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Search results for epsilon,3070 in Adler number:
Headword:
*)/erws
Adler number: epsilon,3070
Translated headword: love
Vetting Status: high
Translation: "That no love [is] seemly [
asteios]: this proposition is asserted universally. But it is refuted [by saying] that not every love is base. For we divide love [into different kinds]: as the intense longing for sexual acts, as
Epicurus says, which cannot be seemly;[1] but also also as the attempt to make friends on account of an internally manifest beauty, as those from the Stoa [say];[2] or the recollection of a beauty once seen, as
Plato [says]; for these loves are seemly."[3]
"When it is proposed that a wise man will be in love and we want to refute this, we might define "to be in love" and we will take it as "love takes someone"; and since the offered [term] is not yet known, we will proceed to define "love". Should we, in defining this, take [it] as an irrational desire for the pleasure of physical beauty or the intense longing for sexual acts, we should refute the issue: for it is clear that these things are foreign to the wise man. Likewise if we should define [love] as vehement desire,[4] since what is vehement is unclear, then again we will bring the thing itself into argument."[5]
"They say that love is the attempt at doing good on account of an internally manifest beauty and not an [attempt] at intercourse, but at friendship.[6] At any rate Thrasonides, although he had power over his beloved, because of being hated held himself back from her. Therefore, love is of friendship, it is not bestowed by the gods.[7] But youth is the flower of virtue."[8]
In the Attic dialect it is declined
o( e)/ros ["love"],
tou= e)/rou ["of love"]. For thus they write and pronounce this word, just as
a)mei/nwn ["better"] and
xei/rwn ["worse"] they say
a)/meinos and
xei=ros.[9]
But
Plato talks about love in more detail.[10] It has been set down in the [entry] concerning a proverb under the letter epsilon.[11]
*)/erws: o(/ti ou)dei\s e)/rws a)stei=os, tou=to pro/blhma/ e)sti kaqo/lou a)pofantiko/n. a)naskeua/zetai de/, o(/ti mh\ pa=s e)/rws fau=los: diairou=men ga\r to\n e)/rwta ei)/s te su/ntonon o)/recin a)frodisi/wn, w(s *)epi/kouros le/gei, o(\n ou)x oi(=o/nte a)stei=on ei)=nai, kai\ ei)s e)pibolh\n filopoii/as dia\ ka/llos e)mfaino/menon, w(s oi( a)po\ th=s *stoa=s: h)\ a)na/mnhsin tou= pote o(raqe/ntos ka/llous, w(s *pla/twn: a)stei=oi ga\r ou(=toi oi( e)/rwtes. keime/nou de\ tou= to\n sofo\n e)rasqh/sesqai, a)naskeua/sai tou=to qe/lontes o(risai/meqa to\ e)rasqh=nai, kai\ lhyo/meqa to/, e)/rwta/ tinos labei=n: kai\ e)pei\ mhde/pw gnw/rimon to\ prokei/menon, e)pi\ to\ to\n e)/rwta o(ri/zesqai proeleuso/meqa. a)\n dh\ o(rizo/menoi tou=ton la/bwmen a)/logon e)piqumi/an h(donh=s th=s a)po\ tou= swmatikou= ka/llous h)\ su/ntonon o)/recin a)frodisi/wn, a)neskeuako/tes a)\n ei)/hmen to\ pro/blhma: dh=lon ga/r, o(/ti a)llo/tria tau=ta tou= sofou=. o(moi/ws ka)\n o(risw/meqa au)to\n sfodra\n e)piqumi/an, e)pei\ to\ sfodro\n a)safe/s, pa/lin au)to\ tou=to ei)s lo/gon metalhyo/meqa. o(/ti to\n e)/rwta/ fasin e)pibolh\n ei)=nai fileupoii/+as dia\ ka/llos e)mfaino/menon, kai\ mh\ ei)=nai sunousi/as, a)lla\ fili/as. to\n gou=n *qraswni/dhn, kai/per e)cousi/an e)/xonta th=s e)rwme/nhs, dia\ to\ misei=sqai a)pe/xesqai au)th=s. ei)=nai ou)=n to\n e)/rwta fili/as, mh\ ei)=nai qeo/pempton. ei)=nai de\ th\n w(/ran a)/nqos a)reth=s. *)attikw=s de\ a)po\ tou= o( e)/ros, tou= e)/rou, kli/netai. ou(/tw ga\r kai\ au)toi\ tou=to to\ o)/noma gra/fousi kai\ e)kfwnou=sin, w(/sper kai\ to\ a)mei/nwn kai\ xei/rwn, a)/meinos kai\ xei=ros fasi/n. o( de\ *pla/twn peri\ e)/rwtos le/gei diecodikw/teron. te/qeitai de\ e)n tw=| peri\ paroimi/as e)n tw=| e stoixei/w|.
Notes:
[1] There is no passage where
Epicurus says exactly this; however, in arguing that sexual intercourse (
sunousi/h) never helped anyone, he recommends that the sage person must not fall in love. Probably his point was that love, understood in terms of an intense appetite for sex (on which see Lucretius 4.1058-1120), would produce disturbance (
taraxh/), the opposite of one of the "katastematic" or stable pleasures (which in a sense is the same as happiness): freedom from disturbance or
a)taraci/a). See
Diogenes Laertius 10.118.
[2] On this point see
Stobaeus,
Eclogae 2.91, 15-16, ed. Wachsmuth (= SVF 395). This echoes the canonical Stoic definition of love, which is literally quoted below in the Suda passage: "sexual desire is an effort to gain love resulting from the appearance of physical beauty" (B. Inwood's translation).
[3] Alexander of
Aphrodisias,
Commentaries on Aristotle's Topica 139.21-6. The definition of love as "the recollection of a beauty once seen" is not found literally in
Plato’s work. Alexander refers later (144.6-8) to
Plato's
Phaedrus; although the definition does not appear literally there, there some passages in the dialogue that imply it (see especially 238B-C, 250D-E, 251D).
[4] Love, insofar as it is an appetite or irrational desire, is a passion or an emotional state, which the Stoics define as an "excessive impulse" (
o(rmh\ pleona/zousa;
Stobaeus,
Eclogae 2.88.8, ed. Wachsmuth;
Diogenes Laertius 7.110). See especially,
Eclogae 89.6-9: "for every passion is violent, since those who are in a state of passion often see that it is advantageous not to do this, but are swept away by the vehemence [of the passion]..." (B. Inwood's translation).
[5] Alexander of
Aphrodisias,
Commentaries on Aristotle's Topica 143.30-144.3.
[6] This is presumably again a Stoic issue. The erotic person, it is said, is so called in two senses: (i) the one who, in being excellent or good (
spoudaios), is qualified in accordance with virtue: (ii) the one who, in being bad, is qualified in accordance with vice as a reproach, such as in the case of a person crazy about sexual love. Now the [excellent] erotic love is [for friendship] (see
Stobaeus,
Eclogae 2.65.17-20, ed. Wachsmuth). The problem here is that the sentence where it is said that "the excellent erotic love is for friendship" is Wachsmuth's conjecture, made following
Diogenes Laertius 7.129 and
Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists 13.561C [13.12 Kaibel].
[7] This is
Epicurus' view; see
Diogenes Laertius 7.118.
[8]
Diogenes Laertius 7.130.
[9] See generally LSJ s.v.
e)/ros (A).
[10] This general reference is presumably to
Plato's
Symposium and
Phaedrus.
[11] Cross-reference unidentifiable (not
epsilon 3071).
Dover, K.J. Greek Homosexuality, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1989 (original edition 1978. Updated and with a new Postscript)
Keywords: definition; dialects, grammar, and etymology; ethics; gender and sexuality; philosophy
Translated by: Jennifer Benedict on 2 May 2002@23:04:15.
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