From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordFatal can mean appointed by fate or inescapable, without implying death.
- In TraherneThe Fifth Century calls every creature’s situation within divine infinity inevitably fatal.
- In this editionThe 2026 note to V.2 glosses fatal as fated and records a supplied word in the surrounding sentence.
- A place to beginNo creature can escape being within the infinite, wherever it moves.
Meaning
Fatal can mean appointed by fate or inescapable, without implying death. Elsewhere it can retain a destructive or deadly force; context decides which sense is active.
Use in the book
The Fifth Century calls every creature’s situation within divine infinity inevitably fatal. This is an unavoidable condition of existence, presented as a treasury and dwelling place, rather than a threat of annihilation. Moving anywhere cannot move a being outside that infinite presence. By contrast, the poem against sin calls it fatal woe amid grief, defilement, and lost joy. The contrast is useful because importing the deadly meaning into the account of infinity reverses its emotional and theological direction.
Places to read
In this edition
The 2026 note to V.2 glosses fatal as fated and records a supplied word in the surrounding sentence. Its textual difficulty should not be disguised as complete syntactic certainty.
Source note
Primary text: V.2, III.49; gloss and textual caution: 2026 edition note to V.2.