Virgil's Mens Agitat Molem

Virgil · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 5 pages

Five pages devoted to a few lines of Virgil, and the most useful thing about the file is that it prints *the Latin original together with five separate English renderings* — Dryden's verse, three versions by J.D. Casten (a transparent one, a looser one, and a paraphrase, used with the copyright owner's permission), and A.S. Kline's — each listed on its own contents page.

The lines come from Aeneid VI, 724 and following, the passage on the transmigration of souls, at the point where Aeneas finally meets his father in the underworld and Anchises reveals the single order behind things. A headnote regrets that the higher meaning implicit in mens agitat molem has been dulled by the spiritual aridity of the age, and points to fuller treatment in the site's Secret Doctrine study notes on the second and third propositions. Dryden's version conveys the substance: that heaven and earth's compacted frame, the flowing waters, the starry flame and both the radiant lights are inspired, fed and animated by one common soul; that this active mind, infused through all space, unites and mingles with the mighty mass; and that from it men, beasts, birds of the air and monsters of the main all obtain the breath of life. The ethereal vigour is said to be the same in all and every soul filled with equal flame, except so far as earthy limbs and the gross alloy of mortal members blunt the beams of heaven — and from that coarse mixture of terrestrial parts come desire and fear, grief and joy, by turns. Having several translations side by side makes it possible to see which of them carry the philosophical claim and which soften it.

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