De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged
- Immortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure
- In vital forces- either because there come
- Never at all things hostile to its weal,
- Or else because what come somehow retire,
- Repelled or ere we feel the harm they work,
- . . . . . .
- For, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased,
- Soul sickens too, there cometh, many a time,
- That which torments it with the things to be,
- Keeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares;
- And even when evil acts are of the past,
- Still gnaw the old transgressions bitterly.
- Add, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind,
- And that oblivion of the things that were;
- Add its submergence in the murky waves
- Of drowse and torpor.
- Therefore death to us
- Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least,
- Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
- And just as in the ages gone before
- We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round
- To battle came the Carthaginian host,
- And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,
- Under the aery coasts of arching heaven
- Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind
- Doubted to which the empery should fall
- By land and sea, thus when we are no more,
- When comes that sundering of our body and soul
- Through which we're fashioned to a single state,
- Verily naught to us, us then no more,
- Can come to pass, naught move our senses then-
- No, not if earth confounded were with sea,
- And sea with heaven. But if indeed do feel
- The nature of mind and energy of soul,
- After their severance from this body of ours,
- Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds
- And wedlock of the soul and body live,
- Through which we're fashioned to a single state.
- And, even if time collected after death
- The matter of our frames and set it all
- Again in place as now, and if again
- To us the light of life were given, O yet
- That process too would not concern us aught,
- When once the self-succession of our sense
- Has been asunder broken. And now and here,
- Little enough we're busied with the selves
- We were aforetime, nor, concerning them,
- Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gaze
- Backwards across all yesterdays of time
- The immeasurable, thinking how manifold
- The motions of matter are, then couldst thou well
- Credit this too: often these very seeds
- (From which we are to-day) of old were set
- In the same order as they are to-day-
- Yet this we can't to consciousness recall
- Through the remembering mind. For there hath been
- An interposed pause of life, and wide
- Have all the motions wandered everywhere
- From these our senses. For if woe and ail
- Perchance are toward, then the man to whom
- The bane can happen must himself be there
- At that same time. But death precludeth this,
- Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd
- Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know:
- Nothing for us there is to dread in death,
- No wretchedness for him who is no more,
- The same estate as if ne'er born before,
- When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.
- Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because
- When dead he rots with body laid away,
- Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,
- Know well: he rings not true, and that beneath
- Still works an unseen sting upon his heart,
- However he deny that he believes.
- His shall be aught of feeling after death.
- For he, I fancy, grants not what he says,
- Nor what that presupposes, and he fails
- To pluck himself with all his roots from life
- And cast that self away, quite unawares
- Feigning that some remainder's left behind.
- For when in life one pictures to oneself
- His body dead by beasts and vultures torn,
- He pities his state, dividing not himself
- Therefrom, removing not the self enough
- From the body flung away, imagining
- Himself that body, and projecting there
- His own sense, as he stands beside it: hence
- He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks
- That in true death there is no second self
- Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,
- Or stand lamenting that the self lies there
- Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is
- Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang
- Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not
- Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,
- Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined
- On the smooth oblong of an icy slab,
- Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth
- Down-crushing from above.
- "Thee now no more
- The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,
- Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses
- And touch with silent happiness thy heart.
- Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,
- Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
- Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en
- Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"
- But add not, "yet no longer unto thee
- Remains a remnant of desire for them"
- If this they only well perceived with mind
- And followed up with maxims, they would free
- Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
- "O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,
- So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,
- Released from every harrying pang. But we,
- We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,
- Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre
- Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take
- For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
- But ask the mourner what's the bitterness
- That man should waste in an eternal grief,
- If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
- For when the soul and frame together are sunk
- In slumber, no one then demands his self
- Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever,
- Without desire of any selfhood more,
- For all it matters unto us asleep.
- Yet not at all do those primordial germs
- Roam round our members, at that time, afar
- From their own motions that produce our senses-
- Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man
- Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us
- Much less- if there can be a less than that
- Which is itself a nothing: for there comes
- Hard upon death a scattering more great
- Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up
- On whom once falls the icy pause of life.
- This too, O often from the soul men say,
- Along their couches holding of the cups,
- With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:
- "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,
- Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,
- It may not be recalled."- As if, forsooth,
- It were their prime of evils in great death
- To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,
- Or chafe for any lack.
- Once more, if Nature
- Should of a sudden send a voice abroad,
- And her own self inveigh against us so:
- "Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern
- That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
- Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
- For if thy life aforetime and behind
- To thee was grateful, and not all thy good
- Was heaped as in sieve to flow away
- And perish unavailingly, why not,
- Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,
- Laden with life? why not with mind content
- Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?
- But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been
- Lavished and lost, and life is now offence,
- Why seekest more to add- which in its turn
- Will perish foully and fall out in vain?
- O why not rather make an end of life,
- Of labour? For all I may devise or find
- To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are
- The same forever. Though not yet thy body
- Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts
- Outworn, still things abide the same, even if
- Thou goest on to conquer all of time
- With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-
- What were our answer, but that Nature here
- Urges just suit and in her words lays down
- True cause of action? Yet should one complain,
- Riper in years and elder, and lament,
- Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,
- Then would she not, with greater right, on him
- Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:
- "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!
- Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum
- Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever
- What's not at hand, contemning present good,
- That life has slipped away, unperfected
- And unavailing unto thee. And now,
- Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head
- Stands- and before thou canst be going home
- Sated and laden with the goodly feast.
- But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-
- Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must."
- Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus,
- Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old
- Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever
- The one thing from the others is repaired.
- Nor no man is consigned to the abyss
- Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,
- That thus the after-generations grow,-
- Though these, their life completed, follow thee;
- And thus like thee are generations all-
- Already fallen, or some time to fall.
- So one thing from another rises ever;
- And in fee-simple life is given to none,
- But unto all mere usufruct.
- Look back:
- Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld
- Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.
- And Nature holds this like a mirror up
- Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.
- And what is there so horrible appears?
- Now what is there so sad about it all?
- Is't not serener far than any sleep?
- And, verily, those tortures said to be
- In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours
- Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed
- With baseless terror, as the fables tell,
- Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:
- But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods
- Urges mortality, and each one fears
- Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.
- Nor eat the vultures into Tityus
- Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find,
- Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught
- To pry around for in that mighty breast.
- However hugely he extend his bulk-
- Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine,
- But the whole earth- he shall not able be
- To bear eternal pain nor furnish food
- From his own frame forever. But for us
- A Tityus is he whom vultures rend
- Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,
- Whom troubles of any unappeased desires
- Asunder rip. We have before our eyes
- Here in this life also a Sisyphus
- In him who seeketh of the populace
- The rods, the axes fell, and evermore
- Retires a beaten and a gloomy man.
- For to seek after power- an empty name,
- Nor given at all- and ever in the search
- To endure a world of toil, O this it is
- To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone
- Which yet comes rolling back from off the top,
- And headlong makes for levels of the plain.
- Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind,
- Filling with good things, satisfying never-
- As do the seasons of the year for us,
- When they return and bring their progenies
- And varied charms, and we are never filled
- With the fruits of life- O this, I fancy, 'tis
- To pour, like those young virgins in the tale,
- Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.
- . . . . . .
- Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light
- . . . . . .
- Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
- Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
- Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
- Of retributions just and expiations
- For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap
- From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,
- The executioners, the oaken rack,
- The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
- And even though these are absent, yet the mind,
- With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads
- And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile
- What terminus of ills, what end of pine
- Can ever be, and feareth lest the same
- But grow more heavy after death. Of truth,
- The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
- This also to thy very self sometimes
- Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left
- The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things
- A better man than thou, O worthless hind;
- And many other kings and lords of rule
- Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed
- O'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-
- Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,
- And gave his legionaries thoroughfare
- Along the deep, and taught them how to cross
- The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,
- Trampling upon it with his cavalry,
- The bellowings of ocean- poured his soul
- From dying body, as his light was ta'en.
- And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war,
- Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth,
- Like to the lowliest villein in the house.
- Add finders-out of sciences and arts;
- Add comrades of the Heliconian dames,
- Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all,
- Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.
- Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld
- Admonished him his memory waned away,
- Of own accord offered his head to death.
- Even Epicurus went, his light of life
- Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped
- The human race, extinguishing all others,
- As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.
- Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-
- For whom already life's as good as dead,
- Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?- who in sleep
- Wastest thy life- time's major part, and snorest
- Even when awake, and ceasest not to see
- The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset
- By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft
- What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch,
- Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares,
- And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."
- If men, in that same way as on the mind
- They feel the load that wearies with its weight,
- Could also know the causes whence it comes,
- And why so great the heap of ill on heart,
- O not in this sort would they live their life,
- As now so much we see them, knowing not
- What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever
- A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
- The man who sickens of his home goes out,
- Forth from his splendid halls, and straight- returns,
- Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.
- He races, driving his Gallic ponies along,
- Down to his villa, madly,- as in haste
- To hurry help to a house afire.- At once
- He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,
- Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks
- Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about
- And makes for town again. In such a way
- Each human flees himself- a self in sooth,
- As happens, he by no means can escape;
- And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,
- Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.
- Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then,
- Leaving all else, he'd study to divine
- The nature of things, since here is in debate
- Eternal time and not the single hour,
- Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains
- After great death.
- And too, when all is said,
- What evil lust of life is this so great
- Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught
- In perils and alarms? one fixed end
- Of life abideth for mortality;
- Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet.
- Besides we're busied with the same devices,
- Ever and ever, and we are at them ever,
- And there's no new delight that may be forged
- By living on. But whilst the thing we long for
- Is lacking, that seems good above all else;
- Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else
- We long for; ever one equal thirst of life
- Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune
- The future times may carry, or what be
- That chance may bring, or what the issue next
- Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life
- Take we the least away from death's own time,
- Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby
- To minish the aeons of our state of death.
- Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil
- As many generations as thou may:
- Eternal death shall there be waiting still;
- And he who died with light of yesterday
- Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more
- Than he who perished months or years before.