§9.2.41nec solum quae facta sint aut fiant, sed etiam quae futura sint aut futura fuerint imaginamur.
And we imagine not only those things which have been done or are being done, but also those which are to be or would have been.
mire tractat hoc Cicero pro Milone, quae facturus fuerit Clodius, si praeturam invasisset.
Cicero treats this wonderfully in Pro Milone, showing what Clodius would have done if he had forced his way into the praetorship.
sed haec quidem translatio temporum, quae proprie μετάστασις dicitur, ιν διατυπώσει verecundior apud priores fuit.
But this transfer of times, which is properly called metastasis, was more reserved among the ancients in diatyposis.
praeponebant enim talia, credite vos intueri, ut Cicero, haec, quae non vidistis oculis, animis cernere potestis. §9.2.42novi vero et praecipue declamatores audacius nec mehercule sine motu quodam imaginantur, ut et Seneca in controversia, cuius summa est, quod pater filium et novercam inducente altero filio in adulterio deprehensos occidit: duc, sequor; accipe hanc senilem manum et quocunque vis imprime. §9.2.43et post paulo, aspice, inquit, quod diu non credidisti.
For they would prefix such words as, "believe that you see," as Cicero does: "These things, which you have not seen with your eyes, you can discern with your minds." But the moderns, and especially the declaimers, imagine more boldly and indeed, by heaven, not without a certain emotional movement, as Seneca does in a controversy, the gist of which is that a father killed his son and stepmother caught in adultery under the guidance of his other son: "Lead on, I follow; take this aged hand and press it wherever you wish." And a little later, he says, "Look at what you did not believe for a long time.
ego vero non video, nox oboritur et crassa caligo. habet haec figura manifestius aliquid; non enim narrari res, sed agi videtur.
But I do not see; night comes over me and a thick darkness." This figure has something more manifest; for the thing seems not to be narrated, but to be performed.
§9.2.44locorum quoque dilucida et significans descriptio eidem virtuti adsignatur a quibusdam; alii τοπογραφίαν dicunt.
A clear and vivid description of places also is assigned to the same virtue by some; others call it topography.
Εἰρωνείαν inveni qui dissimulationem vocaret; quo nomine quia parum totius huius figurae vires videntur ostendi, nimirum sicut in plerisque erimus Graeca appellatione contenti.
I have found someone who called eironeia "dissimulatio"; by which name, since the powers of this whole figure seem to be insufficiently shown, we shall doubtless be content with the Greek term, as in most cases.
igitur Εἰρωνεία quae est schema, ab illa, quae est tropos, genere ipso nihil admodum distat; (in utroque enim contrarium ei quod dicitur intelligendum est) species vero prudentius intuenti diversas esse facile est deprehendere.
Therefore, eironeia which is a schema does not differ very much in its genus itself from that which is a tropos; (for in both, the contrary of what is said must be understood) but to one who looks more closely, it is easy to detect that the species are different.
primum, §9.2.45quod tropos apertior est et, quanquam aliud dicit ac sentit, non aliud tamen simulat.
First, because the tropos is more open and, although it says something other than what it feels, it does not nevertheless pretend something else.
nam et omnia circa fere recta sunt: ut illud in Catilinam, A quo repudiatus ad sodalem tuum, virum optimum, Metellum demigrasti. in duobus demum verbis est ironia, ergo etiam brevior est tropos.
For almost all things around it are direct: as that passage in Catilinam, "Rejected by whom, you departed to your companion, that excellent man, Metellus." The irony is in only two words, and therefore the tropos is also shorter.
§9.2.46at in figura totius voluntatis fictio est apparens magis quam confessa, ut illic verba sint verbis diversa, hic sensus sermoni et voci et tota interim causae conformatio; cum etiam vita universa ironiam habere videatur, qualis est visa Socratis; nam ideo dictus εἴρων, agens imperitum et admiratorem aliorum tanquam sapientium; ut, quemadmodum ἀλληγορίαν facit continua μεταφορὰ sic hoc schema faciat tropos ille contextus.
But in the schema, there is a fiction of the whole intention, more apparent than confessed, so that there words are different from words, here the meaning is different from the speech and voice, and sometimes the whole conformation of the case; since even the whole of life seems to possess irony, such as the life of Socrates appeared to be; for he was called an eiron for this reason, acting as an ignorant man and an admirer of others as if they were wise; so that, just as a continuous metaphor makes an allegory, so that connected tropos makes this schema.
§9.2.47quaedam vero genera huius figurae nullam cum tropis habent societatem, ut illa statim prima, quae dicitur a negando, quam nonnulli ἀντίφρασιν vocant: non agam tecum iure summo, non dicam, quod forsitan obtinerem; et quid ego istius decreta, quid rapinas, quid hereditatum possessiones datas, quid ereptas proferam? et Mitto illam primam libidinis iniuriam, et Ne illa quidem testimonia recito, quae dicta sunt de HS sescentis milibus, et possum dicere. §9.2.48quibus generibus per totas interim quaestiones decurrimus: ut Cicero, hoc ego si sic agerem, tanquam mihi modi esset diluendum, haec pluribus dicerem. Εἰρωνεία est, et cum similes imperantibus vel permittentibus sumus:
"
I, sequere Italiam venti; "
et cum ea, §9.2.49quae nolumus videri in adversariis esse, concedimus eis.
But certain kinds of this figure have no fellowship with tropoi, such as that first one immediately, which is called from denying, which some call antiphrasis: "I will not deal with you by the utmost rigor of the law, I will not say what perhaps I might obtain;" and "Why should I bring forward his decrees, his robberies, his possessions of inheritances given, his possessions snatched away?" and "I pass over that first injury of lust," and "I do not even read those testimonies which were spoken concerning the six hundred thousand sesterces," and "I am able to say." By which kinds we sometimes run through entire questions: as Cicero says, "If I were to treat this matter thus, as if I had to explain my manner, I would say these things at greater length." It is also eironeia when we are like those who command or permit: "Go, follow Italy on the winds; "and when we concede those things, which we do not wish to appear to be in our adversaries, to them.
id acrius fit, cum eadem in nobis sunt et in adversario non sunt:
"
meque timoris
argue tu, Drance, quando tot caedis acervos
Teucrorum tua dextra dedit.
This becomes more acute when the same things are in us and are not in our adversary: "And charge me with fear, Drances, since your right hand has given so many heaps of slaughter of the Teucrians.
"
Quod idem contra valet, cum aut ea, quae a nobis absunt, aut etiam quae in aduersarios recidunt, quasi fatemur:
"
me duce Dardanius Spartam expugnauit adulter.
"Which same thing is valid on the contrary when we confess, as it were, either those things which are absent from us, or even those which fall back upon our adversaries: "With me as leader, the Dardanian adulterer stormed Sparta.
"
Nec in personis tantum,
"Nor only in persons,