BOOK III, lines 1-160

Thou, who from out such darkness first could’st lift A torch so bright, illumining thereby The benefits of life, thee do I follow, O thou bright glory of the Grecian race, And in thy deepset footprints firmly now I plant my steps, not so much through desire To rival thee, rather because I love And therefore long to imitate thee: for how Should a mere swallow strive with swans; or what Might kids with tottering limbs, matched in a race, Achieve against a horse’s stalwart strength? Thou, father, art discoverer of truth; Thou dost enrich us with a father’s precepts; And from thy pages, glorious sage, as bees In flowery glades sip from all plants, so we Feed likewise upon all thy golden words, Golden words, ever worthy of endless life. For soon as, issuing from thy godlike mind, Thy doctrine has begun to voice abroad The nature of things, straightway the soul’s terrors Take flight; the world’s walls open; I behold Things being formed and changed throughout all space. Revealed is the divinity of the gods, And their serene abodes, which neither winds Buffet, nor clouds drench them with showers, nor snow Congealed by sharp frost, falling in white flakes, Violates, but an ever-cloudless sky Invests them, laughing with wide-spreading light. Moreover all their wants nature provides, And there is nothing that at any time Can minish their tranquillity of soul. But on the other hand nowhere are visible The Acherusian quarters; and yet earth In no wise can obstruct our contemplation Of all those operations that take place Beneath our feet throughout the nether void. At such thoughts there comes over me a kind Of godlike pleasure mixed with thrilling awe, That nature by thy power should be thus clearly Made manifest and unveiled on every side.

Now since I have demonstrated of what kind Are the beginnings of all things, and how Varying are the divers shapes wherein They are flying onward of their own free will, Driven in eternal motion, and in what way Out of these can be formed each several thing, After these themes it would seem best that now The nature of the mind and of the soul Should be elucidated in my verses, And fear of Acheron driven headlong forth, That dread which troubles from its lowest depths The life of man, and brooding over all With the blackness of death, will not allow Any pleasure to be unalloyed and pure. For though men often tell us that diseases And a life of public shame are to be feared Far more than Tartarus, the house of death, And that they know the nature of the soul To be of blood, or even perhaps of wind, If such should be their fancy, and that so They have no need of our philosophy, Yet from the following proof you may perceive That all these boasts are uttered to win praise Rather than from conviction of the truth. These same men, exiled from their fatherland, And banished far from human sight, disgraced By foul crime, and beset by every kind Of wretchedness, none the less still live on, And to whatever place they bear their misery, In spite of all make offerings to the dead, Slaughter black sheep, and to the nether powers Do sacrifice, and in their bitter plight Turn their thoughts to religion far more zealously. Thus you can better judge a man in stress Of peril, and amidst adversities Discover what he is; for then at last The language of sincerity and truth Is wrung forth from the bottom of his heart; The mask is torn off; what is real remains. Moreover avarice and blinding lust For honours, which compel unhappy men To overpass the bounds of right, and sometimes, As partners and accomplices of crime, To struggle with vast effort night and day Till they emerge upon the heights of power-- These sores of life are in no small degree Fostered by fear of death. For foul contempt And biting penury are mostly thought To be quite different from a pleasurable And secure life: rather they seem to be Already but a kind of lingering Before the gates of death. And so while men, Urged by an unreal terror, long to escape Far from these ills and drive them far away, They pile up wealth by shedding civil blood, Doubling their riches greedily, while they heap Massacre upon massacre, rejoice Ruthlessly in the sad death of a brother, And shun their kinsmen’s board in hate and dread. Often likewise owing to this same fear They pine with envy because some other man In the world’s eyes is powerful, some other Is gazed at, as he walks robed in bright honours, While they complain that they themselves are wallowing In darkness and in filth. Some sink their lives In ruin to win statues and a name, And often with such force, through dread of death, Does hatred of life and of the sight of day Seize upon mortals, that with anguished heart They will destroy themselves, forgetting quite How this fear is the well-spring of their cares, This it is that enfeebles honour, this That bursts the bonds of friendship, and in fine Prompts them to cast all duty to the ground. Since often ere now men have betrayed their country And beloved parents, seeking so to shun The realms of Acheron. For just as children In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid Of all things, so we sometimes in the light Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded Than those which children shudder at in the dark Imagining that they will come to pass. This terror, then, and darkness of the mind Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation Of nature’s aspect and her inward law.

First then the mind, which we shall often call The intellect, wherein is placed the council And government of life, I assert to be No less a part of man than feet and hands And eyes are part of the whole living creature. Yet some would have it that the sense of the mind Resides in no fixed part, but deem it rather A kind of vital habit of the body, Which by the Greeks is called a harmony, Something that causes us to live with sense, Although the intellect is in no one part. Just as good health is often spoken of As though belonging to the body, and yet It is no one part of a healthy man. Thus they refuse to place the sense of the mind In one fixed part: and here to me they seem To wander far indeed astray from truth. For often the body, which is visible, Is sick, while in some other hidden part We experience pleasure; and ofttimes again The contrary will happen, when a man Who is distressed in mind, through his whole body Feels pleasure: in the same way as the foot Of a sick man may suffer pain, and yet His head meanwhile is in no pain at all. Moreover when the limbs are given up To soft sleep, and the wearied body lies Diffused without sensation, there is yet Something else in us which at that same time Is stirred in many ways, and into itself Receives all the emotions of delight, And all the empty troubles of the heart. Now, that the soul too dwells within the limbs, And that it is no harmony whereby The body is wont to feel, this main proof shows. When from the body much has been removed, Yet often life still lingers in our limbs: Whereas, when a few particles of heat Have been dispersed, and through the mouth some air Has been forced out, suddenly that same life Deserts the arteries and quits the bones: Whence you may learn that not all particles Have functions of like moment, nor alike Support existence; but that rather those Which are the seeds of wind and warming heat Are the cause that life stays within the limbs. Therefore this vital heat and wind, residing Within the body itself, is that which quits Our dying frame. So now that we have found The nature of the mind and of the soul To be a part in some sense of the man, Let us give up the name of harmony, Which was brought down from lofty Helicon To the musicians, or else they themselves, Taking it from some other source, transferred it To what was then without a name of its own. However that may be, why, let them keep it. Do you give heed to the rest of my discourse.

Now I maintain that mind and soul are bound In union with each other, forming so A single substance, but that the lord that rules Throughout the body is the reasoning power Which we call mind and intellect. Its seat Is fixed in the middle region of the breast. For here it is that fear and panic throb: Around these parts dwell joys that soothe. Here then Is the intellect or mind. The rest of the soul Dispersed through the whole body, obeys and moves At the will and propulsion of the mind, Which for itself and by itself alone Has knowledge and rejoices for itself, When nothing at that time moves soul or body. And just as, when we are attacked by pain In head or eye, we do not feel distress Through our whole body too, so often the mind Suffers pain by itself, or is envigoured By happiness, when all the rest of the soul Throughout the limbs and frame remains unstirred By any new sensation. But when the mind Has been perturbed by some more vehement fear, We see the whole soul feel with it in unison Through all the limbs; sweating and paleness then Spread over the whole body; the tongue halts, Speech dies away, the eyes grow dark with mist, The ears ring and the limbs sink under us. And indeed often we see men drop down From terror of mind. Hence easily we may learn That the soul is united with the mind; For when it has been struck by the mind’s force, Straightway it pushes and propels the body.