From my grandfather Verus
Read the full text in our reader
Παρὰ τοῦ πάππου Οὐήρου τὸ καλόηθες καὶ ἀόργητον.
From my grandfather Verus: a good disposition, and a temper free of anger.
The Meditations open not with doctrine but with debts. Before a word about the cosmos, Marcus names the people who formed him and the single quality he owes to each. First: his father's father, Verus.
The book opens not with a doctrine but with a debt. Before Marcus says anything about the cosmos or the soul, he begins an audit of himself, tracing each virtue he owns back to the person who first showed it to him. From Verus, his father's father and guardian, he received not an argument but a temper — καλοήθης, a settled good-naturedness, and τὸ ἀόργητον, the trained absence of anger.
It is a Stoic exercise disguised as a memory. To thank is also to examine: by naming where a quality came from, Marcus checks whether he still lives up to it. The whole of Book 1 is this ledger of gratitude, and the philosophy proper — the hard morning discipline of Book 2 — waits until the accounts are settled.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Meditations 1.1 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Meditations — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Meditations 1.1 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/1.1/