The Memories of EumaeusJames WarrenCorpus Christi College and the Faculty of Classics

, , ' , . For when they are alone they recollect many terrible things and they expect more such besides; but when they are with others they forget them.Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 9.4 1166b1517

, , . ' . , .A person like this wants to spend time with himself, for he does this with pleasure. And the memories of what he has done are enjoyable and his anticipations of what is to come are good; and those sorts of memories and anticipations are pleasant. And, what is more, he has plenty of things to contemplate in his mind. And he shares his pleasures and his pains with himself in particular, for the same thing is consistently painful or pleasant and is not pleasant at one time but not another. For, in a word, he is without regret.Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 9.4 1166a2329

, , , , .But things that are pleasant when remembered are not only those that were pleasant when they were present. But sometimes also things that were not pleasant [sc. when present are pleasant when remembered], provided that what comes after this was fine and good.Aristotle Rhetoric 1.11 1370a35b3

It is now pleasant to recall the event because we recall the pleasant excitement and intensity of the experience rather than the pain and struggle. It is now pleasant to recall the event because, although painful at the time, it is now over. When we recall the event our attention is drawn to its past-ness and that is a pleasant thought.It is now pleasant to recall the event because, although it painful at the time, when we recall the event our attention is drawn to our comparatively positive state now and that is a pleasant thought.It is now pleasant to recall the event because, although painful at the time, it had beneficial consequences which are pleasant. It is now pleasant to recall the event because, although painful at the time, in retrospect we see the event itselfnot just its consequencesas something positive and beneficial.

To this case it seems due that past hardships, toils, and anxieties often appear pleasurable when we look back upon them, after some interval; for the excitement, the heightened sense of life that accompanies the painful struggle, would have been pleasurable if taken by itself; and it is that that we recall rather than the pain.

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (7th edn. 1907) p. 144.

deinde quod acerbum fuit ferre, tulisse iucundum est: naturale est mali sui fine gaudere.Eventually, what was bitter to undergo is pleasant to have undergone: it is natural to take pleasure at the ending of ones harm.Seneca, Moral Letters 78.14

. Pleasant it is when rescued to remember the toils (ponoi).

Euripides Andromeda (fr. 133 Nauck2)

, , Let us two cheer one another with recollections of our wretched sorrows. For a man who has undergone many sufferings and has wandered far is cheered even by his pains. Homer Odyssey 15.399401

forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Perhaps there will be a time when it will be pleasant to recall even this.Virgil Aeneid 1.203

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