[8]
In all these cases, success is attained when a word is
appropriately applied, either by homonym or by metaphor. For example, in the
phrase Anaschetos （Bearable） is Unbearable,1 there is a contradiction of the homonym, which is
only appropriate, if Anaschetus is an unbearable person. And, “Thou
shalt not be more of a stranger than a stranger,” or “not
more than you should be,” which is the same thing. And again, “
The stranger must not always be a stranger,
” for here too the word repeated is taken in a different sense.2 It
is the same with the celebrated verse of Anaxandrides, “
It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death;3
” for this is the same as saying that “it is worthy to die when
one does not
deserve to die,” or, that
“it is worthy to die when one is not worthy of death,” or,
“when one does nothing that is worthy of death.”
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1 Usually translated, “There is no bearing Baring.”
2 Kock, C.A.F. 3.209, p. 448. In the two first examples “stranger” refers to a distant and reserved manner, as we say “don't make yourself a stranger”; in the third ξένος is apparently to be taken in the sense of “alien.” Cope translates: “for that too is of a different kind” （foreign, alien to the two others; ἀλλότριον, belonging to something or somebody else, opposed to οἰκεῖον）. But the whole passage is obscure.
3 Kock, C.A.F. 2. Frag. 64, p. 163.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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