Folly of the Fear of Death
Therefore death to usIs nothing, nor concerns us in the least,Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.And just as in the ages gone beforeWe felt no touch of ill, when all sides roundTo battle came the Carthaginian host,And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,Under the aery coasts of arching heavenShuddered and trembled, and all humankindDoubted to which the empery should fallBy land and sea, thus when we are no more,When comes that sundering of our body and soulThrough which we’re fashioned to a single state,Verily naught to us, us then no more,Can come to pass, naught move our senses then—No, not if earth confounded were with sea,And sea with heaven. But if indeed do feelThe nature of mind and energy of soul,After their severance from this body of ours,Yet nothing ’tis to us who in the bondsAnd wedlock of the soul and body live,Through which we’re fashioned to a single state.And, even if time collected after deathThe matter of our frames and set it allAgain in place as now, and if againTo us the light of life were given, O yetThat process too would not concern us aught,When once the self-succession of our senseHas been asunder broken. And now and here,Little enough we’re busied with the selvesWe were aforetime, nor, concerning them,Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gazeBackwards across all yesterdays of timeThe immeasurable, thinking how manifoldThe motions of matter are, then couldst thou wellCredit this too: often these very seeds(From which we are to-day) of old were setIn the same order as they are to-day—Yet this we can’t to consciousness recallThrough the remembering mind. For there hath beenAn interposed pause of life, and wideHave all the motions wandered everywhereFrom these our senses. For if woe and ailPerchance are toward, then the man to whomThe bane can happen must himself be thereAt that same time. But death precludeth this,Forbidding life to him on whom might crowdSuch irk and care; and granted ’tis to know:Nothing for us there is to dread in death,No wretchedness for him who is no more,The same estate as if ne’er born before,When death immortal hath ta’en the mortal life.
Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve becauseWhen dead he rots with body laid away,Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,Know well: he rings not true, and that beneathStill works an unseen sting upon his heart,However he deny that he believes.His shall be aught of feeling after death.For he, I fancy, grants not what he says,Nor what that presupposes, and he failsTo pluck himself with all his roots from lifeAnd cast that self away, quite unawaresFeigning that some remainder’s left behind.For when in life one pictures to oneselfHis body dead by beasts and vultures torn,He pities his state, dividing not himselfTherefrom, removing not the self enoughFrom the body flung away, imaginingHimself that body, and projecting thereHis own sense, as he stands beside it: henceHe grieves that he is mortal born, nor marksThat in true death there is no second selfAlive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,Or stand lamenting that the self lies thereMangled or burning. For if it an evil isDead to be jerked about by jaw and fangOf the wild brutes, I see not why ‘twere notBitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,Or suffocate in honey, and, reclinedOn the smooth oblong of an icy slab,Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earthDown-crushing from above.
“Thee now no moreThe joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,Nor little sons run up to snatch their kissesAnd touch with silent happiness thy heart.Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,Nor be the warder of thine own no more.Poor wretch,” they say, “one hostile hour hath ta’enWretchedly from thee all life’s many guerdons,”But add not, “yet no longer unto theeRemains a remnant of desire for them”If this they only well perceived with mindAnd followed up with maxims, they would freeTheir state of man from anguish and from fear.“O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,Released from every harrying pang. But we,We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,Standing beside whilst on the awful pyreThou wert made ashes; and no day shall takeFor us the eternal sorrow from the breast.”But ask the mourner what’s the bitternessThat man should waste in an eternal grief,If, after all, the thing’s but sleep and rest?For when the soul and frame together are sunkIn slumber, no one then demands his selfOr being. Well, this sleep may be forever,Without desire of any selfhood more,For all it matters unto us asleep.Yet not at all do those primordial germsRoam round our members, at that time, afarFrom their own motions that produce our senses—Since, when he’s startled from his sleep, a manCollects his senses. Death is, then, to usMuch less—if there can be a less than thatWhich is itself a nothing: for there comesHard upon death a scattering more greatOf the throng of matter, and no man wakes upOn whom once falls the icy pause of life.
This too, O often from the soul men say,Along their couches holding of the cups,With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:“Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,It may not be recalled.”—As if, forsooth,It were their prime of evils in great deathTo parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,Or chafe for any lack.
Once more, if NatureShould of a sudden send a voice abroad,And her own self inveigh against us so:“Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concernThat thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?For if thy life aforetime and behindTo thee was grateful, and not all thy goodWas heaped as in sieve to flow awayAnd perish unavailingly, why not,Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,Laden with life? why not with mind contentTake now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?But if whatever thou enjoyed hath beenLavished and lost, and life is now offence,Why seekest more to add—which in its turnWill perish foully and fall out in vain?O why not rather make an end of life,Of labour? For all I may devise or findTo pleasure thee is nothing: all things areThe same forever. Though not yet thy bodyWrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhaustsOutworn, still things abide the same, even ifThou goest on to conquer all of timeWith length of days, yea, if thou never diest”—What were our answer, but that Nature hereUrges just suit and in her words lays downTrue cause of action? Yet should one complain,Riper in years and elder, and lament,Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,Then would she not, with greater right, on himCry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:“Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!Thou wrinklest—after thou hast had the sumOf the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest everWhat’s not at hand, contemning present good,That life has slipped away, unperfectedAnd unavailing unto thee. And now,Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy headStands—and before thou canst be going homeSated and laden with the goodly feast.But now yield all that’s alien to thine age,—Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must.”Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus,Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the oldOutcrowded by the new gives way, and everThe one thing from the others is repaired.Nor no man is consigned to the abyssOf Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,That thus the after-generations grow,—Though these, their life completed, follow thee;And thus like thee are generations all—Already fallen, or some time to fall.So one thing from another rises ever;And in fee-simple life is given to none,But unto all mere usufruct.
Look back:Nothing to us was all fore-passed eldOf time the eternal, ere we had a birth.And Nature holds this like a mirror upOf time-to-be when we are dead and gone.And what is there so horrible appears?Now what is there so sad about it all?Is’t not serener far than any sleep?
And, verily, those tortures said to beIn Acheron, the deep, they all are oursHere in this life. No Tantalus, benumbedWith baseless terror, as the fables tell,Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:But, rather, in life an empty dread of GodsUrges mortality, and each one fearsSuch fall of fortune as may chance to him.Nor eat the vultures into TityusProstrate in Acheron, nor can they find,Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aughtTo pry around for in that mighty breast.However hugely he extend his bulk—Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine,But the whole earth—he shall not able beTo bear eternal pain nor furnish foodFrom his own frame forever. But for usA Tityus is he whom vultures rendProstrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,Whom troubles of any unappeased desiresAsunder rip. We have before our eyesHere in this life also a SisyphusIn him who seeketh of the populaceThe rods, the axes fell, and evermoreRetires a beaten and a gloomy man.For to seek after power—an empty name,Nor given at all—and ever in the searchTo endure a world of toil, O this it isTo shove with shoulder up the hill a stoneWhich yet comes rolling back from off the top,And headlong makes for levels of the plain.Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind,Filling with good things, satisfying never—As do the seasons of the year for us,When they return and bring their progeniesAnd varied charms, and we are never filledWith the fruits of life—O this, I fancy, ’tisTo pour, like those young virgins in the tale,Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.
Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light
Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surgeOf horrible heat—the which are nowhere, norIndeed can be: but in this life is fearOf retributions just and expiationsFor evil acts: the dungeon and the leapFrom that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,The executioners, the oaken rack,The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.And even though these are absent, yet the mind,With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goadsAnd burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhileWhat terminus of ills, what end of pineCan ever be, and feareth lest the sameBut grow more heavy after death. Of truth,The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
This also to thy very self sometimesRepeat thou mayst: “Lo, even good Ancus leftThe sunshine with his eyes, in divers thingsA better man than thou, O worthless hind;And many other kings and lords of ruleThereafter have gone under, once who swayedO’er mighty peoples. And he also, he—Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,And gave his legionaries thoroughfareAlong the deep, and taught them how to crossThe pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,Trampling upon it with his cavalry,The bellowings of ocean—poured his soulFrom dying body, as his light was ta’en.And Scipio’s son, the thunderbolt of war,Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth,Like to the lowliest villein in the house.Add finders-out of sciences and arts;Add comrades of the Heliconian dames,Among whom Homer, sceptered o’er them all,Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eldAdmonished him his memory waned away,Of own accord offered his head to death.Even Epicurus went, his light of lifeRun out, the man in genius who o’er-toppedThe human race, extinguishing all others,As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?—For whom already life’s as good as dead,Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?—who in sleepWastest thy life—time’s major part, and snorestEven when awake, and ceasest not to seeThe stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind besetBy baseless terror, nor discoverest oftWhat’s wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch,Thou’rt jostled along by many crowding cares,And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim.”
If men, in that same way as on the mindThey feel the load that wearies with its weight,Could also know the causes whence it comes,And why so great the heap of ill on heart,O not in this sort would they live their life,As now so much we see them, knowing notWhat ’tis they want, and seeking ever and everA change of place, as if to drop the burden.The man who sickens of his home goes out,Forth from his splendid halls, and straight—returns,Feeling i’faith no better off abroad.He races, driving his Gallic ponies along,Down to his villa, madly,—as in hasteTo hurry help to a house afire.—At onceHe yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeksForgetfulness, or maybe bustles aboutAnd makes for town again. In such a wayEach human flees himself—a self in sooth,As happens, he by no means can escape;And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then,Leaving all else, he’d study to divineThe nature of things, since here is in debateEternal time and not the single hour,Mortal’s estate in whatsoever remainsAfter great death.
And too, when all is said,What evil lust of life is this so greatSubdues us to live, so dreadfully distraughtIn perils and alarms? one fixed endOf life abideth for mortality;Death’s not to shun, and we must go to meet.Besides we’re busied with the same devices,Ever and ever, and we are at them ever,And there’s no new delight that may be forgedBy living on. But whilst the thing we long forIs lacking, that seems good above all else;Thereafter, when we’ve touched it, something elseWe long for; ever one equal thirst of lifeGrips us agape. And doubtful ’tis what fortuneThe future times may carry, or what beThat chance may bring, or what the issue nextAwaiting us. Nor by prolonging lifeTake we the least away from death’s own time,Nor can we pluck one moment off, wherebyTo minish the aeons of our state of death.Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfilAs many generations as thou may:Eternal death shall there be waiting still;And he who died with light of yesterdayShall be no briefer time in death’s No-moreThan he who perished months or years before.