Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 5.4 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.4
I go through the things which happen according to nature until I shall fall and rest, breathing out my breath into that element out of which I daily draw it in, and falling upon that earth out of which my father collected the seed, and my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; out of which during so many years I have been supplied with food and drink; which bears me when I tread on it and abuse it for so many purposes.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.4, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/5.4
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesLive in line with nature until you eventually lie down and rest, returning your breath to the air and your body to the earth that fed and carried you your whole life. A calm, grateful picture of dying as returning to where you came from.
Older wording
- “element”
- — one of the basic substances, here the air
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Nature and the cosmos
- Gratitude
- Acceptance and fate
- Fear of death
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