Book 3
2.5
Nouns and verbs being the components of speech, and nouns being of the different kinds which have been considered in the Poetics, of these we should use strange, compound, or coined words only rarely and in few places. We will state laterChaps. 3 and 7. in what places they should be used;
2.6
the reason for this has already been mentioned, namely, that it involves too great a departure from suitable language. Proper and appropriate words and metaphors are alone to be employed in the style of prose; this is shown by the fact that no one employs anything but these. For all use metaphors in conversation, as well as proper and appropriate words; wherefore it is clear that, if a speaker manages well, there will be some thing foreign about his speech, while possibly the art may not be detected, and his meaning will be clear. And this, as we have said, is the chief merit of rhetorical language.
2.7
(In regard to nouns, homonyms are most useful to the sophist, for it is by their aid that he employs captious arguments, and synonyms to the poet. Instances of words that are both proper and synonymous are going and walking: for these two words are proper and have the same meaning.)This is a parenthetical note.
2.7
It has already been stated, as we have said, in the Poetics,Aristot. Poet. 21, 22. what each of these thingsThe different kinds of words. is, how many kinds of metaphor there are, and that it is most important both in poetry and in prose.
2.8
But the orator must devote the greater attention to them in prose, since the latter has fewer resources than verse. It is metaphor above all that gives perspicuity, pleasure, and a foreign air, and it cannot be learnt from anyone else;Aristot. Poet. 22.9: for this alone cannot be borrowed from another.
