第40章

Wherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power To hold that these could thus have been create For office of utility.

Likewise, 'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures Seek, even by nature of their frame, their food.

Yes, since I've taught thee that from off the things Stream and depart innumerable bodies In modes innumerable too; but most Must be the bodies streaming from the living-Which bodies, vexed by motion evermore, Are through the mouth exhaled innumerable, When weary creatures pant, or through the sweat Squeezed forth innumerable from deep within.

Thus body rarefies, so undermined In all its nature, and pain attends its state.

And so the food is taken to underprop The tottering joints, and by its interfusion To re-create their powers, and there stop up The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins, For eating.And the moist no less departs Into all regions that demand the moist;And many heaped-up particles of hot, Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours, The liquid on arriving dissipates And quenches like a fire, that parching heat No longer now can scorch the frame.And so, Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away From off our body, how the hunger-pang It, too, appeased.

Now, how it comes that we, Whene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead, And how 'tis given to move our limbs about, And what device is wont to push ahead This the big load of our corporeal frame, I'll say to thee- do thou attend what's said.

I say that first some idol-films of walking Into our mind do fall and smite the mind, As said before.Thereafter will arises;For no one starts to do a thing, before The intellect previsions what it wills;And what it there pre-visioneth depends On what that image is.When, therefore, mind Doth so bestir itself that it doth will To go and step along, it strikes at once That energy of soul that's sown about In all the body through the limbs and frame-And this is easy of performance, since The soul is close conjoined with the mind.

Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.

Then too the body rarefies, and air, Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness, Comes on and penetrates aboundingly Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round Unto all smallest places in our frame.

Thus then by these twain factors, severally, Body is borne like ship with oars and wind.

Nor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder That particles so fine can whirl around So great a body and turn this weight of ours;For wind, so tenuous with its subtle body, Yet pushes, driving on the mighty ship Of mighty bulk; one hand directs the same, Whatever its momentum, and one helm Whirls it around, whither ye please; and loads, Many and huge, are moved and hoisted high By enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels, With but light strain.

Now, by what modes this sleep Pours through our members waters of repose And frees the breast from cares of mind, I'll tell In verses sweeter than they many are;Even as the swan's slight note is better far Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes Among the southwind's aery clouds.Do thou Give me sharp ears and a sagacious mind,-That thou mayst not deny the things to be Whereof I'm speaking, nor depart away With bosom scorning these the spoken truths, Thyself at fault unable to perceive.

Sleep chiefly comes when energy of soul Hath now been scattered through the frame, and part Expelled abroad and gone away, and part Crammed back and settling deep within the frame-Whereafter then our loosened members droop.

For doubt is none that by the work of soul Exist in us this sense, and when by slumber That sense is thwarted, we are bound to think The soul confounded and expelled abroad-Yet not entirely, else the frame would lie Drenched in the everlasting cold of death.

In sooth, where no one part of soul remained Lurking among the members, even as fire Lurks buried under many ashes, whence Could sense amain rekindled be in members, As flame can rise anew from unseen fire?

By what devices this strange state and new May be occasioned, and by what the soul Can be confounded and the frame grow faint, I will untangle: see to it, thou, that IPour forth my words not unto empty winds.

In first place, body on its outer parts-

Since these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts-Must there be thumped and strook by blows of air Repeatedly.And therefore almost all Are covered either with hides, or else with shells, Or with the horny callus, or with bark.

Yet this same air lashes their inner parts, When creatures draw a breath or blow it out.

Wherefore, since body thus is flogged alike Upon the inside and the out, and blows Come in upon us through the little pores Even inward to our body's primal parts And primal elements, there comes to pass By slow degrees, along our members then, A kind of overthrow; for then confounded Are those arrangements of the primal germs Of body and of mind.It comes to pass That next a part of soul's expelled abroad, A part retreateth in recesses hid, A part, too, scattered all about the frame, Cannot become united nor engage In interchange of motion.Nature now So hedges off approaches and the paths;And thus the sense, its motions all deranged, Retires down deep within; and since there's naught, As 'twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens, And all the members languish, and the arms And eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed, Even there the houghs will sag and loose their powers.

Again, sleep follows after food, because The food produces same result as air, Whilst being scattered round through all the veins;And much the heaviest is that slumber which, Full or fatigued, thou takest; since 'tis then That the most bodies disarrange themselves, Bruised by labours hard.And in same wise, This three-fold change: a forcing of the soul Down deeper, more a casting-forth of it, A moving more divided in its parts And scattered more.