“Dear” is a dear word, but sometimes it’s missing...
- 2025
- CNC-engraved Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.31.1 , Times New Roman on faux marble PVC and chipboard
And my dear heart rejoiced freely translates a line from the Odyssey (καὶ ἐγέλασσε φίλον κῆρ, IX, 413) transcribed by Marcus Aurelius in his diary (XI, 31). In the poem the heart is that of Odysseus, to whom the hero must silently entrust his joy when, hidden beneath the ram’s fleece, he understands that his deception of the Cyclops Polyphemus is working. And yet, in many editions of the Meditations, in Italian as in English, the adjective dear is dropped from the Homeric quotation. The suspicion is that this omission points to a creeping tendency, present in high culture too, to present Marcus Aurelius as a foursquare, unassailable statue, wholly devoid of an interior life that might also be affectionate, perhaps fragile. The work therefore sets itself the aim, paradoxically pursued through its play of anachronisms, of restoring to the emperor’s emotion its original shade of tenderness.
Text by Federica Arcoraci e Pietro Sabelli for the expo e il mio caro cuore rise
