σωφροσύνη ~ sophrosyne
‘What is sophrosyne?—and that word cannot be translated by any one English word. The truth is that this quality, this sophrosyne, which to the Greeks was an ideal second to none in importance, is not among our ideals. We have lost the conception of it. Enough is said about it in Greek literature for us to be able to describe it in some fashion, but we cannot give it a name. It was the spirit behind the two great Delphic sayings. “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” Arrogance, insolent self-assertion, was the quality most detested by the Greeks. Sophrosyne was the exact opposite. It meant accepting the bounds which excellence lays down for human nature, restraining impulses to unrestricted freedom, to all excess, obeying the inner laws of harmony and proportion.
‘Considered as an argument, the dialogue [Charmides] is inferior to both the Lysis and the Laches. Socrates shows himself a master of quibbling often enough to keep up a sense of irritation in the reader, and to leave him after pages of hairsplitting definitions with very little idea of what all the talk has been about. He will almost certainly echo Socrates’ conclusion, “I have failed utterly to discover what sophrosyne is.”‘—Edith Hamilton
TEMPERANCE (SŌPHROSYNĒ) AND THE CANON OF THE CARDINAL VIRTUES
The history of temperance is the history of sōphrosynē (σωφροσύνη). The cardinal virtue of moderation, self-knowledge, and self-restraint—sōphrosynē in Greek—took the Latin name temperantia in Cicero’s rhetorical and philosophical works, which set the style for later usage in the West. Sōphrosynē derives from the adjective sōphrōn (saophrōn in Homer): “of sound mind”—used at first to describe a person (either human or divine) who behaves in a way consistent with his nature or station (like Apollo in Iliad 21. 462-64, when he refuses to fight with another god on behalf of “wretched mortals”) or who shows good sense, as opposed to frivolity or even witlessness (Odyssey 23. 11-13, 30). The words saophrosynē and saophrōn are rare in Homer, but later Greeks read the concept back into many situations in epic poetry that seemed to typify the classical idea of the virtue. Hence certain Homeric characters became exemplars of sōphrosynē in its several aspects, masculine and feminine: Odysseus for his endurance and especially for his triumph over Circe, Nestor for having the wisdom of old age, Penelope and Andromache for being good wives.—Helen F. North ‡ read more »
عارف ہمیشہ مستِ مۓ ذات چاہیے
Ghalib {131,9}
ya((nii bah-;hasb-e gardish-e paimaanah-e .sifaat
((aarif hameshah mast-e mai-e ;zaat chaahiye
1) that is, in conformity/proportion to the going-around of the {wine-glass / measure} of qualities,
2) a mystical-knower always intoxicated with the wine of Being is needed
“The complexity of this verse depends above all on the lovely word- and meaning-play of paimaanah ; it effortlessly unites the sense of measurement or proportion (as in ;hasb ) with the wine imagery ( gardish / mast / mai ). Here are some of the possible emphases:
- just as the wine-glass is there, so an appropriate drinker needs to be there
- just the way the wine-glass keeps on circulating no matter what, similarly a drinker is needed who is intoxicated no matter what
- in proportion to how amply the wine-glass (always) keeps circulating, the drinker too always needs to be (proportionately amply) intoxicated
Are the qualities aspects of being, and thus legitimately intoxicating in their own right?
“As for the relationship of the wine-glass of ‘qualities’ [صفات] and the intoxication with ‘Being’ [ذات], we’re left entirely on our own. Are the qualities aspects of being, and thus legitimately intoxicating in their own right? Are they preludes to being, so that they have to be transcended (the way wine-drinking enables you to reach a level beyond wine-drinking)? Are they something that a person has lots of, or only one of (the way each flower has its own one color in {131,7})? Is the mystic-knower intoxicated with his own qualities alone, or with the spectacle of everybody’s, or with something deeper (the way the tree is different from the branches in {131,6})? Is ‘Being’ an intoxicant like wine, or like prayer? Or are the two the same? (This question is especially relevant in view of the یعنی and the fact that the immediately preceding verse is {131,8}.)
“And finally, by whom or what is such a drinker ‘needed’? By God? By the scheme of things? By the poet’s esthetic or mystical sense of fitness? This little verse-set, fresh and lovely as a rose, is surrounded by thorny questions well-contrived to leave scratches in our minds.”—Frances W. Prichett
