The 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 in his
Nicomachean Ethics, where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-deprecation, and its possessor the self-deprecator" (1108a12). In this passage, Aristotle establishes the
eirōn as one of the main characters of comedy, along with the .
Irony The modern term
irony is derived from the of the
classical Greek theatre. Irony entails opposition (not mere difference) between the actual meaning and the apparent meaning of something. ==See also==