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.