The morning question. The passage is set as EXERCISEan exercise for the first minute: πυνθάνεσθαι ἑαυτοῦ εὐθὺς ἐξ ὕπνου γενόμενον — "to ask yourself the moment you are out of sleep" (cf. 5.1, where the morning is likewise given to a ready formula). The form is a dialogue with oneself, with a question and a curt answer: "will this touch you? — It will not."

Who is being examined. The second beat is μήτι ἐπιλέλησαι, "have you forgotten": those who snort (φρυαττόμενοι — from a horse's snorting, of self-importance) in their praise and blame of others — what they are like "in bed and at table." The device is that of 9.18 and 8.53: not to argue with the verdict but to look at the one delivering it in his private hours. DOGMAThe worth of praise falls with the worth of the praiser.

A theft not with hands. The climax is a run of verbs (ποιοῦσιν, φεύγουσιν, διώκουσιν, κλέπτουσιν, ἁρπάζουσιν) and a turn: they steal and snatch οὐ χερσὶ καὶ ποσίν, "not with hands and feet," ἀλλὰ τῷ τιμιωτάτῳ ἑαυτῶν μέρει — "with the most honoured part of themselves." Vice is committed not by the body but by the ruling part; and so it is the ruling part that takes the damage.

What that part might become. And at once the strongest phrase: this part, ὃ γίνεται ὅταν θέλῃ, "which becomes, whenever it wills" — πίστις, TERMαἰδώς, ἀλήθεια, νόμος, TERMἀγαθὸς δαίμων. Not "can possess" these qualities, but becomes them: fidelity, self-respect, truth, law, a good daimōn. And the one condition is ὅταν θέλῃ, to will it. The last member of the series, ἀγαθὸς δαίμων, is the etymology of εὐδαιμονία itself: the state of being well-daimoned. So a morning question about another's praise ends in a description of happiness. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one action.

Textual note. The Greek here reads ψέγηται — "if what is just and honourable is blamed by another"; so also el.wikisource. Both translations follow a different reading — "if another does what is just" (Long, "if another does what is just and right"; Rogovin, «если кто-нибудь другой делает что-либо справедливое»). The ψέγηται reading is the more coherent: what follows is precisely about those who deal out praise and blame. The modernization restores the Greek.