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