‘And those who have ruined or destroyed our superiors’; again the a fortiori argument; ‘and those who assail our inferiors; for they are either already formidable to us, or (will be so) when their power has increased. And of those that have been injured (by us), and our acknowledged enemies, or rivals, not the quick-tempered and out-spoken’, (the μεγαλόψυχος is παῤῥησιαστής, one who freely and frankly speaks his mind to and about his neighbours, without mincing his language, Eth. N. IV 9, 1124 b 29; παῤῥησία ‘frankness’, between friends and brothers, Ib. IX 2, 1165 a 29), ‘but the calm and composed, and dissemblers, and cunning; for these leave us in doubt whether their attack is imminent, and consequently never make it evident that it is remote’. Cf. definition, in § 1. πρᾶοι, such as hide under a calm exterior resolution and a deliberate, vindictive purpose: ‘still waters’ that ‘run deep’. εἴρωνες] is here employed in its primary and proper sense, of dissimulation or cunning, Philemon. Fab. Inc. Fragm. III 6, οὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἀλώπηξ ἡ μὲν εἴρων τῆ φύσει ἡ δ̓ αὐθέκαστος, Meineke, Fr. Comm. Gr. IV 32; not in the special meaning which Aristotle has given it in Eth. N. II 7, and IV 13, sub fin., where εἰρωνεία stands for the social vice or defect in προσποίησις, (pretension) ‘self-depreciation’, undue remissness in asserting one's claims; and is opposed to ἀλαζονεία, excessive self-assertion, braggadocio and swagger. ἄδηλοι, φανεροί] attracted to the subject of the sentence, instead of ἄδηλόν ἐστι μὴ εἶναι. The participle is used instead of the infinitive in most of these cases, δῆλός εἰμι ποιῶν. Other adjectives follow the same rule; Aristoph. Nub. 1241, Ζεὺς γελοῖος ὀμνύμενος, Pl. Phaedr. 236 D, γελοῖος ἔσομαι αὐτοσχεδιάζων, Arist. Eth. N. X 8, 1178 b 11, οἱ θεοὶ γελοῖοι φανοῦνται συναλλάττοντες κ.τ.λ. Comp. IV 7, 1123 b 34. Thucyd. I 70, ἄξιοι νομίζομεν εἶναι τοῖς πέλας ψόγον ἐπενεγκεῖν. Other examples are given in Matth. Gr. Gr. § 279, comp. 549. 5. Stallbaum, ed. Gorg. 448 D.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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