Lucretius III 445-486

449: viribus: the vis is that of the aetas, and hence that of the growing young person. The vis of youth is a strengthening force, in contrast to the vis aevi in the following line, which is a weakening force.   

451: validis viribus (aevi): "by the mighty forces (of old age)," ablative of means. Aevi < aevum, -i (n.) here in the sense of "old age," as the context makes clear.   

452: obtusis viribus ablative absolute; "with (their [that of the corpus and artus]) power blunted."   

455: (animai) naturam: here, roughly equivalent to "life," and subject of dissolui in indirect discourse authorized by the impersonal convenit (for impersonal convenit in this book see also lines 56 and 462).   

458: fessa modifies an understood natura animai (= anima), which is extracted from animai /naturam in lines 455-456. The pariter pariterque (line 457), echoing pariter ... pariterque (lines 445-6), immediately calls this plural notion of mind and body to the reader's mind.   

 459-525: Sickness, wine, seizures, and medicine all affect the mind and body together. 

459: accedit is impersonal with the passive sense "it is added" or "it is supported/increased" see accedo, a sense that grows naturally out of this verb's impersonal meaning "happen" or "befall." Huc "to this (argument)." Lucretius is fond of the phrase huc accidit (roughly, "and this supports my argument, namely that..."), a phrase that here authorizes a substantive clause of result, uti videamus etc., which serves as the apparent subject of the impersonal verb. The main verb of the result clause, videamus, in turn authorizes indirect discourse with suscipere (460). Ut is parallel to sic (461).     

The sentence architecture for 459-461 can be pictured, as well as the parallelism in the indirect discourse:  

    ut   

corpus ipsum  

suscipere inmanis morbos durumque dolorem  

   sic   

animum   

[suscipere] curas acris luctumque metumque   

462: participem (< particeps) is here a substantive in the predicate, with corpus understood as subject of esse. Convenit: impersonal construction as in lines 56, 455.  

463: dementit enim deliraque fatur "[a person] is out of his mind and says crazy things." The subject is clearly no longer animus, but the sense guides the reader naturally to understand that Lucretius is now talking about the victim of the disease.   

466: oculis nutuque cadenti: cadenti must be taken with both oculis and nutu "with eyes tottering and tottering nod."   

468: potis est is an alternative for potest.   

470: fateare necessest "it is necessary that you admit;" necessest is often used with the simple subjunctive (as well as accusative and infinitive; and ut and subjunctive), and Lucretius uses this phrase ten times in the work, almost always at the end of the line. Cf. 578, 677, 766.  

472: uterquest = uterque est; MSS of Lucretius frequently write out prodelision as it is pronounced. Uterque "each" separates dolor and morbus as two individual and independent subjects of est, hence the use of the singular verb.   

473: perdocti quod sumus ante: quod refers to the preceding idea (i.e., that pain and disease are fashioners of death), and is a retained accusative with the passive verb perdocti sumus.   

474-475 are found in the MSS, but do not make sense. They are printed in square brackets here to preserve the conventional numbering of lines in the text.   

476: cor = cur  

479: vacillanti: dative of disadvantage.   

480: clamor singultus iurgia are the subjects (in asyndeton) of gliscunt.   

481: quae cumque = quaecumque (< quicumque), which is often written as two separate words, and is here modified by cetera. Secuntur = sequuntur.   

484: inque pediri = et impediri, the verb being in tmesis. Queunt one might expect queant, for the subject (quae cumque) is indefinite, but the indicative adds a vividness to the argument, and the construction is thus closer to "all the things that are able ..." than to "anything that is able …."   

485-486: insinuarit = insinuaverit (perf. act. subj. 3rd. sg.). Again, the construction is vivid; insinuarit ... fore is a future more vivid condition (with the perfect subjunctive in the protasis emphasizing completed aspect), and so approaches "as soon as a slightly harder cause has made its way in...". Fore = futurum esse (as often), with the substantive clause of result ut pereant aevo privata futuro as the notional subject of the impersonal verb.