The proper use of them is a very
different thing. To realize the difference one should take an epic
verse and see how it reads when the normal words are introduced. The
same should be done too with the strange word, the metaphor, and the
rest; for one has only to put the ordinary words in their place to see
the truth of what we are saying. The same iambic, for instance, is
found in Aeschylus and Euripides, and as it stands in the former it is
a poor line; whereas Euripides, by the change of a single word, the
substitution of a strange for what is by usage the ordinary word, has
made it seem a fine one. Aeschylus having said in his _Philoctetes_:
_phagedaina he mon sarkas hesthiei podos_
Euripides has merely altered the hesthiei here into thoinatai. Or
suppose
_nun de m' heon holigos te kai outidanos kai haeikos_
to be altered by the substitution of the ordinary words into
_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.
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