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Original / primary: Perseus Eng1
3.1
O thou who first uplifted in such dark
3.1
So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light
3.1
Upon the profitable ends of man,
3.1
O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks,
3.1
And set my footsteps squarely planted now
3.1
Even in the impress and the marks of thine-
3.1
Less like one eager to dispute the palm,
3.1
More as one craving out of very love
3.1
That I may copy thee!- for how should swallow
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Contend with swans or what compare could be
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In a race between young kids with tumbling legs
3.1
And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou,
3.1
And finder-out of truth, and thou to us
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Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out
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Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul
3.1
(Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds),
3.1
We feed upon thy golden sayings all-
3.1
Golden, and ever worthiest endless life.
3.1
For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang
3.1
From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim
3.1
Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain
3.1
Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world
3.1
Dispart away, and through the void entire
3.1
I see the movements of the universe.
3.1
Rises to vision the majesty of gods,
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And their abodes of everlasting calm
3.1
Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash,
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Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm
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With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky
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O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light.
3.1
And nature gives to them their all, nor aught
3.1
May ever pluck their peace of mind away.
3.1
But nowhere to my vision rise no more
3.1
The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth
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Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all
3.1
Which under our feet is going on below
3.1
Along the void. O, here in these affairs
3.1
Some new divine delight and trembling awe
3.1
Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine
3.1
Nature, so plain and manifest at last,
3.1
Hath been on every side laid bare to man!
3.1
And since I've taught already of what sort
3.1
The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct
3.1
In divers forms, they flit of own accord,
3.1
Stirred with a motion everlasting on,
3.1
And in what mode things be from them create,
3.1
Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems,
3.1
Make clear the nature of the mind and soul,
3.1
And drive that dread of Acheron without,
3.1
Headlong, which so confounds our human life
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Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is
3.1
The black of death, nor leaves not anything
3.1
To prosper- a liquid and unsullied joy.
3.41
For as to what men sometimes will affirm:
3.41
That more than Tartarus (the realm of death)
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They fear diseases and a life of shame,
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And know the substance of the soul is blood,
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Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim),
3.41
And so need naught of this our science, then
3.41
Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now
3.41
That more for glory do they braggart forth
3.41
Than for belief. For mark these very same:
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Exiles from country, fugitives afar
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From sight of men, with charges foul attaint,
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Abased with every wretchedness, they yet
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Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet
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Make the ancestral sacrifices there,
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Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below
3.41
Offer the honours, and in bitter case
3.41
Turn much more keenly to religion.
3.41
Wherefore, it's surer testing of a man
3.41
In doubtful perils- mark him as he is
3.41
Amid adversities; for then alone
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Are the true voices conjured from his breast,
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The mask off-stripped, reality behind.
3.41
And greed, again, and the blind lust of honours
3.41
Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law,
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And, oft allies and ministers of crime,
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To push through nights and days with hugest toil
3.41
To rise untrammelled to the peaks of power-
3.41
These wounds of life in no mean part are kept
3.41
Festering and open by this fright of death.
3.41
For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace
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Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet,
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Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death.
3.41
And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar,
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Driven by false terror, and afar remove,
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With civic blood a fortune they amass,
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They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up
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Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh
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For the sad burial of a brother-born,
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And hatred and fear of tables of their kin.
3.41
Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft
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Makes them to peak because before their eyes
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That man is lordly, that man gazed upon
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Who walks begirt with honour glorious,
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Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around;
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Some perish away for statues and a name,
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And oft to that degree, from fright of death,
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Will hate of living and beholding light
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Take hold on humankind that they inflict
3.41
Their own destruction with a gloomy heart-
3.41
Forgetful that this fear is font of cares,
3.41
This fear the plague upon their sense of shame,
3.41
And this that breaks the ties of comradry
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And oversets all reverence and faith,
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Mid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day
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Often were traitors to country and dear parents
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Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron.
3.41
For just as children tremble and fear all
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In the viewless dark, so even we at times
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Dread in the light so many things that be
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No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
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Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
3.41
This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,
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Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
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Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse,
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But only nature's aspect and her law.
3.94
First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call
3.94
The intellect, wherein is seated life's
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Counsel and regimen, is part no less
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Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts
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Of one whole breathing creature. [But some hold]
3.94
That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,
3.94
But is of body some one vital state,-
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Named "harmony" by Greeks, because thereby
3.94
We live with sense, though intellect be not
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In any part: as oft the body is said
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To have good health (when health, however, 's not
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One part of him who has it), so they place
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The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.
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Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.
3.94
Often the body palpable and seen
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Sickens, while yet in some invisible part
3.94
We feel a pleasure; oft the other way,
3.94
A miserable in mind feels pleasure still
3.94
Throughout his body- quite the same as when
3.94
A foot may pain without a pain in head.
3.94
Besides, when these our limbs are given o'er
3.94
To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame
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At random void of sense, a something else
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Is yet within us, which upon that time
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Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving
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All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.
3.94
Now, for to see that in man's members dwells
3.94
Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont
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To feel sensation by a "harmony"
3.94
Take this in chief: the fact that life remains
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Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone;
3.94
Yet that same life, when particles of heat,
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Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth
3.94
Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith
3.94
Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.
3.94
Thus mayst thou know that not all particles
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Perform like parts, nor in like manner all
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Are props of weal and safety: rather those-
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The seeds of wind and exhalations warm-
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Take care that in our members life remains.
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Therefore a vital heat and wind there is
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Within the very body, which at death
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Deserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind
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And even of soul is found to be, as 'twere,
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A part of man, give over "harmony"-
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Name to musicians brought from Helicon,-
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Unless themselves they filched it otherwise,
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To serve for what was lacking name till then.
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Whate'er it be, they're welcome to it- thou,
3.94
Hearken my other maxims.
3.136
Mind and soul,
3.136
I say, are held conjoined one with other,
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And form one single nature of themselves;
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But chief and regnant through the frame entire
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Is still that counsel which we call the mind,
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And that cleaves seated in the midmost breast.
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Here leap dismay and terror; round these haunts
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Be blandishments of joys; and therefore here
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The intellect, the mind. The rest of soul,
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Throughout the body scattered, but obeys-
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Moved by the nod and motion of the mind.
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This, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought;
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This for itself hath mirth, even when the thing
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That moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all.
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And as, when head or eye in us is smit
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By assailing pain, we are not tortured then
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Through all the body, so the mind alone
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Is sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy,
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Whilst yet the soul's remainder through the limbs
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And through the frame is stirred by nothing new.
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But when the mind is moved by shock more fierce,
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We mark the whole soul suffering all at once
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Along man's members: sweats and pallors spread
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Over the body, and the tongue is broken,
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And fails the voice away, and ring the ears,
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Mists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse,-
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Aye, men drop dead from terror of the mind.
3.136
Hence, whoso will can readily remark
3.136
That soul conjoined is with mind, and, when
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'Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith
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In turn it hits and drives the body too.
3.136
And this same argument establisheth
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That nature of mind and soul corporeal is:
3.136
For when 'tis seen to drive the members on,
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To snatch from sleep the body, and to change
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The countenance, and the whole state of man
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To rule and turn,- what yet could never be
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Sans contact, and sans body contact fails-
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Must we not grant that mind and soul consist
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Of a corporeal nature?- And besides
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Thou markst that likewise with this body of ours
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Suffers the mind and with our body feels.
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If the dire speed of spear that cleaves the bones
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And bares the inner thews hits not the life,
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Yet follows a fainting and a foul collapse,
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And, on the ground, dazed tumult in the mind,
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And whiles a wavering will to rise afoot.
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So nature of mind must be corporeal, since
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From stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes.
3.136
Now, of what body, what components formed
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Is this same mind I will go on to tell.
3.136
First, I aver, 'tis superfine, composed
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Of tiniest particles- that such the fact
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Thou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this:
3.182
Nothing is seen to happen with such speed
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As what the mind proposes and begins;
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Therefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly
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Than aught whose nature's palpable to eyes.
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But what's so agile must of seeds consist
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Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved,
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When hit by impulse slight. So water moves,
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In waves along, at impulse just the least-
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Being create of little shapes that roll;
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But, contrariwise, the quality of honey
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More stable is, its liquids more inert,
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More tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter
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Cleaves more together, since, indeed, 'tis made
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Of atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round.
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For the light breeze that hovers yet can blow
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High heaps of poppy-seed away for thee
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Downward from off the top; but, contrariwise,
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A pile of stones or spiny ears of wheat
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It can't at all. Thus, in so far as bodies
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Are small and smooth, is their mobility;
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But, contrariwise, the heavier and more rough,
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The more immovable they prove. Now, then,
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Since nature of mind is movable so much,
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Consist it must of seeds exceeding small
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And smooth and round. Which fact once known to thee,
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Good friend, will serve thee opportune in else.
3.182
This also shows the nature of the same,
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How nice its texture, in how small a space
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'Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet:
3.182
When death's unvexed repose gets hold on man
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And mind and soul retire, thou markest there
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From the whole body nothing ta'en in form,
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Nothing in weight. Death grants ye everything,
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But vital sense and exhalation hot.
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Thus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds,
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Twined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews,
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Seeing that, when 'tis from whole body gone,
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The outward figuration of the limbs
3.182
Is unimpaired and weight fails not a whit.
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Just so, when vanished the bouquet of wine,
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Or when an unguent's perfume delicate
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Into the winds away departs, or when
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From any body savour's gone, yet still
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The thing itself seems minished naught to eyes,
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Thereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight-
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No marvel, because seeds many and minute
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Produce the savours and the redolence
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In the whole body of the things.
3.228
And so,
3.228
Again, again, nature of mind and soul
3.228
'Tis thine to know created is of seeds
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The tiniest ever, since at flying-forth
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It beareth nothing of the weight away.
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Yet fancy not its nature simple so.
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For an impalpable aura, mixed with heat,
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Deserts the dying, and heat draws off the air;
3.228
And heat there's none, unless commixed with air:
3.228
For, since the nature of all heat is rare,
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Athrough it many seeds of air must move.
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Thus nature of mind is triple; yet those all
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Suffice not for creating sense- since mind
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Accepteth not that aught of these can cause
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Sense-bearing motions, and much less the thoughts
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A man revolves in mind. So unto these
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Must added be a somewhat, and a fourth;
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That somewhat's altogether void of name;
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Than which existeth naught more mobile, naught
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More an impalpable, of elements
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More small and smooth and round. That first transmits
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Sense-bearing motions through the frame, for that
3.228
Is roused the first, composed of little shapes;
3.228
Thence heat and viewless force of wind take up
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The motions, and thence air, and thence all things
3.228
Are put in motion; the blood is strook, and then
3.228
The vitals all begin to feel, and last
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To bones and marrow the sensation comes-
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Pleasure or torment. Nor will pain for naught
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Enter so far, nor a sharp ill seep through,
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But all things be perturbed to that degree
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That room for life will fail, and parts of soul
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Will scatter through the body's every pore.
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Yet as a rule, almost upon the skin
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These motion aIl are stopped, and this is why
3.228
We have the power to retain our life.
3.228
Now in my eagerness to tell thee how
3.228
They are commixed, through what unions fit
3.228
They function so, my country's pauper-speech
3.228
Constrains me sadly. As I can, however,
3.228
I'll touch some points and pass.
3.262
In such a wise
3.262
Course these primordials 'mongst one another
3.262
With inter-motions that no one can be
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From other sundered, nor its agency
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Perform, if once divided by a space;
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Like many powers in one body they work.
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As in the flesh of any creature still
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Is odour and savour and a certain warmth,
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And yet from all of these one bulk of body
3.262
Is made complete, so, viewless force of wind
3.262
And warmth and air, commingled, do create
3.262
One nature, by that mobile energy
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Assisted which from out itself to them
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Imparts initial motion, whereby first
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Sense-bearing motion along the vitals springs.
3.262
For lurks this essence far and deep and under,
3.262
Nor in our body is aught more shut from view,
3.262
And 'tis the very soul of all the soul.
3.262
And as within our members and whole frame
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The energy of mind and power of soul
3.262
Is mixed and latent, since create it is
3.262
Of bodies small and few, so lurks this fourth,
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This essence void of name, composed of small,
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And seems the very soul of all the soul,
3.262
And holds dominion o'er the body all.
3.262
And by like reason wind and air and heat
3.262
Must function so, commingled through the frame,
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And now the one subside and now another
3.262
In interchange of dominance, that thus
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From all of them one nature be produced,
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Lest heat and wind apart, and air apart,
3.262
Make sense to perish, by disseverment.
3.288
There is indeed in mind that heat it gets
3.288
When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes
3.288
More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind,
3.288
Much, and so cold, companion of all dread,
3.288
Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame;
3.288
There is no less that state of air composed,
3.288
Making the tranquil breast, the serene face.
3.288
But more of hot have they whose restive hearts,
3.288
Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage-
3.288
Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions,
3.288
Who often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought,
3.288
Unable to hold the surging wrath within;
3.288
But the cold mind of stags has more of wind,
3.288
And speedier through their inwards rouses up
3.288
The icy currents which make their members quake.
3.288
But more the oxen live by tranquil air,
3.288
Nor e'er doth smoky torch of wrath applied,
3.288
O'erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk,
3.288
Rouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark,
3.288
Pierced through by icy javelins of fear;
3.288
But have their place half-way between the two-
3.288
Stags and fierce lions. Thus the race of men:
3.288
Though training make them equally refined,
3.288
It leaves those pristine vestiges behind
3.288
Of each mind's nature. Nor may we suppose
3.288
Evil can e'er be rooted up so far
3.288
That one man's not more given to fits of wrath,
3.288
Another's not more quickly touched by fear,
3.288
A third not more long-suffering than he should.
3.288
And needs must differ in many things besides
3.288
The varied natures and resulting habits
3.288
Of humankind- of which not now can I
3.288
Expound the hidden causes, nor find names
3.288
Enough for all the divers shapes of those
3.288
Primordials whence this variation springs.
3.288
But this meseems I'm able to declare:
3.288
Those vestiges of natures left behind
3.288
Which reason cannot quite expel from us
3.288
Are still so slight that naught prevents a man
3.288
From living a life even worthy of the gods.
3.288
So then this soul is kept by all the body,
3.288
Itself the body's guard, and source of weal:
3.288
For they with common roots cleave each to each,
3.288
Nor can be torn asunder without death.
3.288
Not easy 'tis from lumps of frankincense
3.288
To tear their fragrance forth, without its nature
3.288
Perishing likewise: so, not easy 'tis
3.288
From all the body nature of mind and soul
3.288
To draw away, without the whole dissolved.
3.288
With seeds so intertwined even from birth,
3.288
They're dowered conjointly with a partner-life;
3.288
No energy of body or mind, apart,
3.288
Each of itself without the other's power,
3.288
Can have sensation; but our sense, enkindled
3.288
Along the vitals, to flame is blown by both
3.288
With mutual motions. Besides the body alone
3.288
Is nor begot nor grows, nor after death
3.288
Seen to endure. For not as water at times
3.288
Gives off the alien heat, nor is thereby
3.288
Itself destroyed, but unimpaired remains-
3.288
Not thus, I say, can the deserted frame
3.288
Bear the dissevering of its joined soul,
3.288
But, rent and ruined, moulders all away.
3.288
Thus the joint contact of the body and soul
3.288
Learns from their earliest age the vital motions,
3.288
Even when still buried in the mother's womb;
3.288
So no dissevering can hap to them,
3.288
Without their bane and ill. And thence mayst see
3.288
That, as conjoined is their source of weal,
3.288
Conjoined also must their nature be.
3.350
If one, moreover, denies that body feel,
3.350
And holds that soul, through all the body mixed,
3.350
Takes on this motion which we title "sense,"
3.350
He battles in vain indubitable facts:
3.350
For who'll explain what body's feeling is,
3.350
Except by what the public fact itself
3.350
Has given and taught us? "But when soul is parted,
3.350
Body's without all sense." True!- loses what
3.350
Was even in its life-time not its own;
3.350
And much beside it loses, when soul's driven
3.350
Forth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes
3.350
Themselves can see no thing, but through the same
3.350
The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,
3.350
Is- a hard saying; since the feel in eyes
3.350
Says the reverse. For this itself draws on
3.350
And forces into the pupils of our eyes
3.350
Our consciousness. And note the case when often
3.350
We lack the power to see refulgent things,
3.350
Because our eyes are hampered by their light-
3.350
With a mere doorway this would happen not;
3.350
For, since it is our very selves that see,
3.350
No open portals undertake the toil.
3.350
Besides, if eyes of ours but act as doors,
3.350
Methinks that, were our sight removed, the mind
3.350
Ought then still better to behold a thing-
3.350
When even the door-posts have been cleared away.
3.350
Herein in these affairs nowise take up
3.350
What honoured sage, Democritus, lays down-
3.350
That proposition, that primordials
3.350
Of body and mind, each super-posed on each,
3.350
Vary alternately and interweave
3.350
The fabric of our members. For not only
3.350
Are the soul-elements smaller far than those
3.350
Which this our body and inward parts compose,
3.350
But also are they in their number less,
3.350
And scattered sparsely through our frame. And thus
3.350
This canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs
3.350
Maintain between them intervals as large
3.350
At least as are the smallest bodies, which,
3.350
When thrown against us, in our body rouse
3.350
Sense-bearing motions.
3.381
Hence it comes that we
3.381
Sometimes don't feel alighting on our frames
3.381
The clinging dust, or chalk that settles soft;
3.381
Nor mists of night, nor spider's gossamer
3.381
We feel against us, when, upon our road,
3.381
Its net entangles us, nor on our head
3.381
The dropping of its withered garmentings;
3.381
Nor bird-feathers, nor vegetable down,
3.381
Flying about, so light they barely fall;
3.381
Nor feel the steps of every crawling thing,
3.381
Nor each of all those footprints on our skin
3.381
Of midges and the like. To that degree
3.381
Must many primal germs be stirred in us
3.381
Ere once the seeds of soul that through our frame
3.381
Are intermingled 'gin to feel that those
3.381
Primordials of the body have been strook,
3.381
And ere, in pounding with such gaps between,
3.381
They clash, combine and leap apart in turn.
3.381
But mind is more the keeper of the gates,
3.381
Hath more dominion over life than soul.
3.381
For without intellect and mind there's not
3.381
One part of soul can rest within our frame
3.381
Least part of time; companioning, it goes
3.381
With mind into the winds away, and leaves
3.381
The icy members in the cold of death.
3.381
But he whose mind and intellect abide
3.381
Himself abides in life. However much
3.381
The trunk be mangled, with the limbs lopped off,
3.381
The soul withdrawn and taken from the limbs,
3.381
Still lives the trunk and draws the vital air.
3.381
Even when deprived of all but all the soul,
3.381
Yet will it linger on and cleave to life,-
3.381
Just as the power of vision still is strong,
3.381
If but the pupil shall abide unharmed,
3.381
Even when the eye around it's sorely rent-
3.381
Provided only thou destroyest not
3.381
Wholly the ball, but, cutting round the pupil,
3.381
Leavest that pupil by itself behind-
3.381
For more would ruin sight. But if that centre,
3.381
That tiny part of eye, be eaten through,
3.381
Forthwith the vision fails and darkness comes,
3.381
Though in all else the unblemished ball be clear.
3.381
'Tis by like compact that the soul and mind
3.381
Are each to other bound forevermore.
3.417
Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
3.417
That minds and the light souls of all that live
3.417
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
3.417
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
3.417
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.
3.417
But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both;
3.417
And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul,
3.417
Teaching the same to be but mortal, think
3.417
Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind-
3.417
Since both are one, a substance inter-joined.
3.417
First, then, since I have taught how soul exists
3.417
A subtle fabric, of particles minute,
3.417
Made up from atoms smaller much than those
3.417
Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke,
3.417
So in mobility it far excels,
3.417
More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause
3.417
Even moved by images of smoke or fog-
3.417
As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled,
3.417
The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-
3.417
For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come
3.417
To us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest,
3.417
Their liquids depart, their waters flow away,
3.417
When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke
3.417
Depart into the winds away, believe
3.417
The soul no less is shed abroad and dies
3.417
More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved
3.417
Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn
3.417
From out man's members it has gone away.
3.417
For, sure, if body (container of the same
3.417
Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause,
3.417
And rarefied by loss of blood from veins,
3.417
Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then
3.417
Thinkst thou it can be held by any air-
3.417
A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?
3.445
Besides we feel that mind to being comes
3.445
Along with body, with body grows and ages.
3.445
For just as children totter round about
3.445
With frames infirm and tender, so there follows
3.445
A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,
3.445
Where years have ripened into robust powers,
3.445
Counsel is also greater, more increased
3.445
The power of mind; thereafter, where already
3.445
The body's shattered by master-powers of eld,
3.445
And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,
3.445
Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;
3.445
All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
3.445
Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,
3.445
Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air;
3.445
Since we behold the same to being come
3.445
Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught,
3.445
Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.
3.445
Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes
3.445
Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain,
3.445
So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear;
3.445
Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less
3.445
Partaker is of death; for pain and disease
3.445
Are both artificers of death,- as well
3.445
We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now.
3.445
Nay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind
3.445
Wanders afield; for 'tis beside itself,
3.445
And crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks,
3.445
With eyelids closing and a drooping nod,
3.445
In heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep;
3.445
From whence nor hears it any voices more,
3.445
Nor able is to know the faces here
3.445
Of those about him standing with wet cheeks
3.445
Who vainly call him back to light and life.
3.445
Wherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves,
3.445
Seeing, indeed, contagions of disease
3.445
Enter into the same. Again, O why,
3.445
When the strong wine has entered into man,
3.445
And its diffused fire gone round the veins,
3.445
Why follows then a heaviness of limbs,
3.445
A tangle of the legs as round he reels,
3.445
A stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked,
3.445
Eyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls,
3.445
And whatso else is of that ilk?- Why this?-
3.445
If not that violent and impetuous wine
3.445
Is wont to confound the soul within the body?
3.445
But whatso can confounded be and balked,
3.445
Gives proof, that if a hardier cause got in,
3.445
'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved
3.445
Of any life thereafter.
3.487
And, moreover,
3.487
Often will some one in a sudden fit,
3.487
As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down
3.487
Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt,
3.487
Blither, and twist about with sinews taut,
3.487
Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs
3.487
With tossing round. No marvel, since distract
3.487
Through frame by violence of disease.
3.487
. . . . . .
3.487
Confounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul,
3.487
As on the salt sea boil the billows round
3.487
Under the master might of winds. And now
3.487
A groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped,
3.487
But, in the main, because the seeds of voice
3.487
Are driven forth and carried in a mass
3.487
Outwards by mouth, where they are wont to go,
3.487
And have a builded highway. He becomes
3.487
Mere fool, since energy of mind and soul
3.487
Confounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven,
3.487
Asunder thrown, and torn to pieces all
3.487
By the same venom. But, again, where cause
3.487
Of that disease has faced about, and back
3.487
Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame
3.487
Into its shadowy lairs, the man at first
3.487
Arises reeling, and gradually comes back
3.487
To all his senses and recovers soul.
3.487
Thus, since within the body itself of man
3.487
The mind and soul are by such great diseases
3.487
Shaken, so miserably in labour distraught,
3.487
Why, then, believe that in the open air,
3.487
Without a body, they can pass their life,
3.487
Immortal, battling with the master winds?
3.487
And, since we mark the mind itself is cured,
3.487
Like the sick body, and restored can be
3.487
By medicine, this is forewarning too
3.487
That mortal lives the mind. For proper it is
3.487
That whosoe'er begins and undertakes
3.487
To alter the mind, or meditates to change
3.487
Any another nature soever, should add
3.487
New parts, or readjust the order given,
3.487
Or from the sum remove at least a bit.
3.487
But what's immortal willeth for itself
3.487
Its parts be nor increased, nor rearranged,
3.487
Nor any bit soever flow away:
3.487
For change of anything from out its bounds
3.487
Means instant death of that which was before.
3.487
Ergo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen,
3.487
Or by the medicine restored, gives signs,
3.487
As I have taught, of its mortality.
3.487
So surely will a fact of truth make head
3.487
'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off
3.487
All refuge from the adversary, and rout
3.487
Error by two-edged confutation.
3.548
And since the mind is of a man one part,
3.548
Which in one fixed place remains, like ears,
3.548
And eyes, and every sense which pilots life;
3.548
And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,
3.548
Severed from us, can neither feel nor be,
3.548
But in the least of time is left to rot,
3.548
Thus mind alone can never be, without
3.548
The body and the man himself, which seems,
3.548
As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught
3.548
Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined:
3.548
Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.
3.548
Again, the body's and the mind's live powers
3.548
Only in union prosper and enjoy;
3.548
For neither can nature of mind, alone of self
3.548
Sans body, give the vital motions forth;
3.548
Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure
3.548
And use the senses. Verily, as the eye,
3.548
Alone, up-rended from its roots, apart
3.548
From all the body, can peer about at naught,
3.548
So soul and mind it seems are nothing able,
3.548
When by themselves. No marvel, because, commixed
3.548
Through veins and inwards, and through bones and thews,
3.548
Their elements primordial are confined
3.548
By all the body, and own no power free
3.548
To bound around through interspaces big,
3.548
Thus, shut within these confines, they take on
3.548
Motions of sense, which, after death, thrown out
3.548
Beyond the body to the winds of air,
3.548
Take on they cannot- and on this account,
3.548
Because no more in such a way confined.
3.548
For air will be a body, be alive,
3.548
If in that air the soul can keep itself,
3.548
And in that air enclose those motions all
3.548
Which in the thews and in the body itself
3.548
A while ago 'twas making. So for this,
3.548
Again, again, I say confess we must,
3.548
That, when the body's wrappings are unwound,
3.548
And when the vital breath is forced without,
3.548
The soul, the senses of the mind dissolve,-
3.548
Since for the twain the cause and ground of life
3.548
Is in the fact of their conjoined estate.
3.548
Once more, since body's unable to sustain
3.548
Division from the soul, without decay
3.548
And obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that
3.548
The soul, uprisen from the body's deeps,
3.548
Has filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke,
3.548
Or that the changed body crumbling fell
3.548
With ruin so entire, because, indeed,
3.548
Its deep foundations have been moved from place,
3.548
The soul out-filtering even through the frame,
3.548
And through the body's every winding way
3.548
And orifice? And so by many means
3.548
Thou'rt free to learn that nature of the soul
3.548
Hath passed in fragments out along the frame,
3.548
And that 'twas shivered in the very body
3.548
Ere ever it slipped abroad and swam away
3.548
Into the winds of air.
3.592
For never a man
3.592
Dying appears to feel the soul go forth
3.592
As one sure whole from all his body at once,
3.592
Nor first come up the throat and into mouth;
3.592
But feels it failing in a certain spot,
3.592
Even as he knows the senses too dissolve
3.592
Each in its own location in the frame.
3.592
But were this mind of ours immortal mind,
3.592
Dying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution,
3.592
But rather the going, the leaving of its coat,
3.592
Like to a snake. Wherefore, when once the body
3.592
Hath passed away, admit we must that soul,
3.592
Shivered in all that body, perished too.
3.592
Nay, even when moving in the bounds of life,
3.592
Often the soul, now tottering from some cause,
3.592
Craves to go out, and from the frame entire
3.592
Loosened to be; the countenance becomes
3.592
Flaccid, as if the supreme hour were there;
3.592
And flabbily collapse the members all
3.592
Against the bloodless trunk- the kind of case
3.592
We see when we remark in common phrase,
3.592
"That man's quite gone," or "fainted dead away";
3.592
And where there's now a bustle of alarm,
3.592
And all are eager to get some hold upon
3.592
The man's last link of life. For then the mind
3.592
And all the power of soul are shook so sore,
3.592
And these so totter along with all the frame,
3.592
That any cause a little stronger might
3.592
Dissolve them altogether.- Why, then, doubt
3.592
That soul, when once without the body thrust,
3.592
There in the open, an enfeebled thing,
3.592
Its wrappings stripped away, cannot endure
3.592
Not only through no everlasting age,
3.592
But even, indeed, through not the least of time?
3.592
Then, too, why never is the intellect,
3.592
The counselling mind, begotten in the head,
3.592
The feet, the hands, instead of cleaving still
3.592
To one sole seat, to one fixed haunt, the breast,
3.592
If not that fixed places be assigned
3.592
For each thing's birth, where each, when 'tis create,
3.592
Is able to endure, and that our frames
3.592
Have such complex adjustments that no shift
3.592
In order of our members may appear?
3.592
To that degree effect succeeds to cause,
3.592
Nor is the flame once wont to be create
3.592
In flowing streams, nor cold begot in fire.
3.624
Besides, if nature of soul immortal be,
3.624
And able to feel, when from our frame disjoined,
3.624
The same, I fancy, must be thought to be
3.624
Endowed with senses five,- nor is there way
3.624
But this whereby to image to ourselves
3.624
How under-souls may roam in Acheron.
3.624
Thus painters and the elder race of bards
3.624
Have pictured souls with senses so endowed.
3.624
But neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, alone
3.624
Apart from body can exist for soul,
3.624
Nor tongue nor ears apart. And hence indeed
3.624
Alone by self they can nor feel nor be.
3.624
And since we mark the vital sense to be
3.624
In the whole body, all one living thing,
3.624
If of a sudden a force with rapid stroke
3.624
Should slice it down the middle and cleave in twain,
3.624
Beyond a doubt likewise the soul itself,
3.624
Divided, dissevered, asunder will be flung
3.624
Along with body. But what severed is
3.624
And into sundry parts divides, indeed
3.624
Admits it owns no everlasting nature.
3.624
We hear how chariots of war, areek
3.624
With hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythes
3.624
The limbs away so suddenly that there,
3.624
Fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth,
3.624
The while the mind and powers of the man
3.624
Can feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt,
3.624
And sheer abandon in the zest of battle:
3.624
With the remainder of his frame he seeks
3.624
Anew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks
3.624
How the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged
3.624
Off with the horses his left arm and shield;
3.624
Nor other how his right has dropped away,
3.624
Mounting again and on. A third attempts
3.624
With leg dismembered to arise and stand,
3.624
Whilst, on the ground hard by, the dying foot
3.624
Twitches its spreading toes. And even the head,
3.624
When from the warm and living trunk lopped off,
3.624
Keeps on the ground the vital countenance
3.624
And open eyes, until 't has rendered up
3.624
All remnants of the soul. Nay, once again:
3.624
If, when a serpent's darting forth its tongue,
3.624
And lashing its tail, thou gettest chance to hew
3.624
With axe its length of trunk to many parts,
3.624
Thou'lt see each severed fragment writhing round
3.624
With its fresh wound, and spattering up the sod,
3.624
And there the fore-part seeking with the jaws
3.624
After the hinder, with bite to stop the pain.
3.624
So shall we say that these be souls entire
3.624
In all those fractions?- but from that 'twould follow
3.624
One creature'd have in body many souls.
3.624
Therefore, the soul, which was indeed but one,
3.624
Has been divided with the body too:
3.624
Each is but mortal, since alike is each
3.624
Hewn into many parts. Again, how often
3.624
We view our fellow going by degrees,
3.624
And losing limb by limb the vital sense;
3.624
First nails and fingers of the feet turn blue,
3.624
Next die the feet and legs, then o'er the rest
3.624
Slow crawl the certain footsteps of cold death.
3.624
And since this nature of the soul is torn,
3.624
Nor mounts away, as at one time, entire,
3.624
We needs must hold it mortal. But perchance
3.624
If thou supposest that the soul itself
3.624
Can inward draw along the frame, and bring
3.624
Its parts together to one place, and so
3.624
From all the members draw the sense away,
3.624
Why, then, that place in which such stock of soul
3.624
Collected is, should greater seem in sense.
3.624
But since such place is nowhere, for a fact,
3.624
As said before, 'tis rent and scattered forth,
3.624
And so goes under. Or again, if now
3.624
I please to grant the false, and say that soul
3.624
Can thus be lumped within the frames of those
3.624
Who leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit,
3.624
Still must the soul as mortal be confessed;
3.624
Nor aught it matters whether to wrack it go,
3.624
Dispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a mass
3.624
From all its parts, sink down to brutish death,
3.624
Since more and more in every region sense
3.624
Fails the whole man, and less and less of life
3.624
In every region lingers.
3.670
And besides,
3.670
If soul immortal is, and winds its way
3.670
Into the body at the birth of man,
3.670
Why can we not remember something, then,
3.670
Of life-time spent before? why keep we not
3.670
Some footprints of the things we did of, old?
3.670
But if so changed hath been the power of mind,
3.670
That every recollection of things done
3.670
Is fallen away, at no o'erlong remove
3.670
Is that, I trow, from what we mean by death.
3.670
Wherefore 'tis sure that what hath been before
3.670
Hath died, and what now is is now create.
3.670
Moreover, if after the body hath been built
3.670
Our mind's live powers are wont to be put in,
3.670
Just at the moment that we come to birth,
3.670
And cross the sills of life, 'twould scarcely fit
3.670
For them to live as if they seemed to grow
3.670
Along with limbs and frame, even in the blood,
3.670
But rather as in a cavern all alone.
3.670
(Yet all the body duly throngs with sense.)
3.670
But public fact declares against all this:
3.670
For soul is so entwined through the veins,
3.670
The flesh, the thews, the bones, that even the teeth
3.670
Share in sensation, as proven by dull ache,
3.670
By twinge from icy water, or grating crunch
3.670
Upon a stone that got in mouth with bread.
3.670
Wherefore, again, again, souls must be thought
3.670
Nor void of birth, nor free from law of death;
3.670
Nor, if, from outward, in they wound their way,
3.670
Could they be thought as able so to cleave
3.670
To these our frames, nor, since so interwove,
3.670
Appears it that they're able to go forth
3.670
Unhurt and whole and loose themselves unscathed
3.670
From all the thews, articulations, bones.
3.670
But, if perchance thou thinkest that the soul,
3.670
From outward winding in its way, is wont
3.670
To seep and soak along these members ours,
3.670
Then all the more 'twill perish, being thus
3.670
With body fused- for what will seep and soak
3.670
Will be dissolved and will therefore die.
3.670
For just as food, dispersed through all the pores
3.670
Of body, and passed through limbs and all the frame,
3.670
Perishes, supplying from itself the stuff
3.670
For other nature, thus the soul and mind,
3.670
Though whole and new into a body going,
3.670
Are yet, by seeping in, dissolved away,
3.670
Whilst, as through pores, to all the frame there pass
3.670
Those particles from which created is
3.670
This nature of mind, now ruler of our body,
3.670
Born from that soul which perished, when divided
3.670
Along the frame.
3.711
Wherefore it seems that soul
3.711
Hath both a natal and funeral hour.
3.711
Besides are seeds of soul there left behind
3.711
In the breathless body, or not? If there they are,
3.711
It cannot justly be immortal deemed,
3.711
Since, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away:
3.711
But if, borne off with members uncorrupt,
3.711
'Thas fled so absolutely all away
3.711
It leaves not one remainder of itself
3.711
Behind in body, whence do cadavers, then,
3.711
From out their putrid flesh exhale the worms,
3.711
And whence does such a mass of living things,
3.711
Boneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frame
3.711
Bubble and swarm? But if perchance thou thinkest
3.711
That souls from outward into worms can wind,
3.711
And each into a separate body come,
3.711
And reckonest not why many thousand souls
3.711
Collect where only one has gone away,
3.711
Here is a point, in sooth, that seems to need
3.711
Inquiry and a putting to the test:
3.711
Whether the souls go on a hunt for seeds
3.711
Of worms wherewith to build their dwelling places,
3.711
Or enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere.
3.711
But why themselves they thus should do and toil
3.711
'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body,
3.711
They flit around, harassed by no disease,
3.711
Nor cold nor famine; for the body labours
3.711
By more of kinship to these flaws of life,
3.711
And mind by contact with that body suffers
3.711
So many ills. But grant it be for them
3.711
However useful to construct a body
3.711
To which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't.
3.711
Then, souls for self no frames nor bodies make,
3.711
Nor is there how they once might enter in
3.711
To bodies ready-made- for they cannot
3.711
Be nicely interwoven with the same,
3.711
And there'll be formed no interplay of sense
3.711
Common to each.
3.741
Again, why is't there goes
3.741
Impetuous rage with lion's breed morose,
3.741
And cunning with foxes, and to deer why given
3.741
The ancestral fear and tendency to flee,
3.741
And why in short do all the rest of traits
3.741
Engender from the very start of life
3.741
In the members and mentality, if not
3.741
Because one certain power of mind that came
3.741
From its own seed and breed waxes the same
3.741
Along with all the body? But were mind
3.741
Immortal, were it wont to change its bodies,
3.741
How topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act!
3.741
The Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oft
3.741
Of antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quake
3.741
Along the winds of air at the coming dove,
3.741
And men would dote, and savage beasts be wise;
3.741
For false the reasoning of those that say
3.741
Immortal mind is changed by change of body-
3.741
For what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies.
3.741
For parts are re-disposed and leave their order;
3.741
Wherefore they must be also capable
3.741
Of dissolution through the frame at last,
3.741
That they along with body perish all.
3.741
But should some say that always souls of men
3.741
Go into human bodies, I will ask:
3.741
How can a wise become a dullard soul?
3.741
And why is never a child's a prudent soul?
3.741
And the mare's filly why not trained so well
3.741
As sturdy strength of steed? We may be sure
3.741
They'll take their refuge in the thought that mind
3.741
Becomes a weakling in a weakling frame.
3.741
Yet be this so, 'tis needful to confess
3.741
The soul but mortal, since, so altered now
3.741
Throughout the frame, it loses the life and sense
3.741
It had before. Or how can mind wax strong
3.741
Coequally with body and attain
3.741
The craved flower of life, unless it be
3.741
The body's colleague in its origins?
3.741
Or what's the purport of its going forth
3.741
From aged limbs?- fears it, perhaps, to stay,
3.741
Pent in a crumbled body? Or lest its house,
3.741
Outworn by venerable length of days,
3.741
May topple down upon it? But indeed
3.741
For an immortal perils are there none.
3.776
Again, at parturitions of the wild
3.776
And at the rites of Love, that souls should stand
3.776
Ready hard by seems ludicrous enough-
3.776
Immortals waiting for their mortal limbs
3.776
In numbers innumerable, contending madly
3.776
Which shall be first and chief to enter in!-
3.776
Unless perchance among the souls there be
3.776
Such treaties stablished that the first to come
3.776
Flying along, shall enter in the first,
3.776
And that they make no rivalries of strength!
3.776
Again, in ether can't exist a tree,
3.776
Nor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fields
3.776
Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be,
3.776
Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged
3.776
Where everything may grow and have its place.
3.776
Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone
3.776
Without the body, nor exist afar
3.776
From thews and blood. But if 'twere possible,
3.776
Much rather might this very power of mind
3.776
Be in the head, the shoulders or the heels,
3.776
And, born in any part soever, yet
3.776
In the same man, in the same vessel abide.
3.776
But since within this body even of ours
3.776
Stands fixed and appears arranged sure
3.776
Where soul and mind can each exist and grow,
3.776
Deny we must the more that they can have
3.776
Duration and birth, wholly outside the frame.
3.776
For, verily, the mortal to conjoin
3.776
With the eternal, and to feign they feel
3.776
Together, and can function each with each,
3.776
Is but to dote: for what can be conceived
3.776
Of more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted,
3.776
Than something mortal in a union joined
3.776
With an immortal and a secular
3.776
To bear the outrageous tempests?
3.776
Then, again,
3.776
Whatever abides eternal must indeed
3.776
Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made
3.776
Of solid body, and permit no entrance
3.776
Of aught with power to sunder from within
3.776
The parts compact- as are those seeds of stuff
3.776
Whose nature we've exhibited before;
3.776
Or else be able to endure through time
3.776
For this: because they are from blows exempt,
3.776
As is the void, the which abides untouched,
3.776
Unsmit by any stroke; or else because
3.776
There is no room around, whereto things can,
3.776
As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-
3.776
Even as the sum of sums eternal is,
3.776
Without or place beyond whereto things may
3.776
Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite,
3.776
And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.
3.819
But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged
3.819
Immortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure
3.819
In vital forces- either because there come
3.819
Never at all things hostile to its weal,
3.819
Or else because what come somehow retire,
3.819
Repelled or ere we feel the harm they work,
3.819
. . . . . .
3.819
For, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased,
3.819
Soul sickens too, there cometh, many a time,
3.819
That which torments it with the things to be,
3.819
Keeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares;
3.819
And even when evil acts are of the past,
3.819
Still gnaw the old transgressions bitterly.
3.819
Add, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind,
3.819
And that oblivion of the things that were;
3.819
Add its submergence in the murky waves
3.819
Of drowse and torpor.
3.830
Therefore death to us
3.830
Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least,
3.830
Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
3.830
And just as in the ages gone before
3.830
We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round
3.830
To battle came the Carthaginian host,
3.830
And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,
3.830
Under the aery coasts of arching heaven
3.830
Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind
3.830
Doubted to which the empery should fall
3.830
By land and sea, thus when we are no more,
3.830
When comes that sundering of our body and soul
3.830
Through which we're fashioned to a single state,
3.830
Verily naught to us, us then no more,
3.830
Can come to pass, naught move our senses then-
3.830
No, not if earth confounded were with sea,
3.830
And sea with heaven. But if indeed do feel
3.830
The nature of mind and energy of soul,
3.830
After their severance from this body of ours,
3.830
Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds
3.830
And wedlock of the soul and body live,
3.830
Through which we're fashioned to a single state.
3.830
And, even if time collected after death
3.830
The matter of our frames and set it all
3.830
Again in place as now, and if again
3.830
To us the light of life were given, O yet
3.830
That process too would not concern us aught,
3.830
When once the self-succession of our sense
3.830
Has been asunder broken. And now and here,
3.830
Little enough we're busied with the selves
3.830
We were aforetime, nor, concerning them,
3.830
Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gaze
3.830
Backwards across all yesterdays of time
3.830
The immeasurable, thinking how manifold
3.830
The motions of matter are, then couldst thou well
3.830
Credit this too: often these very seeds
3.830
(From which we are to-day) of old were set
3.830
In the same order as they are to-day-
3.830
Yet this we can't to consciousness recall
3.830
Through the remembering mind. For there hath been
3.830
An interposed pause of life, and wide
3.830
Have all the motions wandered everywhere
3.830
From these our senses. For if woe and ail
3.830
Perchance are toward, then the man to whom
3.830
The bane can happen must himself be there
3.830
At that same time. But death precludeth this,
3.830
Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd
3.830
Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know:
3.830
Nothing for us there is to dread in death,
3.830
No wretchedness for him who is no more,
3.830
The same estate as if ne'er born before,
3.830
When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.
3.870
Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because
3.870
When dead he rots with body laid away,
3.870
Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,
3.870
Know well: he rings not true, and that beneath
3.870
Still works an unseen sting upon his heart,
3.870
However he deny that he believes.
3.870
His shall be aught of feeling after death.
3.870
For he, I fancy, grants not what he says,
3.870
Nor what that presupposes, and he fails
3.870
To pluck himself with all his roots from life
3.870
And cast that self away, quite unawares
3.870
Feigning that some remainder's left behind.
3.870
For when in life one pictures to oneself
3.870
His body dead by beasts and vultures torn,
3.870
He pities his state, dividing not himself
3.870
Therefrom, removing not the self enough
3.870
From the body flung away, imagining
3.870
Himself that body, and projecting there
3.870
His own sense, as he stands beside it: hence
3.870
He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks
3.870
That in true death there is no second self
3.870
Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,
3.870
Or stand lamenting that the self lies there
3.870
Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is
3.870
Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang
3.870
Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not
3.870
Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,
3.870
Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined
3.870
On the smooth oblong of an icy slab,
3.870
Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth
3.870
Down-crushing from above.
3.894
"Thee now no more
3.894
The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,
3.894
Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses
3.894
And touch with silent happiness thy heart.
3.894
Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,
3.894
Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
3.894
Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en
3.894
Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"
3.894
But add not, "yet no longer unto thee
3.894
Remains a remnant of desire for them"
3.894
If this they only well perceived with mind
3.894
And followed up with maxims, they would free
3.894
Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
3.894
"O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,
3.894
So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,
3.894
Released from every harrying pang. But we,
3.894
We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,
3.894
Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre
3.894
Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take
3.894
For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
3.894
But ask the mourner what's the bitterness
3.894
That man should waste in an eternal grief,
3.894
If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
3.894
For when the soul and frame together are sunk
3.894
In slumber, no one then demands his self
3.894
Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever,
3.894
Without desire of any selfhood more,
3.894
For all it matters unto us asleep.
3.894
Yet not at all do those primordial germs
3.894
Roam round our members, at that time, afar
3.894
From their own motions that produce our senses-
3.894
Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man
3.894
Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us
3.894
Much less- if there can be a less than that
3.894
Which is itself a nothing: for there comes
3.894
Hard upon death a scattering more great
3.894
Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up
3.894
On whom once falls the icy pause of life.
3.894
This too, O often from the soul men say,
3.894
Along their couches holding of the cups,
3.894
With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:
3.894
"Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,
3.894
Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,
3.894
It may not be recalled."- As if, forsooth,
3.894
It were their prime of evils in great death
3.894
To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,
3.894
Or chafe for any lack.
3.931
Once more, if Nature
3.931
Should of a sudden send a voice abroad,
3.931
And her own self inveigh against us so:
3.931
"Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern
3.931
That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
3.931
Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
3.931
For if thy life aforetime and behind
3.931
To thee was grateful, and not all thy good
3.931
Was heaped as in sieve to flow away
3.931
And perish unavailingly, why not,
3.931
Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,
3.931
Laden with life? why not with mind content
3.931
Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?
3.931
But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been
3.931
Lavished and lost, and life is now offence,
3.931
Why seekest more to add- which in its turn
3.931
Will perish foully and fall out in vain?
3.931
O why not rather make an end of life,
3.931
Of labour? For all I may devise or find
3.931
To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are
3.931
The same forever. Though not yet thy body
3.931
Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts
3.931
Outworn, still things abide the same, even if
3.931
Thou goest on to conquer all of time
3.931
With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-
3.931
What were our answer, but that Nature here
3.931
Urges just suit and in her words lays down
3.931
True cause of action? Yet should one complain,
3.931
Riper in years and elder, and lament,
3.931
Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,
3.931
Then would she not, with greater right, on him
3.931
Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:
3.931
"Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!
3.931
Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum
3.931
Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever
3.931
What's not at hand, contemning present good,
3.931
That life has slipped away, unperfected
3.931
And unavailing unto thee. And now,
3.931
Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head
3.931
Stands- and before thou canst be going home
3.931
Sated and laden with the goodly feast.
3.931
But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-
3.931
Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must."
3.931
Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus,
3.931
Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old
3.931
Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever
3.931
The one thing from the others is repaired.
3.931
Nor no man is consigned to the abyss
3.931
Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,
3.931
That thus the after-generations grow,-
3.931
Though these, their life completed, follow thee;
3.931
And thus like thee are generations all-
3.931
Already fallen, or some time to fall.
3.931
So one thing from another rises ever;
3.931
And in fee-simple life is given to none,
3.931
But unto all mere usufruct.
3.931
Look back:
3.931
Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld
3.931
Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.
3.931
And Nature holds this like a mirror up
3.931
Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.
3.931
And what is there so horrible appears?
3.931
Now what is there so sad about it all?
3.931
Is't not serener far than any sleep?
3.978
And, verily, those tortures said to be
3.978
In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours
3.978
Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed
3.978
With baseless terror, as the fables tell,
3.978
Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:
3.978
But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods
3.978
Urges mortality, and each one fears
3.978
Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.
3.978
Nor eat the vultures into Tityus
3.978
Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find,
3.978
Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught
3.978
To pry around for in that mighty breast.
3.978
However hugely he extend his bulk-
3.978
Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine,
3.978
But the whole earth- he shall not able be
3.978
To bear eternal pain nor furnish food
3.978
From his own frame forever. But for us
3.978
A Tityus is he whom vultures rend
3.978
Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,
3.978
Whom troubles of any unappeased desires
3.978
Asunder rip. We have before our eyes
3.978
Here in this life also a Sisyphus
3.978
In him who seeketh of the populace
3.978
The rods, the axes fell, and evermore
3.978
Retires a beaten and a gloomy man.
3.978
For to seek after power- an empty name,
3.978
Nor given at all- and ever in the search
3.978
To endure a world of toil, O this it is
3.978
To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone
3.978
Which yet comes rolling back from off the top,
3.978
And headlong makes for levels of the plain.
3.978
Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind,
3.978
Filling with good things, satisfying never-
3.978
As do the seasons of the year for us,
3.978
When they return and bring their progenies
3.978
And varied charms, and we are never filled
3.978
With the fruits of life- O this, I fancy, 'tis
3.978
To pour, like those young virgins in the tale,
3.978
Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.
3.978
. . . . . .
3.978
Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light
3.978
. . . . . .
3.978
Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
3.978
Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
3.978
Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
3.978
Of retributions just and expiations
3.978
For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap
3.978
From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,
3.978
The executioners, the oaken rack,
3.978
The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
3.978
And even though these are absent, yet the mind,
3.978
With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads
3.978
And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile
3.978
What terminus of ills, what end of pine
3.978
Can ever be, and feareth lest the same
3.978
But grow more heavy after death. Of truth,
3.978
The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
3.1024
This also to thy very self sometimes
3.1024
Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left
3.1024
The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things
3.1024
A better man than thou, O worthless hind;
3.1024
And many other kings and lords of rule
3.1024
Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed
3.1024
O'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-
3.1024
Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,
3.1024
And gave his legionaries thoroughfare
3.1024
Along the deep, and taught them how to cross
3.1024
The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,
3.1024
Trampling upon it with his cavalry,
3.1024
The bellowings of ocean- poured his soul
3.1024
From dying body, as his light was ta'en.
3.1024
And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war,
3.1024
Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth,
3.1024
Like to the lowliest villein in the house.
3.1024
Add finders-out of sciences and arts;
3.1024
Add comrades of the Heliconian dames,
3.1024
Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all,
3.1024
Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.
3.1024
Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld
3.1024
Admonished him his memory waned away,
3.1024
Of own accord offered his head to death.
3.1024
Even Epicurus went, his light of life
3.1024
Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped
3.1024
The human race, extinguishing all others,
3.1024
As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.
3.1024
Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-
3.1024
For whom already life's as good as dead,
3.1024
Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?- who in sleep
3.1024
Wastest thy life- time's major part, and snorest
3.1024
Even when awake, and ceasest not to see
3.1024
The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset
3.1024
By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft
3.1024
What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch,
3.1024
Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares,
3.1024
And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."
3.1053
If men, in that same way as on the mind
3.1053
They feel the load that wearies with its weight,
3.1053
Could also know the causes whence it comes,
3.1053
And why so great the heap of ill on heart,
3.1053
O not in this sort would they live their life,
3.1053
As now so much we see them, knowing not
3.1053
What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever
3.1053
A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
3.1053
The man who sickens of his home goes out,
3.1053
Forth from his splendid halls, and straight- returns,
3.1053
Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.
3.1053
He races, driving his Gallic ponies along,
3.1053
Down to his villa, madly,- as in haste
3.1053
To hurry help to a house afire.- At once
3.1053
He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,
3.1053
Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks
3.1053
Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about
3.1053
And makes for town again. In such a way
3.1053
Each human flees himself- a self in sooth,
3.1053
As happens, he by no means can escape;
3.1053
And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,
3.1053
Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.
3.1053
Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then,
3.1053
Leaving all else, he'd study to divine
3.1053
The nature of things, since here is in debate
3.1053
Eternal time and not the single hour,
3.1053
Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains
3.1053
After great death.
3.1076
And too, when all is said,
3.1076
What evil lust of life is this so great
3.1076
Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught
3.1076
In perils and alarms? one fixed end
3.1076
Of life abideth for mortality;
3.1076
Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet.
3.1076
Besides we're busied with the same devices,
3.1076
Ever and ever, and we are at them ever,
3.1076
And there's no new delight that may be forged
3.1076
By living on. But whilst the thing we long for
3.1076
Is lacking, that seems good above all else;
3.1076
Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else
3.1076
We long for; ever one equal thirst of life
3.1076
Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune
3.1076
The future times may carry, or what be
3.1076
That chance may bring, or what the issue next
3.1076
Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life
3.1076
Take we the least away from death's own time,
3.1076
Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby
3.1076
To minish the aeons of our state of death.
3.1076
Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil
3.1076
As many generations as thou may:
3.1076
Eternal death shall there be waiting still;
3.1076
And he who died with light of yesterday
3.1076
Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more
3.1076
Than he who perished months or years before.