Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/372

 346 aeistotle's treatise on poetry. alteration — the substitution of a foreign for an appropriate and usual word, one of these verses appears beautiful, the other ordinary. For JEschylus^ in his PhilocteteSj says : ^ayidaiva, rj fiov (rdpKat iadiei ttoSos^ The cank'rous wound that eats my flesh. But Euripides, instead of ia-OUi, *^eats" uses OoivaraL, '■feasts on^^ The same difference will appear, if in this verse, ND;/ Zk [jJ iCov dXiyos re Kal oiridavbs Kal &ki,kv5, we substitute common words, and say : NOj/ di )u' ecbj' fiLKpbi re Koi da-deviKbs Kal aeiS-qs, So, again, should we for the following, Aicppov deiKeXt-ov Karadeii, oXiytjv re rpdire^av — substitute this : M(f)pov pLOxO'Tjpov KaraOels, p,LKpdv re Tpdire^av. Or change 'HioVes jSoowo-tv — " The shores rehellowl — to 'HioVcs Kpa- t^ovcriv — "The shores cry out^ [Ariphrades, also, endeavoured to throw ridicule upon the tragic poets, for making use of such expressions as no one would think of using in common speech : as 8(o/x,aTwv oltto, instead of ctTro Sw/ActToov : and aeOev, and cyw 8e vtv (Soph. (Ed. C. 986), and 'A^tA-^cws ttc/oi, instead of Trept 'Axt^^ew5j &c. Now it is precisely owing to their being not strictly regular, that such expressions have the effect of giving elevation to the diction. But this he did not know.] To employ with propriety any of these modes of speech — ^the double words, the foreign, &c. is a great excellence ; but the greatest of all is to be happy in the use of metaphor; for it is this alone which cannot be acquired, and which, consisting in a quick discernment of resemhlances, is a certain mark of genius. Of the different kind of words the double are best suited to dithy- rambic poetry, the foreign to heroic, the metaphorical to iambic. In heroic poetry, indeed, they have all their place ; but to iambic verse, which is, as much as may be, an imitation of common speech, those words which are used in common speech are best adapted; and such are the strictly appropriate^ the metaphorical, and the ornamental. II * * * II' Concerning Tragedy, and the imitation by action, enough has now been said. "^ Spengel says (u. s. p. 251): "There is here an hiatus of several leaves; what is said about the X^|ts cannot possibly suffice ; and where is the fxeXowoita, of which not even the name is mentioned ?"— J. W. D.