Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

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 I

Pour 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.

And to whate'er pursuit

A man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs

On which we theretofore have tarried much,

And mind hath strained upon the more, we seem

In sleep not rarely to go at the same.

The lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees,

Commanders they to fight and go at frays,

Sailors to live in combat with the winds,

And we ourselves indeed to make this book,

And still to seek the nature of the world

And set it down, when once discovered, here

In these my country's leaves. Thus all pursuits,

All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock

And master the minds of men. And whosoever

Day after day for long to games have given

Attention undivided, still they keep

(As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp

Those games with their own senses, open paths

Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films

Of just those games can come. And thus it is

For many a day thereafter those appear

Floating before the eyes, that even awake

They think they view the dancers moving round

Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears

The liquid song of harp and speaking chords,

And view the same assembly on the seats,

And manifold bright glories of the stage—

So great the influence of pursuit and zest,

And of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont

Of men to be engaged-nor only men,

But soothly all the animals. Behold,

Thou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched,

Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever,

And straining utmost strength, as if for prize,

As if, with barriers opened now...

And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose

Yet toss asudden all their legs about,

And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff

The winds again, again, as though indeed

They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts,

And, even when wakened, often they pursue

The phantom images of stags, as though

They did perceive them fleeing on before,