ignoratur enim quae sit natura animai, nata sit an contra nascentibus insinuetur, et simul intereat nobiscum morte dirempta, an tenebras Orci visat vastasque lacunas, an pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se, Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret; etsi praeterea tamen esse Acherusia templa Ennius aeternis exponit versibus edens, quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra, sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris; unde sibi exortam semper florentis Homeri commemorat speciem lacrimas effundere salsas coepisse et rerum naturam expandere dictis.
For there is ignorance what is the nature of the soul, whether it be born or on the contrary find its way into men at birth, and whether it perish together with us when broken up by death, or whether it visit the gloom of Orcus and his vasty chasms, or by divine ordinance find its way into animals in our stead, as our own Ennius sang, who first brought down from pleasant Helicon a chaplet of evergreen leafage to win a glorious name through the nations of Italian men; although nevertheless he also sets forth in everlasting verses that there exist regions of Acheron, which neither our spirits nor our bodies endure to reach, but certain similitudes of them pallid in wondrous wise; whence he avers that the likeness of ever deathless Homer issued forth, and began to shed salt tears and to unfold the nature of things.
final_alignments\Lucretius_De_Rerum_Natura_Book1.json