Meditations, Book 3
Marcus Aurelius · Greek original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 3 repeatedly asks how judgment becomes a usable manner of life before time, attention, or the capacity for examination is lost.
The opening urgency concerns more than the nearness of death: life may continue after the trained power to use it has weakened. Other entries return to immediate readiness through the completed voyage, the station awaiting recall, the purified actor, the guardian ready to be given back, and the abandoned plan to read in old age. These figures do related work without establishing a chronological sequence or one literal account of departure. The striking attention to incidental beauty in 3.2 belongs beside, but is not reducible to, the exercises of analysis. Bread, ripeness, animals, and old faces are reconsidered through their relation to natural processes. In 3.11 an impression is examined through composition, duration, service, worth, and the virtue it calls for. One exercise can find fittingness where isolated inspection misses it; another strips an object down and returns it to the whole and to conduct. Their shared demand is for a changed manner of seeing, not the assertion that every response should be identical. Inward direction repeatedly has a social and religious criterion. Thought about others is allowed for common benefit in 3.4; the guardian in 3.6 both commands impulses and submits to gods while caring for people. The promise of judgment in 3.9 leads to deliberation, affiliation, and divine following, and 3.13 makes divine and human practice reciprocal. Independence from praise therefore remains distinct from indifference to people. The closing test in 3.16 asks whether goodness can persist without recognition, after having denied that merely possessing reason proves it. The prose ranges from extended portraits and conditional arguments to short fragments. That variation imposes limits on synthesis: the compressed list in 3.15 has not become an explained system, and the dagger and supplied word disclose separate problems in the digital source. The commentary follows the selected English treatments while leaving those source qualifications and ordinary grammatical alternatives visible.
3.1
Οὐχὶ τοῦτο μόνον δεῖ λογίζεσθαι, ὅτι καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἀπαναλίσκεται ὁ βίος καὶ μέρος ἔλαττον αὐτοῦ καταλείπεται, ἀλλὰ κἀκεῖνο λογιστέον, ὅτι, εἰ ἐπὶ πλέον βιῴη τις, ἐκεῖνό γε ἄδηλον, εἰ ἐξαρκέσει ὁμοία αὖθις ἡ διάνοια πρὸς τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῆς θεωρίας τῆς συντεινούσης εἰς τὴν ἐμπειρίαν τῶν τε θείων καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων. ἐὰν γὰρ παραληρεῖν ἄρξηται, τὸ μὲν διαπνεῖσθαι καὶ τρέφεσθαι καὶ φαντάζεσθαι καὶ ὁρμᾶν καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα, οὐκ ἐνδεήσει· τὸ δὲ ἑαυτῷ χρῆσθαι καὶ τοὺς τοῦ καθήκοντος ἀριθμοὺς ἀκριβοῦν καὶ τὰ προφαινόμενα διαρθροῦν καὶ περὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ εἰ ἤδη ἐξακτέον αὑτὸν ἐφιστάνειν καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα λογισμοῦ συγγεγυμνασμένου πάνυ χρῄζει, προαποσβέννυται. χρὴ οὖν ἐπείγεσθαι οὐ μόνον τῷ ἐγγυτέρω τοῦ θανάτου ἑκάστοτε γίνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν ἐννόησιν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τὴν παρακολούθησιν προαπολήγειν.
You must consider not only that life is used up day by day and less of it remains, but also this: if someone lives longer, it is uncertain whether their understanding will still suffice to grasp things and to pursue the inquiry that leads to knowledge of divine and human affairs. If they begin to lose their wits, breathing, nourishment, impressions, impulses, and the like will not fail. But the ability to make use of oneself, to work out precisely what duty requires, to distinguish what presents itself, to consider even whether it is already time to take oneself out of life, and everything else that calls for thoroughly trained reasoning—all this is extinguished first. So you must hurry, not only because you come closer to death each day, but also because your understanding of things and your attentive grasp of them cease before you do.
Commentary
The urgency of using one’s life is sharpened by the distinction between surviving and retaining the power of considered judgment. The opening adds a second calculation to the dwindling amount of life. Even if time is extended, the understanding required for divine and human matters may not remain equally capable. Breathing, nourishment, impressions, and impulses are set against trained discrimination of duties and appearances. The difficult question about taking oneself out of life belongs to the latter list as a subject of judgment, not as a recommendation made to the reader here. The concluding insistence on haste follows from the possible loss of these capacities before death. Its severe generalization is part of the speaker’s exhortation; the entry does not establish a clinical account of aging.
3.1.1 The inquiry about voluntary departure belongs to the list of decisions requiring trained reason. The clause explicitly names considering whether one should already take oneself out of life. Suppressing that sense would conceal the severity of the ancient discussion. Yet the entry neither answers the question for a particular case nor provides a procedure: it counts the capacity to examine it among powers that may fail before other functions. The stated urgency is to use understanding while it is available, and the conditional opening should remain distinct from a modern medical claim that every longer life follows one pattern of decline.
3.2
Χρὴ καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα παραφυλάσσειν, ὅτι καὶ τὰ ἐπιγινόμενα τοῖς φύσει γινομένοις ἔχει τι εὔχαρι καὶ ἐπαγωγόν. οἷον ἄρτου ὀπτωμένου παραρρήγνυταί τινα μέρη· καὶ ταῦτα οὖν τὰ διέχοντα οὕτως καὶ τρόπον τινὰ παρὰ τὸ ἐπάγγελμα τῆς ἀρτοποιίας ἔχοντα ἐπιπρέπει πως καὶ προθυμίαν πρὸς τὴν τροφὴν ἰδίως ἀνακινεῖ.
πάλιν τε τὰ σῦκα ὁπότε ὡραιότατά ἐστι, κέχηνε καὶ ἐν ταῖς δρυπεπέσιν ἐλαίαις αὐτὸ τὸ ἐγγὺς τῇ σήψει ἴδιόν τι κάλλος τῷ καρπῷ προστίθησι. καὶ οἱ στάχυες κάτω νεύοντες καὶ τὸ τοῦ λέοντος ἐπισκύνιον καὶ ὁ τῶν συῶν ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ῥέων ἀφρὸς καὶ πολλὰ ἕτερα, κατ’ ἰδίαν εἴ τις σκοποίη, πόρρω ὄντα τοῦ εὐειδοῦς, ὅμως διὰ τὸ τοῖς φύσει γινομένοις ἐπακολουθεῖν συνεπικοσμεῖ καὶ ψυχαγωγεῖ·
ὥστε, εἴ τις ἔχει πάθος καὶ ἔννοιαν βαθυτέραν πρὸς τὰ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ γινόμενα, σχεδὸν οὐδὲν οὐχὶ δόξει αὐτῷ καὶ τῶν κατ’ ἐπακολούθησιν συμβαινόντων ἡδέως πως διασυνίστασθαι. οὗτος δὲ καὶ θηρίων ἀληθῆ χάσματα οὐχ ἧσσον ἡδέως ὄψεται ἢ ὅσα γραφεῖς καὶ πλάσται μιμούμενοι δεικνύουσιν, καὶ γραὸς καὶ γέροντος ἀκμήν τινα καὶ ὥραν καὶ τὸ ἐν παισὶν ἐπαφρόδιτον τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ σώφροσιν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾶν δυνήσεται· καὶ πολλὰ τοιαῦτα οὐ παντὶ πιθανά, μόνῳ δὲ τῷ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν καὶ τὰ ταύτης ἔργα γνησίως ᾠκειωμένῳ προσπεσεῖται.
Notice such things as this too: even the incidental effects of natural processes have a certain charm and attraction. When bread is baking, for example, some parts split open. These cracks, which in a way depart from what the baker's craft promises, still have a certain beauty and stir the appetite in a distinctive way.
Again, figs split open when they are at their ripest. In olives ripe on the tree, the very nearness of decay adds a particular beauty to the fruit. Ears of grain bending down, a lion's brow, foam streaming from a boar's mouth, and many other things are far from beautiful if you look at them separately. Yet because they accompany natural processes, they add to the beauty of the whole and draw us to it.
So if someone has a feeling for what happens in the whole and a deeper understanding of it, scarcely any incidental result will fail to seem pleasingly fitted into the pattern. Such a person will look at the actual gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than at their imitations by painters and sculptors. With his own chaste eyes he will be able to see a certain bloom and beauty in an old woman and an old man, and the charm in children. Many things of this kind, which will not convince everyone, will become apparent only to someone truly at home with nature and its works.
Commentary
Attending to natural processes can disclose fittingness in features that appear unattractive when separated from their setting. Cracks in bread begin the argument with an object shaped by human craft: what seems to frustrate its intended finish can also increase its appeal. Ripening figs and olives extend the observation to a point close to decay, while grain, a lion’s brow, and a boar’s foam broaden its range. The second section expressly allows that an isolated feature need not be beautiful. The third attributes the changed response to feeling and deeper understanding of the whole, comparing real animals with artistic representations and extending the gaze to old and young people. This is a claim about trained perception with acknowledged limits of persuasion, not a demand that everyone already find every feature pleasant.
3.2.1 The bread example does not set nature against everything made by craft. The cracks emerge during baking and can depart from what the baker promises, yet are valued as results accompanying the process. Craft and natural occurrence are therefore present within one example. The contrast is between an intended finish and the appeal of an incidental effect, not between all human artifacts and an untouched natural realm. The later examples extend this way of looking without proving that every departure from a craft’s purpose is desirable.
3.2.3 The observer’s restrained gaze does not specify ownership or enslavement of the young people seen. Farquharson’s translation introduces young male slaves belonging to the observer, whereas Haines keeps the reference to the young broader. In the pinned Greek, the reflexive belongs to the phrase describing the observer’s own chaste eyes; the children are not explicitly called his property. Attractiveness and the restraint of looking both remain meaningful. The chosen English therefore preserves the charged attention to beauty without adding an unstated social status or reducing the passage to an entirely unqualified gaze.
3.3
Ἱπποκράτης πολλὰς νόσους ἰασάμενος αὐτὸς νοσήσας ἀπέθανεν. οἱ Χαλδαῖοι πολλῶν θανάτους προηγόρευσαν, εἶτα καὶ αὐτοὺς τὸ πεπρωμένον κατέλαβεν. Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ Πομπήιος καὶ Γάιος Καῖσαρ, ὅλας πόλεις ἄρδην τοσαυτάκις ἀνελόντες καὶ ἐν παρατάξει πολλὰς μυριάδας ἱππέων καὶ πεζῶν κατακόψαντες, καὶ αὐτοί ποτε ἐξῆλθον τοῦ βίου. Ἡράκλειτος περὶ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ἐκπυρώσεως τοσαῦτα φυσιολογήσας, ὕδατος τὰ ἐντὸς πληρωθείς, βολβίτῳ κατακεχρισμένος ἀπέθανε. Δημόκριτον δὲ οἱ φθεῖρες, Σωκράτην δὲ ἄλλοι φθεῖρες ἀπέκτειναν. τί ταῦτα; ἐνέβης, ἔπλευσας, κατήχθης· ἔκβηθι. εἰ μὲν ἐφ’ ἕτερον βίον, οὐδὲν θεῶν κενὸν οὐδὲ ἐκεῖ· εἰ δὲ ἐν ἀναισθησίᾳ, παύσῃ πόνων καὶ ἡδονῶν ἀνεχόμενος καὶ λατρεύων τοσούτῳ χείρονι τῷ ἀγγείῳ ἤπερ ἐστὶ τὸ ὑπηρετοῦν· τὸ μὲν γὰρ νοῦς καὶ δαίμων, τὸ δὲ γῆ καὶ λύθρος.
Hippocrates cured many diseases, then fell ill himself and died. The Chaldeans foretold many people's deaths; then what was destined overtook them too. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius Caesar so often wiped out whole cities and cut down tens of thousands of cavalry and infantry in battle; yet they too eventually left life. Heraclitus theorized at length about the cosmos burning up; then his insides filled with water, and he died smeared with dung. Lice killed Democritus; another kind of lice killed Socrates. What does this mean? You boarded, you sailed, you reached port. Disembark. If you enter another life, nothing there is empty of gods either. If you enter a state without sensation, you will stop enduring pains and pleasures and serving a vessel so much worse than what serves it. For the servant is mind and a divine guardian; the vessel is earth and gore.
Commentary
The catalogue of notable deaths dismantles exceptional claims to escape mortality before turning that lesson into an address to oneself. Healing, predicting deaths, military destruction, and speculation about the cosmos each fail to exempt their possessors from the end they study or inflict. The contrast between Heraclitus’s fire and the water in the death anecdote gives the catalogue a pointed reversal, while the repeated lice image turns contempt toward Socrates’s killers. The question that follows changes from named examples to the addressee’s completed voyage. Disembarkation is considered under alternatives: another life with gods, or the end of sensation and bodily service. The passage neither demonstrates which alternative occurs nor verifies the anecdotes as historical reports; it uses them to break the expectation of exemption.
3.3.1 The death anecdotes are arguments through reversal rather than biographies established by this commentary. The physician becomes a patient, forecasters meet the event they predict, and destroyers of cities undergo the departure they inflicted. Fire and water sharpen the Heraclitus anecdote’s reversal, while the second use of lice makes Socrates’s killers the target of an insult. These effects can be read directly from the wording without certifying how any named person died. The list’s compression gives it force as an admonition, but that force should not be mistaken for independent historical corroboration.
3.3.1 The bodily vessel is the thing served, not the superior servant in the closing comparison. The comparative construction calls the vessel worse than what serves it, and the following clause identifies the two sides. Mind and divine guardian belong to the serving side, earth and gore to the vessel. Reversing the relation would replace the passage’s complaint about subordination with a more familiar but different picture of a body simply used as an instrument. The absence of sensation is considered as release from this service under one of the chapter’s alternatives, not announced as its proven account of death.
3.4
Μὴ κατατρίψῃς τὸ ὑπολειπόμενον τοῦ βίου μέρος ἐν ταῖς περὶ ἑτέρων φαντασίαις, ὁπόταν μὴ τὴν ἀναφορὰν ἐπί τι κοινωφελὲς ποιῇ (ἤτοι γὰρ ἄλλου ἔργου στέρῃ). τουτέστι φανταζόμενος τί ὁ δεῖνα πράσσει καὶ τίνος ἕνεκεν καὶ τί λέγει καὶ τί ἐνθυμεῖται καὶ τί τεχνάζεται καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ποιεῖ ἀπορρέμβεσθαι τῆς τοῦ ἰδίου ἡγεμονικοῦ παρατηρήσεως.
χρὴ μὲν οὖν καὶ τὸ εἰκῇ καὶ μάτην ἐν τῷ εἱρμῷ τῶν φαντασιῶν περιίστασθαι, πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα τὸ περίεργον καὶ κακόηθες καὶ ἐθιστέον ἑαυτὸν μόνα φαντάζεσθαι, περὶ ὧν εἴ τις ἄφνω ἐπανέροιτο· τί νῦν διανοῇ; μετὰ παρρησίας παραχρῆμα ἂν ἀποκρίναιο ὅτι τὸ καὶ τό· ὡς ἐξ αὐτῶν εὐθὺς δῆλα εἶναι, ὅτι πάντα ἁπλᾶ καὶ εὐμενῆ καὶ ζῴου κοινωνικοῦ καὶ ἀμελοῦντος ἡδονικῶν ἢ καθάπαξ ἀπολαυστικῶν φαντασμάτων ἢ φιλονεικίας τινὸς ἢ βασκανίας καὶ ὑποψίας ἢ ἄλλου τινός, ἐφ’ ᾧ ἂν ἐρυθριάσειας ἐξηγούμενος, ὅτι ἐν νῷ αὐτὸ εἶχες.
ὁ γάρ τοι ἀνὴρ ὁ τοιοῦτος, οὐκέτι ὑπερτιθέμενος τὸ ὡς ἐν ἀρίστοις ἤδη εἶναι, ἱερεύς τίς ἐστι καὶ ὑπουργὸς θεῶν, χρώμενος καὶ τῷ ἔνδον ἱδρυμένῳ αὐτῷ, ὃ παρέχεται τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄχραντον ἡδονῶν, ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ παντὸς πόνου, πάσης ὕβρεως ἀνέπαφον, πάσης ἀναίσθητον πονηρίας, ἀθλητὴν ἄθλου τοῦ μεγίστου, τοῦ ὑπὸ μηδενὸς πάθους καταβληθῆναι, δικαιοσύνῃ βεβαμμένον εἰς βάθος, ἀσπαζόμενον μὲν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ ἀπονεμόμενα πάντα, μὴ πολλάκις δὲ μηδὲ χωρὶς μεγάλης καὶ κοινωφελοῦς ἀνάγκης φανταζόμενον τί ποτε ἄλλος λέγει ἢ πράσσει ἢ διανοεῖται. μόνα γὰρ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν † ἔχει καὶ τὰ ἑαυτῷ ἐκ τῶν ὅλων συγκλωθόμενα διηνεκῶς ἐννοεῖ κἀκεῖνα μὲν καλὰ παρέχεται, ταῦτα δὲ ἀγαθὰ εἶναι πέπεισται· ἡ γὰρ ἑκάστῳ νεμομένη μοῖρα συνεμφέρεταί τε καὶ συνεμφέρει.
μέμνηται δὲ καὶ ὅτι συγγενὲς πᾶν τὸ λογικόν, καὶ ὅτι κήδεσθαι μὲν πάντων ἀνθρώπων κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσιν ἐστί, δόξης δὲ οὐχὶ τῆς παρὰ πάντων ἀνθεκτέον, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει βιούντων μόνων. οἱ δὲ μὴ οὕτως βιοῦντες ὁποῖοί τινες οἴκοι τε καὶ ἔξω τῆς οἰκίας καὶ νύκτωρ καὶ μεθʼ ἡμέραν, οἷοι μεθʼ οἵων φύρονται, μεμνημένος διατελεῖ. οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ τὸν παρὰ τῶν τοιούτων ἔπαινον ἐν λόγῳ τίθεται, οἵγε οὐδὲ αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς ἀρέσκονται.
Do not wear away the part of life that remains in impressions about other people, unless you direct them toward some common benefit. For you deprive yourself of other work when you imagine what so-and-so is doing and why, what he is saying, thinking, or plotting, and everything of that kind. These things make you wander away from observing your own ruling faculty.
So avoid the random and pointless in the sequence of your impressions, and above all the meddlesome and malicious. Train yourself to admit only impressions about which, if someone suddenly asked, “What are you thinking now?”, you could immediately answer frankly, “This or that.” Your answer should make it clear at once that everything is simple and well disposed, belonging to a social creature who disregards images of pleasure or indulgence of any kind, rivalry, envy, suspicion, or anything else you would blush to admit you had in mind.
A man of this kind, who no longer puts off taking his place among the best, is a priest and servant of the gods. He also makes use of what is established within him. This keeps the human being unstained by pleasures, unwounded by any pain, untouched by any insult, unaffected by any wickedness: an athlete in the greatest contest, the struggle not to be thrown by any passion; dyed through and through with justice; welcoming with his whole soul everything that happens and is allotted to him. He seldom considers what another person says, does, or thinks, and never without a great need that serves the common benefit. For †he has only his own affairs to act on†, and he continually considers what is spun for him from the whole. He makes the former noble and is convinced that the latter are good. For the portion allotted to each is carried along with him and carries him along.
He remembers too that every rational being is kin, and that caring for all human beings accords with human nature. But it is not everyone's opinion that he should hold to, only the opinion of those who live in agreement with nature. As for those who do not live this way, he constantly remembers what they are like at home and away, by night and by day, what sort of people they are, and whose company they wallow in. So he gives no weight even to their praise: they do not even satisfy themselves.
Commentary
Thought about other people is judged by common benefit, while the regard owed them is distinguished from the authority granted their opinions. The initial prohibition has an explicit exception for common benefit. Speculation about other people becomes wasteful when it takes the place of available work and observation of the ruling faculty. The second section turns this into a rehearsal: imagine being asked without warning what occupies the mind. The answer tests the character of its contents, not merely the courage to disclose them. The third section expands into a religious and athletic portrait. The person must stop postponing excellence, serve the gods, withstand passions, and welcome the allotted share while making his own acts noble. The distinction between action and allotment prevents welcome from replacing responsibility. Its reciprocal language about the allotted portion remains compressed, and the digital dagger must remain visible. The final section connects rational kinship with care for everyone but restricts whose praise should count. Universal concern is therefore not universal deference; the severe characterization of unworthy judges is part of the speaker’s reason for refusing their authority, not permission to deny their kinship.
3.4.1 The common-benefit exception makes the redirection of attention compatible with concern for other people. Book 2.8 contrasts scrutiny of another soul with attention to one’s own; here the qualification is explicit. Thinking about others is permitted when referred to a shared benefit. The later requirement in this chapter to care for all rational kin confirms that the prohibition does not demand social ignorance. What is refused is the consumption of remaining time by curiosity that displaces useful action and self-observation.
3.4.3 The digital dagger is retained even though it is absent from the inspected photographed clause. The explicit archive image containing the continuation of 3.4 prints the clause about one’s own matters for action without a visible dagger before ἔχει. The pinned digital corpus does carry that mark. Its origin is not established by the discrepancy alone. The selected English keeps the warning visible while construing the words intelligibly, and the following contrast between one’s acts and one’s lot remains available for interpretation. This photographed image must not be confused with the differently addressed image containing 3.11 merely because both locators contain the number 38.
3.4.3 The reciprocity of the allotted portion is preserved without pretending its accompanying object is expressed. The passive and active forms describe being carried together and carrying together. The nearby recipient of the allotted portion supplies the English relation: the lot accompanies the person and carries that person along. The prior reference to the whole leaves a cosmic relation possible, but the words do not separately express both objects. The selected relation should not obscure the preceding distinction between making one’s actions noble and regarding one’s allocation as good.
3.5
Μήτε ἀκούσιος ἐνέργει μήτε ἀκοινώνητος μήτε ἀνεξέταστος μήτε ἀνθελκόμενος· μήτε κομψεία τὴν διάνοιάν σου καλλωπιζέτω· μήτε πολυρρήμων μήτε πολυπράγμων ἔσο. ἔτι δὲ ὁ ἐν σοὶ θεὸς ἔστω προστάτης ζῴου ἄρρενος καὶ πρεσβύτου καὶ πολιτικοῦ καὶ Ῥωμαίου καὶ ἄρχοντος, ἀνατεταχότος ἑαυτόν, οἷος ἂν εἴη τις περιμένων τὸ ἀνακλητικὸν ἐκ τοῦ βίου εὔλυτος, μήτε ὅρκου δεόμενος μήτε ἀνθρώπου τινὸς μάρτυρος. ἐνέστω δὲ τὸ φαιδρὸν καὶ τὸ ἀπροσδεὲς τῆς ἔξωθεν ὑπηρεσίας καὶ τὸ ἀπροσδεὲς ἡσυχίας, ἣν ἄλλοι παρέχουσιν. ὀρθὸν οὖν εἶναι χρή, οὐχὶ ὀρθούμενον.
Do not act unwillingly, without regard for others, without examination, or pulled in opposing directions. Do not dress up your thought with clever refinements. Do not be a man of many words or many distractions. Let the god within you preside over a creature who is male, old, a citizen, a Roman, and a ruler; one who has taken his stand, waiting for the recall from life, ready to be released, needing neither an oath nor any human witness. Let there be cheerfulness and no need for service from outside or for the quiet that others provide. You must stand upright, then, rather than be held upright.
Commentary
The command to stand upright combines inward direction with the particular responsibilities of the person being addressed. The opening rejects reluctance, unsocial conduct, unexamined action, divided motion, and ornamental cleverness. It then names the being over whom the inner god is to preside: male, old, civic, Roman, and ruling. These are not erased into an unspecified person, and neither the civic nor governing role disappears when independence is demanded. Taking one’s station and awaiting recall makes readiness for departure a relation to an assigned task. Cheerfulness and release from dependence on externally supplied quiet complete the exercise. The last contrast between standing and being propped up condenses its demand for steadiness without claiming that all material assistance is unnecessary.
3.5.1 The attributes of the addressed creature preserve sex, age, civic membership, Roman identity, and rule. The five descriptions accumulate; one cannot be used as a substitute for all the others. The inner god’s presiding relation is therefore addressed to this particular set of responsibilities rather than to an abstract capacity alone. At the same time, the station and recall imagery governs readiness for departure without providing a historical order, campaign date, or impending event. The sequence identifies the self-address’s terms, not a recovered occasion of composition.
3.6
Εἰ μὲν κρεῖττον εὑρίσκεις ἐν τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ βίῳ δικαιοσύνης, ἀληθείας, σωφροσύνης, ἀνδρείας καὶ καθάπαξ τοῦ ἀρκεῖσθαι ἑαυτῇ τὴν διάνοιάν σου, ἐν οἷς κατὰ τὸν λόγον τὸν ὀρθὸν πράσσοντά σε παρέχεται, καὶ [ἐν] τῇ εἱμαρμένῃ ἐν τοῖς ἀπροαιρέτως ἀπονεμομένοις· εἰ τούτου, φημί, κρεῖττόν τι ὁρᾷς, ἐπʼ ἐκεῖνο ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τραπόμενος τοῦ ἀρίστου εὑρισκομένου ἀπόλαυε.
εἰ δὲ μηδὲν κρεῖττον φαίνεται αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἐνιδρυμένου ἐν σοὶ δαίμονος, τάς τε ἰδίας ὁρμὰς ὑποτεταχότος ἑαυτῷ καὶ τὰς φαντασίας ἐξετάζοντος καὶ τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πείσεων, ὡς ὁ Σωκράτης ἔλεγεν, ἑαυτὸν ἀφειλκυκότος καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς ὑποτεταχότος ἑαυτὸν καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων προκηδομένου· εἰ τούτου πάντα τὰ ἄλλα μικρότερα καὶ εὐτελέστερα εὑρίσκεις, μηδενὶ χώραν δίδου ἑτέρῳ, πρὸς ὃ ῥέψας ἅπαξ καὶ ἀποκλίνας οὐκέτι ἀπερισπάστως τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐκεῖνο, τὸ ἴδιον καὶ τὸ σόν, προτιμᾶν δυνήσῃ.
ἀντικαθῆσθαι γὰρ τῷ λογικῷ καὶ πολιτικῷ ἀγαθῷ οὐ θέμις οὐδʼ ὁτιοῦν ἑτερογενές, οἷον τὸν παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἔπαινον ἢ ἀρχὰς ἢ πλοῦτον ἢ ἀπολαύσεις ἡδονῶν· πάντα ταῦτα, κἂν πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐναρμόζειν δόξῃ, κατεκράτησεν ἄφνω καὶ παρήνεγκεν. σὺ δέ, φημί, ἁπλῶς καὶ ἐλευθέρως ἑλοῦ τὸ κρεῖττον καὶ τούτου ἀντέχου· “κρεῖττον δὲ τὸ συμφέρον.” εἰ μὲν τὸ ὡς λογικῷ, τοῦτο τήρει· εἰ δὲ τὸ ὡς ζῴῳ, ἀπόφηναι, καὶ ἀτύφως φύλασσε τὴν κρίσιν· μόνον ὅπως ἀσφαλῶς τὴν ἐξέτασιν ποιήσῃ.
If you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage, and, in a word, your mind's contentment with itself where it makes you act according to right reason, and [with] fate where things are allotted without your choosing—if, I say, you see anything better than this, turn toward it with your whole soul and enjoy the best you have found.
But if nothing appears better than the divine guardian established within you, which has subjected its own impulses to itself, examines impressions, has drawn itself away from the persuasions of the senses, as Socrates said, has submitted itself to the gods, and cares for human beings—if you find everything else smaller and of less worth, give no room to anything else. Once you incline and turn toward it, you will no longer be able to give undivided preference to that good which is your own and belongs to you.
Nothing of a different kind may rightly be set against the good of a rational and civic being: praise from the crowd, positions of power, wealth, or the enjoyment of pleasures. All these may seem to fit for a little while, but suddenly they take control and carry you away. Choose what is better, I say, simply and freely, and hold to it. “But what benefits me is better.” If you mean what benefits you as a rational being, keep to that. If you mean what benefits you as an animal, say so, and maintain your judgment without conceit. Only take care that you make the examination soundly.
Commentary
The challenge to find something better becomes an examination of what benefit means for a rational and civic being. The first section appears to invite an alternative to justice, truth, self-control, courage, and contentment with action and allotment. The second tests the alternative against the inner guardian’s work: command over impulses, examination of impressions, submission to gods, and care for people. Inward authority is thus defined through both judgment and relations beyond itself. The third denies that praise, office, wealth, or pleasure may compete on the same terms simply because they initially seem compatible. A brief objection identifies the better with the beneficial; the reply asks what sort of creature is being benefited. The challenge is to examine that distinction honestly rather than smuggle bodily advantage into the place already assigned to rational good.
3.6.1 The deleted preposition remains visible within the contrast between reasoned action and unchosen allotment. The TEI marks ἐν before fate as deleted, and the English brackets its prepositional contribution. The sentence still presents contentment with one’s reason-governed acts and with what comes independently of choosing. The bracket is evidence about the text, not a warning that the second sphere has no place in the argument. Conversely, welcoming an allotment should not be read as a claim that every action is beyond the agent’s choice.
3.6.2 The guardian’s command over impulses is paired with its own submission and social care. The same grammatical subject that subjects impulses to itself also subjects itself to the gods and cares for human beings. Treating inward direction as sovereignty without any further relation would remove part of its definition. Examination of impressions also differs from abolishing sensation: the text draws away from the persuasions arising through the senses. The aim is discriminating use, under the stated divine and human relations, rather than possession of a faculty that certifies itself automatically.
3.7
Μὴ τιμήσῃς ποτὲ ὡς συμφέρον σεαυτοῦ, ὃ ἀναγκάσει σέ ποτε τὴν πίστιν παραβῆναι, τὴν αἰδῶ ἐγκαταλιπεῖν, μισῆσαί τινα, ὑποπτεῦσαι, καταράσασθαι, ὑποκρίνασθαι, ἐπιθυμῆσαί τινος τοίχων καὶ παραπετασμάτων δεομένου. ὁ γὰρ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ νοῦν καὶ δαίμονα καὶ τὰ ὄργια τῆς τούτου ἀρετῆς προελόμενος τραγῳδίαν οὐ ποιεῖ, οὐ στενάζει, οὐκ ἐρημίας, οὐ πολυπληθείας δεήσεται· τὸ μέγιστον, ζήσει μήτε διώκων μήτε φεύγων, πότερον δὲ ἐπὶ πλέον διάστημα χρόνου τῷ σώματι περιεχομένῃ τῇ ψυχῇ ἢ ἐπ’ ἔλασσον χρήσεται, οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν αὐτῷ μέλει· κἂν γὰρ ἤδη ἀπαλλάσσεσθαι δέῃ, οὕτως εὐλύτως ἄπεισιν, ὡς ἄλλο τι τῶν αἰδημόνως καὶ κοσμίως ἐνεργεῖσθαι δυναμένων ἐνεργήσων, τοῦτο μόνον παρ’ ὅλον τὸν βίον εὐλαβούμενος, τὸ τὴν διάνοιαν ἔν τινι ἀνοικείῳ νοεροῦ ⟨καὶ⟩ πολιτικοῦ ζῴου τροπῇ γενέσθαι.
Never value as a benefit to yourself anything that will one day force you to break faith, abandon shame, hate someone, suspect, curse, pretend, or desire something that needs walls and curtains. Whoever has chosen his own mind and divine guardian, and the sacred rites of its excellence, makes no tragedy of things, does not groan, and will need neither solitude nor a crowd. Above all, he will live neither pursuing nor fleeing. Whether he will have the use of a soul enclosed in a body for a longer or shorter span does not concern him at all. Even if he must leave at once, he will go as readily as if he were about to perform any other act that can be done with decency and order. Throughout life he guards against this alone: that his thought should take any turn unworthy of an intelligent and civic creature.
Commentary
The test of advantage is whether gaining it would require betrayal of the capacities that make social conduct trustworthy. The prohibited costs begin with broken faith and lost shame, then move through hatred, suspicion, curses, pretense, and desire requiring concealment. The positive choice is cast in explicitly sacred language about the mind and guardian. It is meant to remove the need either for withdrawal or a crowd, and to loosen the importance assigned to a longer duration in the body. Readiness to depart is compared with readiness for another decent and ordered act. The last sentence gathers the exercise around the direction taken by thought: the standard is the intelligent and civic creature, not the mere achievement of what first looked advantageous.
3.7.1 The added conjunction preserves both intelligence and civic relation in the closing standard. The source marks the conjunction before civic as added. Retaining it makes the final creature both intelligent and civic, which coheres with the preceding prohibitions on betrayal and hostility. The religious term for sacred rites earlier in the sentence belongs to the guardian’s excellence; it does not identify a particular initiation ceremony described elsewhere. The sentence’s images and editorial feature can therefore be explained locally without reconstructing a ritual setting.
3.8
Οὐδὲν ἂν ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ τοῦ κεκολασμένου καὶ ἐκκεκαθαρμένου πυῶδες οὐδὲ μὴν μεμολυσμένον οὐδὲ ὕπουλον εὕροις· οὐδὲ ἀσυντελῆ τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ ἡ πεπρωμένη καταλαμβάνει, ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι τὸν τραγῳδὸν πρὸ τοῦ τελέσαι καὶ διαδραματίσαι ἀπαλλάσσεσθαι· ἔτι δὲ οὐδὲν δοῦλον οὐδὲ κομψὸν οὐδὲ προσδεδεμένον οὐδὲ ἀπεσχισμένον οὐδὲ ὑπεύθυνον οὐδὲ ἐμφωλεῦον.
In the thought of someone disciplined and purified, you would find nothing festering, nothing polluted, nothing secretly ulcerated. Nor does fate catch his life unfinished, as one might say of a tragic actor leaving before he has completed and played out the drama. There is nothing slavish in him, nothing affected, nothing dependent, nothing cut off from others, nothing answerable to blame, nothing lurking in concealment.
Commentary
Moral completeness is distinguished from simply having enough time to finish a dramatic part. The medical images describe corruption that discipline and purification are meant to remove, including a sore hidden beneath the surface. Fate is then denied the power to catch this person’s life incomplete in the way an actor might leave a performance unfinished. The comparison transfers the question of completion from elapsed time to the condition of the life. A final catalogue refuses both dependent attachment and severance, along with affectation, blame, and concealment. The portrait is not a literal claim that a disciplined person cannot have illness or concealed bodily injury; these images concern the thought whose character is being examined.
3.8.1 The interrupted-actor comparison measures completion by the condition of a life rather than its expected duration. The hypothetical truncated performance is what the disciplined person’s death is said not to resemble. This is stronger than an instruction to complete an outstanding task before dying, since the comparison denies that fate can make this life incomplete in that way. The surrounding medical and social negatives describe the condition sustaining that claim. They do not show that every practical project must already be finished or that the person knows when death will occur.
3.9
Τὴν ὑποληπτικὴν δύναμιν σέβε. ἐν ταύτῃ τὸ πᾶν, ἵνα ὑπόληψις τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ σου μηκέτι ἐγγένηται ἀνακόλουθος τῇ φύσει καὶ τῇ τοῦ λογικοῦ ζῴου κατασκευῇ, αὕτη δὲ ἐπαγγέλλεται ἀπροπτωσίαν καὶ τὴν πρὸς ἀνθρώπους οἰκείωσιν καὶ τὴν τοῖς θεοῖς ἀκολουθίαν.
Revere the power of judgment. Everything depends on this: that no judgment should arise again in your ruling faculty which conflicts with nature and the constitution of a rational creature. That constitution promises freedom from hasty judgment, kinship with human beings, and following the gods.
Commentary
Reverence for judgment binds the avoidance of rash assent to human kinship and following the gods. The first imperative honors a capacity rather than validating whatever judgment happens to arise. The next clause specifies its task: no judgment incompatible with nature and rational constitution should enter the ruling faculty. The final three promises bring deliberateness together with human affiliation and divine following. On the selected reading, the demonstrative refers to the rational creature’s constitution. Other grammatically available antecedents would change which noun bears the promise, but not remove the stated requirements. The entry therefore does not treat an inward faculty as a private standard free of relational or divine obligations.
3.9.1 The demonstrative can have more than one feminine antecedent, although the selected English makes constitution explicit. The nearest candidate is the rational creature’s constitution; the power of judgment and judgment itself are also grammatically available. Farquharson explicitly makes judgment bear the promise. The project instead follows proximity and agreement by naming constitution. This changes the attachment without removing the three stated outcomes: deliberate assent, human affiliation, and following the gods. The commentary should therefore defend the selection while leaving its alternatives visible rather than presenting the English antecedent as a word supplied unambiguously by the Greek.
3.10
Πάντα οὖν ῥίψας ταῦτα μόνα τὰ ὀλίγα σύνεχε καὶ ἔτι συμμνημόνευε, ὅτι μόνον ζῇ ἕκαστος τὸ παρὸν τοῦτο, τὸ ἀκαριαῖον· τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἢ βεβίωται ἢ ἐν ἀδήλῳ, μικρὸν μὲν οὖν ὃ ζῇ ἕκαστος· μικρὸν δὲ τὸ τῆς γῆς γωνίδιον ὅπου ζῇ· μικρὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ μηκίστη ὑστεροφημία καὶ αὕτη δὲ κατὰ διαδοχὴν ἀνθρωπαρίων τάχιστα τεθνηξομένων καὶ οὐκ εἰδότων οὐδὲ ἑαυτοὺς οὐδέ γε τὸν πρόπαλαι τεθνηκότα.
Throw everything else away, then, and hold to these few things. Remember also that each person lives only this present instant. Everything else has either been lived or remains uncertain. So the life each person lives is little; little too is the corner of earth where they live; little even is the longest fame after death. And that fame passes through a succession of little people who will die very soon and do not even know themselves, much less someone who died long ago.
Commentary
The reduction of life, location, and remembered fame challenges the scale on which the speaker seeks importance. The present is opposed to a past already lived and a future still uncertain. The repeated word for little then contracts three dimensions: the life being lived, its place on earth, and even its longest possible afterlife in reputation. Fame is further diminished by its carriers, a succession of short-lived people who do not adequately know themselves. The argument does not simply say that memory lasts a short time; it attacks the quality of the judges who would preserve it. The belittling description is the speaker’s rhetoric and does not identify a social class or establish an empirical measure of every later reader’s understanding.
3.11
Τοῖς δὲ εἰρημένοις παραστήμασιν ἓν ἔτι προσέστω, τὸ ὅρον ἢ ὑπογραφὴν ἀεὶ ποιεῖσθαι τοῦ ὑποπίπτοντος φανταστοῦ, ὥστε αὐτὸ ὁποῖόν ἐστι κατ’ οὐσίαν, γυμνόν, ὅλον δι’ ὅλων διῃρημένως βλέπειν καὶ τὸ ἴδιον ὄνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα ἐκείνων, ἐξ ὧν συνεκρίθη καὶ εἰς ἃ ἀναλυθήσεται, λέγειν παρ’ ἑαυτῷ.
οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως μεγαλοφροσύνης ποιητικόν, ὡς τὸ ἐλέγχειν ὁδῷ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ ἕκαστον τῶν τῷ βίῳ ὑποπιπτόντων δύνασθαι καὶ τὸ ἀεὶ οὕτως εἰς αὐτὰ ὁρᾶν, ὥστε συνεπιβάλλειν ὁποίῳ τινὶ τῷ κόσμῳ ὁποίαν τινὰ τοῦτο χρείαν παρεχόμενον τίνα μὲν ἔχει ἀξίαν ὡς πρὸς τὸ ὅλον, τίνα δὲ ὡς πρὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, πολίτην ὄντα πόλεως τῆς ἀνωτάτης, ἧς αἱ λοιπαὶ πόλεις ὥσπερ οἰκίαι εἰσίν· τί ἐστὶ καὶ ἐκ τίνων συγκέκριται καὶ πόσον χρόνον πέφυκε παραμένειν τοῦτο τὸ τὴν φαντασίαν μοι νῦν ποιοῦν καὶ τίνος ἀρετῆς πρὸς αὐτὸ χρεία, οἷον ἡμερότητος, ἀνδρείας, πίστεως, ἀφελείας, αὐταρκείας, τῶν λοιπῶν.
διὸ δεῖ ἐφ̓ ἑκάστου λέγειν· τοῦτο μὲν παρὰ θεοῦ ἥκει, τοῦτο δὲ κατὰ τὴν σύλληξιν καὶ τὴν συμμηρυομένην σύγκλωσιν καὶ τὴν τοιαύτην σύντευξίν τε καὶ τύχην, τοῦτο δὲ παρὰ τοῦ συμφύλου καὶ συγγενοῦς καὶ κοινωνοῦ, ἀγνοοῦντος μέντοι ὅ τι αὐτῷ κατὰ φύσιν ἐστίν. ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀγνοῶ· διὰ τοῦτο χρῶμαι αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸν τῆς κοινωνίας φυσικὸν νόμον εὔνως καὶ δικαίως, ἅμα μέντοι τοῦ κατ’ ἀξίαν ἐν τοῖς μέσοις συστοχάζομαι.
Add one more thing to the practices already stated: always make a definition or description of whatever presents itself to your impressions. See it as it is in its substance, stripped bare, whole and analyzed throughout. Tell yourself its proper name and the names of the things from which it was composed and into which it will dissolve.
Nothing so produces greatness of mind as the ability to examine, methodically and truthfully, each thing that meets us in life. Always look at it in such a way that you grasp together what sort of service it provides to what sort of cosmos, what worth it has in relation to the whole, and what worth in relation to a human being, a citizen of the highest city, of which the other cities are like households. What is this thing now making an impression on me? What is it composed of? How long is it naturally fitted to last? What virtue does it call for: gentleness, courage, ⟨truth⟩, good faith, simplicity, self-sufficiency, or another of the virtues?
So with each thing you must say: this comes from god; this comes through the conjunction of things, their interwoven spinning, and the resulting encounter and chance; this comes from one of my own kind, my kinsman and fellow, who nevertheless does not know what accords with his nature. But I do know. That is why I treat him with goodwill and justice, according to the natural law of social fellowship. At the same time, I aim to give him his due in matters between good and evil.
Commentary
Analysis of an impression is completed by asking what response the thing requires from a member of the whole. The opening practice names the object, its constituent parts, and its eventual dissolution. It is not only a reduction into materials: the second section asks what service the object provides, its worth for the whole and for a human citizen, its duration, and the virtue appropriate to meeting it. The highest city and its household-like subordinate cities place assessment within a relation rather than an isolated observer’s preference. The third section then distinguishes things considered as coming from god, through the interwoven conjunction of events, or from an ignorant fellow human. Recognition of ignorance does not suspend kinship. The speaker’s claimed knowledge becomes a reason for goodwill and justice, with a further discrimination concerning what the person is due in intermediate matters. Description is therefore meant to return the observer to conduct. The printed supplement in the virtue list remains disclosed, while the selected personal construction of the closing phrase preserves a local interpretive choice rather than claiming an unambiguous syntax.
3.11.2 The visible supplement in the virtue list is attested in the printed Greek of the same edition. The inspected page image for 3.11 includes ἀληθείας between courage and good faith at line 15. The pinned digital text omits that word. Angle brackets in the English disclose the supplement rather than silently modifying the source mirror. Its support is this Greek print, not the fact that public English translations also include truth. The page-image URL used here shows the chapter 11 list and is distinct from the explicit archive image used to examine the dagger at 3.4.
3.11.3 The selected ending keeps the person as the recipient of just treatment while distinguishing that treatment from moral good itself. Farquharson attaches the closing assessment to what the person deserves, whereas Haines describes assessing the worth of intermediate things. The immediately preceding pronoun refers to the fellow human whom the speaker treats with goodwill and justice; that continuity supports the project’s personal construction. Intermediate matters are the sphere in which a due allocation is considered, not a reason to make goodwill itself conditional on merit. The compressed ending admits a broader assessment-of-things reading, which should remain an alternative rather than be erased.
3.12
Ἐὰν τὸ παρὸν ἐνεργῇς ἑπόμενος τῷ ὀρθῷ λόγῳ, ἐσπουδασμένως, ἐρρωμένως, εὐμενῶς, καὶ μηδὲν παρεμπόρευμα, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ δαίμονα καθαρὸν ἑστῶτα τηρῇς, ὡσεὶ καὶ ἤδη ἀποδοῦναι δέοι· ἐὰν τοῦτο συνάπτῃς μηδὲν περιμένων μηδὲ Φεύγων, ἀλλὰ τῇ παρούσῃ κατὰ Φύσιν ἐνεργείᾳ καὶ τῇ ὧν λέγεις καὶ Φθέγγῃ ἡρωικῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἀρκούμενος, εὐζωήσεις. ἔστι δὲ οὐδεὶς ὁ τοῦτο κωλῦσαι δυνάμενος.
If you do what lies before you according to right reason, earnestly, firmly, and with goodwill; if you allow no sideline, but keep your divine guardian standing pure, as though you had to give it back this instant; if you hold to this, waiting for nothing and fleeing nothing, content with your present action according to nature and with heroic truth in everything you say and utter, you will live well. No one can prevent this.
Commentary
The conditional promise of living well rests on the manner of present action, not on securing another person’s behavior. Right reason is accompanied by earnestness, firmness, and goodwill, so the task is neither bare efficiency nor mere intention. The intrusive sideline is refused while the guardian is kept ready to be returned, an image that treats its custody as something other than permanent possession. Contentment then attaches to current activity and the exceptional demand of heroic truth in speech. The final assurance that no one can prevent this belongs to the specified way of acting and speaking. It is not a guarantee that the external task will achieve every intended result or that others will supply favorable conditions.
3.12.1 Readiness to return the guardian differs from treating it as an object of permanent possession. The verb for giving back places the guardian under a condition of return. The comparison heightens the demand to keep it pure now, rather than supplying a date or circumstance in which it will be reclaimed. Its relation to the present task is practical: the surrounding phrases concern earnest, firm, well-disposed action and truth in speech. The indefinite receiver should not be expanded into a detailed account of what happens after death.
3.13
Ὥσπερ οἱ ἰατροὶ ἀεὶ τὰ ὄργανα καὶ σιδήρια πρόχειρα ἔχουσι πρὸς τὰ αἰφνίδια τῶν θεραπευμάτων, οὕτω τὰ δόγματα σὺ ἕτοιμα ἔχε πρὸς τὸ τὰ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα εἰδέναι, καὶ πᾶν καὶ τὸ μικρότατον οὕτω ποιεῖν ὡς τῆς ἀμφοτέρων πρὸς ἄλληλα συνδέσεως μεμνημένον. οὔτε γὰρ ἀνθρώπινόν τι ἄνευ τῆς ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα συναναφορᾶς εὖ πράξεις οὔτ’ ἔμπαλιν.
Just as doctors always keep their instruments and knives ready for sudden demands for treatment, keep your doctrines ready to understand divine and human affairs. Do everything, even the smallest thing, in the awareness that the two are bound to one another. For you will do nothing human well without referring it also to the divine, nor the reverse.
Commentary
Ready doctrines are compared to instruments available at the moment a concrete demand arises. The physician’s tools supply an image of preparedness rather than collection for its own sake. The corresponding doctrines must allow recognition of divine and human matters and inform even the smallest act. The ending makes their relation reciprocal: the human cannot be done well without reference to the divine, nor the divine apart from the human. This reciprocal clause prevents divine attention from becoming a reason to abandon ordinary conduct. The passage does not itself enumerate the needed doctrines or document a particular historical medical practice; the comparison’s point is their availability for use.
3.14
Μηκέτι πλανῶ· οὔτε γὰρ τὰ ὑπομνημάτιά σου μέλλεις ἀναγινώσκειν οὔτε τὰς τῶν ἀρχαίων Ῥωμαίων καὶ Ἑλλήνων πράξεις καὶ τὰς ἐκ τῶν συγγραμμάτων ἐκλογάς, ἃς εἰς τὸ γῆρας σαυτῷ ἀπετίθεσο. σπεῦδε οὖν εἰς τέλος καὶ τὰς κενὰς ἐλπίδας ἀφεὶς σαυτῷ βοήθει, εἴ τί σοι μέλει σαυτοῦ, ἕως ἔξεστιν.
Stop wandering. You are not going to read your notebooks, or the deeds of the ancient Romans and Greeks, or the selections from writings that you were putting away for your old age. Hurry toward the end, then. Let go of empty hopes and help yourself, if you care at all for yourself, while you still can.
Commentary
The stored-up reading plan becomes an example of a future promise that can defer present rescue. The speaker names notebooks, historical deeds, and extracts laid aside for old age, then sharply denies that the anticipated reading will take place. These particulars make the admonition more pointed than an abstract complaint about distraction. The imperative toward the end or goal is joined to self-help while opportunity remains. The passage does not establish that the existing Meditations was already a completed book on this shelf, nor that study is intrinsically worthless. Its force lies in the contrast between the imagined later use of accumulated material and the present work that such imagining can postpone.
3.14.1 The rejection of deferred reading is compatible with the earlier demand to read precisely. Book 1.7 credits Rusticus with careful reading and access to notes. Here the reproach concerns an accumulated program placed in an imagined old age. Those descriptions identify different uses of written material; neither proves that study is universally dispensable. The name for the speaker’s notebooks does not by itself establish that the surviving work, in its present arrangement, is what he intended to reread. The uncertainty belongs to the referent, while the pressure against postponement is explicit.
3.15
Οὐκ ἴσασι, πόσα σημαίνει τὸ κλέπτειν, τὸ σπείρειν, τὸ ὠνεῖσθαι, τὸ ἡσυχάζειν, τὸ ὁρᾶν τὰ πρακτέα, ὃ οὐκ ὀφθαλμοῖς γίνεται ἀλλ’ ἑτέρᾳ τινὶ ὄψει.
They do not know how much is meant by stealing, sowing, buying, keeping quiet, seeing what must be done. This last is done not with the eyes but with another kind of sight.
Commentary
The compressed list culminates in a kind of practical seeing that is not assigned to the bodily eyes. The unexpressed people who do not know are confronted with five infinitive phrases. The text does not explain the relations among theft, sowing, purchase, quiet, and recognition of what should be done. The nearest phrase supplies the selected antecedent of the final relative, making the last item a turn from visible activity to practical discernment. This leaves the other items open instead of attaching an invented allegory to each. The fragment’s difficulty is part of its present form; a concise English list can preserve that difficulty without pretending to supply the missing lesson.
3.15.1 The five infinitives remain an unexplained sequence, while the last relative is attached to practical seeing. The selected English makes the nearest phrase the object of the statement about another kind of sight. This is a limited syntactic decision. It does not explain why theft, sowing, buying, and quiet stand before it, identify the unnamed people, or supply a lesson for each item. A wider reference of the relative to practical understanding remains possible, but treating the list as an established five-stage exercise would import an order and rationale absent from the source.
3.16
Σῶμα, ψυχή, νοῦς· σώματος αἰσθήσεις, ψυχῆς ὁρμαί, νοῦ δόγματα. τὸ μὲν τυποῦσθαι φανταστικῶς καὶ τῶν βοσκημάτων· τὸ δὲ νευροσπαστεῖσθαι ὁρμητικῶς καὶ τῶν θηρίων καὶ τῶν ἀνδρογύνων καὶ Φαλάριδος καὶ Νέρωνος· τὸ δὲ τὸν νοῦν ἡγεμόνα ἔχειν ἐπὶ τὰ φαινόμενα καθήκοντα καὶ τῶν θεοὺς μὴ νομιζόντων καὶ τῶν τὴν πατρίδα ἐγκαταλειπόντων καὶ τῶν ποιούντων, ἐπειδὰν κλείσωσι τὰς θύρας.
εἰ οὖν τὰ λοιπὰ κοινά ἐστι πρὸς τὰ εἰρημένα, λοιπὸν τὸ ἴδιόν ἐστι τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ φιλεῖν μὲν καὶ ἀσπάζεσθαι τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ συγκλωθόμενα αὐτῷ, τὸν δὲ ἔνδον ἐν τῷ στήθει ἱδρυμένον δαίμονα μὴ φύρειν μηδὲ θορυβεῖν ὄχλῳ φαντασιῶν, ἀλλὰ ἵλεων διατηρεῖν, κοσμίως ἑπόμενον θεῷ, μήτε φθεγγόμενόν τι παρὰ τὰ ἀληθῆ μήτε ἐνεργοῦντα παρὰ τὰ δίκαια. εἰ δὲ ἀπιστοῦσιν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄνθρωποι, ὅτι ἁπλῶς καὶ αἰδημόνως καὶ εὐθύμως βιοῖ, οὔτε χαλεπαίνει τινὶ τούτων οὔτε παρατρέπεται τῆς ὁδοῦ τῆς ἀγούσης ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος τοῦ βίου, ἐφ’ ὃ δεῖ ἐλθεῖν καθαρόν, ἡσύχιον, εὔλυτον, ἀβιάστως τῇ ἑαυτοῦ μοίρᾳ συνηρμοσμένον.
Body, soul, mind. Sensations belong to the body, impulses to the soul, doctrines to the mind. Even grazing animals receive the imprint of impressions. Even wild beasts, sexually passive men, Phalaris, and Nero are jerked about like puppets by impulses. Even those who do not acknowledge gods, those who abandon their country, and those who act once they have shut the doors have mind as their guide toward what appears to be their duty.
If, then, the other qualities are shared with those just mentioned, what remains distinctive of the good person is this: to love and welcome what happens and is spun together for him; not to soil the divine guardian established within his breast or disturb it with a crowd of impressions, but to keep it serene, following god in good order, saying nothing contrary to truth and doing nothing contrary to justice. Even if all human beings disbelieve that he lives simply, decently, and cheerfully, he is neither angry with any of them nor turned aside from the road that leads to life's end. He must reach that end pure, quiet, ready for release, and in unforced accord with his own allotted portion.
Commentary
The final comparison distinguishes possession of faculties from the character of the use made of them. The opening distributes sensations, impulses, and doctrines among body, soul, and mind. It then strips away claims to excellence based merely on impression, impulse, or even rational direction toward apparent duty: each is shared with examples the speaker treats as discreditable. The sexual insult and named rulers remain elements of this rhetorical comparison, not neutral classifications endorsed by the commentary. The second section asks what remains distinctive of the good person. It names welcome for the allotted share, preservation of the inner guardian from disordering impressions, following god, truthful speech, and just action. When others disbelieve the person’s good conduct, the response must not collapse into anger or abandonment of the path. The conclusion measures integrity under failed recognition. Its return to readiness for release and unforced agreement with one’s portion gathers several of the book’s exercises without making the initial three-part division a complete theory of every mental process.
3.16.1 The selected rendering names an ancient disparaging sexual-role category without substituting a modern identity. LSJ distinguishes a broader effeminacy sense from a sexual sense under this headword. The project selects the latter in the list of people described as moved by impulses; Haines likewise uses a term identifying sexual passivity, while Farquharson supplies a broader moralized paraphrase. The choice retains the speaker’s disparagement and its sexual content. It does not identify the men’s ages, legal position, profession, or present-day identity. The broader lexical sense remains possible, and the commentary does not adopt the list’s condemnation as its own classification of people.
3.16.1 Apparent duty prevents the presence of rational guidance from serving as sufficient evidence of goodness. The third comparison deliberately reaches mind itself, after impressions and impulses have failed to distinguish the good person. Its object is what appears to be duty. A person can therefore organize conduct under such an appearance without meeting the truth and justice demanded in the next section. The unnamed deeds behind closed doors remain unnamed; the text does not specify a religious group or a particular act. Those limits matter because the argument depends on the insufficiency of the faculty alone, not on reconstructing a hidden episode.