Book 3
11.8
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,Usually translated, There is no bearing Baring. 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.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. It is the same with the celebrated verse of Anaxandrides, It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death;Kock, C.A.F. 2. Frag. 64, p. 163. 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.
11.9
Now the form of expression of these sayings is the same; but the more concisely and antithetically they are expressed, the greater is their popularity. The reason is that antithesis is more instructive and conciseness gives knowledge more rapidly.
