meddling, ungrateful,
violent, treacherous, envious,
and unsociable
Okay I fudged the middle stanza with 8 syllables, I just love the way the words roll off your tongue.
Anyone feel left out?
Say to yourself at the start of the day, I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable people.
They are subject to all these defects because they have no knowledge of good and bad.
But I, who have observed the nature of the good, and seen that it is the right; and of the bad, and seen that it is the wrong;
and of the wrongdoer himself, and seen that his nature is akin to my own —
not because he is of the same blood and seed, but because he shares as I do in mind and thus in a portion of the divine —
I, then, can neither be harmed by these people, nor become angry with one who is akin to me, nor can I hate him, for we have come into being to work together, like feet, hands, eyelids, or the two rows of teeth in our upper and lower jaws.
To work against one another is therefore contrary to nature; and to be angry with another person and turn away from him is surely to work against him.
From Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Translated by Robin Hard with an Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, 2011.
From the Introduction:
MARCUS AURELIUS (AD 121–80) was born (as Marcus Annius Verus) into a distinguished Roman family; after his father died in his childhood, he was adopted first by his grandfather and then by his uncle, Aurelius Antoninus, who became emperor in 138. Marcus married Antoninus’ daughter, Faustina, in 145 and they had several children, including Commodus, his first and only surviving son, who succeeded Marcus as emperor. On the death of Antoninus in 161, Marcus became emperor, along with Lucius Verus, who had also been adopted by Antoninus. They ruled together until Lucius’ death from illness in 169. Marcus’ period as emperor was dominated by confronting serious external threats to the boundaries and stability of the empire, especially from the Parthians in the east and the Germans in the north. Much of the period 168–80 was spent by Marcus in the Danube region, campaigning against the Germans, mostly successfully. In 175 there was a short and unsuccessful rebellion against him by Avidius Cassius. He died from illness in 180.
Marcus had the normal Roman aristocratic education in oratory and literature; his teachers included Fronto, and an extensive correspondence between them survives. But he was attracted from an early age to philosophy; the Stoic teachings of Epictetus were a special influence. The Meditations, probably written in his later years, served as a philosophical notebook in which he set down short reflections, based on Stoic ethics, summarizing the principles on which he based his life.
No Haiku For You 