Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/503

 which was reproduced in the Roman comedy of Plautus, Terence, and their successors, whom Marcus ignores. It was content to hold a mirror to everyday and often ignoble manners: 'Oh! Menander and Man's life, which of you imitated the other?' We can easily illustrate Marcus' meaning by comparing Ben Jonson with Congreve and his fellows. His moral is: 'Comedy is essentially a lecture of virtue but is become a school of debauchery.' Benjamin Jowett has a vigorous passage, which may illustrate what Marcus says, in his introduction to Plato's Gorgias.

What Marcus says of the maxims of the New Comedy is pointed by the fact that until the recent recoveries in Egypt all that was preserved of these poets were brief sayings treasured for their pithy sentiment, like 'evil communications corrupt good manners', or what Marcus quotes from Menander at v. 12.

'''Ch. 7.''' From the dramatic picture of life he returns to actual life, tacitly correcting what he said earlier about the conflict between his own calling and the claims of philosophy. The question was debated by philosophers, especially the Stoics and Epicureans, whether the wise man should take part in the service of the state. Clearly he must, and his life will be the best exercise of his principles. Marcus himself, as Emperor, is called to protect his people, as the bull protects the herd. For him it is to fill the role in life's comedy which God, the master of the show, assigns.

This is a point in which these later Books mark a change of view, perhaps a heightened knowledge. Earlier Marcus had regarded philosophy as a place of momentary retirement, his mother by comparison with his stepmother, the life of the palace; now he says that our vocation is to do the work that lies to our hand, 'cultiver notre jardin'.

Marcus is fond of playing upon words, and may here be alluding to another sense of the words he uses: he may intend to suggest to the reader, if he contemplates a reader, 'the plot or outline' of your life, that which is yours to work out, as the poet's task is to develop his theme. Rh