De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- 'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
- Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
- To watch another's labouring anguish far,
- Not that we joyously delight that man
- Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
- To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;
- 'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife
- Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,
- Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught
- There is more goodly than to hold the high
- Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,
- Whence thou may'st look below on other men
- And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed
- In their lone seeking for the road of life;
- Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
- Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil
- For summits of power and mastery of the world.
- O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!
- In how great perils, in what darks of life
- Are spent the human years, however brief!-
- O not to see that nature for herself
- Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,
- Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy
- Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!
- Therefore we see that our corporeal life
- Needs little, altogether, and only such
- As takes the pain away, and can besides
- Strew underneath some number of delights.
- More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves
- No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
- There be no golden images of boys
- Along the halls, with right hands holding out
- The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,
- And if the house doth glitter not with gold
- Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound
- No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
- Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
- Beside a river of water, underneath
- A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh
- Our frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
- If the weather is laughing and the times of the year
- Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.
- Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,
- If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,
- Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie
- Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since
- Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign
- Avail us naught for this our body, thus
- Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:
- Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth
- Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,
- Rousing a mimic warfare- either side
- Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,
- Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;
- Or save when also thou beholdest forth
- Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:
- For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,
- Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then
- The fears of death leave heart so free of care.
- But if we note how all this pomp at last
- Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,
- And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,
- Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords
- But among kings and lords of all the world
- Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed
- By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright
- Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this
- Is aught, but power of thinking?- when, besides
- The whole of life but labours in the dark.
- For just as children tremble and fear all
- In the viewless dark, so even we at times
- Dread in the light so many things that be
- No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
- Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
- This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
- Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
- Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
- But only nature's aspect and her law.
- Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
- Now by what motions the begetting bodies
- Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
- And then forever resolve it when begot,
- And by what force they are constrained to this,
- And what the speed appointed unto them
- Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:
- Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.
- For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,
- Since we behold each thing to wane away,
- And we observe how all flows on and off,
- As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes
- How eld withdraws each object at the end,
- Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,
- Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing
- Diminish what they part from, but endow
- With increase those to which in turn they come,
- Constraining these to wither in old age,
- And those to flower at the prime (and yet
- Biding not long among them). Thus the sum
- Forever is replenished, and we live
- As mortals by eternal give and take.
- The nations wax, the nations wane away;
- In a brief space the generations pass,
- And like to runners hand the lamp of life
- One unto other.
- But if thou believe
- That the primordial germs of things can stop,
- And in their stopping give new motions birth,
- Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.
- For since they wander through the void inane,
- All the primordial germs of things must needs
- Be borne along, either by weight their own,
- Or haply by another's blow without.
- For, when, in their incessancy so oft
- They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain
- They leap asunder, face to face: not strange-
- Being most hard, and solid in their weights,
- And naught opposing motion, from behind.
- And that more clearly thou perceive how all
- These mites of matter are darted round about,
- Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum
- Of All exists a bottom,- nowhere is
- A realm of rest for primal bodies; since
- (As amply shown and proved by reason sure)
- Space has no bound nor measure, and extends
- Unmetered forth in all directions round.
- Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt
- No rest is rendered to the primal bodies
- Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,
- Inveterately plied by motions mixed,
- Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave
- Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow
- Are hurried about with spaces small between.
- And all which, brought together with slight gaps,
- In more condensed union bound aback,
- Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-
- These form the irrefragable roots of rocks
- And the brute bulks of iron, and what else
- Is of their kind...
- The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,
- Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply
- For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.
- And many besides wander the mighty void-
- Cast back from unions of existing things,
- Nowhere accepted in the universe,
- And nowise linked in motions to the rest.
- And of this fact (as I record it here)
- An image, a type goes on before our eyes
- Present each moment; for behold whenever
- The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down
- Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see
- The many mites in many a manner mixed
- Amid a void in the very light of the rays,
- And battling on, as in eternal strife,
- And in battalions contending without halt,
- In meetings, partings, harried up and down.
- From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort
- The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds
- Amid the mightier void- at least so far
- As small affair can for a vaster serve,
- And by example put thee on the spoor
- Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit
- Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies
- Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:
- Namely, because such tumblings are a sign
- That motions also of the primal stuff
- Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.
- For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled
- By viewless blows, to change its little course,
- And beaten backwards to return again,
- Hither and thither in all directions round.
- Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,
- From the primeval atoms; for the same
- Primordial seeds of things first move of self,
- And then those bodies built of unions small
- And nearest, as it were, unto the powers
- Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up
- By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,
- And these thereafter goad the next in size:
- Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,
- And stage by stage emerges to our sense,
- Until those objects also move which we
- Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears
- What blows do urge them.
- Now what the speed to matter's atoms given
- Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:
- When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light
- The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad
- Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes
- Filling the regions along the mellow air,
- We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man
- How suddenly the risen sun is wont
- At such an hour to overspread and clothe
- The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's
- Warm exhalations and this serene light
- Travel not down an empty void; and thus
- They are compelled more slowly to advance,
- Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;
- Nor one by one travel these particles
- Of the warm exhalations, but are all
- Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once
- Each is restrained by each, and from without
- Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.
- But the primordial atoms with their old
- Simple solidity, when forth they travel
- Along the empty void, all undelayed
- By aught outside them there, and they, each one
- Being one unit from nature of its parts,
- Are borne to that one place on which they strive
- Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,
- Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne
- Than light of sun, and over regions rush,
- Of space much vaster, in the self-same time
- The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.
- . . . . . .
- Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,
- To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
- But some men, ignorant of matter, think,
- Opposing this, that not without the gods,
- In such adjustment to our human ways,
- Can nature change the seasons of the years,
- And bring to birth the grains and all of else
- To which divine Delight, the guide of life,
- Persuades mortality and leads it on,
- That, through her artful blandishments of love,
- It propagate the generations still,
- Lest humankind should perish. When they feign
- That gods have stablished all things but for man,
- They seem in all ways mightily to lapse
- From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew
- What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare
- This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based
- Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-
- This to maintain by many a fact besides-
- That in no wise the nature of the world
- For us was builded by a power divine-
- So great the faults it stands encumbered with:
- The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee
- We will clear up. Now as to what remains
- Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.
- Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs
- To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal
- Of its own force can e'er be upward borne,
- Or upward go- nor let the bodies of flames
- Deceive thee here: for they engendered are
- With urge to upwards, taking thus increase,
- Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,
- Though all the weight within them downward bears.
- Nor, when the fires will leap from under round
- The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up
- Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed
- They act of own accord, no force beneath
- To urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged
- From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft
- And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked
- With what a force the water will disgorge
- Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,
- We push them in, and, many though we be,
- The more we press with main and toil, the more
- The water vomits up and flings them back,
- That, more than half their length, they there emerge,
- Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,
- That all the weight within them downward bears
- Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames
- Ought also to be able, when pressed out,
- Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though
- The weight within them strive to draw them down.
- Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,
- The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,
- How after them they draw long trails of flame
- Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?
- How stars and constellations drop to earth,
- Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven
- Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,
- And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:
- Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.
- Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;
- Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,
- The fires dash zig-zag- and that flaming power
- Falls likewise down to earth.
- In these affairs
- We wish thee also well aware of this:
- The atoms, as their own weight bears them down
- Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,
- In scarce determined places, from their course
- Decline a little- call it, so to speak,
- Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont
- Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,
- Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;
- And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows
- Among the primal elements; and thus
- Nature would never have created aught.
- But, if perchance be any that believe
- The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne
- Plumb down the void, are able from above
- To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows
- Able to cause those procreant motions, far
- From highways of true reason they retire.
- For whatsoever through the waters fall,
- Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,
- Each after its weight- on this account, because
- Both bulk of water and the subtle air
- By no means can retard each thing alike,
- But give more quick before the heavier weight;
- But contrariwise the empty void cannot,
- On any side, at any time, to aught
- Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,
- True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,
- With equal speed, though equal not in weight,
- Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.
- Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above
- Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes
- Which cause those divers motions, by whose means
- Nature transacts her work. And so I say,
- The atoms must a little swerve at times-
- But only the least, lest we should seem to feign
- Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.
- For this we see forthwith is manifest:
- Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,
- Down on its headlong journey from above,
- At least so far as thou canst mark; but who
- Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve
- At all aside from off its road's straight line?
- Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,
- And from the old ever arise the new
- In fixed order, and primordial seeds
- Produce not by their swerving some new start
- Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,
- That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,
- Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,
- Whence is it wrested from the fates,- this will
- Whereby we step right forward where desire
- Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve
- In motions, not as at some fixed time,
- Nor at some fixed line of space, but where
- The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt
- In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself
- That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs
- Incipient motions are diffused. Again,
- Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,
- The bars are opened, how the eager strength
- Of horses cannot forward break as soon
- As pants their mind to do? For it behooves
- That all the stock of matter, through the frame,
- Be roused, in order that, through every joint,
- Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;
- So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered
- From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds
- First from the spirit's will, whence at the last
- 'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.
- Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,
- Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers
- And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough
- All matter of our total body goes,
- Hurried along, against our own desire-
- Until the will has pulled upon the reins
- And checked it back, throughout our members all;
- At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes
- The stock of matter's forced to change its path,
- Throughout our members and throughout our joints,
- And, after being forward cast, to be
- Reined up, whereat it settles back again.
- So seest thou not, how, though external force
- Drive men before, and often make them move,
- Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,
- Yet is there something in these breasts of ours
- Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?-
- Wherefore no less within the primal seeds
- Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,
- Some other cause of motion, whence derives
- This power in us inborn, of some free act.-
- Since naught from nothing can become, we see.
- For weight prevents all things should come to pass
- Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;
- But that man's mind itself in all it does
- Hath not a fixed necessity within,
- Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled
- To bear and suffer,- this state comes to man
- From that slight swervement of the elements
- In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.
- Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,
- Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:
- For naught gives increase and naught takes away;
- On which account, just as they move to-day,
- The elemental bodies moved of old
- And shall the same hereafter evermore.
- And what was wont to be begot of old
- Shall be begotten under selfsame terms
- And grow and thrive in power, so far as given
- To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.
- The sum of things there is no power can change,
- For naught exists outside, to which can flee
- Out of the world matter of any kind,
- Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,
- Break in upon the founded world, and change
- Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.