Back into the Seed-Reason
Read the full text in our reader
Ἐνυπέστης ὡς μέρος. ἐναφανισθήσῃ τῷ γεννήσαντι· μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναληφθήσῃ εἰς τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τὸν σπερματικὸν κατὰ μεταβολήν.
You came into being as a part. You will vanish into that which begot you — or rather, you will be taken back, by way of change, into its seminal reason.
You began as a part of the whole and will dissolve back into what produced you — or better, be gathered up again into its generative reason, by way of change.
Marcus consoles himself about death by placing the self within the life of the whole. You did not come from nowhere: ἐνυπέστης ὡς μέρος, "you subsisted as a part" of a larger being. Dissolution, then, is not annihilation but a return to the source — ἐναφανισθήσῃ τῷ γεννήσαντι, "you will disappear into that which begot you." The word for vanishing is gentle; it is the fading of a wave back into the sea from which it rose, not a destruction.
He then corrects even that formulation for something more exact and more Stoic: μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναληφθήσῃ, "or rather, you will be taken up again," into the λόγος σπερματικός, the "seminal reason." This is the technical Stoic doctrine of the σπερματικοὶ λόγοι, the generative rational principles by which the cosmic reason seeds and reproduces all things; at death the elements and the rational portion that made you are reabsorbed into that productive principle, ready to be given out again κατὰ μεταβολήν, by transformation. The undercurrent is the same as at 4.5 and 4.4: nothing is lost, only recycled by a rational universe. To die is to be reclaimed by the very reason that first composed you.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Meditations 4.14 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 4.14 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/4.14/