Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

Reading language

Book II Chapter 7

Provision and Virtue amid Evils

The activity of virtue is called “provided for” because it must necessarily occur amid goods in accordance with nature.⁵⁹² For even amid evils the virtuous person might exercise virtue nobly, yet he will not be blessed; and under mistreatment he might display his nobility, yet he will not ⟨indeed⟩ be happy.⁵⁹³

Noble Things and Good Things

The reason is that virtue by itself produces only noble things, whereas happiness produces both noble and good things.⁵⁹⁴ For happiness wishes to enjoy goods, rather than to endure terrible things, while also preserving justice in community and depriving herself neither of the noble things found in contemplation nor of the necessities of life.⁵⁹⁵

Pleasure Virtue and Loss

For happiness is something most pleasant and most noble, yet it is not intensified like an art by the number and provision of instruments.⁵⁹⁶ Nor is it the same for God and a human being. For even the virtue of the good is not altogether incapable of being lost: it can be taken away by the number and magnitude of evils.⁵⁹⁷

Solon and the End of Life

Hence one might doubt whether a person still living should even be pronounced happy in the proper sense, because of the uncertainty of fortune. For Solon’s saying is sound: “Look to the end of a long life.”⁵⁹⁸ Life itself also bears witness to this, pronouncing people happy when they die.⁵⁹⁹

The Intermediate Life

⟨But⟩ a person deprived of happiness is not unhappy, just as a person who has never possessed it at all is not; sometimes he is intermediate.⁶⁰⁰ For both a wise and an unwise person sometimes live what is called the intermediate life, one that is neither happy nor unhappy.⁶⁰¹

Wakefulness in Accordance with Nature

Happiness does not occur in those who are asleep, or at least not in actuality.⁶⁰² For the soul’s activity occurs in wakefulness, and “in accordance with nature” is added to this, because not every waking state of the virtuous is an exercise of complete virtue, but only the waking state in accordance with nature. This is the state of someone who is neither mad nor out of his mind, since madness and mental derangement, like sleep, remove him from this exercise, and perhaps also from the exercise of reason, as with all beasts.⁶⁰³

Rational Life and Provision

For those whose life is rational can also live happily. Yet not even they do so always, but only when their living is provided for.⁶⁰⁴

Virtue Vice and Sufficiency

Just as happiness is called the exercise of virtue, so unhappiness is called the exercise of vice. Yet it does not follow that, because vice is sufficient for unhappiness, virtue is likewise sufficient for happiness.⁶⁰⁵ The virtuous person possesses goods, and these benefit both himself and others.⁶⁰⁶

Misfortune and Good Fortune

Life becomes something to be avoided for the good in extreme misfortunes, and for the bad even in extreme good fortune. For they err more; hence, for the base, such fortunes are not even fortunate in the proper sense.⁶⁰⁷

Good in Three Senses

Since happiness is for us the greatest good, we must distinguish the senses in which “good” is used. They say that it is used in three senses: the cause of preservation for all existing things, what is predicated of every good, and what is choiceworthy for its own sake.⁶⁰⁸ Of these, the first is the divine, ⟨the second⟩ the genus of goods, and ⟨the third the⟩ end to which we refer everything, which is happiness.⁶⁰⁹

592.Χορηγουμένην repeats the word in the initial definition. Wachsmuth again prints it as a correction of προηγουμένην. It means furnished with provision or support, here expressly identified with natural goods. The account distinguishes the good conditions needed for happiness from the virtue that can still be exercised when those conditions fail.

593.Μακάριος is blessed, and εὐδαιμονήσει will be happy; the English retains the two expressions. Αἰκίαι are acts of mistreatment or abuse. Displaying nobility under such circumstances does not establish happiness in this argument. The supplied γ’ is represented by bracketed “indeed.” Wachsmuth notes that the passage is directed against Stoic positions; compare the preceding Stoic account, in which virtue suffices for happiness.

594.Καθ’ ἑαυτήν qualifies virtue: the comparison concerns what virtue produces by itself. Καλῶν κἀγαθῶν retains both the noble and the good. This passage depends on the Peripatetic recognition of bodily and external goods; it should not be read as saying that noble conduct is morally bad or that virtue is worthless.

595.Happiness is personified as the subject of wishing and of the feminine reflexive ἑαυτήν, hence “herself.” The English does not silently change the subject to the virtuous man. The goods of contemplation, θεωρία, and the necessities of ordinary life are both retained alongside justice in community. The account gives no warrant here for omitting social justice in favor of contemplation.

596.The printed negative οὔτε is retained. The dependence on supporting goods does not mean that accumulating instruments indefinitely intensifies happiness in the manner of a craft. “Number and provision of instruments” preserves both πλήθει and παρασκευῇ. Wachsmuth records a conjecture that would change the negative, but does not adopt it.

597.The Greek prints ἔτι, further or still, where the apparatus records transmitted ἐπί and a correction by Usener. The English treats it as an additional emphasis in the argument; it is not silently rewritten as an infinitive or restored to ἐπί. Ἀναπόβλητον means incapable of being lost, with the denial qualified by τὸ παράπαν, altogether. The argument concerns human vulnerability to many great evils and explicitly distinguishes divine from human happiness.

598.The opening is a doubt or question prompted by uncertain fortune, not an unqualified declaration that no living person is happy. Εὐδαιμονιστέον concerns pronouncing or counting someone happy. The maxim is attributed to Solon in the source and is translated as printed, including μακροῦ, long.

599.Wachsmuth prints τὸν βίον, life, as the subject of bearing witness and pronouncing people happy. His apparatus records Heeren’s conjecture Βίαντα, Bias, which would instead name a person. That conjecture is not adopted here. The English retains the personification of life; it does not introduce a second named sage into the main text.

600.The supplied connective δ’ is represented by bracketed “But.” The comparison with someone who has never possessed happiness is compressed. The translation takes the negation with both cases in light of the following explicit intermediate state. It does not imply that every loss of happiness makes someone happy, or that unhappiness is impossible. The qualification “sometimes” remains.

601.Μέσος is intermediate between the two named states. Both σοφός and μὴ σοφός, wise and not wise, are said sometimes to live this life. The passage therefore distinguishes not being happy from being positively unhappy. Κακοδαίμων is unhappy here, with the later κακοδαιμονία rendered unhappiness.

602.The qualification “or at least not in actuality” preserves ἢ οὐκ ἐντελεχείᾳ γε. The argument concerns the present exercise of activity, rather than a claim that a good person loses every disposition whenever asleep. Ἐντελέχεια is actuality here, while ἐνέργεια is activity. The next sentence requires wakefulness to be qualified further; being awake by itself is not enough.

603.The ancient account groups μανία and ἔκστασις as states that interrupt the relevant exercise, and compares their effect with sleep. “Mental derangement” renders ἔκστασις here, rather than suggesting contemplative ecstasy. The closing reference to beasts is highly compressed: “as with” makes explicit the comparison understood in the English, not an added Greek phrase. Τῆς τοῦ λόγου understands χρῆσις, exercise of reason, from the preceding clause; τάχα, perhaps, is retained. The next paragraph restricts happiness to rational life.

604.The repeated infinitives τὸ ζῆν and τὸ εὐδαιμονεῖν concern living and living happily. Rationality marks those to whom happiness can belong; the subsequent restriction denies that it belongs to them at every time. Χορηγούμενον again means provided for, following Wachsmuth’s correction of προηγούμενον. It recalls the supporting natural goods specified at II.7.18.7, rather than a mere preference for continuing to live.

605.The symmetry of the two definitions is explicitly denied for sufficiency. Αὐτάρκης means sufficient in relation to the stated result. The English spells out the compressed comparison: vice can suffice for unhappiness without virtue alone sufficing for happiness. This is consistent with the supporting conditions required earlier in the section.

606.The final Ὡς δέ introduces a compressed statement about the virtuous person’s possession of goods and benefit to himself and others. The English takes the goods as the subject understood with συμφέρειν, benefiting both him and others. No additional list of goods or new claim that virtue alone secures them is supplied.

607.The final inference concerns the bad: their apparent good fortune gives occasion for more wrongdoing. Εὐτυχία, good fortune, remains distinct from εὐδαιμονία, happiness. In the compressed final clause, “such fortunes” is understood from the preceding εὐτυχίαις, and τοῖς φαύλοις means for the base. The rejected καὶ, “and” or “also,” remains bracketed in Greek but is omitted from the English main text. The life-to-be-avoided claim belongs to the ancient ethical account; compare II.7.14.5. This completes source section II.7.18. The next section begins at printed p. 134, line 7 for its bracketed heading, and line 8 for the main discussion of the senses of good.

608.The rejected summary heading reads “In how many senses good is spoken of.” It remains bracketed in Greek and is translated here. The opening concerns senses of a word, rather than three interchangeable objects. Σωτηρία is preservation or continued safety here; the first sense assigns a preserving cause to all existing things. The second is the predicate good applied to every particular good, and the third concerns choice for something’s own sake.

609.The supplied τὸ δεύτερον and τρίτον τὸ remain bracketed in both languages. Θεῖον is the divine, γένος genus, and τέλος end. The concluding identification with happiness belongs to the third sense. The following classifications explore goods under different distinctions; their successive divisions should be read as the account presents them.