Book Twelve

1 All those things you pray to reach by a roundabout road, you can have now, if you do not grudge them to yourself. That is, if you leave all the past behind, and entrust the future to providence, and direct the present alone toward holiness and justice. Toward holiness, so that you love what is allotted to you; for nature brought it to you, and you to it. Toward justice, so that you speak the truth freely and without evasion, and do what accords with law and with the worth of things. And let nothing hinder you, neither another’s wickedness, nor opinion, nor talk, nor even the sensations of the poor flesh that has grown around you; let the part that suffers see to that. If, then, whenever you come near your departure, you leave everything else behind and honor only your ruling center and the divine within you, and are afraid not of ceasing to live some day but of never beginning to live according to nature, you will be a man worthy of the universe that begot you, and you will cease to be a stranger in your own country, wondering at what happens every day as if it were unexpected, and hanging on this thing and that.

2 God sees all ruling centers stripped of their material vessels and husks and impurities. For with his own thinking part alone he touches only what has flowed and been drawn off from himself into them. If you too get into the habit of doing this, you will rid yourself of much distraction. For the man who does not look at the poor flesh that surrounds him will surely not waste his time gazing at clothes and house and fame and all such trappings and stage scenery.

3 There are three things of which you are composed: a poor body, a little breath, a mind. Of these the first two are yours in so far as you must take care of them; the third alone is properly yours. If you separate from yourself, that is, from your mind, all that others do or say, and all that you yourself have done or said, and all that troubles you as something to come, and all that belongs to the body that surrounds you or to the breath that has grown with it, without your choosing, and all that the whirl of outside things sweeps around, so that the power of the mind, set free from fate, may live pure and released by itself, doing what is just, willing what happens, and saying what is true; if, I say, you separate from this ruling center the things that cling to it from the passions, and the things of time to come or time past, and make yourself, in Empedocles’ words, “a sphere, round, rejoicing in its circular solitude,”¹ and practice living only the life you are living, that is, the present; then you can live the time that remains until death undisturbed, kindly, and at peace with your own spirit.

4 I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all others, yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. If a god stood beside a man, or a wise teacher, and told him to think and plan nothing within himself that he would not speak aloud as soon as he thought it, he would not bear it for a single day. So much more do we respect what our neighbors will think of us than what we think of ourselves.

5 How is it that the gods, who have ordered all things well and with love for mankind, have overlooked this one thing: that some men, and very good ones, who have had as it were the closest dealings with the divine and been most intimate with it through holy acts and sacred rites, once they have died, do not come into being again, but are extinguished altogether? If this is indeed so, be sure that if it ought to have been otherwise, the gods would have made it so. For if it were just, it would also be possible; and if it were according to nature, nature would have brought it about. From its not being so, then, if it is not so, be assured that it ought not to have been so. For you see for yourself that in asking this question you are pleading your case with god; and we would not be arguing like this with the gods if they were not most good and most just. And if so, they would not have let anything in the ordering of the universe be neglected unjustly and unreasonably.

6 Practice even what you despair of mastering. For the left hand, which is idle for other tasks for lack of practice, holds the reins more firmly than the right; for it is practiced in this.

7 In what state, body and soul, should death find us? The shortness of life; the yawning gulf of time behind and before; the frailty of all matter.

8 To look at the causes stripped of their husks; at the references of actions; at what pain is, what pleasure, what death, what fame; who is to blame for his own lack of leisure; how no one is hindered by another; that everything is judgment.

9 In using your principles you must be like the all-in fighter, not the gladiator. The gladiator puts down the sword he uses and picks it up again; the other always has his hand, and needs only to make a fist.

10 See things as they are, dividing them into matter, cause, reference.

11 What power man has: to do nothing but what god will praise, and to accept all that god assigns him. What follows from nature.

12 We must not blame the gods, for they do no wrong, willingly or unwillingly; nor men, for they do none except unwillingly. So we must blame no one.

13 How absurd and how much a stranger is the man who is surprised at anything that happens in life!

14 Either the necessity of fate and an order not to be transgressed, or a providence that can be appeased, or a confusion of chance without a ruler. If an order that cannot be transgressed, why do you resist? If a providence that allows itself to be appeased, make yourself worthy of help from the divine. If a confusion without a guide, be glad that in such a flood you have in yourself a ruling mind; and if the flood carries you away, let it carry off the poor flesh, the little breath, the rest; it will not carry off the mind.

15 Or does the light of a lamp shine until it is put out and not lose its brightness, while the truth and justice and self-control in you will be put out before you are?

16 When someone gives you the impression that he has done wrong: How do I know that this is wrong? And if he has done wrong, that he has condemned himself, and so this is like tearing at his own face. That the man who does not want the bad man to do wrong is like one who does not want the fig tree to have juice in its figs, or babies to cry, or the horse to neigh, or whatever else is inevitable. What else can he do, with such a disposition? If you are so sharp, then, cure it.

17 If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it. For let your impulse be ⟨…⟩²

18 Always look at the whole, at what exactly this thing is that is making the impression on you, and unfold it by dividing it into cause, matter, reference, and the time within which it must come to an end.

19 Realize at last that you have in yourself something better and more divine than the things that cause the passions and, in a word, jerk you about like a puppet. What is my mind now? Fear? Suspicion? Desire? Something else of the kind?

20 First, nothing at random or without reference. Second, refer your actions to nothing but the social end.

21 That in a little while you will be no one, nowhere, and none of the things you now see, nor any of those now living. For all things are made by nature to change and turn and perish, so that others may come into being in their turn.

22 That everything is judgment, and judgment is in your power. Take away your judgment, then, when you like, and, as for a sailor who has rounded the headland, there is calm, all still, and a bay without waves.

23 Any single activity whatever that ceases at the proper time suffers nothing bad by having ceased; nor has the one who did it suffered anything bad by this very fact, that it has ceased. In the same way, then, the sum of all our actions, which is life, if it ceases at the proper time, suffers nothing bad by this very fact, that it has ceased; nor is the one who brought this series to an end at the proper time badly off. The proper time and the limit are set by nature, sometimes by our own nature, as in old age, but in any case by the nature of the whole, through the change of whose parts the whole universe stays always young and in its prime. And whatever benefits the whole is always beautiful and in season. The ending of life, then, is not bad for each of us, since it is not shameful, being outside our choice and not unsocial; and it is good, since it is timely for the whole, and benefits it, and is carried along with it. For so too a man is carried by god, when he is carried along the same road as god, and toward the same things in his judgment.³

24 You must have these three thoughts ready. First, in what you do, whether it is done neither at random nor otherwise than Justice herself would have done it; and as for what happens from outside, that it happens either by chance or by providence; and we must neither blame chance nor accuse providence. Second, what each thing is like from seed to the coming of soul, and from the coming of soul to the giving back of soul, and of what things it is compounded and into what it is dissolved. Third, that if you were suddenly lifted up into the air and looked down on human affairs and all their variety, you would despise them, seeing at the same time how great is the space all around inhabited by the beings of the air and the upper air; and that however often you were lifted up, you would see the same things: the sameness, the shortness of life. And this is what we are proud of!

25 Throw out your judgment, and you are saved. Who, then, prevents you from throwing it out?

26 When you are vexed at anything, you have forgotten this: that all things happen according to the nature of the whole; and this, that the wrong done is another’s; and further this, that everything that happens has always happened so, and will happen so, and is happening so now everywhere; and this, how close is the kinship of each man with the whole human race, a fellowship not of blood or seed but of mind. You have forgotten, too, that each man’s mind is god and has flowed from there; that nothing is anyone’s own, but even our child, our body, and our very soul have come from there; that everything is judgment; that each of us lives only the present, and loses only that.

27 Constantly call to mind those who were angry beyond measure at something, those who reached the height of fame, or of misfortune, or of hatred, or of any fortune whatever. Then stop and think: Where is all that now? Smoke and ashes and a story, or not even a story. And let every instance of this kind come to mind too: Fabius Catullinus in the country, Lusius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius on Capri, Velius Rufus,⁴ and, in short, any eagerness about anything joined with conceit. And how cheap is all that straining, and how much more like a philosopher it is, in the material given you, to show yourself just, self-controlled, and a follower of the gods, and to do so simply. For the pride that is proud of having no pride is the hardest to bear of all.

28 To those who ask, “Where have you seen the gods, or how have you made sure that they exist, that you worship them so?”: First, they are visible even to the eye.⁵ Second, I have not seen my own soul either, and yet I honor it. So too with the gods: from what I experience of their power in each case, from that I know that they exist, and I revere them.

29 The salvation of life is to see each thing whole, what it is in itself, what its matter is, what its cause; to do what is just with your whole soul, and to speak the truth. What remains but to enjoy life, joining one good deed to another so as to leave not even the smallest gap between them?

30 There is one light of the sun, even though it is broken up by walls, mountains, countless other things. There is one common substance, even though it is broken up into countless bodies, each with its own quality. There is one soul, even though it is broken up among countless natures with their own limits. There is one thinking soul, even though it seems to be divided. The other parts of the things I have named, such as breaths and material objects, are without sensation and have no kinship with one another; and yet they too are held together by what unifies and by the weight that draws them to the same place. But mind reaches out in its own way to what is of its own kind and joins with it, and the feeling of fellowship is not cut off.

31 What do you want? To go on breathing? Or to feel? To have impulses? To grow? To stop growing again? To use your voice? To think? Which of these seems to you worth longing for? But if each of them is easy to despise, go on to the last: to follow reason and god. But it conflicts with this to value those things, and to be grieved if death is going to deprive you of them.

32 How small a part of infinite and yawning time has been portioned out to each of us; for it vanishes very soon into eternity. How small a part of the whole of substance; how small a part of the whole of soul; on how small a clod of the whole earth you crawl. Considering all this, imagine nothing to be great but this: to act as your own nature leads, and to suffer what the common nature brings.

33 How does the ruling center use itself? For everything lies in this. The rest, whether it is within your will or outside it, is dead bodies and smoke.

34 What most rouses us to despise death is that even those who judged pleasure good and pain bad nevertheless despised it.⁶

35 For the man to whom only what is timely is good, to whom it is all one whether he performs more actions in accord with right reason or fewer, to whom it makes no difference whether he looks on the universe for a longer time or a shorter, for him death too is nothing to fear.

36 Man, you have been a citizen in this great city. What difference does it make to you whether for five years or for three? What is according to the laws is equal for all. What is there to fear, then, if it is not a tyrant or an unjust judge who sends you out of the city, but nature, who brought you in? It is as if the magistrate who engaged a comic actor were to dismiss him from the stage.⁷—But I have not spoken my five acts, only three.—You are right; but in life three acts are the whole play. For it is he who decides when it is complete who was once the cause of the composition and is now the cause of the dissolution; you are the cause of neither. Go, then, at peace; for he who releases you is at peace.

Notes

1. 1. Empedocles, fragments 27–28, describing the perfect sphere the universe becomes when Love has united all things.

2. 2. The text breaks off here. Some editors supply “in your own power.”

3. 3. The Greek plays on pherein, “to carry”: “benefits” (sympheron), “carried along with” (sympheromenon), and “carried by god” (theophorētos), a word that usually means “possessed by a god.”

4. 4. Apart from the emperor Tiberius, who spent his last years shut away on Capri, these men cannot be identified with certainty; they were apparently Romans known for retirement or luxury. Baiae was a luxurious resort on the Bay of Naples.

5. 5. The sun and the stars, which the Stoics held to be gods.

6. 6. The Epicureans.

7. 7. At Rome games and plays were put on by magistrates; Marcus’s Greek calls him a stratēgos, the Greek word for a praetor.