Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece

*****

Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air To drive her team of lions, teaching thus That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie Resting on other earth. Unto her car They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny, However savage, must be tamed and chid By care of parents. They have girt about With turret-crown the summit of her head, Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high, 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned With that same token, to-day is carried forth, With solemn awe through many a mighty land, The image of that mother, the divine. Her the wide nations, after antique rite, Do name Idaean Mother, giving her Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say, From out those regions 'twas that grain began Through all the world. To her do they assign The Galli, the emasculate, since thus They wish to show that men who violate The majesty of the mother and have proved Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged Unfit to give unto the shores of light A living progeny. The Galli come: And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines Resound around to bangings of their hands; The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray; The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives, Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts To panic with terror of the goddess' might. And so, when through the mighty cities borne, She blesses man with salutations mute, They strew the highway of her journeyings With coin of brass and silver, gifting her With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade With flowers of roses falling like the snow Upon the Mother and her companion-bands. Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since Haply among themselves they use to play In games of arms and leap in measure round With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake The terrorizing crests upon their heads, This is the armed troop that represents The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete, As runs the story, whilom did out-drown That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band, Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy, To measured step beat with the brass on brass, That Saturn might not get him for his jaws, And give its mother an eternal wound Along her heart. And 'tis on this account That armed they escort the mighty Mother, Or else because they signify by this That she, the goddess, teaches men to be Eager with armed valour to defend Their motherland, and ready to stand forth, The guard and glory of their parents' years. A tale, however beautifully wrought, That's wide of reason by a long remove: For all the gods must of themselves enjoy Immortal aeons and supreme repose, Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar: Immune from peril and immune from pain, Themselves abounding in riches of their own, Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath They are not taken by service or by gift. Truly is earth insensate for all time; But, by obtaining germs of many things, In many a way she brings the many forth Into the light of sun. And here, whoso Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce The liquor's proper designation, him Let us permit to go on calling earth Mother of Gods, if only he will spare To taint his soul with foul religion. So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine, And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing Often together along one grassy plain, Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking From out one stream of water each its thirst, All live their lives with face and form unlike, Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits, Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat. So great in any sort of herb thou wilt, So great again in any river of earth Are the distinct diversities of matter. Hence, further, every creature—any one From out them all—compounded is the same Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews— All differing vastly in their forms, and built Of elements dissimilar in shape. Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze, Within their frame lay up, if naught besides, At least those atoms whence derives their power To throw forth fire and send out light from under, To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide. If, with like reasoning of mind, all else Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus That in their frame the seeds of many things They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain. Further, thou markest much, to which are given Along together colour and flavour and smell, Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.

*****

Thus must they be of divers shapes composed. A smell of scorching enters in our frame Where the bright colour from the dye goes not; And colour in one way, flavour in quite another Works inward to our senses—so mayst see They differ too in elemental shapes. Thus unlike forms into one mass combine, And things exist by intermixed seed.

But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view Portents begot about thee every side: Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up, At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk, Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit, And nature along the all-producing earth Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame From hideous jaws—Of which 'tis simple fact That none have been begot; because we see All are from fixed seed and fixed dam Engendered and so function as to keep Throughout their growth their own ancestral type. This happens surely by a fixed law: For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down, Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature, Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there, Produce the proper motions; but we see How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many With viewless bodies from their bodies fly, By blows impelled—those impotent to join To any part, or, when inside, to accord And to take on the vital motions there. But think not, haply, living forms alone Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.

*****

For just as all things of creation are, In their whole nature, each to each unlike, So must their atoms be in shape unlike— Not since few only are fashioned of like form, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses, Elements many, common to many words, Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess The words and verses differ, each from each, Compounded out of different elements— Not since few only, as common letters, run Through all the words, or no two words are made, One and the other, from all like elements, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all. Thus, too, in other things, Whilst many germs common to many things There are, yet they, combined among themselves, Can form new wholes to others quite unlike. Thus fairly one may say that humankind, The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds Are different, difference must there also be In intervening spaces, thoroughfares, Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all Which not alone distinguish living forms, But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands, And hold all heaven from the lands away.



ABSENCE OF SECONDARY QUALITIES

Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess That the white objects shining to thine eyes Are gendered of white atoms, or the black Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught That's steeped in any hue should take its dye From bits of matter tinct with hue the same. For matter's bodies own no hue the least— Or like to objects or, again, unlike. But, if percase it seem to thee that mind Itself can dart no influence of its own Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off. For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed The light of sun, yet recognise by touch Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them, 'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought No less unto the ken of our minds too, Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared. Again, ourselves whatever in the dark We touch, the same we do not find to be Tinctured with any colour.

Now that here I win the argument, I next will teach

*****

Now, every colour changes, none except, And every... Which the primordials ought nowise to do. Since an immutable somewhat must remain, Lest all things utterly be brought to naught. For change of anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before. Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour The seeds of things, lest things return for thee All utterly to naught.

But now, if seeds Receive no property of colour, and yet Be still endowed with variable forms From which all kinds of colours they beget And vary (by reason that ever it matters much With what seeds, and in what positions joined, And what the motions that they give and get), Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise Why what was black of hue an hour ago Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,— As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare, That, when the thing we often see as black Is in its matter then commixed anew, Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn, And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds Consist the level waters of the deep, They could in nowise whiten: for however Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds— Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen— Be now with one hue, now another dyed, As oft from alien forms and divers shapes A cube's produced all uniform in shape, 'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube We see the forms to be dissimilar, That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt) Colours diverse and all dissimilar. Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least The whole in being externally a cube; But differing hues of things do block and keep The whole from being of one resultant hue. Then, too, the reason which entices us At times to attribute colours to the seeds Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not Create from white things, nor are black from black, But evermore they are create from things Of divers colours. Verily, the white Will rise more readily, is sooner born Out of no colour, than of black or aught Which stands in hostile opposition thus.

Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light, And the primordials come not forth to light, 'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour— Truly, what kind of colour could there be In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself A colour changes, gleaming variedly, When smote by vertical or slanting ray. Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat: Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze, Now, by a strange sensation it becomes Green-emerald blended with the coral-red. The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light, Changes its colours likewise, when it turns. Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot, Without such blow these colours can't become.

And since the pupil of the eye receives Within itself one kind of blow, when said To feel a white hue, then another kind, When feeling a black or any other hue, And since it matters nothing with what hue The things thou touchest be perchance endowed, But rather with what sort of shape equipped, 'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour, But render forth sensations, as of touch, That vary with their varied forms.

Besides, Since special shapes have not a special colour, And all formations of the primal germs Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then, Are not those objects which are of them made Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind? For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly, Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen, Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be Of any single varied dye thou wilt.

Again, the more an object's rent to bits, The more thou see its colour fade away Little by little till 'tis quite extinct; As happens when the gaudy linen's picked Shred after shred away: the purple there, Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes, Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread; Hence canst perceive the fragments die away From out their colour, long ere they depart Back to the old primordials of things. And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus That not to all thou givest sounds and smells. So, too, since we behold not all with eyes, 'Tis thine to know some things there are as much Orphaned of colour, as others without smell, And reft of sound; and those the mind alert No less can apprehend than it can mark The things that lack some other qualities.

But think not haply that the primal bodies Remain despoiled alone of colour: so, Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold And from hot exhalations; and they move, Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw Not any odour from their proper bodies. Just as, when undertaking to prepare A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram, And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes Odour of nectar, first of all behooves Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can, The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang The odorous essence with its body mixed And in it seethed. And on the same account The primal germs of things must not be thought To furnish colour in begetting things, Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught From out themselves, nor any flavour, too, Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.

*****

The rest; yet since these things are mortal all— The pliant mortal, with a body soft; The brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame; The hollow with a porous-all must be Disjoined from the primal elements, If still we wish under the world to lay Immortal ground-works, whereupon may rest The sum of weal and safety, lest for thee All things return to nothing utterly.

Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense Must yet confessedly be stablished all From elements insensate. And those signs, So clear to all and witnessed out of hand, Do not refute this dictum nor oppose; But rather themselves do lead us by the hand, Compelling belief that living things are born Of elements insensate, as I say. Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung Live worms spring up, when, after soaking rains, The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same: Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change Into our bodies, and from our body, oft Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts And mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changes All foods to living frames, and procreates From them the senses of live creatures all, In manner about as she uncoils in flames Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire. And seest not, therefore, how it matters much After what order are set the primal germs, And with what other germs they all are mixed, And what the motions that they give and get?

But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind, Constraining thee to sundry arguments Against belief that from insensate germs The sensible is gendered?—Verily, 'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed, Are yet unable to gender vital sense. And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs This to remember: that I have not said Senses are born, under conditions all, From all things absolutely which create Objects that feel; but much it matters here Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed, And lastly what they in positions be, In motions, in arrangements. Of which facts Naught we perceive in logs of wood and clods; And yet even these, when sodden by the rains, Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies Of matter, from their old arrangements stirred By the new factor, then combine anew In such a way as genders living things.

Next, they who deem that feeling objects can From feeling objects be create, and these, In turn, from others that are wont to feel

*****

When soft they make them; for all sense is linked With flesh, and thews, and veins—and such, we see, Are fashioned soft and of a mortal frame. Yet be't that these can last forever on: They'll have the sense that's proper to a part, Or else be judged to have a sense the same As that within live creatures as a whole. But of themselves those parts can never feel, For all the sense in every member back To something else refers—a severed hand, Or any other member of our frame, Itself alone cannot support sensation. It thus remains they must resemble, then, Live creatures as a whole, to have the power Of feeling sensation concordant in each part With the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel The things we feel exactly as do we. If such the case, how, then, can they be named The primal germs of things, and how avoid The highways of destruction?—since they be Mere living things and living things be all One and the same with mortal. Grant they could, Yet by their meetings and their unions all, Naught would result, indeed, besides a throng And hurly-burly all of living things— Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts, By mere conglomeration each with each Can still beget not anything of new. But if by chance they lose, inside a body, Their own sense and another sense take on, What, then, avails it to assign them that Which is withdrawn thereafter? And besides, To touch on proof that we pronounced before, Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls To change to living chicks, and swarming worms To bubble forth when from the soaking rains The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all Can out of non-sensations be begot.

But if one say that sense can so far rise From non-sense by mutation, or because Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth, 'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove There is no birth, unless there be before Some formed union of the elements, Nor any change, unless they be unite.

In first place, senses can't in body be Before its living nature's been begot,— Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed About through rivers, air, and earth, and all That is from earth created, nor has met In combination, and, in proper mode, Conjoined into those vital motions which Kindle the all-perceiving senses—they That keep and guard each living thing soever.

Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er, And on it goes confounding all the sense Of body and mind. For of the primal germs Are loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout, The vital motions blocked,—until the stuff, Shaken profoundly through the frame entire, Undoes the vital knots of soul from body And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed, Through all the pores. For what may we surmise A blow inflicted can achieve besides Shaking asunder and loosening all apart? It happens also, when less sharp the blow, The vital motions which are left are wont Oft to win out—win out, and stop and still The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow, And call each part to its own courses back, And shake away the motion of death which now Begins its own dominion in the body, And kindle anew the senses almost gone. For by what other means could they the more Collect their powers of thought and turn again From very doorways of destruction Back unto life, rather than pass whereto They be already well-nigh sped and so Pass quite away?

Again, since pain is there Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up, Through vitals and through joints, within their seats Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight, When they remove unto their place again: 'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be Assaulted by no pain, nor from themselves Take no delight; because indeed they are Not made of any bodies of first things, Under whose strange new motions they might ache Or pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet. And so they must be furnished with no sense.

Once more, if thus, that every living thing May have sensation, needful 'tis to assign Sense also to its elements, what then Of those fixed elements from which mankind Hath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed? Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins, And have the cunning hardihood to say Much on the composition of the world, And in their turn inquire what elements They have themselves,—since, thus the same in kind As a whole mortal creature, even they Must also be from other elements, And then those others from others evermore— So that thou darest nowhere make a stop. Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and

***** thinks) Is yet derived out of other seeds Which in their turn are doing just the same. But if we see what raving nonsense this, And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth, Compounded out of laughing elements, And think and utter reason with learn'd speech, Though not himself compounded, for a fact, Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then, Cannot those things which we perceive to have Their own sensation be composed as well Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?



INFINITE WORLDS

Once more, we all from seed celestial spring, To all is that same father, from whom earth, The fostering mother, as she takes the drops Of liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods— The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees, And bears the human race and of the wild The generations all, the while she yields The foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead The genial life and propagate their kind; Wherefore she owneth that maternal name, By old desert. What was before from earth, The same in earth sinks back, and what was sent From shores of ether, that, returning home, The vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth death So far annihilate things that she destroys The bodies of matter; but she dissipates Their combinations, and conjoins anew One element with others; and contrives That all things vary forms and change their colours And get sensations and straight give them o'er. And thus may'st know it matters with what others And in what structure the primordial germs Are held together, and what motions they Among themselves do give and get; nor think That aught we see hither and thither afloat Upon the crest of things, and now a birth And straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest Deep in the eternal atoms of the world.

Why, even in these our very verses here It matters much with what and in what order Each element is set: the same denote Sky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun; The same, the grains, and trees, and living things. And if not all alike, at least the most— But what distinctions by positions wrought! And thus no less in things themselves, when once Around are changed the intervals between, The paths of matter, its connections, weights, Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes, The things themselves must likewise changed be.

Now to true reason give thy mind for us. Since here strange truth is putting forth its might To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect Of things to show its front. Yet naught there is So easy that it standeth not at first More hard to credit than it after is; And naught soe'er that's great to such degree, Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind Little by little abandon their surprise. Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky And what it holds—the stars that wander o'er, The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun: Yet all, if now they first for mortals were, If unforeseen now first asudden shown, What might there be more wonderful to tell, What that the nations would before have dared Less to believe might be?—I fancy, naught— So strange had been the marvel of that sight. The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day None deigns look upward to those lucent realms. Then, spew not reason from thy mind away, Beside thyself because the matter's new, But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh; And if to thee it then appeareth true, Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last, Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond There on the other side, that boundless sum Which lies without the ramparts of the world, Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar, Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought Flies unencumbered forth.

Firstly, we find, Off to all regions round, on either side, Above, beneath, throughout the universe End is there none—as I have taught, as too The very thing of itself declares aloud, And as from nature of the unbottomed deep Shines clearly forth. Nor can we once suppose In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space To all sides stretches infinite and free, And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum Bottomless, there in many a manner fly, Bestirred in everlasting motion there), That only this one earth and sky of ours Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff, So many, perform no work outside the same; Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things By innate motion chanced to clash and cling— After they'd been in many a manner driven Together at random, without design, in vain— And as at last those seeds together dwelt, Which, when together of a sudden thrown, Should alway furnish the commencements fit Of mighty things—the earth, the sea, the sky, And race of living creatures. Thus, I say, Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are Such congregations of matter otherwhere, Like this our world which vasty ether holds In huge embrace.

Besides, when matter abundant Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis That things are carried on and made complete, Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is So great that not whole life-times of the living Can count the tale... And if their force and nature abide the same, Able to throw the seeds of things together Into their places, even as here are thrown The seeds together in this world of ours, 'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are Still other worlds, still other breeds of men, And other generations of the wild.

Hence too it happens in the sum there is No one thing single of its kind in birth, And single and sole in growth, but rather it is One member of some generated race, Among full many others of like kind. First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living: Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds. Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else, Exist not sole and single—rather in number Exceeding number. Since that deeply set Old boundary stone of life remains for them No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth No less, than every kind which here on earth Is so abundant in its members found.

Which well perceived if thou hold in mind, Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord, And forthwith free, is seen to do all things Herself and through herself of own accord, Rid of all gods. For—by their holy hearts Which pass in long tranquillity of peace Untroubled ages and a serene life!— Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power To rule the sum of the immeasurable, To hold with steady hand the giant reins Of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power At once to roll a multitude of skies, At once to heat with fires ethereal all The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds, To be at all times in all places near, To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake The serene spaces of the sky with sound, And hurl his lightnings,—ha, and whelm how oft In ruins his own temples, and to rave, Retiring to the wildernesses, there At practice with that thunderbolt of his, Which yet how often shoots the guilty by, And slays the honourable blameless ones!

Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun, Have many germs been added from outside, Have many seeds been added round about, Which the great All, the while it flung them on, Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs Far over earth, and air arise around. For bodies all, from out all regions, are Divided by blows, each to its proper thing, And all retire to their own proper kinds: The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge, Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether; Till nature, author and ender of the world, Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth: As haps when that which hath been poured inside The vital veins of life is now no more Than that which ebbs within them and runs off. This is the point where life for each thing ends; This is the point where nature with her powers Curbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest Grow big with glad increase, and step by step Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves Take in more bodies than they send from selves, Whilst still the food is easily infused Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not So far expanded that they cast away Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste Greater than nutriment whereby they wax. For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things Many a body ebbeth and runs off; But yet still more must come, until the things Have touched development's top pinnacle; Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength And falls away into a worser part. For ever the ampler and more wide a thing, As soon as ever its augmentation ends, It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round More bodies, sending them from out itself. Nor easily now is food disseminate Through all its veins; nor is that food enough To equal with a new supply on hand Those plenteous exhalations it gives off. Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing They're made less dense and when from blows without They are laid low; since food at last will fail Extremest eld, and bodies from outside Cease not with thumping to undo a thing And overmaster by infesting blows.

Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world On all sides round shall taken be by storm, And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down. For food it is must keep things whole, renewing; 'Tis food must prop and give support to all,— But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice To hold enough, nor nature ministers As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus: Its age is broken and the earth, outworn With many parturitions, scarce creates The little lives—she who created erst All generations and gave forth at birth Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old. For never, I fancy, did a golden cord From off the firmament above let down The mortal generations to the fields; Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks Created them; but earth it was who bore— The same to-day who feeds them from herself. Besides, herself of own accord, she first The shining grains and vineyards of all joy Created for mortality; herself Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad, Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size, Even when aided by our toiling arms. We break the ox, and wear away the strength Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day Barely avail for tilling of the fields, So niggardly they grudge our harvestings, So much increase our labour. Now to-day The aged ploughman, shaking of his head, Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks How present times are not as times of old, Often he praises the fortunes of his sire, And crackles, prating, how the ancient race, Fulfilled with piety, supported life With simple comfort in a narrow plot, Since, man for man, the measure of each field Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again, The gloomy planter of the withered vine Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven, Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees Are wasting away and going to the tomb, Outworn by venerable length of life.



BOOK III



PROEM

O thou who first uplifted in such dark So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light Upon the profitable ends of man, O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks, And set my footsteps squarely planted now Even in the impress and the marks of thine— Less like one eager to dispute the palm, More as one craving out of very love That I may copy thee!—for how should swallow Contend with swans or what compare could be In a race between young kids with tumbling legs And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou, And finder-out of truth, and thou to us Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul (Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds), We feed upon thy golden sayings all— Golden, and ever worthiest endless life. For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world Dispart away, and through the void entire I see the movements of the universe. Rises to vision the majesty of gods, And their abodes of everlasting calm Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash, Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light. And nature gives to them their all, nor aught May ever pluck their peace of mind away. But nowhere to my vision rise no more The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all Which under our feet is going on below Along the void. O, here in these affairs Some new divine delight and trembling awe Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine Nature, so plain and manifest at last, Hath been on every side laid bare to man!

And since I've taught already of what sort The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct In divers forms, they flit of own accord, Stirred with a motion everlasting on, And in what mode things be from them create, Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems, Make clear the nature of the mind and soul, And drive that dread of Acheron without, Headlong, which so confounds our human life Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is The black of death, nor leaves not anything To prosper—a liquid and unsullied joy. For as to what men sometimes will affirm: That more than Tartarus (the realm of death) They fear diseases and a life of shame, And know the substance of the soul is blood, Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim), And so need naught of this our science, then Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now That more for glory do they braggart forth Than for belief. For mark these very same: Exiles from country, fugitives afar From sight of men, with charges foul attaint, Abased with every wretchedness, they yet Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet Make the ancestral sacrifices there, Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below Offer the honours, and in bitter case Turn much more keenly to religion. Wherefore, it's surer testing of a man In doubtful perils—mark him as he is Amid adversities; for then alone Are the true voices conjured from his breast, The mask off-stripped, reality behind. And greed, again, and the blind lust of honours Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law, And, oft allies and ministers of crime, To push through nights and days with hugest toil To rise untrammelled to the peaks of power— These wounds of life in no mean part are kept Festering and open by this fright of death. For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet, Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death. And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar, Driven by false terror, and afar remove, 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 along, 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 Expound 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, Is—a hard saying; since the feel in eyes Says the reverse. For this itself draws on And forces into the pupils of our eyes Our consciousness. And note the case when often We lack the power to see refulgent things, Because our eyes are hampered by their light— With a mere doorway this would happen not; For, since it is our very selves that see, No open portals undertake the toil. Besides, if eyes of ours but act as doors, Methinks that, were our sight removed, the mind Ought then still better to behold a thing— When even the door-posts have been cleared away.

Herein in these affairs nowise take up What honoured sage, Democritus, lays down— That proposition, that primordials Of body and mind, each super-posed on each, Vary alternately and interweave The fabric of our members. For not only Are the soul-elements smaller far than those Which this our body and inward parts compose, But also are they in their number less, And scattered sparsely through our frame. And thus This canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs Maintain between them intervals as large At least as are the smallest bodies, which, When thrown against us, in our body rouse Sense-bearing motions. Hence it comes that we Sometimes don't feel alighting on our frames The clinging dust, or chalk that settles soft; Nor mists of night, nor spider's gossamer We feel against us, when, upon our road, Its net entangles us, nor on our head The dropping of its withered garmentings; Nor bird-feathers, nor vegetable down, Flying about, so light they barely fall; Nor feel the steps of every crawling thing, Nor each of all those footprints on our skin Of midges and the like. To that degree Must many primal germs be stirred in us Ere once the seeds of soul that through our frame Are intermingled 'gin to feel that those Primordials of the body have been strook, And ere, in pounding with such gaps between, They clash, combine and leap apart in turn.

But mind is more the keeper of the gates, Hath more dominion over life than soul. For without intellect and mind there's not One part of soul can rest within our frame Least part of time; companioning, it goes With mind into the winds away, and leaves The icy members in the cold of death. But he whose mind and intellect abide Himself abides in life. However much The trunk be mangled, with the limbs lopped off, The soul withdrawn and taken from the limbs, Still lives the trunk and draws the vital air. Even when deprived of all but all the soul, Yet will it linger on and cleave to life,— Just as the power of vision still is strong, If but the pupil shall abide unharmed, Even when the eye around it's sorely rent— Provided only thou destroyest not Wholly the ball, but, cutting round the pupil, Leavest that pupil by itself behind— For more would ruin sight. But if that centre, That tiny part of eye, be eaten through, Forthwith the vision fails and darkness comes, Though in all else the unblemished ball be clear. 'Tis by like compact that the soul and mind Are each to other bound forevermore.



THE SOUL IS MORTAL

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know That minds and the light souls of all that live Have mortal birth and death, I will go on Verses to build meet for thy rule of life, Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil. But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both; And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul, Teaching the same to be but mortal, think Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind— Since both are one, a substance inter-joined. First, then, since I have taught how soul exists A subtle fabric, of particles minute, Made up from atoms smaller much than those Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke, So in mobility it far excels, More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause Even moved by images of smoke or fog— As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled, The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft— For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come To us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest, Their liquids depart, their waters flow away, When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke Depart into the winds away, believe The soul no less is shed abroad and dies More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn From out man's members it has gone away. For, sure, if body (container of the same Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause, And rarefied by loss of blood from veins, Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then Thinkst thou it can be held by any air— A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?

Besides we feel that mind to being comes Along with body, with body grows and ages. For just as children totter round about With frames infirm and tender, so there follows A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then, Where years have ripened into robust powers, Counsel is also greater, more increased The power of mind; thereafter, where already The body's shattered by master-powers of eld, And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers, Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way; All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time. Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved, Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air; Since we behold the same to being come Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught, Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.

Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain, So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear; Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less Partaker is of death; for pain and disease Are both artificers of death,—as well We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now. Nay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind Wanders afield; for 'tis beside itself, And crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks, With eyelids closing and a drooping nod, In heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep; From whence nor hears it any voices more, Nor able is to know the faces here Of those about him standing with wet cheeks Who vainly call him back to light and life. Wherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves, Seeing, indeed, contagions of disease Enter into the same. Again, O why, When the strong wine has entered into man, And its diffused fire gone round the veins, Why follows then a heaviness of limbs, A tangle of the legs as round he reels, A stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked, Eyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls, And whatso else is of that ilk?—Why this?— If not that violent and impetuous wine Is wont to confound the soul within the body? But whatso can confounded be and balked, Gives proof, that if a hardier cause got in, 'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved Of any life thereafter. And, moreover, Often will some one in a sudden fit, As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt, Blither, and twist about with sinews taut, Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs With tossing round. No marvel, since distract Through frame by violence of disease.

*****

Confounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul, As on the salt sea boil the billows round Under the master might of winds. And now A groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped, But, in the main, because the seeds of voice Are driven forth and carried in a mass Outwards by mouth, where they are wont to go, And have a builded highway. He becomes Mere fool, since energy of mind and soul Confounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven, Asunder thrown, and torn to pieces all By the same venom. But, again, where cause Of that disease has faced about, and back Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame Into its shadowy lairs, the man at first Arises reeling, and gradually comes back To all his senses and recovers soul. Thus, since within the body itself of man The mind and soul are by such great diseases Shaken, so miserably in labour distraught, Why, then, believe that in the open air, Without a body, they can pass their life, Immortal, battling with the master winds? And, since we mark the mind itself is cured, Like the sick body, and restored can be By medicine, this is forewarning too That mortal lives the mind. For proper it is That whosoe'er begins and undertakes To alter the mind, or meditates to change Any another nature soever, should add New parts, or readjust the order given, Or from the sum remove at least a bit. But what's immortal willeth for itself Its parts be nor increased, nor rearranged, Nor any bit soever flow away: For change of anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before. Ergo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen, Or by the medicine restored, gives signs, As I have taught, of its mortality. So surely will a fact of truth make head 'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off All refuge from the adversary, and rout Error by two-edged confutation.

And since the mind is of a man one part, Which in one fixed place remains, like ears, And eyes, and every sense which pilots life; And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart, Severed from us, can neither feel nor be, But in the least of time is left to rot, Thus mind alone can never be, without The body and the man himself, which seems, As 'twere the vessel of the same—or aught Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined: Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.

Again, the body's and the mind's live powers Only in union prosper and enjoy; For neither can nature of mind, alone of self Sans body, give the vital motions forth; Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure And use the senses. Verily, as the eye, Alone, up-rended from its roots, apart From all the body, can peer about at naught, So soul and mind it seems are nothing able, When by themselves. No marvel, because, commixed Through veins and inwards, and through bones and thews, Their elements primordial are confined By all the body, and own no power free To bound around through interspaces big, Thus, shut within these confines, they take on Motions of sense, which, after death, thrown out Beyond the body to the winds of air, Take on they cannot—and on this account, Because no more in such a way confined. For air will be a body, be alive, If in that air the soul can keep itself, And in that air enclose those motions all Which in the thews and in the body itself A while ago 'twas making. So for this, Again, again, I say confess we must, That, when the body's wrappings are unwound, And when the vital breath is forced without, The soul, the senses of the mind dissolve,— Since for the twain the cause and ground of life Is in the fact of their conjoined estate.

Once more, since body's unable to sustain Division from the soul, without decay And obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that The soul, uprisen from the body's deeps, Has filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke, Or that the changed body crumbling fell With ruin so entire, because, indeed, Its deep foundations have been moved from place, The soul out-filtering even through the frame, And through the body's every winding way And orifice? And so by many means Thou'rt free to learn that nature of the soul Hath passed in fragments out along the frame, And that 'twas shivered in the very body Ere ever it slipped abroad and swam away Into the winds of air. For never a man Dying appears to feel the soul go forth As one sure whole from all his body at once, Nor first come up the throat and into mouth; But feels it failing in a certain spot, Even as he knows the senses too dissolve Each in its own location in the frame. But were this mind of ours immortal mind, Dying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution, But rather the going, the leaving of its coat, Like to a snake. Wherefore, when once the body Hath passed away, admit we must that soul, Shivered in all that body, perished too. Nay, even when moving in the bounds of life, Often the soul, now tottering from some cause, Craves to go out, and from the frame entire Loosened to be; the countenance becomes Flaccid, as if the supreme hour were there; And flabbily collapse the members all Against the bloodless trunk—the kind of case We see when we remark in common phrase, "That man's quite gone," or "fainted dead away"; And where there's now a bustle of alarm, And all are eager to get some hold upon The man's last link of life. For then the mind And all the power of soul are shook so sore, And these so totter along with all the frame, That any cause a little stronger might Dissolve them altogether.—Why, then, doubt That soul, when once without the body thrust, There in the open, an enfeebled thing, Its wrappings stripped away, cannot endure Not only through no everlasting age, But even, indeed, through not the least of time?

Then, too, why never is the intellect, The counselling mind, begotten in the head, The feet, the hands, instead of cleaving still To one sole seat, to one fixed haunt, the breast, If not that fixed places be assigned For each thing's birth, where each, when 'tis create, Is able to endure, and that our frames Have such complex adjustments that no shift In order of our members may appear? To that degree effect succeeds to cause, Nor is the flame once wont to be create In flowing streams, nor cold begot in fire.

Besides, if nature of soul immortal be, And able to feel, when from our frame disjoined, The same, I fancy, must be thought to be Endowed with senses five,—nor is there way But this whereby to image to ourselves How under-souls may roam in Acheron. Thus painters and the elder race of bards Have pictured souls with senses so endowed. But neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, alone Apart from body can exist for soul, Nor tongue nor ears apart. And hence indeed Alone by self they can nor feel nor be.

And since we mark the vital sense to be In the whole body, all one living thing, If of a sudden a force with rapid stroke Should slice it down the middle and cleave in twain, Beyond a doubt likewise the soul itself, Divided, dissevered, asunder will be flung Along with body. But what severed is And into sundry parts divides, indeed Admits it owns no everlasting nature. We hear how chariots of war, areek With hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythes The limbs away so suddenly that there, Fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth, The while the mind and powers of the man Can feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt, And sheer abandon in the zest of battle: With the remainder of his frame he seeks Anew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks How the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged Off with the horses his left arm and shield; Nor other how his right has dropped away, Mounting again and on. A third attempts With leg dismembered to arise and stand, Whilst, on the ground hard by, the dying foot Twitches its spreading toes. And even the head, When from the warm and living trunk lopped off, Keeps on the ground the vital countenance And open eyes, until 't has rendered up All remnants of the soul. Nay, once again: If, when a serpent's darting forth its tongue, And lashing its tail, thou gettest chance to hew With axe its length of trunk to many parts, Thou'lt see each severed fragment writhing round With its fresh wound, and spattering up the sod, And there the fore-part seeking with the jaws After the hinder, with bite to stop the pain. So shall we say that these be souls entire In all those fractions?—but from that 'twould follow One creature'd have in body many souls. Therefore, the soul, which was indeed but one, Has been divided with the body too: Each is but mortal, since alike is each Hewn into many parts. Again, how often We view our fellow going by degrees, And losing limb by limb the vital sense; First nails and fingers of the feet turn blue, Next die the feet and legs, then o'er the rest Slow crawl the certain footsteps of cold death. And since this nature of the soul is torn, Nor mounts away, as at one time, entire, We needs must hold it mortal. But perchance If thou supposest that the soul itself Can inward draw along the frame, and bring Its parts together to one place, and so From all the members draw the sense away, Why, then, that place in which such stock of soul Collected is, should greater seem in sense. But since such place is nowhere, for a fact, As said before, 'tis rent and scattered forth, And so goes under. Or again, if now I please to grant the false, and say that soul Can thus be lumped within the frames of those Who leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit, Still must the soul as mortal be confessed; Nor aught it matters whether to wrack it go, Dispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a mass From all its parts, sink down to brutish death, Since more and more in every region sense Fails the whole man, and less and less of life In every region lingers.

And besides, If soul immortal is, and winds its way Into the body at the birth of man, Why can we not remember something, then, Of life-time spent before? why keep we not Some footprints of the things we did of, old? But if so changed hath been the power of mind, That every recollection of things done Is fallen away, at no o'erlong remove Is that, I trow, from what we mean by death. Wherefore 'tis sure that what hath been before Hath died, and what now is is now create.

Moreover, if after the body hath been built Our mind's live powers are wont to be put in, Just at the moment that we come to birth, And cross the sills of life, 'twould scarcely fit For them to live as if they seemed to grow Along with limbs and frame, even in the blood, But rather as in a cavern all alone. (Yet all the body duly throngs with sense.) But public fact declares against all this: For soul is so entwined through the veins, The flesh, the thews, the bones, that even the teeth Share in sensation, as proven by dull ache, By twinge from icy water, or grating crunch Upon a stone that got in mouth with bread. Wherefore, again, again, souls must be thought Nor void of birth, nor free from law of death; Nor, if, from outward, in they wound their way, Could they be thought as able so to cleave To these our frames, nor, since so interwove, Appears it that they're able to go forth Unhurt and whole and loose themselves unscathed From all the thews, articulations, bones. But, if perchance thou thinkest that the soul, From outward winding in its way, is wont To seep and soak along these members ours, Then all the more 'twill perish, being thus With body fused—for what will seep and soak Will be dissolved and will therefore die. For just as food, dispersed through all the pores Of body, and passed through limbs and all the frame, Perishes, supplying from itself the stuff For other nature, thus the soul and mind, Though whole and new into a body going, Are yet, by seeping in, dissolved away, Whilst, as through pores, to all the frame there pass Those particles from which created is This nature of mind, now ruler of our body, Born from that soul which perished, when divided Along the frame. Wherefore it seems that soul Hath both a natal and funeral hour.

Besides are seeds of soul there left behind In the breathless body, or not? If there they are, It cannot justly be immortal deemed, Since, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away: But if, borne off with members uncorrupt, 'Thas fled so absolutely all away It leaves not one remainder of itself Behind in body, whence do cadavers, then, From out their putrid flesh exhale the worms, And whence does such a mass of living things, Boneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frame Bubble and swarm? But if perchance thou thinkest That souls from outward into worms can wind, And each into a separate body come, And reckonest not why many thousand souls Collect where only one has gone away, Here is a point, in sooth, that seems to need Inquiry and a putting to the test: Whether the souls go on a hunt for seeds Of worms wherewith to build their dwelling places, Or enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere. But why themselves they thus should do and toil 'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body, They flit around, harassed by no disease, Nor cold nor famine; for the body labours By more of kinship to these flaws of life, And mind by contact with that body suffers So many ills. But grant it be for them However useful to construct a body To which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't. Then, souls for self no frames nor bodies make, Nor is there how they once might enter in To bodies ready-made—for they cannot Be nicely interwoven with the same, And there'll be formed no interplay of sense Common to each.

Again, why is't there goes Impetuous rage with lion's breed morose, And cunning with foxes, and to deer why given The ancestral fear and tendency to flee, And why in short do all the rest of traits Engender from the very start of life In the members and mentality, if not Because one certain power of mind that came From its own seed and breed waxes the same Along with all the body? But were mind Immortal, were it wont to change its bodies, How topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act! The Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oft Of antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quake Along the winds of air at the coming dove, And men would dote, and savage beasts be wise; For false the reasoning of those that say Immortal mind is changed by change of body— For what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies. For parts are re-disposed and leave their order; Wherefore they must be also capable Of dissolution through the frame at last, That they along with body perish all. But should some say that always souls of men Go into human bodies, I will ask: How can a wise become a dullard soul? And why is never a child's a prudent soul? And the mare's filly why not trained so well As sturdy strength of steed? We may be sure They'll take their refuge in the thought that mind Becomes a weakling in a weakling frame. Yet be this so, 'tis needful to confess The soul but mortal, since, so altered now Throughout the frame, it loses the life and sense It had before. Or how can mind wax strong Coequally with body and attain The craved flower of life, unless it be The body's colleague in its origins? Or what's the purport of its going forth From aged limbs?—fears it, perhaps, to stay, Pent in a crumbled body? Or lest its house, Outworn by venerable length of days, May topple down upon it? But indeed For an immortal perils are there none.

Again, at parturitions of the wild And at the rites of Love, that souls should stand Ready hard by seems ludicrous enough— Immortals waiting for their mortal limbs In numbers innumerable, contending madly Which shall be first and chief to enter in!— Unless perchance among the souls there be Such treaties stablished that the first to come Flying along, shall enter in the first, And that they make no rivalries of strength!

Again, in ether can't exist a tree, Nor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fields Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be, Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged Where everything may grow and have its place. Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone Without the body, nor exist afar From thews and blood. But if 'twere possible, Much rather might this very power of mind Be in the head, the shoulders or the heels, And, born in any part soever, yet In the same man, in the same vessel abide. But since within this body even of ours Stands fixed and appears arranged sure Where soul and mind can each exist and grow, Deny we must the more that they can have Duration and birth, wholly outside the frame. For, verily, the mortal to conjoin With the eternal, and to feign they feel Together, and can function each with each, Is but to dote: for what can be conceived Of more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted, Than something mortal in a union joined With an immortal and a secular To bear the outrageous tempests?

Then, again, Whatever abides eternal must indeed Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made Of solid body, and permit no entrance Of aught with power to sunder from within The parts compact—as are those seeds of stuff Whose nature we've exhibited before; Or else be able to endure through time For this: because they are from blows exempt, As is the void, the which abides untouched, Unsmit by any stroke; or else because There is no room around, whereto things can, As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,— Even as the sum of sums eternal is, Without or place beyond whereto things may Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite, And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.

But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged Immortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure In vital forces—either because there come Never at all things hostile to its weal, Or else because what come somehow retire, Repelled or ere we feel the harm they work,

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For, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased, Soul sickens too, there cometh, many a time, That which torments it with the things to be, Keeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares; And even when evil acts are of the past, Still gnaw the old transgressions bitterly. Add, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind, And that oblivion of the things that were; Add its submergence in the murky waves Of drowse and torpor.



FOLLY OF THE FEAR OF DEATH

Therefore death to us Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least, Since nature of mind is mortal evermore. And just as in the ages gone before We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round To battle came the Carthaginian host, And the times, shaken by tumultuous war, Under the aery coasts of arching heaven Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind Doubted to which the empery should fall By land and sea, thus when we are no more, When comes that sundering of our body and soul Through which we're fashioned to a single state, Verily naught to us, us then no more, Can come to pass, naught move our senses then— No, not if earth confounded were with sea, And sea with heaven. But if indeed do feel The nature of mind and energy of soul, After their severance from this body of ours, Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds And wedlock of the soul and body live, Through which we're fashioned to a single state. And, even if time collected after death The matter of our frames and set it all Again in place as now, and if again To us the light of life were given, O yet That process too would not concern us aught, When once the self-succession of our sense Has been asunder broken. And now and here, Little enough we're busied with the selves We were aforetime, nor, concerning them, Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gaze Backwards across all yesterdays of time The immeasurable, thinking how manifold The motions of matter are, then couldst thou well Credit this too: often these very seeds (From which we are to-day) of old were set In the same order as they are to-day— Yet this we can't to consciousness recall Through the remembering mind. For there hath been An interposed pause of life, and wide Have all the motions wandered everywhere From these our senses. For if woe and ail Perchance are toward, then the man to whom The bane can happen must himself be there At that same time. But death precludeth this, Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know: Nothing for us there is to dread in death, No wretchedness for him who is no more, The same estate as if ne'er born before, When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.

Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because When dead he rots with body laid away, Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts, Know well: he rings not true, and that beneath Still works an unseen sting upon his heart, However he deny that he believes. His shall be aught of feeling after death. For he, I fancy, grants not what he says, Nor what that presupposes, and he fails To pluck himself with all his roots from life And cast that self away, quite unawares Feigning that some remainder's left behind. For when in life one pictures to oneself His body dead by beasts and vultures torn, He pities his state, dividing not himself Therefrom, removing not the self enough From the body flung away, imagining Himself that body, and projecting there His own sense, as he stands beside it: hence He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks That in true death there is no second self Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed, Or stand lamenting that the self lies there Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames, Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined On the smooth oblong of an icy slab, Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth Down-crushing from above.

"Thee now no more The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome, Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses And touch with silent happiness thy heart. Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more, Nor be the warder of thine own no more. Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons," But add not, "yet no longer unto thee Remains a remnant of desire for them" If this they only well perceived with mind And followed up with maxims, they would free Their state of man from anguish and from fear. "O even as here thou art, aslumber in death, So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time, Released from every harrying pang. But we, We have bewept thee with insatiate woe, Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take For us the eternal sorrow from the breast." But ask the mourner what's the bitterness That man should waste in an eternal grief, If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest? For when the soul and frame together are sunk In slumber, no one then demands his self Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever, Without desire of any selfhood more, For all it matters unto us asleep. Yet not at all do those primordial germs Roam round our members, at that time, afar From their own motions that produce our senses— Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us Much less—if there can be a less than that Which is itself a nothing: for there comes Hard upon death a scattering more great Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up On whom once falls the icy pause of life.

This too, O often from the soul men say, Along their couches holding of the cups, With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry: "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man, Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no, It may not be recalled."—As if, forsooth, It were their prime of evils in great death To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought, Or chafe for any lack.

Once more, if Nature Should of a sudden send a voice abroad, And her own self inveigh against us so: "Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints? Why this bemoaning and beweeping death? For if thy life aforetime and behind To thee was grateful, and not all thy good Was heaped as in sieve to flow away And perish unavailingly, why not, Even like a banqueter, depart the halls, Laden with life? why not with mind content Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest? But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been Lavished and lost, and life is now offence, Why seekest more to add—which in its turn Will perish foully and fall out in vain? O why not rather make an end of life, Of labour? For all I may devise or find To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are The same forever. Though not yet thy body Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts Outworn, still things abide the same, even if Thou goest on to conquer all of time With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"— What were our answer, but that Nature here Urges just suit and in her words lays down True cause of action? Yet should one complain, Riper in years and elder, and lament, Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit, Then would she not, with greater right, on him Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill: "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon! Thou wrinklest—after thou hast had the sum Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever What's not at hand, contemning present good, That life has slipped away, unperfected And unavailing unto thee. And now, Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head Stands—and before thou canst be going home Sated and laden with the goodly feast. But now yield all that's alien to thine age,— Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must." Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus, Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever The one thing from the others is repaired. Nor no man is consigned to the abyss Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be, That thus the after-generations grow,— Though these, their life completed, follow thee; And thus like thee are generations all— Already fallen, or some time to fall. So one thing from another rises ever; And in fee-simple life is given to none, But unto all mere usufruct.

Look back: Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth. And Nature holds this like a mirror up Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone. And what is there so horrible appears? Now what is there so sad about it all? Is't not serener far than any sleep?

And, verily, those tortures said to be In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed With baseless terror, as the fables tell, Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air: But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods Urges mortality, and each one fears Such fall of fortune as may chance to him. Nor eat the vultures into Tityus Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find, Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught To pry around for in that mighty breast. However hugely he extend his bulk— Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine, But the whole earth—he shall not able be To bear eternal pain nor furnish food From his own frame forever. But for us A Tityus is he whom vultures rend Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats, Whom troubles of any unappeased desires Asunder rip. We have before our eyes Here in this life also a Sisyphus In him who seeketh of the populace The rods, the axes fell, and evermore Retires a beaten and a gloomy man. For to seek after power—an empty name, Nor given at all—and ever in the search To endure a world of toil, O this it is To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone Which yet comes rolling back from off the top, And headlong makes for levels of the plain. Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind, Filling with good things, satisfying never— As do the seasons of the year for us, When they return and bring their progenies And varied charms, and we are never filled With the fruits of life—O this, I fancy, 'tis To pour, like those young virgins in the tale, Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.

*****

Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light

*****

Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge Of horrible heat—the which are nowhere, nor Indeed can be: but in this life is fear Of retributions just and expiations For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes, The executioners, the oaken rack, The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch. And even though these are absent, yet the mind, With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile What terminus of ills, what end of pine Can ever be, and feareth lest the same But grow more heavy after death. Of truth, The life of fools is Acheron on earth.

This also to thy very self sometimes Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things A better man than thou, O worthless hind; And many other kings and lords of rule Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed O'er mighty peoples. And he also, he— Who whilom paved a highway down the sea, And gave his legionaries thoroughfare Along the deep, and taught them how to cross The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn, Trampling upon it with his cavalry, The bellowings of ocean—poured his soul From dying body, as his light was ta'en. And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war, Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth, Like to the lowliest villein in the house. Add finders-out of sciences and arts; Add comrades of the Heliconian dames, Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all, Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest. Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld Admonished him his memory waned away, Of own accord offered his head to death. Even Epicurus went, his light of life Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped The human race, extinguishing all others, As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars. Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?— For whom already life's as good as dead, Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?—who in sleep Wastest thy life—time's major part, and snorest Even when awake, and ceasest not to see The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch, Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares, And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."

If men, in that same way as on the mind They feel the load that wearies with its weight, Could also know the causes whence it comes, And why so great the heap of ill on heart, O not in this sort would they live their life, As now so much we see them, knowing not What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever A change of place, as if to drop the burden. The man who sickens of his home goes out, Forth from his splendid halls, and straight—returns, Feeling i'faith no better off abroad. He races, driving his Gallic ponies along, Down to his villa, madly,—as in haste To hurry help to a house afire.—At once He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold, Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about And makes for town again. In such a way Each human flees himself—a self in sooth, As happens, he by no means can escape; And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes, Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail. Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then, Leaving all else, he'd study to divine The nature of things, since here is in debate Eternal time and not the single hour, Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains After great death.

And too, when all is said, What evil lust of life is this so great Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught In perils and alarms? one fixed end Of life abideth for mortality; Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet. Besides we're busied with the same devices, Ever and ever, and we are at them ever, And there's no new delight that may be forged By living on. But whilst the thing we long for Is lacking, that seems good above all else; Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else We long for; ever one equal thirst of life Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune The future times may carry, or what be That chance may bring, or what the issue next Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life Take we the least away from death's own time, Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby To minish the aeons of our state of death. Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil As many generations as thou may: Eternal death shall there be waiting still; And he who died with light of yesterday Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more Than he who perished months or years before.



BOOK IV



PROEM

I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, Trodden by step of none before. I joy To come on undefiled fountains there, To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, To seek for this my head a signal crown From regions where the Muses never yet Have garlanded the temples of a man: First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion; Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame Song so pellucid, touching all throughout Even with the Muses' charm—which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground: For as physicians, when they seek to give Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch The brim around the cup with the sweet juice And yellow of the honey, in order that The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus Grow strong again with recreated health: So now I too (since this my doctrine seems In general somewhat woeful unto those Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse— If by such method haply I might hold The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou dost learn the nature of all things And understandest their utility.



EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES

But since I've taught already of what sort The seeds of all things are, and how distinct In divers forms they flit of own accord, Stirred with a motion everlasting on, And in what mode things be from them create, And since I've taught what the mind's nature is, And of what things 'tis with the body knit And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn That mind returns to its primordials, Now will I undertake an argument— One for these matters of supreme concern— That there exist those somewhats which we call The images of things: these, like to films Scaled off the utmost outside of the things, Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere, And the same terrify our intellects, Coming upon us waking or in sleep, When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes And images of people lorn of light, Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay In slumber—that haply nevermore may we Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron, Or shades go floating in among the living, Or aught of us is left behind at death, When body and mind, destroyed together, each Back to its own primordials goes away.

And thus I say that effigies of things, And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things, Which are like films or may be named a rind, Because the image bears like look and form With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth— A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits, Well learn from this: mainly, because we see Even 'mongst visible objects many be That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused— Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires— And some more interwoven and condensed— As when the locusts in the summertime Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves At birth drop membranes from their body's surface, Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs Its vestments 'mongst the thorns—for oft we see The breres augmented with their flying spoils: Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too That tenuous images from things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things. For why those kinds should drop and part from things, Rather than others tenuous and thin, No power has man to open mouth to tell; Especially, since on outsides of things Are bodies many and minute which could, In the same order which they had before, And with the figure of their form preserved, Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too, Being less subject to impediments, As few in number and placed along the front. For truly many things we see discharge Their stuff at large, not only from their cores Deep-set within, as we have said above, But from their surfaces at times no less— Their very colours too. And commonly The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue, Stretched overhead in mighty theatres, Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering, Have such an action quite; for there they dye And make to undulate with their every hue The circled throng below, and all the stage, And rich attire in the patrician seats. And ever the more the theatre's dark walls Around them shut, the more all things within Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints, The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye From off their surface, things in general must Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge, Because in either case they are off-thrown From off the surface. So there are indeed Such certain prints and vestiges of forms Which flit around, of subtlest texture made, Invisible, when separate, each and one. Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such Streams out of things diffusedly, because, Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth And rising out, along their bending path They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad. But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand. Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out. There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which no one can divine When taken singly, which do yet give back, When by continued and recurrent discharge Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane. Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept So well conserved that thus be given back Figures so like each object.

Now then, learn How tenuous is the nature of an image. And in the first place, since primordials be So far beneath our senses, and much less E'en than those objects which begin to grow Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few How nice are the beginnings of all things— That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof: First, living creatures are sometimes so small That even their third part can nowise be seen; Judge, then, the size of any inward organ— What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs, The skeleton?—How tiny thus they are! And what besides of those first particles Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?—Seest not How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever Exhales from out its body a sharp smell— The nauseous absinth, or the panacea, Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury— If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain Perchance [thou touch] a one of them

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Then why not rather know that images Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes, Bodiless and invisible?

But lest Haply thou holdest that those images Which come from objects are the sole that flit, Others indeed there be of own accord Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies, Which, moulded to innumerable shapes, Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are, Cease not to change appearance and to turn Into new outlines of all sorts of forms; As we behold the clouds grow thick on high And smirch the serene vision of the world, Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen The giants' faces flying far along And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks Going before and crossing on the sun, Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain And leading in the other thunderheads. Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be Engendered, and perpetually flow off From things and gliding pass away....