De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- O humankind unhappy!- when it ascribed
- Unto divinities such awesome deeds,
- And coupled thereto rigours of fierce wrath!
- What groans did men on that sad day beget
- Even for themselves, and O what wounds for us,
- What tears for our children's children! Nor, O man,
- Is thy true piety in this: with head
- Under the veil, still to be seen to turn
- Fronting a stone, and ever to approach
- Unto all altars; nor so prone on earth
- Forward to fall, to spread upturned palms
- Before the shrines of gods, nor yet to dew
- Altars with profuse blood of four-foot beasts,
- Nor vows with vows to link. But rather this:
- To look on all things with a master eye
- And mind at peace. For when we gaze aloft
- Upon the skiey vaults of yon great world
- And ether, fixed high o'er twinkling stars,
- And into our thought there come the journeyings
- Of sun and moon, O then into our breasts,
- O'erburdened already with their other ills,
- Begins forthwith to rear its sudden head
- One more misgiving: lest o'er us, percase,
- It be the gods' immeasurable power
- That rolls, with varied motion, round and round
- The far white constellations. For the lack
- Of aught of reasons tries the puzzled mind:
- Whether was ever a birth-time of the world,
- And whether, likewise, any end shall be
- How far the ramparts of the world can still
- Outstand this strain of ever-roused motion,
- Or whether, divinely with eternal weal
- Endowed, they can through endless tracts of age
- Glide on, defying the o'er-mighty powers
- Of the immeasurable ages. Lo,
- What man is there whose mind with dread of gods
- Cringes not close, whose limbs with terror-spell
- Crouch not together, when the parched earth
- Quakes with the horrible thunderbolt amain,
- And across the mighty sky the rumblings run?
- Do not the peoples and the nations shake,
- And haughty kings do they not hug their limbs,
- Strook through with fear of the divinities,
- Lest for aught foully done or madly said
- The heavy time be now at hand to pay?
- When, too, fierce force of fury-winds at sea
- Sweepeth a navy's admiral down the main
- With his stout legions and his elephants,
- Doth he not seek the peace of gods with vows,
- And beg in prayer, a-tremble, lulled winds
- And friendly gales?- in vain, since, often up-caught
- In fury-cyclones, is he borne along,
- For all his mouthings, to the shoals of doom.
- Ah, so irrevocably some hidden power
- Betramples forevermore affairs of men,
- And visibly grindeth with its heel in mire
- The lictors' glorious rods and axes dire,
- Having them in derision! Again, when earth
- From end to end is rocking under foot,
- And shaken cities ruin down, or threaten
- Upon the verge, what wonder is it then
- That mortal generations abase themselves,
- And unto gods in all affairs of earth
- Assign as last resort almighty powers
- And wondrous energies to govern all?
- Now for the rest: copper and gold and iron
- Discovered were, and with them silver's weight
- And power of lead, when with prodigious heat
- The conflagrations burned the forest trees
- Among the mighty mountains, by a bolt
- Of lightning from the sky, or else because
- Men, warring in the woodlands, on their foes
- Had hurled fire to frighten and dismay,
- Or yet because, by goodness of the soil
- Invited, men desired to clear rich fields
- And turn the countryside to pasture-lands,
- Or slay the wild and thrive upon the spoils.
- (For hunting by pit-fall and by fire arose
- Before the art of hedging the covert round
- With net or stirring it with dogs of chase.)
- Howso the fact, and from what cause soever
- The flamy heat with awful crack and roar
- Had there devoured to their deepest roots
- The forest trees and baked the earth with fire,
- Then from the boiling veins began to ooze
- O rivulets of silver and of gold,
- Of lead and copper too, collecting soon
- Into the hollow places of the ground.
- And when men saw the cooled lumps anon
- To shine with splendour-sheen upon the ground,
- Much taken with that lustrous smooth delight,
- They 'gan to pry them out, and saw how each
- Had got a shape like to its earthy mould.
- Then would it enter their heads how these same lumps,
- If melted by heat, could into any form
- Or figure of things be run, and how, again,
- If hammered out, they could be nicely drawn
- To sharpest points or finest edge, and thus
- Yield to the forgers tools and give them power
- To chop the forest down, to hew the logs,
- To shave the beams and planks, besides to bore
- And punch and drill. And men began such work
- At first as much with tools of silver and gold
- As with the impetuous strength of the stout copper;
- But vainly- since their over-mastered power
- Would soon give way, unable to endure,
- Like copper, such hard labour. In those days
- Copper it was that was the thing of price;
- And gold lay useless, blunted with dull edge.
- Now lies the copper low, and gold hath come
- Unto the loftiest honours. Thus it is
- That rolling ages change the times of things:
- What erst was of a price, becomes at last
- A discard of no honour; whilst another
- Succeeds to glory, issuing from contempt,
- And day by day is sought for more and more,
- And, when 'tis found, doth flower in men's praise,
- Objects of wondrous honour.
- Now, Memmius,
- How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst
- Of thine own self divine. Man's ancient arms
- Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-
- Breakage of forest trees- and flame and fire,
- As soon as known. Thereafter force of iron
- And copper discovered was; and copper's use
- Was known ere iron's, since more tractable
- Its nature is and its abundance more.
- With copper men to work the soil began,
- With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,
- To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away
- Another's flocks and fields. For unto them,
- Thus armed, all things naked of defence
- Readily yielded. Then by slow degrees
- The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape
- Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned:
- With iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan,
- And the contentions of uncertain war
- Were rendered equal.
- And, lo, man was wont
- Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse
- And guide him with the rein, and play about
- With right hand free, oft times before he tried
- Perils of war in yoked chariot;
- And yoked pairs abreast came earlier
- Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots
- Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next
- The Punic folk did train the elephants-
- Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous,
- The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-
- To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike
- The mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad
- Begat the one Thing after other, to be
- The terror of the nations under arms,
- And day by day to horrors of old war
- She added an increase.
- Bulls, too, they tried
- In war's grim business; and essayed to send
- Outrageous boars against the foes. And some
- Sent on before their ranks puissant lions
- With armed trainers and with masters fierce
- To guide and hold in chains- and yet in vain,
- Since fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew,
- And blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought,
- Shaking the frightful crests upon their heads,
- Now here, now there. Nor could the horsemen calm
- Their horses, panic-breasted at the roar,
- And rein them round to front the foe. With spring
- The infuriate she-lions would up-leap
- Now here, now there; and whoso came apace
- Against them, these they'd rend across the face;
- And others unwitting from behind they'd tear
- Down from their mounts, and twining round them, bring
- Tumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound,
- And with those powerful fangs and hooked claws
- Fasten upon them. Bulls would toss their friends,
- And trample under foot, and from beneath
- Rip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns,
- And with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod;
- And boars would gore with stout tusks their allies,
- Splashing in fury their own blood on spears
- Splintered in their own bodies, and would fell
- In rout and ruin infantry and horse.
- For there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape
- The savage thrusts of tusk by shying off,
- Or rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.
- In vain- since there thou mightest see them sink,
- Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall
- Bestrew the ground. And such of these as men
- Supposed well-trained long ago at home,
- Were in the thick of action seen to foam
- In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight,
- The panic, and the tumult; nor could men
- Aught of their numbers rally. For each breed
- And various of the wild beasts fled apart
- Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day
- Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel
- Grievously mangled, after they have wrought
- Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.
- (If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all:
- But scarcely I'll believe that men could not
- With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come,
- Such foul and general disaster.- This
- We, then, may hold as true in the great All,
- In divers worlds on divers plan create,-
- Somewhere afar more likely than upon
- One certain earth.) But men chose this to do
- Less in the hope of conquering than to give
- Their enemies a goodly cause of woe,
- Even though thereby they perished themselves,
- Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.
- Now, clothes of roughly inter-plaited strands
- Were earlier than loom-wove coverings;
- The loom-wove later than man's iron is,
- Since iron is needful in the weaving art,
- Nor by no other means can there be wrought
- Such polished tools- the treadles, spindles, shuttles,
- And sounding yarn-beams. And nature forced the men,
- Before the woman kind, to work the wool:
- For all the male kind far excels in skill,
- And cleverer is by much- until at last
- The rugged farmer folk jeered at such tasks,
- And so were eager soon to give them o'er
- To women's hands, and in more hardy toil
- To harden arms and hands.
- But nature herself,
- Mother of things, was the first seed-sower
- And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns,
- Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath
- Put forth in season swarms of little shoots;
- Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips
- Upon the boughs and setting out in holes
- The young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try
- Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts,
- And mark they would how earth improved the taste
- Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.
- And day by day they'd force the woods to move
- Still higher up the mountain, and to yield
- The place below for tilth, that there they might,
- On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats,
- Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain,
- And happy vineyards, and that all along
- O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run
- The silvery-green belt of olive-trees,
- Marking the plotted landscape; even as now
- Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness
- All the terrain which men adorn and plant
- With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round
- With thriving shrubberies sown.
- But by the mouth
- To imitate the liquid notes of birds
- Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make,
- By measured song, melodious verse and give
- Delight to ears. And whistlings of the wind
- Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught
- The peasantry to blow into the stalks
- Of hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit
- They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours,
- Beaten by finger-tips of singing men,
- When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps
- And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts
- Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.
- Thus time draws forward each and everything
- Little by little unto the midst of men,
- And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
- These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals
- When sated with food,- for songs are welcome then.
- And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass
- Beside a river of water, underneath
- A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh
- Their frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
- If the weather were smiling and the times of the year
- Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.
- Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity
- Would circle round; for then the rustic muse
- Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth
- Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about
- With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,
- And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs
- Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot
- To beat our mother earth- from whence arose
- Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,
- Such frolic acts were in their glory then,
- Being more new and strange. And wakeful men
- Found solaces for their unsleeping hours
- In drawing forth variety of notes,
- In modulating melodies, in running
- With puckered lips along the tuned reeds,
- Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard
- These old traditions, and have learned well
- To keep true measure. And yet they no whit
- Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness
- Than got the woodland aborigines
- In olden times. For what we have at hand-
- If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-
- That chiefly pleases and seems best of all;
- But then some later, likely better, find
- Destroys its worth and changes our desires
- Regarding good of yesterday.
- And thus
- Began the loathing of the acorn; thus
- Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn
- And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again,
- Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-
- Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess,
- Aroused in those days envy so malign
- That the first wearer went to woeful death
- By ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize,
- Rent into rags by greedy foemen there
- And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly
- Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old
- 'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold
- That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.
- Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame
- With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack,
- Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth;
- But us it nothing hurts to do without
- The purple vestment, broidered with gold
- And with imposing figures, if we still
- Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.
- So man in vain futilities toils on
- Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-
- Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt
- What the true end of getting is, nor yet
- At all how far true pleasure may increase.
- And 'tis desire for better and for more
- Hath carried by degrees mortality
- Out onward to the deep, and roused up
- From the far bottom mighty waves of war.
- But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world,
- With their own lanterns traversing around
- The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught
- Unto mankind that seasons of the years
- Return again, and that the Thing takes place
- After a fixed plan and order fixed.
- Already would they pass their life, hedged round
- By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth
- All portioned out and boundaried; already
- Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships;
- Already men had, under treaty pacts,
- Confederates and allies, when poets began
- To hand heroic actions down in verse;
- Nor long ere this had letters been devised-
- Hence is our age unable to look back
- On what has gone before, except where reason
- Shows us a footprint.
- Sailings on the seas,
- Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads,
- Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights
- Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes
- Of polished sculptures- all these arts were learned
- By practice and the mind's experience,
- As men walked forward step by eager step.
- Thus time draws forward each and everything
- Little by little into the midst of men,
- And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
- For one thing after other did men see
- Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts
- They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.