This being the definition of fear, fearful things, the objects of fear, must needs be such as appear’ (fear being ἐκ φαντασίας) ‘to have a great power of destroying, or doing mischief, all kinds of mischief, that is, which tend to, take the direction of, great pain’. συντείνειν is ‘to send together’, said properly, of several things which conspire or converge to one focus or centre of attraction; or metaph., which have a common aim or tendency. ‘And therefore the signs or indications of such things (the symptom of the approaching fever or death, the clouds gathering before the storm, the first threatenings or indications of any great calamity, as impending ruin, the death of a dear friend, and so forth) are themselves fearful: because they announce the proximity of the object of dread, that it is near at hand; for this is the meaning of danger—the near approach of anything that is dreaded’.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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