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age quod agis

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A Latin exhortation meaning "do what you are doing," urging complete attention to the present task; in poetry, this phrase is invoked to emphasize mindfulness, deliberate action, and the rejection of distraction, often as a moral or meditative refrain.

Detailed Definition
Age quod agis is a Stoic maxim urging presence, focus, and the wholehearted embrace of one's current task. In poetry, it relates to the ethic of craft, the discipline of attention that good verse demands. It also appears in meditations on mindfulness and the dangers of distraction, regret, or ambition. Poets invoke it to affirm the value of the immediate, the particular, and the carefully observed, resisting the tendency to look elsewhere for meaning.
Example
Example in poetry:
Horace's odes repeatedly enact age quod agis — the discipline of full attention to the present poem, the present pleasure, the present friendship; Zen-influenced contemporary poetry, such as that of Gary Snyder, embodies age quod agis — the imperative to be fully present in the act of chopping wood, washing dishes, or writing the poem; A poet describing the meditative practice of close observation — watching an insect, a cloud, a flame — is practicing and recommending age quod agis; Keats's concept of negative capability is related to age quod agis — the capacity to remain in uncertainty and sensation without anxiously reaching for meaning; Elizabeth Bishop's poems exemplify age quod agis in their extraordinary attentiveness — the poet absolutely present to the thing described, whether a fish, a waiting room, or a filling station
Additional Notes
Age quod agis is attributed to various classical sources and became a widespread Stoic and Jesuit maxim. It is the imperative form of the philosophical concept of prosoche, the Stoic practice of attention to the present moment, which Marcus Aurelius developed extensively in his Meditations. Students should note its connection to contemporary mindfulness practice and to the poetic ethic of close observation that characterizes poets as different as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Bishop, and Seamus Heaney. The phrase is also relevant to discussions of revision: age quod agis suggests that when you are revising a poem, you should revise it completely and attentively, giving it the same undivided focus you gave it in composition. Related terms include hic et nunc (here and now), carpe diem (seize the day), and the Benedictine principle of ora et labora (pray and work), which shares the same emphasis on the sanctification of present activity.
Also Known As
do what you do attend to what you are doing do what you are doing
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