Rhetoric

​And we have spoken of showing kindness and being void of kindness; let us now state what things are pitiable, and whom people pity, and in what state they themselves are when they do so.

​Let pity then be a kind of pain at an apparent evil, destructive or painful, befalling one who does not deserve it, which one might expect to suffer oneself or that one of one’s own people would, and this when it appears near. For it is clear that anyone who is going to feel pity must be such as to think that he himself or one of his own people is liable to suffer some evil, and such an evil as has been described in the definition, or one similar or near to it.

​Therefore, neither those who are completely ruined feel pity (for they think they have nothing more to suffer, having already suffered), nor those who think themselves supremely happy, but they rather behave insolently; for if they think they possess all good things, it is clear that they also think they cannot suffer any evil, since this too is one of the good things.

​Those who think they might suffer are such as have already suffered and escaped, and older men both because of their wisdom and experience, and the weak, and those who are rather cowardly, and the educated, for they are reflective.

​Also those who have parents or children or wives; for these are one’s own, and are liable to suffer the things mentioned.

​And those who are neither in a state of courage, such as anger or confidence (for these states do not reflect on what is to come), nor in an insolent disposition (for these too do not reflect on the possibility of suffering anything), but those who are between these, and moreover, not being in extreme fear; for those who are panic-stricken do not feel pity, because they are occupied with their own suffering.

​Also if they think there are some decent people; for he who thinks no one is decent will think all are worthy of evil. And in general, whenever one is in such a state as to remember that such things have happened either to oneself or to one’s own, or to expect them to happen to oneself or to one’s own.

​We have stated, then, in what state people feel pity; and what things they pity is clear from the definition. For all painful and distressing things that are destructive are pitiable, and all that are ruinous, and all evils of which fortune is the cause when they are of great magnitude.

​Now, painful and destructive things are deaths, bodily torments, injuries, old age, diseases, and lack of food; ​and the evils of which fortune is the cause are friendlessness, scarcity of friends (wherefore also to be torn away from friends and companions is pitiable), ugliness, weakness, deformity, and the occurrence of some evil where some good ought to have come, ​and this happening often, and the occurrence of something good after one has suffered, as when the gifts from the king were sent down to Diopithes after he was dead, or either that no good has happened, or that there is no enjoyment of those that have happened. These and such like are the things, then, at which people feel pity;

​and they pity their acquaintances, provided they are not extremely close in relationship (for towards these they feel as they would about themselves being about to suffer; wherefore Amasis, they say, did not weep for his son when he was led off to be put to death, but did so for his friend who was begging; for the latter was pitiable, but the former was terrible; for the terrible is different from the pitiable, and tends to expel pity, and is often useful for the opposite effect;

​for they no longer feel pity when the terrible is close to themselves), and they pity their equals in age, in character, in habits, in position, in birth; for in all these cases it appears more likely that it might happen to oneself as well. For in general, here too one must grasp that whatever people fear for themselves, they pity when it happens to others.

​And since sufferings that appear near are pitiable, whereas those that occurred or will occur ten thousand years ago or hence, since people neither expect nor remember them, either do not evoke pity at all or not in the same way, it is necessary that those who help to produce the effect by gestures, voices, clothing, and in general by acting, should be more pitiable (for they make the evil appear near, bringing it before our eyes either as about to happen or as having happened;

and things that have just happened or are about to happen shortly are more pitiable), ​and for this reason also signs, such as the clothes of those who have suffered and such like, and the actions and words and whatever else of those who are in the midst of suffering, as for instance of those who are already dying. And especially is it pitiable for people to be noble in such crises; for all these things, by making the suffering appear near, produce pity in a greater degree, both as being undeserved and as the suffering is visible before our eyes.