A wish as a programme. A single hexameter from an unknown tragedy (adespoton) — a prayer-formula in the optative: δοίης — "may you give joys (χάρματα) to the immortal gods and to us." Marcus copies out another's blessing as a self-portrait of the goal: to live so as to be a delight to two instances at once — gods and human beings. The double dative (θεοῖς… ἡμῖν) covers the Stoic map of duties without remainder: piety upward, beneficence outward — the same pair as in 6.30 ("reverence the gods, save human beings" — the one fruit of earthly life) and in 7.31 (φίλησον τὸ ἀνθρώπινον γένος + ἀκολούθησον θεῷ).

Joy as the criterion. The fine point is the choice of word: not "benefit," not "service," but χάρματα — joys. The measure of a life that has succeeded is not an account rendered but what in you is a gladness to gods and men: a criterion at once stricter (benefit can be conferred sullenly) and more humane. In the emperor's notebook the verse reads as the briefest of his examinations: to whom, today, were you a χάρμα? The discipline is action.