Book Iii - Part 03 - The Soul Is Mortal Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHII JIKLMNOIIPIQLRSITQUN VWXY ZA2IKWB2IYYB2QC2YXPY Y D2E2F2G2H2I2J2YK2L2Y M2N2O2P2DQ2H2R2S2VT2 U2YV2W2X2YYY2YZ2YA3Y YT2YH2 GYJ2YB3C3AZGD3E3NF3U YF3GS2A2YXDG3YYYH3D2 I3YD3YK2YQJ3N2D3K3YY L3YD3 YM3DYYYYN3YYO3 B2P3K2Q3R3R2YYS3YB2Y YT3D3YXYYBK2E3K2B2YY YU3DY D3QYB2| Now come that thou mayst able be to know | A |
| That minds and the light souls of all that live | B |
| Have mortal birth and death I will go on | C |
| Verses to build meet for thy rule of life | D |
| Sought after long discovered with sweet toil | E |
| But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both | F |
| And when for instance I shall speak of soul | G |
| Teaching the same to be but mortal think | H |
| Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind | I |
| Since both are one a substance interjoined | I |
| - | |
| First then since I have taught how soul exists | J |
| A subtle fabric of particles minute | I |
| Made up from atoms smaller much than those | K |
| Of water's liquid damp or fog or smoke | L |
| So in mobility it far excels | M |
| More prone to move though strook by lighter cause | N |
| Even moved by images of smoke or fog | O |
| As where we view when in our sleeps we're lulled | I |
| The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft | I |
| For beyond doubt these apparitions come | P |
| To us from outward Now then since thou seest | I |
| Their liquids depart their waters flow away | Q |
| When jars are shivered and since fog and smoke | L |
| Depart into the winds away believe | R |
| The soul no less is shed abroad and dies | S |
| More quickly far more quickly is dissolved | I |
| Back to its primal bodies when withdrawn | T |
| From out man's members it has gone away | Q |
| For sure if body container of the same | U |
| Like as a jar when shivered from some cause | N |
| And rarefied by loss of blood from veins | V |
| Cannot for longer hold the soul how then | W |
| Thinkst thou it can be held by any air | X |
| A stuff much rarer than our bodies be | Y |
| - | |
| Besides we feel that mind to being comes | Z |
| Along with body with body grows and ages | A2 |
| For just as children totter round about | I |
| With frames infirm and tender so there follows | K |
| A weakling wisdom in their minds and then | W |
| Where years have ripened into robust powers | B2 |
| Counsel is also greater more increased | I |
| The power of mind thereafter where already | Y |
| The body's shattered by master powers of eld | Y |
| And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers | B2 |
| Thought hobbles tongue wanders and the mind gives way | Q |
| All fails all's lacking at the selfsame time | C2 |
| Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved | Y |
| Like smoke into the lofty winds of air | X |
| Since we behold the same to being come | P |
| Along with body and grow and as I've taught | Y |
| Crumble and crack therewith outworn by eld | Y |
| - | |
| Then too we see that just as body takes | D2 |
| Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain | E2 |
| So mind its bitter cares the grief the fear | F2 |
| Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less | G2 |
| Partaker is of death for pain and disease | H2 |
| Are both artificers of death as well | I2 |
| We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now | J2 |
| Nay too in diseases of body often the mind | Y |
| Wanders afield for 'tis beside itself | K2 |
| And crazed it speaks or many a time it sinks | L2 |
| With eyelids closing and a drooping nod | Y |
| In heavy drowse on to eternal sleep | M2 |
| From whence nor hears it any voices more | N2 |
| Nor able is to know the faces here | O2 |
| Of those about him standing with wet cheeks | P2 |
| Who vainly call him back to light and life | D |
| Wherefore mind too confess we must dissolves | Q2 |
| Seeing indeed contagions of disease | H2 |
| Enter into the same Again O why | R2 |
| When the strong wine has entered into man | S2 |
| And its diffused fire gone round the veins | V |
| Why follows then a heaviness of limbs | T2 |
| A tangle of the legs as round he reels | U2 |
| A stuttering tongue an intellect besoaked | Y |
| Eyes all aswim and hiccups shouts and brawls | V2 |
| And whatso else is of that ilk Why this | W2 |
| If not that violent and impetuous wine | X2 |
| Is wont to confound the soul within the body | Y |
| But whatso can confounded be and balked | Y |
| Gives proof that if a hardier cause got in | Y2 |
| 'Twould hap that it would perish then bereaved | Y |
| Of any life thereafter And moreover | Z2 |
| Often will some one in a sudden fit | Y |
| As if by stroke of lightning tumble down | A3 |
| Before our eyes and sputter foam and grunt | Y |
| Blither and twist about with sinews taut | Y |
| Gasp up in starts and weary out his limbs | T2 |
| With tossing round No marvel since distract | Y |
| Through frame by violence of disease | H2 |
| - | |
| Confounds he foams as if to vomit soul | G |
| As on the salt sea boil the billows round | Y |
| Under the master might of winds And now | J2 |
| A groan's forced out because his limbs are griped | Y |
| But in the main because the seeds of voice | B3 |
| Are driven forth and carried in a mass | C3 |
| Outwards by mouth where they are wont to go | A |
| And have a builded highway He becomes | Z |
| Mere fool since energy of mind and soul | G |
| Confounded is and as I've shown to riven | D3 |
| Asunder thrown and torn to pieces all | E3 |
| By the same venom But again where cause | N |
| Of that disease has faced about and back | F3 |
| Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame | U |
| Into its shadowy lairs the man at first | Y |
| Arises reeling and gradually comes back | F3 |
| To all his senses and recovers soul | G |
| Thus since within the body itself of man | S2 |
| The mind and soul are by such great diseases | A2 |
| Shaken so miserably in labour distraught | Y |
| Why then believe that in the open air | X |
| Without a body they can pass their life | D |
| Immortal battling with the master winds | G3 |
| And since we mark the mind itself is cured | Y |
| Like the sick body and restored can be | Y |
| By medicine this is forewarning to | Y |
| That mortal lives the mind For proper it is | H3 |
| That whosoe'er begins and undertakes | D2 |
| To alter the mind or meditates to change | I3 |
| Any another nature soever should add | Y |
| New parts or readjust the order given | D3 |
| Or from the sum remove at least a bit | Y |
| But what's immortal willeth for itself | K2 |
| Its parts be nor increased nor rearranged | Y |
| Nor any bit soever flow away | Q |
| For change of anything from out its bounds | J3 |
| Means instant death of that which was before | N2 |
| Ergo the mind whether in sickness fallen | D3 |
| Or by the medicine restored gives signs | K3 |
| As I have taught of its mortality | Y |
| So surely will a fact of truth make head | Y |
| 'Gainst errors' theories all and so shut off | L3 |
| All refuge from the adversary and rout | Y |
| Error by two edged confutation | D3 |
| - | |
| And since the mind is of a man one part | Y |
| Which in one fixed place remains like ears | M3 |
| And eyes and every sense which pilots life | D |
| And just as hand or eye or nose apart | Y |
| Severed from us can neither feel nor be | Y |
| But in the least of time is left to rot | Y |
| Thus mind alone can never be without | Y |
| The body and the man himself which seems | N3 |
| As 'twere the vessel of the same or aught | Y |
| Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined | Y |
| Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds | O3 |
| - | |
| Again the body's and the mind's live powers | B2 |
| Only in union prosper and enjoy | P3 |
| For neither can nature of mind alone of itself | K2 |
| Sans body give the vital motions forth | Q3 |
| Nor then can body wanting soul endure | R3 |
| And use the senses Verily as the eye | R2 |
| Alone up rended from its roots apart | Y |
| From all the body can peer about at naught | Y |
| So soul and mind it seems are nothing able | S3 |
| When by themselves No marvel because commixed | Y |
| Through veins and inwards and through bones and thews | B2 |
| Their elements primordial are confined | Y |
| By all the body and own no power free | Y |
| To bound around through interspaces big | T3 |
| Thus shut within these confines they take on | D3 |
| Motions of sense which after death thrown out | Y |
| Beyond the body to the winds of air | X |
| Take on they cannot and on this account | Y |
| Because no more in such a way confined | Y |
| For air will be a body be alive | B |
| If in that air the soul can keep itself | K2 |
| And in that air enclose those motions all | E3 |
| Which in the thews and in the body itself | K2 |
| A while ago 'twas making So for this | B2 |
| Again again I say confess we must | Y |
| That when the body's wrappings are unwound | Y |
| And when the vital breath is forced without | Y |
| The soul the senses of the mind dissolve | U3 |
| Since for the twain the cause and ground of life | D |
| Is in the fact of their conjoined estate | Y |
| - | |
| Once more since body's unable to sustain | D3 |
| Division from the soul without decay | Q |
| And obscene stench how canst thou doubt but that | Y |
| The soul uprisen from the body's | B2 |
Lucretius
(1)
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About Book Iii - Part 03 - The Soul Is Mortal
Book Iii - Part 03 - The Soul Is Mortal is a poem by Lucretius. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.