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Book II Chapter 7

Admirable Base and Intermediate Passions

Of passions and impulses, some are admirable, some base, and some intermediate.⁶⁶³ Admirable are friendship, gratitude, indignation, modesty, confidence, and pity.⁶⁶⁴ Base are envy, malicious joy, and insolence; intermediate are pain, fear, anger, pleasure, and desire.⁶⁶⁵

Choice Limits Pleasure and Pain

Of these, some are to be chosen without qualification, while others are to be limited.⁶⁶⁶ Every passion takes shape in relation to pleasure and pain; hence the ethical virtues also concern these.⁶⁶⁷

Vicious States and Kinds of Love

Avarice, love of pleasure, erotic frenzy, and similar things are states of a different kind, concerned with vices.⁶⁶⁸ One kind of love seeks friendship, another sexual intercourse, and a third both; hence one is excellent, another base, and the third intermediate.⁶⁶⁹

Varieties of Friendship

Friendship has four varieties: friendship between companions, between relatives, between guest-friends, and between lovers.⁶⁷⁰ Whether friendship based on benefaction and friendship based on admiration should also be counted requires discussion.⁶⁷¹

Beginnings and Ends of Friendship

The beginning of friendship between companions is familiarity; of friendship between relatives, nature; of guest-friendship, need; of erotic friendship, passion; of friendship based on benefaction, gratitude; and of friendship based on admiration, power.⁶⁷² Taken together, they have three ends: the noble, the advantageous, and the pleasant. For anyone who enters into friendship in any way chooses it for one of these or for them all.⁶⁷³

Friendship toward Oneself and Others

First, then, as I said before, comes friendship toward oneself; second, toward one’s children; next, toward others close to us and toward strangers.⁶⁷⁴ Hence, in friendship toward oneself we must guard against excess, and in friendships toward others against deficiency. For the former incurs the charge of selfishness, the latter of stinginess.⁶⁷⁵

Favor Requital and Remembrance

Charis is spoken of in three senses: the rendering of something useful for the recipient’s own sake; requital for a beneficial service; and remembrance of such a service.⁶⁷⁶ Ordinary custom has therefore also declared the goddesses three in number.⁶⁷⁷

Grace in Appearance and Speech

Charis also means grace in appearance or in speech, in virtue of which one person is called graceful, another charming.⁶⁷⁸

A Life with Virtue and Public Activity

The virtuous person will choose a life with virtue,⁶⁷⁹ whether he ever comes into a position of leadership because circumstances have brought him forward, whether he must live with a king, or whether he must legislate or take part in public life in some other way.⁶⁸⁰

Civic Contemplative and Educational Ways of Life

If none of these opportunities falls to him, he will turn to an ordinary citizen’s way of life, or the contemplative one, or the intermediate educational one.⁶⁸¹ For he will choose both to do and to contemplate noble things.⁶⁸²

663.The bracketed summary heading reads “On the passions of the soul.” It is retained in Greek and translated here. Πάθη and ὁρμαί are passions and impulses. Μέσα, intermediate things, names a class here; it is distinct from the virtuous means, μεσότητες, discussed in section 20. The final numbered subdivisions and their descriptive labels serve layout only.

664.All six admirable examples are retained. Χάρις is gratitude here; section 23 distinguishes its several senses. Νέμεσις is indignation rather than envy: compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.7, 1108b1–5, where indignation concerns undeserved good fortune. Αἰδώς is modesty or a sense of shame, and θάρσος confidence, distinct from ἀνδρεία, courage. The printed θάρσος is retained; the apparatus records Meineke’s preference for θάρρος, another form of the word for confidence.

665.All three base and five intermediate examples remain. Ἐπιχαιρεκακία is malicious joy at another’s misfortune, the term used in the earlier Stoic account; ὕβρις is insolence or outrage, rather than merely high self-esteem. The classifications differ from the Stoic treatment: pity is now admirable, while pain, fear, anger, pleasure, and desire are intermediate. The next sentence concerns their choice or limitation. Wachsmuth also notes that this threefold classification differs from Aristotle’s.

666.Καθάπαξ is without qualification, and ὁριστέον means that limits must be set. The sentence does not repeat the three classes or explicitly assign each of them to one of its two clauses. Its wording is preserved without inventing a third instruction. In context, the intermediate feelings require determination rather than being automatically good or bad.

667.Pleasure and pain are the objects of περὶ ταύτας, concerning these. The account thus returns to the field of ethical virtue already described in II.7.20.6. Συνίστασθαι is takes shape or is constituted; the sentence relates every passion to pleasure and pain without reducing every named feeling to an identical experience.

668.The source calls these ἕξεις, states, distinguishing them from the preceding passions. All three examples remain: φιλαργυρία, avarice or love of money; φιληδονία, love of pleasure; and ἐρωτομανία, erotic frenzy. The compressed ἀλλοίας περὶ τὰς κακίας is rendered of a different kind, concerned with vices, without replacing it with a new definition of passion.

669.The genitives φιλίας and συνουσίας indicate what love seeks; συνουσία is sexual intercourse in this contrast. The third kind seeks both. The three ensuing judgments follow the same order, including the intermediate classification of the mixed kind. This is a classification of kinds of ἔρως, not an independently stated rule about every instance of sexual conduct.

670.The bracketed summary heading reads “On friendship.” All four varieties are retained. Ἑταιρική concerns companions, συγγενική relatives, ξενική the relationship of guest-friends, and ἐρωτική lovers. Guest-friendship is the bond associated with hospitality; it is not simply any friendship with a foreign person.

671.The additional two varieties are raised conditionally, not asserted as an unquestioned expansion from four to six. Εὐεργετική concerns benefaction and θαυμαστική admiration. The next sentence nevertheless gives a beginning for each, allowing discussion of their grounds without removing the preceding qualification.

672.All six beginnings remain in their printed order. Ἀρχή is a beginning or source, distinguished from the ends named next. Χρεία is need, συνήθεια familiarity, and χάρις gratitude in the relation involving benefaction. Δύναμις is power or capacity; the source does not restrict admiration to political authority.

673.Συλλήβδην considers the friendships collectively. The three ends are τὸ καλόν, the noble; τὸ συμφέρον, the advantageous; and τὸ ἡδύ, the pleasant. The final alternatives, one of these or all, qualify the collective formulation: the text does not say that every particular friendship must simultaneously pursue all three.

674.The first-person reference, as I said before, belongs to the epitomist’s account and is retained. Wachsmuth inserts a modern locator, p. 118, line 11 onward, in the printed prose; it is relocated here rather than treated as ancient text. Compare the account of natural affinity with oneself at II.7.13.6. Τοὺς γενναμένους, those born, is understood as one’s children. Οἰκεῖοι are those close or belonging to one’s own circle, contrasted with ὀθνεῖοι, strangers.

675.The cautions differ in direction: excess toward oneself and deficiency toward others. Φιλαυτία is love of self, here pejoratively selfishness because it is a charge against excess; the preceding recognition of friendship toward oneself remains. Φειδωλία is stinginess or niggardliness, here in what one extends to others, without an express restriction to money.

676.The bracketed summary heading reads “On charis,” meaning favor, gratitude, or grace according to context. One English word cannot convey every sense. The first concerns giving a benefit for its recipient’s own sake, the second returning a benefit, and the third remembering it. The first clause retains genitive ὠφελίμου in Greek; rendering something useful expresses that construction rather than changing it to the accusative adjective recorded in the apparatus.

677.The feminine τὰς δαίμονας refers to the Graces, the Charites, whose name shares the same stem as χάρις. The three goddesses illustrate the three senses just distinguished. Ὁ βίος is ordinary life, rendered ordinary custom in this religious explanation. It is not the personal name Bias, a proposed reading recorded by Wachsmuth but not printed here. No individual names for the goddesses are supplied.

678.This further sense concerns pleasing appearance or speech, rather than the giving, returning, and remembering of a benefit. The two adjectives are εὔχαρις, graceful or gracious, and ἐπίχαρις, charming or pleasing. Their pairing follows the Greek sequence; the sentence does not provide a further formal definition for each. The shared element char- connects them with χάρις.

679.Σπουδαῖος is the virtuous or excellent person. The governing choice is a life with virtue, not the unconditional pursuit of a particular office. Section 24 has no separate summary heading in the source. Its final numerical subdivisions and their descriptive labels are added for layout only.

680.The alternatives remain conditional. Ἡγεμονία is leadership or command, with circumstances bringing the person forward. Συμβιοῦν is to live with someone: the text does not expressly name an office as royal adviser. Legislating and other participation in public life complete the list.

681.Δημοτικὸν σχῆμα διαγωγῆς is understood here as an ordinary citizen’s way of life, following the preceding roles in leadership, royal company, and legislation. It need not designate life under a democratic constitution. Wachsmuth’s supplied article ⟨τὸ⟩ before παιδευτικόν is retained in Greek and absorbed into the English construction. The educational way is called intermediate without a further definition here.

682.Both doing and contemplating noble things are chosen. This first list is civic, contemplative, and intermediate educational; the later list in II.7.24.6 is practical, contemplative, and combined. Their different wording is retained rather than making them identical.