Yet there may come a time when you yourself, Surrendering to the terror-breathing tales Of seers and bards, will seek to abandon us. Ay verily, how many dreams even now May they be forging for you, which might well Overturn your philosophy of life, And trouble all your happiness with fear! And with good cause: for if men could perceive That there was a fixed limit to their sorrows, By some means they would find strength to withstand The hallowed lies and threatenings of these seers. But as it is, men have no means, no power To make a stand, since everlasting seem The penalties that they must fear in death. For none knows what is the nature of the soul, Whether ’tis born, or on the contrary Enters into our bodies at their birth: Whether, when torn from us by death, it perishes Together with us, or thereafter goes To visit Orcus’ glooms and the vast chasms; Or penetrates by ordinance divine Into brutes in man’s stead, as sang our own Ennius, who first from pleasant Helicon Brought down a garland of unfading leaf, Destined among Italian tribes of men To win bright glory. And yet in spite of this Ennius sets forth in immortal verse That none the less there does exist a realm Of Acheron, though neither do our souls Nor bodies penetrate thither, but a kind Of phantom images, pale in wondrous wise: And thence it was, so he relates, that once The ghost of ever-living Homer rose Before him, shedding salt tears, and began To unfold in discourse the nature of things. Therefore not only must we grasp the truth Concerning things on high, what principle Controls the courses of the sun and moon, And by what force all that takes place on earth Is governed, but above all by keen thought We must investigate whereof consists The soul and the mind’s nature, and what it is That comes before us when we wake, if then We are preyed on by disease, or when we lie Buried in sleep, and terrifies our minds, So that we seem face to face to behold And hear those speaking to us who are dead, Whose bones the earth now holds in its embrace. Nor am I unaware how hard my task In Latin verses to set clearly forth The obscure truths discovered by the Greeks, Chiefly because so much will need new terms To deal with it, owing to our poverty Of language, and the novelty of the themes. Nevertheless your worth and the delight Of your sweet friendship, which I hope to win, Prompt me to bear the burden of any toil, And lead me on to watch the calm nights through, Seeking by means of what words and what measures I may attain my end, and shed so clear A light upon your spirit, that thereby Your gaze may search the depths of hidden things.