Aurelius, Meditations §aur_05_xi: What is the use that now at this present I make of my soul?
Source: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (c. AD 170) (aur_05_xi) · external_aligned
What is the use that now at this present I make of my soul? Thus from time to time and upon all occasions thou must put this question to thyself; what is now that part of mine which they call the rational mistress part, employed about? Whose soul do I now properly possess? a child's? or a youth's? a woman's? or a tyrant's? some brute, or some wild beast's soul?
Witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15)
- manuscript_tradition: Vaticanus Graecus 1950 — earliest complete Greek MS
- critical_edition: Dalfen, Marci Aurelii Antonini Ad Se Ipsum Libri XII (Teubner 1987)
- translation: George Long translation (1862) — public domain English
- translation: Hays translation (Modern Library, 2002)
- republication: Internet Archive — Meditations Long translation