Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  With civic blood a fortune they amass,

  They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up

  Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh

  For the sad burial of a brother-born,

  And hatred and fear of tables of their kin.

  Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft

  Makes them to peak because before their eyes

  That man is lordly, that man gazed upon

  Who walks begirt with honour glorious,

  Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around;

  Some perish away for statues and a name,

  And oft to that degree, from fright of death,

  Will hate of living and beholding light

  Take hold on humankind that they inflict

  Their own destruction with a gloomy heart —

  Forgetful that this fear is font of cares,

  This fear the plague upon their sense of shame,

  And this that breaks the ties of comradry

  And oversets all reverence and faith,

  Mid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day

  Often were traitors to country and dear parents

  Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron.

  For just as children tremble and fear all

  In the viewless dark, so even we at times

  Dread in the light so many things that be

  No whit more fearsome than what children feign,

  Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.

  This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,

  Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,

  Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse,

  But only nature’s aspect and her law.

  NATURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE MIND

  First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call

  The intellect, wherein is seated life’s

  Counsel and regimen, is part no less

  Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts

  Of one whole breathing creature. [But some hold]

  That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,

  But is of body some one vital state, —

  Named “harmony” by Greeks, because thereby

  We live with sense, though intellect be not

  In any part: as oft the body is said

  To have good health (when health, however, ‘s not

  One part of him who has it), so they place

  The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.

  Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.

  Often the body palpable and seen

  Sickens, while yet in some invisible part

  We feel a pleasure; oft the other way,

  A miserable in mind feels pleasure still

  Throughout his body — quite the same as when

  A foot may pain without a pain in head.

  Besides, when these our limbs are given o’er

  To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame

  At random void of sense, a something else

  Is yet within us, which upon that time

  Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving

  All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.

  Now, for to see that in man’s members dwells

  Also the soul, and body ne’er is wont

  To feel sensation by a “harmony”

  Take this in chief: the fact that life remains

  Oft in our limbs, when much of body’s gone;

  Yet that same life, when particles of heat,

  Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth

  Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith

  Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.

  Thus mayst thou know that not all particles

  Perform like parts, nor in like manner all

  Are props of weal and safety: rather those —

  The seeds of wind and exhalations warm —

  Take care that in our members life remains.

  Therefore a vital heat and wind there is

  Within the very body, which at death

  Deserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind

  And even of soul is found to be, as ‘twere,

  A part of man, give over “harmony” —

  Name to musicians brought from Helicon, —

  Unless themselves they filched it otherwise,

  To serve for what was lacking name till then.

  Whate’er it be, they’re welcome to it — thou,

  Hearken my other maxims.

  Mind and soul,

  I say, are held conjoined one with other,

  And form one single nature of themselves;

  But chief and regnant through the frame entire

  Is still that counsel which we call the mind,

  And that cleaves seated in the midmost breast.

  Here leap dismay and terror; round these haunts

  Be blandishments of joys; and therefore here

  The intellect, the mind. The rest of soul,

  Throughout the body scattered, but obeys —

  Moved by the nod and motion of the mind.

  This, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought;

  This for itself hath mirth, even when the thing

  That moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all.

  And as, when head or eye in us is smit

  By assailing pain, we are not tortured then

  Through all the body, so the mind alone

  Is sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy,

  Whilst yet the soul’s remainder through the limbs

  And through the frame is stirred by nothing new.

  But when the mind is moved by shock more fierce,

  We mark the whole soul suffering all at once

  Along man’s members: sweats and pallors spread

  Over the body, and the tongue is broken,

  And fails the voice away, and ring the ears,

  Mists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse, —

  Aye, men drop dead from terror of the mind.

  Hence, whoso will can readily remark

  That soul conjoined is with mind, and, when

  ’Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith

  In turn it hits and drives the body too.

  And this same argument establisheth

  That nature of mind and soul corporeal is:

  For when ’tis seen to drive the members on,

  To snatch from sleep the body, and to change

  The countenance, and the whole state of man

  To rule and turn, — what yet could never be

  Sans contact, and sans body contact fails —

  Must we not grant that mind and soul consist

  Of a corporeal nature? — And besides

  Thou markst that likewise with this body of ours

  Suffers the mind and with our body feels.

  If the dire speed of spear that cleaves the bones

  And bares the inner thews hits not the life,

  Yet follows a fainting and a foul collapse,

  And, on the ground, dazed tumult in the mind,

  And whiles a wavering will to rise afoot.

  So nature of mind must be corporeal, since

  From stroke and spear corporeal ’tis in throes.

  Now, of what body, what components formed

  Is this same mind I will go on to tell.

  First, I aver, ’tis superfine, composed

  Of tiniest particles — that such the fact

  Thou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this:

  Nothing is seen to happen with such speed

  As what the mind proposes and begins;

  Therefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly

  Than aught whose nature’s palpable to eyes.

  But what’s so agile must of seeds consist

  Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved,

  When hit by impulse slight. So water moves,

  In waves alon
g, at impulse just the least —

  Being create of little shapes that roll;

  But, contrariwise, the quality of honey

  More stable is, its liquids more inert,

  More tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter

  Cleaves more together, since, indeed, ’tis made

  Of atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round.

  For the light breeze that hovers yet can blow

  High heaps of poppy-seed away for thee

  Downward from off the top; but, contrariwise,

  A pile of stones or spiny ears of wheat

  It can’t at all. Thus, in so far as bodies

  Are small and smooth, is their mobility;

  But, contrariwise, the heavier and more rough,

  The more immovable they prove. Now, then,

  Since nature of mind is movable so much,

  Consist it must of seeds exceeding small

  And smooth and round. Which fact once known to thee,

  Good friend, will serve thee opportune in else.

  This also shows the nature of the same,

  How nice its texture, in how small a space

  ’Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet:

  When death’s unvexed repose gets hold on man

  And mind and soul retire, thou markest there

  From the whole body nothing ta’en in form,

  Nothing in weight. Death grants ye everything,

  But vital sense and exhalation hot.

  Thus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds,

  Twined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews,

  Seeing that, when ’tis from whole body gone,

  The outward figuration of the limbs

  Is unimpaired and weight fails not a whit.

  Just so, when vanished the bouquet of wine,

  Or when an unguent’s perfume delicate

  Into the winds away departs, or when

  From any body savour’s gone, yet still

  The thing itself seems minished naught to eyes,

  Thereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight —

  No marvel, because seeds many and minute

  Produce the savours and the redolence

  In the whole body of the things. And so,

  Again, again, nature of mind and soul

  ’Tis thine to know created is of seeds

  The tiniest ever, since at flying-forth

  It beareth nothing of the weight away.

  Yet fancy not its nature simple so.

  For an impalpable aura, mixed with heat,

  Deserts the dying, and heat draws off the air;

  And heat there’s none, unless commixed with air:

  For, since the nature of all heat is rare,

  Athrough it many seeds of air must move.

  Thus nature of mind is triple; yet those all

  Suffice not for creating sense — since mind

  Accepteth not that aught of these can cause

  Sense-bearing motions, and much less the thoughts

  A man revolves in mind. So unto these

  Must added be a somewhat, and a fourth;

  That somewhat’s altogether void of name;

  Than which existeth naught more mobile, naught

  More an impalpable, of elements

  More small and smooth and round. That first transmits

  Sense-bearing motions through the frame, for that

  Is roused the first, composed of little shapes;

  Thence heat and viewless force of wind take up

  The motions, and thence air, and thence all things

  Are put in motion; the blood is strook, and then

  The vitals all begin to feel, and last

  To bones and marrow the sensation comes —

  Pleasure or torment. Nor will pain for naught

  Enter so far, nor a sharp ill seep through,

  But all things be perturbed to that degree

  That room for life will fail, and parts of soul

  Will scatter through the body’s every pore.

  Yet as a rule, almost upon the skin

  These motion aIl are stopped, and this is why

  We have the power to retain our life.

  Now in my eagerness to tell thee how

  They are commixed, through what unions fit

  They function so, my country’s pauper-speech

  Constrains me sadly. As I can, however,

  I’ll touch some points and pass. In such a wise

  Course these primordials ‘mongst one another

  With inter-motions that no one can be

  From other sundered, nor its agency

  Perform, if once divided by a space;

  Like many powers in one body they work.

  As in the flesh of any creature still

  Is odour and savour and a certain warmth,

  And yet from all of these one bulk of body

  Is made complete, so, viewless force of wind

  And warmth and air, commingled, do create

  One nature, by that mobile energy

  Assisted which from out itself to them

  Imparts initial motion, whereby first

  Sense-bearing motion along the vitals springs.

  For lurks this essence far and deep and under,

  Nor in our body is aught more shut from view,

  And ’tis the very soul of all the soul.

  And as within our members and whole frame

  The energy of mind and power of soul

  Is mixed and latent, since create it is

  Of bodies small and few, so lurks this fourth,

  This essence void of name, composed of small,

  And seems the very soul of all the soul,

  And holds dominion o’er the body all.

  And by like reason wind and air and heat

  Must function so, commingled through the frame,

  And now the one subside and now another

  In interchange of dominance, that thus

  From all of them one nature be produced,

  Lest heat and wind apart, and air apart,

  Make sense to perish, by disseverment.

  There is indeed in mind that heat it gets

  When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes

  More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind,

  Much, and so cold, companion of all dread,

  Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame;

  There is no less that state of air composed,

  Making the tranquil breast, the serene face.

  But more of hot have they whose restive hearts,

  Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage —

  Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions,

  Who often with roaring burst the breast o’erwrought,

  Unable to hold the surging wrath within;

  But the cold mind of stags has more of wind,

  And speedier through their inwards rouses up

  The icy currents which make their members quake.

  But more the oxen live by tranquil air,

  Nor e’er doth smoky torch of wrath applied,

  O’erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk,

  Rouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark,

  Pierced through by icy javelins of fear;

  But have their place half-way between the two —

  Stags and fierce lions. Thus the race of men:

  Though training make them equally refined,

  It leaves those pristine vestiges behind

  Of each mind’s nature. Nor may we suppose

  Evil can e’er be rooted up so far

  That one man’s not more given to fits of wrath,

  Another’s not more quickly touched by fear,

  A third not more long-suffering than he should.

  And needs must differ in many things besides

  The varied natures and resulting habits

  Of humankind — of which not now can I

  Exp
ound the hidden causes, nor find names

  Enough for all the divers shapes of those

  Primordials whence this variation springs.

  But this meseems I’m able to declare:

  Those vestiges of natures left behind

  Which reason cannot quite expel from us

  Are still so slight that naught prevents a man

  From living a life even worthy of the gods.

  So then this soul is kept by all the body,

  Itself the body’s guard, and source of weal:

  For they with common roots cleave each to each,

  Nor can be torn asunder without death.

  Not easy ’tis from lumps of frankincense

  To tear their fragrance forth, without its nature

  Perishing likewise: so, not easy ’tis

  From all the body nature of mind and soul

  To draw away, without the whole dissolved.

  With seeds so intertwined even from birth,

  They’re dowered conjointly with a partner-life;

  No energy of body or mind, apart,

  Each of itself without the other’s power,

  Can have sensation; but our sense, enkindled

  Along the vitals, to flame is blown by both

  With mutual motions. Besides the body alone

  Is nor begot nor grows, nor after death

  Seen to endure. For not as water at times

  Gives off the alien heat, nor is thereby

  Itself destroyed, but unimpaired remains —

  Not thus, I say, can the deserted frame

  Bear the dissevering of its joined soul,

  But, rent and ruined, moulders all away.

  Thus the joint contact of the body and soul

  Learns from their earliest age the vital motions,

  Even when still buried in the mother’s womb;

  So no dissevering can hap to them,

  Without their bane and ill. And thence mayst see

  That, as conjoined is their source of weal,

  Conjoined also must their nature be.

  If one, moreover, denies that body feel,

  And holds that soul, through all the body mixed,

  Takes on this motion which we title “sense,”

  He battles in vain indubitable facts:

  For who’ll explain what body’s feeling is,

  Except by what the public fact itself

  Has given and taught us?”But when soul is parted,

  Body’s without all sense.” True! — loses what

  Was even in its life-time not its own;

  And much beside it loses, when soul’s driven

  Forth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes

  Themselves can see no thing, but through the same

  The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,