Here's a practise essay question for my year 12 extension students, studying madly for their exam next week:
Cum ergo est somno sevocatus animus a societate et a contagione corporis, tum meminit praeteritorum, praesentia cernit, futura providet; iacet enim corpus dormientis ut mortui, viget autem et vivit animus. Quod multo magis faciet post mortem, cum omnino corpore excesserit. Itaque adpropinquante morte multo est divinior. Nam et id ipsum vident, qui sunt morbo gravi et mortifero affecti, instare mortem; itaque iis occurrunt plerumque imagines mortuorum, tumque vel maxime laudi student, eosque, qui secus quam decuit vixerunt, peccatorum suorum tum maxime paenitet.
(Cicero, De Divinatione I.63)
Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore et una
crescere sentimus pariterque senescere mentem.
nam vel ut infirmo pueri teneroque vagantur
corpore, sic animi sequitur sententia tenvis.
inde ubi robustis adolevit viribus aetas,
consilium quoque maius et auctior est animi vis.
post ubi iam validis quassatum est viribus aevi
corpus et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,
claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua labat mens,
omnia deficiunt atque uno tempore desunt.
ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai
naturam, ceu fumus, in altas aëris auras;
quando quidem gigni pariter pariterque videmus
crescere et, ut docui, simul aevo fessa fatisci.
(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, III.445-458)
Compare the arguments on the nature of the soul in each of these passages and analyse the language used to express each view.
2 comments:
about extension...are we suppose to have a copy of Cicero's De Divinatione II 150? Just that jess and i were looking through the syllabus and that was one of the prescribed texts. you wouldn't spring a surprise passage on us would you?
Hereis the Latin text of De Div. II.150. As you can see what you have in your books is an edited version of 148-150, not the whole thing. It is this edited version (from The Thought of Cicero) which is prescribed, not the original Latin text. What you have in your booklet, on page 9, should probably read De Divinatione II 149-150. In short- don't worry.
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