Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7574

Lucretius Carus, On The Nature Of Things, 3.670-3.783

Praeterea si inmortalis natura animai

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.

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quapropter neque natali privata videtur

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.

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Denique cur acris violentia triste leonum

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.

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Denique conubia ad Veneris partusque ferarum

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.

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Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

6 results

1. Plato, Gorgias, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

471a. Pol. Then this Archelaus, on your statement, is wretched? Soc. Yes, my friend, supposing he is unjust. Pol. Well, but how can he be other than unjust? He had no claim to the throne which he now occupies, being the son of a woman who was a slave of Perdiccas’ brother Alcetas, and in mere justice he was Alcetas’ slave; and if he wished to do what is just, he would be serving Alcetas and would be happy, by your account; but, as it is, he has become a prodigy of wretchedness

2. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.10.6 (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

3. Cicero, Academica, 2.125 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

4. Horace, Sermones, 1.4.31-1.4.32, 1.4.110 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

5. Lucretius Carus, On The Nature of Things, 1.89, 1.91, 1.99, 1.102-1.135, 1.161-1.179, 1.192-1.195, 1.202-1.214, 1.227-1.231, 1.250-1.264, 1.1102-1.1112, 2.67-2.79, 2.81, 2.168, 2.172, 2.569-2.580, 2.1030-2.1039, 2.1041-2.1057, 2.1059-2.1062, 2.1081-2.1083, 2.1090-2.1117, 2.1122-2.1145, 2.1150-2.1174, 3.37-3.253, 3.262-3.336, 3.350-3.369, 3.417-3.669, 3.671-3.1094, 4.35-4.41, 4.43, 4.733-4.734, 4.760-4.761, 4.1037-4.1287, 5.235-5.508, 5.783-5.1457, 6.1-6.6, 6.1138-6.1286 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

6. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 10.139 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

10.139. [A blessed and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness [Elsewhere he says that the gods are discernible by reason alone, some being numerically distinct, while others result uniformly from the continuous influx of similar images directed to the same spot and in human form.]Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling is nothing to us.The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
agamemnon	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
animal sacrifice, eschatology	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
arnobius, concept of salvation	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
ataraxia	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
athens	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
atomists	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
atoms, and mortality	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
beginnings (of poetry books)	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
cognition/cognitive	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 111
cycle of growth and decay, in lucretius	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
cynics/cynicism, condemned/satirized by greek writers	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
cynics/cynicism, diatribes by	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
death, in lucretius	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
death, of householder	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
death/tod	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 97, 101, 111
democritus, and palingenesis	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
dreams	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
epicureanism, on palingenesis	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
epicurus, atomism of	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
epicurus, concept of death	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
epistle to menoeceus'	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
exercise/übung	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 111
fear, and iphigenia/iphianassa	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
finales, in lucretius	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
frankness, contrasted with harsh criticism	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
friendship, three levels of	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
gigante, marcello	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
gowers, emily	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
grief	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
hector	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
intertextuality	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
iphigenia/iphianassa	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
lucretius, cycle of growth and decay in	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
lucretius, death in	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
lucretius	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
mirror-/symmetry-argument	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 97
pain	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
palingenesis, lucretius objections to	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
palingenesis	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
perspective	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 101
philodemus of gadara, condemnation of cynicism	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
philodemus of gadara, cynic influences on	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
philodemus of gadara, depictions of anger	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
philosophy, greek, in rome	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
physics, epicurean	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
plague	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
plato	Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (1995) 147
proems, in lucretius	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
rationality/irrationality	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 111
reader (within the poem)	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
schroeder, f. m.	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74
self	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 101
senses	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 97, 101
socrates, multiple reborn socrateses	Hay, Saeculum: Defining Historical Eras in Ancient Roman Thought (2023) 44
soul	Lehoux et al., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013) 218
soul (anima/psyché/seele)	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 97, 101, 111
venus	Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (2000) 22
viewpoint	Fuhrer and Soldo, Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (2024) 101
zeno of sidon	Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire (2018) 74