De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Besides we feel that mind to being comes
  2. Along with body, with body grows and ages.
  3. For just as children totter round about
  4. With frames infirm and tender, so there follows
  5. A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,
  6. Where years have ripened into robust powers,
  7. Counsel is also greater, more increased
  8. The power of mind; thereafter, where already
  9. The body's shattered by master-powers of eld,
  10. And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,
  11. Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;
  12. All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
  13. Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,
  14. Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air;
  15. Since we behold the same to being come
  16. Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught,
  17. Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.
  18. Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes
  19. Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain,
  20. So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear;
  21. Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less
  22. Partaker is of death; for pain and disease
  23. Are both artificers of death,- as well
  24. We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now.
  25. Nay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind
  26. Wanders afield; for 'tis beside itself,
  27. And crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks,
  28. With eyelids closing and a drooping nod,
  29. In heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep;
  30. From whence nor hears it any voices more,
  31. Nor able is to know the faces here
  32. Of those about him standing with wet cheeks
  33. Who vainly call him back to light and life.
  34. Wherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves,
  35. Seeing, indeed, contagions of disease
  36. Enter into the same. Again, O why,
  37. When the strong wine has entered into man,
  38. And its diffused fire gone round the veins,
  39. Why follows then a heaviness of limbs,
  40. A tangle of the legs as round he reels,
  41. A stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked,
  42. Eyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls,
  43. And whatso else is of that ilk?- Why this?-
  44. If not that violent and impetuous wine
  45. Is wont to confound the soul within the body?
  46. But whatso can confounded be and balked,
  47. Gives proof, that if a hardier cause got in,
  48. 'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved
  49. Of any life thereafter.
  1. And, moreover,
  2. Often will some one in a sudden fit,
  3. As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down
  4. Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt,
  5. Blither, and twist about with sinews taut,
  6. Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs
  7. With tossing round. No marvel, since distract
  8. Through frame by violence of disease.
  9. . . . . . .
  10. Confounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul,
  11. As on the salt sea boil the billows round
  12. Under the master might of winds. And now
  13. A groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped,
  14. But, in the main, because the seeds of voice
  15. Are driven forth and carried in a mass
  16. Outwards by mouth, where they are wont to go,
  17. And have a builded highway. He becomes
  18. Mere fool, since energy of mind and soul
  19. Confounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven,
  20. Asunder thrown, and torn to pieces all
  21. By the same venom. But, again, where cause
  22. Of that disease has faced about, and back
  23. Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame
  24. Into its shadowy lairs, the man at first
  25. Arises reeling, and gradually comes back
  26. To all his senses and recovers soul.
  27. Thus, since within the body itself of man
  28. The mind and soul are by such great diseases
  29. Shaken, so miserably in labour distraught,
  30. Why, then, believe that in the open air,
  31. Without a body, they can pass their life,
  32. Immortal, battling with the master winds?
  33. And, since we mark the mind itself is cured,
  34. Like the sick body, and restored can be
  35. By medicine, this is forewarning too
  36. That mortal lives the mind. For proper it is
  37. That whosoe'er begins and undertakes
  38. To alter the mind, or meditates to change
  39. Any another nature soever, should add
  40. New parts, or readjust the order given,
  41. Or from the sum remove at least a bit.
  42. But what's immortal willeth for itself
  43. Its parts be nor increased, nor rearranged,
  44. Nor any bit soever flow away:
  45. For change of anything from out its bounds
  46. Means instant death of that which was before.
  47. Ergo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen,
  48. Or by the medicine restored, gives signs,
  49. As I have taught, of its mortality.
  50. So surely will a fact of truth make head
  51. 'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off
  52. All refuge from the adversary, and rout
  53. Error by two-edged confutation.