Three words and a formula. Ὄμφαξ, σταφυλή, σταφίς — "unripe berry, cluster, raisin": one vine in three states, named without a verb, butted together. The series is chosen so that its last member is the dried fruit, the thing usually taken for spoilage and an ending; in the list it is simply the third.

The point for which the whole is said. EXERCISEοὐκ εἰς τὸ EXERCISEμὴ ὄνEXERCISE, ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ EXERCISEνῦνEXERCISE μὴ ὄν — "not into what is not, but into what is not yet." The distinction is drawn by a single adverb, and it is the finest formulation of TERMchange in the whole corpus. Τὸ μὴ ὄν is a philosophical term: non-being, nothing. Τὸ νῦν μὴ ὄν is not a term but its correction: the raisin is not there yet, but it is not nothing; it is what is not there so far. Annihilation is replaced by deferral.

Why this consoles. The fear of death rests on a substitution: "I shall not be" is read as "I shall become nothing." The formula prises the two apart: to cease to be what you now are is not to pass into τὸ μὴ ὄν. Cf. 10.7, where φθείρεσθαι ("to perish") is redefined "in the sense of ἀλλοιοῦσθαι" ("to alter"), and 4.36 — everything that exists is the MOTIFseed of what will come from it.

And a qualification Marcus does not make. The consolation is partial, and he does not complete it: a raisin is not a grape, and the cluster does not "become" one without loss. The formula does not cancel the loss; it cancels only the non-being. Cf. the neighbouring 11.33: to look for the child who is no longer given is madness — but it is the looking that is mad, not the grieving. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.