Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 65)

301

Citation context Aristotle cites and explains the fragment in the course of
discussing witticisms that turn on the antithesis between different senses of a
single word, as at e. g. Isoc. 4.119 άμα γάρ ήμεΐς τε τής αρχής άπεστερούμεθα
καί τοΐς'Έλλνσιν αρχή των κακών έγίγνετο; 5.61; 8.101. In the fragment, the
thought is more compressed and the contrast implicit, hence Aristotle’s use
of paraphrase to bring out the antithesis. After a brief theoretical discussion,
he reiterates his point with examples clearly invented on the basis of this
fragment: δει δ’ αεί προσεΐναι ή τό προς δν λέγεται ή τό όρθώς λέγεσθαι, εί
τό λεγόμενον αληθές καί μή έπιπόλαιον· έστι γάρ ταϋτα χωρίς έχειν, οίον
Αποθηήσκειν δει μηθέν άμαρτάνοντα· άλλ’ ούκ άστεΐον. τήν αξίαν δει γαμεΐν
τον άξιον·149 άλλ’ ούκ άστεΐον. άλλ’ έάν άμα άμφω έχη· ’Αξιόν γ’ άποθανεΐν
μή άξιον όντα τού άποθανεΐν (1412b24-9). Aristotle to some extent blurs the
distinction between his earlier example from Isocrates, which hinges on dif-
ferent meanings of the same word, and this fragment, which is an oxymoron;
somewhat closer to the wordplay here is his additional example, adesp. com.
fr. 97 ούκ άν γένοιο μάλλον ή ξένος ξένος. The thought is a variation on the
commonplace that no man can be judged truly happy before he has died, as
at e. g. Hdt. 1.30-2; A. Ag. 928-9 with Fraenkel ad loc.·, S. Tr. 1-3 (where the
thought is called λόγος ... αρχαίος); E. Andr. 100-102 with Stevens 1971 ad
loc. For a close approximation of the wording (but not the sense), cf. [Men.]
Mon. 277 ζήν βουλόμενος μή πράττε θανάτου γ’ άξια.

149 Spengel 1828. 20 n. inserted δέ before δει in order to make the line a trimeter
and suggested that it was a fragment of an unknown poet, although he did note
the similar quotation of Anaxandrides cited shortly before; he subsequently re-
jected this idea in his edition of Aristotle’s Rhetorica (1867), noting ‘omninoque
mirum est aliud hie intrudi exemplum ab auctore in poetae versu interpretando
occupato’. Nevertheless, his original suggestion had been accepted by Meineke
in his note on Anaxandr. fr. 65, although he prefered to read έδει rather than δέ
δει and tentatively attributed the fragment to Anaxandrides, although printing it
among the adespota. Meineke’s rationale for the attribution was the preceding
quotation of Anaxandrides and the statement ‘huius [i. e. Anaxandrides] enim
fabulis ut plurimum delectatus esse videtur Aristoteles’; for Aristotle’s citations of
Anaxandrides, see Introduction. Kock followed Meineke, but printed the fragment
as both Anaxandr. fr. 79 (dub.), where he read γάρ δει, and adesp. com. fr. 206,
where he printed the text as it appears in Aristotle (unmetrical). Kassel-Austin
rightly reject the possibility that this is a poetic fragment, let alone a fragment
of Anaxandrides; it is simply a snippet invented by Aristotle for the purposes of
illustration.