De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- But if one say that sense can so far rise
- From non-sense by mutation, or because
- Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth,
- 'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove
- There is no birth, unless there be before
- Some formed union of the elements,
- Nor any change, unless they be unite.
- In first place, senses can't in body be
- Before its living nature's been begot,-
- Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed
- About through rivers, air, and earth, and all
- That is from earth created, nor has met
- In combination, and, in proper mode,
- Conjoined into those vital motions which
- Kindle the all-perceiving senses- they
- That keep and guard each living thing soever.
- Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength
- Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,
- And on it goes confounding all the sense
- Of body and mind. For of the primal germs
- Are loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout,
- The vital motions blocked,- until the stuff,
- Shaken profoundly through the frame entire,
- Undoes the vital knots of soul from body
- And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,
- Through all the pores. For what may we surmise
- A blow inflicted can achieve besides
- Shaking asunder and loosening all apart?
- It happens also, when less sharp the blow,
- The vital motions which are left are wont
- Oft to win out- win out, and stop and still
- The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,
- And call each part to its own courses back,
- And shake away the motion of death which now
- Begins its own dominion in the body,
- And kindle anew the senses almost gone.
- For by what other means could they the more
- Collect their powers of thought and turn again
- From very doorways of destruction
- Back unto life, rather than pass whereto
- They be already well-nigh sped and so
- Pass quite away?
- Again, since pain is there
- Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,
- Through vitals and through joints, within their seats
- Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight,
- When they remove unto their place again:
- 'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be
- Assaulted by no pain, nor from themselves
- Take no delight; because indeed they are
- Not made of any bodies of first things,
- Under whose strange new motions they might ache
- Or pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.
- And so they must be furnished with no sense.
- Once more, if thus, that every living thing
- May have sensation, needful 'tis to assign
- Sense also to its elements, what then
- Of those fixed elements from which mankind
- Hath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed?
- Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men,
- Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
- Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins,
- And have the cunning hardihood to say
- Much on the composition of the world,
- And in their turn inquire what elements
- They have themselves,- since, thus the same in kind
- As a whole mortal creature, even they
- Must also be from other elements,
- And then those others from others evermore-
- So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.
- Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant
- The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and thinks)
- Is yet derived out of other seeds
- Which in their turn are doing just the same.
- But if we see what raving nonsense this,
- And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,
- Compounded out of laughing elements,
- And think and utter reason with learn'd speech,
- Though not himself compounded, for a fact,
- Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then,
- Cannot those things which we perceive to have
- Their own sensation be composed as well
- Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?
- Once more, we all from seed celestial spring,
- To all is that same father, from whom earth,
- The fostering mother, as she takes the drops
- Of liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods-
- The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees,
- And bears the human race and of the wild
- The generations all, the while she yields
- The foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead
- The genial life and propagate their kind;
- Wherefore she owneth that maternal name,
- By old desert. What was before from earth,
- The same in earth sinks back, and what was sent
- From shores of ether, that, returning home,
- The vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth death
- So far annihilate things that she destroys
- The bodies of matter; but she dissipates
- Their combinations, and conjoins anew
- One element with others; and contrives
- That all things vary forms and change their colours
- And get sensations and straight give them o'er.
- And thus may'st know it matters with what others
- And in what structure the primordial germs
- Are held together, and what motions they
- Among themselves do give and get; nor think
- That aught we see hither and thither afloat
- Upon the crest of things, and now a birth
- And straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest
- Deep in the eternal atoms of the world.
- Why, even in these our very verses here
- It matters much with what and in what order
- Each element is set: the same denote
- Sky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun;
- The same, the grains, and trees, and living things.
- And if not all alike, at least the most-
- But what distinctions by positions wrought!
- And thus no less in things themselves, when once
- Around are changed the intervals between,
- The paths of matter, its connections, weights,
- Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes,
- The things themselves must likewise changed be.
- Now to true reason give thy mind for us.
- Since here strange truth is putting forth its might
- To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect
- Of things to show its front. Yet naught there is
- So easy that it standeth not at first
- More hard to credit than it after is;
- And naught soe'er that's great to such degree,
- Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind
- Little by little abandon their surprise.
- Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky
- And what it holds- the stars that wander o'er,
- The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:
- Yet all, if now they first for mortals were,
- If unforeseen now first asudden shown,
- What might there be more wonderful to tell,
- What that the nations would before have dared
- Less to believe might be?- I fancy, naught-
- So strange had been the marvel of that sight.
- The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day
- None deigns look upward to those lucent realms.
- Then, spew not reason from thy mind away,
- Beside thyself because the matter's new,
- But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;
- And if to thee it then appeareth true,
- Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last,
- Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man
- Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond
- There on the other side, that boundless sum
- Which lies without the ramparts of the world,
- Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar,
- Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought
- Flies unencumbered forth.
- Firstly, we find,
- Off to all regions round, on either side,
- Above, beneath, throughout the universe
- End is there none- as I have taught, as too
- The very thing of itself declares aloud,
- And as from nature of the unbottomed deep
- Shines clearly forth. Nor can we once suppose
- In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space
- To all sides stretches infinite and free,
- And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum
- Bottomless, there in many a manner fly,
- Bestirred in everlasting motion there),
- That only this one earth and sky of ours
- Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff,
- So many, perform no work outside the same;
- Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been
- By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things
- By innate motion chanced to clash and cling-
- After they'd been in many a manner driven
- Together at random, without design, in vain-
- And as at last those seeds together dwelt,
- Which, when together of a sudden thrown,
- Should alway furnish the commencements fit
- Of mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky,
- And race of living creatures. Thus, I say,
- Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are
- Such congregations of matter otherwhere,
- Like this our world which vasty ether holds
- In huge embrace.
- Besides, when matter abundant
- Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object
- Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis
- That things are carried on and made complete,
- Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is
- So great that not whole life-times of the living
- Can count the tale...
- And if their force and nature abide the same,
- Able to throw the seeds of things together
- Into their places, even as here are thrown
- The seeds together in this world of ours,
- 'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are
- Still other worlds, still other breeds of men,
- And other generations of the wild.
- Hence too it happens in the sum there is
- No one thing single of its kind in birth,
- And single and sole in growth, but rather it is
- One member of some generated race,
- Among full many others of like kind.
- First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:
- Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild
- Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men
- To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks
- Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.
- Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same
- That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,
- Exist not sole and single- rather in number
- Exceeding number. Since that deeply set
- Old boundary stone of life remains for them
- No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth
- No less, than every kind which here on earth
- Is so abundant in its members found.
- Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,
- Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,
- And forthwith free, is seen to do all things
- Herself and through herself of own accord,
- Rid of all gods. For- by their holy hearts
- Which pass in long tranquillity of peace
- Untroubled ages and a serene life!-
- Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power
- To rule the sum of the immeasurable,
- To hold with steady hand the giant reins
- Of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power
- At once to roll a multitude of skies,
- At once to heat with fires ethereal all
- The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,
- To be at all times in all places near,
- To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake
- The serene spaces of the sky with sound,
- And hurl his lightnings,- ha, and whelm how oft
- In ruins his own temples, and to rave,
- Retiring to the wildernesses, there
- At practice with that thunderbolt of his,
- Which yet how often shoots the guilty by,
- And slays the honourable blameless ones!
- Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since
- The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,
- Have many germs been added from outside,
- Have many seeds been added round about,
- Which the great All, the while it flung them on,
- Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands
- Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven
- Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs
- Far over earth, and air arise around.
- For bodies all, from out all regions, are
- Divided by blows, each to its proper thing,
- And all retire to their own proper kinds:
- The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase
- From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,
- Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether;
- Till nature, author and ender of the world,
- Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth:
- As haps when that which hath been poured inside
- The vital veins of life is now no more
- Than that which ebbs within them and runs off.
- This is the point where life for each thing ends;
- This is the point where nature with her powers
- Curbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest
- Grow big with glad increase, and step by step
- Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves
- Take in more bodies than they send from selves,
- Whilst still the food is easily infused
- Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not
- So far expanded that they cast away
- Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste
- Greater than nutriment whereby they wax.
- For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things
- Many a body ebbeth and runs off;
- But yet still more must come, until the things
- Have touched development's top pinnacle;
- Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength
- And falls away into a worser part.
- For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,
- As soon as ever its augmentation ends,
- It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round
- More bodies, sending them from out itself.
- Nor easily now is food disseminate
- Through all its veins; nor is that food enough
- To equal with a new supply on hand
- Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.
- Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing
- They're made less dense and when from blows without
- They are laid low; since food at last will fail
- Extremest eld, and bodies from outside
- Cease not with thumping to undo a thing
- And overmaster by infesting blows.
- Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world
- On all sides round shall taken be by storm,
- And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.
- For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;
- 'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-
- But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice
- To hold enough, nor nature ministers
- As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:
- Its age is broken and the earth, outworn
- With many parturitions, scarce creates
- The little lives- she who created erst
- All generations and gave forth at birth
- Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.
- For never, I fancy, did a golden cord
- From off the firmament above let down
- The mortal generations to the fields;
- Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks
- Created them; but earth it was who bore-
- The same to-day who feeds them from herself.
- Besides, herself of own accord, she first
- The shining grains and vineyards of all joy
- Created for mortality; herself
- Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,
- Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,
- Even when aided by our toiling arms.
- We break the ox, and wear away the strength
- Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day
- Barely avail for tilling of the fields,
- So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,
- So much increase our labour. Now to-day
- The aged ploughman, shaking of his head,
- Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands
- Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks
- How present times are not as times of old,
- Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,
- And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,
- Fulfilled with piety, supported life
- With simple comfort in a narrow plot,
- Since, man for man, the measure of each field
- Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again,
- The gloomy planter of the withered vine
- Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven,
- Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees
- Are wasting away and going to the tomb,
- Outworn by venerable length of life.
- O thou who first uplifted in such dark
- So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light
- Upon the profitable ends of man,
- O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks,
- And set my footsteps squarely planted now
- Even in the impress and the marks of thine-
- Less like one eager to dispute the palm,
- More as one craving out of very love
- That I may copy thee!- for how should swallow
- Contend with swans or what compare could be
- In a race between young kids with tumbling legs
- And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou,
- And finder-out of truth, and thou to us
- Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out
- Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul
- (Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds),
- We feed upon thy golden sayings all-
- Golden, and ever worthiest endless life.
- For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang
- From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim
- Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain
- Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world
- Dispart away, and through the void entire
- I see the movements of the universe.
- Rises to vision the majesty of gods,
- And their abodes of everlasting calm
- Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash,
- Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm
- With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky
- O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light.
- And nature gives to them their all, nor aught
- May ever pluck their peace of mind away.
- But nowhere to my vision rise no more
- The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth
- Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all
- Which under our feet is going on below
- Along the void. O, here in these affairs
- Some new divine delight and trembling awe
- Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine
- Nature, so plain and manifest at last,
- Hath been on every side laid bare to man!
- And since I've taught already of what sort
- The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct
- In divers forms, they flit of own accord,
- Stirred with a motion everlasting on,
- And in what mode things be from them create,
- Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems,
- Make clear the nature of the mind and soul,
- And drive that dread of Acheron without,
- Headlong, which so confounds our human life
- Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is
- The black of death, nor leaves not anything
- To prosper- a liquid and unsullied joy.
- For as to what men sometimes will affirm:
- That more than Tartarus (the realm of death)
- They fear diseases and a life of shame,
- And know the substance of the soul is blood,
- Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim),
- And so need naught of this our science, then
- Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now
- That more for glory do they braggart forth
- Than for belief. For mark these very same:
- Exiles from country, fugitives afar
- From sight of men, with charges foul attaint,
- Abased with every wretchedness, they yet
- Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet
- Make the ancestral sacrifices there,
- Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below
- Offer the honours, and in bitter case
- Turn much more keenly to religion.
- Wherefore, it's surer testing of a man
- In doubtful perils- mark him as he is
- Amid adversities; for then alone
- Are the true voices conjured from his breast,
- The mask off-stripped, reality behind.
- And greed, again, and the blind lust of honours
- Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law,
- And, oft allies and ministers of crime,
- To push through nights and days with hugest toil
- To rise untrammelled to the peaks of power-
- These wounds of life in no mean part are kept
- Festering and open by this fright of death.
- For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace
- Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet,
- Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death.
- And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar,
- Driven by false terror, and afar remove,
- With civic blood a fortune they amass,
- They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up
- Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh
- For the sad burial of a brother-born,
- And hatred and fear of tables of their kin.
- Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft
- Makes them to peak because before their eyes
- That man is lordly, that man gazed upon
- Who walks begirt with honour glorious,
- Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around;
- Some perish away for statues and a name,
- And oft to that degree, from fright of death,
- Will hate of living and beholding light
- Take hold on humankind that they inflict
- Their own destruction with a gloomy heart-
- Forgetful that this fear is font of cares,
- This fear the plague upon their sense of shame,
- And this that breaks the ties of comradry
- And oversets all reverence and faith,
- Mid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day
- Often were traitors to country and dear parents
- Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron.
- For just as children tremble and fear all
- In the viewless dark, so even we at times
- Dread in the light so many things that be
- No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
- Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
- This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,
- Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
- Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse,
- But only nature's aspect and her law.
- 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?
- Besides we feel that mind to being comes
- Along with body, with body grows and ages.
- For just as children totter round about
- With frames infirm and tender, so there follows
- A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,
- Where years have ripened into robust powers,
- Counsel is also greater, more increased
- The power of mind; thereafter, where already
- The body's shattered by master-powers of eld,
- And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,
- Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;
- All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
- Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,
- Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air;
- Since we behold the same to being come
- Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught,
- Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.
- Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes
- Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain,
- So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear;
- Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less
- Partaker is of death; for pain and disease
- Are both artificers of death,- as well
- We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now.
- Nay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind
- Wanders afield; for 'tis beside itself,
- And crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks,
- With eyelids closing and a drooping nod,
- In heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep;
- From whence nor hears it any voices more,
- Nor able is to know the faces here
- Of those about him standing with wet cheeks
- Who vainly call him back to light and life.
- Wherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves,
- Seeing, indeed, contagions of disease
- Enter into the same. Again, O why,
- When the strong wine has entered into man,
- And its diffused fire gone round the veins,
- Why follows then a heaviness of limbs,
- A tangle of the legs as round he reels,
- A stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked,
- Eyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls,
- And whatso else is of that ilk?- Why this?-
- If not that violent and impetuous wine
- Is wont to confound the soul within the body?
- But whatso can confounded be and balked,
- Gives proof, that if a hardier cause got in,
- 'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved
- Of any life thereafter.
- And, moreover,
- Often will some one in a sudden fit,
- As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down
- Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt,
- Blither, and twist about with sinews taut,
- Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs
- With tossing round. No marvel, since distract
- Through frame by violence of disease.
- . . . . . .
- Confounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul,
- As on the salt sea boil the billows round
- Under the master might of winds. And now
- A groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped,
- But, in the main, because the seeds of voice
- Are driven forth and carried in a mass
- Outwards by mouth, where they are wont to go,
- And have a builded highway. He becomes
- Mere fool, since energy of mind and soul
- Confounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven,
- Asunder thrown, and torn to pieces all
- By the same venom. But, again, where cause
- Of that disease has faced about, and back
- Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame
- Into its shadowy lairs, the man at first
- Arises reeling, and gradually comes back
- To all his senses and recovers soul.
- Thus, since within the body itself of man
- The mind and soul are by such great diseases
- Shaken, so miserably in labour distraught,
- Why, then, believe that in the open air,
- Without a body, they can pass their life,
- Immortal, battling with the master winds?
- And, since we mark the mind itself is cured,
- Like the sick body, and restored can be
- By medicine, this is forewarning too
- That mortal lives the mind. For proper it is
- That whosoe'er begins and undertakes
- To alter the mind, or meditates to change
- Any another nature soever, should add
- New parts, or readjust the order given,
- Or from the sum remove at least a bit.
- But what's immortal willeth for itself
- Its parts be nor increased, nor rearranged,
- Nor any bit soever flow away:
- For change of anything from out its bounds
- Means instant death of that which was before.
- Ergo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen,
- Or by the medicine restored, gives signs,
- As I have taught, of its mortality.
- So surely will a fact of truth make head
- 'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off
- All refuge from the adversary, and rout
- Error by two-edged confutation.
- And since the mind is of a man one part,
- Which in one fixed place remains, like ears,
- And eyes, and every sense which pilots life;
- And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,
- Severed from us, can neither feel nor be,
- But in the least of time is left to rot,
- Thus mind alone can never be, without
- The body and the man himself, which seems,
- As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught
- Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined:
- Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.
- Again, the body's and the mind's live powers
- Only in union prosper and enjoy;
- For neither can nature of mind, alone of self
- Sans body, give the vital motions forth;
- Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure
- And use the senses. Verily, as the eye,
- Alone, up-rended from its roots, apart
- From all the body, can peer about at naught,
- So soul and mind it seems are nothing able,
- When by themselves. No marvel, because, commixed
- Through veins and inwards, and through bones and thews,
- Their elements primordial are confined
- By all the body, and own no power free
- To bound around through interspaces big,
- Thus, shut within these confines, they take on
- Motions of sense, which, after death, thrown out
- Beyond the body to the winds of air,
- Take on they cannot- and on this account,
- Because no more in such a way confined.
- For air will be a body, be alive,
- If in that air the soul can keep itself,
- And in that air enclose those motions all
- Which in the thews and in the body itself
- A while ago 'twas making. So for this,
- Again, again, I say confess we must,
- That, when the body's wrappings are unwound,
- And when the vital breath is forced without,
- The soul, the senses of the mind dissolve,-
- Since for the twain the cause and ground of life
- Is in the fact of their conjoined estate.
- Once more, since body's unable to sustain
- Division from the soul, without decay
- And obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that
- The soul, uprisen from the body's deeps,
- Has filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke,
- Or that the changed body crumbling fell
- With ruin so entire, because, indeed,
- Its deep foundations have been moved from place,
- The soul out-filtering even through the frame,
- And through the body's every winding way
- And orifice? And so by many means
- Thou'rt free to learn that nature of the soul
- Hath passed in fragments out along the frame,
- And that 'twas shivered in the very body
- Ere ever it slipped abroad and swam away
- Into the winds of air.