FullReads

The music below ceases, and EMPEDOCLES speaks, accompanying
himself in a solemn manner on his harp.

The out-spread world to span
A cord the Gods first slung,
And then the soul of man
There, like a mirror, hung,
And bade the winds through space impel the gusty toy

Hither and thither spins
The wind-borne, mirroring soul,
A thousand glimpses wins,
And never sees a whole;
Looks once, and drives elsewhere, and leaves its last employ.

The Gods laugh in their sleeve
To watch man doubt and fear,
Who knows not what to believe
Since he sees nothing clear,
And dares stamp nothing false where he finds nothing sure.

Is this, Pausanias, so?
And can our souls not strive,
But with the winds must go,
And hurry where they drive?
Is fate indeed so strong, man’s strength indeed so poor?

I will not judge. That man,
Howbeit, I judge as lost,
Whose mind allows a plan,
Which would degrade it most;
And he treats doubt the best who tries to see least ill.

Be not, then, fear’s blind slave!
Thou art my friend; to thee,
All knowledge that I have,
All skill I wield, are free.
Ask not the latest news of the last miracle,
Ask not what days and nights
In trance Pantheia lay,
But ask how thou such sights
May’st see without dismay;
Ask what most helps when known, thou son of Anchitus!

What? hate, and awe, and shame
Fill thee to see our time;
Thou feelest thy soul’s frame
Shaken and out of chime?
What? life and chance go hard with thee too, as with us;

Thy citizens, ’tis said,
Envy thee and oppress,
Thy goodness no men aid,
All strive to make it less;
Tyranny, pride, and lust, fill Sicily’s abodes;

Heaven is with earth at strife,
Signs make thy soul afraid,
The dead return to life,
Rivers are dried, winds stay’d;
Scarce can one think in calm, so threatening are the Gods;

And we feel, day and night,
The burden of ourselves–
Well, then, the wiser wight
In his own bosom delves,
And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he can.

The sophist sneers: Fool, take
Thy pleasure, right or wrong.
The pious wail: Forsake
A world these sophists throng.
Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man!

These hundred doctors try
To preach thee to their school.
We have the truth! they cry;
And yet their oracle,
Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine.

Once read thy own breast right,
And thou hast done with fears;
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine!

What makes thee struggle and rave?
Why are men ill at ease?–
‘Tis that the lot they have
Fails their own will to please;
For man would make no murmuring, were his will obey’d.

And why is it, that still
Man with his lot thus fights?–
‘Tis that he makes this will
The measure of his rights,
And believes Nature outraged if his will’s gainsaid.

Couldst thou, Pausanias, learn
How deep a fault is this;
Couldst thou but once discern
Thou hast no right to bliss,
No title from the Gods to welfare and repose;

Then thou wouldst look less mazed
Whene’er of bliss debarr’d,
Nor think the Gods were crazed
When thy own lot went hard.
But we are all the same–the fools of our own woes!

For, from the first faint morn
Of life, the thirst for bliss
Deep in man’s heart is born;
And, sceptic as he is,
He fails not to judge clear if this be quench’d or no.