De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. "Thee now no more
  2. The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,
  3. Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses
  4. And touch with silent happiness thy heart.
  5. Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,
  6. Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
  7. Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en
  8. Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"
  9. But add not, "yet no longer unto thee
  10. Remains a remnant of desire for them"
  11. If this they only well perceived with mind
  12. And followed up with maxims, they would free
  13. Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
  14. "O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,
  15. So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,
  16. Released from every harrying pang. But we,
  17. We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,
  18. Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre
  19. Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take
  20. For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
  21. But ask the mourner what's the bitterness
  22. That man should waste in an eternal grief,
  23. If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
  24. For when the soul and frame together are sunk
  25. In slumber, no one then demands his self
  26. Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever,
  27. Without desire of any selfhood more,
  28. For all it matters unto us asleep.
  29. Yet not at all do those primordial germs
  30. Roam round our members, at that time, afar
  31. From their own motions that produce our senses-
  32. Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man
  33. Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us
  34. Much less- if there can be a less than that
  35. Which is itself a nothing: for there comes
  36. Hard upon death a scattering more great
  37. Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up
  38. On whom once falls the icy pause of life.
  39. This too, O often from the soul men say,
  40. Along their couches holding of the cups,
  41. With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:
  42. "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,
  43. Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,
  44. It may not be recalled."- As if, forsooth,
  45. It were their prime of evils in great death
  46. To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,
  47. Or chafe for any lack.
  1. Once more, if Nature
  2. Should of a sudden send a voice abroad,
  3. And her own self inveigh against us so:
  4. "Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern
  5. That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
  6. Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
  7. For if thy life aforetime and behind
  8. To thee was grateful, and not all thy good
  9. Was heaped as in sieve to flow away
  10. And perish unavailingly, why not,
  11. Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,
  12. Laden with life? why not with mind content
  13. Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?
  14. But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been
  15. Lavished and lost, and life is now offence,
  16. Why seekest more to add- which in its turn
  17. Will perish foully and fall out in vain?
  18. O why not rather make an end of life,
  19. Of labour? For all I may devise or find
  20. To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are
  21. The same forever. Though not yet thy body
  22. Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts
  23. Outworn, still things abide the same, even if
  24. Thou goest on to conquer all of time
  25. With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-
  26. What were our answer, but that Nature here
  27. Urges just suit and in her words lays down
  28. True cause of action? Yet should one complain,
  29. Riper in years and elder, and lament,
  30. Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,
  31. Then would she not, with greater right, on him
  32. Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:
  33. "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!
  34. Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum
  35. Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever
  36. What's not at hand, contemning present good,
  37. That life has slipped away, unperfected
  38. And unavailing unto thee. And now,
  39. Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head
  40. Stands- and before thou canst be going home
  41. Sated and laden with the goodly feast.
  42. But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-
  43. Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must."
  44. Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus,
  45. Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old
  46. Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever
  47. The one thing from the others is repaired.
  48. Nor no man is consigned to the abyss
  49. Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,
  50. That thus the after-generations grow,-
  51. Though these, their life completed, follow thee;
  52. And thus like thee are generations all-
  53. Already fallen, or some time to fall.
  54. So one thing from another rises ever;
  55. And in fee-simple life is given to none,
  56. But unto all mere usufruct.
  57. Look back:
  58. Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld
  59. Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.
  60. And Nature holds this like a mirror up
  61. Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.
  62. And what is there so horrible appears?
  63. Now what is there so sad about it all?
  64. Is't not serener far than any sleep?