Kitap 3
11.3
And as Homer often, by making use of metaphor, speaks of inanimate things as if they were animate; and it is to creating actuality in all such cases that his popularity is due, as in the following examples: Again the ruthless stone rolled down to the plain.Hom. Od. 11.598, with ἔπειτα πέδονδε for ἐπὶ δάπεδόνδε. The arrow flew.Hom. Il. 13.587. [The arrow] eager to fly [towards the crowd].Hom. Il. 4.126. [The spears] were buried in the ground, longing to take their fill of flesh.Hom. Il. 11.574. The spear-point sped eagerly through his breast.Hom. Il. 15.541. . For in all these examples there is appearance of actuality, since the objects are represented as animate: the shameless stone, the eager spear-point, and the rest express actuality. Homer has attached these attributes by the employment of the proportional metaphor; for as the stone is to Sisyphus, so is the shameless one to the one who is shamelessly treated.
11.4
In his popular similes also he proceeds in the same manner with inanimate things: Arched, foam-crested, some in front, others behind;Hom. Il. 13.799. The reference is to the boiling waves of the loud-roaring sea. for he gives movement and life to all, and actuality is movement.
