Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

On the other hand, when we say that a man is kindled to anger or on fire with greed or that he has fallen into

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error, we do so to enhance our meaning. For none of these things can be more literally described in its own words than in those which we import from elsewhere. But it is a purely ornamental metaphor when we speak of brilliance of style, splendour of birth, tempestuous public assemblies, thunderbolts of eloquence, to which I may add the phrase employed by Cicero [*](Pro Mil. xiii. 34, 35. ) in his defence of Milo where he speaks of Clodius as the fountain, and in another place as the fertile field and material of his client's glory.

It is even possible to express facts of a somewhat unseemly character by a judicious use of metaphor, as in the following passage: [*]( Virg. Georg. iii. 1 )

  1. This do they lest too much indulgence make
  2. The field of generation slothful grow
  3. And choke its idle furrows.
On the whole metaphor is a shorter form of simile, while there is this further difference, that in the latter we compare some object to the thing which we wish to describe, whereas in the former this object is actually substituted for the thing.

It is a comparison when I say that a man did something like a lion, it is a metaphor when I say of him, He is a lion. Metaphors fall into four classes. In the first we substitute one living thing for another, as in the passage where the poet, speaking of a charioteer, [*](Probably from Ennius.) says,

  1. The steersman then
  2. With mighty effort wrenched his charger round.
or when Livy [*](Liv. XXXVIII. liv.) says that Scipio was continually barked at by Cato.

Secondly, inanimate things may be substituted for inanimate, as in the Virgilian.

  1. And gave his fleet the rein,
Aen. vi. 1.
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or inanimate may be substituted for animate, as in
  1. Did the Argive bulwark fall by sword or fate?
From an unknown tragedian.
or animate for inanimate, as in the following lines:
  1. The shepherd sits unknowing on the height
  2. Listening the roar from some far mountain brow.
Aen. ii. 307.