De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- 'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name,
- That whilom gave to hapless sons of men
- The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life,
- And decreed laws; and she the first that gave
- Life its sweet solaces, when she begat
- A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured
- All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth;
- The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day,
- Because of those discoveries divine
- Renowned of old, exalted to the sky.
- For when saw he that well-nigh everything
- Which needs of man most urgently require
- Was ready to hand for mortals, and that life,
- As far as might be, was established safe,
- That men were lords in riches, honour, praise,
- And eminent in goodly fame of sons,
- And that they yet, O yet, within the home,
- Still had the anxious heart which vexed life
- Unpausingly with torments of the mind,
- And raved perforce with angry plaints, then he,
- Then he, the master, did perceive that 'twas
- The vessel itself which worked the bane, and all,
- However wholesome, which from here or there
- Was gathered into it, was by that bane
- Spoilt from within,- in part, because he saw
- The vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise
- 'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because
- He marked how it polluted with foul taste
- Whate'er it got within itself. So he,
- The master, then by his truth-speaking words,
- Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds
- Of lust and terror, and exhibited
- The supreme good whither we all endeavour,
- And showed the path whereby we might arrive
- Thereunto by a little cross-cut straight,
- And what of ills in all affairs of mortals
- Upsprang and flitted deviously about
- (Whether by chance or force), since nature thus
- Had destined; and from out what gates a man
- Should sally to each combat. And he proved
- That mostly vainly doth the human race
- Roll in its bosom the grim waves of care.
- For just as children tremble and fear all
- In the viewless dark, so even we at times
- Dread in the light so many things that be
- No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
- Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
- This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
- Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
- Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
- But only nature's aspect and her law.
- Wherefore the more will I go on to weave
- In verses this my undertaken task.
- And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults
- Are mortal and that sky is fashioned
- Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er
- Therein go on and must perforce go on
- . . . . . .
- The most I have unravelled; what remains
- Do thou take in, besides; since once for all
- To climb into that chariot' renowned
- . . . . . .
- Of winds arise; and they appeased are
- So that all things again...
- . . . . . .
- Which were, are changed now, with fury stilled;
- All other movements through the earth and sky
- Which mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft
- In quaking thoughts!), and which abase their minds
- With dread of deities and press them crushed
- Down to the earth, because their ignorance
- Of cosmic causes forces them to yield
- All things unto the empery of gods
- And to concede the kingly rule to them.
- For even those men who have learned full well
- That godheads lead a long life free of care,
- If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan
- Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things
- Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),
- Again are hurried back unto the fears
- Of old religion and adopt again
- Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,
- Unwitting what can be and what cannot,
- And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
- Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
- Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on
- By blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless
- From out thy mind thou spuest all of this
- And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be
- Unworthy gods and alien to their peace,
- Then often will the holy majesties
- Of the high gods be harmful unto thee,
- As by thy thought degraded,- not, indeed,
- That essence supreme of gods could be by this
- So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek
- Revenges keen; but even because thyself
- Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods,
- Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,
- Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;
- Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast
- Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be
- In tranquil peace of mind to take and know
- Those images which from their holy bodies
- Are carried into intellects of men,
- As the announcers of their form divine.
- What sort of life will follow after this
- 'Tis thine to see. But that afar from us
- Veriest reason may drive such life away,
- Much yet remains to be embellished yet
- In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth
- So much from me already; lo, there is
- The law and aspect of the sky to be
- By reason grasped; there are the tempest times
- And the bright lightnings to be hymned now-
- Even what they do and from what cause soe'er
- They're borne along- that thou mayst tremble not,
- Marking off regions of prophetic skies
- For auguries, O foolishly distraught
- Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
- Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
- Through walled places it hath wound its way,
- Or, after proving its dominion there,
- How it hath speeded forth from thence amain-
- Whereof nowise the causes do men know,
- And think divinities are working there.
- Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse,
- Solace of mortals and delight of gods,
- Point out the course before me, as I race
- On to the white line of the utmost goal,
- That I may get with signal praise the crown,
- With thee my guide!
- And so in first place, then,
- With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,
- Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,
- Together clash, what time 'gainst one another
- The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes
- From out the serene regions of the sky;
- But wheresoever in a host more dense
- The clouds foregather, thence more often comes
- A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,
- Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame
- As stones and timbers, nor again so fine
- As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce
- They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,
- Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be
- To keep their mass, or to retain within
- Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth
- O'er skiey levels of the spreading world
- A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched
- O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times
- A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about
- Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,
- Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves
- And imitates the tearing sound of sheets
- Of paper- even this kind of noise thou mayst
- In thunder hear- or sound as when winds whirl
- With lashings and do buffet about in air
- A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
- For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds
- Cannot together crash head-on, but rather
- Move side-wise and with motions contrary
- Graze each the other's body without speed,
- From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,
- So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed
- From out their close positions.
- And, again,
- In following wise all things seem oft to quake
- At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
- Of the wide reaches of the upper world
- There on the instant to have sprung apart,
- Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
- Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
- Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
- And, there enclosed, ever more and more
- Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
- To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
- Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
- And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
- That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
- Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
- No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,
- Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,
- Give forth a like large sound.
- There's reason, too,
- Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:
- We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds
- Rough-edged or branched many forky ways;
- And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws
- Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow,
- Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.
- It happens too at times that roused force
- Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud,
- Breaking right through it by a front assault;
- For what a blast of wind may do up there
- Is manifest from facts when here on earth
- A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees
- And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.
- Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these
- Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar;
- As when along deep streams or the great sea
- Breaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever
- Out from one cloud into another falls
- The fiery energy of thunderbolt,
- That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet,
- Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise;
- As iron, white from the hot furnaces,
- Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow
- Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud
- More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly
- Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound,
- As if a flame with whirl of winds should range
- Along the laurel-tressed mountains far,
- Upburning with its vast assault those trees;
- Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame
- Consumes with sound more terrible to man
- Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.
- Oft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice
- And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound
- Among the mighty clouds on high; for when
- The wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass
- Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly
- And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...
- . . . . . .
- Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck,
- By their collision, forth the seeds of fire:
- As if a stone should smite a stone or steel,
- For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters
- The shining sparks. But with our ears we get
- The thunder after eyes behold the flash,
- Because forever things arrive the ears
- More tardily than the eyes- as thou mayst see
- From this example too: when markest thou
- Some man far yonder felling a great tree
- With double-edged ax, it comes to pass
- Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before
- The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears:
- Thus also we behold the flashing ere
- We hear the thunder, which discharged is
- At same time with the fire and by same cause,
- Born of the same collision.
- In following wise
- The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands,
- And the storm flashes with tremulous elan:
- When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there,
- Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud
- Into a hollow with a thickened crust,
- It becomes hot of own velocity:
- Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat
- And set ablaze all objects,- verily
- A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space,
- Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire
- Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds,
- Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force
- Of sudden from the cloud;- and these do make
- The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth
- The detonation which attacks our ears
- More tardily than aught which comes along
- Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place-
- As know thou mayst- at times when clouds are dense
- And one upon the other piled aloft
- With wonderful upheavings- nor be thou
- Deceived because we see how broad their base
- From underneath, and not how high they tower.
- For make thine observations at a time
- When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue
- Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,
- Or when about the sides of mighty peaks
- Thou seest them one upon the other massed
- And burdening downward, anchored in high repose,
- With the winds sepulchred on all sides round:
- Then canst thou know their mighty masses, then
- Canst view their caverns, as if builded there
- Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes
- In gathered storm have filled utterly,
- Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around
- With mighty roarings, and within those dens
- Bluster like savage beasts, and now from here,
- And now from there, send growlings through the clouds,
- And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about,
- And roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire,
- And heap them multitudinously there,
- And in the hollow furnaces within
- Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud
- In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.
- Again, from following cause it comes to pass
- That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire
- Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds
- Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire;
- For, when they be without all moisture, then
- They be for most part of a flamy hue
- And a resplendent. And, indeed, they must
- Even from the light of sun unto themselves
- Take multitudinous seeds, and so perforce
- Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.
- And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust,
- Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds,
- They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out,
- Which make to flash these colours of the flame.
- Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds
- Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when
- The wind with gentle touch unravels them
- And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds
- Which make the lightnings must by nature fall;
- At such an hour the horizon lightens round
- Without the hideous terror of dread noise
- And skiey uproar.
- To proceed apace,
- What sort of nature thunderbolts possess
- Is by their strokes made manifest and by
- The brand-marks of their searing heat on things,
- And by the scorched scars exhaling round
- The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these
- Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.
- Again, they often enkindle even the roofs
- Of houses and inside the very rooms
- With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.
- Know thou that nature fashioned this fire
- Subtler than fires all other, with minute
- And dartling bodies,- a fire 'gainst which there's naught
- Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,
- The mighty, passes through the hedging walls
- Of houses, like to voices or a shout,-
- Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts
- Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,
- Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,
- The wine-jars intact,- because, ye see,
- Its heat arriving renders loose and porous
- Readily all the wine- jar's earthen sides,
- And winding its way within, it scattereth
- The elements primordial of the wine
- With speedy dissolution- process which
- Even in an age the fiery steam of sun
- Could not accomplish, however puissant he
- With his hot coruscations: so much more
- Agile and overpowering is this force.
- . . . . . .
- Now in what manner engendered are these things,
- How fashioned of such impetuous strength
- As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all
- To overtopple, and to wrench apart
- Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments
- To pile in ruins and upheave amain,
- And to take breath forever out of men,
- And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-
- Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this,
- All this and more, I will unfold to thee,
- Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.
- The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived
- As all begotten in those crasser clouds
- Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene
- And from the clouds of lighter density,
- None are sent forth forever. That 'tis so
- Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:
- To wit, at such a time the densed clouds
- So mass themselves through all the upper air
- That we might think that round about all murk
- Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
- The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,
- As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might,
- Do faces of black horror hang on high-
- When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.
- Besides, full often also out at sea
- A blackest thunderhead, like cataract
- Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away
- Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves
- Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain
- The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts
- And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed
- Tremendously with fires and winds, that even
- Back on the lands the people shudder round
- And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,
- The storm must be conceived as o'er our head
- Towering most high; for never would the clouds
- O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,
- Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,
- To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,
- As on they come, engulf with rain so vast
- As thus to make the rivers overflow
- And fields to float, if ether were not thus
- Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,
- Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-
- Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.
- For, verily, I've taught thee even now
- How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable
- Of fiery exhalations, and they must
- From off the sunbeams and the heat of these
- Take many still. And so, when that same wind
- (Which, haply, into one region of the sky
- Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same
- The many fiery seeds, and with that fire
- Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,
- O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,
- Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round
- In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside
- In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
- For in a two-fold manner is that wind
- Enkindled all: it trembles into heat
- Both by its own velocity and by
- Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when
- The energy of wind is heated through
- And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped
- Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,
- Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly
- Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash
- Leaps onward, lumining with forky light
- All places round. And followeth anon
- A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,
- As if asunder burst, seem from on high
- To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake
- Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies
- Run the far rumblings. For at such a time
- Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,
- And roused are the roarings,- from which shock
- Comes such resounding and abounding rain,
- That all the murky ether seems to turn
- Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,
- To summon the fields back to primeval floods:
- So big the rains that be sent down on men
- By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,
- What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt
- That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times
- The force of wind, excited from without,
- Smiteth into a cloud already hot
- With a ripe thunderbolt.
- And when that wind
- Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith
- Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call,
- Even with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.
- The same thing haps toward every other side
- Whither that force hath swept. It happens, too,
- That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth
- Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space
- Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along,-
- Losing some larger bodies which cannot
- Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air,-
- And, scraping together out of air itself
- Some smaller bodies, carries them along,
- And these, commingling, by their flight make fire:
- Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball
- Grows hot upon its aery course, the while
- It loseth many bodies of stark cold
- And taketh into itself along the air
- New particles of fire. It happens, too,
- That force of blow itself arouses fire,
- When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth
- Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain-
- No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke
- 'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff
- Can stream together from out the very wind
- And, simultaneously, from out that thing
- Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies
- The fire when with the steel we hack the stone;
- Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold,
- Rush the less speedily together there
- Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.
- And therefore, thuswise must an object too
- Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply
- 'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.
- Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed
- As altogether and entirely cold-
- That force which is discharged from on high
- With such stupendous power; but if 'tis not
- Upon its course already kindled with fire,
- It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.
- And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt
- Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift
- Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because
- Their roused force itself collects itself
- First always in the clouds, and then prepares
- For the huge effort of their going-forth;
- Next, when the cloud no longer can retain
- The increment of their fierce impetus,
- Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies
- With impetus so wondrous, like to shots
- Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults.
- Note, too, this force consists of elements
- Both small and smooth, nor is there aught that can
- With ease resist such nature. For it darts
- Between and enters through the pores of things;
- And so it never falters in delay
- Despite innumerable collisions, but
- Flies shooting onward with a swift elan.
- Next, since by nature always every weight
- Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then
- And that elan is still more wild and dread,
- When, verily, to weight are added blows,
- So that more madly and more fiercely then
- The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all
- That blocks its path, following on its way.
- Then, too, because it comes along, along
- With one continuing elan, it must
- Take on velocity anew, anew,
- Which still increases as it goes, and ever
- Augments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow
- Gives larger vigour; for it forces all,
- All of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep
- In a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,-
- Casting them one by other, as they roll,
- Into that onward course. Again, perchance,
- In coming along, it pulls from out the air
- Some certain bodies, which by their own blows
- Enkindle its velocity. And, lo,
- It comes through objects leaving them unharmed,
- It goes through many things and leaves them whole,
- Because the liquid fire flieth along
- Athrough their pores. And much it does transfix,
- When these primordial atoms of the bolt
- Have fallen upon the atoms of these things
- Precisely where the intertwined atoms
- Are held together. And, further, easily
- Brass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold,
- Because its force is so minutely made
- Of tiny parts and elements so smooth
- That easily they wind their way within,
- And, when once in, quickly unbind all knots
- And loosen all the bonds of union there.
- And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven,
- The house so studded with the glittering stars,
- And the whole earth around- most too in spring
- When flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo,
- In the cold season is there lack of fire,
- And winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds
- Have not so dense a bulk. But when, indeed,
- The seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain,
- The divers causes of the thunderbolt
- Then all concur; for then both cold and heat
- Are mixed in the cross-seas of the year,
- So that a discord rises among things
- And air in vast tumultuosity
- Billows, infuriate with the fires and winds-
- Of which the both are needed by the cloud
- For fabrication of the thunderbolt.
- For the first part of heat and last of cold
- Is the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike
- Do battle one with other, and, when mixed,
- Tumultuously rage. And when rolls round
- The latest heat mixed with the earliest chill-
- The time which bears the name of autumn- then
- Likewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.
- On this account these seasons of the year
- Are nominated "cross-seas."- And no marvel
- If in those times the thunderbolts prevail
- And storms are roused turbulent in heaven,
- Since then both sides in dubious warfare rage
- Tumultuously, the one with flames, the other
- With winds and with waters mixed with winds.
- This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through
- The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;
- O this it is to mark by what blind force
- It maketh each effect, and not, O not
- To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,
- Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods,
- Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
- Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
- Through walled places it hath wound its way,
- Or, after proving its dominion there,
- How it hath speeded forth from thence amain,
- Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill
- From out high heaven. But if Jupiter
- And other gods shake those refulgent vaults
- With dread reverberations and hurl fire
- Whither it pleases each, why smite they not
- Mortals of reckless and revolting crimes,
- That such may pant from a transpierced breast
- Forth flames of the red levin- unto men
- A drastic lesson?- why is rather he-
- O he self-conscious of no foul offence-
- Involved in flames, though innocent, and clasped
- Up-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?
- Nay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes,
- And spend themselves in vain?- perchance, even so
- To exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?
- Why suffer they the Father's javelin
- To be so blunted on the earth? And why
- Doth he himself allow it, nor spare the same
- Even for his enemies? O why most oft
- Aims he at lofty places? Why behold we
- Marks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?
- Then for what reason shoots he at the sea?-
- What sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine
- And floating fields of foam been guilty of?
- Besides, if 'tis his will that we beware
- Against the lightning-stroke, why feareth he
- To grant us power for to behold the shot?
- And, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us,
- Quite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he
- Off in yon quarter, so that we may shun?
- Why rouseth he beforehand darkling air
- And the far din and rumblings? And O how
- Canst thou believe he shoots at one same time
- Into diverse directions? Or darest thou
- Contend that never hath it come to pass
- That divers strokes have happened at one time?
- But oft and often hath it come to pass,
- And often still it must, that, even as showers
- And rains o'er many regions fall, so too
- Dart many thunderbolts at one same time.
- Again, why never hurtles Jupiter
- A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad
- Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?
- Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds
- Have come thereunder, then into the same
- Descend in person, that from thence he may
- Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?
- And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt
- Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods
- And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks
- The well-wrought idols of divinities,
- And robs of glory his own images
- By wound of violence?
- But to return apace,
- Easy it is from these same facts to know
- In just what wise those things (which from their sort
- The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down,
- Discharged from on high, upon the seas.
- For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends
- Upon the seas a column, as if pushed,
- Round which the surges seethe, tremendously
- Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er
- Of ships are caught within that tumult then
- Come into extreme peril, dashed along.
- This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force
- Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs
- That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky
- Upon the seas pushed downward- gradually,
- As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved
- By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened
- Far to the waves. And when the force of wind
- Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes
- Down on the seas, and starts among the waves
- A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl
- Descends and downward draws along with it
- That cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever
- 'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main
- That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then
- Plunges its whole self into the waters there
- And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,
- Constraining it to seethe. It happens too
- That very vortex of the wind involves
- Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air
- The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,
- The "bellows" pushed from heaven. And when this shape
- Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,
- It belches forth immeasurable might
- Of whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed
- At most but rarely, and on land the hills
- Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there
- On the broad prospect of the level main
- Along the free horizons.
- Into being
- The clouds condense, when in this upper space
- Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly,
- As round they flew, unnumbered particles-
- World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked
- With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,
- The one on other caught. These particles
- First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,
- These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock
- And grow by their conjoining, and by winds
- Are borne along, along, until collects
- The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer
- The mountain summits neighbour to the sky,
- The more unceasingly their far crags smoke
- With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because
- When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes
- Can there behold them (tenuous as they be),
- The carrier-winds will drive them up and on
- Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;
- And then at last it happens, when they be
- In vaster throng upgathered, that they can
- By this very condensation lie revealed,
- And that at same time they are seen to surge
- From very vertex of the mountain up
- Into far ether. For very fact and feeling,
- As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear
- That windy are those upward regions free.
- Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,
- When in they take the clinging moisture, prove
- That nature lifts from over all the sea
- Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more
- 'Tis manifest that many particles
- Even from the salt upheavings of the main
- Can rise together to augment the bulk
- Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain
- Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,
- As well as from the land itself, we see
- Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath
- Are forced out from them and borne aloft,
- To curtain heaven with their murk, and make,
- By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.
- For, in addition, lo, the heat on high
- Of constellated ether burdens down
- Upon them, and by sort of condensation
- Weaveth beneath the azure firmament
- The reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too,
- That hither to the skies from the Beyond
- Do come those particles which make the clouds
- And flying thunderheads. For I have taught
- That this their number is innumerable
- And infinite the sum of the Abyss,
- And I have shown with what stupendous speed
- Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass
- Amain through incommunicable space.
- Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft
- In little time tempest and darkness cover
- With bulking thunderheads hanging on high
- The oceans and the lands, since everywhere
- Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,
- Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes
- Of the great upper-world encompassing,
- There be for the primordial elements
- Exits and entrances.
- Now come, and how
- The rainy moisture thickens into being
- In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands
- 'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,
- I will unfold. And first triumphantly
- Will I persuade thee that up-rise together,
- With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water
- From out all things, and that they both increase-
- Both clouds and water which is in the clouds-
- In like proportion, as our frames increase
- In like proportion with our blood, as well
- As sweat or any moisture in our members.
- Besides, the clouds take in from time to time
- Much moisture risen from the broad marine,-
- Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea,
- Like hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise,
- Even from all rivers is there lifted up
- Moisture into the clouds. And when therein
- The seeds of water so many in many ways
- Have come together, augmented from all sides,
- The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge
- Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,
- The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess
- Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)
- Giveth an urge and pressure from above
- And makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too,
- The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered
- Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send
- Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops,
- Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,
- Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
- But comes the violence of the bigger rains
- When violently the clouds are weighted down
- Both by their cumulated mass and by
- The onset of the wind. And rains are wont
- To endure awhile and to abide for long,
- When many seeds of waters are aroused,
- And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream
- In piled layers and are borne along
- From every quarter, and when all the earth
- Smoking exhales her moisture. At such a time
- When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk
- Hath shone against the showers of black rains,
- Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright
- The radiance of the bow.
- And as to things
- Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow
- Or of themselves are gendered, and all things
- Which in the clouds condense to being- all,
- Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill,
- And freezing, mighty force- of lakes and pools
- The mighty hardener, and mighty check
- Which in the winter curbeth everywhere
- The rivers as they go- 'tis easy still,
- Soon to discover and with mind to see
- How they all happen, whereby gendered,
- When once thou well hast understood just what
- Functions have been vouchsafed from of old
- Unto the procreant atoms of the world.
- Now come, and what the law of earthquakes is
- Hearken, and first of all take care to know
- That the under-earth, like to the earth around us,
- Is full of windy caverns all about;
- And many a pool and many a grim abyss
- She bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs
- And jagged scarps; and many a river, hid
- Beneath her chine, rolls rapidly along
- Its billows and plunging boulders. For clear fact
- Requires that earth must be in every part
- Alike in constitution. Therefore, earth,
- With these things underneath affixed and set,
- Trembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings,
- When time hath undermined the huge caves,
- The subterranean. Yea, whole mountains fall,
- And instantly from spot of that big jar
- There quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.
- And with good reason: since houses on the street
- Begin to quake throughout, when jarred by a cart
- Of no large weight; and, too, the furniture
- Within the house up-bounds, when a paving-block
- Gives either iron rim of the wheels a jolt.
- It happens, too, when some prodigious bulk
- Of age-worn soil is rolled from mountain slopes
- Into tremendous pools of water dark,
- That the reeling land itself is rocked about
- By the water's undulations; as a basin
- Sometimes won't come to rest until the fluid
- Within it ceases to be rocked about
- In random undulations.
- And besides,
- When subterranean winds, up-gathered there
- In the hollow deeps, bulk forward from one spot,
- And press with the big urge of mighty powers
- Against the lofty grottos, then the earth
- Bulks to that quarter whither push amain
- The headlong winds. Then all the builded houses
- Above ground- and the more, the higher up-reared
- Unto the sky- lean ominously, careening
- Into the same direction; and the beams,
- Wrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go.
- Yet dread men to believe that there awaits
- The nature of the mighty world a time
- Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see
- So great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!
- And lest the winds blew back again, no force
- Could rein things in nor hold from sure career
- On to disaster. But now because those winds
- Blow back and forth in alternation strong,
- And, so to say, rallying charge again,
- And then repulsed retreat, on this account
- Earth oftener threatens than she brings to pass
- Collapses dire. For to one side she leans,
- Then back she sways; and after tottering
- Forward, recovers then her seats of poise.
- Thus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs
- More than the middle stories, middle more
- Than lowest, and the lowest least of all.
- Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking,
- When wind and some prodigious force of air,
- Collected from without or down within
- The old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves
- Amain into those caverns sub-terrene,
- And there at first tumultuously chafe
- Among the vasty grottos, borne about
- In mad rotations, till their lashed force
- Aroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there,
- Riving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm-
- What once in Syrian Sidon did befall,
- And once in Peloponnesian Aegium,
- Twain cities which such out-break of wild air
- And earth's convulsion, following hard upon,
- O'erthrew of old. And many a walled town,
- Besides, hath fall'n by such omnipotent
- Convulsions on the land, and in the sea
- Engulfed hath sunken many a city down
- With all its populace. But if, indeed,
- They burst not forth, yet is the very rush
- Of the wild air and fury-force of wind
- Then dissipated, like an ague-fit,
- Through the innumerable pores of earth,
- To set her all a-shake- even as a chill,
- When it hath gone into our marrow-bones,
- Sets us convulsively, despite ourselves,
- A-shivering and a-shaking. Therefore, men
- With two-fold terror bustle in alarm
- Through cities to and fro: they fear the roofs
- Above the head; and underfoot they dread
- The caverns, lest the nature of the earth
- Suddenly rend them open, and she gape,
- Herself asunder, with tremendous maw,
- And, all confounded, seek to chock it full
- With her own ruins. Let men, then, go on
- Feigning at will that heaven and earth shall be
- Inviolable, entrusted evermore
- To an eternal weal: and yet at times
- The very force of danger here at hand
- Prods them on some side with this goad of fear-
- This among others- that the earth, withdrawn
- Abruptly from under their feet, be hurried down,
- Down into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things
- Be following after, utterly fordone,
- Till be but wrack and wreckage of a world.
- . . . . . .
- In chief, men marvel nature renders not
- Bigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since
- So vast the down-rush of the waters be,
- And every river out of every realm
- Cometh thereto; and add the random rains
- And flying tempests, which spatter every sea
- And every land bedew; add their own springs:
- Yet all of these unto the ocean's sum
- Shall be but as the increase of a drop.
- Wherefore 'tis less a marvel that the sea,
- The mighty ocean, increaseth not. Besides,
- Sun with his heat draws off a mighty part:
- Yea, we behold that sun with burning beams
- To dry our garments dripping all with wet;
- And many a sea, and far out-spread beneath,
- Do we behold. Therefore, however slight
- The portion of wet that sun on any spot
- Culls from the level main, he still will take
- From off the waves in such a wide expanse
- Abundantly. Then, further, also winds,
- Sweeping the level waters, can bear off
- A mighty part of wet, since we behold
- Oft in a single night the highways dried
- By winds, and soft mud crusted o'er at dawn.
- Again, I've taught thee that the clouds bear off
- Much moisture too, up-taken from the reaches
- Of the mighty main, and sprinkle it about
- O'er all the zones, when rain is on the lands
- And winds convey the aery racks of vapour.
- Lastly, since earth is porous through her frame,
- And neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores,
- The water's wet must seep into the lands
- From briny ocean, as from lands it comes
- Into the seas. For brine is filtered off,
- And then the liquid stuff seeps back again
- And all re-poureth at the river-heads,
- Whence in fresh-water currents it returns
- Over the lands, adown the channels which
- Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along
- The liquid-footed floods.