De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. There is indeed in mind that heat it gets
  2. When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes
  3. More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind,
  4. Much, and so cold, companion of all dread,
  5. Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame;
  6. There is no less that state of air composed,
  7. Making the tranquil breast, the serene face.
  8. But more of hot have they whose restive hearts,
  9. Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage-
  10. Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions,
  11. Who often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought,
  12. Unable to hold the surging wrath within;
  13. But the cold mind of stags has more of wind,
  14. And speedier through their inwards rouses up
  15. The icy currents which make their members quake.
  16. But more the oxen live by tranquil air,
  17. Nor e'er doth smoky torch of wrath applied,
  18. O'erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk,
  19. Rouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark,
  20. Pierced through by icy javelins of fear;
  21. But have their place half-way between the two-
  22. Stags and fierce lions. Thus the race of men:
  23. Though training make them equally refined,
  24. It leaves those pristine vestiges behind
  25. Of each mind's nature. Nor may we suppose
  26. Evil can e'er be rooted up so far
  27. That one man's not more given to fits of wrath,
  28. Another's not more quickly touched by fear,
  29. A third not more long-suffering than he should.
  30. And needs must differ in many things besides
  31. The varied natures and resulting habits
  32. Of humankind- of which not now can I
  33. Expound the hidden causes, nor find names
  34. Enough for all the divers shapes of those
  35. Primordials whence this variation springs.
  36. But this meseems I'm able to declare:
  37. Those vestiges of natures left behind
  38. Which reason cannot quite expel from us
  39. Are still so slight that naught prevents a man
  40. From living a life even worthy of the gods.
  41. So then this soul is kept by all the body,
  42. Itself the body's guard, and source of weal:
  43. For they with common roots cleave each to each,
  44. Nor can be torn asunder without death.
  45. Not easy 'tis from lumps of frankincense
  46. To tear their fragrance forth, without its nature
  47. Perishing likewise: so, not easy 'tis
  48. From all the body nature of mind and soul
  49. To draw away, without the whole dissolved.
  50. With seeds so intertwined even from birth,
  51. They're dowered conjointly with a partner-life;
  52. No energy of body or mind, apart,
  53. Each of itself without the other's power,
  54. Can have sensation; but our sense, enkindled
  55. Along the vitals, to flame is blown by both
  56. With mutual motions. Besides the body alone
  57. Is nor begot nor grows, nor after death
  58. Seen to endure. For not as water at times
  59. Gives off the alien heat, nor is thereby
  60. Itself destroyed, but unimpaired remains-
  61. Not thus, I say, can the deserted frame
  62. Bear the dissevering of its joined soul,
  63. But, rent and ruined, moulders all away.
  64. Thus the joint contact of the body and soul
  65. Learns from their earliest age the vital motions,
  66. Even when still buried in the mother's womb;
  67. So no dissevering can hap to them,
  68. Without their bane and ill. And thence mayst see
  69. That, as conjoined is their source of weal,
  70. Conjoined also must their nature be.
  1. If one, moreover, denies that body feel,
  2. And holds that soul, through all the body mixed,
  3. Takes on this motion which we title "sense,"
  4. He battles in vain indubitable facts:
  5. For who'll explain what body's feeling is,
  6. Except by what the public fact itself
  7. Has given and taught us? "But when soul is parted,
  8. Body's without all sense." True!- loses what
  9. Was even in its life-time not its own;
  10. And much beside it loses, when soul's driven
  11. Forth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes
  12. Themselves can see no thing, but through the same
  13. The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,
  14. Is- a hard saying; since the feel in eyes
  15. Says the reverse. For this itself draws on
  16. And forces into the pupils of our eyes
  17. Our consciousness. And note the case when often
  18. We lack the power to see refulgent things,
  19. Because our eyes are hampered by their light-
  20. With a mere doorway this would happen not;
  21. For, since it is our very selves that see,
  22. No open portals undertake the toil.
  23. Besides, if eyes of ours but act as doors,
  24. Methinks that, were our sight removed, the mind
  25. Ought then still better to behold a thing-
  26. When even the door-posts have been cleared away.
  27. Herein in these affairs nowise take up
  28. What honoured sage, Democritus, lays down-
  29. That proposition, that primordials
  30. Of body and mind, each super-posed on each,
  31. Vary alternately and interweave
  32. The fabric of our members. For not only
  33. Are the soul-elements smaller far than those
  34. Which this our body and inward parts compose,
  35. But also are they in their number less,
  36. And scattered sparsely through our frame. And thus
  37. This canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs
  38. Maintain between them intervals as large
  39. At least as are the smallest bodies, which,
  40. When thrown against us, in our body rouse
  41. Sense-bearing motions.