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Title: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius ISBN: 1-4043-1959-X Publisher: IndyPublish.com Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (55 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Avoid this inferior 'dumbed down' translation
Comment: I picked up this more modern translation of this work, and phrases like 'junk' and 'if you keep putting things off' leapt out of the text. Consternation - did the Greek original actually have words like that? It was a 'modern' translation - 'modern' as in 'dumbing down'.
So I went looking for another translation, only 40 years old, but more faithful to the original, as in 'think of your many years of procrastination' rather than 'if you keep putting things off'. I don't view it as 'colloquial', I view it as patronising.
I'm sorry, but if you can't handle good English, and need the 'dumber' versions, then you're probably too dumb to appreciate the finer points of the work in the first place. Both versions were the same price, so that didn't influence my decision.
One reviewer mentioned it was translated from the Greek, and another reviewer corrected them as he was a Roman. If the second person had actually read the book correctly, he would have discovered that this book was written in Greek - thus another mark of the man.
Then you can sit back and invest your time in truly enjoying the thoughts & the musings of this interesting man.
Rating: 4
Summary: steel for your spine
Comment: One should have more than one translation for Meditations. Note this difference between Maxwell Staniforth's translation in 1964 (Penguin Classics) and Hay's 2002 translation in these two passages.
1964: When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out-of-tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.
2002: When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep going back to it.
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1964: Adapt yourself to the environment in which your life has been cast, and show true love to the fellow-mortals with whom destiny has surrounded you.
2002: The things ordained for you - teach yourself to be at one with those. And the people who share them with you - treat them with love. With real love.
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The 1964 version is regal, while the 2002 (Hays') version is Aurelius writing, quickly, in a spiral notebook while on horseback, the equivalent of "memo to myself."
Reading this book is like taking a cold shower, or visiting a favorite bartender, who insists on serving you coffee, not drink. Hays has brought us a Marcus Aurelius who puts his hand on your shoulder, looks you in the eye, and tells you like it is: Get over yourself. You can't change the world. Do your best and realize you are of this earth. Human experience is muddy, so what? This book is best read in tough times, when you could use a little steel in your spine.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best translation of this classic
Comment: This is my favorite translation of the meditations, an opinion further solidified yesterday when I went to the book store to get a last-minute graduation gift for a young man, and all they had was "The Emperor's Handbook" by the Hicks brothers. It was good, but I think it lacked the manliness and concise clarity of the Hays translation. I have not read the original Greek, (trying to learn some now!), so I'm no authority, but I imagine this is how a man like Marcus Aurelius might write to himself in this circumstance.
As for the greatness of the original work itself, all I can add to the other fine reviews here are two quotes I have always loved from Clifton Fadiman's "The Lifetime Reading Plan":
". . . during the last ten years of his life, by the light of a campfire, resting by the remote Danube after a wearisome day of marching or battle, he set down in Greek his Meditations, addressed only to himself but by good fortune now the property of us all," and, "Through the years The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, as it has been called, has been read by vast numbers of men and women. They have thought of it not as a classic but as a well spring of consolation and inspiration. It is one of the few books that seem to have helped men directly and immediately to live better, to bear with greater dignity and fortitude the burden of being merely human. Aristotle one studies. Marcus Aurelius men take to their hearts."
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Title: Enchiridion by Epictetus, George Long ISBN: 0879757035 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1955 List Price(USD): $7.00 |
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Title: The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness by Epictetus, Sharon Lebell ISBN: 0062513222 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Stoic Philosophy of Seneca Essays and Letters by Seneca ISBN: 0393004597 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 1968 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: On the Good Life (Penguin Classics) by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Michael Grant ISBN: 0140442448 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1971 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Handbook of Epictetus by Nicholas P. White ISBN: 0915145693 Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Inc Pub. Date: 01 June, 1983 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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