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

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‘At offences committed under the influence of passion we either feel no anger at all, or in a less degree; because in this case the offence appears not to be due to slight; for no one when angry with another can feel indifferent about him and his proceedings; because a contemptuous and indifferent state of mind, or slight, implies the absence of pain, whereas anger is always accompanied by it’. ὀργὴ ὄρεξις μετὰ λύπης, defin. II 2. 1. “Eodem argumento Eth. Nic. III (4, IIII b 17,) distinxit προαίρεσιν a cupiditate: καὶ ἡ μὲν ἐπιθυμία ἡδέος καὶ ἐπιλύπου, ἡ δὲ προαίρεσις οὔτε λυπηροῦ οὔθ᾽ ἡδεός” Victorius.

τοῖς δἰ ὀργὴν ποιήσασιν] As here the influence of passion mitigates the offensiveness of an act, and the amount of provocation caused by it, so in Eth. Nic. V. 10, 1135 b 19, ὅταν εἰδὼς μὲν μὴ προβουλεύσας δέ, ἀδίκημα, οἷον ὅσα τε διὰ θυμὸν καὶ ἄλλα πάθη, ὅσα ἀναγκαῖα ἢ φυσικά, συμβαίνει τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, it diminishes its criminality. The supposition is, that a man who kills another, for instance, in a fit of passion, is blinded by it, deprived thereby of the knowledge of the particular circumstances of the case, which is necessary to constitute guilt, Eth. N. III 2, and the want of which exempts in some degree from responsibility; there is no malice prepense which makes the complete crime. The question of the degree in which acts of this kind can be properly called involuntary is briefly discussed in c. 3 of the same book.