Of Envy and Hatred (6-8)

Moreover, these disturbances of the mind, like plants, must be nourished and augmented by the same roots from which they spring; therefore hatred increases as the persons hated grow worse, while envy swells bigger as the envied rise higher in the true braveries of virtue. Upon this consideration Themistocles, whilst he was yet young, said that he had done nothing gallant, for he was not yet envied. And we know that, as the cantharis is most busy with ripe fruits and roses in their beauty, so envy is most employed about the eminently good and those who are glorious in their places and esteem.

Again, extreme badness makes hatred more vehement and bitter. The Athenians therefore had so utter an abhorrence of those who accused Socrates, that they would neither lend them fire, nor answer them any question, nor wash with them in the same water, but commanded the servants to pour it out as polluted; till these sycophants,

Yet envy often gives place to the splendor of a matchless prosperity. For it is not likely that any envied Alexander or Cyrus, when they arrived at the height of their conquests and became lords of all. But as the sun, where he passes highest and sends down his beams most directly, has none or very little shadow, so they who are exalted to the meridian of fortune, shining aloof over the head of envy, have scarce any thing of their brightness eclipsed, while envy retires, being driven away by the brightness overspreading it.

On the contrary, hatred is not vanquished by the greatness and glory of its objects. For though Alexander had not one to envy him, yet he had many haters, by whose treacheries at last he fell. So, on the other side, misfortunes cause envy to cease, but take not enmity away; for men will be malicious even toward abject enemies, but none envy the distressed. However, what was said by one of our Sophists, that the envious are tenderly inclinable to pity, is true; and in this appears a great unlikeness of these passions, that hatred leaves neither the happy nor the miserable, but envy becomes languid when its object has either prosperity or adversity in excess.

We shall better understand this from the poising them together.

Men let go their enmity and hatred, when either they are persuaded they were not injured at all, or if they now believe them to be good whom before they hated as evil, or, lastly, when they are appeased by the insinuations of a benefit received. For as Thucydides saith, A later service or good turn, if it be done at the right moment, will take away the ill resenting of a former fault, though this was greater than the recompense.[*]

Yet the first of these removes not envy, for men will persist in this vice, though they know they are not wronged; and the two latter (the esteem or credit of a person, and the bestowing a favor) do exasperate it more. For they most envy the virtuous, as those who are in possession of the chiefest good; and when they receive a kindness from any in prosperity, it is with reluctance, as though they grudged then not only the power but the will of conferring it; the one of which comes from their happy fortune, the other from their virtue. Both are good. Therefore envy is an entirely distinct affection from hatred, since, as we see, the very things that appease the one only rouse and exasperate the other.

Now let us consider a little the inclination and bent of either passion.

The design of hatred is to endamage; and hence they define it, an insidious desire and purpose of doing hurt. But envy aims not at this. Many envy their familiars and kinsfolk, but have no thoughts of their ruin nor of so much as bringing any troubles upon them; only their felicity is a burden. Though they will perhaps diminish their glory and splendor what they can, yet they endeavor not their utter subversion; being, as it were, content to pull down so much only of an high stately house as hindered the light and obscured them with too great a shade.