For never a manDying appears to feel the soul go forthAs one sure whole from all his body at once,Nor first come up the throat and into mouth;But feels it failing in a certain spot,Even as he knows the senses too dissolveEach in its own location in the frame.But were this mind of ours immortal mind,Dying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution,But rather the going, the leaving of its coat,Like to a snake. Wherefore, when once the bodyHath passed away, admit we must that soul,Shivered in all that body, perished too.Nay, even when moving in the bounds of life,Often the soul, now tottering from some cause,Craves to go out, and from the frame entireLoosened to be; the countenance becomesFlaccid, as if the supreme hour were there;And flabbily collapse the members allAgainst the bloodless trunk- the kind of caseWe see when we remark in common phrase,"That man's quite gone," or "fainted dead away";And where there's now a bustle of alarm,And all are eager to get some hold uponThe man's last link of life. For then the mindAnd all the power of soul are shook so sore,And these so totter along with all the frame,That any cause a little stronger mightDissolve them altogether.- Why, then, doubtThat soul, when once without the body thrust,There in the open, an enfeebled thing,Its wrappings stripped away, cannot endureNot only through no everlasting age,But even, indeed, through not the least of time? Then, too, why never is the intellect,The counselling mind, begotten in the head,The feet, the hands, instead of cleaving stillTo one sole seat, to one fixed haunt, the breast,If not that fixed places be assignedFor each thing's birth, where each, when 'tis create,Is able to endure, and that our framesHave such complex adjustments that no shiftIn order of our members may appear?To that degree effect succeeds to cause,Nor is the flame once wont to be createIn flowing streams, nor cold begot in fire.
Besides, if nature of soul immortal be,And able to feel, when from our frame disjoined,The same, I fancy, must be thought to beEndowed with senses five,- nor is there wayBut this whereby to image to ourselvesHow under-souls may roam in Acheron.Thus painters and the elder race of bardsHave pictured souls with senses so endowed.But neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, aloneApart from body can exist for soul,Nor tongue nor ears apart. And hence indeedAlone by self they can nor feel nor be. And since we mark the vital sense to beIn the whole body, all one living thing,If of a sudden a force with rapid strokeShould slice it down the middle and cleave in twain,Beyond a doubt likewise the soul itself,Divided, dissevered, asunder will be flungAlong with body. But what severed isAnd into sundry parts divides, indeedAdmits it owns no everlasting nature.We hear how chariots of war, areekWith hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythesThe limbs away so suddenly that there,Fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth,The while the mind and powers of the manCan feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt,And sheer abandon in the zest of battle:With the remainder of his frame he seeksAnew the battle and the slaughter, nor marksHow the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have draggedOff with the horses his left arm and shield;Nor other how his right has dropped away,Mounting again and on. A third attemptsWith leg dismembered to arise and stand,Whilst, on the ground hard by, the dying footTwitches its spreading toes. And even the head,When from the warm and living trunk lopped off,Keeps on the ground the vital countenanceAnd open eyes, until 't has rendered upAll remnants of the soul. Nay, once again:If, when a serpent's darting forth its tongue,And lashing its tail, thou gettest chance to hewWith axe its length of trunk to many parts,Thou'lt see each severed fragment writhing roundWith its fresh wound, and spattering up the sod,And there the fore-part seeking with the jawsAfter the hinder, with bite to stop the pain.So shall we say that these be souls entireIn all those fractions?- but from that 'twould followOne creature'd have in body many souls.Therefore, the soul, which was indeed but one,Has been divided with the body too:Each is but mortal, since alike is eachHewn into many parts. Again, how oftenWe view our fellow going by degrees,And losing limb by limb the vital sense;First nails and fingers of the feet turn blue,Next die the feet and legs, then o'er the restSlow crawl the certain footsteps of cold death.And since this nature of the soul is torn,Nor mounts away, as at one time, entire,We needs must hold it mortal. But perchanceIf thou supposest that the soul itselfCan inward draw along the frame, and bringIts parts together to one place, and soFrom all the members draw the sense away,Why, then, that place in which such stock of soulCollected is, should greater seem in sense.But since such place is nowhere, for a fact,As said before, 'tis rent and scattered forth,And so goes under. Or again, if nowI please to grant the false, and say that soulCan thus be lumped within the frames of thoseWho leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit,Still must the soul as mortal be confessed;Nor aught it matters whether to wrack it go,Dispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a massFrom all its parts, sink down to brutish death,Since more and more in every region senseFails the whole man, and less and less of lifeIn every region lingers. And besides,If soul immortal is, and winds its wayInto the body at the birth of man,Why can we not remember something, then,Of life-time spent before? why keep we notSome footprints of the things we did of, old?But if so changed hath been the power of mind,That every recollection of things doneIs fallen away, at no o'erlong removeIs that, I trow, from what we mean by death.Wherefore 'tis sure that what hath been beforeHath died, and what now is is now create. Moreover, if after the body hath been builtOur mind's live powers are wont to be put in,Just at the moment that we come to birth,And cross the sills of life, 'twould scarcely fitFor them to live as if they seemed to growAlong with limbs and frame, even in the blood,But rather as in a cavern all alone.(Yet all the body duly throngs with sense.)But public fact declares against all this:For soul is so entwined through the veins,The flesh, the thews, the bones, that even the teethShare in sensation, as proven by dull ache,By twinge from icy water, or grating crunchUpon a stone that got in mouth with bread.Wherefore, again, again, souls must be thoughtNor void of birth, nor free from law of death;Nor, if, from outward, in they wound their way,Could they be thought as able so to cleaveTo these our frames, nor, since so interwove,Appears it that they're able to go forthUnhurt and whole and loose themselves unscathedFrom all the thews, articulations, bones.But, if perchance thou thinkest that the soul,From outward winding in its way, is wontTo seep and soak along these members ours,Then all the more 'twill perish, being thusWith body fused- for what will seep and soakWill be dissolved and will therefore die.For just as food, dispersed through all the poresOf body, and passed through limbs and all the frame,Perishes, supplying from itself the stuffFor other nature, thus the soul and mind,Though whole and new into a body going,Are yet, by seeping in, dissolved away,Whilst, as through pores, to all the frame there passThose particles from which created isThis nature of mind, now ruler of our body,Born from that soul which perished, when dividedAlong the frame.
Wherefore it seems that soulHath both a natal and funeral hour. Besides are seeds of soul there left behindIn the breathless body, or not? If there they are,It cannot justly be immortal deemed,Since, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away:But if, borne off with members uncorrupt,'Thas fled so absolutely all awayIt leaves not one remainder of itselfBehind in body, whence do cadavers, then,From out their putrid flesh exhale the worms,And whence does such a mass of living things,Boneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frameBubble and swarm? But if perchance thou thinkestThat souls from outward into worms can wind,And each into a separate body come,And reckonest not why many thousand soulsCollect where only one has gone away,Here is a point, in sooth, that seems to needInquiry and a putting to the test:Whether the souls go on a hunt for seedsOf worms wherewith to build their dwelling places,Or enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere.But why themselves they thus should do and toil'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body,They flit around, harassed by no disease,Nor cold nor famine; for the body laboursBy more of kinship to these flaws of life,And mind by contact with that body suffersSo many ills. But grant it be for themHowever useful to construct a bodyTo which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't.Then, souls for self no frames nor bodies make,Nor is there how they once might enter inTo bodies ready-made- for they cannotBe nicely interwoven with the same,And there'll be formed no interplay of senseCommon to each.
Again, why is't there goesImpetuous rage with lion's breed morose,And cunning with foxes, and to deer why givenThe ancestral fear and tendency to flee,And why in short do all the rest of traitsEngender from the very start of lifeIn the members and mentality, if notBecause one certain power of mind that cameFrom its own seed and breed waxes the sameAlong with all the body? But were mindImmortal, were it wont to change its bodies,How topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act!The Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oftOf antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quakeAlong the winds of air at the coming dove,And men would dote, and savage beasts be wise;For false the reasoning of those that sayImmortal mind is changed by change of body-For what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies.For parts are re-disposed and leave their order;Wherefore they must be also capableOf dissolution through the frame at last,That they along with body perish all.But should some say that always souls of menGo into human bodies, I will ask:How can a wise become a dullard soul?And why is never a child's a prudent soul?And the mare's filly why not trained so wellAs sturdy strength of steed? We may be sureThey'll take their refuge in the thought that mindBecomes a weakling in a weakling frame.Yet be this so, 'tis needful to confessThe soul but mortal, since, so altered nowThroughout the frame, it loses the life and senseIt had before. Or how can mind wax strongCoequally with body and attainThe craved flower of life, unless it beThe body's colleague in its origins?Or what's the purport of its going forthFrom aged limbs?- fears it, perhaps, to stay,Pent in a crumbled body? Or lest its house,Outworn by venerable length of days,May topple down upon it? But indeedFor an immortal perils are there none.
Again, at parturitions of the wildAnd at the rites of Love, that souls should standReady hard by seems ludicrous enough-Immortals waiting for their mortal limbsIn numbers innumerable, contending madlyWhich shall be first and chief to enter in!-Unless perchance among the souls there beSuch treaties stablished that the first to comeFlying along, shall enter in the first,And that they make no rivalries of strength! Again, in ether can't exist a tree,Nor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fieldsCan fishes live, nor blood in timber be,Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arrangedWhere everything may grow and have its place.Thus nature of mind cannot arise aloneWithout the body, nor exist afarFrom thews and blood. But if 'twere possible,Much rather might this very power of mindBe in the head, the shoulders or the heels,And, born in any part soever, yetIn the same man, in the same vessel abide.But since within this body even of oursStands fixed and appears arranged sureWhere soul and mind can each exist and grow,Deny we must the more that they can haveDuration and birth, wholly outside the frame.For, verily, the mortal to conjoinWith the eternal, and to feign they feelTogether, and can function each with each,Is but to dote: for what can be conceivedOf more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted,Than something mortal in a union joinedWith an immortal and a secularTo bear the outrageous tempests? Then, again,Whatever abides eternal must indeedEither repel all strokes, because 'tis madeOf solid body, and permit no entranceOf aught with power to sunder from withinThe parts compact- as are those seeds of stuffWhose nature we've exhibited before;Or else be able to endure through timeFor this: because they are from blows exempt,As is the void, the which abides untouched,Unsmit by any stroke; or else becauseThere is no room around, whereto things can,As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-Even as the sum of sums eternal is,Without or place beyond whereto things mayAsunder fly, or bodies which can smite,And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.
But if perchance the soul's to be adjudgedImmortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secureIn vital forces- either because there comeNever 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 wavesOf drowse and torpor.
FOLLY OF THE FEAR OF DEATH Therefore death to usIs nothing, nor concerns us in the least,Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.And just as in the ages gone beforeWe felt no touch of ill, when all sides roundTo battle came the Carthaginian host,And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,Under the aery coasts of arching heavenShuddered and trembled, and all humankindDoubted to which the empery should fallBy land and sea, thus when we are no more,When comes that sundering of our body and soulThrough 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 feelThe nature of mind and energy of soul,After their severance from this body of ours,Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bondsAnd wedlock of the soul and body live,Through which we're fashioned to a single state.And, even if time collected after deathThe matter of our frames and set it allAgain in place as now, and if againTo us the light of life were given, O yetThat process too would not concern us aught,When once the self-succession of our senseHas been asunder broken. And now and here,Little enough we're busied with the selvesWe were aforetime, nor, concerning them,Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gazeBackwards across all yesterdays of timeThe immeasurable, thinking how manifoldThe motions of matter are, then couldst thou wellCredit this too: often these very seeds(From which we are to-day) of old were setIn the same order as they are to-day-Yet this we can't to consciousness recallThrough the remembering mind. For there hath beenAn interposed pause of life, and wideHave all the motions wandered everywhereFrom these our senses. For if woe and ailPerchance are toward, then the man to whomThe bane can happen must himself be thereAt that same time. But death precludeth this,Forbidding life to him on whom might crowdSuch 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 becauseWhen dead he rots with body laid away,Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,Know well: he rings not true, and that beneathStill 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 failsTo pluck himself with all his roots from lifeAnd cast that self away, quite unawaresFeigning that some remainder's left behind.For when in life one pictures to oneselfHis body dead by beasts and vultures torn,He pities his state, dividing not himselfTherefrom, removing not the self enoughFrom the body flung away, imaginingHimself that body, and projecting thereHis own sense, as he stands beside it: henceHe grieves that he is mortal born, nor marksThat in true death there is no second selfAlive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,Or stand lamenting that the self lies thereMangled or burning. For if it an evil isDead to be jerked about by jaw and fangOf the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere notBitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,Or suffocate in honey, and, reclinedOn the smooth oblong of an icy slab,Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earthDown-crushing from above.
"Thee now no moreThe joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,Nor little sons run up to snatch their kissesAnd 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'enWretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"But add not, "yet no longer unto theeRemains a remnant of desire for them"If this they only well perceived with mindAnd followed up with maxims, they would freeTheir 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 pyreThou wert made ashes; and no day shall takeFor us the eternal sorrow from the breast."But ask the mourner what's the bitternessThat 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 sunkIn slumber, no one then demands his selfOr 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 germsRoam round our members, at that time, afarFrom their own motions that produce our senses-Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a manCollects his senses. Death is, then, to usMuch less- if there can be a less than thatWhich is itself a nothing: for there comesHard upon death a scattering more greatOf the throng of matter, and no man wakes upOn 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 deathTo parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,Or chafe for any lack.
Once more, if NatureShould of a sudden send a voice abroad,And her own self inveigh against us so:"Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concernThat thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?For if thy life aforetime and behindTo thee was grateful, and not all thy goodWas heaped as in sieve to flow awayAnd perish unavailingly, why not,Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,Laden with life? why not with mind contentTake now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?But if whatever thou enjoyed hath beenLavished and lost, and life is now offence,Why seekest more to add- which in its turnWill perish foully and fall out in vain?O why not rather make an end of life,Of labour? For all I may devise or findTo pleasure thee is nothing: all things areThe same forever. Though not yet thy bodyWrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhaustsOutworn, still things abide the same, even ifThou goest on to conquer all of timeWith length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-What were our answer, but that Nature hereUrges just suit and in her words lays downTrue 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 himCry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:"Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sumOf the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest everWhat's not at hand, contemning present good,That life has slipped away, unperfectedAnd unavailing unto thee. And now,Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy headStands- and before thou canst be going homeSated 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 oldOutcrowded by the new gives way, and everThe one thing from the others is repaired.Nor no man is consigned to the abyssOf 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 eldOf time the eternal, ere we had a birth.And Nature holds this like a mirror upOf 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 beIn Acheron, the deep, they all are oursHere in this life. No Tantalus, benumbedWith baseless terror, as the fables tell,Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:But, rather, in life an empty dread of GodsUrges mortality, and each one fearsSuch fall of fortune as may chance to him.Nor eat the vultures into TityusProstrate in Acheron, nor can they find,Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aughtTo 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 beTo bear eternal pain nor furnish foodFrom his own frame forever. But for usA Tityus is he whom vultures rendProstrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,Whom troubles of any unappeased desiresAsunder rip. We have before our eyesHere in this life also a SisyphusIn him who seeketh of the populaceThe rods, the axes fell, and evermoreRetires a beaten and a gloomy man.For to seek after power- an empty name,Nor given at all- and ever in the searchTo endure a world of toil, O this it isTo shove with shoulder up the hill a stoneWhich 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 progeniesAnd varied charms, and we are never filledWith the fruits of life- O this, I fancy, 'tisTo 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 surgeOf horrible heat- the which are nowhere, norIndeed can be: but in this life is fearOf retributions just and expiationsFor evil acts: the dungeon and the leapFrom 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 goadsAnd burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhileWhat terminus of ills, what end of pineCan ever be, and feareth lest the sameBut grow more heavy after death. Of truth,The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
This also to thy very self sometimesRepeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus leftThe sunshine with his eyes, in divers thingsA better man than thou, O worthless hind;And many other kings and lords of ruleThereafter have gone under, once who swayedO'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,And gave his legionaries thoroughfareAlong the deep, and taught them how to crossThe pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,Trampling upon it with his cavalry,The bellowings of ocean- poured his soulFrom 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 eldAdmonished him his memory waned away,Of own accord offered his head to death.Even Epicurus went, his light of lifeRun out, the man in genius who o'er-toppedThe 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 sleepWastest thy life- time's major part, and snorestEven when awake, and ceasest not to seeThe stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind besetBy baseless terror, nor discoverest oftWhat'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 mindThey 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 notWhat 'tis they want, and seeking ever and everA 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 hasteTo hurry help to a house afire.- At onceHe yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeksForgetfulness, or maybe bustles aboutAnd makes for town again. In such a wayEach 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 divineThe nature of things, since here is in debateEternal time and not the single hour,Mortal's estate in whatsoever remainsAfter great death.
And too, when all is said,What evil lust of life is this so greatSubdues us to live, so dreadfully distraughtIn perils and alarms? one fixed endOf 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 forgedBy living on. But whilst the thing we long forIs lacking, that seems good above all else;Thereafter, when we've touched it, something elseWe long for; ever one equal thirst of lifeGrips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortuneThe future times may carry, or what beThat chance may bring, or what the issue nextAwaiting us. Nor by prolonging lifeTake we the least away from death's own time,Nor can we pluck one moment off, wherebyTo minish the aeons of our state of death.Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfilAs many generations as thou may:Eternal death shall there be waiting still;And he who died with light of yesterdayShall be no briefer time in death's No-moreThan he who perished months or years before.
BOOK IV
PROEMI wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,Trodden by step of none before. I joyTo come on undefiled fountains there,To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,To seek for this my head a signal crownFrom regions where the Muses never yetHave garlanded the temples of a man:First, since I teach concerning mighty things,And go right on to loose from round the mindThe tightened coils of dread religion;Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frameSong so pellucid, touching all throughoutEven with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,Is not without a reasonable ground:For as physicians, when they seek to giveYoung boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touchThe brim around the cup with the sweet juiceAnd yellow of the honey, in order thatThe thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoledAs far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow downThe wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,Be yet not merely duped, but rather thusGrow strong again with recreated health:So now I too (since this my doctrine seemsIn general somewhat woeful unto thoseWho've had it not in hand, and since the crowdStarts back from it in horror) have desiredTo expound our doctrine unto thee in songSoft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-If by such method haply I might holdThe mind of thee upon these lines of ours,Till thou dost learn the nature of all thingsAnd understandest their utility.
EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES
But since I've taught already of what sortThe seeds of all things are, and how distinctIn divers forms they flit of own accord,Stirred with a motion everlasting on,And in what mode things be from them create,And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,And of what things 'tis with the body knitAnd thrives in strength, and by what mode uptornThat mind returns to its primordials,Now will I undertake an argument-One for these matters of supreme concern-That there exist those somewhats which we callThe images of things: these, like to filmsScaled off the utmost outside of the things,Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere,And the same terrify our intellects,Coming upon us waking or in sleep,When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapesAnd images of people lorn of light,Which oft have horribly roused us when we layIn slumber- that haply nevermore may weSuppose that souls get loose from Acheron,Or shades go floating in among the living,Or aught of us is left behind at death,When body and mind, destroyed together, eachBack to its own primordials goes away. And thus I say that effigies of things,And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,From off the utmost outside of the things,Which are like films or may be named a rind,Because the image bears like look and formWith whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,Well learn from this: mainly, because we seeEven 'mongst visible objects many beThat send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-And some more interwoven and condensed-As when the locusts in the summertimePut off their glossy tunics, or when calvesAt birth drop membranes from their body's surface,Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffsIts vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we seeThe breres augmented with their flying spoils:Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain tooThat tenuous images from things are sent,From off the utmost outside of the things.For why those kinds should drop and part from things,Rather than others tenuous and thin,No power has man to open mouth to tell;Especially, since on outsides of thingsAre bodies many and minute which could,In the same order which they had before,And with the figure of their form preserved,Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,Being less subject to impediments,As few in number and placed along the front.For truly many things we see dischargeTheir stuff at large, not only from their coresDeep-set within, as we have said above,But from their surfaces at times no less-Their very colours too. And commonlyThe awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,Have such an action quite; for there they dyeAnd make to undulate with their every hueThe circled throng below, and all the stage,And rich attire in the patrician seats.And ever the more the theatre's dark wallsAround them shut, the more all things withinLaugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, sinceThe canvas hangings thus discharge their dyeFrom off their surface, things in general mustLikewise their tenuous effigies discharge,Because in either case they are off-thrownFrom off the surface. So there are indeedSuch certain prints and vestiges of formsWhich flit around, of subtlest texture made,Invisible, when separate, each and one.
Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and suchStreams out of things diffusedly, because,Whilst coming from the deeps of body forthAnd rising out, along their bending pathThey're torn asunder, nor have gateways straightWherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.But contrariwise, when such a tenuous filmOf outside colour is thrown off, there's naughtCan rend it, since 'tis placed along the frontReady to hand. Lastly those imagesWhich to our eyes in mirrors do appear,In water, or in any shining surface,Must be, since furnished with like look of things,Fashioned from images of things sent out.There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,Like unto them, which no one can divineWhen taken singly, which do yet give back,When by continued and recurrent dischargeExpelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be keptSo well conserved that thus be given backFigures so like each object.
Now then, learnHow tenuous is the nature of an image.And in the first place, since primordials beSo far beneath our senses, and much lessE'en than those objects which begin to growToo small for eyes to note, learn now in fewHow nice are the beginnings of all things-That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:First, living creatures are sometimes so smallThat even their third part can nowise be seen;Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!And what besides of those first particlesWhence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest notHow nice and how minute? Besides, whateverExhales from out its body a sharp smell-The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twainPerchance [thou touch] a one of them . . . . . .Then why not rather know that imagesFlit hither and thither, many, in many modes,Bodiless and invisible? But lestHaply thou holdest that those imagesWhich come from objects are the sole that flit,Others indeed there be of own accordBegot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,Cease not to change appearance and to turnInto new outlines of all sorts of forms;As we behold the clouds grow thick on highAnd smirch the serene vision of the world,Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seenThe giants' faces flying far alongAnd trailing a spread of shadow; and at timesThe mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocksGoing before and crossing on the sun,Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amainAnd leading in the other thunderheads.