Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 9.24 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.24
Quarrels of little children and their sports, and poor spirits carrying about dead bodies, such is everything; and so what is exhibited in the representation of the mansions of the dead strikes our eyes more clearly.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.24, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/9.24
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesMost human strife is as petty as children squabbling over games, and people are little souls dragging corpses around, a truth that a stage picture of the underworld shows even more plainly. Seeing life this way shrinks what we get so worked up about.
Older wording
- “mansions of the dead”
- — the underworld, as shown in a stage play
Themes and situations
- Change and impermanence
- Death and mortality
- Ambition and success
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