Eiron


In the theatre of ancient Greece, the eirôn was one of three stock characters in comedy. The eirôn usually succeeded in bringing down his braggart opponent by understating his own abilities.

History

The eirôn 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, his slave Xanthias says 'Then I woke up.'
The philosopher Aristotle names the eirôn in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-deprecation, and its possessor the self-deprecator". In this passage, Aristotle establishes the eirôn as one of the main characters of comedy, along with the alazôn.
An example of a clash between an eiron and alazon is found in the Gospel of John chapter 9 where a man born blind, the eiron, bests the alazons, the religious authorities, in a verbal contest that deflates their overconfidence. Although the man born blind is reviled by the authorities as “born entirely in sins” —that is, he is ignorant and unlearned—he gains the upper hand by lecturing the learned authorities on basic theological principles.

Irony

The modern term irony is derived from the eirôn of the classical Greek theatre. Irony entails opposition between the actual meaning and the apparent meaning of something.