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Areté
Excellence
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| The Truth Exposed - The Meaning Of Areté? |
 The Greek word areté refers to “excellence” or “virtue” of any kind. The Greeks used this word to denote courage, strength, and the need to live up to one’s full potential. In its time areté was what all people aspired to. |  |
 | “What moves the Greek warrior to deeds of heroism,” Kitto comments, “is not a sense of duty as we understand it — duty towards others: it is rather duty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate ‘virtue’ but is in Greek arête, ‘excellence’ … we shall have much to say about arête. It runs through Greek life.” Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
Arête implies a respect of the wholeness
or oneness of life,
and a consequent dislike of specialization.
it implies a contempt for efficiency
or rather a much higher idea of efficiency, an efficiency which exists not
in one department of life
but in life itself.”
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(Cacia and Arete),
by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609),
Italian Baroque painter
In a fable related by Xenophon, Arete (Virtue) and Cacia (Vice) offered Heracles the choice between a life of valour and one of luxury. |   |
:"There is a tale that Arete (Virtue) dwells on un-climbable rocks and close to the gods tends a holy place; she may not be seen by the eyes of all mortals, but only by him on whom distressing sweat comes from within, the one who reaches the peak of manliness."
Simonides, Fragment 579
(Greek lyric C6th to 5th B.C.) “(trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric III) |  and he does so and then… what’s this?!… ’That which we translate ‘virtue’ but is in Greek ‘excellence.’ Kitto had more to say about this arête of the ancient Greeks. ‘When we meet arête in Plato,’ he said, we translate it ‘virtue’ and consequently miss all the flavor of it. ‘Virtue,’ at least in modern English, is almost entirely a moral word; arête on the other hand, is used indifferently in all the categories, and simply means excellence” |
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© 2016 MU-Peter Shimon
