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

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δἰ ἃ δὲ προαιροῦνται κ.τ.λ.] ‘The impelling motive, cause, of this purpose to do mischievous and vicious acts in violation of the law, is vice and want of self-control. This general vicious habit takes various forms in particular cases, and shews itself in different special vices according to the circumstances which call it forth at the time, and give it its special direction. Thus vice and wrong (μοχθηρία καὶ ἀδικία) may take the form of illiberality in money matters, licentiousness in pleasure, effeminacy in respect of ease and comfort (ῥᾳθυμία), cowardice in danger (when, for instance, the coward leaves his comrades in the lurch, and runs away out of mere terror); similarly the vice of ambition is shewn in the undue pursuit of honour, the passionate irascible temper in the over indulgence of angry feeling; victory is the motive to wrong in one that is over eager for victory, revenge with the vindictive; folly (the want of φρόνησις, practical wisdom, the special moral faculty) shews itself in the inability to distinguish (the liability to be deceived in distinctions of) right and wrong, the vice of the shameless man appears in his reckless disregard of the opinion of others’.—ὀξύθυμος ‘quick-tempered’, ‘hasty’.

περὶ δὲ τοῦτο] Wolf, and with him Brandis, in Schneidewin's Philologus, IV i, p. 42, object to δέ, which is omitted by Brandis’ ‘anonymus’ and one MS. See the note on δῆλον δέ, I 1. 11, p. 20.

τὰ ῥᾴθυμα] are things and circumstances which tend to promote and encourage an easy, careless state of mind, ‘things comfortable’, which incline us to self-indulgence and inactivity. So ῥᾳστώνη in Plat. Gorg. 569 C, οὔκουν πολλὴ ῥᾳστώνη γίγνεται; ‘isn't it a great comfort...?’ Crit. 45 C, τὰ ῥᾳθυμότατα αἱρεῖσθαι, of ‘careless, easy-going, indifference’.

ἐγκαταλιμπάνειν, ‘to leave behind in the lurch’, desert a comrade in danger [Cf. II 4. 26, 5. 7; III 16. 5.]. ἐν sc. τῷ κινδύνῳ. Eupolis Δῆμοι Fragm. VI (Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Gr. II 458), of Pericles' eloquence, μόνος τῶν ῥητόρων τὸ κέντρον ἐγκατέλειπε τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις, ‘to leave the sting behind in the wound’, (ἐν τῷ ἕλκει). Plat. Phaedo, 91 C, ὥσπερ μέλιττα τὸ κέντρον ἐγκαταλιπὼν οἰχήσομαι.

πικρός] ‘Translato a tristi sapore nomine, πικροὺς Graeci appellant qui accepta iniuria non facile placantur sed diu simultatem gerunt, de quibus accuratius egit noster, Eth. Nic. IV (11, 1126 a 20), οἱ δὲ πικροὶ δυσδιάλυτοι, καὶ πολὺν χρόνον ὀργίζονται: κατέχουσι γὰρ τὸν θυμόν. παῦλα δὲ γίνεται ὅταν ἀνταποδιδῷ: ἡ γὰρ τιμωρία παύει τῆς ὀργῆς, ἡδονὴν ἀντὶ τῆς λύπης ἐμποιοῦσα.’ [Vict.] τούτου δὲ μὴ γινομένου τὸ βάρος ἔχουσιν: διὰ γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἐπιφανὲς εἶναι οὐδὲ συμπείθει αὐτοὺς οὐδείς, ἐν αὑτῷ δὲ πέψαι τὴν ὀργὴν χρόνου δεῖν εἰσὶ δ᾽ οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἑαυτοῖς ὀχληρότατοι καὶ τοῖς μάλιστα φίλοις. The Latin amarus, as Victorius points out, is used in much the same sense. The distinguishing characteristic of the Aristotelian πικρότης, in which the particular ‘bitterness’ of this form of ὀργή is shewn, is its lasting and enduring quality—the wrath is nursed ‘to keep it warm’ (πέψαι τὴν ὀργήν）—and this gives it a malignant, spiteful, implacable character, exactly opposite to that of Horace, the irascible temper, ὀργιλότης, irasci celerem, tamen ut placabilis essem.

ἀπατᾶσθαι] Ignorance of moral distinctions, and consequent wrong action, may be regarded as a kind of ‘deception’ or ‘delusion’; when a man is too foolish (unwise) to be able to distinguish right from wrong, when <*>e does not know and cannot perceive the difference between them (has no φρόνησις). Victorius quotes Top. Z (9, 148 a 6), τὸ γὰρ μὴ ἔχον ἐπιστήμην οὐ δοκεῖ ἀγνοεῖν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον τὸ διηπατημένον. Ignorance is not a mere στέρησις, the privation or absence of knowledge; which is shewn by our not applying the term ‘ignorant’ to inanimate objects and young children; it is something positive, and consists in a deception, mistaking one thing for another.

περὶ ἕκαστον τῶν ὑποκειμένων] τὰ ὑποκείμενα, res subiectae, subiecta materies; things that fall under the same head or general notion, and so are members or species of the same genus: Eth. N. II 2, 1105 a 1, πᾶσι τοῖς ὑπὸ τὴν αἵρεσιν, ‘all that fall under the choice’, as its objects, or matter to operate upon. These are the six things previously mentioned, καλόν, συμφέρον, ἡδύ, and their opposites.

And so for the rest, the same rule holds in the case of every vice, ‘each in the things which are specially subjected to it’, which come under that particular head, as money is the ‘subject-matter’ of illiberality, dangers of cowardice, anger of quick, irascible temper, and so on. Victorius understands it as the ‘object’ of the aim or desire of each.