«وكلما كان أشد خفاء كان أقرب إلى القبول»
“The less obvious the borrowing, the closer it is to acceptance.”
This does not mean that secretly passing off another writer’s work is ethically preferable. In the classical rhetorical context, it concerns the degree to which a later expression departs from mechanical repetition and develops an artistically distinct form.
Merely disguising a borrowed line by swapping words is not itself a literary achievement. The merits of transformation and the visibility of borrowing must still be assessed separately.