noticeable features of Marcus’s prose—namely, his tendency
to string together pairs of near-synonymous words and
phrases, as if uncertain whether he has hit the target the first
time. When combined with the very abstract vocabulary
natural in philosophical prose, this can make for difficult
reading, especially in English, which privileges concision
and concrete vocabulary to a greater degree than Greek. At
its best, however, Marcus’s writing can be extraordinarily
effective, most of all when it strikes a balance between
image and idea, as in the opening of 5.23:
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and
those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant
flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s
right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose
depths we cannot see.This particular topic—the transience of human life, the
constant change that shapes and informs the world—is a
recurrent theme in the Meditations, and as we shall see, it is
one whose treatment owes as much to literary as to
philosophical models, and as much to Marcus’s own
character as to Stoic doctrine.
Recurring Themes