James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 28

28. 

Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τι καταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἣ λέγωνεὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει; ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷ ἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡς κατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς. 

May it happen that some one disdains or looks down on me? That will be his own business; but J will see to it that I be not found doing or saying anything worthy of disdain. May some one haply hate me? That will be his own affair; but it is my business to show myself moved with kindness and good will toward every one, ready to show even to this very one who has ill used me his mistaken view, not rebukingly, nor as displaying to others that 1 put up with it, but genuinely and simply.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13  

28. 

Doth any one contemn me, let him look to ’t! 

How recks it me to wrangle it at all? 

My part it is to rule me so withal, 

And live so, that no cynic mood can hoot. 

Hath any hated me, let him look to ’t, 

Have, if he will, a sole, ne’er double, brawl; 

My part is to hate not, and know ’twill fall 

That as the tree is trained so is the fruit. 

If one have stripes, fangs, claws and fur, 

As such there be among us human creatures 

In spiritual mark, why, then we see 

A tiger with the tiger manner stir, 

And tiger thrift go with the tiger features. 

But I, who am a man, must man-like be. 

IMAGE: Hu Zaobin, Victory or Defeat (c. 1930)