De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- 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.
- An image too may be
- From mirror into mirror handed on,
- Until of idol-films even five or six
- Have thus been gendered. For whatever things
- Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same,
- However far removed in twisting ways,
- May still be all brought forth through bending paths
- And by these several mirrors seen to be
- Within the house, since nature so compels
- All things to be borne backward and spring off
- At equal angles from all other things.
- To such degree the image gleams across
- From mirror unto mirror; where 'twas left
- It comes to be the right, and then again
- Returns and changes round unto the left.
- Again, those little sides of mirrors curved
- Proportionate to the bulge of our own flank
- Send back to us their idols with the right
- Upon the right; and this is so because
- Either the image is passed on along
- From mirror unto mirror, and thereafter,
- When twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves;
- Or else the image wheels itself around,
- When once unto the mirror it has come,
- Since the curved surface teaches it to turn
- To usward. Further, thou might'st well believe
- That these film-idols step along with us
- And set their feet in unison with ours
- And imitate our carriage, since from that
- Part of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn
- Straightway no images can be returned.
- Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright
- And shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds,
- If thou goest on to strain them unto him,
- Because his strength is mighty, and the films
- Heavily downward from on high are borne
- Through the pure ether and the viewless winds,
- And strike the eyes, disordering their joints.
- So piecing lustre often burns the eyes,
- Because it holdeth many seeds of fire
- Which, working into eyes, engender pain.
- Again, whatever jaundiced people view
- Becomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies
- Flow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet
- The films of things, and many too are mixed
- Within their eye, which by contagion paint
- All things with sallowness.
- Again, we view
- From dark recesses things that stand in light,
- Because, when first has entered and possessed
- The open eyes this nearer darkling air,
- Swiftly the shining air and luminous
- Followeth in, which purges then the eyes
- And scatters asunder of that other air
- The sable shadows, for in large degrees
- This air is nimbler, nicer, and more strong.
- And soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light
- The pathways of the eyeballs, which before
- Black air had blocked, there follow straightaway
- Those films of things out-standing in the light,
- Provoking vision- what we cannot do
- From out the light with objects in the dark,
- Because that denser darkling air behind
- Followeth in, and fills each aperture
- And thus blockades the pathways of the eyes
- That there no images of any things
- Can be thrown in and agitate the eyes.
- And when from far away we do behold
- The squared towers of a city, oft
- Rounded they seem,- on this account because
- Each distant angle is perceived obtuse,
- Or rather it is not perceived at all;
- And perishes its blow nor to our gaze
- Arrives its stroke, since through such length of air
- Are borne along the idols that the air
- Makes blunt the idol of the angle's point
- By numerous collidings. When thuswise
- The angles of the tower each and all
- Have quite escaped the sense, the stones appear
- As rubbed and rounded on a turner's wheel-
- Yet not like objects near and truly round,
- But with a semblance to them, shadowily.
- Likewise, our shadow in the sun appears
- To move along and follow our own steps
- And imitate our carriage- if thou thinkest
- Air that is thus bereft of light can walk,
- Following the gait and motion of mankind.
- For what we use to name a shadow, sure
- Is naught but air deprived of light. No marvel:
- Because the earth from spot to spot is reft
- Progressively of light of sun, whenever
- In moving round we get within its way,
- While any spot of earth by us abandoned
- Is filled with light again, on this account
- It comes to pass that what was body's shadow
- Seems still the same to follow after us
- In one straight course. Since, evermore pour in
- New lights of rays, and perish then the old,
- Just like the wool that's drawn into the flame.
- Therefore the earth is easily spoiled of light
- And easily refilled and from herself
- Washeth the black shadows quite away.
- And yet in this we don't at all concede
- That eyes be cheated. For their task it is
- To note in whatsoever place be light,
- In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams
- Be still the same, and whether the shadow which
- Just now was here is that one passing thither,
- Or whether the facts be what we said above,
- 'Tis after all the reasoning of mind
- That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know
- The nature of reality. And so
- Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,
- Nor lightly think our senses everywhere
- Are tottering. The ship in which we sail
- Is borne along, although it seems to stand;
- The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed
- There to be passing by. And hills and fields
- Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge
- The ship and fly under the bellying sails.
- The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed
- To the ethereal caverns, though they all
- Forever are in motion, rising out
- And thence revisiting their far descents
- When they have measured with their bodies bright
- The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon
- Seem biding in a roadstead,- objects which,
- As plain fact proves, are really borne along.
- Between two mountains far away aloft
- From midst the whirl of waters open lies
- A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet
- They seem conjoined in a single isle.
- When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,
- The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,
- Until they now must almost think the roofs
- Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.
- And now, when nature begins to lift on high
- The sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires,
- And raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains-
- O'er which he seemeth then to thee to be,
- His glowing self hard by atingeing them
- With his own fire- are yet away from us
- Scarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed
- Oft scarce five hundred courses of a dart;
- Although between those mountains and the sun
- Lie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath
- The vasty shores of ether, and intervene
- A thousand lands, possessed by many a folk
- And generations of wild beasts. Again,
- A pool of water of but a finger's depth,
- Which lies between the stones along the pave,
- Offers a vision downward into earth
- As far, as from the earth o'erspread on high
- The gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view
- Clouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged
- Wondrously in heaven under earth.
- Then too, when in the middle of the stream
- Sticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze
- Into the river's rapid waves, some force
- Seems then to bear the body of the horse,
- Though standing still, reversely from his course,
- And swiftly push up-stream. And wheresoe'er
- We cast our eyes across, all objects seem
- Thus to be onward borne and flow along
- In the same way as we. A portico,
- Albeit it stands well propped from end to end
- On equal columns, parallel and big,
- Contracts by stages in a narrow cone,
- When from one end the long, long whole is seen,-
- Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor,
- And the whole right side with the left, it draws
- Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point.
- To sailors on the main the sun he seems
- From out the waves to rise, and in the waves
- To set and bury his light- because indeed
- They gaze on naught but water and the sky.
- Again, to gazers ignorant of the sea,
- Vessels in port seem, as with broken poops,
- To lean upon the water, quite agog;
- For any portion of the oars that's raised
- Above the briny spray is straight, and straight
- The rudders from above. But other parts,
- Those sunk, immersed below the water-line,
- Seem broken all and bended and inclined
- Sloping to upwards, and turned back to float
- Almost atop the water. And when the winds
- Carry the scattered drifts along the sky
- In the night-time, then seem to glide along
- The radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds
- And there on high to take far other course
- From that whereon in truth they're borne. And then,
- If haply our hand be set beneath one eye
- And press below thereon, then to our gaze
- Each object which we gaze on seems to be,
- By some sensation twain- then twain the lights
- Of lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame,
- And twain the furniture in all the house,
- Two-fold the visages of fellow-men,
- And twain their bodies. And again, when sleep
- Has bound our members down in slumber soft
- And all the body lies in deep repose,
- Yet then we seem to self to be awake
- And move our members; and in night's blind gloom
- We think to mark the daylight and the sun;
- And, shut within a room, yet still we seem
- To change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills,
- To cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds,
- Though still the austere silence of the night
- Abides around us, and to speak replies,
- Though voiceless. Other cases of the sort
- Wondrously many do we see, which all
- Seek, so to say, to injure faith in sense-
- In vain, because the largest part of these
- Deceives through mere opinions of the mind,
- Which we do add ourselves, feigning to see
- What by the senses are not seen at all.
- For naught is harder than to separate
- Plain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith
- Adds by itself.
- Again, if one suppose
- That naught is known, he knows not whether this
- Itself is able to be known, since he
- Confesses naught to know. Therefore with him
- I waive discussion- who has set his head
- Even where his feet should be. But let me grant
- That this he knows,- I question: whence he knows
- What 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn,
- And what created concept of the truth,
- And what device has proved the dubious
- To differ from the certain?- since in things
- He's heretofore seen naught of true. Thou'lt find
- That from the senses first hath been create
- Concept of truth, nor can the senses be
- Rebutted. For criterion must be found
- Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat
- Through own authority the false by true;
- What, then, than these our senses must there be
- Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung
- From some false sense, prevail to contradict
- Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is
- From out the senses?- For lest these be true,
- All reason also then is falsified.
- Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes,
- Or yet the touch the ears? Again, shall taste
- Accuse this touch or shall the nose confute
- Or eyes defeat it? Methinks not so it is:
- For unto each has been divided off
- Its function quite apart, its power to each;
- And thus we're still constrained to perceive
- The soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart
- All divers hues and whatso things there be
- Conjoined with hues. Likewise the tasting tongue
- Has its own power apart, and smells apart
- And sounds apart are known. And thus it is
- That no one sense can e'er convict another.
- Nor shall one sense have power to blame itself,
- Because it always must be deemed the same,
- Worthy of equal trust. And therefore what
- At any time unto these senses showed,
- The same is true.
- And if the reason be
- Unable to unravel us the cause
- Why objects, which at hand were square, afar
- Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,
- Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause
- For each configuration, than to let
- From out our hands escape the obvious things
- And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck
- All those foundations upon which do rest
- Our life and safety. For not only reason
- Would topple down; but even our very life
- Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared
- To trust our senses and to keep away
- From headlong heights and places to be shunned
- Of a like peril, and to seek with speed
- Their opposites! Again, as in a building,
- If the first plumb-line be askew, and if
- The square deceiving swerve from lines exact,
- And if the level waver but the least
- In any part, the whole construction then
- Must turn out faulty- shelving and askew,
- Leaning to back and front, incongruous,
- That now some portions seem about to fall,
- And falls the whole ere long- betrayed indeed
- By first deceiving estimates: so too
- Thy calculations in affairs of life
- Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee
- From senses false. So all that troop of words
- Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.
- And now remains to demonstrate with ease
- How other senses each their things perceive.
- Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,
- When, getting into ears, they strike the sense
- With their own body. For confess we must
- Even voice and sound to be corporeal,
- Because they're able on the sense to strike.
- Besides voice often scrapes against the throat,
- And screams in going out do make more rough
- The wind-pipe- naturally enough, methinks,
- When, through the narrow exit rising up
- In larger throng, these primal germs of voice
- Have thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,
- Also the door of the mouth is scraped against
- [By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].
- . . . . . .
- And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words
- Consist of elements corporeal,
- With power to pain. Nor art thou unaware
- Likewise how much of body's ta'en away,
- How much from very thews and powers of men
- May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged
- Even from the rising splendour of the morn
- To shadows of black evening,- above all
- If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.
- Therefore the voice must be corporeal,
- Since the long talker loses from his frame
- A part.
- Moreover, roughness in the sound
- Comes from the roughness in the primal germs,
- As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;
- Nor have these elements a form the same
- When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,
- As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe
- Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans
- By night from icy shores of Helicon
- With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.
- Thus, when from deep within our frame we force
- These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,
- The mobile tongue, artificer of words,
- Makes them articulate, and too the lips
- By their formations share in shaping them.
- Hence when the space is short from starting-point
- To where that voice arrives, the very words
- Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.
- For then the voice conserves its own formation,
- Conserves its shape. But if the space between
- Be longer than is fit, the words must be
- Through the much air confounded, and the voice
- Disordered in its flight across the winds-
- And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,
- Yet not determine what the words may mean;
- To such degree confounded and encumbered
- The voice approaches us. Again, one word,
- Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears
- Among the populace. And thus one voice
- Scatters asunder into many voices,
- Since it divides itself for separate ears,
- Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.
- But whatso part of voices fails to hit
- The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,
- Idly diffused among the winds. A part,
- Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back
- Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear
- With a mere phantom of a word.