Antimetabole
Antimetabole (an'-ti-me-ta'-bo-lee) is the repetition of words or phrases in an inverted or reverse order in which the phrases suggest opposing meanings. “How / much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!” Much Ado About Nothing. 1.1.13. Antimetabole is a type of chiasmus, which is a similar inversion but of actual words whose meanings are not necessarily opposite. Chiasmus is similar to epanados, which also repeats the terms after presenting them.
Notes on Antimetabole
Quotes including the Figure of Speech Antimetabole
I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina
Read the QuoteLeonato, with a letter
I learn in this letter that Don
Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina.
Messenger
He is very near by this. He was not three
leagues off when I left him.
He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age,
doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion.
… continue reading this quote
Let us sit and mock the good huswife Fortune
Read the QuoteCelia
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune
from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be
bestowed equally.Personification
Rosalind
I would we could do so, for her benefits are
mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
Celia
‘Tis true,
… continue reading this quote
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
Read the QuoteDuke, as Friar
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
Claudio
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.
I have hope to live and am prepared to die.Antithesis
To sue to live, I find I seek to die,
And seeking death,
… continue reading this quote
Naught’s had, all’s spent
Read the QuoteNaught’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content.Isocolon & Dichotomy
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard. What’s done is done.
‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.Antimetabole, Polyptoton & Alliteration
Enter Macbeth.
How now,
… continue reading this quote