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