For me, the most important of these tools is the metaphor, the model; particularly when I am at a loss of how to continue. In fact, the argument in this section—Up The Garden Path—is a perfect example. When I started writing it, I immediately thought about the commonplace cliche "write what you know", and so I set this down in print. But when this proved questionable, I had to cast about for some way to continue. As I tried to think of something to contrast with 'knowing' and its correlates, 'truth' and 'reason', I was naturally reminded of its psychological complement: emotion. And so I came up with "write what you feel". This led to several subsequent thoughts, and the whole played rather nicely, albeit somewhat briefly. So I found myself stuck again; and I decided to go over what I had written so far, to see if any ideas had emerged of which I was unaware. And low and behold, the model popped out: write what you know—that's Logos; and write what you feel—that's Pathos; and of course the most natural way to continue this line of thought would be to complete the metaphor, and suggest that you write what is your own—and that's Ethos. Once again, a triadic model had come to my rescue.

The triadic or threefold model is perhaps the most ancient and ubiquitous model used in art and literature. It can be found in the oldest extant myths, the Sumerian and Egyptian.²⁵ And the Greeks, too, new it well, and used it often. Their three-tiered World was peopled by many deities of triadic form. And in fact the mythological etiology of the Trojan war relies upon such a trinitary system. Whether this particular myth predates Homer is hard to say; he seems to know of it, but it does not become elaborated upon, in literature, until Greek drama.²⁶

The myth to which I refer is that of Paris and three Greek goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. At the wedding of Achilles' parents, Thetis and Peleus, the goddess Eris—Strife, the only deity not invited—dropped a golden apple with the inscription "For The Fairest" in the midst of Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite. Each of the three goddesses coveted the prize and, quite unbecoming their nobility, argued over the apple, each proclaiming that it was intended for her.