And in saying of Dolon...

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_ i.e.uivocal. 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 drink wine. This latter, however, may be an instance of metaphor.

But whenever also a word seems to imply some contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be of understanding it in the passage in question; e.g.

in Homer's _te r' hesxeto xalkeon hegxos_ one should consider the possible senses of 'was stopped there'--whether by taking it in this sense or in that one will best avoid the fault of which Glaucon speaks: 'They start with some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it themselves, proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement conflicts with their own notion of things.' This is how Homer's silence about Icarius has been treated.

Starting with, the notion of his having been a Lacedaemonian, the critics think it strange for Telemachus not to have met him when he went to Lacedaemon.