De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- And that the earth may there abide at rest
- In the mid-region of the world, it needs
- Must vanish bit by bit in weight and lessen,
- And have another substance underneath,
- Conjoined to it from its earliest age
- In linked unison with the vasty world's
- Realms of the air in which it roots and lives.
- On this account, the earth is not a load,
- Nor presses down on winds of air beneath;
- Even as unto a man his members be
- Without all weight- the head is not a load
- Unto the neck; nor do we feel the whole
- Weight of the body to centre in the feet.
- But whatso weights come on us from without,
- Weights laid upon us, these harass and chafe,
- Though often far lighter. For to such degree
- It matters always what the innate powers
- Of any given thing may be. The earth
- Was, then, no alien substance fetched amain,
- And from no alien firmament cast down
- On alien air; but was conceived, like air,
- In the first origin of this the world,
- As a fixed portion of the same, as now
- Our members are seen to be a part of us.
- Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook
- By the big thunder, doth with her motion shake
- All that's above her- which she ne'er could do
- By any means, were earth not bounden fast
- Unto the great world's realms of air and sky:
- For they cohere together with common roots,
- Conjoined both, even from their earliest age,
- In linked unison. Aye, seest thou not
- That this most subtle energy of soul
- Supports our body, though so heavy a weight,-
- Because, indeed, 'tis with it so conjoined
- In linked unison? What power, in sum,
- Can raise with agile leap our body aloft,
- Save energy of mind which steers the limbs?
- Now seest thou not how powerful may be
- A subtle nature, when conjoined it is
- With heavy body, as air is with the earth
- Conjoined, and energy of mind with us?
- Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much
- Nor its own blaze much less than either seems
- Unto our senses. For from whatso spaces
- Fires have the power on us to cast their beams
- And blow their scorching exhalations forth
- Against our members, those same distances
- Take nothing by those intervals away
- From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire
- Is nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat
- And the outpoured light of skiey sun
- Arrive our senses and caress our limbs,
- Form too and bigness of the sun must look
- Even here from earth just as they really be,
- So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.
- And whether the journeying moon illuminate
- The regions round with bastard beams, or throw
- From off her proper body her own light,-
- Whichever it be, she journeys with a form
- Naught larger than the form doth seem to be
- Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all
- The far removed objects of our gaze
- Seem through much air confused in their look
- Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,
- Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form,
- May there on high by us on earth be seen
- Just as she is with extreme bounds defined,
- And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires
- Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these
- Thou mayst consider as possibly of size
- The least bit less, or larger by a hair
- Than they appear- since whatso fires we view
- Here in the lands of earth are seen to change
- From time to time their size to less or more
- Only the least, when more or less away,
- So long as still they bicker clear, and still
- Their glow's perceived.
- Nor need there be for men
- Astonishment that yonder sun so small
- Can yet send forth so great a light as fills
- Oceans and all the lands and sky aflood,
- And with its fiery exhalations steeps
- The world at large. For it may be, indeed,
- That one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole
- Wide world from here hath opened and out-gushed,
- And shot its light abroad; because thuswise
- The elements of fiery exhalations
- From all the world around together come,
- And thuswise flow into a bulk so big
- That from one single fountain-head may stream
- This heat and light. And seest thou not, indeed,
- How widely one small water-spring may wet
- The meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?
- 'Tis even possible, besides, that heat
- From forth the sun's own fire, albeit that fire
- Be not a great, may permeate the air
- With the fierce hot- if but, perchance, the air
- Be of condition and so tempered then
- As to be kindled, even when beat upon
- Only by little particles of heat-
- Just as we sometimes see the standing grain
- Or stubble straw in conflagration all
- From one lone spark. And possibly the sun,
- Agleam on high with rosy lampion,
- Possesses about him with invisible heats
- A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,
- So that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire,
- Increase to such degree the force of rays.
- Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men
- How the sun journeys from his summer haunts
- On to the mid-most winter turning-points
- In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers
- Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor
- How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross
- That very distance which in traversing
- The sun consumes the measure of a year.
- I say, no one clear reason hath been given
- For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood
- Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought
- Of great Democritus lays down: that ever
- The nearer the constellations be to earth
- The less can they by whirling of the sky
- Be borne along, because those skiey powers
- Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease
- In under-regions, and the sun is thus
- Left by degrees behind amongst those signs
- That follow after, since the sun he lies
- Far down below the starry signs that blaze;
- And the moon lags even tardier than the sun:
- In just so far as is her course removed
- From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,
- In just so far she fails to keep the pace
- With starry signs above; for just so far
- As feebler is the whirl that bears her on,
- (Being, indeed, still lower than the sun),
- In just so far do all the starry signs,
- Circling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.
- Therefore it happens that the moon appears
- More swiftly to return to any sign
- Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun,
- Because those signs do visit her again
- More swiftly than they visit the great sun.
- It can be also that two streams of air
- Alternately at fixed periods
- Blow out from transverse regions of the world,
- Of which the one may thrust the sun away
- From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals
- And rigors of the cold, and the other then
- May cast him back from icy shades of chill
- Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs
- That blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,
- We must suppose the moon and all the stars,
- Which through the mighty and sidereal years
- Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped
- By streams of air from regions alternate.
- Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped
- By contrary winds to regions contrary,
- The lower clouds diversely from the upper?
- Then, why may yonder stars in ether there
- Along their mighty orbits not be borne
- By currents opposite the one to other?
- But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk
- Either when sun, after his diurnal course,
- Hath walked the ultimate regions of the sky
- And wearily hath panted forth his fires,
- Shivered by their long journeying and wasted
- By traversing the multitudinous air,
- Or else because the self-same force that drave
- His orb along above the lands compels
- Him then to turn his course beneath the lands.
- Matuta also at a fixed hour
- Spreadeth the roseate morning out along
- The coasts of heaven and deploys the light,
- Either because the self-same sun, returning
- Under the lands, aspires to seize the sky,
- Striving to set it blazing with his rays
- Ere he himself appear, or else because
- Fires then will congregate and many seeds
- Of heat are wont, even at a fixed time,
- To stream together- gendering evermore
- New suns and light. Just so the story goes
- That from the Idaean mountain-tops are seen
- Dispersed fires upon the break of day
- Which thence combine, as 'twere, into one ball
- And form an orb. Nor yet in these affairs
- Is aught for wonder that these seeds of fire
- Can thus together stream at time so fixed
- And shape anew the splendour of the sun.
- For many facts we see which come to pass
- At fixed time in all things: burgeon shrubs
- At fixed time, and at a fixed time
- They cast their flowers; and Eld commands the teeth,
- At time as surely fixed, to drop away,
- And Youth commands the growing boy to bloom
- With the soft down and let from both his cheeks
- The soft beard fall. And lastly, thunder-bolts,
- Snow, rains, clouds, winds, at seasons of the year
- Nowise unfixed, all do come to pass.
- For where, even from their old primordial start
- Causes have ever worked in such a way,
- And where, even from the world's first origin,
- Thuswise have things befallen, so even now
- After a fixed order they come round
- In sequence also.
- Likewise, days may wax
- Whilst the nights wane, and daylight minished be
- Whilst nights do take their augmentations,
- Either because the self-same sun, coursing
- Under the lands and over in two arcs,
- A longer and a briefer, doth dispart
- The coasts of ether and divides in twain
- His orbit all unequally, and adds,
- As round he's borne, unto the one half there
- As much as from the other half he's ta'en,
- Until he then arrives that sign of heaven
- Where the year's node renders the shades of night
- Equal unto the periods of light.
- For when the sun is midway on his course
- Between the blasts of northwind and of south,
- Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally,
- By virtue of the fixed position old
- Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which
- That sun, in winding onward, takes a year,
- Illumining the sky and all the lands
- With oblique light- as men declare to us
- Who by their diagrams have charted well
- Those regions of the sky which be adorned
- With the arranged signs of Zodiac.
- Or else, because in certain parts the air
- Under the lands is denser, the tremulous
- Bright beams of fire do waver tardily,
- Nor easily can penetrate that air
- Nor yet emerge unto their rising-place:
- For this it is that nights in winter time
- Do linger long, ere comes the many-rayed
- Round Badge of the day. Or else because, as said,
- In alternating seasons of the year
- Fires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont
- To stream together,- the fires which make the sun
- To rise in some one spot- therefore it is
- That those men seem to speak the truth [who hold
- A new sun is with each new daybreak born].
- The moon she possibly doth shine because
- Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day
- May turn unto our gaze her light, the more
- She doth recede from orb of sun, until,
- Facing him opposite across the world,
- She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad,
- And, at her rising as she soars above,
- Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise
- She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind
- By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides,
- Along the circle of the Zodiac,
- From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-
- As those men hold who feign the moon to be
- Just like a ball and to pursue a course
- Betwixt the sun and earth. There is, again,
- Some reason to suppose that moon may roll
- With light her very own, and thus display
- The varied shapes of her resplendence there.
- For near her is, percase, another body,
- Invisible, because devoid of light,
- Borne on and gliding all along with her,
- Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.
- Again, she may revolve upon herself,
- Like to a ball's sphere- if perchance that be-
- One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light,
- And by the revolution of that sphere
- She may beget for us her varying shapes,
- Until she turns that fiery part of her
- Full to the sight and open eyes of men;
- Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls,
- Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part
- Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily,
- The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees,
- Refuting the art of Greek astrologers,
- Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-
- As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights,
- Might not alike be true,- or aught there were
- Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one
- More than the other notion. Then, again,
- Why a new moon might not forevermore
- Created be with fixed successions there
- Of shapes and with configurations fixed,
- And why each day that bright created moon
- Might not miscarry and another be,
- In its stead and place, engendered anew,
- 'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words
- To prove absurd- since, lo, so many things
- Can be create with fixed successions:
- Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy,
- The winged harbinger, steps on before,
- And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,
- Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all
- With colours and with odours excellent;
- Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he
- Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one,
- And by the Etesian Breezes of the north;
- Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps
- Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too
- And other Winds do follow- the high roar
- Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong
- With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day
- Bears on to men the snows and brings again
- The numbing cold. And Winter follows her,
- His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis
- The less a marvel, if at fixed time
- A moon is thus begotten and again
- At fixed time destroyed, since things so many
- Can come to being thus at fixed time.
- Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's
- Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem
- As due to several causes. For, indeed,
- Why should the moon be able to shut out
- Earth from the light of sun, and on the side
- To earthward thrust her high head under sun,
- Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams-
- And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect
- Could not result from some one other body
- Which glides devoid of light forevermore?
- Again, why could not sun, in weakened state,
- At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then,
- When he has passed on along the air
- Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames,
- That quench and kill his fires, why could not he
- Renew his light? And why should earth in turn
- Have power to rob the moon of light, and there,
- Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath,
- Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course
- Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-
- And yet, at same time, some one other body
- Not have the power to under-pass the moon,
- Or glide along above the orb of sun,
- Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?
- And still, if moon herself refulgent be
- With her own sheen, why could she not at times
- In some one quarter of the mighty world
- Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through
- Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?
- And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved
- By what arrangements all things come to pass
- Through the blue regions of the mighty world,-
- How we can know what energy and cause
- Started the various courses of the sun
- And the moon's goings, and by what far means
- They can succumb, the while with thwarted light,
- And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,
- When, as it were, they blink, and then again
- With open eye survey all regions wide,
- Resplendent with white radiance- I do now
- Return unto the world's primeval age
- And tell what first the soft young fields of earth
- With earliest parturition had decreed
- To raise in air unto the shores of light
- And to entrust unto the wayward winds.
- In the beginning, earth gave forth, around
- The hills and over all the length of plains,
- The race of grasses and the shining green;
- The flowery meadows sparkled all aglow
- With greening colour, and thereafter, lo,
- Unto the divers kinds of trees was given
- An emulous impulse mightily to shoot,
- With a free rein, aloft into the air.
- As feathers and hairs and bristles are begot
- The first on members of the four-foot breeds
- And on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,
- Thus then the new Earth first of all put forth
- Grasses and shrubs, and afterward begat
- The mortal generations, there upsprung-
- Innumerable in modes innumerable-
- After diverging fashions. For from sky
- These breathing-creatures never can have dropped,
- Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up
- Out of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,
- How merited is that adopted name
- Of earth- "The Mother!"- since from out the earth
- Are all begotten. And even now arise
- From out the loams how many living things-
- Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.
- Wherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang
- In Long Ago more many, and more big,
- Matured of those days in the fresh young years
- Of earth and ether. First of all, the race
- Of the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,
- Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;
- As now-a-days in summer tree-crickets
- Do leave their shiny husks of own accord,
- Seeking their food and living. Then it was
- This earth of thine first gave unto the day
- The mortal generations; for prevailed
- Among the fields abounding hot and wet.
- And hence, where any fitting spot was given,
- There 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots
- Affixed to earth. And when in ripened time
- The age of the young within (that sought the air
- And fled earth's damps) had burst these wombs, O then
- Would Nature thither turn the pores of earth
- And make her spurt from open veins a juice
- Like unto milk; even as a woman now
- Is filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk,
- Because all that swift stream of aliment
- Is thither turned unto the mother-breasts.
- There earth would furnish to the children food;
- Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed
- Abounding in soft down. Earth's newness then
- Would rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold,
- Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers-
- For all things grow and gather strength through time
- In like proportions; and then earth was young.
- Wherefore, again, again, how merited
- Is that adopted name of Earth- The Mother!-
- Since she herself begat the human race,
- And at one well-nigh fixed time brought forth
- Each breast that ranges raving round about
- Upon the mighty mountains and all birds
- Aerial with many a varied shape.
- But, lo, because her bearing years must end,
- She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.
- For lapsing aeons change the nature of
- The whole wide world, and all things needs must take
- One status after other, nor aught persists
- Forever like itself. All things depart;
- Nature she changeth all, compelleth all
- To transformation. Lo, this moulders down,
- A-slack with weary eld, and that, again,
- Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt.
- In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change
- The nature of the whole wide world, and earth
- Taketh one status after other. And what
- She bore of old, she now can bear no longer,
- And what she never bore, she can to-day.
- In those days also the telluric world
- Strove to beget the monsters that upsprung
- With their astounding visages and limbs-
- The Man-woman- a thing betwixt the twain,
- Yet neither, and from either sex remote-
- Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet,
- Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too
- Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye,
- Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms
- Cleaving unto the body fore and aft,
- Thuswise, that never could they do or go,
- Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.
- And other prodigies and monsters earth
- Was then begetting of this sort- in vain,
- Since Nature banned with horror their increase,
- And powerless were they to reach unto
- The coveted flower of fair maturity,
- Or to find aliment, or to intertwine
- In works of Venus. For we see there must
- Concur in life conditions manifold,
- If life is ever by begetting life
- To forge the generations one by one:
- First, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby
- The seeds of impregnation in the frame
- May ooze, released from the members all;
- Last, the possession of those instruments
- Whereby the male with female can unite,
- The one with other in mutual ravishments.
- And in the ages after monsters died,
- Perforce there perished many a stock, unable
- By propagation to forge a progeny.
- For whatsoever creatures thou beholdest
- Breathing the breath of life, the same have been
- Even from their earliest age preserved alive
- By cunning, or by valour, or at least
- By speed of foot or wing. And many a stock
- Remaineth yet, because of use to man,
- And so committed to man's guardianship.
- Valour hath saved alive fierce lion-breeds
- And many another terrorizing race,
- Cunning the foxes, flight the antlered stags.
- Light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast,
- However, and every kind begot from seed
- Of beasts of draft, as, too, the woolly flocks
- And horned cattle, all, my Memmius,
- Have been committed to guardianship of men.
- For anxiously they fled the savage beasts,
- And peace they sought and their abundant foods,
- Obtained with never labours of their own,
- Which we secure to them as fit rewards
- For their good service. But those beasts to whom
- Nature has granted naught of these same things-
- Beasts quite unfit by own free will to thrive
- And vain for any service unto us
- In thanks for which we should permit their kind
- To feed and be in our protection safe-
- Those, of a truth, were wont to be exposed,
- Enshackled in the gruesome bonds of doom,
- As prey and booty for the rest, until
- Nature reduced that stock to utter death.
- But Centaurs ne'er have been, nor can there be
- Creatures of twofold stock and double frame,
- Compact of members alien in kind,
- Yet formed with equal function, equal force
- In every bodily part- a fact thou mayst,
- However dull thy wits, well learn from this:
- The horse, when his three years have rolled away,
- Flowers in his prime of vigour; but the boy
- Not so, for oft even then he gropes in sleep
- After the milky nipples of the breasts,
- An infant still. And later, when at last
- The lusty powers of horses and stout limbs,
- Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age,
- Lo, only then doth youth with flowering years
- Begin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks
- With the soft down. So never deem, percase,
- That from a man and from the seed of horse,
- The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed
- Or e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-
- The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-
- Nor others of this sort, in whom we mark
- Members discordant each with each; for ne'er
- At one same time they reach their flower of age
- Or gain and lose full vigour of their frame,
- And never burn with one same lust of love,
- And never in their habits they agree,
- Nor find the same foods equally delightsome-
- Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats
- Batten upon the hemlock which to man
- Is violent poison. Once again, since flame
- Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks
- Of the great lions as much as other kinds
- Of flesh and blood existing in the lands,
- How could it be that she, Chimaera lone,
- With triple body- fore, a lion she;
- And aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat-
- Might at the mouth from out the body belch
- Infuriate flame? Wherefore, the man who feigns
- Such beings could have been engendered
- When earth was new and the young sky was fresh
- (Basing his empty argument on new)
- May babble with like reason many whims
- Into our ears: he'll say, perhaps, that then
- Rivers of gold through every landscape flowed,
- That trees were wont with precious stones to flower,
- Or that in those far aeons man was born
- With such gigantic length and lift of limbs
- As to be able, based upon his feet,
- Deep oceans to bestride or with his hands
- To whirl the firmament around his head.
- For though in earth were many seeds of things
- In the old time when this telluric world
- First poured the breeds of animals abroad,
- Still that is nothing of a sign that then
- Such hybrid creatures could have been begot
- And limbs of all beasts heterogeneous
- Have been together knit; because, indeed,
- The divers kinds of grasses and the grains
- And the delightsome trees- which even now
- Spring up abounding from within the earth-
- Can still ne'er be begotten with their stems
- Begrafted into one; but each sole thing
- Proceeds according to its proper wont
- And all conserve their own distinctions based
- In nature's fixed decree.
- But mortal man
- Was then far hardier in the old champaign,
- As well he should be, since a hardier earth
- Had him begotten; builded too was he
- Of bigger and more solid bones within,
- And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh,
- Nor easily seized by either heat or cold,
- Or alien food or any ail or irk.
- And whilst so many lustrums of the sun
- Rolled on across the sky, men led a life
- After the roving habit of wild beasts.
- Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,
- And none knew then to work the fields with iron,
- Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam,
- Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees
- The boughs of yester-year. What sun and rains
- To them had given, what earth of own accord
- Created then, was boon enough to glad
- Their simple hearts. Mid acorn-laden oaks
- Would they refresh their bodies for the nonce;
- And the wild berries of the arbute-tree,
- Which now thou seest to ripen purple-red
- In winter time, the old telluric soil
- Would bear then more abundant and more big.
- And many coarse foods, too, in long ago
- The blooming freshness of the rank young world
- Produced, enough for those poor wretches there.
- And rivers and springs would summon them of old
- To slake the thirst, as now from the great hills
- The water's down-rush calls aloud and far
- The thirsty generations of the wild.
- So, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs-
- The woodland haunts discovered as they ranged-
- From forth of which they knew that gliding rills
- With gush and splash abounding laved the rocks,
- The dripping rocks, and trickled from above
- Over the verdant moss; and here and there
- Welled up and burst across the open flats.
- As yet they knew not to enkindle fire
- Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use
- And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts;
- But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods,
- And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs,
- When driven to flee the lashings of the winds
- And the big rains. Nor could they then regard
- The general good, nor did they know to use
- In common any customs, any laws:
- Whatever of booty fortune unto each
- Had proffered, each alone would bear away,
- By instinct trained for self to thrive and live.
- And Venus in the forests then would link
- The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded
- Either from mutual flame, or from the man's
- Impetuous fury and insatiate lust,
- Or from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears,
- Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree.
- And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs,
- They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts;
- And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled,
- A-skulk into their hiding-places...
- . . . . . .
- With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft
- Of gnarled branch. And by the time of night
- O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars,
- Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth,
- Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.
- Nor would they call with lamentations loud
- Around the fields for daylight and the sun,
- Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night;
- But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait
- Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought
- The glory to the sky. From childhood wont
- Ever to see the dark and day begot
- In times alternate, never might they be
- Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night
- Eternal should possess the lands, with light
- Of sun withdrawn forever. But their care
- Was rather that the clans of savage beasts
- Would often make their sleep-time horrible
- For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven,
- They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach
- Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong,
- And in the midnight yield with terror up
- To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.
- And yet in those days not much more than now
- Would generations of mortality
- Leave the sweet light of fading life behind.
- Indeed, in those days here and there a man,
- More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs,
- Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive,
- Echoing through groves and hills and forest-trees,
- Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed
- Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight
- Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked,
- Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores,
- With horrible voices for eternal death-
- Until, forlorn of help, and witless what
- Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs
- Took them from life. But not in those far times
- Would one lone day give over unto doom
- A soldiery in thousands marching on
- Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then
- The ramping breakers of the main seas dash
- Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks.
- But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain,
- Without all end or outcome, and give up
- Its empty menacings as lightly too;
- Nor soft seductions of a serene sea
- Could lure by laughing billows any man
- Out to disaster: for the science bold
- Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.
- Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er
- Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now
- 'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they
- Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour
- The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves
- They give the drafts to others.
- Afterwards,
- When huts they had procured and pelts and fire,
- And when the woman, joined unto the man,
- Withdrew with him into one dwelling place,
- . . . . . .
- Were known; and when they saw an offspring born
- From out themselves, then first the human race
- Began to soften. For 'twas now that fire
- Rendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear,
- Under the canopy of the sky, the cold;
- And Love reduced their shaggy hardiness;
- And children, with the prattle and the kiss,
- Soon broke the parents' haughty temper down.
- Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends,
- Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,
- And urged for children and the womankind
- Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures
- They stammered hints how meet it was that all
- Should have compassion on the weak. And still,
- Though concord not in every wise could then
- Begotten be, a good, a goodly part
- Kept faith inviolate- or else mankind
- Long since had been unutterably cut off,
- And propagation never could have brought
- The species down the ages.
- But nature 'twas
- Urged men to utter various sounds of tongue
- And need and use did mould the names of things,
- About in same wise as the lack-speech years
- Compel young children unto gesturings,
- Making them point with finger here and there
- At what's before them. For each creature feels
- By instinct to what use to put his powers.
- Ere yet the bull-calf's scarce begotten horns
- Project above his brows, with them he 'gins
- Enraged to butt and savagely to thrust.
- But whelps of panthers and the lion's cubs
- With claws and paws and bites are at the fray
- Already, when their teeth and claws be scarce
- As yet engendered. So again, we see
- All breeds of winged creatures trust to wings
- And from their fledgling pinions seek to get
- A fluttering assistance. Thus, to think
- That in those days some man apportioned round
- To things their names, and that from him men learned
- Their first nomenclature, is foolery.
- For why could he mark everything by words
- And utter the various sounds of tongue, what time
- The rest may be supposed powerless
- To do the same? And, if the rest had not
- Already one with other used words,
- Whence was implanted in the teacher, then,
- Fore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given
- To him alone primordial faculty
- To know and see in mind what 'twas he willed?
- Besides, one only man could scarce subdue
- An overmastered multitude to choose
- To get by heart his names of things. A task
- Not easy 'tis in any wise to teach
- And to persuade the deaf concerning what
- 'Tis needful for to do. For ne'er would they
- Allow, nor ne'er in anywise endure
- Perpetual vain dingdong in their ears
- Of spoken sounds unheard before. And what,
- At last, in this affair so wondrous is,
- That human race (in whom a voice and tongue
- Were now in vigour) should by divers words
- Denote its objects, as each divers sense
- Might prompt?- since even the speechless herds, aye, since
- The very generations of wild beasts
- Are wont dissimilar and divers sounds
- To rouse from in them, when there's fear or pain,
- And when they burst with joys. And this, forsooth,
- 'Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first
- Huge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds,
- Baring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl,
- They threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back,
- In sounds far other than with which they bark
- And fill with voices all the regions round.
- And when with fondling tongue they start to lick
- Their puppies, or do toss them round with paws,
- Feigning with gentle bites to gape and snap,
- They fawn with yelps of voice far other then
- Than when, alone within the house, they bay,
- Or whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.
- Again the neighing of the horse, is that
- Not seen to differ likewise, when the stud
- In buoyant flower of his young years raves,
- Goaded by winged Love, amongst the mares,
- And when with widening nostrils out he snorts
- The call to battle, and when haply he
- Whinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?
- Lastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,
- Hawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life
- Amid the ocean billows in the brine,
- Utter at other times far other cries
- Than when they fight for food, or with their prey
- Struggle and strain. And birds there are which change
- With changing weather their own raucous songs-
- As long-lived generations of the crows
- Or flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry
- For rain and water and to call at times
- For winds and gales. Ergo, if divers moods
- Compel the brutes, though speechless evermore,
- To send forth divers sounds, O truly then
- How much more likely 'twere that mortal men
- In those days could with many a different sound
- Denote each separate thing.
- Lest, perchance,
- Concerning these affairs thou ponderest
- In silent meditation, let me say
- 'Twas lightning brought primevally to earth
- The fire for mortals, and from thence hath spread
- O'er all the lands the flames of heat. For thus
- Even now we see so many objects, touched
- By the celestial flames, to flash aglow,
- When thunderbolt has dowered them with heat.
- Yet also when a many-branched tree,
- Beaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro,
- Pressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree,
- There by the power of mighty rub and rub
- Is fire engendered; and at times out-flares
- The scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe
- Against the trunks. And of these causes, either
- May well have given to mortal men the fire.
- Next, food to cook and soften in the flame
- The sun instructed, since so oft they saw
- How objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth
- And by the raining blows of fiery beams,
- Through all the fields.
- And more and more each day
- Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart,
- Teach them to change their earlier mode and life
- By fire and new devices. Kings began
- Cities to found and citadels to set,
- As strongholds and asylums for themselves,
- And flocks and fields to portion for each man
- After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-
- For beauty then imported much, and strength
- Had its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth
- Discovered was, and gold was brought to light,
- Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;
- For men, however beautiful in form
- Or valorous, will follow in the main
- The rich man's party. Yet were man to steer
- His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own
- Abounding riches, if with mind content
- He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,
- Is there a lack of little in the world.
- But men wished glory for themselves and power
- Even that their fortunes on foundations firm
- Might rest forever, and that they themselves,
- The opulent, might pass a quiet life-
- In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb
- On to the heights of honour, men do make
- Their pathway terrible; and even when once
- They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt
- At times will smite, O hurling headlong down
- To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo,
- All summits, all regions loftier than the rest,
- Smoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts;
- So better far in quiet to obey,
- Than to desire chief mastery of affairs
- And ownership of empires. Be it so;
- And let the weary sweat their life-blood out
- All to no end, battling in hate along
- The narrow path of man's ambition;
- Since all their wisdom is from others' lips,
- And all they seek is known from what they've heard
- And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly
- Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,
- Than' twas of old.
- And therefore kings were slain,
- And pristine majesty of golden thrones
- And haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust;
- And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,
- Soon bloody under the proletarian feet,
- Groaned for their glories gone- for erst o'er-much
- Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest
- Trampled beneath the rabble heel. Thus things
- Down to the vilest lees of brawling mobs
- Succumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself
- Dominion and supremacy. So next
- Some wiser heads instructed men to found
- The magisterial office, and did frame
- Codes that they might consent to follow laws.
- For humankind, o'er wearied with a life
- Fostered by force, was ailing from its feuds;
- And so the sooner of its own free will
- Yielded to laws and strictest codes. For since
- Each hand made ready in its wrath to take
- A vengeance fiercer than by man's fair laws
- Is now conceded, men on this account
- Loathed the old life fostered by force. 'Tis thence
- That fear of punishments defiles each prize
- Of wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare
- Each man around, and in the main recoil
- On him from whence they sprung. Not easy 'tis
- For one who violates by ugly deeds
- The bonds of common peace to pass a life
- Composed and tranquil. For albeit he 'scape
- The race of gods and men, he yet must dread
- 'Twill not be hid forever- since, indeed,
- So many, oft babbling on amid their dreams
- Or raving in sickness, have betrayed themselves
- (As stories tell) and published at last
- Old secrets and the sins.
- And now what cause
- Hath spread divinities of gods abroad
- Through mighty nations, and filled the cities full
- Of the high altars, and led to practices
- Of solemn rites in season- rites which still
- Flourish in midst of great affairs of state
- And midst great centres of man's civic life,
- The rites whence still a poor mortality
- Is grafted that quaking awe which rears aloft
- Still the new temples of gods from land to land
- And drives mankind to visit them in throngs
- On holy days- 'tis not so hard to give
- Reason thereof in speech. Because, in sooth,
- Even in those days would the race of man
- Be seeing excelling visages of gods
- With mind awake; and in his sleeps, yet more-
- Bodies of wondrous growth. And, thus, to these
- Would men attribute sense, because they seemed
- To move their limbs and speak pronouncements high,
- Befitting glorious visage and vast powers.
- And men would give them an eternal life,
- Because their visages forevermore
- Were there before them, and their shapes remained,
- And chiefly, however, because men would not think
- Beings augmented with such mighty powers
- Could well by any force o'ermastered be.
- And men would think them in their happiness
- Excelling far, because the fear of death
- Vexed no one of them at all, and since
- At same time in men's sleeps men saw them do
- So many wonders, and yet feel therefrom
- Themselves no weariness. Besides, men marked
- How in a fixed order rolled around
- The systems of the sky, and changed times
- Of annual seasons, nor were able then
- To know thereof the causes. Therefore 'twas
- Men would take refuge in consigning all
- Unto divinities, and in feigning all
- Was guided by their nod. And in the sky
- They set the seats and vaults of gods, because
- Across the sky night and the moon are seen
- To roll along- moon, day, and night, and night's
- Old awesome constellations evermore,
- And the night-wandering fireballs of the sky,
- And flying flames, clouds, and the sun, the rains,
- Snow and the winds, the lightnings, and the hail,
- And the swift rumblings, and the hollow roar
- Of mighty menacings forevermore.