In whole or in part, it is included in many anthologies, reading lists, and syllabi.
Many students, however, encounter a significant but unnecessary obstacle to this text: its translation.
In the early twenty-first century, many anthologies, being reprints or slightly revised editions of textbooks published in the twentieth century, offer the Meditations, or excerpts of it, in translations which were done in the nineteenth century — and many of those translations deliberately affected an English prose style which was even older. Imagine an eighteen-year-old in the year 2025 pausing his video game long enough to look at this:
This also thou must consider, that many things there be, which oftentimes unsensibly trouble and vex thee, as not armed against them with patience, because they go not ordinarily under the name of pains, which in very deed are of the same nature as pain; as to slumber unquietly, to suffer heat, to want appetite: when therefore any of these things make thee discontented, check thyself with these words: Now hath pain given thee the foil; thy courage hath failed thee.
This passage was translated into English by Meric Casaubon in the 1600s, and it is still occasionally inflicted on students today.
If the topic of study were English prose style in the seventeenth century, such an assignment might be justified. But if the object of study is Roman Stoicism, then the translation poses an obstacle without any benefit to the student.
A specialist who is studying the history of ancient philosophy may have the patience and ability to untangle Casaubon’s prose, but an introductory course should not burden the student with this reading.
Why are these texts still assigned? Often the reason is, directly or indirectly, money. Older texts are no longer copyright protected, and can be printed and reprinted for free.
More accessible translations are available.
In 2002, brothers and Montana natives C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks offered The Emperor’s Handbook, published by Scribner.
In that same year, Random House published the Meditations as translated by Gregory Hays.
Both of these recent translations make Marcus more comprehensible to twenty-first century teenagers than renderings in Elizabethan or Victorian pseudo-Elizabethan English.
Classical scholars can explore and debate the philological merits and weaknesses of these translations, but the classroom instructor can vouch for their practical value. These twenty-first century translations make Marcus Aurelius intelligible and user-friendly.
This example is one of many. Students are introduced to Aristotle and Plato, to Sophocles and Vergil. A student’s first exposure should be in an enjoyable text.
There are many obstacles which hinder the scholar’s goal of helping young people find the humanities engaging. Difficult-to-read translations of assigned texts needn’t be one of them.
Or, as the Hicks brothers phrase it, “Whether speaking to the Senate or to the humblest person, use language that is respectful, but not affected. Let your speech be plain and honest.”
