Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/348

326 low and oppressed with calamities; whereas you shall not see one in misery envied. But most true is that saying found of a certain sophister or great professor in our days: That envious persons of all other be ever pitiful and delight most in commiseration: so that herein lieth one of the greatest differences between these two passions; that hatred departeth not from those persons of whom it hath once taken hold, neither in the prosperity nor adversity of those whom they hate; whereas envy doth avoid and vanish away to nothing upon extremity as well of the one as the other. Over and besides, we may the better discover the difference also of them by the contraries: for hatred, enmity, and malice cease presently so soon as a man is persuaded that he hath caught no harm nor sustained injury by the party; or when he hath conceived an opinion that such as he hated for their lewdness are reformed and become honest men; or thirdly, if he have received some pleasure or good turn at their hand: for evermore the last favour that is shewed (as Thucydides saith), though it be less than many others, yet if it come in season and a good time, is able to do out a greater offence taken before. Now of these three causes before specified, the first doth not wash away envy; for say that men were persuaded at the first that they received no wrong at all; yet they give not over for all that to bear envy still: and as for the two later, they do irritate and provoke it the rather: for such as they esteem men of quality and good worth, those they do eye-bite more than before, as having virtue the greatest good that is; and notwithstanding that they do reap commodity and find favour at their hands who prosper more than they, yet they grieve and vex thereat, envying them still both for their good mind to benefit them, and for their might and ability to perform the same; for that the one proceedeth from virtue, and the other from an happy estate, both which are good things.

We may therefore conclude that envy is a passion far different from hatred, since it is so that wherewith the one is appeased and mollified, the other is made more exasperate and grievous. But let us consider a little in the end the scope and intention as well of the one as the other: Certes, the man that is malicious purposeth fully to do him a mischief whom he hateth; so that this passion is defined to be a disposition and forward will to spy out an occasion and opportunity to wait another a shrewd turn; but surely this is not in envy: for many there be who have an envious eye to their kinsfolk and companions, whom they would