Coaxing and Seducing

Richard Jenkyns

  • Lucretius: ‘On the Nature of the Universe’ translated by Ronald Melville
    Oxford, 275 pp, £45.00, November 1998, ISBN 0 19 815097 0

Lucretius is unique among the great poets of the world – and he ranks with the greatest – in having failed completely in his central purpose not only in his own time but ever since. For he is an evangelist, and his aim is to save us; unmistakably, he is a man who has been through a conversion experience, and he now wants to convert us, too. If we will only accept the truth of the philosophy of Epicurus, and live in accordance with its precepts, we shall be freed from the fear of death – indeed, death will become a matter of indifference to us – and enjoy a life worthy of the gods.

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