The contraband of the imagination

Borges once said that the history of literature is the history of a few metaphors, and he lists some of them: the river as time, life as a dream, eyes as stars, women as flowers... Maybe, then, all reality can also be explained by means of a few metaphors. And if so, what would these metaphors be? Cultural codes are frontiers between two realities, customs posts levying duties. The square peg does not fit into the round hole, and, unless we make some adjustment, the Round Holers will not be able to receive the message from the square peg. But if that is so, then perhaps the peg is meaningless without its squareness. And how many pegs are there in the market of ideas, anyway? Even the market cannot answer that question. I have therefore chosen to analyse a piece of one particular market: metaphor in the transaction of bertsos1 [extemporised verses].