Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags;
inconvenience after that,--because, though you can easily stamp cheeks
and foreheads smooth at a blow, you can't stamp projecting tresses fine
at a blow, whatever pains you take with your die.
So your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and
says to you, "Here is beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully
designed and easily stamped. Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand
that they mean lion's mane, heaven mend your wits."
172. See, then, you have in this work well-founded knowledge, simple and
right aims, thorough mastery of handicraft, splendid invention in
arrangement, unerring common sense in treatment,--merits, these, I think,
exemplary enough to justify our tormenting you a little with Greek art.
But it has one merit more than these, the greatest of all. It always
means something worth saying. Not merely worth saying for that time
only, but for all time. What do you think this helmet of lion's hide is
always given to Hercules for? You can't suppose it means only that he
once killed a lion, and always carried its skin afterwards to show that
he had, as Indian sportsmen sent home stuffed rugs, with claws at the
corners, and a lump in the middle which one tumbles over every time one
stirs the fire.
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