Death then is nothing to us, nor one jot Does it concern us, since the nature of mind Is thus proved mortal. And as in times long past We felt no unhappiness when from every side Gathering for conflict came the Punic hosts, And all that was beneath the height of heaven, Shaken by the tumult and dismay of war, Shuddered and quaked, and mortals were in doubt To whose empire all human things would fall By land and sea, so when we are no more, When body and soul, whereof we were composed Into one being shall have been divorced, ’Tis plain nothing whatever shall have power To trouble us, who then shall be no more, Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky. And even though the powers of mind and soul After they have been severed from the body Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing, Who by the binding marriage tie between Body and soul are formed into one being. Nor if Time should collect our scattered atoms After our death, and should restore them back To where they now are placed, and if once more The light of light were given us, not even that Would in the least concern us, once the chain Of self-awareness had been snapped asunder. So too now what we may have been before Concerns us not, nor causes us distress. For when you look back on the whole past course Of infinite time, and think how manifold Must be the modes of matter’s flux, then easily May you believe this too, that these same atoms Of which we now are formed, have often before Been placed in the same order as they are now. Yet this can no remembrance bring us back. For a break in life has since been interposed, And all our atoms wandering dispersed Have strayed far from that former consciousness. For if a man be destined to endure Misery and suffering, he must first exist In his own person at that very time When evil should befall him. But since death Precludes this, and forbids him to exist Who was to endure distress, we may be sure That in death there is nothing we need dread, That he who exists not cannot become miserable, And that it makes no difference at all Whether he shall already have been born In some past time, when once he has been robbed By death that dies not of his life that dies.