3 ms·

I first picked up the stoics in my early twenties many years ago when I started going to war, and I can't recommend them enough. What you get out of stoic philo

I first picked up the stoics in my early twenties many years ago when I started going to war, and I can't recommend them enough. What you get out of stoic philosophy will definitely depend on the translation you pick up. Every time you read a new translation, you'll get something new out of it. I would recommend researching the various translations, or even just buying a variety of translations on Amazon because they're so cheap. You can get all of the typical stoic works (Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca) for the cost of shipping on Amazon. That is incidentally amazing to me. There's a joke about the world in there somewhere. Anyway, I suggest starting with the translation which you find most digestible. Some of them can be extremely difficult, especially if you've never had to read archaic translations.

ashark 9y ago
I did as thorough a comparison of translations of Meditations as I could as a non-Greek-speaker a couple years ago, and settled on Maxwell Staniforth's for being highly readable while also holding much closer to the original than most. The only hardcover available (at that time) was from Folio Society, so a little pricey even used, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one paperback in print. There was, notably, one popular recent translation that tried to give it more of a "quickly-jotted notes" feel to capture the flavor of the original, or so it claimed, implying greater fidelity to the original. In doing so it took far too many liberties with the text—which, to my Greekless eye aided by some online tools, didn't read that way at all, and was typically much wordier than this translation and generally closer to basically any translation but this one. Be wary of anything like that. Just throwing that out there in case anyone finds it useful.
- literallycancer 9y ago
  I've read this one[1] a while ago, and remember being annoyed at the usage of some words, like 'nature'. Is it different in other translations? Then there's also the irony of the most powerful man in the world writing a book where he recommends the reader to be content with their station and to preserve the status quo. 1 - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Aurelius_Antoninus https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_M...
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Yes, George Long is only one translator for these works, though he is definitely the most popular. Most of the available translations are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, so you can expect them all to have some degree of difficulty. Also, if this is your first exposure to stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius is probably not the best introduction. Epictetus would be better, or Seneca. There's also a short (short) book by James Stockdale called Courage Under Fire about his time as a POW in Vietnam, and how stoic philosophy helped him survive. It doesn't explore the mechanics very well, but if you ever needed the benefits explained, that book will do it. If you can stomach some slightly more archaic and difficult translations, Harvard's Loeb Classical Library translations are readable, and Aurelius is translated there by Haines, Epictetus in his Discourses (including the Encheiridion) by Oldfather, Seneca's Letters by Gummere. The Loeb editions are nice because they're side-by-side with the original Greek, so it comes in handy if you want to take your study to the next level. A quick note about Seneca's Letters: Most of the common editions only include some of his letters. You'll have to actively search for an edition which includes all 124 of them. The Dover Thrift Edition of Seneca's Letters from a Stoic include all of them and is also translated by Gummere, but does not include the original Greek and is cheaper than the Loeb edition. The Loeb books are really attractive in my library, though. If you're anything of a collector, you'll probably get hooked buying them.
terravion 9y ago
Totally agree with the above. It is hard to capture ancient Greek in English. There are verb moods that we just don't have. This lets the authors play with ambiguity in a way that we have trouble doing... a neat concept that you can dial up and down the ambiguity of what you're saying and the listener would understand that as at least partially intentional. And totally, a readable translation is the most important, because in reality, what's readable is probably doing a better job of capturing the writers intent than a super-precise and consistent translation. Also interesting that there seem to be a bunch of veterans on the stoics thread. Not surprising, but interesting nonetheless.

ashark 9y ago

I did as thorough a comparison of translations of Meditations as I could as a non-Greek-speaker a couple years ago, and settled on Maxwell Staniforth's for being highly readable while also holding much closer to the original than most. The only hardcover available (at that time) was from Folio Society, so a little pricey even used, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one paperback in print. There was, notably, one popular recent translation that tried to give it more of a "quickly-jotted notes" feel to capture the flavor of the original, or so it claimed, implying greater fidelity to the original. In doing so it took far too many liberties with the text—which, to my Greekless eye aided by some online tools, didn't read that way at all, and was typically much wordier than this translation and generally closer to basically any translation but this one. Be wary of anything like that. Just throwing that out there in case anyone finds it useful.

literallycancer 9y ago
I've read this one[1] a while ago, and remember being annoyed at the usage of some words, like 'nature'. Is it different in other translations? Then there's also the irony of the most powerful man in the world writing a book where he recommends the reader to be content with their station and to preserve the status quo. 1 - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Aurelius_Antoninus https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_M...
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Yes, George Long is only one translator for these works, though he is definitely the most popular. Most of the available translations are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, so you can expect them all to have some degree of difficulty. Also, if this is your first exposure to stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius is probably not the best introduction. Epictetus would be better, or Seneca. There's also a short (short) book by James Stockdale called Courage Under Fire about his time as a POW in Vietnam, and how stoic philosophy helped him survive. It doesn't explore the mechanics very well, but if you ever needed the benefits explained, that book will do it. If you can stomach some slightly more archaic and difficult translations, Harvard's Loeb Classical Library translations are readable, and Aurelius is translated there by Haines, Epictetus in his Discourses (including the Encheiridion) by Oldfather, Seneca's Letters by Gummere. The Loeb editions are nice because they're side-by-side with the original Greek, so it comes in handy if you want to take your study to the next level. A quick note about Seneca's Letters: Most of the common editions only include some of his letters. You'll have to actively search for an edition which includes all 124 of them. The Dover Thrift Edition of Seneca's Letters from a Stoic include all of them and is also translated by Gummere, but does not include the original Greek and is cheaper than the Loeb edition. The Loeb books are really attractive in my library, though. If you're anything of a collector, you'll probably get hooked buying them.

terravion 9y ago

Totally agree with the above. It is hard to capture ancient Greek in English. There are verb moods that we just don't have. This lets the authors play with ambiguity in a way that we have trouble doing... a neat concept that you can dial up and down the ambiguity of what you're saying and the listener would understand that as at least partially intentional. And totally, a readable translation is the most important, because in reality, what's readable is probably doing a better job of capturing the writers intent than a super-precise and consistent translation. Also interesting that there seem to be a bunch of veterans on the stoics thread. Not surprising, but interesting nonetheless.