De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. And when perchance, in mingling seed with his,
  2. The female hath o'erpowered the force of male
  3. And by a sudden fling hath seized it fast,
  4. Then are the offspring, more from mothers' seed,
  5. More like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed,
  6. They're like to fathers. But whom seest to be
  7. Partakers of each shape, one equal blend
  8. Of parents' features, these are generate
  9. From fathers' body and from mothers' blood,
  10. When mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed
  11. Together seeds, aroused along their frames
  12. By Venus' goads, and neither of the twain
  13. Mastereth or is mastered. Happens too
  14. That sometimes offspring can to being come
  15. In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back
  16. Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because
  17. Their parents in their bodies oft retain
  18. Concealed many primal germs, commixed
  19. In many modes, which, starting with the stock,
  20. Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire;
  21. Whence Venus by a variable chance
  22. Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back
  23. Ancestral features, voices too, and hair.
  24. A female generation rises forth
  25. From seed paternal, and from mother's body
  26. Exist created males: since sex proceeds
  27. No more from singleness of seed than faces
  28. Or bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth
  29. Is from a twofold seed; and what's created
  30. Hath, of that parent which it is more like,
  31. More than its equal share; as thou canst mark,-
  32. Whether the breed be male or female stock.