Heraclitus B85 · B85

<em>Thymos</em> is not simple anger; it is the spirited part of a person — the seat of drive, temper, courage and the will to have what it wants. Heraclitus says fighting it is hard, and gives the reason as a transaction: ψυχῆς ὠνεῖται, 'it buys at the price of soul.' The genitive ψυχῆς is the genitive of price. Whatever the heart demands, it pays for in the coin of life itself.

The pun is exact and grim. <em>Psychē</em> is both 'life' and 'soul,' and ὠνέομαι is the ordinary market word for buying. The passion gets its way, but the purchase is made out of the buyer's own substance — you spend yourself to satisfy yourself. Plato will divide the soul and set <em>thymos</em> between reason and appetite (<em>Republic</em> IV); here the division is already felt as a cost, desire drawn against the account of the living self. Aristotle cites the line in the <em>Eudemian Ethics</em> on exactly this — how hard the spirited part is to overrule.

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