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‘Emotion is expressed, if insult (wanton outrage) (be what you are describing), by the language of one in anger; if impiety or anything foul or base, by that of indignation and reluctance (hesitat on) even to name (or mention) it; what is praiseworthy, by that of admiration; what is pitiable, in a low tone and language, and so on for the rest in like manner’. With ἀγαμένως and ταπεινῶς supply λέγοντος. [For ἀσεβῆ καὶ αἰσχρὰ κ.τ.λ., compare Dem. Or. 54 (κατὰ Κόνωνος) § 9, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα καὶ βλασφημίαν ἔχει τινὰ, καὶ ὀνομάζειν ὀκνήσαιμ᾽ ἂν ἐν ὑμῖν ἔνια.] ἀγαμένως] as in Plat. Phaedo 89 A, ‘approvingly, admiringly, with admiration’, ὡς ἡδέως καὶ εὐμενῶς καὶ ἀγαμένως τῶν νεανίσκων τὸν λόγον ἀπεδέξατο. The word is rare, and the meaning here has been doubted. Victorius, cum laetitia, ‘with delight or exultation’. Ruhnken ad Tim. p. 9, omnibus perpensis, inclines to the opinion that in Aristotle (that is, here: in Plato, it has the other meaning,) it signifies admirabiliter, magnifice, ‘admirably, so as to be admired’; which seems to me the least likely of the three. ταπεινῶς] seems to combine Horace's dolet sermone pedestri (A. P. 95) of the language, with Cicero's summissa voce [Orator § 56] of the tone of voice: a low tone in expressing pity is appropriate to both.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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