Marcus Aurelius (Haines 1916)/Book 11

by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Layout 2

BOOK XI

1. The properties of the Rational Soul are these: it sees itself, dissects itself, moulds itself to its own will,^[1] itself reaps its own fruits^[2]—whereas the fruits of the vegetable kingdom and the corresponding produce of animals are reaped by others,—it wins to its own goal wherever the bounds of life be set. In dancing and acting and such-like arts, if any break oceurs, the whole action is rendered imperfect; but the rational soul in every part and wheresoever taken^[3] shews the work set before it fulfilled and all-sufficient for itself, so that it can say: I have to the full what is my own.

More than this, it goeth about the whole Universe and the void surrounding it and traces its plan, and stretches forth into the infinitude of Time, and comprehends the cyclical Regeneration^[4] of all things, and takes stock of it, and discerns that our children will see nothing fresh,^[5] just as our fathers too never saw anything more than we.^[6] So that in a manner the man of forty years, if he have a grain of sense, in view of this sameness has seen all that has been and shall be. Again a property of the Rational Soul is the love of our neighbour, and truthfulness, and modesty, and to prize nothing above itself^[7]—a characteristic also of Law. In this way then the Reason that is right reason and the Reason that is justice are one.

2. Thou wilt think but meanly of charming songs and dances and the pancratium,^[8] if thou analyze the melodious utterance into its several notes and in the case of each ask thyself: Has this the mastery over me? For thou wilt recoil from such a confession.^[9] So too with the dance, if thou do the like for each movement and posture. The same holds good of the pancratium. In fine, virtue and its sphere of action excepted, remember to turn to the component parts,^[10] and by analyzing them come to despise them. Bring the same practice to bear on the whole of life also.

3. What a soul is that which is ready to be released from the body at any requisite moment, and be quenched^[11] or dissipated or hold together! But the readiness must spring from a man's inner judgment, and not be the result of mere opposition [as is the case with the Christians].^[12] It must be associated with deliberation and dignity and, if others too are to be convinced, with nothing like stage-heroics.

4. Have I done some social act? Well, I am amply rewarded.^[13] Keep this truth ever ready to turn to, and in no wise slacken thine efforts.

5. What is thy vocation? To be a good man. But how be successful in this save by assured conceptions on the one hand of the Universal Nature and on the other of the special constitution of man?

6. Originally tragedies were brought on to remind us of real events, and that such things naturally occur, and that on life's greater stage you must not be vexed at things, which on the stage you find so attractive. For it is seen that these things must be gone through, and they too have to endure them, who cry Ah, Kithaeron!^[14] Aye, and the dramatic writers contain some serviceable sayings. For example this more especially:

Though both my sons and me the gods have spurned,
For this too there is reason;^[15]

and again:

It nought availeth to be wroth with things;^[16]

and this:

Our lives are reaped like the ripe ears of corn;^[17]

and how many more like them.

And after Tragedy the old Comedy was put on the stage, exercising an educative freedom of speech, and by its very directness of utterance giving us no unserviceable warning against unbridled arrogance. In somewhat similar vein Diogenes^[18] also took up this role. After this, consider for what purpose the Middle Comedy was introduced, and subsequently the New, which little by little degenerated into ingenious mimicry. For that some serviceable things are said even by the writers of these is recognized by all. But what end in view had this whole enterprize of such poetical and dramatic composition?^[19]

7. How clearly is it borne in on thee that there is no other state of life so fitted to call for the exercise of Philosophy as this in which thou now findest thyself.^[20]

8. A branch cut off from its neighbour branch^[21] cannot but be cut off from the whole plant. In the very same way a man severed from one man has fallen away from the fellowship of all men. Now a branch is cut off by others, but a man separates himself^[22] from his neighbour by his own agency in hating him or turning his back upon him; and is unaware that he has thereby sundered himself from the whole civic community.^[23] But mark the gift of Zeus who established the law of fellowship. For it is in our power to grow again to the neighbour branch, and again become perfective of the whole. But such a schism constantly repeated makes it difficult for the seceding part to unite again and resume its former condition. And in general the branch that from the first has shared in the growth of the tree and lived with its life is not like that which has been cut off and afterwards grafted on to it, as the gardeners are apt to tell you. Be of one bush, but not of one mind.

9. As those who withstand thy progress along the path of right reason will never be able to turn thee aside from sound action, so let them not wrest thee from a kindly attitude towards them^[24]; but keep a watch over thyself in both directions alike, not only in steadfastness^[25] of judgment and action but also in gentleness towards those who endeavour to stand in thy path or be in some other way a thorn in thy side. For in fact it is a sign of weakness to be wroth with them, no less than to shrink from action and be terrified into surrender. For they that do the one or the other are alike deserters of their post,^[26] the one as a coward, the other as estranged from a natural kinsman and friend.

10. 'Nature in no case cometh short of art.' For indeed the arts are copiers of various natures. If this be so, the most consummate and comprehensive Nature of all cannot be outdone by the inventive skill of art. And in every art the lower things are done for the sake of the higher^[27]; and this must hold good of the Universal Nature also. Aye and thence is the origin of Justice, and in justice all the other virtues have their root,^[28] since justice will not be maintained if we either put a value on things indifferent, or are easily duped and prone to slip and prone to change.

11. If therefore the things, the following after and eschewing of which disturb thee, come not to thee, but thou in a manner dost thyself seek them out, at all events keep thy judgment at rest about them and they will remain quiescent, and thou shalt not be seen following after or eschewing them.

12. The soul is 'a sphere truly shaped,'^[29] when it neither projects itself towards anything outside nor shrinks together inwardly, neither expands nor contracts,^[30] but irradiates a light whereby it sees the reality of all things and the reality that is in itself.

13. What if a man think scorn of me? That will be his affair. But it will be mine not to be found doing or saying anything worthy of scorn. But what if he hate me? That will be his affair.^[31] But I will be kindly and goodnatured to everyone, and ready to shew even my enemy where he has seen amiss, not by way of rebuke^[32] nor with a parade of forbearance, but genuinely and chivalrously like the famous Phocion,^[33] unless indeed he was speaking ironically. For such should be the inner springs of a man's heart^[34] that the Gods see him not wrathfully disposed at any thing or counting it a hardship. What evil can happen to thee if thou thyself now doest what is congenial to thy nature, and welcomest what the Universal Nature now deems well-timed, thou who art a man intensely eager that what is for the common interest should by one means or another be brought about?

14. Thinking scorn of one another, they yet fawn on one another, and eager to outdo their rivals they grovel one to another.

15. How rotten at the core is he, how counterfeit, who proclaims aloud: I have elected to deal straightforwardly with thee! Man, what art thou at? There is no need to give this out. The fact will instantly declare itself. It ought to be written on the forehead. There is a ring in the voice that betrays it at once, it flashes out at once from the eyes, just as the loved one can read at a glance every secret in his lover's looks. The simple and good man should in fact be like a man who has a strong smell about him, so that, as soon as ever he comes near, his neighbour is, will-he nill-he, aware of it. A calculated simplicity is a stiletto.^[35] There is nothing more hateful than the friendship of the wolf for the lamb. Eschew that above all things. The good man, the kindly, the genuine, betrays these characteristics in his eyes and there is no hiding it.^[36]

16. Vested in the soul is the power of living ever the noblest of lives, let a man but be indifferent towards things indifferent. And he will be indifferent, if he examine every one of these things both in its component parts^[37] and as a whole, and bear in mind that none of them is the cause in us of any opinion about itself, nor obtrudes itself on us. They remain quiescent,^[38] and it is we who father these judgments about them and as it were inscribe them on our minds, though it lies with us not to inscribe them and, if they chance to steal in undetected, to erase them at once.^[39] Bear in mind too that we shall have but a little while to attend to such things and presently life will be at an end. But why complain of the perversity of things? If they are as Nature wills, delight in them and let them be no hardship to thee. If they contravene Nature, seek then what is in accord with thy nature and speed towards that, even though it be unpopular.^[40] For it is pardonable for every man to seek his own good.

17. Think whence each thing has come, of what it is built up,^[41] into what it changes, what it will be when changed; and that it cannot take any harm.

18. Firstly: Consider thy relation^[42] to mankind and that we came into the world for the sake of one another^[43]; and taking another point of view, that I have come into it to be set over men, as a ram over a flock or a bull over a herd.^[44] Start at the beginning from this premiss: If not atoms,^[45] then an all-controlling Nature. If the latter, then the lower are for the sake of the higher and the higher for one another.^[46]

Secondly: What sort of men they are at board and in bed and elsewhere.^[47] Above all how they are the self-made slaves of their principles, and how they pride themselves on the very acts in question.

Thirdly: That if they are acting rightly in this, there is no call for us to be angry. If not rightly, it is obviously against their will and through ignorance.^[48] For it is against his will that every soul is deprived, as of truth, so too of the power of dealing with each man as is his due. At any rate, such men resent being called unjust, unfeeling, avaricious, and in a word doers of wrong to their neighbours.

Fourthly: That thou too doest many a wrong thing thyself and art much as others are,^[49] and if thou dost refrain from certain wrong-doings, yet hast thou a disposition inclinable thereto^[50] even supposing that through cowardice or a regard for thy good name or some such base consideration thou dost not actually commit them.

Fifthly: That thou hast not even proved that they are doing wrong, for many things are done even 'by way of policy.'^[51] Speaking generally a man must know many things before he can pronounce an adequate opinion on the acts of another.

Sixthly: When thou art above measure angry or even out of patience, bethink thee that man's life is momentary, and in a little while we shall all have been laid out.^[52]

Seventhly: That in reality it is not the acts men do that vex us—for they belong to the domain of their ruling Reason—but the opinions we form of those acts.^[53] Eradicate these, be ready to discard thy conclusion that the act in question is a calamity, and thine anger is at an end.^[54] How then eradicate these opinions? By realizing that no act of another debases us. For unless that alone which debases is an evil, thou too must perforce do many a wrong thing and become a brigand^[55] or any sort of man.

Eighthly: Bethink thee how much more grievous are the consequences of our anger and vexation at such actions than are the acts themselves which arouse that anger and vexation.

Ninthly: That kindness is irresistible,^[56] be it but sincere and no mock smile or a mask assumed. For what can the most unconscionable of men do to thee, if thou persist in being kindly to him, and when a chance is given exhort him mildly and, at the very time when he is trying to do thee harm, quietly teach him a better way^[57] thus: Nay, my child, we have been made for other things. I shall be in no wise harmed, but thou art harming thyself,^[58] my child. Shew him delicately and without any personal reference that this is so, and that even honey-bees do not act thus nor any creatures of gregarious instincts. But thou must do this not in irony^[59] or by way of rebuke, but with kindly affection and without any bitterness at heart, not as from a master's chair, nor yet to impress the bystanders, but as if he were indeed alone even though others are present.

Bethink thee then of these nine heads, taking them as a gift from the Muses, and begin at last to be a man while life is thine. But beware of flattering^[60] men no less than being angry with them.^[61] For both these are non-social and conducive of harm. In temptations to anger a precept ready to thy hand is this to be wroth is not manly, but a mild and gentle disposition, as it is more human, so it is more inasculine. Such a man, and not he who gives way to anger and discontent, is endowed with strength and sinews and manly courage. For the nearer such a mind attains to a passive calm,^[62] the nearer is the man to strength. As grief is a weakness, so also is anger. In both it is a case of a wound and a surrender.

But take if thou wilt as a tenth gift from Apollo, the Leader of the Muses, this, that to expect the bad not to do wrong is worthy of a madman; for that is to wish for impossibilities.^[63] But to acquiesce in their wronging others, while expecting them to refrain from wronging thee, is unfeeling and despotic.^[64]

19. Against four perversions of the ruling Reason thou shouldest above all keep unceasing watch, and, once detected, wholly abjure them,^[65] saying in each case to thyself: This thought is not necessary;^[66] this is destructive of human fellowship; this could be no genuine utterance from the heart.—And not to speak from the heart, what is it but a contradiction in terms?—The fourth case is that of self-reproach,^[67] for that is an admission that the divine part of thee has been worsted by and acknowledges its inferiority to the body, the baser and mortal partner, and to its gross notions.

20. Thy soul and all the fiery part that is blended with thee, though by Nature ascensive, yet in submission to the system of the Universe are held fast here in thy compound personality. And the entire earthy part too in thee and the humid, although naturally descensive, are yet upraised and take up a station not their natural one. Thus indeed, we find the elements also in subjection to the Whole and, when set anywhere, remaining there under constraint until the signal sound for their release again therefrom.

Is it not then a paradox that the intelligent part alone of thee should be rebellious and quarrel with its station? Yet is no constraint laid upon it but only so much as is in accordance with its nature. Howbeit it does not comply and takes a contrary course. For every motion towards acts of injustice and licentiousness, towards anger and grief and fear, but betokens one who cuts himself adrift from Nature. Aye and when the ruling Reason in a man is vexed at anything that befalls, at that very moment it deserts its station.^[68] For it was not made for justice alone, but also for piety^[69] and the service of God. And in fact the latter are included under the idea of a true fellowship, and indeed are prior to the practice of justice.^[70]

21. He who has not ever in view one and the same goal of life cannot be throughout his life one and the same.^[71] Nor does that which is stated suffice, there needs to be added what that goal should be. For just as opinion as to all the things that in one way or another are held by the mass of men to be good is not uniform, but only as to certain things, such, that is, as affect the common weal, so must we set before ourselves as our goal the common and civic weal. For he who directs all his individual impulses towards this goal will render his actions homogeneous and thereby be ever consistent with himself.^[72]

22. Do not forget the story of the town mouse and the country mouse, and the excitement and trepidation of the latter.^[73]

23. Socrates used to nickname the opinions of the multitude Ghouls,^[74] bogies to terrify children.

24. The Spartans at their spectacles assigned to strangers seats in the shade, but themselves took their chance of seats anywhere.

25. Socrates refused the invitation of Perdiccas^[75] to his court, That I come not, said he, to a dishonoured grave, meaning, that I be not treated with generosity and have no power to return it.^[76]

26. In the writings of the Ephesians^[77] was laid down the advice to have constantly in remembrance some one of the ancients who lived virtuously.

27. Look, said the Pythagoreans, at the sky in the morning, that we may have in remembrance those hosts of heaven that ever follow the same course and accomplish their work in the same way, and their orderly system, and their purity, and their nakedness; for there is no veil before a star.

28. Think of Socrates with the sheepskin wrapped round him, when Xanthippe had gone off with his coat, and what he said to his friends when they drew back in their embarrassment at seeing him thus accoutred.

29. In reading and writing thou must learn first to follow instruction before thou canst give it. Much more is this true of life.

30. 'Tis not for thee, a slave, to reason why.^[78]

31. . . . . and within me my heart laughed.^[79]

32. Virtue they will upbraid and speak harsh words in her hearing.^[80]

33. Only a madman will look for figs in winter. No better is he who looks for a child when he may no longer have one.^[81]

34. A man while fondly kissing his child, says Epictetus, should whisper in his heart^[82]: 'To-morrow peradventure thou wilt die.' Ill-omened words these! Nay, said he, nothing is ill-omened that signifies a natural process. Or it is ill-omened also to talk of ears of corn being reaped.

35. The grape unripe, mellow, dried-in every stage we have a change, not into non-existence, but into the not now existent.^[83]

36. Hear Epictetus: no one can rob us of our free choice.^[84]

37. We must, says he,^[85] hit upon the true science of assent and in the sphere of our impulses pay good heed that they be subject to proper reservations,^[86] that they have in view our neighbour's welfare; that they are proportionate to worth. And we must abstain wholly from inordinate desire and shew avoidance in none of the things that are not in our control.

38. It is no casual matter, then, said he, that is at stake, but whether we are to be sane or no.^[87]

39. Socrates was wont to say:^[88] What would ye have? The souls of reasoning or unreasoning creatures? Of reasoning creatures. Of what kind of reasoning creatures? Sound or vicious? Sound. Why then not make a shift to get them? Because we have them already. Why then fight and wrangle?

Footnotes

1. i. 8; viii. 35. cp. Epict. i. 17, § 1.
2. cp. Epict. i. 19, § 11: γέγονε τὸ ζῷον ὥστε αὑτοῦ ἕνεκα πάντα ποιεῖν.
3. xii. 36.
4. v. 13, 32; x. 7, § 2.
5. vi. 37; vii. 1 etc.
6. cp. Lucr. ii. 978: eadem sunt omnia semper; Florio's Montaigne, i. 19: "If you have lived one day you have seene all."
7. St. Mark viii. 36.
8. A rather brutal combination of boxing and wrestling.
9. viii. 36.
10. iii. 11.
11. v. 33; vii. 32.
12. See p. 382.
13. vii. 13, 73; ix. 42, § 5; cp. Prov. xi. 17: τῇ ψυχῇ αὐτοῦ ἀγαθὸν ποιεῖ ἀνὴρ ἐλεήμων.
14. Soph. Oed. Rex 1391; Epict. i. 24, § 16. Perhaps Marcus had in mind the lines of Timocles (Athen. vi. 2) πρὸς ἀλλοτρίφ τε ψυχαγωγηθείς πάθει Μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς ἀπῆλθε παιδευθείς ἅμα.
15. Eur. Antiope Frag. 207; vii. 41.
16. Eur. Beller. Frag. 289; vii. 38.
17. Eur. Hyps. Frag. 757; vii. 40.
18. Diog. Laert. Diog. 7.
19. Lucian, de Salt. 35, says of the Art of Dancing (Pantomime) that it requires the acme of culture and even of philosophy!
20. cp. Lucan i. 493: "exeat aula qui vult esse pius"; Montaigne iii. 9 (Florio's version): "Plato saith that who escapes untainted and clean-handed from the managing of the world escapeth by some wonder." See also above viii. 1.
21. St. Paul, Rom. xi. 19.
22. iv. 29; viii. 34.
23. ix. 23.
24. x. 36, § 2 etc.
25. v. 18.
26. x. 25.
27. v. 16, 30; vii. 55.
28. iv. 37; ν. 34. cp. Theognis, 147: ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσ᾽ ἀρετή 'στιν.
29. viii. 41; xii. 3.
30. viii. 51.
31. v. 25; Epict. iii. 18, §9; x. 32.
32. xi. 18, § 9.
33. Marcus is probably thinking of Phocion's last words, see Aelian xii. 49 μηδὲν 'Αθηναίοις μνησικακήσειν ὑπὲρ τῆς παρ' αὐτῶν φιλοτησίας ἧς νῦν πίνω (sc. the cup of hemlock); but Heylbut (Rhein. Mus. 39. p. 310) refers to a story in Musonius Rufus, p. 55, Hense.
34. cp. St. Luke xi. 39: τὸ ἔσωθεν ὑμῶν—"the inward parts."
35. The word is Thracian for a native sword (Pollux x. 38), as we might say a kukri. Here any concealed weapon to stab the unsuspecting.
36. cp. Ecclesiasticus xix. 29: "A man shall be known by his look."
37. iii. 11; xii. 18.
38. xi. 11.
39. viii. 47.
40. v. 3; vi. 2.
41. iii. 11.
42. v. 16, 30; viii. 27.
43. viii. 56, 59.
44. Dio Chrys. Orat. ii. de Regno, 97 R, ὁ δὲ ταῦρος σαφῶς πρὸς βασιλέως εἰκόνα πεποίηται. Εpict. i. 2, § 30.
45. iv. 3, § 2; viii. 17; ix. 39; x. 6.
46. ii. 1; v. 16.
47. viii. 14; x. 19.
48. ii. 1; iv. 3; vii. 22, 63.
49. vii. 70; x. 30.
50. i. 17 ad init.
51. Or, "with an eye to circumstances," "with some further end in view," knowledge of which would justify the action or shew its necessity.
52. ix. 38.
53. vii. 16; viii. 40; ix. 13; xi. 11, 16.
54. vii. 16.
55. x. 10.
56. Sen. de Ben. vii. 31: vincit malos pertinax bonitas.
57. v. 28; vi. 27; viii. 59; x. 4; xi. 13.
58. ix. 4.
59. xi. 13.
60. cp. Dio 71. 3, § 4.
61. iv. 31.
62. The Stoic ἀπάθεια.
63. v. 17; vii. 71; ix. 42.
64. vi. 27; Sen. de Ira ii. 31. ἄγνωμον might also be translated senseless.
65. xi. 16.
66. iv. 24.
67. v. 36; viii. 10. cp. Fronto, ad Caes. iv. 13, where Marcus reproaches himself when 19 years old for backwardness in philosophy.
68. xi. 9.
69. xii. 2. ὁσιότης = δικαιοσύνη προς θεούς, see Stob. Ecl. ii. 104.
70. But cp. xi. 10.
71. cp. Dio 71. 34, § 5: ὅμοιος διὰ πάντων ἐγένετο καὶ ἐν οὐδένι ἠλλοιώθη: Aristides ad Reg. § 113 (Jebb), says he was ὁ αὐτὸς διὰ τέλους.
72. i. 8.
73. Aesop, Fab. 297; Hor. Sat. ii. 6 ff.
74. Lamiae, or "vampires," "fabulous monsters said to feed on human flesh," Hor. A. P. 540; Apul. Met. i. 57. cp. Epict. ii. 1, § 14: ταῦτα Σωκράτης μορμολυκεῖα ἐκάλει: Philostr. Vit. Apoll. iv. 25, whence Keats took his Lamia.
75. According to Diog. Laert. Socr. 9; Sen. de Ben. v. 6, § 2; Arist. Rhet. Α. 23, this was Archelaus, son of Perdiccas.
76. cp. Fronto, ad Appianum, Nab. p. 251.
77. Sen. Ep. 11, attributes the precept to the Epicureans: aliquis vir bonus nobis eligendus est ac semper ante oculos habendus ut sic tanquam illo spectante ricamus et omnia illo vidente fariamus. Hoc Epicurus praecepit. See, however, Plut. Symp. vii. 5 ad fin.
78. It is not clear whether λόγος here means speech or reason or both. The citation, of which the author is not known, has no obvious application; still less has the following quotation from Homer.
79. Hom. Od. ix. 413.
80. Hes. Op. 185, where the reading is ἄρα τοῖς for ἀρετήν.
81. Epict. iii. 24, § 87 quoted, not verbatim.
82. ibid. iii. 24, § 88.
83. Epict. iii. 24, § 91.
84. ibid. iii. 22, § 105.
85. i.e. Epictetus. cp. iii. 22, § 105, and Manual, ii. 2.
86. iv. 1; v. 20; vi. 50; i.e. not unconditionally, but subject to modification by circumstances.
87. Epict. i. 22, §§ 17–21; Hor. Sat. ii. 3. 43.
88. Only found here.