22. Allegory is the saying of things that do not belong to the matter in hand (_alienoloquium_), for one thing is said, another is understood; as, _tres in littore cervos conspicit errantes_, where the three leaders of the Punic war, or the three Punic wars are indicated; and in the _Bucolics_, _aurea mala decem misi_, _i.e._, ten pastoral eclogues to Augustus. There are many species of this figure, of which seven are conspicuous: irony, antiphrasis, enigma, charientismus, paroemia, sarcasmus, astysmus. 23. It is irony where the thought is given a contrary meaning by the manner of speech. By this figure something is said cleverly, either in the way of accusation or insult, as the following: Vestras, Eure, domos, illa se jactet in aula Aeolus, et clauso ventorum carcere regnet. And why _aula_ (palace) if it is _carcer_ (prison)! It is made clear by the manner of speech, for the manner of speech says _carcer_. _Jactet in aula_ is irony, and the whole is expressed in a contradictory manner of speech by the figure of irony which mocks by praising. 24. Antiphrasis is language to be understood to the contrary, as, _lucus_ (sacred grove), since it is without light (_lux_) because of the excessive gloom of the woods.... 25. Between irony and antiphrasis there is this difference, that irony indicates by the manner of speaking alone what is meant, as when we say to a man doing ill, “Bonum est quod facis”. But antiphrasis indicates the contrary not by the voice of the speaker, but only in the words, whose derivation is the opposite [of their meaning]. Chapter 39. On metres. 4. Whatever is measured by verse feet is a poem (_carmen_). It is thought that the name was given because it was pronounced rhythmically (_carptim_), or ... because they who sang such things were supposed to be out of their minds (_mente carere_). 9. ... [The hexameter] excels the rest of the metres in authority, being alone of them all fitted as well to the greatest tasks as to the small, and with an equal capacity for sweetness and delight.... It is also older than the other metres. It is proved that Moses was the first to use it in the song of Deuteronomy, long before Pherecydes and Homer. Whence also it is evident that the making of poems was older among the Hebrews than among the nations. Since Job, too, who goes back as far as Moses, sang in hexameter verse, [using] the dactyl and the spondee. 12. Hecataeus of Miletus is said to have been the first among the Greeks to compose this metre; or, as others think, Pherecydes of Syros, and this metre before Homer was called Pythian, after Homer, heroic. 17. It is manifest that David the prophet was the first to compose and sing hymns in praise of God. Later among the nations Timothoe who (_quae_) lived in the time of Ennius, long after David, wrote the first hymns in honor of Apollo and the Muses. _Hymni_ is translated from the Greek to the Latin as _laudes_.