Metanoia (from the Greek μετάνοια, metanoia, changing one's mind) in the context of rhetoric is a device used to retract a statement just made, and then state it in a better way.[1] As such, metanoia is similar to correction. 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. I am the goddess who exacts punishment for what has and has not been done, so that people regret it. Hence, my name is Metanoea."[2]