De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call
- The intellect, wherein is seated life's
- Counsel and regimen, is part no less
- Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts
- Of one whole breathing creature. [But some hold]
- That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,
- But is of body some one vital state,-
- Named "harmony" by Greeks, because thereby
- We live with sense, though intellect be not
- In any part: as oft the body is said
- To have good health (when health, however, 's not
- One part of him who has it), so they place
- The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.
- Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.
- Often the body palpable and seen
- Sickens, while yet in some invisible part
- We feel a pleasure; oft the other way,
- A miserable in mind feels pleasure still
- Throughout his body- quite the same as when
- A foot may pain without a pain in head.
- Besides, when these our limbs are given o'er
- To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame
- At random void of sense, a something else
- Is yet within us, which upon that time
- Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving
- All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.
- Now, for to see that in man's members dwells
- Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont
- To feel sensation by a "harmony"
- Take this in chief: the fact that life remains
- Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone;
- Yet that same life, when particles of heat,
- Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth
- Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith
- Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.
- Thus mayst thou know that not all particles
- Perform like parts, nor in like manner all
- Are props of weal and safety: rather those-
- The seeds of wind and exhalations warm-
- Take care that in our members life remains.
- Therefore a vital heat and wind there is
- Within the very body, which at death
- Deserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind
- And even of soul is found to be, as 'twere,
- A part of man, give over "harmony"-
- Name to musicians brought from Helicon,-
- Unless themselves they filched it otherwise,
- To serve for what was lacking name till then.
- Whate'er it be, they're welcome to it- thou,
- Hearken my other maxims.
- Mind and soul,
- I say, are held conjoined one with other,
- And form one single nature of themselves;
- But chief and regnant through the frame entire
- Is still that counsel which we call the mind,
- And that cleaves seated in the midmost breast.
- Here leap dismay and terror; round these haunts
- Be blandishments of joys; and therefore here
- The intellect, the mind. The rest of soul,
- Throughout the body scattered, but obeys-
- Moved by the nod and motion of the mind.
- This, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought;
- This for itself hath mirth, even when the thing
- That moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all.
- And as, when head or eye in us is smit
- By assailing pain, we are not tortured then
- Through all the body, so the mind alone
- Is sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy,
- Whilst yet the soul's remainder through the limbs
- And through the frame is stirred by nothing new.
- But when the mind is moved by shock more fierce,
- We mark the whole soul suffering all at once
- Along man's members: sweats and pallors spread
- Over the body, and the tongue is broken,
- And fails the voice away, and ring the ears,
- Mists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse,-
- Aye, men drop dead from terror of the mind.
- Hence, whoso will can readily remark
- That soul conjoined is with mind, and, when
- 'Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith
- In turn it hits and drives the body too.
- And this same argument establisheth
- That nature of mind and soul corporeal is:
- For when 'tis seen to drive the members on,
- To snatch from sleep the body, and to change
- The countenance, and the whole state of man
- To rule and turn,- what yet could never be
- Sans contact, and sans body contact fails-
- Must we not grant that mind and soul consist
- Of a corporeal nature?- And besides
- Thou markst that likewise with this body of ours
- Suffers the mind and with our body feels.
- If the dire speed of spear that cleaves the bones
- And bares the inner thews hits not the life,
- Yet follows a fainting and a foul collapse,
- And, on the ground, dazed tumult in the mind,
- And whiles a wavering will to rise afoot.
- So nature of mind must be corporeal, since
- From stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes.
- Now, of what body, what components formed
- Is this same mind I will go on to tell.
- First, I aver, 'tis superfine, composed
- Of tiniest particles- that such the fact
- Thou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this:
- Nothing is seen to happen with such speed
- As what the mind proposes and begins;
- Therefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly
- Than aught whose nature's palpable to eyes.
- But what's so agile must of seeds consist
- Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved,
- When hit by impulse slight. So water moves,
- In waves along, at impulse just the least-
- Being create of little shapes that roll;
- But, contrariwise, the quality of honey
- More stable is, its liquids more inert,
- More tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter
- Cleaves more together, since, indeed, 'tis made
- Of atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round.
- For the light breeze that hovers yet can blow
- High heaps of poppy-seed away for thee
- Downward from off the top; but, contrariwise,
- A pile of stones or spiny ears of wheat
- It can't at all. Thus, in so far as bodies
- Are small and smooth, is their mobility;
- But, contrariwise, the heavier and more rough,
- The more immovable they prove. Now, then,
- Since nature of mind is movable so much,
- Consist it must of seeds exceeding small
- And smooth and round. Which fact once known to thee,
- Good friend, will serve thee opportune in else.
- This also shows the nature of the same,
- How nice its texture, in how small a space
- 'Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet:
- When death's unvexed repose gets hold on man
- And mind and soul retire, thou markest there
- From the whole body nothing ta'en in form,
- Nothing in weight. Death grants ye everything,
- But vital sense and exhalation hot.
- Thus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds,
- Twined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews,
- Seeing that, when 'tis from whole body gone,
- The outward figuration of the limbs
- Is unimpaired and weight fails not a whit.
- Just so, when vanished the bouquet of wine,
- Or when an unguent's perfume delicate
- Into the winds away departs, or when
- From any body savour's gone, yet still
- The thing itself seems minished naught to eyes,
- Thereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight-
- No marvel, because seeds many and minute
- Produce the savours and the redolence
- In the whole body of the things.
- And so,
- Again, again, nature of mind and soul
- 'Tis thine to know created is of seeds
- The tiniest ever, since at flying-forth
- It beareth nothing of the weight away.
- Yet fancy not its nature simple so.
- For an impalpable aura, mixed with heat,
- Deserts the dying, and heat draws off the air;
- And heat there's none, unless commixed with air:
- For, since the nature of all heat is rare,
- Athrough it many seeds of air must move.
- Thus nature of mind is triple; yet those all
- Suffice not for creating sense- since mind
- Accepteth not that aught of these can cause
- Sense-bearing motions, and much less the thoughts
- A man revolves in mind. So unto these
- Must added be a somewhat, and a fourth;
- That somewhat's altogether void of name;
- Than which existeth naught more mobile, naught
- More an impalpable, of elements
- More small and smooth and round. That first transmits
- Sense-bearing motions through the frame, for that
- Is roused the first, composed of little shapes;
- Thence heat and viewless force of wind take up
- The motions, and thence air, and thence all things
- Are put in motion; the blood is strook, and then
- The vitals all begin to feel, and last
- To bones and marrow the sensation comes-
- Pleasure or torment. Nor will pain for naught
- Enter so far, nor a sharp ill seep through,
- But all things be perturbed to that degree
- That room for life will fail, and parts of soul
- Will scatter through the body's every pore.
- Yet as a rule, almost upon the skin
- These motion aIl are stopped, and this is why
- We have the power to retain our life.
- Now in my eagerness to tell thee how
- They are commixed, through what unions fit
- They function so, my country's pauper-speech
- Constrains me sadly. As I can, however,
- I'll touch some points and pass.
- In such a wise
- Course these primordials 'mongst one another
- With inter-motions that no one can be
- From other sundered, nor its agency
- Perform, if once divided by a space;
- Like many powers in one body they work.
- As in the flesh of any creature still
- Is odour and savour and a certain warmth,
- And yet from all of these one bulk of body
- Is made complete, so, viewless force of wind
- And warmth and air, commingled, do create
- One nature, by that mobile energy
- Assisted which from out itself to them
- Imparts initial motion, whereby first
- Sense-bearing motion along the vitals springs.
- For lurks this essence far and deep and under,
- Nor in our body is aught more shut from view,
- And 'tis the very soul of all the soul.
- And as within our members and whole frame
- The energy of mind and power of soul
- Is mixed and latent, since create it is
- Of bodies small and few, so lurks this fourth,
- This essence void of name, composed of small,
- And seems the very soul of all the soul,
- And holds dominion o'er the body all.
- And by like reason wind and air and heat
- Must function so, commingled through the frame,
- And now the one subside and now another
- In interchange of dominance, that thus
- From all of them one nature be produced,
- Lest heat and wind apart, and air apart,
- Make sense to perish, by disseverment.
- There is indeed in mind that heat it gets
- When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes
- More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind,
- Much, and so cold, companion of all dread,
- Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame;
- There is no less that state of air composed,
- Making the tranquil breast, the serene face.
- But more of hot have they whose restive hearts,
- Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage-
- Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions,
- Who often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought,
- Unable to hold the surging wrath within;
- But the cold mind of stags has more of wind,
- And speedier through their inwards rouses up
- The icy currents which make their members quake.
- But more the oxen live by tranquil air,
- Nor e'er doth smoky torch of wrath applied,
- O'erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk,
- Rouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark,
- Pierced through by icy javelins of fear;
- But have their place half-way between the two-
- Stags and fierce lions. Thus the race of men:
- Though training make them equally refined,
- It leaves those pristine vestiges behind
- Of each mind's nature. Nor may we suppose
- Evil can e'er be rooted up so far
- That one man's not more given to fits of wrath,
- Another's not more quickly touched by fear,
- A third not more long-suffering than he should.
- And needs must differ in many things besides
- The varied natures and resulting habits
- Of humankind- of which not now can I
- Expound the hidden causes, nor find names
- Enough for all the divers shapes of those
- Primordials whence this variation springs.
- But this meseems I'm able to declare:
- Those vestiges of natures left behind
- Which reason cannot quite expel from us
- Are still so slight that naught prevents a man
- From living a life even worthy of the gods.
- So then this soul is kept by all the body,
- Itself the body's guard, and source of weal:
- For they with common roots cleave each to each,
- Nor can be torn asunder without death.
- Not easy 'tis from lumps of frankincense
- To tear their fragrance forth, without its nature
- Perishing likewise: so, not easy 'tis
- From all the body nature of mind and soul
- To draw away, without the whole dissolved.
- With seeds so intertwined even from birth,
- They're dowered conjointly with a partner-life;
- No energy of body or mind, apart,
- Each of itself without the other's power,
- Can have sensation; but our sense, enkindled
- Along the vitals, to flame is blown by both
- With mutual motions. Besides the body alone
- Is nor begot nor grows, nor after death
- Seen to endure. For not as water at times
- Gives off the alien heat, nor is thereby
- Itself destroyed, but unimpaired remains-
- Not thus, I say, can the deserted frame
- Bear the dissevering of its joined soul,
- But, rent and ruined, moulders all away.
- Thus the joint contact of the body and soul
- Learns from their earliest age the vital motions,
- Even when still buried in the mother's womb;
- So no dissevering can hap to them,
- Without their bane and ill. And thence mayst see
- That, as conjoined is their source of weal,
- Conjoined also must their nature be.
- If one, moreover, denies that body feel,
- And holds that soul, through all the body mixed,
- Takes on this motion which we title "sense,"
- He battles in vain indubitable facts:
- For who'll explain what body's feeling is,
- Except by what the public fact itself
- Has given and taught us? "But when soul is parted,
- Body's without all sense." True!- loses what
- Was even in its life-time not its own;
- And much beside it loses, when soul's driven
- Forth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes
- Themselves can see no thing, but through the same
- The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,
- Is- a hard saying; since the feel in eyes
- Says the reverse. For this itself draws on
- And forces into the pupils of our eyes
- Our consciousness. And note the case when often
- We lack the power to see refulgent things,
- Because our eyes are hampered by their light-
- With a mere doorway this would happen not;
- For, since it is our very selves that see,
- No open portals undertake the toil.
- Besides, if eyes of ours but act as doors,
- Methinks that, were our sight removed, the mind
- Ought then still better to behold a thing-
- When even the door-posts have been cleared away.
- Herein in these affairs nowise take up
- What honoured sage, Democritus, lays down-
- That proposition, that primordials
- Of body and mind, each super-posed on each,
- Vary alternately and interweave
- The fabric of our members. For not only
- Are the soul-elements smaller far than those
- Which this our body and inward parts compose,
- But also are they in their number less,
- And scattered sparsely through our frame. And thus
- This canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs
- Maintain between them intervals as large
- At least as are the smallest bodies, which,
- When thrown against us, in our body rouse
- Sense-bearing motions.
- Hence it comes that we
- Sometimes don't feel alighting on our frames
- The clinging dust, or chalk that settles soft;
- Nor mists of night, nor spider's gossamer
- We feel against us, when, upon our road,
- Its net entangles us, nor on our head
- The dropping of its withered garmentings;
- Nor bird-feathers, nor vegetable down,
- Flying about, so light they barely fall;
- Nor feel the steps of every crawling thing,
- Nor each of all those footprints on our skin
- Of midges and the like. To that degree
- Must many primal germs be stirred in us
- Ere once the seeds of soul that through our frame
- Are intermingled 'gin to feel that those
- Primordials of the body have been strook,
- And ere, in pounding with such gaps between,
- They clash, combine and leap apart in turn.
- But mind is more the keeper of the gates,
- Hath more dominion over life than soul.
- For without intellect and mind there's not
- One part of soul can rest within our frame
- Least part of time; companioning, it goes
- With mind into the winds away, and leaves
- The icy members in the cold of death.
- But he whose mind and intellect abide
- Himself abides in life. However much
- The trunk be mangled, with the limbs lopped off,
- The soul withdrawn and taken from the limbs,
- Still lives the trunk and draws the vital air.
- Even when deprived of all but all the soul,
- Yet will it linger on and cleave to life,-
- Just as the power of vision still is strong,
- If but the pupil shall abide unharmed,
- Even when the eye around it's sorely rent-
- Provided only thou destroyest not
- Wholly the ball, but, cutting round the pupil,
- Leavest that pupil by itself behind-
- For more would ruin sight. But if that centre,
- That tiny part of eye, be eaten through,
- Forthwith the vision fails and darkness comes,
- Though in all else the unblemished ball be clear.
- 'Tis by like compact that the soul and mind
- Are each to other bound forevermore.
- Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
- That minds and the light souls of all that live
- Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
- Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
- Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.
- But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both;
- And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul,
- Teaching the same to be but mortal, think
- Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind-
- Since both are one, a substance inter-joined.
- First, then, since I have taught how soul exists
- A subtle fabric, of particles minute,
- Made up from atoms smaller much than those
- Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke,
- So in mobility it far excels,
- More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause
- Even moved by images of smoke or fog-
- As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled,
- The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-
- For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come
- To us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest,
- Their liquids depart, their waters flow away,
- When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke
- Depart into the winds away, believe
- The soul no less is shed abroad and dies
- More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved
- Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn
- From out man's members it has gone away.
- For, sure, if body (container of the same
- Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause,
- And rarefied by loss of blood from veins,
- Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then
- Thinkst thou it can be held by any air-
- A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?