rtainly in accordance with opinion. Of other statements
in poetry one may perhaps say, not that they are better than the truth,
but that the fact was so at the time; e.g. the description of the arms:
'their spears stood upright, butt-end upon the ground'; for that was the
usual way of fixing them then, as it is still with the Illyrians. As for
the question whether something said or done in a poem is morally right
or not, in dealing with that one should consider not only the intrinsic
quality of the actual word or deed, but also the person who says or does
it, the person to whom he says or does it, the time, the means, and the
motive of the agent--whether he does it to attain a greater good, or to
avoid a greater evil.

III. Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the
poet: (1) by the assumption of a strange word in a passage like _oureas
men proton_, where by _oureas_ Homer may perhaps mean not mules but
sentinels. And in saying of Dolon, _hos p e toi eidos men heen kakos_,
his meaning may perhaps be, not that Dolon's body was deformed, but that
his face was ugly, as _eneidos_ is the Cretan word for handsome-faced.
So, too, _goroteron de keraie_ may mean not 'mix the wine stronger', as
though for topers, but 'mix it quicker'. (2) Other expressions in Homer
may be explained as metaphorical; e.g. in _halloi men ra theoi te kai
aneres eudon (hapantes) pannux_ as compared with what he tells us at the
same time, _e toi hot hes pedion to Troikon hathreseien, aulon suriggon
*te homadon*_ the word _hapantes_ 'all', is metaphorically put for
'many', since 'all' is a species of 'many '. So also his _oie d'
ammoros_ is metaphorical, the best known standing 'alone'. (3) A change,
as Hippias suggested, in the mode of reading a word will solve the
difficulty in _didomen de oi_, and _to men ou kataputhetai hombro_.
(4) Other difficulties may be solved by another punctuation; e.g. in
Empedocles, _aipsa de thnet ephyonto, ta prin mathon athanata xora te
prin kekreto_. Or (5) by the assumption of an equivocal term, as in
_parocheken de pleo nux_, where _pleo_ in equivocal. Or (6) by an appeal
to the custom of language. Wine-and-water we call 'wine'; and it is
on the same principle that Homer speaks of a _knemis neoteuktou
kassiteroio_, a 'greave of new-wrought tin.' A worker in iron we call a
'brazier'; and it is on the same principle that Ganymede is described
as the 'wine-server' of Zeus, though the Gods do not dri