1 For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,

“Short and sorrowful is our life,

and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,

and no one has been known to return from Hades.

2 Because we were born by mere chance,

and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;

because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,

and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.