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Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

25a.13 · Life in itself and life in relation

The living creature is therefore divisible, since body too is included in its conception. From this, the vital activities, imparted by soul and receiving their distribution as different activities among parts, have attributed the possession of parts to soul as well. Perhaps, then, since soul is conceived in two ways and possesses life both in itself and in relation, the parts subsist in its relational life. For when a grain of wheat is sown, its parts come to subsist in its relation to generation: the whole ear is not divisible but is contemplated in what is divisible, from which it returns again to the indivisible. So too, although soul is indivisible, parts arise alongside it in its sowing.¹³⁸¹

26 · A damaged fragment on the sources of life

In the same work.

. . . . . It ⟨would⟩ next be helpful to examine, in order to know, which have been brought forth as living creatures through soul, as through soul itself, and which through the one that comes after it, and which through the living creature. For in this way the modes of subsistence will be evident, and it will be clear what necessities require those who confine parts of soul within a part of the body to return to soul in itself.¹³⁸²

27.1 · Aesara: human nature and justice

From On Human Nature by Aesara, the Pythagorean woman of Lucania.¹³⁸³

Human nature seems to me to be the standard of law and justice, for both household and city. By tracking and seeking within the human being, one could discover their traces; for the ordering of the soul within the human being is law and justice. Being threefold, the soul is constituted for threefold functions: judgment and prudence are produced by ⟨intellect⟩; strength and ⟨impulse, by the⟩ spirited power; and love and goodwill, by desire.¹³⁸⁴

27.2 · The order of the soul’s powers

All these are so ordered in relation to one another that the soul’s best element leads, the inferior is ruled, and the middle occupies a middle rank, both ruling and being ruled. God devised these things in this rational order when shaping and fashioning the human frame, because he intended the human being alone, and no other mortal creature, to be receptive of law and justice.¹³⁸⁵

27.3 · A community requires different members

⟨For⟩ a community cannot be constituted from one member, nor indeed from several if they are alike. Since their tasks differ, the portions of soul within us must also differ, as with the body’s ⟨organs of touch and⟩ sight, hearing, taste, and smell; for not everything is equally fitted to everything.¹³⁸⁶

27.4 · Fitness, law, and intelligent oversight

Nor can it be constituted from several unlike members taken at random, but only from those fashioned for the completion, ordering, and fitting together of the whole structure. And it requires not merely several unlike members fashioned to form the complete whole, but also that these very members be arranged with some law and intelligent oversight, rather than casually and at random.¹³⁸⁷

27.5 · Equal shares and inverted rule

For if the members received an equal share of both power and honor, despite being unlike, some inferior, some superior, and some intermediate, the community of parts within the soul could not be fitted together. And if their shares were unequal, but the inferior members received the larger share instead of the superior, much folly and disorder ⟨would⟩ prevail in the soul;¹³⁸⁸

27.6 · Justice requires fitting proportion

and if the superior received the larger share and the inferior the smaller, but each without due proportion, there could be no concord, friendship, or justice within the soul. For I call that condition justice whose every single part has been arranged according to its fitting proportion.¹³⁸⁹

27.7 · Concord, friendship, and goodwill

A certain concord and agreement of mind follow such an arrangement. This might rightly be called good order in the soul, bringing the mastery of virtue through the superior ruling and the inferior being ruled. Friendship, love, and a goodwill that is native and akin to them have also sprung from these parts. For intellect persuades through its investigation, desire loves, and the spirited power, filled with vigor and boiling with hostility, becomes friendly to desire.¹³⁹⁰

27.8 · Blending pleasure and effort

For intellect has harmonized them by blending the pleasant with the painful, and what is strenuous and intense with the light and expansive part of soul. Each has also been allotted, for its respective task, the foresight native and akin to it;¹³⁹¹

27.9 · The contribution of each power

intellect investigates and tracks the matters at hand, while the spirited power brings impulse and strength to what has been investigated. Desire, being akin to affectionate attachment, fits in with intellect, securing pleasure as its own and assigning thoughtfulness to the thoughtful part of soul.¹³⁹²

27.10 · Pleasure joined to virtue

For these reasons, it seems to me that human life is best when the pleasant is blended with the serious, and ⟨the⟩ pleasure with virtue. Intellect can fit them together when it has become beloved of education and virtue.¹³⁹³

1381.The tentative mēpote, “perhaps,” is retained. Life kath’ hautēn is life considered in itself; life kata schesin is life in relation, here to bodily existence. The wheat analogy distinguishes the whole ear as contemplated from its realization in divisible material; the Greek’s claim that the whole ear is not divisible is retained, not rewritten as a modern botanical statement. “Sowing” is then transferred to soul.

1382.The edition marks missing text at the opening. The surviving construction is difficult: the referents of “which” and “the one that comes after it” are not securely recoverable. This provisional rendering retains zōia, “living creatures,” and takes it predicatively with “brought forth”; it supplies no lost list of powers. The apparatus suggests “through participation” for “through the one that comes after it,” and “separations” for “modes of subsistence”; neither is adopted. The closing “return to soul in itself” is read as a return in the account being given of soul. The supplied an is represented by “would.”

1383.The edited heading identifies a woman from Lucania; Wachsmuth discusses the attribution and its variant forms in the apparatus. The translation follows that heading without adding a date or biography. Doric forms such as anthrōpō, “of a human being,” hēmen, “to be,” and psychas, “of the soul,” are retained in Greek, with ordinary modern English opposite.

1384.Kanōn is a standard or measure. The argument looks for law and justice in the soul’s own ordering, diakosmāsis. Noos, “intellect,” thymōsis, the spirited power, and epithymia, “desire,” have distinct functions. The edition supplies “intellect” and the words “impulse, the”; the corresponding English remains marked, with “by” making the parallel construction readable.

1385.The hierarchy concerns the soul’s functions: intellect leads, the spirited power occupies the middle, and desire is governed. “Leads” follows the intended sense of the unusual printed ageesthai; the apparatus questions that form while retaining it. Skanos, “frame,” denotes the bodily structure. The claim about human beings alone receiving law and justice belongs to the excerpt’s argument.

1386.Koinōnia is a community or association, here used to explain cooperation within soul. Difference of function, rather than mere number, makes that cooperation possible. The supplied “for” and “organs of touch and” remain marked. The Greek’s parenthetical explanation runs across the source-page break; the English turns it into a sentence without omitting its causal connection.

1387.The argument adds two conditions to plurality and difference: the members must be fitted to a whole, and their arrangement must be governed intelligently. Synarmoga, “fitting together,” preserves the image of coordinated construction. Epistasia is oversight or direction; “law” here governs the arrangement of the soul’s powers.

1388.These are conditions concerning the internal powers of soul. The passage rejects both identical shares for unlike functions and an allocation that lets the inferior govern the superior. Dynamis here concerns power in the arrangement, while timā is honor or standing. The supplied Doric modal particle ka is represented by “would.”

1389.Simply giving the better part more is insufficient: each share must fit the function of its recipient. Logos here is proportion. The printed hō is interpreted as a genitive relative, “whose,” as the apparatus explains, and hekaston hen as “every single part.” Dikaiotās and its accusative dikaiotata are dialectal forms for justice, not an English comparative or superlative.

1390.Eunomia is good order under law; the image of civic order continues within the soul. The final clause preserves the striking coexistence of “boiling with hostility” and “friendly to desire.” It describes the spirited power’s force becoming allied with desire within the proposed arrangement; no unprinted negation is introduced to remove the tension.

1391.The syntax is unsettled: “having harmonized” and “blending” lead into a change of construction with “has been allotted.” The English gives the first clause a finite verb and understands “each” as each part. Promatheia is foresight or forethought, distinguished from the subsequent investigation and the force needed to carry it into action. The apparatus offers repairs to the blending clause; the printed wording remains in Greek.

1392.The repeated language of tracking recalls the opening search within human nature. Philostorgia is affectionate attachment. The printed synnoon and synnoōi are difficult; “thoughtfulness” and “thoughtful” preserve their verbal relationship in a provisional rendering. The apparatus questions the former reading. Desire’s own province remains pleasure, distinguished from the activity assigned to intellect.

1393.Spoudaion is the serious or morally worthy. The conclusion seeks a fitting union of pleasure and virtue, not pleasure alone. The supplied article remains marked. The last word, epēratos, ordinarily means lovely or beloved, but the apparatus judges it corrupt here and suggests alternatives implying experience or attainment. “Beloved of education and virtue” deliberately preserves the difficult printed wording as provisional.