Here, perhaps as well as in reference to any single passage in the _Poetics_, we have an opportunity of considering for the [Sidenote: _A difficulty._] first time a difficulty, not unexpected, not uninteresting, which meets us, and which will recur frequently, in ancient (and sometimes in the most modern) criticism. It is the difficulty which so did please Locke and his followers in the attack on the doctrine of Innate Ideas,—in other words, the difficulty of an apparently hopeless difference of standard on points of taste—the difference between Greek and modern love, between English and Hottentot beauty. One should, says the philosopher, say ῥοδοδάκτυλος rather than φοινικοδάκτυλος, while ἐρυθροδάκτυλος is the worst of all. The commentators have tried to get out of the difficulty by suggesting that the last suggests the redness of frost-bitten or domestically disfigured fingers. φοινικοδάκτυλος would in the same way, I suppose, be considered as objectionable because the colour is overcharged in the epithet, and might even suggest “red-handed” in the sense of “bloodstained.” Yet one may doubt whether Aristotle’s objection is based on anything but the fact that Homer uses the one epithet, not the others. The verb ἐρυθριάω, at any rate, is invariably used for blushing, not an unattractive or unbeautiful proceeding by any means. And we shall find very much stronger instances of this difficulty later. The explanation is partly supplied by the very next section, which deals with ψυχρότης and is one of the most valuable [Sidenote: “_Frigidity._”] keys existing to the whole tone of Greek, indeed of classical, criticism. It is rather unlucky that “frigidity,” our only equivalent, is not quite clear to English ears. In fact, “fustian” comes nearest to what is meant, though it is not completely adequate and coextensive. The idea is not difficult to follow—it is that of something which is intended to excite and inflame the auditor or reader, while in fact it leaves him cold, if it does not actually lower his spiritual temperature. Aristotle gives four cases, or (which is nearly the same thing) four kinds of it—words excessively compounded, foreign terms, too emphatic or minute epithets, and improper metaphors. To these, as generalities, few would object, but the instances are sometimes decidedly puzzling. Lycophron (the sophist, not the poet) is blamed for calling the heavens πολυπρόσωπον (“many-visaged”), the earth μεγαλοκόρυφον (“mightily mountain-topped”), and the shore στενοπόρον (“leaving a narrow passage between cliff and sea”). Now, perhaps these terms are too poetical, yet we should hardly call them frigid, for they are not untrue to nature, and they not only show thought and imagination in the writer, but excite both in the reader. Still, they are all slightly _excessive_; they pass measure, as do other things blamed in Alcidamas and Gorgias still more.