The Three-Day Infant
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Ἰδιωτικὸν μέν, ὅμως δὲ ἀνυστικὸν βοήθημα πρὸς θανάτου καταφρόνησιν ἡ ἀναπόλησις τῶν γλίσχρως ἐνδιατριψάντων τῷ ζῆν. τί οὖν αὐτοῖς πλέον ἢ τοῖς ἀώροις; πάντως πού ποτε κεῖνται, Καδικιανός, Φάβιος, Ἰουλιανός, Λέπιδος ἢ εἴ τις τοιοῦτος, οἳ πολλοὺς ἐξήνεγκαν, εἶτα ἐξηνέχθησαν· ὅλον, μικρόν ἐστι τὸ διάστημα καὶ τοῦτο δι’ ὅσων καὶ μεθ’ οἵων ἐξαντλούμενον καὶ ἐν οἵῳ σωματίῳ; μὴ οὖν ὡς πρᾶγμα. βλέπε γὰρ ὀπίσω τὸ ἀχανὲς τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ τὸ πρόσω ἄλλο ἄπειρον. ἐν δὴ τούτῳ τί διαφέρει ὁ τριήμερος τοῦ τριγερηνίου;
A vulgar, but nonetheless effective, aid toward contempt of death is to recall those who clung greedily to life. What more did they gain than the untimely dead? At all events, somewhere they lie — Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or any such — men who carried many out to burial and were then carried out themselves. In sum, small is the interval, and even that drained out through so many toils, in such company, in so poor a body. Do not, then, count it a great matter. For look backward at the gaping vastness of time, and forward at another infinity; in this, what difference is there between the child of three days and the man of three long lifetimes?
A homely but effective cure for the fear of death: recall those who clung hardest to life — Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus — who buried many and were then buried themselves. The extra span was tiny, drained through toils in a failing body. Against the double infinity of time, what separates the infant of three days from the man of a hundred years?
Marcus admits from the start that the argument he is about to use is ἰδιωτικόν — "unphilosophical," the sort of consideration a plain person rather than a sage would reach for — but ἀνυστικόν, effective, and he will take help against the fear of death wherever it works. The device is simply to remember the people who clung hardest to living, γλίσχρως, "stickily," greedily. What did all their grasping win them? They too now "lie somewhere," and he names them — Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus — obscure figures already half-forgotten, men who spent their long lives conducting others’ funerals only to be carried out to their own. The tenacious and the short-lived have arrived at exactly the same place.
The consolation deepens when the extra span is examined. Even the longevity the graspers prized turns out to be μικρὸν τὸ διάστημα, a small interval — and that little was "baled out" (ἐξαντλούμενον, drained to the dregs) through endless toils, in wearisome company, in a decaying σωμάτιον, a "poor little body." So the prize was slight and dearly bought. Then comes the final measuring, one of Marcus’s favorite moves: set any human lifespan between the two infinities of time, the boundless past behind and the boundless future ahead. On that scale, what is the difference between ὁ τριήμερος and ὁ τριγερήνιος — the baby who lives three days and the patriarch who outlives three generations of Nestor? Against eternity, none worth naming. The length of a life, which looms so large from within, shrinks against the true backdrop to nothing, and with it shrinks the whole terror of dying sooner rather than later.
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Meditations 4.50 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/4.50/