I attended tonights Wednesday night VS Study Group and the VS under discussion was 64... with varying translations! It was great. Then I realized we didn't have the source text from the manuscript. So... here we are.
Saint-Andre gives the Greek as:
ἀκολουθεῖν δεῖ τὸν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἔπαινον αὐτόματον, ἡμᾶς δὲ γενέσθαι περὶ τὴν ἡμῶν ἰατρείαν.
Which looks correct to me from the manuscript.
He gives the translation of: The esteem of others is outside our control; we must attend instead to healing ourselves.
Bailey gives: Praise from others must come unasked: we must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives.
Epicurus Wiki gives: The [praise] by others [ought to follow] automatically while [we] (ought) to concern ourselves with own (own) healing.
I would paraphrase this as: One must accept the spontaneous praise from others; but we are the ones who heal ourselves. Which means to me that we should accept praise or approval from others if it is automatic. We shouldn't trust the flatterer, but if someone spontaneously tells us we did a nice thing, take the compliment! But we need not rely on that. We know ourselves better than anyone else. If we give ourselves praise, then we know we truly deserve it!
Want to see the sausage making process? Let's break this down word by word (relying somewhat on the good ol' Wiktionary)
δεῖ = It is necessary to... One must...
ἀκολουθεῖν = to follow one in a thing, let oneself be led by [+dative or rarely accusative = someone or something] ... LSJ also has metaphorically, follow, be guided by;
So, what's the accusative or dative someone or something?
τὸν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἔπαινον αὐτόματον = (accusative) This has an embedded phrase...
παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων = παρα is governed by the genitive, accusative, and dative and has different meanings with each! τῶν ἄλλων is genitive, so the genitive implies "from" or "because of" LSJ gives: "WITH GEN. prop. denoting motion from the side of, from beside, from" So, παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων would be, it appears, something "from others"
ἔπαινον = acc.sing. of "approval, praise" or "an expression of praise; a speech praising someone."
αὐτόματον = unbidden, spontaneous, "without external cause."
So, ἀκολουθεῖν δεῖ τὸν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἔπαινον αὐτόματον = It is necessary (It behooves one) to follow the spontaneous praise of others; ...
ἡμᾶς δὲ γενέσθαι περὶ τὴν ἡμῶν ἰατρείαν. = but we produce/bring into being the ἰατρείαν for ourselves.
ἰατρείαν = medical treatment; curing, correcting (brings in that whole medical analogy that Epicurus uses in other locations!)
