No More Learning

EPICURUS AND THE GODS

O thou that from gross darkness first didst lift
A torch to light the path to happiness,
I follow thee, thou glory of the Greeks!
And in thy footsteps firmly plant my steps,
Not bent so much to rival as for love
To copy. Why should swallow vie with swan?
Thou, father, art discoverer of things,
Enriching us with all a father's lore;
And, famous master, from thy written page,
As bees in flowery dells sip every bloom,
So hold we feast on all thy golden words--
Golden, most worthy, aye, of lasting life.
Soon as thy reasoning, sprung from mind inspired,
Hath loud proclaimed the mystery of things,
The mind's fears flee, the bulwarks of the world
Part, and I see things work throughout the void.
Then Godhead is revealed in homes of calm,
Which neither tempests shake nor clouds with rain
Obscure, nor snow by piercing frost congealed
Mars with white fall, but ever cloudless air
Wraps in a smile of generous radiancy.
There nature, too, supplieth every want,
And nothing ever lessens peace of mind.


_III. --Of Mind and Soul and Death_

Mind and soul are portions of the body. While mind is the ruling
element, they are both of the nature of the body--only they are
composed of exceedingly minute and subtle atoms capable of marvellous
speed. Therefore, when death deprives the body of mind and soul, it
does not make the body appreciably lighter.

It is as if a wine had lost its scent,
Or breath of some sweet perfume had escaped.

Mind and soul consist of spirit, air, heat, and an elusive fourth
constituent, the nimblest and subtlest of essences, the very "soul of
the soul. " It follows that mind and soul are mortal. Among many proofs
may be adduced their close interconnection with the body, as seen
in cases of drunkenness and epilepsy; their curability by medicine;
their inability to recall a state prior to their incarnation;
their liability to be influenced by heredity like corporeal seeds.
Besides, why should an immortal soul need to quit the body at death?
Decay surely could not hurt immortality! Then, again, imagine souls
contending for homes in a body about to be born! Consequently, the
soul being mortal, death has no sting.

To us, then, death is nothing--matters naught,
Since mortal is the nature of the mind,
E'en as in bygone time we felt no grief
When Punic conflict hemmed all Rome around.
When, rent by war's dread turbulence, the world
Shuddered and quaked beneath the heaven's high realm,
So when we are no more, when soul and frame
Of which we are compact, have been divorced,
Be sure, to us, who then shall be no more,
Naught can occur or ever make us feel,
Not e'en though earth were blent with sea and sky.

Men in general forget that death, in ending life's pleasures, also
ends the need and the desire for them.

"Soon shall thy home greet thee in joy no more,
Nor faithful wife nor darling children run
To snatch first kiss, and stir within thy heart
Sweet thoughts too deep for words. Thou canst no more
Win wealth by working or defend thine own.
The pity of it! One fell hour," they say,
"Hath robbed thee of thine every prize in life. "
Hereat they add not this: "And now thou art
Beset with yearning for such things no more. "

The dead are to be envied, not lamented. The wise will exclaim: "Thou,
O dead, art free from pain: we who survive are full of tears. "

"What is so passing bitter," we should ask,
"If life be rounded by a rest and sleep,
That one should pine in never-ending grief? "

Universal nature has a rebuke for the coward that is afraid to die.