Ancient Yet Ever New: Stoicism in Verse!

Hello everyone – 

After taking a “spring break” hiatus in March, Quotemail returns at the convergence of three sacred observances in the Abrahamic faith traditions: Passover, Easter, and Ramadan. The overlapping of these sacred traditions invites to learn more about our neighbors’ faith traditions and take notice of the similarities that they share in common, so that we can build bridges of understanding that can span the entire human family.

Today, I’d like to share with you a selection of poems about the Stoic school of philosophy, which was founded over 2300 years ago in Athens, Greece, by Zeno of Kition, a Cypriot sage, who combined insights from previous philosophical traditions (e.g., Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian, inter alia) with his own perceptive observations of the human condition to create the Stoic tradition, which is currently undergoing a revival of sorts in the 21^st century. Stoicism shares a great deal of common ground with the major spiritual traditions of the world and has inspired many great leaders of the past to follow its Four Cardinal Virtues – Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude.

 

“The Stoics”

By Athenaeus the Epigrammatist

(Quoted by Diogenes Laertius, 3^rd Century CE)

O ye who’ve learnt the doctrines of the Porch

And have committed to your books divine

The best of human learning, teaching men

That the mind’s virtue is the only good!

She only it is who keeps the lives of men

And cities, – safer than high gates and walls.

But those who place their happiness in pleasure

Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.

 

“The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius”

(Anonymous Epigram Found at the End of a Vatican Manuscript and in the Anthologia Palatina)

If thou would’st master care and pain,

Unfold this book and read and read again

Its blessed leaves, whereby thou soon shalt see

The past, the present, and the days to be

With opened eyes; and all delight, all grief,

Shall be like smoke, as empty and as brief.

 

Opening Lines of the Phaenomena

By Aratus of Soli (3^rd Century BCE)

Let us begin with G*d, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.

For every street, every market-place is full of G*d.

Even the sea and the harbor are full of this Deity.

Everywhere everyone is indebted to G*d.

For we are indeed his offspring…

 

“The Serenity Prayer”

By Reinhold Niebuhr (1897-1971)

G*d, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed;

courage to change the things which should be changed;

and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

 

Be sure to visit my blog entry on Stoicism (2023/01/25) @ https://rhcfortnightlyquotemail.blogspot.com for more information and resources about this ancient and insightful school of philosophy.

 

Numa Pompilius, the philosopher-king of ancient Rome (reigned 715-673 BCE), was regarded as an exemplary leader because of his devotion to philosophy, in which he had been instructed (according to legend) by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras and the nymph Egeria.

 

Until next time –

Rob 😊