Thread from the Translation Workshop

Here's a loose thread from last week's 'Translation Workshop', a curious passage from the Eudemian Ethics and something of a parallel. The trouble, provided by the highlighted sentence, requires in solution something more, I think, than careful attention to words in translation or even parsing of structure can offer:

πλεοναχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς ἀκολασίας, ὅτι μὲν περὶ ἡδονάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί, φανερόν, καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ περὶ ταύτας διακεῖσθαί πως καὶ ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων· διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομάζοντες μεταφέρομεν. (1230b9-13)

which Solomon renders:

But though 'profligacy' has more than one sense, it is clear that the profligate are concerned with certain pleasures and pains and that they differ from one another and from the other vicious characters in being disposed in a certain manner towards these; and we described previously the way in which we apply the term 'profligacy' by analogy.

Now there are two problems presented by the highlighted clause.

The first is that akolasia is not discussed so much as merely mentioned earlier in the treatise, and certainly the origin of the word for it is not.

The second problem, much more serious, is that the verb used to refer to that earlier discussion, διαγράφω, although it can mean 'describe', more exactly means 'to mark out or mark off, as with lines', and is elsewhere in the Eudemian Ethics used always to refer to the chart of virtues and vices at 1221a1-- and yet clearly the etymology of the word akolasia is not even the sort of thing that could be depicted in a chart.

Solomon's note to the sentence takes account only of the first of these difficulties: "This seems to refer to words which must have been lost at Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1221a 20".

------
Fyi, the fuller preceding context is this, which I provide because I think a proper solution needs to make use of this.

λέγεται δ' ὁ ἀκόλαστος πολλαχῶς. ὅ τε γὰρ μὴ κε-
κολασμένος πως μηδ' ἰατρευμένος, ὥσπερ ἄτμητος ὁ μὴ
1230b.1
τετμημένος, καὶ τούτων ὃ μὲν δυνατός, ὃ δ' ἀδύνατος·
ἄτμητον γὰρ τό τε μὴ δυνάμενον τμηθῆναι καὶ τὸ δυ-
νατὸν μὲν μὴ τετμημένον δέ. τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ τὸ
ἀκόλαστον. καὶ γὰρ τὸ μὴ πεφυκὸς δέχεσθαι κόλασιν,
1230b.5
καὶ τὸ πεφυκὸς μὲν μὴ κεκολασμένον δὲ περὶ ἁμαρτίας,
περὶ ἃς ὀρθοπραγεῖ ὁ σώφρων, ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες· κατὰ ταύ-
την γὰρ ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται τὴν ἀκοκασίαν. ἔτι δ' ἄλλον
τρόπον οἱ δυσίατοι καὶ οἱ ἀνίατοι πάμπαν διὰ κολάσεως.
πλεοναχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς ἀκολασίας, ὅτι μὲν περὶ ἡδο-
1230b.10
νάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί, φανερόν, καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ περὶ ταύ-
τας διακεῖσθαί πως καὶ ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσι καὶ τῶν ἄλ-
λων· διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομά-
ζοντες μεταφέρομεν.

Solomon's translation:

The term 'profligate' (unchaste) has a variety of meanings. It means the man who has not been (as it were) 'chastised' or cured, just as 'undivided' means one that has not been divided; and these terms include both one capable of the process and one not capable of it: 'undivided' means both that which cannot be divided and that which though it can be has not been; and similarly with 'unchaste'--it denotes both that which is by nature incapable of chastening and that which, though capable, has not actually been chastened in respect of the errors as regards which the temperate man acts rightly, as is the case with children; for of them it is in this sense that the term 'unchaste'¹ is used, whereas another use of it again refers to persons hard to cure or entirely incurable by chastisement. But though 'profligacy' has more than one sense, it is clear that the profligate are concerned with certain pleasures and pains and that they differ from one another and from the other vicious characters in being disposed in a certain manner towards these; and we described previously the way in which we apply the term 'profligacy' by analogy.