Humanitext Reader

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations §6.37.1

The Kinship of All Things and Seeing Eternity in the Present

Passage 174 of 486 · Greek

Summary

Explains why observing the present is equivalent to understanding all things past and future, based on the homogeneous nature of all things.

§6.37.1Ὁ τὰ νῦν ἰδὼν πάντα ἑώρακεν, ὅσα τε ἐξ ἀιδίου ἐγένετο καὶ ὅσα εἰς τὸ ἄπειρον ἔσται· πάντα γὰρ ὁμογενῆ καὶ ὁμοειδῆ.
He who has seen the present has seen all things, both all that has come to pass from eternity and all that will be unto infinity; for all things are of the same kin and of the same form.

Notes

  1. §6.37.1ἑώρακεν — Third-person singular perfect active indicative of ὁράω. In contrast to the prior act of "having seen" the present (expressed by the aorist participle ἰδὼν), the perfect tense indicates the resulting state of "having already seen" all things.
  2. §6.37.1ὅσα — Neuter plural nominative of the relative pronoun ὅσος. It introduces relative clauses in apposition to explain the accusative πάντα ("all things") in the main clause. Grammatically, it agrees with the singular verbs ἐγένετο and ἔσται, following the standard Classical Greek rule that a neuter plural subject takes a singular verb.

Cite this passage

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations §6.37.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0562.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:6.37.1

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.