nun de m' heon mikros te kai hasthenikos kai haeidos
Or the line
diphron haeikelion katatheis olingen te trapexan
into
diphron moxtheron katatheis mikran te trapexan
Or heiones boosin into heiones kraxousin. Add to this that Ariphrades used to ridicule the tragedians for introducing expressions unknown in the language of common life, doeaton hapo (for apo domaton), sethen, hego de nin, Achilleos peri (for peri Achilleos), and the like. The mere fact of their not being in ordinary speech gives the Diction a non-prosaic character; but Ariphrades was unaware of that. It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of these poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.
Of the kinds of words we have enumerated it may be observed that compounds are most in place in the dithyramb, strange words in heroic, and metaphors in iambic poetry. Heroic poetry, indeed, may avail itself of them all. But in iambic verse, which models itself as far as possible on the spoken language, only those kinds of words are in place which are allowable also in an oration, i.e. the ordinary word, the metaphor, and the ornamental equivalent.
Let this, then, suffice as an account of Tragedy, the art imitating by means of action on the stage.