Part 4 / Book 3 — CHAPTER IV.
Reading edition
OF A SIMILITUDE.
A similitude differs from a metaphor only by such particles of comparison as these; as; even as; so; even so, &c.
A similitude therefore is a metaphor dilated; and a metaphor is a similitude contracted into one word.
491A similitude does well in an oration, so it be not too frequent; for it is poetical.
An example of the similitude, is this of Pericles, that said in his oration, that the Bœotians were like so many oaks in a wood, that did nothing but beat one another.