De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged
- Immortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure
- In vital forces- either because there come
- Never at all things hostile to its weal,
- Or else because what come somehow retire,
- Repelled or ere we feel the harm they work,
- . . . . . .
- For, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased,
- Soul sickens too, there cometh, many a time,
- That which torments it with the things to be,
- Keeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares;
- And even when evil acts are of the past,
- Still gnaw the old transgressions bitterly.
- Add, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind,
- And that oblivion of the things that were;
- Add its submergence in the murky waves
- Of drowse and torpor.
- Therefore death to us
- Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least,
- Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
- And just as in the ages gone before
- We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round
- To battle came the Carthaginian host,
- And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,
- Under the aery coasts of arching heaven
- Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind
- Doubted to which the empery should fall
- By land and sea, thus when we are no more,
- When comes that sundering of our body and soul
- Through which we're fashioned to a single state,
- Verily naught to us, us then no more,
- Can come to pass, naught move our senses then-
- No, not if earth confounded were with sea,
- And sea with heaven. But if indeed do feel
- The nature of mind and energy of soul,
- After their severance from this body of ours,
- Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds
- And wedlock of the soul and body live,
- Through which we're fashioned to a single state.
- And, even if time collected after death
- The matter of our frames and set it all
- Again in place as now, and if again
- To us the light of life were given, O yet
- That process too would not concern us aught,
- When once the self-succession of our sense
- Has been asunder broken. And now and here,
- Little enough we're busied with the selves
- We were aforetime, nor, concerning them,
- Suffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gaze
- Backwards across all yesterdays of time
- The immeasurable, thinking how manifold
- The motions of matter are, then couldst thou well
- Credit this too: often these very seeds
- (From which we are to-day) of old were set
- In the same order as they are to-day-
- Yet this we can't to consciousness recall
- Through the remembering mind. For there hath been
- An interposed pause of life, and wide
- Have all the motions wandered everywhere
- From these our senses. For if woe and ail
- Perchance are toward, then the man to whom
- The bane can happen must himself be there
- At that same time. But death precludeth this,
- Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd
- Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know:
- Nothing for us there is to dread in death,
- No wretchedness for him who is no more,
- The same estate as if ne'er born before,
- When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.
- Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because
- When dead he rots with body laid away,
- Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,
- Know well: he rings not true, and that beneath
- Still works an unseen sting upon his heart,
- However he deny that he believes.
- His shall be aught of feeling after death.
- For he, I fancy, grants not what he says,
- Nor what that presupposes, and he fails
- To pluck himself with all his roots from life
- And cast that self away, quite unawares
- Feigning that some remainder's left behind.
- For when in life one pictures to oneself
- His body dead by beasts and vultures torn,
- He pities his state, dividing not himself
- Therefrom, removing not the self enough
- From the body flung away, imagining
- Himself that body, and projecting there
- His own sense, as he stands beside it: hence
- He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks
- That in true death there is no second self
- Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,
- Or stand lamenting that the self lies there
- Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is
- Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang
- Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not
- Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,
- Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined
- On the smooth oblong of an icy slab,
- Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth
- Down-crushing from above.
- "Thee now no more
- The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,
- Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses
- And touch with silent happiness thy heart.
- Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,
- Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
- Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en
- Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"
- But add not, "yet no longer unto thee
- Remains a remnant of desire for them"
- If this they only well perceived with mind
- And followed up with maxims, they would free
- Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
- "O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,
- So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,
- Released from every harrying pang. But we,
- We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,
- Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre
- Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take
- For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
- But ask the mourner what's the bitterness
- That man should waste in an eternal grief,
- If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
- For when the soul and frame together are sunk
- In slumber, no one then demands his self
- Or being. Well, this sleep may be forever,
- Without desire of any selfhood more,
- For all it matters unto us asleep.
- Yet not at all do those primordial germs
- Roam round our members, at that time, afar
- From their own motions that produce our senses-
- Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man
- Collects his senses. Death is, then, to us
- Much less- if there can be a less than that
- Which is itself a nothing: for there comes
- Hard upon death a scattering more great
- Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up
- On whom once falls the icy pause of life.
- This too, O often from the soul men say,
- Along their couches holding of the cups,
- With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:
- "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,
- Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,
- It may not be recalled."- As if, forsooth,
- It were their prime of evils in great death
- To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,
- Or chafe for any lack.
- Once more, if Nature
- Should of a sudden send a voice abroad,
- And her own self inveigh against us so:
- "Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern
- That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
- Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
- For if thy life aforetime and behind
- To thee was grateful, and not all thy good
- Was heaped as in sieve to flow away
- And perish unavailingly, why not,
- Even like a banqueter, depart the halls,
- Laden with life? why not with mind content
- Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?
- But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been
- Lavished and lost, and life is now offence,
- Why seekest more to add- which in its turn
- Will perish foully and fall out in vain?
- O why not rather make an end of life,
- Of labour? For all I may devise or find
- To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are
- The same forever. Though not yet thy body
- Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts
- Outworn, still things abide the same, even if
- Thou goest on to conquer all of time
- With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-
- What were our answer, but that Nature here
- Urges just suit and in her words lays down
- True cause of action? Yet should one complain,
- Riper in years and elder, and lament,
- Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,
- Then would she not, with greater right, on him
- Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:
- "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!
- Thou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum
- Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever
- What's not at hand, contemning present good,
- That life has slipped away, unperfected
- And unavailing unto thee. And now,
- Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head
- Stands- and before thou canst be going home
- Sated and laden with the goodly feast.
- But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-
- Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must."
- Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus,
- Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old
- Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever
- The one thing from the others is repaired.
- Nor no man is consigned to the abyss
- Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,
- That thus the after-generations grow,-
- Though these, their life completed, follow thee;
- And thus like thee are generations all-
- Already fallen, or some time to fall.
- So one thing from another rises ever;
- And in fee-simple life is given to none,
- But unto all mere usufruct.
- Look back:
- Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld
- Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.
- And Nature holds this like a mirror up
- Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.
- And what is there so horrible appears?
- Now what is there so sad about it all?
- Is't not serener far than any sleep?
- And, verily, those tortures said to be
- In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours
- Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed
- With baseless terror, as the fables tell,
- Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:
- But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods
- Urges mortality, and each one fears
- Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.
- Nor eat the vultures into Tityus
- Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find,
- Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught
- To pry around for in that mighty breast.
- However hugely he extend his bulk-
- Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine,
- But the whole earth- he shall not able be
- To bear eternal pain nor furnish food
- From his own frame forever. But for us
- A Tityus is he whom vultures rend
- Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,
- Whom troubles of any unappeased desires
- Asunder rip. We have before our eyes
- Here in this life also a Sisyphus
- In him who seeketh of the populace
- The rods, the axes fell, and evermore
- Retires a beaten and a gloomy man.
- For to seek after power- an empty name,
- Nor given at all- and ever in the search
- To endure a world of toil, O this it is
- To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone
- Which yet comes rolling back from off the top,
- And headlong makes for levels of the plain.
- Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind,
- Filling with good things, satisfying never-
- As do the seasons of the year for us,
- When they return and bring their progenies
- And varied charms, and we are never filled
- With the fruits of life- O this, I fancy, 'tis
- To pour, like those young virgins in the tale,
- Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.
- . . . . . .
- Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light
- . . . . . .
- Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
- Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
- Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
- Of retributions just and expiations
- For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap
- From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,
- The executioners, the oaken rack,
- The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
- And even though these are absent, yet the mind,
- With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads
- And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile
- What terminus of ills, what end of pine
- Can ever be, and feareth lest the same
- But grow more heavy after death. Of truth,
- The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
- This also to thy very self sometimes
- Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left
- The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things
- A better man than thou, O worthless hind;
- And many other kings and lords of rule
- Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed
- O'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-
- Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,
- And gave his legionaries thoroughfare
- Along the deep, and taught them how to cross
- The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,
- Trampling upon it with his cavalry,
- The bellowings of ocean- poured his soul
- From dying body, as his light was ta'en.
- And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war,
- Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth,
- Like to the lowliest villein in the house.
- Add finders-out of sciences and arts;
- Add comrades of the Heliconian dames,
- Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all,
- Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.
- Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld
- Admonished him his memory waned away,
- Of own accord offered his head to death.
- Even Epicurus went, his light of life
- Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped
- The human race, extinguishing all others,
- As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.
- Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-
- For whom already life's as good as dead,
- Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?- who in sleep
- Wastest thy life- time's major part, and snorest
- Even when awake, and ceasest not to see
- The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset
- By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft
- What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch,
- Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares,
- And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."
- If men, in that same way as on the mind
- They feel the load that wearies with its weight,
- Could also know the causes whence it comes,
- And why so great the heap of ill on heart,
- O not in this sort would they live their life,
- As now so much we see them, knowing not
- What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever
- A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
- The man who sickens of his home goes out,
- Forth from his splendid halls, and straight- returns,
- Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.
- He races, driving his Gallic ponies along,
- Down to his villa, madly,- as in haste
- To hurry help to a house afire.- At once
- He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,
- Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks
- Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about
- And makes for town again. In such a way
- Each human flees himself- a self in sooth,
- As happens, he by no means can escape;
- And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,
- Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.
- Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then,
- Leaving all else, he'd study to divine
- The nature of things, since here is in debate
- Eternal time and not the single hour,
- Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains
- After great death.
- And too, when all is said,
- What evil lust of life is this so great
- Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught
- In perils and alarms? one fixed end
- Of life abideth for mortality;
- Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet.
- Besides we're busied with the same devices,
- Ever and ever, and we are at them ever,
- And there's no new delight that may be forged
- By living on. But whilst the thing we long for
- Is lacking, that seems good above all else;
- Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else
- We long for; ever one equal thirst of life
- Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune
- The future times may carry, or what be
- That chance may bring, or what the issue next
- Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life
- Take we the least away from death's own time,
- Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby
- To minish the aeons of our state of death.
- Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil
- As many generations as thou may:
- Eternal death shall there be waiting still;
- And he who died with light of yesterday
- Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more
- Than he who perished months or years before.
- 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
- Song so pellucid, touching all throughout
- Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,
- Is not without a reasonable ground:
- For 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 dost learn the nature of all things
- And understandest their utility.
- But since I've taught already of what sort
- The seeds of all things are, and how distinct
- In divers forms they flit of own accord,
- Stirred with a motion everlasting on,
- And in what mode things be from them create,
- And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,
- And of what things 'tis with the body knit
- And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn
- That mind returns to its primordials,
- Now will I undertake an argument-
- One for these matters of supreme concern-
- That there exist those somewhats which we call
- The images of things: these, like to films
- Scaled off the utmost outside of the things,
- Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere,
- And the same terrify our intellects,
- Coming upon us waking or in sleep,
- When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes
- And images of people lorn of light,
- Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay
- In slumber- that haply nevermore may we
- Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron,
- Or shades go floating in among the living,
- Or aught of us is left behind at death,
- When body and mind, destroyed together, each
- Back to its own primordials goes away.
- And thus I say that effigies of things,
- And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,
- From off the utmost outside of the things,
- Which are like films or may be named a rind,
- Because the image bears like look and form
- With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-
- A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,
- Well learn from this: mainly, because we see
- Even 'mongst visible objects many be
- That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-
- Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-
- And some more interwoven and condensed-
- As when the locusts in the summertime
- Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves
- At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,
- Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs
- Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see
- The breres augmented with their flying spoils:
- Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too
- That tenuous images from things are sent,
- From off the utmost outside of the things.
- For why those kinds should drop and part from things,
- Rather than others tenuous and thin,
- No power has man to open mouth to tell;
- Especially, since on outsides of things
- Are bodies many and minute which could,
- In the same order which they had before,
- And with the figure of their form preserved,
- Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,
- Being less subject to impediments,
- As few in number and placed along the front.
- For truly many things we see discharge
- Their stuff at large, not only from their cores
- Deep-set within, as we have said above,
- But from their surfaces at times no less-
- Their very colours too. And commonly
- The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,
- Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,
- Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,
- Have such an action quite; for there they dye
- And make to undulate with their every hue
- The circled throng below, and all the stage,
- And rich attire in the patrician seats.
- And ever the more the theatre's dark walls
- Around them shut, the more all things within
- Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,
- The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since
- The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye
- From off their surface, things in general must
- Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,
- Because in either case they are off-thrown
- From off the surface. So there are indeed
- Such certain prints and vestiges of forms
- Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,
- Invisible, when separate, each and one.
- Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such
- Streams out of things diffusedly, because,
- Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth
- And rising out, along their bending path
- They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight
- Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.
- But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film
- Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught
- Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front
- Ready to hand. Lastly those images
- Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
- In water, or in any shining surface,
- Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
- Fashioned from images of things sent out.
- There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
- Like unto them, which no one can divine
- When taken singly, which do yet give back,
- When by continued and recurrent discharge
- Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
- Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
- So well conserved that thus be given back
- Figures so like each object.
- Now then, learn
- How tenuous is the nature of an image.
- And in the first place, since primordials be
- So far beneath our senses, and much less
- E'en than those objects which begin to grow
- Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few
- How nice are the beginnings of all things-
- That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:
- First, living creatures are sometimes so small
- That even their third part can nowise be seen;
- Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-
- What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,
- The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!
- And what besides of those first particles
- Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not
- How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever
- Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-
- The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,
- Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-
- If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain
- Perchance [thou touch] a one of them
- . . . . . .
- Then why not rather know that images
- Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,
- Bodiless and invisible?
- But lest
- Haply thou holdest that those images
- Which come from objects are the sole that flit,
- Others indeed there be of own accord
- Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,
- Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,
- Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,
- Cease not to change appearance and to turn
- Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;
- As we behold the clouds grow thick on high
- And smirch the serene vision of the world,
- Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen
- The giants' faces flying far along
- And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times
- The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks
- Going before and crossing on the sun,
- Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain
- And leading in the other thunderheads.
- Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be
- Engendered, and perpetually flow off
- From things and gliding pass away....
- . . . . . .
- For ever every outside streams away
- From off all objects, since discharge they may;
- And when this outside reaches other things,
- As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where
- It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,
- There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back
- An image. But when gleaming objects dense,
- As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,
- Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't
- Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent- its safety,
- By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.
- 'Tis therefore that from them the images
- Stream back to us; and howso suddenly
- Thou place, at any instant, anything
- Before a mirror, there an image shows;
- Proving that ever from a body's surface
- Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.
- Thus many images in little time
- Are gendered; so their origin is named
- Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun
- Must send below, in little time, to earth
- So many beams to keep all things so full
- Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,
- From things there must be borne, in many modes,
- To every quarter round, upon the moment,
- The many images of things; because
- Unto whatever face of things we turn
- The mirror, things of form and hue the same
- Respond. Besides, though but a moment since
- Serenest was the weather of the sky,
- So fiercely sudden is it foully thick
- That ye might think that round about all murk
- Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
- The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,
- As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night,
- Do faces of black horror hang on high-
- Of which how small a part an image is
- There's none to tell or reckon out in words.
- Now come; with what swift motion they are borne,
- These images, and what the speed assigned
- To them across the breezes swimming on-
- So that o'er lengths of space a little hour
- Alone is wasted, toward whatever region
- Each with its divers impulse tends- I'll tell
- In verses sweeter than they many are;
- Even as the swan's slight note is better far
- Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes
- Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first,
- One oft may see that objects which are light
- And made of tiny bodies are the swift;
- In which class is the sun's light and his heat,
- Since made from small primordial elements
- Which, as it were, are forward knocked along
- And through the interspaces of the air
- To pass delay not, urged by blows behind;
- For light by light is instantly supplied
- And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.
- Thus likewise must the images have power
- Through unimaginable space to speed
- Within a point of time,- first, since a cause
- Exceeding small there is, which at their back
- Far forward drives them and propels, where, too,
- They're carried with such winged lightness on;
- And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off,
- With texture of such rareness that they can
- Through objects whatsoever penetrate
- And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.
- Besides, if those fine particles of things
- Which from so deep within are sent abroad,
- As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide
- And spread themselves through all the space of heaven
- Upon one instant of the day, and fly
- O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then
- Of those which on the outside stand prepared,
- When they're hurled off with not a thing to check
- Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed
- How swifter and how farther must they go
- And speed through manifold the length of space
- In time the same that from the sun the rays
- O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be
- Example chief and true with what swift speed
- The images of things are borne about:
- That soon as ever under open skies
- Is spread the shining water, all at once,
- If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth,
- Serene and radiant in the water there,
- The constellations of the universe-
- Now seest thou not in what a point of time
- An image from the shores of ether falls
- Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,
- And yet again, 'tis needful to confess
- With wondrous...
- . . . . . .
- Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
- From certain things flow odours evermore,
- As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray
- From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls
- Around the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit
- The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.
- Then too there comes into the mouth at times
- The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea
- We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch
- The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.
- To such degree from all things is each thing
- Borne streamingly along, and sent about
- To every region round; and nature grants
- Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,
- Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,
- And all the time are suffered to descry
- And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
- Besides, since shape examined by our hands
- Within the dark is known to be the same
- As that by eyes perceived within the light
- And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be
- By one like cause aroused. So, if we test
- A square and get its stimulus on us
- Within the dark, within the light what square
- Can fall upon our sight, except a square
- That images the things? Wherefore it seems
- The source of seeing is in images,
- Nor without these can anything be viewed.
- Now these same films I name are borne about
- And tossed and scattered into regions all.
- But since we do perceive alone through eyes,
- It follows hence that whitherso we turn
- Our sight, all things do strike against it there
- With form and hue. And just how far from us
- Each thing may be away, the image yields
- To us the power to see and chance to tell:
- For when 'tis sent, at once it shoves ahead
- And drives along the air that's in the space
- Betwixt it and our eyes. And thus this air
- All glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as 'twere,
- Brushes athrough our pupils and thuswise
- Passes across. Therefore it comes we see
- How far from us each thing may be away,
- And the more air there be that's driven before,
- And too the longer be the brushing breeze
- Against our eyes, the farther off removed
- Each thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work
- With mightily swift order all goes on,
- So that upon one instant we may see
- What kind the object and how far away.
- Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed
- In these affairs that, though the films which strike
- Upon the eyes cannot be singly seen,
- The things themselves may be perceived. For thus
- When the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke
- And when the sharp cold streams, 'tis not our wont
- To feel each private particle of wind
- Or of that cold, but rather all at once;
- And so we see how blows affect our body,
- As if one thing were beating on the same
- And giving us the feel of its own body
- Outside of us. Again, whene'er we thump
- With finger-tip upon a stone, we touch
- But the rock's surface and the outer hue,
- Nor feel that hue by contact- rather feel
- The very hardness deep within the rock.
- Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass
- An image may be seen, perceive. For seen
- It soothly is, removed far within.
- 'Tis the same sort as objects peered upon
- Outside in their true shape, whene'er a door
- Yields through itself an open peering-place,
- And lets us see so many things outside
- Beyond the house. Also that sight is made
- By a twofold twin air: for first is seen
- The air inside the door-posts; next the doors,
- The twain to left and right; and afterwards
- A light beyond comes brushing through our eyes,
- Then other air, then objects peered upon
- Outside in their true shape. And thus, when first
- The image of the glass projects itself,
- As to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead
- And drives along the air that's in the space
- Betwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass
- That we perceive the air ere yet the glass.
- But when we've also seen the glass itself,
- Forthwith that image which from us is borne
- Reaches the glass, and there thrown back again
- Comes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls
- Ahead of itself another air, that then
- 'Tis this we see before itself, and thus
- It looks so far removed behind the glass.
- Wherefore again, again, there's naught for wonder
- . . . . . .
- In those which render from the mirror's plane
- A vision back, since each thing comes to pass
- By means of the two airs. Now, in the glass
- The right part of our members is observed
- Upon the left, because, when comes the image
- Hitting against the level of the glass,
- 'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off
- Backwards in line direct and not oblique,-
- Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask
- Should dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam,
- And it should straightway keep, at clinging there,
- Its shape, reversed, facing him who threw,
- And so remould the features it gives back:
- It comes that now the right eye is the left,
- The left the right.