Deed and work

Use in the book

The first refutation includes running and jumping among the body's works (159c–d). At 161e craftsmen produce works of their skills, and the imaginary self-sufficient citizen is told to work at and do his own things (162a). These uses provide the vocabulary that Critias will restrict.

His appeal to Hesiod makes “work” an evaluative category. If work is no disgrace, he argues, the term cannot include every production indiscriminately. Only what is made finely and beneficially is work; harmful and disgraceful productions are excluded (163b–c). The inference represents Critias' reading of Hesiod, supported by a selective description of occupations. The poem's authority does not establish the semantic restriction by itself. Socrates responds by demanding a clear definition rather than contesting each word.

The question changes when temperance is proposed as knowledge. Health is medicine's fine work; houses are the work of house-building. Socrates asks for a comparable work of temperance, worthy of its name (165c–e). Critias correctly points out that calculation and geometry do not provide the same kind of independently displayable result as a cloak or house (165e–166a). Socrates consequently turns to their objects of knowledge. The objection concerns “such a work,” not the blanket assertion that mathematical understanding never accomplishes anything.

Ergon returns when actual expertise must be assessed by what its possessor says and does, and at the conclusion when benefit is assigned to knowledge of good and bad (174d–175a2). Each craft has its own work. The question whether supervising expertise can contribute indirectly to its achievement then becomes acute: assigning the direct work to medicine does not by itself explain every possible contribution of its supervision. The final account nevertheless excludes benefit from temperance construed as bare knowledge of knowledge. The review at 175b–c2 recalls that knowledge of other sciences' works had been conceded without adequate argument. Keeping “work” broad enough for these different functions is necessary to follow the reasoning.

Places to read

1. 159c–dThe body’s works include athletic actions
2. 161e–163c23Craft products and Hesiod’s work become the subject of Critias’ semantic restriction
3. 165c–166aA fine work is requested; mathematics supplies counterexamples to a uniform product model
4. 174d–175a2Benefit is allotted as the work of the knowledge of good and bad
5. 175b–c2Knowing the other sciences’ works is identified as an unjustified concession

Translation in this edition

“Work” and “works” maintain the recurrent ἔργον family, while “produces” often renders ἀπεργάζεται. At 163b Burnet brackets the particle δέ in the indirect citation of Hesiod; this does not remove the contrast between work and disgrace. The more complete Hesiodic sentence contrasts work with idleness, a contrast Critias does not quote in full.

ἐργάζομαι

Attested: ἐργάζεσθαι (ergazesthai). Work or perform work; its relation to making and doing becomes disputed in Critias’ interpretation of Hesiod. References: 163b. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐργάζομαι. See Work and working.

ἐργασία

Attested: ἐργασίας (ergasias). Working or work; Critias gives the word a restricted favorable sense that ordinary craft examples put under pressure. References: 163b, 163c, 173e. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐργασία. See Work and working.

ἔργον

Attested: ἔργον / ἔργα / ἔργων (ergon / erga / ergōn). Work, deed, task or result; the meaning varies between physical performance, crafted products and a knowledge’s function. References: 163b, 163c, 165d, 165e, 174d, 174e, 175a, 159c, 175b, 161e. Lexical identification: lemma: ἔργον. See Work and working.

Use in the book

The tragic maxim says that an unjust deed does not escape the gods. Ergon identifies the action evaluated, while unjust states its character. The word itself is not restricted to labor, artistic production, or morally good achievement.

Places to read

1. I.3.11An unjust deed is placed under divine observation.
2. I.49.44.10Ordering the world is described as the creator’s work.

Translation in this edition

“Deed” suits an ethically judged action; “work” suits an undertaking or product.

Use in the book

The works of God are not merely evidence placed before an observer. They are the goods through which divine intention becomes available for enjoyment, knowledge, and praise. The scriptural account of human dominion accordingly makes the world an inheritance and an obligation to grateful perception.

A person’s own works matter because gifts can be freely accepted or refused. The most consequential acts may be inward: esteeming, loving, receiving, and giving thanks. Traherne does not thereby make external service unnecessary. He identifies the active response without which even the greatest external abundance remains unreceived. The distinction between work as an achieved product and work as present operation helps explain why possession alone never completes happiness.

Places to read

1. III.71God’s works are given to human beings as a source of dignity and gratitude.
2. IV.46Creaturely freedom makes possible works of obedience, imitation, and praise.
3. IV.48The great work is rightly receiving and loving the divine gifts.
4. IV.95The soul must remain in operation rather than letting treasures lie unused.

In this edition

Works need not mean meritorious outward achievements in every context. In IV.48, “exterior works” are explicitly distinguished from the decisive inward acts under discussion.

Use in the book

The early demand to fulfill a social mission rejects a private happiness that would remain idle and useless to others. By March 1834 affection for father and friends makes published work possible even when confidence in its quality fails. Labor need not arise from self-belief; responsibility and love can supply its force.

The country interludes complicate the moral contrast between work and idleness. Receptive leisure may grow the mind, while long formal application may produce little. Guérin nonetheless resolves in September to accept whichever tool God places in his hands, pen or hammer. Useful life matters more than the prestige of an occupation.

The transition into employment is then recorded from several positions. In October action consumes the days but reaches only thought's shoreline. In November bodily fatigue leaves the inward soul fresh because it has withdrawn beyond the battlefield. By April 1835, however, the necessity of teaching and travel through the city usurps the time of thinking; the river is lost in sand. The protected interior has become less secure.

These changes prevent an easy division between labor as salvation and labor as oppression. Work can provide service, income, courage, rhythm, and bodily exhaustion, while either sheltering or starving inward life. The notebook's concern is the cost of the actual relation, not a universal permission for contemplation to exempt itself from common human need. The miniature of 1 May 1834 makes the inability to earn subsistence bodily: the adult compares himself unfavourably with a newborn whose lips can draw nourishment. Paid work is therefore felt not only as a drain on thought but as a humiliating test of whether he can sustain his own life.

Places to read

1. 16 March 1834 · ¶1Writing for publication becomes possible through devotion to father and friends.
2. 21 September 1834 · ¶1Pen and hammer are placed on the same moral plane if either permits a useful life.
3. 22 October 1834 · ¶1Busy work takes thought's margins while its deeper waters remain untouched.
4. 23 November 1834 · ¶1After two months of action, physical fatigue coexists with inward freshness and retreat.
5. 30 April 1835 · ¶3Teaching and material care consume the time of thought, upsetting the earlier balance.
6. 1 May 1834 · ¶1The nursing child can draw life for itself; the young adult judges himself unable to earn the means of living.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English differentiates “outward work,” “action,” “human toil,” and “daily subsistence.” “Travail extérieur” names work directed into the practical world, not necessarily work performed outdoors.

Use in the book

Mon cœur mis à nu XL begins from despair rather than inspiration: if inclination is unavailable, work may still be less boring than entertainment. Mon cœur mis à nu CXI then opposes pleasure's wearing effect to work's strengthening effect. Its sharp binary is complicated by Mon cœur mis à nu CX's wish to make work itself voluptuous and by Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI's confession that a fulfilled plan remains an unknown pleasure.

Mon cœur mis à nu CXIII tells the writer to begin before deploying logic and analysis; Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI prefers immediate bad work to daydreaming. These directions make the first imperfect act more valuable than an ideal project preserved untouched. Yet they coexist with the ambition always to be a poet, even in prose. The notebook does not authorize careless publication; it is addressing the paralysis before composition.

The economic and ethical ends become explicit in plans to pay debts and support mother and Jeanne. Mon cœur mis à nu CXV asks for disinterested labour as the way to earn money. This aspiration contrasts with contempt for mere drudges and the hideousness of being socially useful in Mon cœur mis à nu XXXI. Work becomes acceptable when it protects artistic attention and fulfils particular duties, but the boundaries remain under negotiation.

Places to read

1. Mon cœur mis à nu XLsinon par goût, au moins par désespoir — Work may begin without pleasure in it.
2. Mon cœur mis à nu CXIOn ne peut oublier le temps qu’en s’en servant. — Using time is proposed as the only effective way of forgetting it.
3. Mon cœur mis à nu CXIIICommence d’abord — Beginning precedes the elaboration of method.
4. Mon cœur mis à nu CXVITravail immédiat, même mauvais, vaut mieux que la rêverie. — An imperfect act is preferred to deferred possibility.

Translation in this edition

The English alternates ‘inclination’ and ‘Taste’ where goût names a desired disposition, retaining the unusual capital in Mon cœur mis à nu CXII. ‘Work blindly, without a goal’ in Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI translates a local instruction to suspend overplanning; the same section plainly lists larger aims. It should not be detached into evidence that Baudelaire valued purposelessness in every sense.