Not For You
Meditations is the private notes of a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, talking to himself. There is no plot, no twist and no ending to spoil, so this summary is safe for everyone. You get the twelve books in plain English, the five ideas he keeps coming back to, and some counts from the text. Every count is mine.
Which Edition
I read the Project Gutenberg text, ebook number two thousand, six hundred and eighty. It is the old English translation by Meric Casaubon, from sixteen thirty-four, so Marcus says thou and thee and thyself the whole way through. Gutenberg lists the release as June first, two thousand and one.
Around the twelve books, the ebook adds an introduction, an appendix of letters between Marcus and his teacher Fronto, notes and a glossary. The twelve books themselves run about fifty-seven thousand words by my count. They are cut into short numbered sections, more than four hundred of them. Some run a page. Some are a single line.
The notes admit one more thing worth knowing: Casaubonβs version is often a paraphrase, not a close translation.
The Man Behind It
The introduction fills in the writer. Marcus was born on April twenty-sixth, A.D. one hundred and twenty-one, and trained from boyhood in the Stoic philosophy. He was adopted by the emperor Antoninus Pius, and took the throne when Antoninus died in one sixty-one.
Then came trouble. War broke out on the northern frontier and in the east, and Rome itself had plague and famine. The introduction says Marcus commanded his armies in person, and that he dated the first book of his notes from camp. He died on March seventeenth, one eighty, in Pannonia, still on campaign.
The introduction also argues that he never expected anyone to read this. These are notes to ease his own mind, written in the gaps of a very busy life.
Book One
Book One is a thank-you list. Marcus goes person by person and writes what each gave him.
From his grandfather, gentleness and a way of holding back anger. From his mother, generosity and a plain, spare way of living. From his tutor Rusticus, the sense that his own character needed work, and a gift of his own copy of the notes of the philosopher Epictetus. From Apollonius, steadiness, whether in pain or after losing a child. From Claudius Maximus, command of himself and cheer in sickness.
Then comes a section I love. It is labelled as written in the country of the Quadi, and it is a morning script. Before the day starts, tell yourself you will meet a meddler, an ungrateful man, a liar, an envious one. They act that way because they do not know what is truly good or bad. And they are still your kin, because they share the same reason you do.
Idea One: Strip It Down
Now the ideas. Idea one: most of your trouble comes from the opinion you add to a fact.
Book Four, section seven, says take away the opinion, and nobody feels wronged. Book Eight gives the example. Someone speaks badly of you. That much is reported. That you are hurt is not reported, he says. That is the addition. Or: your child is sick. You can see that. You cannot see that he is in danger of dying. Do not add it.
Book Six has my favorite version. Look at a fine meal as the body of a fish or a bird. Look at famous wine as grape juice. Look at a purple robe as sheepβs wool dyed with shellfish blood. Pomp, he says, is a great juggler, and you are most at risk when you are most impressed.
Idea Two: Time Is Short
Idea two is that life is short, and it is all you ever hold.
Book Two, section twelve, says that if you lived three thousand years, or ten thousand, you would still lose only the moment you are living now. The longest life and the shortest lose exactly the same thing.
Book Three lists the famous dead. Hippocrates cured many people and then fell sick himself. Alexander and Pompey and Caesar wrecked cities and filled fields with bodies, and still died. Democritus was killed by lice. The point is not gloom. It is that nobody gets out, so use the day.
The last section of Book Twelve says it with a play. A manager dismisses an actor from the stage. You say, but only three acts are done. He answers that three acts is the whole play.
Idea Three: One Body
Idea three is that people belong together, and he treats it as a plain fact about reason.
Book Four, section four, goes step by step. Reason is shared by everyone. So the law that tells us what to do is shared. So we are fellow citizens, and the world is one city.
Book Eight pictures a hand or a foot cut off from the body. That is what you make of yourself, he says, when you resent what happens or act against others. But you can be joined back.
Book Seven adds a neat word trick. Call yourself a member of the body, not just a part, or you do not yet love people from the heart.
And Book Five starts with a famous morning scene. He does not want to get out of bed. So he reminds himself that ants and bees and spiders are all going about their work, and a person was made to work too.
Idea Four: The Obstacle Is the Material
Idea four is that whatever blocks you can be used.
Book Four opens with fire. A small flame can be put out by what lands on it, but a big fire turns whatever falls in into more fire. Your mind should do the same with what goes wrong.
Book Eight, section thirty, says nothing can stop you acting justly and calmly. If an outside thing hinders one action, you switch to another virtue, such as patience, and that becomes the action. A little later comes a line I like for its size. Is the cucumber bitter? Put it down. Are there brambles on the path? Walk around them. Do not ask why the world contains them.
Idea Five: Go Inside
Idea five is that you do not need to run away to rest.
Book Four, section three, notes that people long for country houses, beaches and mountains. But you can retire into your own soul at any time, and nowhere is quieter. His method is to keep a few short rules ready, call them to mind, and return to your work refreshed.
Book Eight calls a mind free of passion a fortress, and says nobody has a stronger one. And Book Six, section five, has a one-line answer to being wronged: the best revenge is not to become like them.
Counting the Words
Now the counts, taken across the twelve books only. Nature appears two hundred and fifty-nine times. Thyself appears one hundred and ninety-five. Reason, ninety-eight. Gods, sixty-nine. Death, sixty-five. Opinion, forty-four. The exact word virtue shows up just fourteen times, which surprised me for a Stoic book.
Here is my reading, and it is an opinion. Meditations is less a book of answers than a set of exercises. He repeats the same few moves, strip the fact, count the time, remember the others, because he needed to repeat them. That repetition is the point.
If this helped, subscribe, and tap like. And tell me in the comments which of the five ideas you needed today.
