Honor

Use in the book

Cleanthes prays that humans receive judgment from Zeus and, honored by him, repay him with honor by continually praising his works and the common law. Honor is reciprocal within the hymn’s relation between divine benefaction and human acknowledgment.

Places to read

1. I.1.12cDivine honor is answered by human praise of Zeus and common law.

Translation in this edition

“Honor” preserves the reciprocity and should remain distinct from reputation earlier in the poem.

Use in the book

The comparison of human and religious morality grants separate doctrines to politeness, piety and honor. This division of work recognizes rules that do not automatically coincide. The later warning that “so much honor” leaves no morals explains the danger as placing all conscience in pride. The criticism is directed at that absorption, not necessarily every use of honor in conduct.

Places to read

1. I, p. 434, entry 6, ¶1Honor has a doctrine separate from piety and politeness.
2. II, p. 835, entry 11, ¶1Excessive honor can absorb conscience into pride.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains honor’s separate doctrine and the forceful so-much/no-morals relation. It keeps conscience and pride as distinct nouns. Readers should follow the local degree and contrast rather than replace honor throughout with either dignity or empty reputation.

Use in the book

Traherne rejects the assumption that all honour must be renounced merely because conventional honours are deceptive. Creation crowns humanity with glory and honour; knowledge of another person’s inheritance should produce genuine reverence. The philosopher must nevertheless be able to despise the honours society prizes when they obstruct the higher end. Honour is also reciprocal: one should publicly acknowledge God’s goodness through speech and action, making it visible for others. Right honour therefore depends on truthful valuation and on the good of the person honoured, not on prestige alone.

Places to read

1. I.65The scriptural crowning of humanity with glory and honour is read through creation’s gift.
2. II.93Recognition of each person’s dignity requires mutual honour.
3. IV.8The philosopher refuses conventional honours when governed by a superior end.
4. IV.93Friendship with God calls for public acts that occasion others to honour him.

In this edition

“Honours” can mean social distinctions rather than moral worth. The text’s criticism of those honours should be read beside its positive account of recognition that is true to its object.

Use in the book

B 172 says that the enduring constituents and powers differ in the honour each governs, while each has its own character and takes a turn in dominance. The edition renders this as a different office. The point is not a hierarchy in which one root is intrinsically more real: the passage has just called them equal and of like age. Difference of prerogative exists alongside that equality.

B 30 turns the noun into a dramatic event. Strife, nourished in the limbs, leaps to its honours when its allotted time is fulfilled. Its standing belongs to the temporal order of the cycle, not an arbitrary promotion. B 119 presents the other direction, lamenting departure from honour and blessedness. Although its immediate subject is not fully preserved, honour here describes a condition that can be lost.

At the civic level, B 112's speaker passes among people honoured as is fitting, visually marked by fillets and garlands. His claimed divine standing is enacted in public reception. B 32 cautions that flowers of glorious honour can tempt a speaker toward unholy excess, so esteem is not an unqualified measure of truth. The same value can be a rightful due or a dangerous inducement.

Finally, the recurring description of gods as highest in honours appears both in catalogues of beings and in B 146's culmination of a trajectory from exceptional human roles to gods. Honour thus helps connect a cosmic distribution of powers, divine status, and the recognition of a teacher. The connections deserve attention without making every occurrence name the same institutional rank.

Places to read

1. B 17.27–29Equal and coeval principles nevertheless govern different offices or honours.
2. B 30.1–3Strife rises to its honours at the completion of the appointed time.
3. B 119The fragment laments lost honour and blessedness.
4. B 112.4–6The speaker claims public honour appropriate to divine status.
5. B 146.1–3The culmination is divinity highest in honours.

Translation in this edition

“Office” at B 172 and “honours” elsewhere translate related forms of the same word. A reader who follows only one English rendering will miss the relation. The language is not an explicit constitution of civic magistracies or a fixed table of divine ranks.