De Rerum Natura

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.