Publisher's Synopsis
I read the Gregory Hays version from 2002 twice before finishing the Robin Waterfield translation that will be released in 2021. Simply said, Marcus Aurelius' 1,800-year-old diary, Meditations, is divided into 12 volumes or notebooks. You don't have to read the passages in chronological sequence; they may be as small as one phrase or as lengthy as several paragraphs. He kept a notebook to critically assess himself and his innermost thoughts. With the Stoic philosophy, he utilized this notebook as a tool for self-reflection and self-improvement. It was never intended for publication. Anger management, death, fame and how meaningless it is, and how to treat people are the four main topics of meditations. In Waterfield's translation, Aurelius' writings on renown appeared to speak to me, while Hays' translation of his writings on death made those writings stand out more to me. Meditations is excellent because, despite the fact that Marcus was writing to himself, there are moments when it seems as if he is speaking to you directly. I have read an earlier translation of this work, as I have already said (Hays). I made the decision to compare the translations of Hays and Waterfield as a result. I checked both copies and saw that I had underlined or highlighted 104 passages or reflections across the whole book. 22 sentences were emphasized in both versions, whereas 55 highlights were exclusive to the Hays translation and 27 to the Waterfield translation. The Hays translation would seem to be the best based just on the figures. Given that I've read Waterfield just once and Hays twice, the comparison is definitely unfair. I then compared the highlighted sections from Waterfield and Hays to one another. There were several parts in Hays that I preferred above those in Waterfield, and vice versa. In reviewing the sections, I eventually realized that Waterfield's translation makes use of more contemporary terminology that would be understandable to the average person. Waterfield employs phrases like "willy-nilly" and "high falutin," for instance. I'm not a classicist, but I don't believe that two concepts have a straightforward Greek equivalent. Sometimes it seems as if Hays' translation would make greater sense to a Roman living in Marcus's day. In comparison to Hays, Waterfield's translation is much less abstract. The Greek word for all-encompassing reason, providence, or God-logos-is not used by Waterfield in her translation of Marcus's statements. It is, however,
