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