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[2]
Let us
therefore begin by giving a full list of them, and let our starting-point be the
following. Easy learning is naturally pleasant to all, and words mean something,
so that all words which make us learn something are most pleasant. Now we do not
know the meaning of strange words, and proper terms we know already. It is
metaphor, therefore, that above all produces this effect; for when Homer1 calls old age stubble, he teaches
and informs us through the genus; for both have lost their bloom.
1 Hom. Od. 24.213 ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καλάμην γέ σ᾽ ὀΐμαι εἰσορόωντα γιγνώσκειν. The words are those of Odysseus, whom Athene had changed into an old beggar, to Eumaeus, his faithful swineherd, in whose house he was staying unrecognized.
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