Leave eternity to the gods. Marcus Aurelius 4.19
Don't
do anything to secure an eternal legacy for something, or someone,
that nature has not made to be eternal. Marcus Aurelius here
anticipates Unamuno, and rejects his worship of personal immortality
as unnatural, unseasonable, inhuman.
Ὁ
περὶ τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν ἐπτοημένος οὐ
φαντάζεται ὅτι ἕκαστος τῶν μεμνημένων
αὐτοῦ τάχιστα καὶ αὐτὸς ἀποθανεῖται·
εἶτα πάλιν ὁ ἐκεῖνον διαδεξάμενος,
μέχρι καὶ πᾶσα ἡ μνήμη ἀποσβῇ διὰ
ἁπτομένων καὶ σβεννυμένων προιοῦσα.
ὑπόθου δ', ὅτι καὶ ἀθάνατοι μὲν οἱ
μεμνησόμενοι, ἀθάνατος δὲ ἡ μνήμη· τί
οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς σέ; καὶ οὐ λέγω, ὅτι
οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν τεθνηκότα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς
τὸν ζῶντα τί ὁ ἔπαινος, πλὴν ἄρα δἰ
οἰκονομίαν τινά; πάρες γὰρ νῦν ἀκαίρως
τὴν φυσικὴν δόσιν ἄλλου τινὸς ἐχομένην
λόγου λοιπόν (†).
The
man excited by posthumous fame fails to conceive that each person who
remembers him shall perish just as swiftly as he does. Succeeding
generations will then go to dust in their turn, until all memory of
his fame is extinct, snuffed out with the lives of those who
inherited it. In light of this, start from the premise that eternal
memory belongs to the immortals. What can it possibly be to you,
then? I am not saying that praise has any meaning for the dead. Instead, I want to know what it means for those yet alive. What is it for us
but a means of marking transient value in our little affairs? In future you must relinquish
every material legacy that pretends to serve ends beyond its natural
power.
---
(†)
The last sentence troubles editors, and is admittedly rather cryptic.
I have followed Leopold, but Farquharson offers an alternative
reading: παρίης γὰρ νῦν ἀκαίρως τὴν φυσικὴν
δόσιν ἄλλου τινὸς <οὐκ> ἐχομένην
λόγου. λοιπόν ...