Book 3
9.10
There are also false antitheses, as in the verse of Epicharmus: τόκα μὲν ἐν τήνων ἐγὼν ἦν, τόκα δὲ παρὰ τήνοις ἐγών, at one time I was in their house, at another I was with them.There is no real antithesis, the sense of both clauses being the same.
10.1
Having settled these questions, we must next state the sources of smart and popular sayings. They are produced either by natural genius or by practice; to show what they are is the function of this inquiry.
10.2
Let us therefore begin by giving a full list of them, and let our starting-point be the following. Easy learning is naturally pleasant to all, and words mean something, so that all words which make us learn something are most pleasant. Now we do not know the meaning of strange words, and proper terms we know already. It is metaphor, therefore, that above all produces this effect; for when HomerHom. Od. 24.213 ἀλλ’ ἔμπης καλάμην γέ σ’ ὀΐμαι εἰσορόωντα γιγνώσκειν. The words are those of Odysseus, whom Athene had changed into an old beggar, to Eumaeus, his faithful swineherd, in whose house he was staying unrecognized. calls old age stubble, he teaches and informs us through the genus; for both have lost their bloom.
