Toward a New Interlinear Gloss of De Rerum Natura

Quote from JJElbert

I love Rolfe Humphries' translation, in spite of his liberties, and Charlton Griffin has become the voice of Lucretius in English for me. His delivery has a sticking power and many of the lines from that audiobook occur to me as I go through life.

I feel exactly the same way. At times I think that Rolfe Humphries' choice of "The Way Things Are" for the title, and some of Griffin's delivery, are a little too overbearing for the material, but as the years go by I do think "The Way Things Are" reflects an accurate tone. Never condescending and always compassionate, but firmly and forcefully explaining that no matter how much we might wish things to be different, this indeed is the way things are.

Quote from JJElbert

Personally the most jarring thing for me was the way she referenced famous lines by prominent English poets.

If I remember correctly, the lines she quotes have their origin in Lucretius.

(I should say, a lot of the lines had their origin in Lucretius.)

Definitely looks better than spreadsheet format.

Joshua could you attach a raw Latex file so we can see what editing such a file looks like?

Thanks for all that info! I see that Arch (the linux distro I use) has Lyx and Kile available, so I am thinking those would allow editing/viewing too?

If you could email me a test file at cassius@epicureanfriends.com I'll see if those work.

Oh yes that looks very nice

Yep kile is definitely looking for epex and I will look for that next.

Looks sweet! But a monumental task you've set for yourself!

You raise an interesting question about ζωή vs βίος.

It appears entire theses have been written on that very question! Ex...

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/226161443.pdf

An Examination of “Life” in Aristotle Concerning the Distinction Between βίος (Bios) and ζωή (Zoe)

See also

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, βίος

βίος .life, i. e. not animal life (ζωή), but mode of life.

It seems that βίος is more the mode of life, the way of living; ζωή is more the substance of life, the physical processes of life. I can't see this in the references to this in Menoikeus:

124. ὅθεν γνῶσις ὀρθὴ τοῦ μηθὲν εἶναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸν θάνατον ἀπολαυστὸν ποιεῖ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς θνητόν.

So, correct understanding is that death is nothing for us, and this is what makes the mortality of life enjoyable.

126.

Ὀ δὲ παραγγέλλων τὸν μὲν νέον καλῶς ζῆν, τὸν δὲ γέροντα καλῶς καταστρέφειν εὐήθης ἐστὶν οὐ μόνον διὰ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς ἀσπαστόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι μελέτην τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν καὶ τοῦ καλῶς ἀποθνήσκειν.

So, the one who exhorts, on the one hand, for the one who is young to live nobly; and, on the other hand, the one who is old to come to an end nobly is a good-hearted simpleton not only because life is to be welcomed but also because the practice of living well, nobly, and beautifully and the practice of dying well, nobly, and beautifully are the same.

Now... Having said all that....I realize I'm not sure if that's helpful at all to you, Joshua Feel free to let me know!!

OH!! The passage is from Menoikeus!! Egads! I feel dense!

Here's my translation, first:

For the sake of this, we do everything in order to neither be in bodily or mental pain nor to be in fear or dread; and so, when once this has come into being around us, it sets free all of the calamity, distress, and suffering of the mind, seeing that the living being has no need to go in search of something that is lacking for the good of our mental and physical existence.

Here's my commentary on that word in 128e.

τοῦ ζῴου "the living being" genitive singular of ζῷον, the word we met way back in 123b in Epicurus's discussion of the gods. "A god" was described as a ζῷον. So, are we to take the word in 123b as "living being" there as the word implies here in 128b? Or is the ambiguous nature of the word still at play in the description of a god? The debate continues.

The ambiguous nature of the word is:

τὸν θεὸν ζῷον "a god (is a) ζῷον. But what is a ζῷον?

ζῷον (zōon) is where English zoology comes from.

LSJ gives two primary definitions:

living being, animal

in art, figure, image, not necessarily of animals (or a sign of the Zodiac)

So, unfortunately, at this point in the Letter we can't necessarily resolve the question of what the nature of the gods (or of a god) is according to Epicurus. Some scholars think Epicurus believed the gods were material beings ("living being, animal") somehow living between the various world-systems (cosmos) in the universe. Some think Epicurus believed the gods were mental representations or personifications of the concepts ("figure, image, sign") of blessedness.

I think another interesting way to look at this is using the title of one of Epicurus's books in that list of Diogenes Laertius:

Περὶ βίων δ᾽

On Modes of Living, in 4 books

Those was a book on the ways to make living a opposed to the physical process of living itself.

I get the idea that living is living for Epicurus, in using ζωή since he can use it for humans and gods.

Diogenes uses ζωή here:

[74] "And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. [On the contrary, in the twelfth book "On Nature" he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes different from these. They do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the things we see. [And the same holds good for their nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think it happens upon the earth also.]

And here in 34:

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being παν ζωον, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined; and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words.53So much, then, for his division54 and criterion in their main outline.

Quote from Joshua

It's clear that Epicurus makes no distinction between lower animals and humans in this paragraph--both are equally motivated to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. In fact, the reference to fear in the preceding sentence really seems to drive home the point; it is humans and gods even more than animals that are under discussion.

Agreed. Living being means living being. All living beings.

Maybe helpful?

In Perseus:

animans † part sg pres masc nom of animo

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, ănĭmo

Quote

b. Subst., any living, animate being; an animal (orig. in a wider sense than animal, since it included men, animals, and plants; but usu., like that word, for animals in opp. to men.