Lucretius: On the Nature of Things

Introduction

De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) is a remarkable philosophical poem in six books of Latin hexameters, composed by the poet Titus Lucretius Carus toward the middle of the first century BCE. (Lucretius lived from about 99 to about 55 BCE.) His poem is the fullest extant rendering of the ancient philosophy known as Epicureanism, after its founder, the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who lived in Athens in 341-270 BCE. Only fragments of Epicurus' own writing have survived.

Lucretius expounds "the nature of things," because Epicureans believed that the aim of life is to achieve a calm of mind they called ataraxia; that this calm can best be achieved by avoiding pain and extreme pleasure (which only leads to pain); that the greatest pleasure is intellectual; and that a proper intellectual grasp of the world involves a recognition that consciousness coexists with the body, because the opposite (belief in an afterlife for the soul) causes more pain than pleasure. Lucretius outlines a materialist physics to support these contentions: the universe is made up exclusively of either atoms or emptiness. ("Atom" is a Greek word used by Epicurus, following Democritus; Lucretius uses a Latin equivalent, primordium.) The gods, who are made of the smallest, swiftest, and finest atoms, exist in a state of perfect ataraxia, which prevents their having anything to do with human beings and the imperfect striving for pleasure in which human begins engage.

The selections included here are from the first three books. Lucretius makes clear the link, as he sees it, between understanding the material universe and calm of mind. Like stoics, Epicureans believed that one could do nothing about "the nature of things" because they are predetermined, but Epicureans believed that things are determined not by fate but by the movement of atoms, so Lucretius carefully explains how that movement happens, with an abundance of often ingenious examples (here omitted). Though his explanation falls well short of modern atomic physics, the conclusions he draws about the cosmos frequently coincide with modern understanding: that there are multiple worlds like ours, that motion is not toward the center (as Aristotle and Ptolemy argued), that the conditions that produced the earth are consistent throughout the universe. Lucretius' most famous passage is his argument in Book III that one need have no fear of death because the soul (or consciousness) is made of atoms and perishes with the body. This thought was a source of comfort to Epicureans, because it eliminated worry about the afterlife.

Because of its materialist assumptions, Epicureanism was roundly condemned during the Christian Middle Ages, and suspicion of Epicureanism remained firmly entrenched well into the seventeenth century, when the first English translations were made (one by the Puritan, Lucy Hutchinson). Montaigne knew De Rerum Natura well and quotes it often, but it is not clear that Shakespeare knew Lucretius' poem, and it is not clear either that he even knew Montaigne by 1599, the year he wrote Julius Caesar. Cassius identifies himself as an Epicurean in Plutarch's Life of Brutus, and the materialist explanation Cassius gives for the ghost that Brutus sees would have been enough, in itself, to allow Shakespeare to characterize Cassius's way of thinking as "Epicurean" in the way he does.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura

Translated by William Ellery Leonard.

This text was prepared from the online version created for the Perseus project at Tufts University (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/). Reformatted and reproduced here by permission.

BOOK I

[Lucretius praises Epicurus as his inspiration.]

Whilst human kind
68Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
69Before all eyes beneath Religion-who
70Would show her head along the region skies,
71Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-
72A Greek it was who first opposing dared
73Raised mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
74Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
75Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
76Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
77His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
78The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
79And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
80And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
81The flaming ramparts of the world, until
82He wandered the unmeasurable All.
83Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
84What things can rise to being, what cannot,
85And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
86Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
87Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
88And us his victory now exalts to heaven.

[There is nothing to fear about death, because there is no afterlife.]

And there shall come the time when even thou,
114Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek
115To break from us. Ah, many a dream even now
116Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life,
117And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears.
118I own with reason: for, if men but knew
119Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong
120By some device unconquered to withstand
121Religions and the menacings of seers.
122But now nor skill nor instrument is theirs,
123Since men must dread eternal pains in death.
124For what the soul may be they do not know,
125Whether 'tis born, or enter in at birth,
126And whether, snatched by death, it die with us . . . .
140Then be it ours with steady mind to clasp
141The purport of the skies--the law behind
142The wandering courses of the sun and moon;
143To scan the powers that speed all life below;
144But most to see with reasonable eyes
145Of what the mind, of what the soul is made,
146And what it is so terrible that breaks
147On us asleep, or waking in disease,
148Until we seem to mark and hear at hand
149Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.

. . . .

[Everything is made of invisible atoms, which neither come into being nor pass out of it.]

And now, since I have taught that things cannot
306Be born from nothing, nor the same, when born,
307To nothing be recalled, doubt not my words,
308Because our eyes no primal germs perceive;
309For mark those bodies which, though known to be
310In this our world, are yet invisible . . . .

[What is not atoms is void.]

But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked
376About by body: there's in things a void-
377Which to have known will serve thee many a turn,
378Nor will not leave thee wandering in doubt,
379Forever searching in the sum of all,
380And losing faith in these pronouncements mine.
381There's place intangible, a void and room.

[The void permits the atoms to move.]

For were it not, things could in nowise move;
383Since body's property to block and check
384Would work on all and at an times the same.
385Thus naught could evermore push forth and go,
386Since naught elsewhere would yield a starting place.
387But now through oceans, lands, and heights of heaven,
388By divers causes and in divers modes,
389Before our eyes we mark how much may move,
390Which, finding not a void, would fail deprived
391Of stir and motion; nay, would then have been
392Nowise begot at all, since matter, then,
393Had staid at rest, its parts together crammed.

[The void permits atoms to mingle.]

Then too, however solid objects seem,
395They yet are formed of matter mixed with void:
396In rocks and caves the watery moisture seeps,
397And beady drops stand out like plenteous tears;
398And food finds way through every frame that lives;
399The trees increase and yield the season's fruit
400Because their food throughout the whole is poured,
401Even from the deepest roots, through trunks and boughs;
402And voices pass the solid walls and fly
403Reverberant through shut doorways of a house;
404And stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.
405Which but for voids for bodies to go through
406'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.

[The void explains why things of uniform size differ in weight.]

Again, why see we among objects some
408Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?
409Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be
410As much of body as in lump of lead,
411The two should weigh alike, since body tends
412To load things downward, while the void abides,
413By contrary nature, the imponderable.
414Therefore, an object just as large but lighter
415Declares infallibly its more of void;
416Even as the heavier more of matter shows,
417And how much less of vacant room inside.
418That which we're seeking with sagacious quest
419Exists, infallibly, commixed with things-
420The void, the invisible inane. . . .

[Nothing exists per se except atoms and the void.]

But, now again to weave the tale begun,
480All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
481Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
482In which they're set, and where they're moved around.

[Everything that is neither atom nor void is either a property or an accident of them.]

A property is that which not at all
517Can be disjoined and severed from a thing
518Without a fatal dissolution: such,
519Weight to the rocks, heat to the fire, and flow
520To the wide waters, touch to corporal things,
521Intangibility to the viewless void.
522But state of slavery, pauperhood, and wealth,
523Freedom, and war, and concord, and all else
524Which come and go whilst nature stands the same,
525We're wont, and rightly, to call accidents.
526Even time exists not of itself; but sense
527Reads out of things what happened long ago,
528What presses now, and what shall follow after:
529No man, we must admit, feels time itself,
530Disjoined from motion and repose of things.

[Atoms are solid and indestructible.]

Bodies, again,
557Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
558Unions deriving from the primal germs.
559And those which are the primal germs of things
560No power can quench; for in the end they conquer
561By their own solidness; though hard it be
562To think that aught in things has solid frame . . . .

[All bodies are composed of atoms--not of the traditional four elements (earth, air, fire, and water).]

Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things
829To be but fire, and out of fire the sum,
830And whosoever have constituted air
831As first beginning of begotten things,
832And all whoever have held that of itself
833Water alone contrives things, or that earth
834Createth all and changes things anew
835To divers natures, mightily they seem
836A long way to have wandered from the truth.

Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff
838Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth
839To water; add who deem that things can grow
840Out of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain . . .

[The universe is infinite.]

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
1130Completely solid, hither and thither fly
1131Forevermore unconquered through all time,
1132Now come, and whether to the sum of them
1133There be a limit or be none, for thee
1134Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
1135To be the wide inane, or room, or space
1136Wherein all things soever do go on,
1137Let us examine if it finite be
1138All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
1139And downward an illimitable profound.

Thus, then, the All that is is limited
1141In no one region of its onward paths,
1142For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
1143And a beyond 'tis seen can never be
1144For aught, unless still further on there be
1145A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-
1146So that the thing be seen still on to where
1147The nature of sensation of that thing
1148Can follow it no longer. Now because
1149Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,
1150There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
1151It matters nothing where thou post thyself,
1152In whatsoever regions of the same;
1153Even any place a man has set him down
1154Still leaves about him the unbounded all
1155Outward in all directions . . . .

[Things do not press toward the center.]

And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
1271From yielding faith to that notorious talk:
1272That all things inward to the center press;
1273And thus the nature of the world stands firm
1274With never blows from outward, nor can be
1275Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth
1276Have always inward to the center pressed
1277(If thou art ready to believe that aught
1278Itself can rest upon itself); or that
1279The ponderous bodies which be under earth
1280Do all press upwards and do come to rest
1281Upon the earth, in some way upside down,
1282Like to those images of things we see
1283At present through the waters. They contend,
1284With like procedure, that all breathing things
1285Head downward roam about, and yet cannot
1286Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,
1287No more than these our bodies wing away
1288Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
1289That, when those creatures look upon the sun,
1290We view the constellations of the night;
1291And that with us the seasons of the sky
1292They thus alternately divide, and thus
1293Do pass the night coequal to our days,
1294But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,
1295Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse
1296For center none can be where world is still
1297Boundless, nor yet, if now a center were,
1298Could aught take there a fixed position more
1299Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
1300For all of room and space we call the void
1301Must both through center and non-center yield
1302Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
1303Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,
1304Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
1305Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
1306Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,
1307True to its bent of nature, still give way.
1308Thus in such manner not at all can things
1309Be held in union, as if overcome
1310By craving for a center. . . .

BOOK II

PROEM

[Philosophy offers serenity in withdrawal from care and pain.]

'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
1356Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
1357To watch another's laboring anguish far,
1358Not that we joyously delight that man
1359Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
1360To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;
1361'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife
1362Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,
1363Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught
1364There is more goodly than to hold the high
1365Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,
1366Whence thou may'st look below on other men
1367And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed
1368In their lone seeking for the road of life;
1369Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
1370Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil
1371For summits of power and mastery of the world.
1372O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!
1373In how great perils, in what darks of life
1374Are spent the human years, however brief!-
1375O not to see that nature for herself
1376Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,
1377Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy
1378Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!

[Luxurious self-indulgence is the opposite of true pleasure.]

Therefore we see that our corporeal life
1380Needs little, altogether, and only such
1381As takes the pain away, and can besides
1382Strew underneath some number of delights.
1383More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves
1384No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
1385There be no golden images of boys
1386Along the halls, with right hands holding out
1387The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,
1388And if the house doth glitter not with gold
1389Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound
1390No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
1391Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
1392Beside a river of water, underneath
1393A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh
1394Our frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
1395If the weather is laughing and the times of the year
1396Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.
1397Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,
1398If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,
1399Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie
1400Upon the poor man's bedding.

[Luxury offers nothing to the mind.]

Wherefore, since
1401Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign
1402Avail us naught for this our body, thus
1403Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:
1404Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth
1405Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,
1406Rousing a mimic warfare- either side
1407Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,
1408Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;
1409Or save when also thou beholdest forth
1410Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:
1411For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,
1412Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then
1413The fears of death leave heart so free of care.
1414But if we note how all this pomp at last
1415Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,
1416And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,
1417Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords
1418But among kings and lords of all the world
1419Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed
1420By gleam of gold nor by the splendor bright
1421Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this
1422Is aught, but power of thinking?- when, besides
1423The whole of life but labors in the dark.
1424For just as children tremble and fear all
1425In the viewless dark, so even we at times
1426Dread in the light so many things that be
1427No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
1428Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
1429This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
1430Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
1431Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
1432But only nature's aspect and her law. . . .

[Some corollaries of atomic physics.]

Now to true reason give thy mind for us.
2667Since here strange truth is putting forth its might
2668To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect
2669Of things to show its front. Yet naught there is
2670So easy that it standeth not at first
2671More hard to credit than it after is;
2672And naught soe'er that's great to such degree,
2673Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind
2674Little by little abandon their surprise.
2675Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky
2676And what it holds- the stars that wander o'er,
2677The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:
2678Yet all, if now they first for mortals were,
2679If unforeseen now first asudden shown,
2680What might there be more wonderful to tell,
2681What that the nations would before have dared
2682Less to believe might be?- I fancy, naught-
2683So strange had been the marvel of that sight.
2684The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day
2685None deigns look upward to those lucent realms.
2686Then, spew not reason from thy mind away,
2687Beside thyself because the matter's new,
2688But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;
2689And if to thee it then appeareth true,
2690Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last,
2691Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man
2692Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond
2693There on the other side, that boundless sum
2694Which lies without the ramparts of the world,
2695Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar,
2696Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought
2697Flies unencumbered forth.

[Other worlds exist besides earth.]

Firstly, we find,
2699Off to all regions round, on either side,
2700Above, beneath, throughout the universe
2701End is there none- as I have taught, as too
2702The very thing of itself declares aloud,
2703And as from nature of the unbottomed deep
2704Shines clearly forth.

[This must be true, because space is infinite.]

Nor can we once suppose
2705In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space
2706To all sides stretches infinite and free,
2707And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum
2708Bottomless, there in many a manner fly,
2709Bestirred in everlasting motion there),
2710That only this one earth and sky of ours
2711Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff,
2712So many, perform no work outside the same;

[Moreover, earth is the product of atoms combining randomly.]

Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been
2714By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things
2715By innate motion chanced to clash and cling-
2716After they'd been in many a manner driven
2717Together at random, without design, in vain-
2718And as at last those seeds together dwelt,
2719Which, when together of a sudden thrown,
2720Should alway furnish the commencements fit
2721Of mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky,
2722And race of living creatures. Thus, I say,
2723Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are
2724Such congregations of matter otherwhere,
2725Like this our world which vasty ether holds
2726In huge embrace.

[Because the conditions that produced earth are consistent throughout the universe, other inhabited worlds must exist.]

Besides, when matter abundant
2728Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object
2729Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis
2730That things are carried on and made complete,
2731Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is
2732So great that not whole life-times of the living
2733Can count the tale...
2734And if their force and nature abide the same,
2735Able to throw the seeds of things together
2736Into their places, even as here are thrown
2737The seeds together in this world of ours,
2738'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are
2739Still other worlds, still other breeds of men,
2740And other generations of the wild.

[Nothing in the universe is unique.

]

Hence too it happens in the sum there is
2742No one thing single of its kind in birth,
2743And single and sole in growth, but rather it is
2744One member of some generated race,
2745Among full many others of like kind.
2746First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:
2747Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild
2748Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men
2749To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks
2750Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.
2751Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same
2752That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,
2753Exist not sole and single- rather in number
2754Exceeding number. Since that deeply set
2755Old boundary stone of life remains for them
2756No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth
2757No less, than every kind which here on earth
2758Is so abundant in its members found.

[Nature is self-sustaining, not the work of the gods.

]

Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,
2760Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,
2761And forthwith free, is seen to do all things
2762Herself and through herself of own accord,
2763Rid of all gods. For- by their holy hearts
2764Which pass in long tranquillity of peace
2765Untroubled ages and a serene life!-
2766Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power
2767To rule the sum of the immeasurable,
2768To hold with steady hand the giant reins
2769Of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power
2770At once to roll a multitude of skies,
2771At once to heat with fires ethereal all
2772The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,
2773To be at all times in all places near,
2774To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake
2775The serene spaces of the sky with sound,
2776And hurl his lightnings,- ha, and whelm how oft
2777In ruins his own temples, and to rave,
2778Retiring to the wildernesses, there
2779At practice with that thunderbolt of his,
2780Which yet how often shoots the guilty by,
2781And slays the honorable blameless ones!

[The earth was produced by atoms from elsewhere in the cosmos.]

Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since
2783The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,
2784Have many germs been added from outside,
2785Have many seeds been added round about,
2786Which the great All, the while it flung them on,
2787Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands
2788Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven
2789Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs
2790Far over earth, and air arise around.
2791For bodies all, from out all regions, are
2792Divided by blows, each to its proper thing,
2793And all retire to their own proper kinds:
2794The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase
2795From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,
2796Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether;
2797Till nature, author and ender of the world,
2798Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth:
2799As haps when that which hath been poured inside
2800The vital veins of life is now no more
2801Than that which ebbs within them and runs off.
2802This is the point where life for each thing ends;
2803This is the point where nature with her powers
2804Curbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest
2805Grow big with glad increase, and step by step
2806Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves
2807Take in more bodies than they send from selves,
2808Whilst still the food is easily infused
2809Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not
2810So far expanded that they cast away
2811Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste
2812Greater than nutriment whereby they wax.
2813For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things
2814Many a body ebbeth and runs off;
2815But yet still more must come, until the things
2816Have touched development's top pinnacle;
2817Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength
2818And falls away into a worser part.
2819For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,
2820As soon as ever its augmentation ends,
2821It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round
2822More bodies, sending them from out itself.
2823Nor easily now is food disseminate
2824Through all its veins; nor is that food enough
2825To equal with a new supply on hand
2826Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.
2827Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing
2828They're made less dense and when from blows without
2829They are laid low; since food at last will fail
2830Extremest eld, and bodies from outside
2831Cease not with thumping to undo a thing
2832And overmaster by infesting blows.

[Like everything else, our earth is also in decay.

]

Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world
2834On all sides round shall taken be by storm,
2835And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.
2836For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;
2837'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-
2838But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice
2839To hold enough, nor nature ministers
2840As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:
2841Its age is broken and the earth, outworn
2842With many parturitions, scarce creates
2843The little lives- she who created erst
2844All generations and gave forth at birth
2845Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.
2846For never, I fancy, did a golden cord
2847From off the firmament above let down
2848The mortal generations to the fields;
2849Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks
2850Created them; but earth it was who bore-
2851The same to-day who feeds them from herself.
2852Besides, herself of own accord, she first
2853The shining grains and vineyards of all joy
2854Created for mortality; herself
2855Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,
2856Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,
2857Even when aided by our toiling arms.
2858We break the ox, and wear away the strength
2859Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day
2860Barely avail for tilling of the fields,
2861So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,
2862So much increase our labor. Now to-day
2863The aged ploughman, shaking of his head,
2864Sighs o'er and o'er that labors of his hands
2865Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks
2866How present times are not as times of old,
2867Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,
2868And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,
2869Fulfilled with piety, supported life
2870With simple comfort in a narrow plot,
2871Since, man for man, the measure of each field
2872Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again,
2873The gloomy planter of the withered vine
2874Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven,
2875Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees
2876Are wasting away and going to the tomb,
2877Outworn by venerable length of life.

BOOK III

PROEM

O thou who first uplifted in such dark 2881So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light 2882Upon the profitable ends of man, 2883O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks, 2884And set my footsteps squarely planted now 2885Even in the impress and the marks of thine- 2886Less like one eager to dispute the palm, 2887More as one craving out of very love 2888That I may copy thee!- for how should swallow 2889Contend with swans or what compare could be 2890In a race between young kids with tumbling legs 2891And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou, 2892And finder-out of truth, and thou to us 2893Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out 2894Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul 2895(Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds), 2896We feed upon thy golden sayings all- 2897Golden, and ever worthiest endless life. 2898For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang 2899From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim 2900Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain 2901Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world 2902Dispart away, and through the void entire 2903I see the movements of the universe. 2904Rises to vision the majesty of gods, 2905And their abodes of everlasting calm 2906Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash, 2907Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm 2908With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky 2909O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light. 2910And nature gives to them their all, nor aught 2911May ever pluck their peace of mind away. 2912But nowhere to my vision rise no more 2913The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth 2914Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all 2915Which under our feet is going on below 2916Along the void. O, here in these affairs 2917Some new divine delight and trembling awe 2918Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine 2919Nature, so plain and manifest at last, 2920Hath been on every side laid bare to man!

[Because atoms truly account for what we think of as mind and soul, fear of the afterlife is the principal threat to ataraxia.

]

And since I've taught already of what sort 2922The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct 2923In divers forms, they flit of own accord, 2924Stirred with a motion everlasting on, 2925And in what mode things be from them create, 2926Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems, 2927Make clear the nature of the mind and soul, 2928And drive that dread of Acheron without, 2929Headlong, which so confounds our human life. . . .

[Fear of death and the afterlife causes avarice and ambition.

]

And greed, again, and the blind lust of honors 2956Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law, 2957And, oft allies and ministers of crime, 2958To push through nights and days of the hugest toil 2959To rise untrammeled to the peaks of power- 2960These wounds of life in no mean part are kept 2961Festering and open by this fright of death. 2962For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace 2963Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet, 2964Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death. 2965And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar, 2966Driven by false terror, and afar remove, 2967With civic blood a fortune they amass, 2968They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up 2969Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh 2970For the sad burial of a brother-born, 2971And hatred and fear of tables of their kin. 2972Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft 2973Makes them to peak because before their eyes 2974That man is lordly, that man gazed upon 2975Who walks begirt with honor glorious, 2976Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around; 2977Some perish away for statues and a name, 2978And oft to that degree, from fright of death, 2979Will hate of living and beholding light 2980Take hold on humankind that they inflict 2981Their own destruction with a gloomy heart- 2982Forgetful that this fear is font of cares, 2983This fear the plague upon their sense of shame, 2984And this that breaks the ties of comradry 2985And oversets all reverence and faith, 2986Mid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day 2987Often were traitors to country and dear parents 2988Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron. 2989For just as children tremble and fear all 2990In the viewless dark, so even we at times 2991Dread in the light so many things that be 2992No whit more fearsome than what children feign, 2993Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark. 2994This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, 2995Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, 2996Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse, 2997But only Nature's aspect and her law.

[The nature and composition of the mind.

]

First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call 3000The intellect, wherein is seated life's 3001Counsel and regimen, is part no less 3002Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts 3003Of one whole breathing creature. . . .

[The soul is a part of the body, like a limb.

]

Now, for to see that in man's members dwells 3026Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont 3027To feel sensation by a "harmony" 3028Take this in chief: the fact that life remains 3029Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone; 3030Yet that same life, when particles of heat, 3031Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth 3032Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith 3033Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones. 3034Thus mayst thou know that not all particles 3035Perform like parts, nor in like manner all 3036Are props of weal and safety: rather those- 3037The seeds of wind and exhalations warm- 3038Take care that in our members life remains. 3039Therefore a vital heat and wind there is 3040Within the very body, which at death 3041Deserts our frames. . . .

[Mind is inseparable from the soul, which is part of the body.

]

Mind and soul, 3050I say, are held conjoined one with other, 3051And form one single nature of themselves; 3052But chief and regnant through the frame entire 3053Is still that counsel which we call the mind, 3054And that cleaves seated in the midmost breast. 3055Here leap dismay and terror; round these haunts 3056Be blandishments of joys; and therefore here 3057The intellect, the mind. The rest of soul, 3058Throughout the body scattered, but obeys- 3059Moved by the nod and motion of the mind. 3060This, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought; 3061This for itself hath mirth, even when the thing 3062That moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all. 3063And as, when head or eye in us is smit 3064By assailing pain, we are not tortured then 3065Through all the body, so the mind alone 3066Is sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy, 3067Whilst yet the soul's remainder through the limbs 3068And through the frame is stirred by nothing new. 3069But when the mind is moved by shock more fierce, 3070We mark the whole soul suffering all at once 3071Along man's members: sweats and pallors spread 3072Over the body, and the tongue is broken, 3073And fails the voice away, and ring the ears, 3074Mists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse,- 3075Aye, men drop dead from terror of the mind. 3076Hence, whoso will can readily remark 3077That soul conjoined is with mind, and, when 3078'Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith 3079In turn it hits and drives the body too. . . .

[The atoms of mind are smaller and finer and move faster than those of the body.

]

So nature of mind must be corporeal, since 3097From stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes. 3098Now, of what body, what components formed 3099Is this same mind I will go on to tell. 3100First, I aver, 'tis superfine, composed 3101Of tiniest particles- that such the fact 3102Thou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this: 3103Nothing is seen to happen with such speed 3104As what the mind proposes and begins; 3105Therefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly 3106Than aught whose nature's palpable to eyes. 3107But what's so agile must of seeds consist 3108Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved, 3109When hit by impulse slight. . . .

[The tiny atoms of the soul make no difference to the body's weight and appearance, as we can see in death.

]

Now, then, 3125Since nature of mind is movable so much, 3126Consist it must of seeds exceeding small 3127And smooth and round. Which fact once known to thee, 3128Good friend, will serve thee opportune in else. 3129This also shows the nature of the same, 3130How nice its texture, in how small a space 3131'Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet: 3132When death's unvexed repose gets hold on man 3133And mind and soul retire, thou markest there 3134From the whole body nothing ta'en in form, 3135Nothing in weight. Death grants ye everything, 3136But vital sense and exhalation hot. 3137Thus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds, 3138Twined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews, 3139Seeing that, when 'tis from whole body gone, 3140The outward figuration of the limbs 3141Is unimpaired and weight fails not a whit. 3142Just so, when vanished the bouquet of wine, 3143Or when an unguent's perfume delicate 3144Into the winds away departs, or when 3145From any body savor's gone, yet still 3146The thing itself seems minished naught to eyes, 3147Thereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight- 3148No marvel, because seeds many and minute 3149Produce the savors and the redolence 3150In the whole body of the things. . . .

[The soul is mortal.

]

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know 3378That minds and the light souls of all that live 3379Have mortal birth and death, I will go on 3380Verses to build meet for thy rule of life, 3381Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil. . . .

[The atoms of the soul disperse at death, just as the atoms of the body do.

]

Now, then, since thou seest, 3398Their liquids depart, their waters flow away, 3399When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke 3400Depart into the winds away, believe 3401The soul no less is shed abroad and dies 3402More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved 3403Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn 3404From out man's members it has gone away. 3405For, sure, if body (container of the same 3406Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause, 3407And rarefied by loss of blood from veins, 3408Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then 3409Thinkst thou it can be held by any air- 3410A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?

[The mind comes into being with the body and matures with it.

]

Besides we feel that mind to being comes 3412Along with body, with body grows and ages. 3413For just as children totter round about 3414With frames infirm and tender, so there follows 3415A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then, 3416Where years have ripened into robust powers, 3417Counsel is also greater, more increased 3418The power of mind; thereafter, where already 3419The body's shattered by master-powers of eld, 3420And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers, 3421Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;

[The mind similarly ceases with the body.

]

All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time. 3423Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved, 3424Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air; 3425Since we behold the same to being come 3426Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught, 3427Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.

[The mind suffers, just as the body does.

]

Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes 3429Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain, 3430So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear; 3431Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less 3432Partaker is of death; for pain and disease 3433Are both artificers of death. . . .

Thus, since within the body itself of man 3485The mind and soul are by such great diseases 3486Shaken, so miserably in labor distraught, 3487Why, then, believe that in the open air, 3488Without a body, they can pass their life, 3489Immortal, battling with the master winds?

[The mind has a fixed place in the body, like a limb, and cannot exist without the body.

]

And since the mind is of a man one part, 3512Which in one fixed place remains, like ears, 3513And eyes, and every sense which pilots life; 3514And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart, 3515Severed from us, can neither feel nor be, 3516But in the least of time is left to rot, 3517Thus mind alone can never be, without 3518The body and the man himself, which seems, 3519As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught 3520Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined: 3521Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.

[The mind disperses, just as the body decays.

]

Once more, since body's unable to sustain 3553Division from the soul, without decay 3554And obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that 3555The soul, uprisen from the body's deeps, 3556Has filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke, 3557Or that the changed body crumbling fell 3558With ruin so entire, because, indeed, 3559Its deep foundations have been moved from place, 3560The soul out-filtering even through the frame, 3561And through the body's every winding way 3562And orifice? . . .

[If the soul exists after the body, it must have five senses.

]

Besides, if nature of soul immortal be, 3614And able to feel, when from our frame disjoined, 3615The same, I fancy, must be thought to be 3616Endowed with senses five,- nor is there way 3617But this whereby to image to ourselves 3618How under-souls may roam in Acheron. 3619Thus painters and the elder race of bards 3620Have pictured souls with senses so endowed. 3621But neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, alone 3622Apart from body can exist for soul, 3623Nor tongue nor ears apart. And hence indeed 3624Alone by self they can nor feel nor be. . . .

[The mind belongs to the body, just as other visible things belong to a particular environment.

]

Again, in ether can't exist a tree, 3838Nor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fields 3839Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be, 3840Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged 3841Where everything may grow and have its place. 3842Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone 3843Without the body, nor exist afar 3844From thews and blood. But if 'twere possible, 3845Much rather might this very power of mind 3846Be in the head, the shoulders or the heels, 3847And, born in any part soever, yet 3848In the same man, in the same vessel abide. . . .

[Mortal things cannot be joined to immortal things.

]

For, verily, the mortal to conjoin 3855With the eternal, and to feign they feel 3856Together, and can function each with each, 3857Is but to dote: for what can be conceived 3858Of more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted, 3859Than something mortal in a union joined 3860With an immortal . . . ?

[The fear of death is therefore foolish.

]

Therefore death to us 3897Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least, 3898Since nature of mind is mortal evermore. . . .

[Feeling is impossible for something that does not exist.

]

For if woe and ail 3939Perchance are toward, then the man to whom 3940The bane can happen must himself be there 3941At that same time. But death precludeth this, 3942Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd 3943Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know: 3944Nothing for us there is to dread in death, 3945No wretchedness for him who is no more, 3946The same estate as if ne'er born before, 3947When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life. . . .

[Death should be of no greater concern than sleep.

]

But ask the mourner what's the bitterness 4000That man should waste in an eternal grief, 4001If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest? 4002For when the soul and frame together are sunk 4003In slumber, no one then demands his self 4004Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever, 4005Without desire of any selfhood more, 4006For all it matters unto us asleep. 4007Yet not at all do those primordial germs 4008Roam round our members, at that time, afar 4009From their own motions that produce our senses- 4010Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man 4011Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us 4012Much less- if there can be a less than that 4013Which is itself a nothing: for there comes 4014Hard upon death a scattering more great 4015Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up 4016On whom once falls the icy pause of life. 4017This too, O often from the soul men say, 4018Along their couches holding of the cups, 4019With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry: 4020"Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man, 4021Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no, 4022It may not be recalled."- As if, forsooth, 4023It were their prime of evils in great death 4024To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought, 4025Or chafe for any lack. . . .

[Old age is no reason to complain.

]

Yet should one complain, 4054Riper in years and elder, and lament, 4055Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit, 4056Then would she not, with greater right, on him 4057Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill: 4058"Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon! 4059Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum 4060Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever 4061What's not at hand, condemning present good, 4062That life has slipped away, unperfected 4063And unavailing unto thee. And now, 4064Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head 4065Stands- and before thou canst be going home 4066Sated and laden with the goodly feast. 4067But now yield all that's alien to thine age,- 4068Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must." 4069Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus, 4070Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old 4071Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever 4072The one thing from the others is repaired. 4073Nor no man is consigned to the abyss 4074Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be, 4075That thus the after-generations grow, 4076Though these, their life completed, follow thee; 4077And thus like thee are generations all- 4078Already fallen, or some time to fall. 4079So one thing from another rises ever; 4080And in fee-simple life is given to none, 4081But unto all mere usufruct. 4082Look back: 4083Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld 4084Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth. 4085And Nature holds this like a mirror up 4086Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone. 4087And what is there so horrible appears? 4088Now what is there so sad about it all? 4089Is't not serener far than any sleep?

[Understanding the nature of things is the only way to live life and face death.

]

If men, in that same way as on the mind 4184They feel the load that wearies with its weight, 4185Could also know the causes whence it comes, 4186And why so great the heap of ill on heart, 4187O not in this sort would they live their life, 4188As now so much we see them, knowing not 4189What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever 4190A change of place, as if to drop the burden. 4191The man who sickens of his home goes out, 4192Forth from his splendid halls, and straight returns, 4193Feeling i'faith no better off abroad. 4194He races, driving his Gallic ponies along, 4195Down to his villa, madly,- as in haste 4196To hurry help to a house afire.- At once 4197He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold, 4198Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks 4199Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about 4200And makes for town again. In such a way 4201Each human flees himself- a self in sooth, 4202As happens, he by no means can escape; 4203And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes, 4204Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail. 4205Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then, 4206Leaving all else, he'd study to divine 4207The nature of things, since here is in debate 4208Eternal time and not the single hour, 4209Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains 4210After great death. 4211And too, when all is said, 4212What evil lust of life is this so great 4213Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught 4214In perils and alarms? one fixed end 4215Of life abideth for mortality; 4216Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet. 4217Besides we're busied with the same devices, 4218Ever and ever, and we are at them ever, 4219And there's no new delight that may be forged 4220By living on. But whilst the thing we long for 4221Is lacking, that seems good above all else; 4222Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else 4223We long for; ever one equal thirst of life 4224Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune 4225The future times may carry, or what be 4226That chance may bring, or what the issue next 4227Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life 4228Take we the least away from death's own time, 4229Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby 4230To minish the aeons of our state of death. 4231Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfill 4232As many generations as thou may: 4233Eternal death shall there be waiting still; 4234And he who died with light of yesterday 4235Shall be no briefer time in death's No more 4236Than he who perished months or years before.