{{Short description|Stock character in Ancient Greek comedy}} {{context|date=August 2017}} thumb|An actor dressed as the ''eirōn'' character Xanthias in Aristophanes' ''The Frogs'' In the theatre of ancient Greece, the '''''eirōn''''' ({{langx|grc|εἴρων}}, “dissembler”) was one of various stock characters in comedy.<ref>Carlson (1993, 23) and Janko (1987, 45, 170).</ref> The {{Transliteration|grc|eirōn}} usually succeeded by bringing down his braggart opponent (the {{Transliteration|grc|alazṓn}} "boaster") by understating his own abilities.<ref name="eiron1">Frye (1957, 172).</ref> The eiron lends his name to the related concept of irony.
==History== The {{Transliteration|grc|eirōn}} developed in Greek Old Comedy and can be found in many of Aristophanes' plays. For example, in ''The Frogs'', after the God Dionysus claims to have sunk 12 or 13 enemy ships with Cleisthenes (son of Sibyrtius), his slave Xanthias says "Then I woke up."
The philosopher Aristotle mentions the {{Transliteration|grc|eirôn}} in his ''Nicomachean Ethics'', where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-deprecation, and its possessor the self-deprecator" (1108a12).<ref name="eiron2">'ἡ δ' ἐπὶ τὸ ἔλαττον εἰρωνεία καὶ '''εἴρων''' (1108a12, emphasis added); Perseus Digital Library (2006). [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1108a+1 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics].</ref> In this passage, Aristotle establishes the ''eirōn'' as one of the main characters of comedy, along with the {{Transliteration|grc|alazōn}}.
===Irony=== The modern term irony is derived from the {{Transliteration|grc|eirōn}} of the classical Greek theatre. Irony entails opposition (not mere difference) between the actual meaning and the apparent meaning of something.<ref name="eiron3">Dictionary.com (2006). [https://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irony Irony]</ref>
==See also== * ''Bômolochus'' * Maieutics
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources== * Abrams, M. H., ed. 1993. ''A Glossary of Literary Terms.'' 6th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College. * Carlson, Marvin. 1993. ''Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present.'' Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-8154-3}}. * Frye, Northrop. 1957. ''Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays''. London: Penguin, 1990. {{ISBN|0-14-012480-2}}. * Janko, Richard, trans. 1987. ''Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets.'' By Aristotle. Cambridge: Hackett. {{ISBN|0-87220-033-7}}.
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120318223816/http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sfclass/Fryechar.htm Character Functions] according to Northrop Frye
Category:Ancient Greek theatre Category:Male characters in theatre Category:Stock characters in ancient Greek comedy