37 



Cyu. A. 61. . 



His metaphors are often daring, his apostrophes sublime, and his 

 simihes, not unfrequently, lengthened into minor episodes. These 

 abound in his poems, and, like Homer's, are always instructive 

 and amusing. He sometimes indulges an Asiatic style of hyperbole. 

 He compares dogs, for instance, to the ridges of towering hills, and 

 the elephant to the immense summit of a mountain, or to a weighty 

 cloud bringing tempest to timid mortals. 



Yet this is not more hyperbolical than Homer's comparison of Hec- 

 tor to a " moving mountain topt with snow,'' 



Or of a wild boar to a wooded promontory, 



Q^iipeii Iti )0^iiv)iv Suv uy^iov, nie' Siixsi 

 &>j^t yi <riro(pci'yu aWot. pico vXrievri. 



A very marked characteristic of his style is a profusion of epithets. 

 Having described the horse, he says, 



0O|!*a<vft)v, (Tvmt^Xo;, u^ijtog, oS^if/>og I'^rTof 

 The Syrian bulls are. 



