"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd; / The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Jacob Tonson
Date
1700, 1717
Metaphor
"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd; / The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost."
Metaphor in Context
Then, Death, so call'd, is but old Matter dress'd
In some new Figure, and a vary'd Vest:
Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies,
By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossest,
And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast;
Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd;
The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost
:
And, as the soften'd Wax new Seals receives,
This Face assumes, and that Impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another Name;
The Form is only chang'd, the Wax is still the same:
So Death, so call'd, can but the Form deface,
Th' immortal Soul flies out in empty space;
To seek her Fortune in some other Place.
(p. 512, cf. p. 821 in OUP)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Over 16 entries in the ESTC (1700, 1701, 1713, 1717, 1721, 1734, 1745, 1752, 1753, 1755, 1771, 1773, 1774, 1776, 1797).

See Fables Ancient and Modern Translated into Verse from Homer, Ovid, Boccace, & Chaucer, with Original Poems, by Mr. Dryden (London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1700). <Link to ESTC><Link to EEBO><Link to EEBO-TCP>

Reading John Dryden, ed. Keith Walker (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987).
Date of Entry
05/26/2014

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.