call ἡδονὴ, and the Latins voluptas? Which language is it, then, that I do not understand? Then, too, how comes it about that I do not understand, though every one else does, who chooses to call himself an Epicurean? when the disciples of your school argue most excellently, that there is no need whatever for a man, who wishes to become a philosopher, to be acquainted with literature. Therefore, just as our ancestors tore Cincinnatus away from his plough to make him Dictator, in like manner you collect from among the Greeks all those men, who may in truth be respectable men enough, but who are certainly not over-learned.
Do they then understand what Epicurus means, and do I not understand it? However, that you may know that I do understand, first of all I tell you that voluptas is the same thing that he calls ἡδονὴ. And, indeed, we often have to seek for a Latin word equivalent to, and exactly equipollent to a Greek one; but here we had nothing to seek for: for no word can be found which will more exactly express in Latin what ἡδονὴ does in Greek, than voluptas. Now every man in the world who understands Latin, comprehends under this word two things,—joy in the mind, and an agreeable emotion of pleasantness in the body. For when the man in Trabea[1] calls an excessive pleasure of the mind joy, (lætitia,) he says much the same as the other character in Cæcilius's play, who says that he is joyful with every sort of joy.
However, there is this difference, that pleasure is also spoken of as affecting the mind; which is wrong, as the Stoics think, who define it thus: “An elation of the mind without reason, when the mind has an idea that it is enjoying some great good.” But the words lætitia (gladness), and gaudium (joy), do not properly apply to the body. But the word voluptas (pleasure) is applied to the body by the usage of all people who speak Latin, whenever that pleasantness is felt which moves any one of the senses. Now transfer this pleasantness, if you please, to the mind; for the verb juvo (to please) is applied both to body and mind, and the word jucundus is derived from it; provided you understand that between the man who says,
I am transported with gladness now
That I am scarce myself . . . .
- ↑ Trabea was a Roman comic poet, who flourished about 130 b.c.
