Metanoia is used in recalling a statement in two ways, either to weaken the prior declaration or to strengthen it.
Metanoia is later personified as a figure accompanying kairos, sometimes as a hag and sometimes as a young lady.
Ausonius' epigrams describe her thus: "I am a goddess to whom even Cicero himself did not give a name.
the force of the original statement ("I will murder you") remains, while a more realistic alternative has been put forward ("you shall be punished").
When it is used to strengthen a statement, metanoia works to ease the reader from a moderate statement to a more radical one, as in this quote from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct instructions (Book One);[4] Here Aurelius utilizes metanoia to move from a mild idea ("not observing the admonitions of the gods") to a more intense one ("not observing... their direct instructions"); the clause "I may almost say" introduces the metanoia.