E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘Now anger is excited by personal offences, but enmity without personal offence as well; for if we suppose a man to be of such and such a character we hate him. And anger always deals with individuals, as Callias or Socrates’ (ὀργή is here made to govern the same case as its verb ὀργίζεσθαι¹. With the statement comp. II 2. 2); ‘but hatred is directed also against classes; for every one hates a thief or an informer’. On τὸν κλέπτην, the def. art. denoting a member of a class, which we render by the indefinite, see note on I 7. 13. ‘And the one is curable by time, the other incurable. And the one is desire (ἔφεσις subst. of ἐφίεσθαι ‘to aim at’²) of (inflicting temporary) pain, the other of (permanent) mischief; for the angry man wishes to see (the effect of his vengeance), to the other this makes no difference (whether he see it or not)’. Comp. def. of ὀργή II 2. 1, ὄρεξις τιμωρίας φαινομένης, and the note. ‘Now all painful things (all things that give pain) are things of sense, (pain is conveyed to us only by the senses,) but the most evil things are least perceptible, wickedness and folly; for the presence of evil (of this kind) causes no (sensible) pain. And the one is accompanied by pain (in the subject of the affection, by definition), but the other is not: for one who is angry feels pain himself, but one who hates does not. And the one might under many circumstances feel compassion (for the offender, and remit the punishment), the other never; for the angry man only requires compensation (for his own suffering) in the suffering of the object of his anger, but the other his utter destruction (annihilation)’.

With τὸ μὲν μετὰ λύπης κ.τ.λ., compare Pol. VIII (V) 10, 1312 b 32, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον τὸ μῖσος: ἡ μὲν γὰρ ὀργὴ μετὰ λύπης πάρεστιν, ὥστε οὐ ῥᾴδιον λογίζεσθαι, ἡ δ᾽ ἔχθρα ἄνευ λύπης.

ἐλεήσειεν] Victorius refers in illustration to Soph. Aj. 121, where Ulysses says of Ajax, ἐποικτείρω δέ νιν δύστηνον ἔμπης καίπερ ὄντα δυσμενῆ. This shews that the feeling by which he was affected towards his rival was not a long-standing grudge or hatred, but a temporary animosity arising out of the contest for Achilles' arms.

Plutarch in his little treatise, περὶ φθόνου καὶ μίσους, p. 536 D, Wyttenbach, Vol. III p. 165, gives an account of μῖσος from which something may be added to Aristotle's description. In c. 2, it is said that hatred is due to a sense of injury either to oneself, or to society at large, and sense of wrong to oneself: μῖσος ἐκ φαντασίας τοῦ ὅτι πονηρὸς ἢ κοινῶς ἢ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐστὶν ὁ μισούμενος: καὶ γὰρ ἀδικεῖσθαι δόξαντες αὐτοὶ πεφύκασι μισεῖν κ.τ.λ. In c. 3, the author remarks that hatred may be directed against irrational animals; some people hate cats, or beetles, or toads, or snakes; Germanicus could not abide either the sight or the crowing of a cock, and so on; envy however arises only between man and man. This is not the case with anger; which is sometimes excited even by inanimate objects—Bain [quoted on p. 13]. c. 5; Hatred may be praiseworthy, as μισοπονηρία—as also anger, in the shape of νέμεσις, righteous indignation, or of moral disapprobation—envy never can. In the last chapter, 538 D, he thus defines it; ἔστι δὲ μισοῦντος μὲν προαίρεσις κακῶς ποιῆσαι (Arist. ἔφεσις κακοῦ）: καὶ τὴν δύναμιν οὕτως ὁρίζονται, διάθεσίν τινα καὶ προαίρεσιν ἐπιτηρητικὴν τοῦ κακῶς ποιῆσαι (on the watch to do him mischief) τῷ φθόνῳ δὲ τοῦτο γοῦν ἄπεστι. The distinction between envy and hatred, in respect of the amount of mischief which they would do to their respective objects, is then described, and the treatise ends.