The dilemma as a lever. The passage opens with a bare disjunction — the same form as "providence or atoms" at 9.39: either the gods have no power or they have. The first branch cancels prayer altogether ("if they cannot, why do you pray?"); the second does not abolish it but redirects it. The move is deliberately non-theological: Marcus neither proves that gods exist nor argues against prayer as such — he asks what to ask for, if asking makes sense at all.

The reform of prayer. Instead of "let this be / let this not be" — "let me not fear, TERMdesire, or TERMgrieve over this." The list is not casual: fear, desire and grief are three of the four cardinal passions, and all three attach to indifferents. The argument runs from capacity: if the gods can TERMco-operate (συνεργεῖν) with men at all, they can co-operate here too. The objection "but the gods put these in my own power" is not rejected but turned around: so much the better — DOGMAuse what is yours "with freedom" (μετ’ ἐλευθερίας) rather than wrangle over what is not yours "with servility and abjectness" (μετὰ δουλείας καὶ ταπεινότητος). And at once the door is left open: "who told you that the gods do not lend a hand (συλλαμβάνουσιν) even in DOGMAwhat is up to us (τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν)?"

Three pairs. The close is a drill — three parallel pairs of "he prays / you pray": to possess that woman → not to desire her; to be rid of that man → not to need to be rid of him; not to lose the child → not to fear its loss. In each pair the object of the request shifts from an external event to one's own disposition, the only thing genuinely DOGMAup to us. Hence the closing ἐπίστρεψον ("turn round" your prayers) and θεώρει τί γίνεται — not "believe" but "try it and watch": a test by experience, not by doctrine. Cf. 5.7 (the Athenian prayer for rain) and 6.23 ("in all things call on the gods"). The governing discipline is desire.

A note on Long's version. In the second pair Long prints "Another prays: How shall I not desire to be released?", where the Greek has σύ ("you") — the line belongs not to a third petitioner but to the practitioner himself, and Rogovin renders it correctly («Ты молись»). The modernization restores the Greek: "You: how may I not need to be rid of him." Long also gives "How shall I be released from this?" for ἐκείνου ("from that man") — a smoothing that does not alter the sense.