# Endnotes explained — Marius the Epicurean

> Chapter companion for Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater.

## What happens

This chapter provides endnotes and citations for the main text, referencing classical and literary sources such as Lucian, Homer, Lucretius, Horace, Apuleius, Spenser, Virgil, and the Bible, as well as definitions and translations by the author.

## Themes in this chapter

### The Role of Art and Literature in Shaping Experience

The extensive citations from Homer, Virgil, Horace, and others underscore how classical literature informs the narrative and its themes.

### Death, Mortality, and the Hope of Afterlife

References to Virgil's 'tears of things' and the Catholic prayer for the departing highlight the theme of mortality and compassion.

## Key lines

> A winter’s dream, when nights are longest.

A dream occurring in winter, during the longest nights.

_Cited from Lucian, The Dream._

> Emanation from a thing of beauty.

An outflow or radiation from a beautiful object.

_Author's translation or gloss._

> O sea! O shore! my own Helicon, how many things have you uncovered to me, how many things suggested!

O sea and shore, my personal source of inspiration, how much you have revealed and inspired in me!

_From Pliny, Letters, Book I, ix._

> Such as the gods are endowed with.

Of the kind that the gods possess.

_From Homer, Odyssey 8.365._

> To write beautifully.

To produce beautiful writing.

_Author's note._

> When they had safely made deep harbor They took in the sail, laid it in their black ship … And went ashore just past the breakers.

After safely reaching the deep harbor, they furled the sail, stowed it in their dark ship, and disembarked beyond the surf.

_From Homer, Iliad 1.432–33, 437._

> The subject once foreknown, the words will follow easily.

Once the topic is known in advance, the appropriate words will come readily.

_From Horace, Ars Poetica 311._

> So long as youth is fresh and age is far away.

While youth is still vigorous and old age is distant.

_From Horace, Odes I.ix.17._

> There are the tears of things…

There is a sense of sorrow inherent in the world.

_From Virgil, Aeneid Book 1, line 462._

> Here also there be tears for what men bear, and mortal creatures feel each other’s sorrow.

In this world, too, there are tears for human suffering, and mortals share one another's grief.

_Translation of Virgil, Aeneid Book 1, line 462 by Theodore C. Williams._

> He made no one unhappy.

He caused no one to be miserable.

_Author's note._

> I have lived!

I have experienced life fully.

_Author's note._

> The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

Those who dwelled in darkness have seen a great light, and for those living in the shadow of death, a light has dawned.

_From Matthew 4:16 (King James Version)._

> Depart! Depart! Christian Soul!

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world.

_From the Catholic prayer for the departing._

## Links

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