>>5631368>>5631429>>5631760>>5631774Alright, I'm doing it. First post of Deianira Quest tomorrow evening. Some relevant commentary...
Socrates: And it makes him say of himself, and others say of him, that he is pleased to death with these delights, and the more unrestrained and foolish he is, the more he always gives himself up to the pursuit of these pleasures; he calls them the greatest of all things and counts that man the happiest who lives most entirely in the enjoyment of them.
Protarchus: Socrates, you have described admirably what happens in the case of most people.
Socrates: That may be, Protarchus, so far as concerns purely bodily pleasures in which internal and external sensations unite; but concerning the pleasures in which the soul and the body contribute opposite elements, each adding pain or pleasure to the other’s pleasure or pain, so that both unite in a single mixture—concerning these I said before that when a man is empty he desires to be filled, and rejoices in his expectation, but is pained by his emptiness, and now I add, what I did not say at that time, that in all these cases, which are innumerable, of opposition between soul and body, there is one single mixture of pain and pleasure.
Protarchus: I believe you are quite right.
Socrates: One further mixture of pain and pleasure is left.
Protarchus: What is it?
Socrates: That mixture of its own feelings which we said the soul often experiences.
Protarchus: And what do we call this?
Socrates :Do you not regard anger, fear, yearning, mourning, love, jealousy, envy, and the like as pains of the soul and the soul only?
Protarchus: I do.
Socrates: And shall we not find them full of ineffable pleasures? Or must I remind you of the anger?
“Which stirs a man, though very wise, to wrath,
And sweeter is than honey from the comb…”
and of the pleasures mixed with pains, which we find in mournings and longings?
Protarchus: No, you need not remind me; those things occur just as you suggest.
Socrates: And you remember, too, how people enjoy weeping at tragedies?
Protarchus: Yes, certainly.
Socrates: And are you aware of the condition of the soul at comedies, how there also we have a mixture of pain and pleasure?
Protarchus: I do not quite understand.
Socrates: Indeed it is by no means easy, Protarchus, to understand such a condition under those circumstances.
Protarchus: No at least I do not find it so.
Socrates: Well, then, let us take this under consideration, all the more because of its obscurity; then we can more readily understand the mixture of pain and pleasure in other cases.
Protarchus: Please go on.
Socrates: Would you say that envy, which was mentioned just now, was a pain of the soul, or not?
Protarchus: I say it is.
Socrates: But certainly we see the envious man rejoicing in the misfortunes of his neighbors.
Protarchus: Yes, very much so.
Socrates: Surely ignorance is an evil, as is also what we call stupidity.
Protarchus: Surely.
