He does not know that all things in decay
By slow degrees are moving towards their end
Worn by the age-old passage of the years.
BOOK THREE
You, who from so great darkness could uplift
So clear a light, lighting the joys of life,
You, glory of the Greeks, I follow you
And in your footprints plant my footsteps firm,
Not in desire of rivalry, but love
5
Drives me to yearn to copy you. The swallow
Can’t vie with swans. What would a trembling kid
Do in contest with a strong swift horse?
You, father, have revealed the truth, and you
A father’s precepts gave us in your pages.
10
As bees in flowery glades sip every bloom,
So we, like them, feed on your golden words,
Golden, most worthy of eternal life.
For once your reason, born of mind divine,
Starts to proclaim the nature of the world
15
The terrors of the mind flee all away,
The walls of heaven open, and through the void
Immeasurable, the truth of things I see.
The gods appear now and their quiet abodes
Which no winds ever shake, nor any rain
Falls on them from dark clouds, nor ever snow
20
Congealed with bitter frost with its white fall
Mars them; but always ever-cloudless air
Enfolds and smiles on them with bounteous light.
There nature everything supplies, and there
Through all the length of ages nothing comes
To vex the tranquil tenor of their minds.
But in contrast nowhere at all appear
25
The halls of Acheron, though earth no bar
Opposes, but lets all be clearly seen
That moves beneath our feet throughout the void.
And now from all these things delight and joy,
As it were divine, takes hold of me, and awe
That by your power nature so manifest
Lies open and in every part displayed.
30
And since I have taught the beginnings of all things,
What kind they are, and how in varying forms
Of their own accord, driven by everlasting
Motion, they fly, and how all things from them
Can be created, next and following this
The nature of mind and spirit by my verses
35
Must be made clear, and headlong out of doors
That fear of Hell be thrown, which from its depths
Disquiets the life of man, suffusing all
With the blackness of death, and leaving no delights
Pure and unsullied. This man it persuades
40
To break the bonds of friendship and another
83
To violate honour, and in a word
To turn all morals upside down. Traitors
To country and to parents men have been
For fear, the appalling fear, of Acheron.
86
For when men say a life of infamy
And foul diseases is more terrible
Than death’s deep pit, and that they know that blood
Is what the spirit is made of, or even wind,
(If so the fancy takes them) and that they have
No need of what my reasoning tells them, then
45
I’ll show you that they speak thus seeking praise,
Boasting, and not because the matter’s proved.
These men in exile, banished from their homes,
Far from the sight of men, stained by foul charges,
Cursed, in a word, by every misery,
Yet live; and despite their words they sacrifice
50
To their ancestral gods, they slay black cattle,
They send oblations to the ghosts below,
And in their bitter straits they turn their minds
More keenly now than ever to religion.
Thus, when in perils and adversity
55
A man has fallen, it’s more useful then
To look at him and easier to know him.
For only then from out the heart’s deep core
True voices rise, the mask’s stripped off, the man
Remains. Greed and blind lust for fame
Moreover, which compel men to transgress
The bounds of law, and often times make them,
60
Allies and ministers of crime, strive night and day
With toil and sweat to gain the heights of power,
These wounds of life in no small part are fed
By fear of death. For ’tis the common view
That shameful scorn and bitter poverty
Are far removed from a sweet and stable life,
65
And, as it were, are simply lingering
Before the gates of death. From which, when men
Driven by groundless fear desire to flee
And to remove themselves far, far away,
By civil strife they make wealth for themselves
70
And heap up riches, murder upon murder
Piling in greed. A brother’s death gives joy.
A kinsman’s board supplies both hate and fear.
By similar reasoning, born of the same fear,
Envy consumes them; that he before their eyes
75
Gets power, is known, parades in pomp and show,
While they the while in darkness and in filth
Lie wallowing—that’s their complaint, you see!
Some die to get a statue and a name.
And often too, crazed by the fear of death,
Such hate of life and light possesses them
80
That their own deaths they plan, with sorrowing heart,
Forgetting that this fear begets their woes.
82
For we, like children frightened of the dark,
87
Are sometimes frightened in the light—of things
No more to be feared than fears that in the dark
Distress a child, thinking they may come true.
90
Therefore this terror and darkness of the mind
Not by the sun’s rays, nor the bright shafts of day,
Must be dispersed, as is most necessary,
But by the face of nature and her laws.
First I say that the mind, which we often call
The intelligence, in which is situated
The understanding and the government
95
Of life, is a part of man, no less than hands
And feet and eyes are part of the living being,
Though many wise philosophers have thought
That it is not placed in a definite part, but is
A sort of vital essence of the body,
Called harmony by the Greeks, which makes us live
100
Endowed with feeling, though the intelligence
Is not in any part; as when the body
Is said to be in good health, but health is not
A part of it, so in no definite place
They place the mind—and here they plainly err
Exceedingly, in many different ways.
105
For often the body, which we see, is sick
And yet in another part, which we cannot see,
We’re happy. And conversely, in its turn,
The opposite applies, as when a man
Though sick in mind in body flourishes.
Let’s take another case—a man hurts his foot,
110
It doesn’t mean he gets a headache too!
Again, when limbs are given to gentle sleep
&nbs
p; And body without senses lies outstretched,
There’s something in us all the time that feels
In many ways, and takes into itself
Movements of pleasure and the heart’s vain cares.
115
Next, that the spirit also you may know
Lies in our limbs, and that it is not harmony
That makes the body feel, firstly it happens
That if a great part of the body be taken away
Yet oft within our limbs life still remains.
120
Again, when a few particles of heat
Have fled abroad, and outwards through the mouth
Air is expelled, at once this same spirit
Deserts the veins and leaves the bones. From this
You will recognize that not all particles
Work the same way or support life equally.
125
But those that are seeds of wind and warming heat
Secure that life still lingers in our limbs.
Therefore there is within the body heat
And vital wind which at the point of death
Deserts our frame and causes us to die.
Well then, since we have recognized that mind
130
And spirit are in some way a part of man,
Give back the name of harmony, brought down
To those musicians from high Helicon;
Maybe they found it somewhere else, and gave
The name to something till then nameless. Anyway
Whatever it is, let them keep it. And you
Please listen to the rest of what I say.
135
I tell you now that mind and spirit are
Conjoined and in one single nature fixed,
But head and master as it were of all
The body, is the understanding, which we call
Mind and intelligence. It has its seat
Placed in the middle region of the breast.
140
For here throb fear and terror, here abides
Sweet melting joy, and therefore intelligence
And mind are. And the rest of the spirit,
Through the whole body diffused, obeys the will
Of mind and working of intelligence.
Mind by itself alone has sense, alone
Rejoices for itself, when nothing moves
145
Spirit or body. And just as when our head
Or eye is hurt by an attack of pain,
The whole body is not tormented, so
The mind sometimes itself alone is hurt
Or thrills with joy, while the spirit’s other part
150
Throughout our limbs and frame remains unmoved.
But when the mind is strongly gripped by fear
We see the whole spirit throughout the frame
Share the same feeling; we sweat, grow pale,
Our speech is broken, the voice dies away,
155
Our eyes grow dark, our ears are filled with noise,
Our limbs give way; in short, through mental terror
We see men fall to the ground. From this we know
That spirit is linked with mind; when struck by mind
The spirit drives the body and compels it.
160
This reasoning likewise shows that mind and spirit
Are bodily, for when we see that limbs are moved,
The body snatched from sleep, the countenance
Changed, the whole man ruled and steered, a thing
Impossible without touch, and touch in turn
165
Impossible without body, must we not
Admit that mind and spirit are bodily?
Moreover you can see the mind to suffer
Along with the body, and to share its feeling.
If the grim power of a javelin,
170
Driven deep into the bones and sinews, fails
To take the life, yet weakness follows, then
A fall to the ground, and on the ground a storm
In the mind, and sometimes as it were
A faint desire to rise. The nature of mind
Must therefore in itself be bodily,
175
Since blows upon the body make it suffer.
This mind, I now propose to explain to you,
What kind of thing it is, and whence derived.
Most delicate it is I say and formed
Of atoms most minute. That this is so
180
The following example may convince you.
Nothing is done so swiftly as the mind
Determines it to be done, and acts itself;
More quickly then the mind bestirs itself
Than anything else that comes before our eyes;
185
But what is so readily moved must needs consist
Of seeds extremely round and most minute
So that a force though very small can move them.
Water moves easily and flows with little force
Because it is formed of smooth and rolling shapes.
190
Honey conversely has more stability,
Its fluid is more sluggish and its movement
Slow, because the whole mass of its matter
Coheres more slowly, since it is not made
Of atoms so smooth and delicate and round.
195
Take poppy seeds, a big high heap of them,
A breath of wind can make the top slide down,
But take a heap of stones or ears of wheat,
It cannot move them. So, you see, so far
As atoms are extremely small and smooth,
They have the power of motion; but heavy things
200
And things that are rough have more stability.
Now therefore, since we have found the mind to be
Extremely mobile, of necessity
It must consist of atoms extremely small
And smooth and round. If this be known to you
205
My friend, you’ll find it helps in many ways,
And you will call it valuable and useful.
This also shows its nature and how fine
Its texture is, and how minute a space
It would occupy if it could be massed together—
210
As soon as death’s calm quiet takes a man
And mind and spirit have departed, then
Nothing from all the body can you see
Diminished, not in look nor weight, but death
Presents it all, less only sense and warmth.
215
Therefore the entire spirit must consist
Of seeds extremely small, through veins, flesh, sinews,
Woven; wherefore, when all of it has left
The body, none the less the shape of limbs
Remains intact; no whit of weight is lost.
220
The bouquet of wine is an example, or
The scent of ointment, or the flavour of something;
They disappear, but all the same no whit
Smaller the thing seems to our eyes, nor less
Is it in weight; no wonder, since minute
225
Seeds are what make the flavour and the scent.
Wherefore again and yet again I say
The nature of the mind and spirit must
Of seeds extremely small be constituted,
Since when it flees it takes no weight away.
230
But do not suppose that this nature is single.
When a man dies, a kind of thin breath, mixed
With heat, deserts him, and the heat draws air
Along with it. Nor is there any heat
That is not mixed with air, for since its nature
Is rarefied, then of necessity
235
First elements of air must needs move through
it.
Already therefore we have found that mind
Is threefold; but these three are not enough
To engender feeling, since no one of them
Is able to make the motions that bring sense,
Still less the thoughts that come into our minds.
240
Therefore a fourth thing of some kind must be
Added, and this is wholly without name.
Nothing exists more easily moved than this,
Nor thinner nor made of elements more small
And smooth, and this first transmits through our limbs
245
Sense-giving motions. For this first is moved
Being smallest, next heat and the blind power of wind
Take on the movement, then the air, then everything
Is moved, the blood is stirred, the flesh is thrilled
All through with feeling, bones and marrow feel
250
Pleasure perhaps, or pleasure’s opposite.
Nor can pain penetrate thus far, or violent ill,
But that they cause so much disquiet that
No place is left for life, the spirit flees
Dispersed through all the channels of the body.
255
But usually, as it were at the body’s surface
These movements end; so we keep hold on life.
Now when I long to explain how these things are
Mingled among themselves, and in what ways
Arranged they are active, then against my will
The poverty of our language holds me back.
260
But the chief points I’ll touch on, as best I can.
The first beginnings move among themselves
So closely that no single one of them
Is separate or has power to act alone
Divided from the rest, but many of them
Compose together a kind of single body.
265
As in the flesh of any animal
There is a certain scent and heat and flavour
Yet from all these one body is made complete,
So heat and air and the blind power of wind
Mixed form one nature, with that moving force
270
Which from itself dispenses the beginning of motion,
The sense-bringer, from which through all the body
Movement first begins. For deep deep down
This nature hidden lies, and far beneath;
Nothing so deep in all our body lies,
The spirit of the very spirit itself.
275
Just as, mixed in our limbs and all our body,
The force of mind and power of spirit lies hid,
Made as it is of few small elements,
So does this nameless force made of minute
280
Atoms lie hid, spirit of spirit, and lord
Of all the body. So likewise must wind
And air and heat all mingled interact
Throughout our limbs, one yielding place to another
On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) Page 13
