Book 8
6.9
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, The steersman then With mighty effort wrenched his charger round. or when Livy Liv. XXXVIII. liv. says that Scipio was continually barked at by Cato.
6.10
Secondly, inanimate things may be substituted for inanimate, as in the Virgilian. And gave his fleet the rein, Aen. vi. 1. or inanimate may be substituted for animate, as in Did the Argive bulwark fall by sword or fate? From an unknown tragedian. or animate for inanimate, as in the following lines: The shepherd sits unknowing on the height Listening the roar from some far mountain brow. Aen. ii. 307.
6.11
But, above all, effects of extraordinary sublimity are produced when the theme is exalted by a bold and almost hazardous metaphor and inanimate objects are given life and action, as in the phrase Araxes' flood that scorns a bridge, Aen. viii. 728. or in the passage of Cicero, Pro Lit. iii. 9. See VIII. iv. 27. already quoted,
