" Yet again, were the Nature of things suddenly to utter
a voice, and thus with her own lips upbraid one of us,
'What ails thee so, O mortal, to let thyself loose in too
feeble grievings? why weep and wail at death? for has
thy past life and overspent been sweet to thee, and not all
the good thereof, as if poured into a pierced vessel, has
run through and joylessly perished, why dost thou not retire
Uke a banqueter filled with Ufe, and calmly, O fool, take thy
peaceful sleep? But if all thou hast had is perished and
spilt, and thy life is hateful, why seekest thou yet to add
more which shall once again all perish and fall joylessly
away? why not rather make an end of life and labour?
for there is nothing more that I can contrive and invent
for thy delight; all things are the same for ever. Even
were thy body not yet withered, nor thy limbs weary and
worn, yet all things remain the same, didst thou go on to
live all the generations down, nay, even more, wert thou
never doomed to die ' — what do we answer? "

It is in passages of which the two hundred lines beginning-



IV.] Lucretius. 49

thus are the noblest instance, passages of profound and
majestic broodings over life and death, that the long rolling
weight of the Lucretian hexameter tells with its full force.
