In the theatre of ancient Greece, the eirôn (Ancient Greek: εἴρων) was one of three stock characters in comedy.[1] The eirôn usually succeeds in bringing his braggart opponent (the alazôn) down by making himself seem like less than he actually was.[2]
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The eirôn developed in Greek Old Comedy and can be found in many of Aristophanes' plays.
The philosopher Aristotle names the eirôn in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-depreciation, and its possessor the self-depreciator" (1108a12).[3] In this passage, Aristotle establishes the eirôn as one of the main characters of comedy, along with the alazôn.
The modern term irony is derived from the eirôn of the classical Greek theatre. Irony is the difference between the actual meaning of a something and the apparent meaning.[4] The eirôn would frequently triumph over the alazôn by making himself appear less than he actually was.
Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds provides an example of the eirôn in its character Strepsiades. He interacts with Socrates, an alazôn. Strepsiades defeats the wise and learned Socrates in a debate by appearing foolish and reducing the debate from a highbrow theocratic issue to a scatological matter:
SOCRATES: These are the only gods there are. The rest are but figments.
STREPSIADES: Holy name of Earth! Olympian Zeus is a figment?
SOCRATES: Zeus? What Zeus? Nonsense. There is no Zeus.
STREPSIADES: No Zeus?
Then who makes it rain? Answer me that.
SOCRATES: Why, the Clouds,
of course. What’s more, the proof is incontrovertible. For instance,
have you ever yet seen rain when you didn’t see a cloud?
But if your hypothesis were correct, Zeus could drizzle from an empty sky
while the clouds were on vacation.
STREPSIADES: By Apollo, you’re right. A pretty proof.
And to think I always used to believe the rain was just Zeus
pissing through a sieve.
As is clear, Socrates is not having the theological debate he had anticipated by the end of the conversation. Strepsiades reduces Socrates to an extremely lowbrow conversation by concealing his own intelligence.[5] Note that Strepsiades himself practiced "Socratic irony", which asks apparently naive questions to make the respondents reason the answers for themselves.