Book 3
11.13
But they are excellent when there is a proportional metaphor; for it is possible to liken a shield to the goblet of Ares and a ruin to the rag of a house; to say that Niceratus is a Philoctetes bitten by Pratys, to use the simile of Thrasymachus, when he saw Niceratus, defeated by Pratys in a rhapsodic competition, still dirty with his hair uncut.Like Philoctetes on Lemnos after he had been bitten by the snake. It is herein that poets are especially condemned if they fail, but applauded if they succeed. I mean, for instance, when they introduce an answering clause:When the concluding corresponds with the introductory expression. This answering clause is called apodosis (5.2), not restricted, as in modern usage, to the conclusion of a conditional sentence. He carries his legs twisted like parsley, or again, Like Philammon punching the leather sack. All such expressions are similes, and similes, as has been often said, are metaphors of a kind.
