De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Wherefore it seems that soul
  2. Hath both a natal and funeral hour.
  3. Besides are seeds of soul there left behind
  4. In the breathless body, or not? If there they are,
  5. It cannot justly be immortal deemed,
  6. Since, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away:
  7. But if, borne off with members uncorrupt,
  8. 'Thas fled so absolutely all away
  9. It leaves not one remainder of itself
  10. Behind in body, whence do cadavers, then,
  11. From out their putrid flesh exhale the worms,
  12. And whence does such a mass of living things,
  13. Boneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frame
  14. Bubble and swarm? But if perchance thou thinkest
  15. That souls from outward into worms can wind,
  16. And each into a separate body come,
  17. And reckonest not why many thousand souls
  18. Collect where only one has gone away,
  19. Here is a point, in sooth, that seems to need
  20. Inquiry and a putting to the test:
  21. Whether the souls go on a hunt for seeds
  22. Of worms wherewith to build their dwelling places,
  23. Or enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere.
  24. But why themselves they thus should do and toil
  25. 'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body,
  26. They flit around, harassed by no disease,
  27. Nor cold nor famine; for the body labours
  28. By more of kinship to these flaws of life,
  29. And mind by contact with that body suffers
  30. So many ills. But grant it be for them
  31. However useful to construct a body
  32. To which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't.
  33. Then, souls for self no frames nor bodies make,
  34. Nor is there how they once might enter in
  35. To bodies ready-made- for they cannot
  36. Be nicely interwoven with the same,
  37. And there'll be formed no interplay of sense
  38. Common to each.
  1. Again, why is't there goes
  2. Impetuous rage with lion's breed morose,
  3. And cunning with foxes, and to deer why given
  4. The ancestral fear and tendency to flee,
  5. And why in short do all the rest of traits
  6. Engender from the very start of life
  7. In the members and mentality, if not
  8. Because one certain power of mind that came
  9. From its own seed and breed waxes the same
  10. Along with all the body? But were mind
  11. Immortal, were it wont to change its bodies,
  12. How topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act!
  13. The Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oft
  14. Of antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quake
  15. Along the winds of air at the coming dove,
  16. And men would dote, and savage beasts be wise;
  17. For false the reasoning of those that say
  18. Immortal mind is changed by change of body-
  19. For what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies.
  20. For parts are re-disposed and leave their order;
  21. Wherefore they must be also capable
  22. Of dissolution through the frame at last,
  23. That they along with body perish all.
  24. But should some say that always souls of men
  25. Go into human bodies, I will ask:
  26. How can a wise become a dullard soul?
  27. And why is never a child's a prudent soul?
  28. And the mare's filly why not trained so well
  29. As sturdy strength of steed? We may be sure
  30. They'll take their refuge in the thought that mind
  31. Becomes a weakling in a weakling frame.
  32. Yet be this so, 'tis needful to confess
  33. The soul but mortal, since, so altered now
  34. Throughout the frame, it loses the life and sense
  35. It had before. Or how can mind wax strong
  36. Coequally with body and attain
  37. The craved flower of life, unless it be
  38. The body's colleague in its origins?
  39. Or what's the purport of its going forth
  40. From aged limbs?- fears it, perhaps, to stay,
  41. Pent in a crumbled body? Or lest its house,
  42. Outworn by venerable length of days,
  43. May topple down upon it? But indeed
  44. For an immortal perils are there none.