Best Translation of PD3 To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

Oh, boy, Don it's that time!

Cassius, Don and I have a bit of a project going to translate the KD and then ultimately include them in the KD Compilation, so I intend on sharing my attempts in these threads:

“The peak of pleasure [is] the excision of all pain; and wherever pleasure is, for the time that it is, there is neither discomfort, nor distress, nor both.”

My older attempt at a formal equivalence translation:

"The limit of the magnitude of pleasure (is) the whole of the removal of that which causes pain. Where that which gives pleasure exists, during the time it is present, there is neither pain nor that which causes pain in body or mind nor either of these together."

Quote from Don

My older attempt at a formal equivalence translation:

"The limit of the magnitude of pleasure (is) the whole of the removal of that which causes pain. Where that which gives pleasure exists, during the time it is present, there is neither pain nor that which causes pain in body or mind nor either of these together."

Do we think that the exclusion of the to be infinitive is evident of Epicurus' style? Or was it an ancient Greek convention to omit verbs that are otherwise implied? This is my first time really deconstructing an ancient Greek-text word-by-word, and cross-reference the tenses and declensions and parts of speech, so I am curious this is Epicurus' (occasional) style.

I notice that we both made the same observation for this Doxa.

Quote from Nate

Do we think that the exclusion of the to be infinitive is evident of Epicurus' style? Or was it an ancient Greek convention to omit verbs that are otherwise implied?

My understanding is that it was quite common to omit the copula in ancient Greek.

Copula (linguistics) - Wikipedia

I voted for Bailey, but also like the Hicks version. Which brings up the question: which is the best word choice, "quantity" or "magnitude"?

Also, I prefer the versions that begin with pleasure rather than removal of pain. Just seems that this arrangement emphasizes pleasure rather than absence of pain.

Quote from Godfrey

I voted for Bailey, but also like the Hicks version. Which brings up the question: which is the best word choice, "quantity" or "magnitude"?

Also, I prefer the versions that begin with pleasure rather than removal of pain. Just seems that this arrangement emphasizes pleasure rather than absence of pain.

Ὅρος limit, rule, standard. A boundary or marker stone Masc. 2nd declension.

μεγέθος of degree, greatness, magnitude.

Pleasure ΗΔΟΝΩΝ comes first in the text.

μέγεθος • (mégethos) n (genitive μεγέθους or μεγέθεος); third declension

1. greatness, size
   1. (always in Homer) height
   2. (mathematics) magnitude
   3. (sound) loudness
   4. power
   5. (character) magnanimity

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, μέγεθος

The "limit" is that word that Epicurus uses to denote limits elsewhere and is the same word as that "boundary stone" that we've encountered before.

So it could be even something like "the limit of the amount of pleasure"

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Godfrey

Which brings up the question: which is the best word choice, "quantity" or "magnitude"?

You guys are the experts on the Greek but this is one instance where I am more drawn to Bailey's version.

To my ear "quantity of pleasure" emphasizes a particular dimension, which invites the listener to thing that there is more going on here to consider. The more general "magnitude" variations more clearly invite the connotation of "best" or "height of pleasure." My reading of the issues is that Epicurus has something to say about both perspectives, just as he distinguishes between the "most" pleasure and the "best" pleasure in the letter to Menoeceus where the banqueter chooses not the largest quantity of food, but the most pleasant.

It may very well be that Epicurus was intending to address both perspectives, or maybe only one, so I it will be interesting to see what you guys think as to the Greek. Perhaps quantity is exactly a bad choice because it is not in the text, or maybe it is a great choice because it is. All I know is that Bailey's "quantity" invites the discussion we are having now, which is important to have. A simple "the height of pleasure" or something to that effect would be more easy to interpret as "best" which to a new reader might be misleading.

I picked "the peak" for Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους because ὅρος ("limit", "rule", "standard") is nearly-identical to the ancient Greek word ὄρος meaning "mountain", and Epicurus' employment of ὅρος would have invoked the image of a mountain, therein having created a comparison between the notion of "the greatest limit" with a mountain.

Additionally, in KD4, just one sentence later, Epicurus uses the word ἄκρον which literally means "mountain peak" to refer to the "peak" of severe pain, so I have additional reason to believe that Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους, which literally means "the greatest limit" is actually a connotation to the ἄκρον or "mountain peak" mentioned immediately thereafter.

And a mountain could be a metaphorical boundary marker, too.

Quote from Don

And a mountain could be a metaphorical boundary marker, too.

That's a great point: that imagery might even convey the idea of a summit, which might be interesting if we consider the bottom of the mountain to be the summit of pleasure and the top of the mountain to be the peak of pain.

I'll keep that in mind and keep an eye out for "summit" or "some extent of a mountain" elsewhere.

Wouldn't the summit be the summit of pleasure/removal of pain and the bottom the "summit" of pain? At least that's how I read it from Eikadistes 's translation above.

Maybe the bottom could relate to katastematic pleasure.... But that might invite going down another rabbit hole, as it were.

Quote from Godfrey

Wouldn't the summit be the summit of pleasure/removal of pain and the bottom the "summit" of pain? At least that's how I read it from Eikadistes 's translation above.

Maybe the bottom could relate to katastematic pleasure.... But that might invite going down another rabbit hole, as it were.

Epicurus explicitly refers to the "greatest extent of pain" as a "mountain peak" in KD4, so I'm deferring to him

Quote from Nate

Quote from Don

And a mountain could be a metaphorical boundary marker, too.

That's a great point: that imagery might even convey the idea of a summit, which might be interesting if we consider the bottom of the mountain to be the summit of pleasure and the top of the mountain to be the peak of pain.

I'll keep that in mind and keep an eye out for "summit" or "some extent of a mountain" elsewhere.

Quote from Nate

Epicurus explicitly refers to the "greatest extent of pain" as a "mountain peak" in KD4, so I'm deferring to him

And this is *exactly* why I advocate for not reading the Principal Doctrines as discrete "sayings." They have to be read as a coherent text, or at least in sections. These metaphors and such that Eikadistes is finding or pointing out are/were completely lost if you read 1, 2, then 3 then 4. We have to read them as a text just like the letters.

Consider the difference the below makes in contrast to how these are normally read (note: this is just quick and dirty using Hicks' translation from Perseus!):

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together. Continuous pain does not last long in the flesh ; on the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the flesh does not last for many days together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the flesh.

Or this:

If the objects which are productive of pleasures to profligate persons really freed them from fears of the mind,--the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of pain ; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasures to overflowing on all sides and would be exempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from all evil.

If we had never been molested by alarms at celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need to study natural science. It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance, if a man did not know the nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures. There would be no advantage in providing security against our fellow-men, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe. When tolerable security against our fellow-men is attained, then on a basis of power sufficient to afford support and of material prosperity arises in most genuine form the security of a quiet private life withdrawn from the multitude.

Edit: Note that in that last section, we have:

• "be filled with pleasures to overflowing" which harkens back to the passage talking about the limit of pleasure.
• "by the misgiving that death somehow affects us" harkens back to "death is nothing to us"
• And so on...

And so on. The text of Kuriai Doxai builds on itself, continuously refers back to previous passages, sets up arguments for later passages. Reading it as isolated sayings, as if it was a list or compilation like "the Vatican Sayings"or, evidently more properly, Epicurus's Manner of Speaking, robs it of its structure and the power of its arguments. The book is not The Principal Doctrines. There's no definite article. I'd suggest something more like Sovereign Axioms or Sovereign Opinions or... Just something to shift our paradigm in seeing the text as discrete PDs! I like the Sovereign because it plays off of κυρίαι kyriai's meanings of both adjective principal/ruling/authorized and noun lord/ruler. (Note the Christian "mantra" Kyrie eleison! Lord, have mercy!)

Quote from Nate

Quote from Godfrey

Wouldn't the summit be the summit of pleasure/removal of pain and the bottom the "summit" of pain? At least that's how I read it from Eikadistes 's translation above.

Maybe the bottom could relate to katastematic pleasure.... But that might invite going down another rabbit hole, as it were.

Epicurus explicitly refers to the "greatest extent of pain" as a "mountain peak" in KD4, so I'm deferring to him

Trivia: That peak that Nate referred to is άκρον akron which is also the name of a city in Ohio named because it was the highest point in the surrounding landscape.

"The city was founded by Simon Perkins and Paul Williams in 1825 along the Little Cuyahoga River at the summit of the developing Ohio and Erie Canal. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek word ἄκρον : ákron signifying a summit or high point." (Wikipedia)