Envy

Use in the book

Socrates explains Hipparchus’ cultural patronage by a wish to educate citizens and a refusal to begrudge wisdom. The explanation makes intellectual benefit shareable: there is no suggestion that teaching a citizen necessarily deprives the ruler of what he knows. Fees and gifts maintain poets at court, while the Herms place selected wisdom where travellers can encounter it. Material spending and intellectual distribution cooperate in the portrait.

The account immediately complicates that praise. Hipparchus wants the citizens to prefer his maxims to Delphi’s and to come in for further education after tasting his wisdom. He may share what he knows while still wanting recognition as the superior source. There is no contradiction in the bare logic of those motives, but there is a question about what the generosity is for. The text explicitly allows both the improvement of the audience and the enhancement of its ruler’s authority.

The murder story supplies a darker counterpart. Aristogeiton prides himself on educating Harmodius, and both men are deeply hurt when an admired young man transfers his esteem to Hipparchus. Their reaction makes intellectual prestige appear scarce even if wisdom itself can be shared. The narrative does not use φθονεῖν again of them, so “envy” is an interpretation of the rivalry rather than the narrator’s exact diagnostic word. What it explicitly names is pain at dishonour.

These distinctions are relevant to love of gain. If receiving wisdom benefits someone, then generous teaching can create a gain without an obvious matching loss to the teacher. The teacher may nevertheless gain admiration, loyalty or political advantage. The dialogue does not calculate these exchanges, but its central narrative gives more varied possibilities of gaining than mere acquisition of coins. Reading the benefactions alongside the surrounding argument broadens the question without reducing every generous act to concealed greed.

Places to read

1. 228cσοφίας φθονεῖν — The object begrudged or freely shared is wisdom.
2. 228cοὐκ οἰόμενος δεῖν οὐδενὶ — The negative construction states that Hipparchus thought no one should be excluded through begrudging.
3. 228eμᾶλλον σοφὰ ἡγοῖντο — The citizens are also intended to rank his sayings higher.
4. 229dπεριαλγήσαντας ταύτῃ τῇ ἀτιμίᾳ — The rivals’ explicitly named response is intense pain at dishonour.

Translation in this edition

“Begrudge” is more precise here than the unqualified “envy”: it shows the relation between possessing wisdom and letting another share in it. “Since he was a fine and good man” gives the narrator’s ethical explanation. The edition does not replace that praise with ironic quotation marks, so an ironic reading must be argued from the whole narrative rather than imposed by typographical scepticism.

Use in the book

Having urged Greek improvement of received celestial worship, the Athenian rejects a possible objection: mortals should not busy themselves with divine things (988a). The objection would make the investigation itself impious. His answer starts from divine intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The divine knows that a human learner can follow its teaching, and knows that what is being learned is number and counting (988a–b).

The argument depends upon the earlier educational account of heaven. The cycles do not merely furnish raw material that people steal against a god's will. They are represented as instruction from a god who has also made the human nature capable of understanding what is shown. Resenting the successful learner would therefore be a failure of divine self-knowledge. The Athenian calls such ignorance the most unintelligent condition of all, an intolerable description of the divine.

“Without envy” completes the positive description: the god rejoices with the person who has become good through a god. The phrase does not simply state that curiosity is always harmless. The human result being approved is goodness, and the inquiry must still respect mortal capacity, adequate preparation, and the right way of teaching. Permission to study the divine does not remove these conditions or authorize claims beyond what the evidence supports.

The argument also changes the relation between piety and astronomy. Where study of celestial necessity could be suspected of undermining divine agency, this dialogue presents properly understood astronomical order as a god's gift and as evidence of intelligent soul. One becomes more reverent through learning it, rather than less. The edition's contextual reference to the Laws explains that polemical setting; the local proof is the Athenian's own chain from divine intelligence to teaching and shared joy.

The absence of envy is therefore a reasoned theological claim within the dialogue. It should neither be treated as an independently established description of all ancient religion nor generalized into an unconditional promise that divine study automatically improves any student.

Places to read

1. 988aπερὶ τὰ θεῖά ποτε πραγματεύεσθαι θνητοὺς ὄντας — The feared activity is mortal engagement with divine things
2. 988aοὔτε ἄφρον ἐστίν ποτε τὸ θεῖον — The divine is never unintelligent
3. 988a–bδιδάσκοντος αὐτοῦ συνακολουθήσει — Human nature can follow when the divine teaches
4. 988bμανθάνομεν δὲ ἡμεῖς ἀριθμόν τε καὶ ἀριθμεῖν — Number and counting identify the teaching's content
5. 988bαὐτὸ αὑτὸ ἀγνοοῖ — Resentful divinity would fail to know itself
6. 988bσυγχαῖρον ἄνευ φθόνου — Rejoicing with the learner is without envy
7. 988bδιὰ θεὸν ἀγαθῷ γενομένῳ — The approved learner has become good through a god

Translation in this edition

“The divine,” “being angry,” and “rejoicing with it, without envy” preserve both the abstraction and the interpersonal language. The clause does not contain an adjective meaning “unenvious”; its exact attestation is the phrase ἄνευ φθόνου. A normalized register must not invent an unattested adjective from that paraphrase.

Rejected divine resentment — χαλεπαίνειν (chalepainein)

χαλεπαίνειν (chalepainein)

Rejected divine resentment. Anger at a capable learner would contradict the divine teacher's knowledge of its own beneficent activity. Attested: χαλεπαῖνον (988b). Divine teaching without envy.

Absence of begrudging — φθόνος (phthonos)

φθόνος (phthonos)

Absence of begrudging. The exact phrase without envy qualifies divine shared joy at the learner's goodness; no separate adjective meaning unenvious is printed here. Attested: φθόνου (988b). Divine teaching without envy.

Unwarranted religious hesitation — φοβεῖσθαι (phobeisthai)

φοβεῖσθαι (phobeisthai)

Unwarranted religious hesitation. No Greek should fear that the mortal status of the learner makes all divine inquiry inappropriate. Attested: φοβηθῇ (988a). Divine teaching without envy.

Response to divine teaching — συνακολουθεῖν (synakolouthein)

συνακολουθεῖν (synakolouthein)

Response to divine teaching. Human nature can follow the divine teacher and learn what is taught; the god knows this capacity. Attested: συνακολουθήσει (988b). Divine teaching without envy.

Study of divine things — πραγματεύεσθαι (pragmateuesthai)

πραγματεύεσθαι (pragmateuesthai)

Study of divine things. The Athenian rejects fear that mortals should refrain from engaging seriously with divine things. Attested: πραγματεύεσθαι (988a). Divine teaching without envy.

Divine pleasure in human improvement — συγχαίρειν (synchairein)

συγχαίρειν (synchairein)

Divine pleasure in human improvement. The divine rejoices with the person who becomes good through a god, rather than begrudging the result of its teaching. Attested: συγχαῖρον (988b). Divine teaching without envy.

Without envy at divine assisted goodness (contextual phrase)

ἄνευ φθόνου διὰ θεὸν ἀγαθῷ γενομένῳ (988b)

The person with whom the divine rejoices has become good through a god. The absence of envy is thus grounded in the teacher's acknowledgment of its own successful beneficence, not an unconditional endorsement of every possible inquiry or use of knowledge. Divine teaching without envy.

Use in the book

Envy joins rivalry and enmity in the reported claim that the most similar people are the most hostile to one another. The quoted competition between members of the same occupation supplies the context.

The noun names one of the emotions supposed to follow from similarity, not the conclusion of the dialogue about similar friends. Socrates reports the opposing theory as a fresh possibility and subsequently tests its broader assertion about opposites.

Places to read

1. 215dφθόνου τε καὶ φιλονικίας — Of envy and rivalry.

Use in the book

The arithmetical passage assigns falsehood and envy to the unlimited, unintelligent, and irrational, contrasting them with truth’s affinity to number. Envy therefore participates in a strongly evaluative opposition between kinds of order. Its unexpected presence should not be silently converted into a more familiar mathematical term.

Places to read

1. Arith.3cEnvy appears with falsehood in the contrast between number and the unlimited.

Translation in this edition

“Envy” follows the printed noun even where its philosophical application is unusual.

Use in the book

Pride that envies distinctions is called more pride than pride that aspires to them. The unusual comparison makes resentment of another’s distinction different from seeking one’s own. The verse contrasting grateful memory with jealous eyes gives a related image of how present glory provokes an ungenerous response. It is borrowed verse, not a newly identified Joubert poem. In the reported Greek curse, by contrast, avoir l’envie de means to desire building or demolition. Reading envy into that construction would change the comparison from wishes for action into rivalry with other people.

Places to read

1. I, p. 390, entry 3, ¶1Envying distinctions is distinguished from aspiring to them.
2. II, p. 572, entry 5, ¶1Borrowed verse contrasts grateful memory and jealous eyes.
3. II, p. 866–867, entry 7, ¶1Envie followed by an infinitive names a desire for action.

Translation in this edition

The English translation renders the verb envie as envies and avoir l’envie de as have the desire to. The Le Brun verse retains Joubert’s differing opening. The alleged Greek usage is not independently certified, and the final demolition sentence retains explicit source losses.

Use in the book

The common world should free people from envy, since its most valuable goods need not be divided into competing shares. False estimates reverse this order, and even a small residue of envy can spoil an immense field of enjoyment. Traherne’s comparison with grit in the eye makes the damage disproportionate: the defect is small, but it obstructs a vast prospect. He also recognises the prudential problem of displaying happiness among corrupted spectators. Quiet enjoyment may protect both the enjoyer and those liable to misunderstand or resent it.

Places to read

1. I.33Envy belongs to the social disorders produced by mistaken and exclusive riches.
2. IV.17A little envy can destroy a world of joys, as grit obstructs the sight of heaven.
3. IV.12The crow fable warns against needless display of one’s satisfaction.
4. IV.24Universal charity is imagined as dispersing envy and the other causes of social desolation.

In this edition

The text’s caution about boasting happiness is situated in a damaged society. It does not cancel the positive good of being seen and loved in happiness under better conditions.