The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

feel sympathy and pity for unmerited distress, and to
feel indignation at unmerited prosperity; for whatever is
undeserved is unjust, and that is why we ascribe indignation even
to the gods. It might indeed be thought that envy is similarly
opposed to pity, on the ground that envy it closely akin to
indignation, or even the same thing. But it is not the same. It is
true that it also is a disturbing pain excited by the prosperity of
others. But it is excited not by the prosperity of the undeserving
but by that of people who are like us or equal with us. The two
feelings have this in common, that they must be due not to some
untoward thing being likely to befall ourselves, but only to what
is happening to our neighbour. The feeling ceases to be envy in the
one case and indignation in the other, and becomes fear, if the
pain and disturbance are due to the prospect of something bad for
ourselves as the result of the other man’s good fortune. The
feelings of pity and indignation will obviously be attended by the
converse feelings of satisfaction. If you are pained by the
unmerited distress of others, you will be pleased, or at least not
pained, by their merited distress. Thus no good man can be pained
by the punishment of parricides or murderers. These are things we
are bound to rejoice at, as we must at the prosperity of the
deserving; both these things are just, and both give pleasure to
any honest man, since he cannot help expecting that what has
happened to a man like him will happen to him too. All these
feelings are associated with the same type of moral character. And
their contraries are associated with the contrary type; the man who
is delighted by others’ misfortunes is identical with the man who
envies others’ prosperity. For any one who is pained by the
occurrence or existence of a given thing must be pleased by that
thing’s non-existence or destruction. We can now see that all these
feelings tend to prevent pity (though they differ among themselves,
for the reasons given), so that all are equally useful for
neutralizing an appeal to pity.
    We will first consider Indignation-reserving the other emotions
for subsequent discussion-and ask with whom, on what grounds, and
in what states of mind we may be indignant. These questions are
really answered by what has been said already. Indignation is pain
caused by the sight of undeserved good fortune. It is, then, plain
to begin with that there are some forms of good the sight of which
cannot cause it. Thus a man may be just or brave, or acquire moral
goodness: but we shall not be indignant with him for that reason,
any more than we shall pity him for the contrary reason.
Indignation is roused by the sight of wealth, power, and the
like-by all those things, roughly speaking, which are deserved by
good men and by those who possess the goods of nature-noble birth,
beauty, and so on. Again, what is long established seems akin to
what exists by nature; and therefore we feel more indignation at
those possessing a given good if they have as a matter of fact only
just got it and the prosperity it brings with it. The newly rich
give more offence than those whose wealth is of long standing and
inherited. The same is true of those who have office or power,
plenty of friends, a fine family, &c. We feel the same when
these advantages of theirs secure them others. For here again, the
newly rich give us more offence by obtaining office through their
riches than do those whose wealth is of long standing; and so in
all other cases. The reason is that what the latter have is felt to
be really their own, but what the others have is not; what appears
to have been always what it is is regarded as real, and so the
possessions of the newly rich do not seem to be really their own.
Further, it is not any and every man that deserves any given kind
of good; there is a certain correspondence and appropriateness in
such things; thus it is appropriate for brave men, not for just
men, to have fine weapons, and for men of family, not for parvenus,
to make distinguished marriages. Indignation may therefore properly
be felt when any one gets what is not appropriate for him, though
he may be a good man enough. It may also be felt when any one sets
himself up against his superior, especially against his superior in
some particular respect-whence the lines
Only from battle he shrank with Aias Telamon’s son;
Zeus had been angered with him,
had he fought with a mightier one;
    but also, even