can be translated into action; in the same way a puff of breath can scatter a heap of poppy seeds, while
corn-ears are too big and spiky (196 ff).
Lucretius now accumulates some thirty arguments to show that the soul cannot survive the body. As it
consists of small atoms of exceptional mobility, when its vessel is shattered it must dissipate like smoke
(425 ff). The mind keeps in step with the body in its birth, development, and decay, as can be seen from
children and old men; therefore it dies with the body (445 ff). The body and mind are affected together
by drunkenness (476 ff.) and epilepsy (487 ff); the fact that the mind can be cured, i.e. changed, by
medicine is itself an indication of its mortality (510 ff). Sufferers from creeping paralysis lose sensation
first in the toes and the feet, 'and then through the other limbs go haltingly the steps of cold death' (529
f.); as the soul cannot be concentrated in the sound part of the body (which does not acquire extra
sensation), it must be mortal. The mind cannot originate in the head or the feet (Lucretius put it in the
breast), but has a fixed place appointed for it where alone it can exist (615 ff.). If the soul is to have
sensation when separated from the body it must be endowed with five senses, as poets and painters have
portrayed the dead in the Underworld; but in isolation from the body it cannot have eyes or nostrils or
hand or tongue or ears (624 ff.). When you cut through a snake, the severed part twitches, and similar
things can be seen in chariot battles (a very Roman illustration); but if the soul can be severed it cannot
be immortal (634 ff.). Plato and others had argued that the soul had a previous existence, but if it has
forgotten its past, that is virtually equivalent to death (670 ff.); for the ancients the notions of pre-
existence and after-life were closely connected, as they reasonably thought it implausible that what is
born should be eternal. The different species of animals inherit temperamental as well as physical
characteristics (741 ff); this shows that the soul and body grow up together. It is ridiculous to suppose
that at the moment of conception immortal souls are queueing up for a body to occupy (776 ff).
Lucretius sums up the conclusion of his argument with an aphorism of Epicurus, 'nil igitur mors est A.D.
nos' (830, 'therefore death is nothing to us'). If anyone takes it amiss that his body will rot in the grave or
be consumed in the pyre, he must have some lingering belief in survival after death. And so to the
mourners' memorable lament, which is meant to sound over-emotional and cliché ridden, even if
humanity seems to break in:
iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta neque uxor
optima, nee dulces occurrent oscula nati
praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent ...(894 ff.)
Now no more will your household greet you joyfully, nor your best of wives, nor will your
dear children race to snatch first kiss and touch your heart with a silent sweetness ...Epicurus had urged a serious and rational enjoyment of the present ('life is whittled away in thinking of
the morrow, and each of us dies before he has time to relax'). His sentiments are here echoed in a
remonstrance from a personified Nature, who speaks with the derisive vigour of popular philosophy