A third bare quotation in a row. Like 11.31, the passage consists of one verse1 with not a word of exposition. The pair stands side by side without a connective: first laughter to oneself, now abuse flung at virtue.
The future tense. Μέμψονται — "they will blame": in Hesiod this is a prophecy of the age of iron, of what is to come. Taken by itself, the line stops being a prophecy and becomes a daily forecast: you will be reviled, and not for a fault but for TERMvirtue as such. Therein lies its fitness as a EXERCISEthing kept ready: what is expected does not take one unawares.
Two words on the abuse itself. χαλεποῖς βάζοντες ἔπεσσιν — "speaking with hard words." In Homer and Hesiod the verb βάζω means simply "to speak" (cf. πεπνυμένα βάζεις, "you speak sensibly," Od. 4.206); the abuse lies in the "hard words." Rogovin renders it with "idle talker" and "shameless abuse." The abuse here is neither an argument nor a verdict but noise: it calls for no answer because it asserts nothing. Cf. 11.23, where the opinions of the many are called Lamiae, children's bogeys, and 9.34 — "When they think that they do harm by their blame…, what an idea!"
What Marcus does not write. He draws no rule and offers no consolation. The line is laid beside the Homeric one, and together they mark out the poles of a single day: the inward, shown to no one, and the outward, answering nothing. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one action.