Book X opens with an address to the soul. Twice in the whole corpus Marcus addresses his own TERMψυχή in the vocative — not the usual "you" to oneself, but «ὦ ψυχή», the second person turned upon an inward addressee: here, and at 2.6 («Ὕβριζε, ὕβριζε σεαυτήν, ὦ ψυχή» — "outrage, outrage yourself, my soul"). The two form a pair: there a reproach to the soul that dishonours itself, here the question whether it will at last become good. This is the extended one of the two: it is built as a chain of questions: ἔσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα… γεύσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα… ἔσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα — "will you ever…". Not a command and not a statement, but an impatient question to oneself, in which one hears that the thing asked for has not yet been reached.
Four predicates. The soul is wished to become TERMἀγαθή, ἁπλῆ, μία and γυμνή — good, simple, one, and naked. The series is not casual: simplicity against duplicity, unity against the discord of appetites, nakedness against being covered over. And at once a paradoxical image: the soul will be φανερωτέρα τοῦ περικειμένου σοι σώματος, "more manifest than the body wrapped about you." Ordinarily the body is what shows and the soul is hidden; here the order is reversed — the bared soul is more visible than the flesh (cf. 6.30 ἁπλοῦς, ἀγαθός; Med. 12.3 — strip body and breath from the soul and see what is left).
An inventory of the superfluous. Then the list of what a satisfied soul will not TERMcrave: nothing animate or inanimate "for the enjoyment of TERMpleasures"; nor time in which to enjoy them longer; nor place, country, a kindly blending of airs (ἀέρων εὐκρασίας); nor the congeniality of people (ἀνθρώπων εὐαρμοστίας). The list ascends in subtlety: from gross objects to duration, then to circumstances, and at last to the most respectable desire of all — that those around one be agreeable. For an emperor the last is not an abstraction.
The turn to the sufficient. In its place: ἀρκεσθήσῃ τῇ παρούσῃ καταστάσει, "you will be content with your present state." The ground is not psychological but theological: DOGMAall that you have is from the gods, and DOGMAall is well and will be well. And "well" refers not to your comfort but to the σωτηρία τοῦ τελείου ζῴου — the "preservation of the perfect living being," that is, the cosmos, named by four predicates (good, just, beautiful, begetting all) and "enclosing and gathering in what dissolves into the birth of another like it." Your want is a moment of that revolution.
The close: citizenship. The last question — will you be able so to DOGMAshare a city with gods and men (συμπολιτεύεσθαι) as neither to reproach them in anything nor to be condemned by them. A two-sided measure: not to murmur (that is toward the gods) and not to deserve condemnation (that is toward people) — cosmopolitanism taken not as a theory but as a test of conduct (cf. 2.16). The governing discipline is desire, the sustaining one action.
A note on Long's version. τῆς φιλητικῆς καὶ στερκτικῆς διαθέσεως is "the friendly and loving disposition" (στερκτικός from στέργω, tender attachment — the same root as φιλοστοργία, though a different word). Long gives "an affectionate and contented disposition": "contented" substitutes for the second predicate, so that love turns into complacency. The modernization restores "friendship and love", following the Greek.
Textual note. ἀέρων εὐκρασίας ("a good blending of airs", a temperate climate) is printed here; el.wikisource gives εὐκαιρίας ("good season"). Both translations support εὐκρασία — Long, "pleasant climate"; Rogovin, «благодатном климате» — and so it is kept. The same source gives καὶ πάντα σοι εὖ ἔχει (with the connective), where καί is omitted here; the sense is unchanged, and Long reads it asyndetically.