De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. Whilst human kind
  2. Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
  3. Before all eyes beneath Religion- who
  4. Would show her head along the region skies,
  5. Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-
  6. A Greek it was who first opposing dared
  7. Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
  8. Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
  9. Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
  10. Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
  11. His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
  12. The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
  13. And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
  14. And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
  15. The flaming ramparts of the world, until
  16. He wandered the unmeasurable All.
  17. Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
  18. What things can rise to being, what cannot,
  19. And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
  20. Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
  21. Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
  22. And us his victory now exalts to heaven.
  1. I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fare
  2. An impious road to realms of thought profane;
  3. But 'tis that same religion oftener far
  4. Hath bred the foul impieties of men:
  5. As once at Aulis, the elected chiefs,
  6. Foremost of heroes, Danaan counsellors,
  7. Defiled Diana's altar, virgin queen,
  8. With Agamemnon's daughter, foully slain.
  9. She felt the chaplet round her maiden locks
  10. And fillets, fluttering down on either cheek,
  11. And at the altar marked her grieving sire,
  12. The priests beside him who concealed the knife,
  13. And all the folk in tears at sight of her.
  14. With a dumb terror and a sinking knee
  15. She dropped; nor might avail her now that first
  16. 'Twas she who gave the king a father's name.
  17. They raised her up, they bore the trembling girl
  18. On to the altar- hither led not now
  19. With solemn rites and hymeneal choir,
  20. But sinless woman, sinfully foredone,
  21. A parent felled her on her bridal day,
  22. Making his child a sacrificial beast
  23. To give the ships auspicious winds for Troy:
  24. Such are the crimes to which Religion leads.