These examples I haue the willinger giuen you to set foorth the nature and vse of your figure metaphore, which of any other being choisly made, is the most commendable and most common.
[Sidenote: Catachresis, or the Figure of abuse] But if for lacke of naturall and proper terme or worde we take another, neither naturall nor proper and do vntruly applie it to the thing which we would seeme to expresse, and without any iust inconuenience, it is not then spoken by this figure Metaphore or of inuersion as before, but by plaine abuse as he that bad his man go into his library and set him his bowe and arrowes, for in deede there was neuer a booke there to be found, or as one should in reproch say to a poore man, thou raskall knaue, where raskall is properly the hunters terme giuen to young deere, leane & out of season, and not to people: or as one said very pretily in this verse. I lent my loue to losse, and gaged my life in vaine.
Whereas this worde lent is properly of mony or some such other thing, as men do commonly borrow, for vse to be repayed againe, and being applied to loue is vtterly abused, and yet very commendably spoken by vertue of this figure. For he that loueth and is not beloued againe; hath no lesse wrong, that he that lendeth and is neuer repayde.
[Sidenote: Metonimia, or the Misnamer] Now doth this vnderstanding or secret conceyt reach many times to the only nomination of persons or things in their names, as of men, or mountaines, seas, countries and such like, in which respect the wrong naming, or otherwise naming of them then is due, carieth not onely an alteration of sence but a necessitie of intendment figuratiuely, as when we cal loue by the name of Venus, fleshly lust by the name of Cupid, bicause they were supposed by the auncient poets to be authors and kindlers of loue and lust: Vulcane for fire, Ceres for bread: Bacchus for wine by the same reason; also if one should say to a skilfull craftesman knowen for a glutton or common drunkard, that had spent all his goods on riot and delicate fare. Thy hands they made thee rich, thy pallat made thee poore.
It is ment, his trauaile and arte made him wealthie, his riotous life had made him a beggar: and as one that boasted of his housekeeping, said that neuer a yeare passed ouer his head, that he drank not in his house euery moneth foure tonnes of beere, & one hogshead of wine, meaning not the caskes, or vessels, but that quantitie which they conteyned. These and such other speaches, where ye take the name of the Author for the thing it selfe, or the thing conteining, for that which is contained, & in many other cases do as it were wromg name the person or the thing. So neuerthelesse as it may be vnderstood, it is by the figure metonymia, or misnamer.
[Sidentote: Antonomasia, or the Surnamer.] And if this manner of naming of persons or things be not by way of misnaming as before, but by a conuenient difference, and such as is true or esteemed and likely to be true, it is then called not metonimia, but antonomasia, or the Surnamer, (not the misnamer, which might extend to any other thing aswell as to a person) as he that would say: not king Philip of Spaine, but the Westerne king, because his dominion lieth the furdest West of any Christen prince: and the French king the great Vallois, because so is the name of his house, or the Queene of England, The maiden Queene, for that is her hiest peculiar among all the Queenes of the world, or as we said in one of our Partheniades, the Bryton mayde, because she is the most great and famous mayden of all Brittayne: thus, But in chaste stile, am borne as I weene To blazon foorth the Brytton mayden Queene.
So did our forefathers call Henry the first, Beauclerke, Edmund Ironside, Richard coeur de lion: Edward the Confessor, and we of her Maiestie Elisabeth the peasible.
[Sidenote: Onomatopeia, or the New namer.] Then also is the sence figuratiue when we deuise a new name to any thing consonant, as neere as we can to the nature thereof, as to say: flashing of lightning, clashing of blades, clinking of fetters, chinking of money: & as the poet Virgil said of the sounding a trumpet, ta-ra-tant, taratantara, or as we giue special names to the voices of dombe beasts, as to say, a horse neigheth, a lyon brayes, a swine grunts, a hen cackleth, a dogge howles, and a hundreth mo such new names as any man hath libertie to deuise, so it be fittie for the thing which he couets to expresse.
[Sidenote: Epitheton, or the Quallifier, otherwise the figure of Attribution.] Your Epitheton or qualifier, whereof we spake before, placing him among the figures auricular, now because he serues also to alter and enforce the sence, we will say somewhat more of him in this place, and do conclude that he must be apt and proper for the thing he is added vnto, & not disagreable or repugnant, as one that said: darke disdaine and miserable pride, very absurdly, for disdaine or disdained things cannot be said darke, but rather bright and cleere, because they be beholden and much looked vpon, and pride is rather enuied then pitied or miserable, vnlessse it be in Christian charitie, which helpeth not the terme in this case. Some of our vulgar writers take great pleasure in giuing Epithets and do it almost to euery word which may receiue them, and should not be so, vea though they were neuer so propre and apt, for sometimes wordes suffered to go single, do giue greater sence and grace than words quallified by attributions do.
[Sidenote: Metalepsis, or the Farreset.] But the sence is much altered & the hearers conceit strangly entangled by the figure Metalepsis, which I call the farset, as when we had rather fetch a word a great way off then to vse one nerer hand to expresse the matter aswel & plainer. And it seemeth the deuiser of this figure had a desire to please women rather then men: for we vse to say by manner of Prouerbe: things farreset and deare bought are good for Ladies: so in this manner of speach we vfe it, leaping ouer the heads of a great many words, we take one that is furdest off, to vtter our matter by: as Medea cursing hir first acquaintance with prince Iason, who had very vnkindly forsaken her, said: Woe worth the mountaine that the maste bare Which was the first causer of all my care.