Book 3
9.7
For instance, if a man imagines himself to be so tall as to stoop when he goes through the gateways in the Wall, or so strong as to try to lift houses or to perform any other feat that everybody knows to be impossible, they say he’s mad. They don’t think a slight error implies madness, but just as they call strong desire love, so they name a great delusion madness.The last sentence cannot imply that Socrates thought self-ignorance a slight error, but must be merely a further elucidation of popular nomenclature. But it comes very awkwardly here.
9.8
Considering the nature of Envy, he found it to be a kind of pain, not, however, at a friend’s misfortune, nor at an enemy’s good fortune, but the envious are those only who are annoyed at their friends’ successes. Some expressed surprise that anyone who loves another should be pained at his success, but he reminded them that many stand in this relation towards others, that they cannot disregard them in time of trouble, but aid them in their misfortune, and yet they are pained to see them prospering. This, however, could not happen to a man of sense, but it is always the case with fools.
9.9
Considering the nature of Leisure, he said his conclusion was that almost all men do something. Even draught-players and jesters do something, but all these are at leisure, for they mightOr, if with Stobaeus we omit ἐξεῖναι γὰρ αὐτοῖς, have leisure to go. go and do something better. But nobody has leisure to go from a better to a worse occupation. If anyone does so, he acts wrongly, having no leisure.Or, omitting κακῶς ἔφη with Stobaeus, he does it in spite of want of leisure.
9.10
Kings and rulers, he said, are not those who hold the sceptre, nor those who are chosen by the multitude, nor those on whom the lot falls, nor those who owe their power to force or deception; but those who know how to rule.Cyropaedia, I. i. 3.
