Place has no power over the daimon. The first beat is DOGMAa total indifference to place: "take me and cast me where you will" (ἆρόν με καὶ βάλε, ὅπου θέλεις) — and there I shall keep TERMmy daimon "propitious" (ἵλεων), that is, "content" (ἀρκούμενον), if it holds and acts "by its own constitution" (κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς τῇ ἰδίᾳ κατασκευῇ). The inner god is not tied to geography: exile, palace, battlefield — all the same, so long as the ruling part lives by its nature (cf. 4.3 — the retreat within; 10.15).

What the soul is not worth. The second beat is an evaluative question: is this (a change of place, any external) worth having the TERMsoul become "worse than itself"? Marcus lists four deformations: "abased" (ταπεινουμένη), "craving" (ὀρεγομένη — reaching outward), "shrinking" (συνδυομένη), "startled" (πτυρομένη). These are the very dents that push the mind-sphere out of true: stretching out in passion and contracting in fear. And the pole-axe conclusion: "what will you ever find worth this?" — no external good redeems the corruption of the ruling part. The strict terms by the word are δαίμων, ψυχή. The governing discipline is desire (to accept any place), the sustaining one assent (not to let the soul be deformed).