Book Iii - Part 04 - Folly Of The Fear Of Death Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDECFGHCIJCKLMINO PJQHKRRSTUVWXRYZRRHA 2RB2C2D2B2E2RF2QCCG2 H2RI2J2RK2QL2M2G2N2R O2P2O2Q2R2B2SS2O2RB2 T2U2RV2RW2X2Y2CZ2A3R CCKA3LVRLB3QXLF2C3D3 RA3E3RF3O2C3CG3A3H3A 3I3A3RA3RJ3G2A3A3K3I 3F2QQRL3C3RF2M3F2QRR A3RF2RRA2F2M3N3G2RH3 LF2O3XLTP3N3LLQ3R3S3 Z2C3LLT3LU3LV3LF2LC3 LF2LF2LHHC3FC3Therefore death to us | A |
Is nothing nor concerns us in the least | B |
Since nature of mind is mortal evermore | C |
And just as in the ages gone before | C |
We felt no touch of ill when all sides round | D |
To battle came the Carthaginian host | E |
And the times shaken by tumultuous war | C |
Under the aery coasts of arching heaven | F |
Shuddered and trembled and all humankind | G |
Doubted to which the empery should fall | H |
By land and sea thus when we are no more | C |
When comes that sundering of our body and soul | I |
Through which we're fashioned to a single state | J |
Verily naught to us us then no more | C |
Can come to pass naught move our senses then | K |
No not if earth confounded were with sea | L |
And sea with heaven But if indeed do feel | M |
The nature of mind and energy of soul | I |
After their severance from this body of ours | N |
Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds | O |
And wedlock of the soul and body live | P |
Through which we're fashioned to a single state | J |
And even if time collected after death | Q |
The matter of our frames and set it all | H |
Again in place as now and if again | K |
To us the light of life were given O yet | R |
That process too would not concern us aught | R |
When once the self succession of our sense | S |
Has been asunder broken And now and here | T |
Little enough we're busied with the selves | U |
We were aforetime nor concerning them | V |
Suffer a sore distress For shouldst thou gaze | W |
Backwards across all yesterdays of time | X |
The immeasurable thinking how manifold | R |
The motions of matter are then couldst thou well | Y |
Credit this too often these very seeds | Z |
From which we are to day of old were set | R |
In the same order as they are to day | R |
Yet this we can't to consciousness recall | H |
Through the remembering mind For there hath been | A2 |
An interposed pause of life and wide | R |
Have all the motions wandered everywhere | B2 |
From these our senses For if woe and ail | C2 |
Perchance are toward then the man to whom | D2 |
The bane can happen must himself be there | B2 |
At that same time But death precludeth this | E2 |
Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd | R |
Such irk and care and granted 'tis to know | F2 |
Nothing for us there is to dread in death | Q |
No wretchedness for him who is no more | C |
The same estate as if ne'er born before | C |
When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life | G2 |
- | |
Hence where thou seest a man to grieve because | H2 |
When dead he rots with body laid away | R |
Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts | I2 |
Know well he rings not true and that beneath | J2 |
Still works an unseen sting upon his heart | R |
However he deny that he believes | K2 |
His shall be aught of feeling after death | Q |
For he I fancy grants not what he says | L2 |
Nor what that presupposes and he fails | M2 |
To pluck himself with all his roots from life | G2 |
And cast that self away quite unawares | N2 |
Feigning that some remainder's left behind | R |
For when in life one pictures to oneself | O2 |
His body dead by beasts and vultures torn | P2 |
He pities his state dividing not himself | O2 |
Therefrom removing not the self enough | Q2 |
From the body flung away imagining | R2 |
Himself that body and projecting there | B2 |
His own sense as he stands beside it hence | S |
He grieves that he is mortal born nor marks | S2 |
That in true death there is no second self | O2 |
Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed | R |
Or stand lamenting that the self lies there | B2 |
Mangled or burning For if it an evil is | T2 |
Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang | U2 |
Of the wild brutes I see not why 'twere not | R |
Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames | V2 |
Or suffocate in honey and reclined | R |
On the smooth oblong of an icy slab | W2 |
Grow stiff in cold or sink with load of earth | X2 |
Down crushing from above | Y2 |
Thee now no more | C |
The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome | Z2 |
Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses | A3 |
And touch with silent happiness thy heart | R |
Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more | C |
Nor be the warder of thine own no more | C |
Poor wretch they say one hostile hour hath ta'en | K |
Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons | A3 |
But add not yet no longer unto thee | L |
Remains a remnant of desire for them | V |
If this they only well perceived with mind | R |
And followed up with maxims they would free | L |
Their state of man from anguish and from fear | B3 |
O even as here thou art aslumber in death | Q |
So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time | X |
Released from every harrying pang But we | L |
We have bewept thee with insatiate woe | F2 |
Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre | C3 |
Thou wert made ashes and no day shall take | D3 |
For us the eternal sorrow from the breast | R |
But ask the mourner what's the bitterness | A3 |
That man should waste in an eternal grief | E3 |
If after all the thing's but sleep and rest | R |
For when the soul and frame together are sunk | F3 |
In slumber no one then demands his self | O2 |
Or being Well this sleep may be forever | C3 |
Without desire of any selfhood more | C |
For all it matters unto us asleep | G3 |
Yet not at all do those primordial germs | A3 |
Roam round our members at that time afar | H3 |
From their own motions that produce our senses | A3 |
Since when he's startled from his sleep a man | I3 |
Collects his senses Death is then to us | A3 |
Much less if there can be a less than that | R |
Which is itself a nothing for there comes | A3 |
Hard upon death a scattering more great | R |
Of the throng of matter and no man wakes up | J3 |
On whom once falls the icy pause of life | G2 |
This too O often from the soul men say | A3 |
Along their couches holding of the cups | A3 |
With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry | K3 |
Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man | I3 |
Soon soon departed and thereafter no | F2 |
It may not be recalled As if forsooth | Q |
It were their prime of evils in great death | Q |
To parch poor tongues with thirst and arid drought | R |
Or chafe for any lack | L3 |
Once more if Nature | C3 |
Should of a sudden send a voice abroad | R |
And her own self inveigh against us so | F2 |
Mortal what hast thou of such grave concern | M3 |
That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints | F2 |
Why this bemoaning and beweeping death | Q |
For if thy life aforetime and behind | R |
To thee was grateful and not all thy good | R |
Was heaped as in sieve to flow away | A3 |
And perish unavailingly why not | R |
Even like a banqueter depart the halls | F2 |
Laden with life why not with mind content | R |
Take now thou fool thy unafflicted rest | R |
But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been | A2 |
Lavished and lost and life is now offence | F2 |
Why seekest more to add which in its turn | M3 |
Will perish foully and fall out in vain | N3 |
O why not rather make an end of life | G2 |
Of labour For all I may devise or find | R |
To pleasure thee is nothing all things are | H3 |
The same forever Though not yet thy body | L |
Wrinkles with years nor yet the frame exhausts | F2 |
Outworn still things abide the same even if | O3 |
Thou goest on to conquer all of time | X |
With length of days yea if thou never diest | L |
What were our answer but that Nature here | T |
Urges just suit and in her words lays down | P3 |
True cause of action Yet should one complain | N3 |
Riper in years and elder and lament | L |
Poor devil his death more sorely than is fit | L |
Then would she not with greater right on him | Q3 |
Cry out inveighing with a voice more shrill | R3 |
Off with thy tears and choke thy whines buffoon | S3 |
Thou wrinklest after thou hast had the sum | Z2 |
Of the guerdons of life yet since thou cravest ever | C3 |
What's not at hand contemning present good | L |
That life has slipped away unperfected | L |
And unavailing unto thee And now | T3 |
Or ere thou guessed it death beside thy head | L |
Stands and before thou canst be going home | U3 |
Sated and laden with the goodly feast | L |
But now yield all that's alien to thine age | V3 |
Up with good grace make room for sons thou must | L |
Justly I fancy would she reason thus | F2 |
Justly inveigh and gird since ever the old | L |
Outcrowded by the new gives way and ever | C3 |
The one thing from the others is repaired | L |
Nor no man is consigned to the abyss | F2 |
Of Tartarus the black For stuff must be | L |
That thus the after generations grow | F2 |
Though these their life completed follow thee | L |
And thus like thee are generations all | H |
Already fallen or some time to fall | H |
So one thing from another rises ever | C3 |
And in fee simple life is given to none | F |
But unto all mere usufr | C3 |
Lucretius
(1)
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