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Age ergo vitam probam (“Live a good life”), for SATB chorus, is a setting of a quotation I first encountered online, concerning the existence or non-existence of gods. It suggests that, no matter the case, your charge is the same: live a good life. The quotation is in English, but was attributed to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Intrigued, I went searching for the Latin original, only to discover that the attribution was false; the quotation first appeared on the internet, in English, circa 2010. Nevertheless, I liked its sentiment, so I asked the Latinist Betty Rose Nagle, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Indiana University, to translate it. The resulting piece contains both a genuine expression of the quotation’s message and a nod to its status as hoax. By setting a Latin translation, I have strengthened the text’s Aurelius “disguise”; I continue this by imitating older styles of music. The disguise, however, is flawed—for one thing, as my translator quickly pointed out, Aurelius would have written such a text, as he did his famous Meditations, in Greek, not Latin; for another thing, the “older” music I imitate comes mainly from the Renaissance, not from Aurelius’ time. Age ergo vitam probam was written in 2013, and later chosen as a runner-up in the 2015–16 Brock Composition Competition of the American Choral Directors Association. It was performed at the 2016 ACDA Eastern Conference in Boston, Massachusetts by C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective.

Recording: multi-track studio recording; Corey K. Rubin, vocals. Copyright ℗ 2017 by Corey K. Rubin. All rights reserved.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

Anonymous quotation (ca. 2010)
falsely attributed to Marcus Aurelius (121–180 A.D.)

Age ergo vitam probam. Si dei quidem sunt atque aequi, quot quantaque sacra feceris eis non intererit; immo vero illis te morum causa in caelo accipere placebit. Si dei autem sunt at iniqui, istos colere te non velle oportet. Si dei tandem nulli sunt, ademptus tamen vitam tam praeclaram egeris, ut in memoria amicorum familiarumque non omnis morieris.

Latin translation by Betty Rose Nagle