Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus: De rerum natura (trans: R. C. Trevelyan 1937)

BOOK III, lines 830-1094 - Folly of the Fear of Death

Death then is nothing to us, nor one jot
Does it concern us, since the nature of mind
Is thus proved mortal. And as in times long past
We felt no unhappiness when from every side
Gathering for conflict came the Punic hosts,
And all that was beneath the height of heaven,
Shaken by the tumult and dismay of war,
Shuddered and quaked, and mortals were in doubt
To whose empire all human things would fall
By land and sea, so when we are no more,
When body and soul, whereof we were composed
Into one being shall have been divorced,
’Tis plain nothing whatever shall have power
To trouble us, who then shall be no more,
Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea
In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky.
And even though the powers of mind and soul
After they have been severed from the body
Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing,
Who by the binding marriage tie between
Body and soul are formed into one being.
Nor if Time should collect our scattered atoms
After our death, and should restore them back
To where they now are placed, and if once more
The light of light were given us, not even that
Would in the least concern us, once the chain
Of self-awareness had been snapped asunder.
So too now what we may have been before
Concerns us not, nor causes us distress.
For when you look back on the whole past course
Of infinite time, and think how manifold{36}
Must be the modes of matter’s flux, then easily
May you believe this too, that these same atoms
Of which we now are formed, have often before
Been placed in the same order as they are now.
Yet this can no remembrance bring us back.
For a break in life has since been interposed,
And all our atoms wandering dispersed
Have strayed far from that former consciousness.
For if a man be destined to endure
Misery and suffering, he must first exist
In his own person at that very time
When evil should befall him. But since death
Precludes this, and forbids him to exist
Who was to endure distress, we may be sure
That in death there is nothing we need dread,
That he who exists not cannot become miserable,
And that it makes no difference at all
Whether he shall already have been born
In some past time, when once he has been robbed
By death that dies not of his life that dies.

Therefore if you should chance to hear some man
Pitying his own lot, that after death
Either his body must decay in the earth,
Or be consumed by flames or jaws of beasts,
Then may you know that his words ring not true,
That in his heart there lurks some secret sting,
Though he himself deny that he believes
Any sense will remain with him in death.
For in fact he grants not all that he professes,
Nor by the roots does he expel and thrust
Self forth from life, but all unwittingly
Assumes that of self something will survive.
For when a living man forbodes that birds
And beasts may rend his body after death,
Then does he pity himself, nor can he quite
Separate and withdraw from the outcast body,{37}
But fancying that that other is himself,
With his own sense imagines it endued.
So he complains because he was born mortal,
Nor sees that there will be in real death
No other self which living can lament
That he has perished, none that will stand by
And grieve over his burnt and mangled corpse.
For if it be an evil after death
To be mauled by teeth of beasts, why should it seem
Less cruel to be laid out on a pyre
And scorched with hot flames, or to be embalmed
In stifling honey, or to lie stiff and cold
Couched on the cool slab of a chilly stone,
Or to be crushed down under a weight of earth?

“Now no more shall thy home, nor thy chaste wife
Receive thee in gladness, nor shall thy sweet children
Run forth to meet thee and snatch kisses from thee,
And touch thee to the heart with silent joy.
No more canst thou be prosperous in thy doings,
A bulwark to thy friends. Poor wretch!” men cry,
“How wretchedly has one disastrous day
Stript thee of all life’s many benefits!”
Yet this withal they add not: “Nor henceforth
Does craving for these things beset thee more.”
This truth, could men but grasp it once in thought
And follow thought with words, would forthwith set
Their spirits free from a huge ache and dread.
“Thou, as thou art, sunk in the sleep of death,
Shalt so continue through all time to come,
Delivered from all feverish miseries:
But we who watched thee on thy dreadful pyre
Change into ashes, we insatiably
Bewept thee; nor shall any lapse of days
Remove that lifelong sorrow from our hearts.”
Of him who spoke thus, well might we inquire,
What grief so exceeding bitter is there here,{38}
If in the end all comes to sleep and rest,
That one should therefore pine with lifelong misery.

This too is oft men’s wont, when they lie feasting
Wine-cup in hand with garland-shaded brows:
Thus from the heart they speak: “Brief is life’s joy
For poor frail men. Soon will it be no more,
Nor ever afterwards may it be called back.”
As though a foremost evil to be feared
After their death were this, that parching thirst
Would burn and scorch them in their misery,
Or craving for aught else would then beset them.
No, for none feels the want of self and life,
When mind and body are sunk in sleep together.
For all we care, such sleep might be eternal:
No craving for ourselves moves us at all.
And yet, when starting up from sleep a man
Collects himself, then the atoms of his soul
Throughout his frame cannot be wandering far
From their sense-stirring motions. Therefore death
Must needs be thought far less to us than sleep,
If less can be than what we see is nothing.
For the dispersion of the crowded atoms,
That comes with death, is greater; nor has ever
Anyone yet awakened, upon whom
Has once fallen the chill arrest of death.

Furthermore, if Nature suddenly found voice,
And thus in person upbraided one of us:
“What is it, mortal, can afflict thee so,
That thou to such exceeding bitter grief
Shouldst yield? Why thus bemoan and bewail death?
For if the life thou hast lived hitherto
Was pleasant to thee, and not all thy blessings,
As though poured into a perforated jar,
Have flowed through and gone thanklessly to waste,
Why not then, like a guest replete with life,{39}
Take thy departure, and resignedly
Enter, thou fool, upon secure repose?
But if all that thou hast enjoyed has perished
Squandered away, and life is a mere grievance,
Why seek to add thereto, what in its turn
Must all come to destruction and be lost
Unprofitably? Why both of life and travail
Dost thou not rather make an end at once?
For there is nothing more I can contrive
Or find to please thee. All things are the same
At all times. Though thy body be not yet
Decayed with years, nor have thy worn-out limbs
Grown feeble, yet all things remain the same;
Though thou shouldst overlive all generations,
Nay, even more if thou shouldst never die.”
What could we answer, save that Nature’s claim
Was just, and her indictment a true plea?
But if some other more advanced in years
Should miserably complain and lament death
Beyond all reason, would she not yet more justly
Lift up her voice and chide him with sharp speech?
“Hence with thy tears, buffoon. Cease thy complaints.
After thou hast enjoyed all life’s best gifts
Thou now decayest. But because thou hast yearned
Always for what was absent, and despised
That which was present, life has glided from thee
Incomplete and unprofitable. So now
Ere thou didst look for it, at thy pillow Death
Has taken his stand, before thou canst depart
Satisfied with existence and replete.
But now resign all vanities that so ill
Befit thine age: come then, with a good grace
Rise and make room for others; for thou must.”
Justly, I think, would she so plead with him,
Justly reproach and chide: for things grown old
Yield place and are supplanted evermore
By new, and each thing out of something else{40}
Must be replenished; nor to the black pit
Of Tartarus was yet any man consigned.
Matter is needed, that therefrom may grow
Succeeding generations: which yet all,
When they have lived their life, shall follow thee.
Thus it is all have perished in past times
No less than thou, and shall hereafter perish.
So one thing out of another shall not cease
For ever to arise; and life is given
To none in fee, to all in usufruct.
Consider likewise how eternal Time’s
Bygone antiquity before our birth
Was nothing to us. In such wise does Nature
Show us the time to come after our death
As in a mirror. Is aught visible
Therein so appalling? aught that seems like gloom?
Is it not more secure than any sleep?

Moreover all those things which people say
Are found in Acheron’s gulf, assuredly
Exist for us in life. No wretched Tantalus,
Numbed by vain terror, quakes, as the tale tells,
Beneath a huge rock hanging in the air;
But in life rather an empty fear of gods
Oppresses mortals; and the fall they dread
Is fortune’s fall, which chance may bring to each.
Nor verily entering the large breast of Tityos,
As he lies stretched in Acheron, do vultures
Find food there for their beaks perpetually.
How vast soever his body’s bulk extends,
Though not nine acres merely with outspread limbs
He cover, but the round of the whole earth,
Yet would he not be able to endure
Eternal pain, nor out of his whole body
For ever provide food. But here for us
He is a Tityos, whom, while he lies
In bonds of love, fretful anxieties{41}
Devour like rending birds of prey, or cares,
Sprung from some other craving, lacerate.
A living Sisyphus also we behold
In him who from the people fain would beg
The rods and cruel axes, and each time
Defeated and disconsolate must retire.
For to beg power, which, empty as it is,
Is never given, and in pursuit thereof
To endure grievous toil continually,
Is but to thrust uphill mightily straining
A stone, which from the summit after all
Rolls bounding back down to the level plain.
Moreover to be feeding evermore
The thankless nature of the mind, yet never
To fill it full and sate it with good things,
As do the seasons for us, when each year
They return bringing fruits and varied charms,
Yet never are we filled with life’s delights,
This surely is what is told of those young brides,
Who must pour water into a punctured vessel,
Though they can have no hope to fill it full.
Cerberus and the Furies in like manner
Are fables, and that world deprived of day
Where from its throat Tartarus belches forth
Horrible flames: which things in truth are not,
Nor can be anywhere. But there is in life
A dread of punishment for things ill done,
Terrible as the deeds are terrible;
And to expiate men’s guilt there is the dungeon,
The awful hurling downward from the rock,
Scourgings, mutilations and impalings,
The pitch, the torches and the metal plate.
And even if these be wanting, yet the mind
Conscious of guilt torments itself with goads
And scorching whips, nor in its boding fear
Perceives what end of misery there can be,
Nor what limit at length to punishment,{42}
Nay fears lest these same evils after death
Should prove more grievous. Thus does the life of fools
Become at last an Acheron here on earth.

This too thou may’st say sometimes to thyself:
“Even the good king Ancus closed his eyes
To the light of day, who was so many times
Worthier than thou, unconscionable man.
And since then many others who bore rule
O’er mighty nations, princes and potentates,
Have perished: and he too, even he, who once
Across the great sea paved a path whereby
His legions might pass over, bidding them
Cross dry-shod the salt deeps, and to show scorn
Trampled upon the roarings of the waves
With horses, even he, bereft of light,
Forth from his dying body gasped his soul.
The Scipios’ offspring, thunderbolt of war,
Terror of Carthage, gave his bones to the earth,
As though he were the meanest household slave.
Consider too the inventors of wise thoughts
And arts that charm, consider the companions
Of the Heliconian Maidens, among whom
Homer still bears the sceptre without peer;
Yet he now sleeps the same sleep as they all.
Likewise Democritus, when a ripe old age
Had warned him that the memory-stirring motions
Were waning in his mind, by his own act
Willingly offered up his head to death.
Even Epicurus died, when his life’s light
Had run its course, he who in intellect
Surpassed the race of men, quenching the glory
Of all else, as the sun in heaven arising
Quenches the stars. Then wilt thou hesitate
And feel aggrieved to die? thou for whom life
Is well nigh dead, whilst yet thou art alive{43}
And lookest on the light; thou who dost waste
Most of thy time in sleep, and waking snorest,
Nor ceasest to see dreams; who hast a mind
Troubled with empty terror, and ofttimes
Canst not discover what it is that ails thee,
When, poor besotted wretch, from every side
Cares crowd upon thee, and thou goest astray
Drifting in blind perplexity of soul.”

If men not only were to feel this load
That weighs upon their mind and wears them out,
But might have knowledge also of its cause
And whence comes this great pile of misery
Crushing their breasts, they would not spend their lives,
As now so oft we see them, ignorant
Each of his life’s true ends, and seeking ever
By change of place to lay his burden down.
Often, issuing forth from his great mansion, he
Who is weary of home will suddenly return
Perceiving that abroad he is none the happier.
He posts to his villa galloping his ponies,
As though hurrying with help to a house on fire,
Yawns on the very threshold, nay sinks down
Heavily into sleep to seek oblivion,
Or even perhaps starts headlong back to town.
In this way each man flies from his own self,
Yet from that self in fact he has no power
To escape. He clings to it in his own despite,
Although he loathes it, seeing that he is sick,
Yet perceives not the cause of his disease:
Which if he could but comprehend aright,
Relinquishing all else, each man would study
To learn the Nature of Reality,
Since ’tis our state during eternal time,
Not for one hour merely, that is in doubt,
That state wherein mortals must pass the whole
Of what may still await them after death.{44}
And in conclusion, what base lust of life
Is this, that can so potently compel us
In dubious perils to feel such dismay?
For indeed certain is the end of life
That awaits mortals, nor can death be shunned.
Meet it we must. Furthermore in the same
Pursuits and actions do we pass our days
For ever, nor may we by living on
Forge for ourselves any new form of pleasure.
But what we crave, while it is absent, seems
To excel all things else; then, when ’tis ours,
We crave some other thing, gaping wide-mouthed,
Always possessed by the same thirst of life.
What fortune future time may bring, we know not,
Nor what chance has in store for us, nor yet
What end awaits us. By prolonging life
No least jot may we take from death’s duration;
Nought may we steal away therefrom, that so
Haply a less long while we may be dead.
Therefore as many ages as you please
Add to your life’s account, yet none the less
Will that eternal death be waiting for you.
And not less long will that man be no more,
Who from to-day has ceased to live, than he
Who has died many months and years ago.