De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-
- If they be germs primordial furnished forth
- With but same nature as the things themselves,
- And travail and perish equally with those,
- And no rein curbs them from annihilation.
- For which will last against the grip and crush
- Under the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?
- Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?
- No one, methinks, when every thing will be
- At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark
- To perish by force before our gazing eyes.
- But my appeal is to the proofs above
- That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet
- From naught increase. And now again, since food
- Augments and nourishes the human frame,
- 'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones
- And thews are formed of particles unlike
- To them in kind; or if they say all foods
- Are of mixed substance having in themselves
- Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins
- And particles of blood, then every food,
- Solid or liquid, must itself be thought
- As made and mixed of things unlike in kind-
- Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.
- Again, if all the bodies which upgrow
- From earth, are first within the earth, then earth
- Must be compound of alien substances.
- Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.
- Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use
- The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash
- Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood
- Must be compound of alien substances
- Which spring from out the wood.
- Right here remains
- A certain slender means to skulk from truth,
- Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,
- Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all
- While that one only comes to view, of which
- The bodies exceed in number all the rest,
- And lie more close to hand and at the fore-
- A notion banished from true reason far.
- For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains
- Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones,
- Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else
- Which in our human frame is fed; and that
- Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.
- Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops
- Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;
- Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up
- The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,
- All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;
- Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood
- Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.
- But since fact teaches this is not the case,
- 'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things
- Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,
- Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
- "But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,
- "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed
- One against other, smote by the blustering south,
- Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."
- Good sooth- yet fire is not ingraft in wood,
- But many are the seeds of heat, and when
- Rubbing together they together flow,
- They start the conflagrations in the forests.
- Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay
- Stored up within the forests, then the fires
- Could not for any time be kept unseen,
- But would be laying all the wildwood waste
- And burning all the boscage. Now dost see
- (Even as we said a little space above)
- How mightily it matters with what others,
- In what positions these same primal germs
- Are bound together? And what motions, too,
- They give and get among themselves? how, hence,
- The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body
- Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-
- Precisely as these words themselves are made
- By somewhat altering their elements,
- Although we mark with name indeed distinct
- The igneous from the ligneous. Once again,
- If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,
- Among all visible objects, cannot be,
- Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed
- With a like nature,- by thy vain device
- For thee will perish all the germs of things:
- 'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,
- Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
- Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
- Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!
- And for myself, my mind is not deceived
- How dark it is: But the large hope of praise
- Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;
- On the same hour hath strook into my breast
- Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,
- I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,
- Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,
- Trodden by step of none before. I joy
- To come on undefiled fountains there,
- To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,
- To seek for this my head a signal crown
- From regions where the Muses never yet
- Have garlanded the temples of a man:
- First, since I teach concerning mighty things,
- And go right on to loose from round the mind
- The tightened coils of dread religion;
- Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame
- Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout
- Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,
- Is not without a reasonable ground:
- But as physicians, when they seek to give
- Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch
- The brim around the cup with the sweet juice
- And yellow of the honey, in order that
- The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled
- As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down
- The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,
- Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus
- Grow strong again with recreated health:
- So now I too (since this my doctrine seems
- In general somewhat woeful unto those
- Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd
- Starts back from it in horror) have desired
- To expound our doctrine unto thee in song
- Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,
- To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-
- If by such method haply I might hold
- The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,
- Till thou see through the nature of all things,
- And how exists the interwoven frame.
- But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
- Completely solid, hither and thither fly
- Forevermore unconquered through all time,
- Now come, and whether to the sum of them
- There be a limit or be none, for thee
- Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
- To be the wide inane, or room, or space
- Wherein all things soever do go on,
- Let us examine if it finite be
- All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
- And downward an illimitable profound.
- Thus, then, the All that is is limited
- In no one region of its onward paths,
- For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
- And a beyond 'tis seen can never be
- For aught, unless still further on there be
- A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-
- So that the thing be seen still on to where
- The nature of sensation of that thing
- Can follow it no longer. Now because
- Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,
- There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
- It matters nothing where thou post thyself,
- In whatsoever regions of the same;
- Even any place a man has set him down
- Still leaves about him the unbounded all
- Outward in all directions; or, supposing
- A moment the all of space finite to be,
- If some one farthest traveller runs forth
- Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead
- A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think
- It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent
- And shoots afar, or that some object there
- Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other
- Thou must admit and take. Either of which
- Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel
- That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,
- Owning no confines. Since whether there be
- Aught that may block and check it so it comes
- Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,
- Or whether borne along, in either view
- 'Thas started not from any end. And so
- I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set
- The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes
- Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass
- That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that
- The chance for further flight prolongs forever
- The flight itself. Besides, were all the space
- Of the totality and sum shut in
- With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,
- Then would the abundance of world's matter flow
- Together by solid weight from everywhere
- Still downward to the bottom of the world,
- Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,
- Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-
- Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,
- By having settled during infinite time.
- But in reality, repose is given
- Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements,
- Because there is no bottom whereunto
- They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where
- They might take up their undisturbed abodes.
- In endless motion everything goes on
- Forevermore; out of all regions, even
- Out of the pit below, from forth the vast,
- Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.
- The nature of room, the space of the abyss
- Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts
- Can neither speed upon their courses through,
- Gliding across eternal tracts of time,
- Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,
- That they may bate their journeying one whit:
- Such huge abundance spreads for things around-
- Room off to every quarter, without end.
- Lastly, before our very eyes is seen
- Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,
- And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,
- And sea in turn all lands; but for the All
- Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
- That, too, the sum of things itself may not
- Have power to fix a measure of its own,
- Great nature guards, she who compels the void
- To bound all body, as body all the void,
- Thus rendering by these alternates the whole
- An infinite; or else the one or other,
- Being unbounded by the other, spreads,
- Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless
- Immeasurably forth....
- Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,
- Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods
- Could keep their place least portion of an hour:
- For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,
- The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne
- Along the illimitable inane afar,
- Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined
- And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,
- It could not be united. For of truth
- Neither by counsel did the primal germs
- 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,
- Each in its proper place; nor did they make,
- Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;
- But since, being many and changed in many modes
- Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed
- By blow on blow, even from all time of old,
- They thus at last, after attempting all
- The kinds of motion and conjoining, come
- Into those great arrangements out of which
- This sum of things established is create,
- By which, moreover, through the mighty years,
- It is preserved, when once it has been thrown
- Into the proper motions, bringing to pass
- That ever the streams refresh the greedy main
- With river-waves abounding, and that earth,
- Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,
- Renews her broods, and that the lusty race
- Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that
- The gliding fires of ether are alive-
- What still the primal germs nowise could do,
- Unless from out the infinite of space
- Could come supply of matter, whence in season
- They're wont whatever losses to repair.
- For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,
- Losing its body, when deprived of food:
- So all things have to be dissolved as soon
- As matter, diverted by what means soever
- From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.
- Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,
- On every side, whatever sum of a world
- Has been united in a whole. They can
- Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,
- Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;
- But meanwhile often are they forced to spring
- Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,
- Unto those elements whence a world derives,
- Room and a time for flight, permitting them
- To be from off the massy union borne
- Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:
- Needs must there come a many for supply;
- And also, that the blows themselves shall be
- Unfailing ever, must there ever be
- An infinite force of matter all sides round.
- And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
- From yielding faith to that notorious talk:
- That all things inward to the centre press;
- And thus the nature of the world stands firm
- With never blows from outward, nor can be
- Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth
- Have always inward to the centre pressed
- (If thou art ready to believe that aught
- Itself can rest upon itself ); or that
- The ponderous bodies which be under earth
- Do all press upwards and do come to rest
- Upon the earth, in some way upside down,
- Like to those images of things we see
- At present through the waters. They contend,
- With like procedure, that all breathing things
- Head downward roam about, and yet cannot
- Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,
- No more than these our bodies wing away
- Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
- That, when those creatures look upon the sun,
- We view the constellations of the night;
- And that with us the seasons of the sky
- They thus alternately divide, and thus
- Do pass the night coequal to our days,
- But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,
- Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse
- For centre none can be where world is still
- Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,
- Could aught take there a fixed position more
- Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
- For all of room and space we call the void
- Must both through centre and non-centre yield
- Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
- Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,
- Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
- Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
- Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,
- True to its bent of nature, still give way.
- Thus in such manner not at all can things
- Be held in union, as if overcome
- By craving for a centre.
- But besides,
- Seeing they feign that not all bodies press
- To centre inward, rather only those
- Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,
- And the big billows from the mountain slopes,
- And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,
- In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach
- How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,
- Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,
- For this all ether quivers with bright stars,
- And the sun's flame along the blue is fed
- (Because the heat, from out the centre flying,
- All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs
- Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,
- Unless, little by little, from out the earth
- For each were nutriment...
- . . . . . .
- Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,
- The ramparts of the world should flee away,
- Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,
- And lest all else should likewise follow after,
- Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst
- And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith
- Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,
- Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,
- With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,
- Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,
- Away forever, and, that instant, naught
- Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside
- The desolate space, and germs invisible.
- For on whatever side thou deemest first
- The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side
- Will be for things the very door of death:
- Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,
- Out and abroad.
- These points, if thou wilt ponder,
- Then, with but paltry trouble led along...
- . . . . . .
- For one thing after other will grow clear,
- Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,
- To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.
- Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.