Kitap 8
6.49
But far the most ornamental effect is produced by the artistic admixture of simile, metaphor and allegory, as in the following example: Pro Mur. xvii. 35. What strait, what tide-race, think you, is full of so many conflicting motions or vexed by such a variety of eddies, waves and fluctuations, as confuse our popular elections with their wild ebb and flow? The passing of one day, or the interval of a single night, will often throw everything into confusion, and one little breath of rumour will sometimes turn the whole trend of opinion. For it is all-important to follow the principle illustrated by this passage and never to mix your metaphors. But there are many who, after beginning with a tempest, will end with a fire or a falling house, with the result that they produce a hideously incongruous effect.
6.51
For the rest, allegory is often used by men of little ability and in the conversation of everyday life. For those hackneyed phrases of forensic pleading, to fight hand to hand, to attack the throat, or to let blood are all of them allegorical, although they do not strike the attention: for it is novelty and change that please in oratory, and what is unexpected always gives special delight. Consequently we have thrown all restraint to the wind in such matters, and have destroyed the charm of language by the extravagant efforts which we have made to attain it.
