On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (62 page)

820
fortified against all forms of death…
: the reference is probably to the form of immortality enjoyed by the Epicurean gods in the spaces between the worlds, though the details are much disputed (cf. 5. 146, Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
1. 18, Epicurus,
Letter to Menoeceus
124, Philodemus,
On the Gods
3. frr. 32a, 41, 77, Origen (second–third century
AD
),
Against Celsus
4. 14).

829
lethargy’s black waters cover it
: the section of arguments for the mortality of the soul, like the book as a whole, ends gloomily: see above on 2. 1173 ff. But the message of 830 ff. is that this need not in any way impede our happiness.

830
death nothing is to us
: the famous Epicurean catchphrase, from the second of the
Master Sayings
: ‘death is nothing to us, because what has been dissolved is without sensation, and what is without sensation is nothing to us.’ The final section of the book draws extensively on attacks on the fear of death from many non-Epicurean sources, especially those within the traditions of consolation and so-called ‘diatribe’ or practical philosophical exhortation. See B. P. Wallach,
Lucretius and the Diatribe against the Fear of Death
(Leiden, 1976), with many parallels.

833
when the Phoenicians | Were coming in upon us
: Lucretius uses a version of the so-called ‘symmetry’ argument from our lack of concern for events before our birth. Our state before birth is the same as that after death: non-existence. If we are unconcerned about events which took place when we
were in the former state, we should also be unconcerned about the latter. This was a commonplace (cf. e.g. Euripides (fifth century
BC
),
Trojan Women
636, the
Axiochus
(wrongly ascribed to Plato and of uncertain date) 365d, Bion (fourth–third century
BC
) fr. 67, Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
1. 90): Lucretius uses the Roman example of the Second Punic War (218–201
BC
), alluding to the treatment in Ennius’
Annals
(frr. 309–10). We know of the terrors of that war only through the vicarious experience of literature: like the future after our death, they are really ‘nothing to us’.

848–9
if time should after death | Collect our matter and bring it back
: cf. Epicurus fr. 283a, 307. The Stoics believed in the infinite repetition of a fixed sequence of events, the Epicureans that in infinite time individual local states of the universe would be infinitely repeated, but in no fixed sequence.

870
when you see a man resent his fate
: philosophers united in rejecting the concern for the fate of the body after death common in literature and life (cf. e.g.
Axiochus
365e ff., Bion fr. 70); the Stoic Chrysippus is said to have made a collection of burial practices amongst different nations (Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
1. 108). Epicurus said that the wise person will not take thought of burial (Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of the Philosophers
10. 118), and the argument is pursued at length in Philodemus’
On Death
(4. 31 ff.; cf. also Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 73).

881–2
he doesn’t separate | Himself from the body lying there
: Lucretius alludes to a celebrated tragedy of the Roman dramatist Pacuvius (first century
BC
), the
Iliona
, in which the ghost of Deiphilus complained to his mother about his burial (frr. 197 ff., cf. Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
1. 106). Similar examples from Greek tragedy are frequent (cf. e.g. the Cynic Teles (third century
BC
) 30. 1 ff.).

893
Be crushed under a weight of earth
: cf. the formula on Roman tombs, ‘let the earth be light for you’.

912
Men lie at table
: 912–18 have been transposed. Lucretius’ picture ironically reflects popular views of the Epicurean life (cf. e.g. the
Copa
or
Innkeeper
ascribed to Virgil 29 ff., Horace,
Odes
1. 11, Petronius,
Satyricon
34; Cicero,
On Ends
5. 3).

894–6
No longer now a happy home will greet you…
: famously translated by Thomas Gray in the
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
as ‘For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, | Or busy housewife ply her evening care: | No children run to lisp their sire’s return, | Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share’. Lucretius’ lines echo laments on tombs but are more satirical, and the simultaneous presence of pathos and sarcasm has a didactic point: the reader needs to feel the pull of conventional emotion to be able fully to reject it. There is more straightforward mockery in the treatise
On Grief
by Lucian (second century
AD
), 13–14, 16.

904
the sleep of death
: a commonplace of consolation, found often on tombstones, but here taken more seriously in Epicurean terms (920 ff.).

931–2
suppose that nature suddenly |… upbraided one of us
: Lucretius uses the figure of thought known as
prosopopoeia
or personification. Figures with a claim on the emotions such as one’s native country were commonly summoned up by speakers (e.g. Cicero,
Against Catiline
1. 18, Demetrius (date uncertain),
On Style
265: Plato in the
Crito
, 50a, imagined Socrates addressed by the laws of Athens). Lucretius’ use of the more general (and Epicurean) figure of Nature especially recalls a celebrated personification of poverty by the Cynic Bion (fr. 17), but with much greater force. 936
through a broken jar
: an allusion to the story of the Danaids or water carriers in Hades (cf. 3. 1003 ff.), especially as interpreted by Plato in
Gorgias
493a–d. Cf. also 6. 20 ff.

938
dined | Full well on life
: the image of life as a banquet is common: cf. e.g. Epicurus fr. 499, Bion fr. 68, Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
5. 118.

945
everything’s the same
: a pointed application of the physical principle outlined at 2. 294 ff., that there is no real change in the universe.

966
black Tartarus
: cf. the description of Tartarus in
Iliad
8. 13 ff., ‘where the deepest pit lies under the earth’.

967
Matter is needed
: cf. 1. 262 ff.

971
life none have in freehold, all as tenants
: the image of life as a loan is common, both in literary tradition (cf. e.g. Euripides,
Suppliant Women
534,
Axiochus
367b, Bion fr. 68, Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
1. 93, the
Consolation to Apollonius
ascribed to Plutarch 116a ff.) and on tombstones.

975
the mirror nature holds for us
: see above on the ‘symmetry’ argument (833 ff.), but here the paragraph leads into the absence of mythological terrors in the afterlife.

978–1023
all those things… which fables tell
: attacks on belief in the terrors of the underworld are called an ‘Epicurean refrain’ by Seneca (
Letters to Lucilius
24. 18): cf. especially Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 73, ‘I have no fear on account of the Tityoses and Tantaluses whom you describe in Hades’. Tityos (Tityrus), Tantalus, and Sisyphus are the three canonical sinners from the time of Homer (
Odyssey
11. 576–600) on: cf. especially Plato,
Gorgias
525d ff. (where the late commentator Olympiodorus (sixth century
AD
) offers an allegorical interpretation similar in part to that of Lucretius). Lucretius’ account is not exactly allegorical: the punishments exist ‘for us in this our life’.

980
Tantalus
: two versions of Tantalus’ punishment (usually for serving up his son Pelops to the gods) were current: either he was perpetually thirsty and hungry but ‘tantalized’ by water and fruit about him, or as here he was threatened by a hanging rock (cf. Pindar (sixth–fifth century
BC
),
Olympian
1. 57,
Isthmian
8. 10). The latter punishment suits Lucretius’ imagery for the fear of the gods (cf. 1. 62 ff.).

984
Tityos
: Tityos was a son of earth punished for trying to rape the goddess Leto.

992
lying in love
: cf. the picture in 4. 1177 ff. of the archetypal Roman unhappy lover.

995
Sisyphus
: Sisyphus was punished for trying to cheat death (cf. Homer,
Odyssey
11. 593 ff.).

996
the Lictor’s rods and axes
: consuls and praetors were attended by lictors carrying axes and rods (the
fasces
or bundles appropriated by Mussolini for his Fascists).

1001
the plain below
: significantly, Roman elections took place on the ‘Plain of Mars’ (Campus Martius).

1003
The Danaids
: The Danaids (daughters of Danaus) were punished for killing their husbands on their wedding night: it is not known how far the identification of them with the mythical water-carriers in Hades (first explicit in
Axiochus
371e) goes back. Compare Plato’s use of the image of the ‘leaky jar’ in
Gorgias
493a–d (see above 936).

1010
Cerberus
: the monstrous dog who guarded the entrance to Hades.

1016
dread hurling from the rock
: the Tarpeian Rock on the Capitol, from which murderers and traitors were flung.

1025
good Ancus
: Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome. The line is a quotation from Ennius,
Annals
137.

1026
A better man than you
: an echo of Homer,
Iliad
21. 109, ‘Patroclus also died, a man much better than you’ (Achilles to the suppliant Lycaon).

1027
many kings and powers
: lists of the illustrious dead, as later in the
ubi sunt
or ‘where are now…?’ commonplace of medieval poetry (e.g. Dunbar, ‘I that in heill was… ’, Villon,
Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis
), are frequent in diatribe and consolation: cf. e.g. the
Consolation to Apollonius
ascribed to Plutarch 100d, Marcus Aurelius (second century
AD
) 3. 3, 6. 7.

1029
he who laid a highway through the sea
: the Persian king Xerxes, who bridged the Hellespont in his unsuccessful attack on Greece during the Persian Wars (480
BC
: cf. Herodotus (fifth century
BC
) 7. 35 ff.). He was later murdered in 465
BC
.

1034
Great Scipio
: more than one Scipio was great and terrified Carthage: the reference could be to either Scipio Africanus the elder, who defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama, not far from Carthage, in 202
BC
, or Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the younger, who razed Carthage to the ground in 146
BC
.
the thunderbolt of war
: probably echoing a phrase of Ennius, playing on the etymology of the name Scipio, as if from the Greek
skeptos
, a thunderbolt: cf. Cicero,
For Balbus
34.

1041
Offered his head right willingly to death
: cf. Diogenes Laertius (third century
AD
),
Lives of the Philosophers
9. 43.

1042
Epicurus himself
: the only time Epicurus is named in the poem.

1045
will you doubt and feel aggrieved to die
: again echoing Achilles’ words to Lycaon in the
Iliad
21 106 (see above 1026).

1060
A man leaves his great house
: the vignette from everyday life is in the style of Roman satire: see Introduction.

1071
Leave everything
: the exhortation to abandon trivial concerns and concentrate on the important matters in life is a commonplace of the philosophical ‘protreptic’ or conversion discourse: cf. e.g. Aristotle,
Protreptic
fr. 52, Horace,
Epistles
1. 3. 28 ff. The images offered of the unphilosophical life all belong to the first, diagnostic, stage of philosophic conversion: in a sense, the second half of
On the Nature of the Universe
provides the cure for the gloomy prognosis offered at the end of
Book 3
.

1077
lust of life
: philosophers frequently criticized excessive fondness for life: cf. e.g. Philodemus,
On Death
4. 39. 6, Seneca,
Consolation to Polybius
10. 5.

1–25
A pathless country…
: the second half of
On the Nature of the Universe
begins with a repetition of 1. 926–50, with some small changes. In their new position, the lines function as a ‘proem in the middle’, introducing the second half of the poem: similar central prologues are found in a number of other works (e.g. Virgil,
Eclogues
,
Georgics
,
Aeneid
). For the structure, see Introduction.

25
Its value and its usefulness to men
: slightly altered from
Book 1
, with ‘usefulness’ replacing a concern with the shape of things, perhaps signalling a move in the second half of the poem more towards the applications of the first principles.

26
And since I have shown…
: 26–215 outline the Epicurean theory of ‘images’ (Latin
simulacra
, Greek
eidola
), thin films of atoms continually cast off from bodies and responsible for perception. 216–721 then deal with the various senses (216–521 sight, with a long section on optical illusions and related phenomena (324–521), 522–614 hearing, 615–72 taste, and 673–705 smell, with 706–21 as a general conclusion and transition to the following section: see below) and 722–822 with thought. 823–57 then argue against the notion that the sense organs were created to perform their functions. 858–906 explain the role of images in hunger and thirst (858–77) and locomotion (878–906). 907 ff. then expound the nature of sleep (907–61) leading to the discussion of dreams (962–1057) and the final attack on the delusions of love (1058–1287). Throughout, the focus is on mental process, and the role of images within it.