James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 20

20.  

Ὧι ἂν ἐντυγχάνῃς, εὐθὺς σαυτῷ πρόλεγε: οὖτος τίνα δόγματα ἔχει περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν; εἰ γὰρ περὶ ἡδονῆς καὶ πόνου καὶ τῶν ποιητικῶν ἑκατέρου καὶ περὶ δόξης, ἀδοξίας, θανάτου, ζωῆς, τοιάδε τινὰ δόγματα ἔχει, οὐδὲν θαυμαστὸν: ἢ ξένον μοι δόξει, ἐὰν τάδε τινὰ ποιῇ, καὶ μεμνήσομαι ὅτι ἀναγκάζεται οὕτως ποιεῖν. 

Μέμνησο ὅτι, ὥσπερ αἰσχρόν ἐστι ξενίζεσθαι, εἰ ἡ συκῆ σῦκα φέρει, οὕτως, εἰ ὁ κόσμος τάδε τινὰ φέρει ὧν ἐστι φορός. 

When you meet anyone, ask yourself forthwith: What views has this man in his head about good and evil? For if about pleasure and pain and what produces them, about what is honorable or unhonorable, about death, about life, his views be of a certain kind, it will seem to me nothing surprising or strange that his deeds should be of the same kind, and I shall consider that he must perforce act out what he is. 

 Remember that as it is monstrously stupid to be surprised if a fig-tree bears figs, so is it downright addle-pated to be taken aback if the world around us produces the things that accord with its kind.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.14-15 

20. 

'Twere rustic simpleness to gaze agog 

Upon a fig-tree that a fig it bore, 

Or rate a fen that there one finds a frog, 

Or cry down fire that’s florid, snow that’s frore. 

And sooth, if all according to its kind 

Puts forth, will not man do it, body and soul? 

Thus always ask thyself, and have in mind 

Briefly: What manner of man is this in whole? 

What thinks he good? What bad? What pain, or pleasure? 

What ignominious or what reputable? 

And answering this, expect in that same measure, 

Nor let thy heart be vainly vulnerable. 

Stare not, I say, at fig-trees growing figs, 

Nor swinish thoughts a-building little pigs.