The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

234 MARCUS AURELIUS
accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as accessi
bility and currency everything which may best enable
;
the Emperor and his precepts volitare per ora vimm. It
is essential to render him in language perfectly plain and
unprofessional, and to call him by the name by which he
is best and most distinctly known. The translators of
the Bible talk of pence and not denarii, and the admirers
of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of
Arouct.
But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must
end, as one began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long
for his excellent and substantial reproduction in English
of an invaluable work. In general the substantiality,
soundness, and precision of his rendering are (I cannot
but think) as conspicuous as the living spirit with which
he treats antiquity and these ;
qualities are particularly
desirable in the translator of a work like Marcus Aurelius s,
of which the language is often corrupt, almost always hard
and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr.
Long s merits as a translator may read, in the original
and in Mr. Long s translation, the seventh chapter of the
tenth book ;
he will see how, through all the dubiousness
and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. Long has firmly
seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the
bottom of that troubled wording and, in distinctly render
ing this thought, has at the same time thrown round its
expression a characteristic shade of painfulness and
difficulty which just suits it. And Marcus Aurelius s
book is one which, when it is rendered so accurately as
Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably
well may choose to read rather in the translation than in
For not only are the contents here incom
the original.
parably more valuable than the external form, but this
form, this Greek of a Roman, is not one of those styles
which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part
of their author, W7hich stamp an indelible impression of