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21 sats \ 6 replies \ @siggy47 26 Feb \ on: Stoic Book Club: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius #3 - In Carnuntum BooksAndArticles
I searched the definition of shame. I guess he was speaking more of 1 and 2 than the debilitating emotion I also fight regularly. Accurate translation is difficult, I would think, when dealing with subtleties.
shame
noun
1 A painful emotion caused by the awareness of having done something wrong or foolish.
"felt shame for cheating on the exam."
2 Respect for propriety or morality.
"Have you no shame?"
3 A pervasive, negative emotional state, usually originating in childhood, marked by chronic self-reproach and a sense of personal failure.
Interestingly Meditations was written in Greek and not Latin like one may assume (the educated wrote in Greek and as a added bonus it probably helped keep in meditations private from prying eyes of household staff).
In Greek, I think the passage is:
Μὴ τιμήσῃς ποτὲ ὡς συμφέρον σεαυτοῦ, ὃ ἀναγκάσει σέ ποτε τὴν πίστιν παραβῆναι, τὴν αἰδῶ ἐγκαταλιπεῖν, μισῆσαί τινα, ὑποπτεῦσαι, καταράσασθαι, ὑποκρίνασθαι, ἐπιθυμῆσαί τινος τοίχων καὶ παραπετασμάτων δεομένου.
Now I don't speak Greek much less Ancient Greek, however running this thru Google Translate yields:
Do not honor anything as self-interest, which forces you to violate your faith, to abandon it, to hate it, to suspect it, to be cursed, to be hypocritical, to desire the walls and curtains of a given place.
So I'm not sure if the word "shame" was used?? Hard to know since I'm copy-pasting ancient greek into google translate (which I probably only modern greek)
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Fascinating. They emphasized the bi-bilingualism in the introduction to the book, as well. Where did you pick up the Greek passage?
The Google translation is even poetic. I'm assuming a human translator coming to the material with a Stoic perspective in mind used "shame" specifically for a reason, though. It would be interesting to know if anyone else currently reading another translation has it differently.
Interesting -- going back to the definition is helpful. My automatic association for the word "shame" doesn't really include much of #2, but it sounds even virtuous in that framing.