nauseous excess, when they say ‘Who does not know this?’ [35] or ‘It is known to everybody’. The hearer is ashamed of his ignorance, and agrees with the speaker, so as to have a share of the knowledge that everybody else possesses.

  All the variations of oratorical style are capable of being used in season or out [1408b1] of season. The best way to counteract any exaggeration is the well-worn device by which the speaker puts in some criticism of himself; for then people feel it must be all right for him to talk thus, since he certainly knows what he is doing. Further, it is better not to have everything always just corresponding to everything else—your [5] purpose will thus be hidden. I mean for instance, if your words are harsh, you should not extend this harshness to your voice and your countenance and have everything else in keeping. If you do, the artificial character of each detail becomes apparent; whereas if you adopt one device and not another, you are using art all the same and yet nobody notices it. (To be sure, if mild sentiments are expressed in harsh tones [10] and harsh sentiments in mild tones, you become comparatively unconvincing.) Compound words, fairly plentiful epithets, and strange words best suit an emotional speech. We forgive an angry man for talking about a wrong as ‘heaven-high’ or ‘colossal’; and we excuse such language when the speaker has his hearers already in [15] his hands and has stirred them deeply either by praise or blame or anger or affection, as Isocrates, for instance, does at the end of his Panegyric, with his ‘name and fame’ and ‘in that they brooked’. Men do speak in this strain when they are deeply stirred, and so, once the audience is in a like state of feeling, approval of course follows. This is why such language is fitting in poetry, which is an inspired thing. This language, then, should be used either under stress of emotion, or ironically, after the manner of Gorgias and of the passages in the Phaedrus. [20]