De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- Bodies, again,
- Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
- Unions deriving from the primal germs.
- And those which are the primal germs of things
- No power can quench; for in the end they conquer
- By their own solidness; though hard it be
- To think that aught in things has solid frame;
- For lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout,
- Through hedging walls of houses, and the iron
- White-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burn
- With exhalations fierce and burst asunder.
- Totters the rigid gold dissolved in heat;
- The ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame;
- Warmth and the piercing cold through silver seep,
- Since, with the cups held rightly in the hand,
- We oft feel both, as from above is poured
- The dew of waters between their shining sides:
- So true it is no solid form is found.
- But yet because true reason and nature of things
- Constrain us, come, whilst in few verses now
- I disentangle how there still exist
- Bodies of solid, everlasting frame-
- The seeds of things, the primal germs we teach,
- Whence all creation around us came to be.
- First since we know a twofold nature exists,
- Of things, both twain and utterly unlike-
- Body, and place in which an things go on-
- Then each must be both for and through itself,
- And all unmixed: where'er be empty space,
- There body's not; and so where body bides,
- There not at all exists the void inane.
- Thus primal bodies are solid, without a void.
- But since there's void in all begotten things,
- All solid matter must be round the same;
- Nor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hides
- And holds a void within its body, unless
- Thou grant what holds it be a solid. Know,
- That which can hold a void of things within
- Can be naught else than matter in union knit.
- Thus matter, consisting of a solid frame,
- Hath power to be eternal, though all else,
- Though all creation, be dissolved away.
- Again, were naught of empty and inane,
- The world were then a solid; as, without
- Some certain bodies to fill the places held,
- The world that is were but a vacant void.
- And so, infallibly, alternate-wise
- Body and void are still distinguished,
- Since nature knows no wholly full nor void.
- There are, then, certain bodies, possessed of power
- To vary forever the empty and the full;
- And these can nor be sundered from without
- By beats and blows, nor from within be torn
- By penetration, nor be overthrown
- By any assault soever through the world-
- For without void, naught can be crushed, it seems,
- Nor broken, nor severed by a cut in twain,
- Nor can it take the damp, or seeping cold
- Or piercing fire, those old destroyers three;
- But the more void within a thing, the more
- Entirely it totters at their sure assault.
- Thus if first bodies be, as I have taught,
- Solid, without a void, they must be then
- Eternal; and, if matter ne'er had been
- Eternal, long ere now had all things gone
- Back into nothing utterly, and all
- We see around from nothing had been born-
- But since I taught above that naught can be
- From naught created, nor the once begotten
- To naught be summoned back, these primal germs
- Must have an immortality of frame.
- And into these must each thing be resolved,
- When comes its supreme hour, that thus there be
- At hand the stuff for plenishing the world.
- . . . . . .
- So primal germs have solid singleness
- Nor otherwise could they have been conserved
- Through aeons and infinity of time
- For the replenishment of wasted worlds.
- Once more, if nature had given a scope for things
- To be forever broken more and more,
- By now the bodies of matter would have been
- So far reduced by breakings in old days
- That from them nothing could, at season fixed,
- Be born, and arrive its prime and top of life.
- For, lo, each thing is quicker marred than made;
- And so whate'er the long infinitude
- Of days and all fore-passed time would now
- By this have broken and ruined and dissolved,
- That same could ne'er in all remaining time
- Be builded up for plenishing the world.
- But mark: infallibly a fixed bound
- Remaineth stablished 'gainst their breaking down;
- Since we behold each thing soever renewed,
- And unto all, their seasons, after their kind,
- Wherein they arrive the flower of their age.
- Again, if bounds have not been set against
- The breaking down of this corporeal world,
- Yet must all bodies of whatever things
- Have still endured from everlasting time
- Unto this present, as not yet assailed
- By shocks of peril. But because the same
- Are, to thy thinking, of a nature frail,
- It ill accords that thus they could remain
- (As thus they do) through everlasting time,
- Vexed through the ages (as indeed they are)
- By the innumerable blows of chance.
- So in our programme of creation, mark
- How 'tis that, though the bodies of all stuff
- Are solid to the core, we yet explain
- The ways whereby some things are fashioned soft-
- Air, water, earth, and fiery exhalations-
- And by what force they function and go on:
- The fact is founded in the void of things.
- But if the primal germs themselves be soft,
- Reason cannot be brought to bear to show
- The ways whereby may be created these
- Great crags of basalt and the during iron;
- For their whole nature will profoundly lack
- The first foundations of a solid frame.
- But powerful in old simplicity,
- Abide the solid, the primeval germs;
- And by their combinations more condensed,
- All objects can be tightly knit and bound
- And made to show unconquerable strength.
- Again, since all things kind by kind obtain
- Fixed bounds of growing and conserving life;
- Since Nature hath inviolably decreed
- What each can do, what each can never do;
- Since naught is changed, but all things so abide
- That ever the variegated birds reveal
- The spots or stripes peculiar to their kind,
- Spring after spring: thus surely all that is
- Must be composed of matter immutable.
- For if the primal germs in any wise
- Were open to conquest and to change, 'twould be
- Uncertain also what could come to birth
- And what could not, and by what law to each
- Its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings
- So deep in Time. Nor could the generations
- Kind after kind so often reproduce
- The nature, habits, motions, ways of life,
- Of their progenitors.
- And then again,
- Since there is ever an extreme bounding point
- . . . . . .
- Of that first body which our senses now
- Cannot perceive: That bounding point indeed
- Exists without all parts, a minimum
- Of nature, nor was e'er a thing apart,
- As of itself,- nor shall hereafter be,
- Since 'tis itself still parcel of another,
- A first and single part, whence other parts
- And others similar in order lie
- In a packed phalanx, filling to the full
- The nature of first body: being thus
- Not self-existent, they must cleave to that
- From which in nowise they can sundered be.
- So primal germs have solid singleness,
- Which tightly packed and closely joined cohere
- By virtue of their minim particles-
- No compound by mere union of the same;
- But strong in their eternal singleness,
- Nature, reserving them as seeds for things,
- Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.
- Moreover, were there not a minimum,
- The smallest bodies would have infinites,
- Since then a half-of-half could still be halved,
- With limitless division less and less.
- Then what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?
- None: for however infinite the sum,
- Yet even the smallest would consist the same
- Of infinite parts. But since true reason here
- Protests, denying that the mind can think it,
- Convinced thou must confess such things there are
- As have no parts, the minimums of nature.
- And since these are, likewise confess thou must
- That primal bodies are solid and eterne.
- Again, if Nature, creatress of all things,
- Were wont to force all things to be resolved
- Unto least parts, then would she not avail
- To reproduce from out them anything;
- Because whate'er is not endowed with parts
- Cannot possess those properties required
- Of generative stuff- divers connections,
- Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things
- Forevermore have being and go on.
- And on such grounds it is that those who held
- The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire
- Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen
- Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
- Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes
- That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
- Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
- Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone
- That to bewonder and adore which hides
- Beneath distorted words, holding that true
- Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,
- Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
- For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
- If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit
- 'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,
- If all the parts of fire did still preserve
- But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
- The heat were keener with the parts compressed,
- Milder, again, when severed or dispersed-
- And more than this thou canst conceive of naught
- That from such causes could become; much less
- Might earth's variety of things be born
- From any fires soever, dense or rare.
- This too: if they suppose a void in things,
- Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;
- But since they see such opposites of thought
- Rising against them, and are loath to leave
- An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep
- And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,
- That, if from things we take away the void,
- All things are then condensed, and out of all
- One body made, which has no power to dart
- Swiftly from out itself not anything-
- As throws the fire its light and warmth around,
- Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
- But if perhaps they think, in other wise,
- Fires through their combinations can be quenched
- And change their substance, very well: behold,
- If fire shall spare to do so in no part,
- Then heat will perish utterly and all,
- And out of nothing would the world be formed.
- For change in anything from out its bounds
- Means instant death of that which was before;
- And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed
- Amid the world, lest all return to naught,
- And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.
- Now since indeed there are those surest bodies
- Which keep their nature evermore the same,
- Upon whose going out and coming in
- And changed order things their nature change,
- And all corporeal substances transformed,
- 'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then,
- Are not of fire. For 'twere of no avail
- Should some depart and go away, and some
- Be added new, and some be changed in order,
- If still all kept their nature of old heat:
- For whatsoever they created then
- Would still in any case be only fire.
- The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are
- Whose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes
- Produce the fire and which, by order changed,
- Do change the nature of the thing produced,
- And are thereafter nothing like to fire
- Nor whatso else has power to send its bodies
- With impact touching on the senses' touch.
- Again, to say that all things are but fire
- And no true thing in number of all things
- Exists but fire, as this same fellow says,
- Seems crazed folly. For the man himself
- Against the senses by the senses fights,
- And hews at that through which is all belief,
- Through which indeed unto himself is known
- The thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinks
- The senses truly can perceive the fire,
- He thinks they cannot as regards all else,
- Which still are palpably as clear to sense-
- To me a thought inept and crazy too.
- For whither shall we make appeal? for what
- More certain than our senses can there be
- Whereby to mark asunder error and truth?
- Besides, why rather do away with all,
- And wish to allow heat only, then deny
- The fire and still allow all else to be?-
- Alike the madness either way it seems.
- Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things
- To be but fire, and out of fire the sum,
- And whosoever have constituted air
- As first beginning of begotten things,
- And all whoever have held that of itself
- Water alone contrives things, or that earth
- Createth all and changes things anew
- To divers natures, mightily they seem
- A long way to have wandered from the truth.
- Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff
- Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth
- To water; add who deem that things can grow
- Out of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain;
- As first Empedocles of Acragas,
- Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands
- Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows
- In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas,
- Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.
- Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits,
- Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores
- Of the Italic mainland. Here the waste
- Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats
- To gather anew such furies of its flames
- As with its force anew to vomit fires,
- Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anew
- Its lightnings' flash. And though for much she seem
- The mighty and the wondrous isle to men,
- Most rich in all good things, and fortified
- With generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'er
- Possessed within her aught of more renown,
- Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear
- Than this true man. Nay, ever so far and pure
- The lofty music of his breast divine
- Lifts up its voice and tells of glories found,
- That scarce he seems of human stock create.
- Yet he and those forementioned (known to be
- So far beneath him, less than he in all),
- Though, as discoverers of much goodly truth,
- They gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine,
- Responses holier and soundlier based
- Than ever the Pythia pronounced for men
- From out the triped and the Delphian laurel,
- Have still in matter of first-elements
- Made ruin of themselves, and, great men, great
- Indeed and heavy there for them the fall:
- First, because, banishing the void from things,
- They yet assign them motion, and allow
- Things soft and loosely textured to exist,
- As air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains,
- Without admixture of void amid their frame.
- Next, because, thinking there can be no end
- In cutting bodies down to less and less
- Nor pause established to their breaking up,
- They hold there is no minimum in things;
- Albeit we see the boundary point of aught
- Is that which to our senses seems its least,
- Whereby thou mayst conjecture, that, because
- The things thou canst not mark have boundary points,
- They surely have their minimums. Then, too,
- Since these philosophers ascribe to things
- Soft primal germs, which we behold to be
- Of birth and body mortal, thus, throughout,
- The sum of things must be returned to naught,
- And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew-
- Thou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.
- And, next, these bodies are among themselves
- In many ways poisons and foes to each,
- Wherefore their congress will destroy them quite
- Or drive asunder as we see in storms
- Rains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.
- Thus too, if all things are create of four,
- And all again dissolved into the four,
- How can the four be called the primal germs
- Of things, more than all things themselves be thought,
- By retroversion, primal germs of them?
- For ever alternately are both begot,
- With interchange of nature and aspect
- From immemorial time. But if percase
- Thou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air,
- The dew of water can in such wise meet
- As not by mingling to resign their nature,
- From them for thee no world can be create-
- No thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree:
- In the wild congress of this varied heap
- Each thing its proper nature will display,
- And air will palpably be seen mixed up
- With earth together, unquenched heat with water.
- But primal germs in bringing things to birth
- Must have a latent, unseen quality,
- Lest some outstanding alien element
- Confuse and minish in the thing create
- Its proper being.
- But these men begin
- From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign
- That fire will turn into the winds of air,
- Next, that from air the rain begotten is,
- And earth created out of rain, and then
- That all, reversely, are returned from earth-
- The moisture first, then air thereafter heat-
- And that these same ne'er cease in interchange,
- To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth
- Unto the stars of the aethereal world-
- Which in no wise at all the germs can do.
- Since an immutable somewhat still must be,
- Lest all things utterly be sped to naught;
- For change in anything from out its bounds
- Means instant death of that which was before.
- Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore,
- Suffer a changed state, they must derive
- From others ever unconvertible,
- Lest an things utterly return to naught.
- Then why not rather presuppose there be
- Bodies with such a nature furnished forth
- That, if perchance they have created fire,
- Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn,
- Or added few, and motion and order changed)
- Fashion the winds of air, and thus all things
- Forevermore be interchanged with all?
- "But facts in proof are manifest," thou sayest,
- "That all things grow into the winds of air
- And forth from earth are nourished, and unless
- The season favour at propitious hour
- With rains enough to set the trees a-reel
- Under the soak of bulking thunderheads,
- And sun, for its share, foster and give heat,
- No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow."
- True- and unless hard food and moisture soft
- Recruited man, his frame would waste away,
- And life dissolve from out his thews and bones;
- For out of doubt recruited and fed are we
- By certain things, as other things by others.
- Because in many ways the many germs
- Common to many things are mixed in things,
- No wonder 'tis that therefore divers things
- By divers things are nourished. And, again,
- Often it matters vastly with what others,
- In what positions the primordial germs
- Are bound together, and what motions, too,
- They give and get among themselves; for these
- Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands,
- Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things,
- But yet commixed they are in divers modes
- With divers things, forever as they move.
- Nay, thou beholdest in our verses here
- Elements many, common to many worlds,
- Albeit thou must confess each verse, each word
- From one another differs both in sense
- And ring of sound- so much the elements
- Can bring about by change of order alone.
- But those which are the primal germs of things
- Have power to work more combinations still,
- Whence divers things can be produced in turn.
- Now let us also take for scrutiny
- The homeomeria of Anaxagoras,
- So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech
- Yieldeth no name in the Italian tongue,
- Although the thing itself is not o'erhard
- For explanation. First, then, when he speaks
- Of this homeomeria of things, he thinks
- Bones to be sprung from littlest bones minute,
- And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh,
- And blood created out of drops of blood,
- Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold,
- And earth concreted out of bits of earth,
- Fire made of fires, and water out of waters,
- Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.
- Yet he concedes not any void in things,
- Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.
- Wherefore to me he seems on both accounts
- To err no less than those we named before.
- Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-
- If they be germs primordial furnished forth
- With but same nature as the things themselves,
- And travail and perish equally with those,
- And no rein curbs them from annihilation.
- For which will last against the grip and crush
- Under the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?
- Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?
- No one, methinks, when every thing will be
- At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark
- To perish by force before our gazing eyes.
- But my appeal is to the proofs above
- That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet
- From naught increase. And now again, since food
- Augments and nourishes the human frame,
- 'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones
- And thews are formed of particles unlike
- To them in kind; or if they say all foods
- Are of mixed substance having in themselves
- Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins
- And particles of blood, then every food,
- Solid or liquid, must itself be thought
- As made and mixed of things unlike in kind-
- Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.
- Again, if all the bodies which upgrow
- From earth, are first within the earth, then earth
- Must be compound of alien substances.
- Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.
- Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use
- The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash
- Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood
- Must be compound of alien substances
- Which spring from out the wood.
- Right here remains
- A certain slender means to skulk from truth,
- Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,
- Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all
- While that one only comes to view, of which
- The bodies exceed in number all the rest,
- And lie more close to hand and at the fore-
- A notion banished from true reason far.
- For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains
- Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones,
- Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else
- Which in our human frame is fed; and that
- Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.
- Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops
- Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;
- Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up
- The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,
- All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;
- Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood
- Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.
- But since fact teaches this is not the case,
- 'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things
- Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,
- Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
- "But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,
- "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed
- One against other, smote by the blustering south,
- Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."
- Good sooth- yet fire is not ingraft in wood,
- But many are the seeds of heat, and when
- Rubbing together they together flow,
- They start the conflagrations in the forests.
- Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay
- Stored up within the forests, then the fires
- Could not for any time be kept unseen,
- But would be laying all the wildwood waste
- And burning all the boscage. Now dost see
- (Even as we said a little space above)
- How mightily it matters with what others,
- In what positions these same primal germs
- Are bound together? And what motions, too,
- They give and get among themselves? how, hence,
- The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body
- Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-
- Precisely as these words themselves are made
- By somewhat altering their elements,
- Although we mark with name indeed distinct
- The igneous from the ligneous. Once again,
- If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,
- Among all visible objects, cannot be,
- Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed
- With a like nature,- by thy vain device
- For thee will perish all the germs of things:
- 'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,
- Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
- Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
- Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!
- And for myself, my mind is not deceived
- How dark it is: But the large hope of praise
- Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;
- On the same hour hath strook into my breast
- Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,
- I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,
- Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,
- Trodden by step of none before. I joy
- To come on undefiled fountains there,
- To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,
- To seek for this my head a signal crown
- From regions where the Muses never yet
- Have garlanded the temples of a man:
- First, since I teach concerning mighty things,
- And go right on to loose from round the mind
- The tightened coils of dread religion;
- Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame
- Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout
- Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,
- Is not without a reasonable ground:
- But as physicians, when they seek to give
- Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch
- The brim around the cup with the sweet juice
- And yellow of the honey, in order that
- The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled
- As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down
- The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,
- Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus
- Grow strong again with recreated health:
- So now I too (since this my doctrine seems
- In general somewhat woeful unto those
- Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd
- Starts back from it in horror) have desired
- To expound our doctrine unto thee in song
- Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,
- To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-
- If by such method haply I might hold
- The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,
- Till thou see through the nature of all things,
- And how exists the interwoven frame.
- But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
- Completely solid, hither and thither fly
- Forevermore unconquered through all time,
- Now come, and whether to the sum of them
- There be a limit or be none, for thee
- Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
- To be the wide inane, or room, or space
- Wherein all things soever do go on,
- Let us examine if it finite be
- All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
- And downward an illimitable profound.
- Thus, then, the All that is is limited
- In no one region of its onward paths,
- For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
- And a beyond 'tis seen can never be
- For aught, unless still further on there be
- A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-
- So that the thing be seen still on to where
- The nature of sensation of that thing
- Can follow it no longer. Now because
- Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,
- There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
- It matters nothing where thou post thyself,
- In whatsoever regions of the same;
- Even any place a man has set him down
- Still leaves about him the unbounded all
- Outward in all directions; or, supposing
- A moment the all of space finite to be,
- If some one farthest traveller runs forth
- Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead
- A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think
- It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent
- And shoots afar, or that some object there
- Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other
- Thou must admit and take. Either of which
- Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel
- That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,
- Owning no confines. Since whether there be
- Aught that may block and check it so it comes
- Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,
- Or whether borne along, in either view
- 'Thas started not from any end. And so
- I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set
- The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes
- Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass
- That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that
- The chance for further flight prolongs forever
- The flight itself. Besides, were all the space
- Of the totality and sum shut in
- With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,
- Then would the abundance of world's matter flow
- Together by solid weight from everywhere
- Still downward to the bottom of the world,
- Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,
- Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-
- Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,
- By having settled during infinite time.
- But in reality, repose is given
- Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements,
- Because there is no bottom whereunto
- They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where
- They might take up their undisturbed abodes.
- In endless motion everything goes on
- Forevermore; out of all regions, even
- Out of the pit below, from forth the vast,
- Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.
- The nature of room, the space of the abyss
- Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts
- Can neither speed upon their courses through,
- Gliding across eternal tracts of time,
- Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,
- That they may bate their journeying one whit:
- Such huge abundance spreads for things around-
- Room off to every quarter, without end.
- Lastly, before our very eyes is seen
- Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,
- And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,
- And sea in turn all lands; but for the All
- Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
- That, too, the sum of things itself may not
- Have power to fix a measure of its own,
- Great nature guards, she who compels the void
- To bound all body, as body all the void,
- Thus rendering by these alternates the whole
- An infinite; or else the one or other,
- Being unbounded by the other, spreads,
- Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless
- Immeasurably forth....
- Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,
- Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods
- Could keep their place least portion of an hour:
- For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,
- The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne
- Along the illimitable inane afar,
- Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined
- And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,
- It could not be united. For of truth
- Neither by counsel did the primal germs
- 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,
- Each in its proper place; nor did they make,
- Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;
- But since, being many and changed in many modes
- Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed
- By blow on blow, even from all time of old,
- They thus at last, after attempting all
- The kinds of motion and conjoining, come
- Into those great arrangements out of which
- This sum of things established is create,
- By which, moreover, through the mighty years,
- It is preserved, when once it has been thrown
- Into the proper motions, bringing to pass
- That ever the streams refresh the greedy main
- With river-waves abounding, and that earth,
- Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,
- Renews her broods, and that the lusty race
- Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that
- The gliding fires of ether are alive-
- What still the primal germs nowise could do,
- Unless from out the infinite of space
- Could come supply of matter, whence in season
- They're wont whatever losses to repair.
- For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,
- Losing its body, when deprived of food:
- So all things have to be dissolved as soon
- As matter, diverted by what means soever
- From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.
- Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,
- On every side, whatever sum of a world
- Has been united in a whole. They can
- Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,
- Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;
- But meanwhile often are they forced to spring
- Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,
- Unto those elements whence a world derives,
- Room and a time for flight, permitting them
- To be from off the massy union borne
- Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:
- Needs must there come a many for supply;
- And also, that the blows themselves shall be
- Unfailing ever, must there ever be
- An infinite force of matter all sides round.
- And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
- From yielding faith to that notorious talk:
- That all things inward to the centre press;
- And thus the nature of the world stands firm
- With never blows from outward, nor can be
- Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth
- Have always inward to the centre pressed
- (If thou art ready to believe that aught
- Itself can rest upon itself ); or that
- The ponderous bodies which be under earth
- Do all press upwards and do come to rest
- Upon the earth, in some way upside down,
- Like to those images of things we see
- At present through the waters. They contend,
- With like procedure, that all breathing things
- Head downward roam about, and yet cannot
- Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,
- No more than these our bodies wing away
- Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
- That, when those creatures look upon the sun,
- We view the constellations of the night;
- And that with us the seasons of the sky
- They thus alternately divide, and thus
- Do pass the night coequal to our days,
- But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,
- Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse
- For centre none can be where world is still
- Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,
- Could aught take there a fixed position more
- Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
- For all of room and space we call the void
- Must both through centre and non-centre yield
- Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
- Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,
- Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
- Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
- Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,
- True to its bent of nature, still give way.
- Thus in such manner not at all can things
- Be held in union, as if overcome
- By craving for a centre.
- But besides,
- Seeing they feign that not all bodies press
- To centre inward, rather only those
- Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,
- And the big billows from the mountain slopes,
- And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,
- In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach
- How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,
- Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,
- For this all ether quivers with bright stars,
- And the sun's flame along the blue is fed
- (Because the heat, from out the centre flying,
- All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs
- Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,
- Unless, little by little, from out the earth
- For each were nutriment...
- . . . . . .
- Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,
- The ramparts of the world should flee away,
- Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,
- And lest all else should likewise follow after,
- Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst
- And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith
- Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,
- Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,
- With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,
- Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,
- Away forever, and, that instant, naught
- Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside
- The desolate space, and germs invisible.
- For on whatever side thou deemest first
- The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side
- Will be for things the very door of death:
- Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,
- Out and abroad.
- These points, if thou wilt ponder,
- Then, with but paltry trouble led along...
- . . . . . .
- For one thing after other will grow clear,
- Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,
- To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.
- Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.
- 'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
- Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
- To watch another's labouring anguish far,
- Not that we joyously delight that man
- Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
- To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;
- 'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife
- Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,
- Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught
- There is more goodly than to hold the high
- Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,
- Whence thou may'st look below on other men
- And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed
- In their lone seeking for the road of life;
- Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
- Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil
- For summits of power and mastery of the world.
- O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!
- In how great perils, in what darks of life
- Are spent the human years, however brief!-
- O not to see that nature for herself
- Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,
- Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy
- Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!
- Therefore we see that our corporeal life
- Needs little, altogether, and only such
- As takes the pain away, and can besides
- Strew underneath some number of delights.
- More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves
- No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
- There be no golden images of boys
- Along the halls, with right hands holding out
- The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,
- And if the house doth glitter not with gold
- Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound
- No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
- Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
- Beside a river of water, underneath
- A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh
- Our frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
- If the weather is laughing and the times of the year
- Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.
- Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,
- If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,
- Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie
- Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since
- Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign
- Avail us naught for this our body, thus
- Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:
- Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth
- Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,
- Rousing a mimic warfare- either side
- Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,
- Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;
- Or save when also thou beholdest forth
- Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:
- For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,
- Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then
- The fears of death leave heart so free of care.
- But if we note how all this pomp at last
- Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,
- And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,
- Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords
- But among kings and lords of all the world
- Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed
- By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright
- Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this
- Is aught, but power of thinking?- when, besides
- The whole of life but labours in the dark.
- 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.
- Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
- Now by what motions the begetting bodies
- Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
- And then forever resolve it when begot,
- And by what force they are constrained to this,
- And what the speed appointed unto them
- Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:
- Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.
- For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,
- Since we behold each thing to wane away,
- And we observe how all flows on and off,
- As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes
- How eld withdraws each object at the end,
- Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,
- Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing
- Diminish what they part from, but endow
- With increase those to which in turn they come,
- Constraining these to wither in old age,
- And those to flower at the prime (and yet
- Biding not long among them). Thus the sum
- Forever is replenished, and we live
- As mortals by eternal give and take.
- The nations wax, the nations wane away;
- In a brief space the generations pass,
- And like to runners hand the lamp of life
- One unto other.
- But if thou believe
- That the primordial germs of things can stop,
- And in their stopping give new motions birth,
- Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.
- For since they wander through the void inane,
- All the primordial germs of things must needs
- Be borne along, either by weight their own,
- Or haply by another's blow without.
- For, when, in their incessancy so oft
- They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain
- They leap asunder, face to face: not strange-
- Being most hard, and solid in their weights,
- And naught opposing motion, from behind.
- And that more clearly thou perceive how all
- These mites of matter are darted round about,
- Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum
- Of All exists a bottom,- nowhere is
- A realm of rest for primal bodies; since
- (As amply shown and proved by reason sure)
- Space has no bound nor measure, and extends
- Unmetered forth in all directions round.
- Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt
- No rest is rendered to the primal bodies
- Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,
- Inveterately plied by motions mixed,
- Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave
- Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow
- Are hurried about with spaces small between.
- And all which, brought together with slight gaps,
- In more condensed union bound aback,
- Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-
- These form the irrefragable roots of rocks
- And the brute bulks of iron, and what else
- Is of their kind...
- The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,
- Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply
- For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.
- And many besides wander the mighty void-
- Cast back from unions of existing things,
- Nowhere accepted in the universe,
- And nowise linked in motions to the rest.
- And of this fact (as I record it here)
- An image, a type goes on before our eyes
- Present each moment; for behold whenever
- The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down
- Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see
- The many mites in many a manner mixed
- Amid a void in the very light of the rays,
- And battling on, as in eternal strife,
- And in battalions contending without halt,
- In meetings, partings, harried up and down.
- From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort
- The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds
- Amid the mightier void- at least so far
- As small affair can for a vaster serve,
- And by example put thee on the spoor
- Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit
- Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies
- Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:
- Namely, because such tumblings are a sign
- That motions also of the primal stuff
- Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.
- For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled
- By viewless blows, to change its little course,
- And beaten backwards to return again,
- Hither and thither in all directions round.
- Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,
- From the primeval atoms; for the same
- Primordial seeds of things first move of self,
- And then those bodies built of unions small
- And nearest, as it were, unto the powers
- Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up
- By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,
- And these thereafter goad the next in size:
- Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,
- And stage by stage emerges to our sense,
- Until those objects also move which we
- Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears
- What blows do urge them.
- Now what the speed to matter's atoms given
- Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:
- When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light
- The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad
- Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes
- Filling the regions along the mellow air,
- We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man
- How suddenly the risen sun is wont
- At such an hour to overspread and clothe
- The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's
- Warm exhalations and this serene light
- Travel not down an empty void; and thus
- They are compelled more slowly to advance,
- Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;
- Nor one by one travel these particles
- Of the warm exhalations, but are all
- Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once
- Each is restrained by each, and from without
- Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.
- But the primordial atoms with their old
- Simple solidity, when forth they travel
- Along the empty void, all undelayed
- By aught outside them there, and they, each one
- Being one unit from nature of its parts,
- Are borne to that one place on which they strive
- Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,
- Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne
- Than light of sun, and over regions rush,
- Of space much vaster, in the self-same time
- The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.
- . . . . . .
- Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,
- To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
- But some men, ignorant of matter, think,
- Opposing this, that not without the gods,
- In such adjustment to our human ways,
- Can nature change the seasons of the years,
- And bring to birth the grains and all of else
- To which divine Delight, the guide of life,
- Persuades mortality and leads it on,
- That, through her artful blandishments of love,
- It propagate the generations still,
- Lest humankind should perish. When they feign
- That gods have stablished all things but for man,
- They seem in all ways mightily to lapse
- From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew
- What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare
- This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based
- Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-
- This to maintain by many a fact besides-
- That in no wise the nature of the world
- For us was builded by a power divine-
- So great the faults it stands encumbered with:
- The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee
- We will clear up. Now as to what remains
- Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.
- Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs
- To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal
- Of its own force can e'er be upward borne,
- Or upward go- nor let the bodies of flames
- Deceive thee here: for they engendered are
- With urge to upwards, taking thus increase,
- Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,
- Though all the weight within them downward bears.
- Nor, when the fires will leap from under round
- The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up
- Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed
- They act of own accord, no force beneath
- To urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged
- From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft
- And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked
- With what a force the water will disgorge
- Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,
- We push them in, and, many though we be,
- The more we press with main and toil, the more
- The water vomits up and flings them back,
- That, more than half their length, they there emerge,
- Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,
- That all the weight within them downward bears
- Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames
- Ought also to be able, when pressed out,
- Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though
- The weight within them strive to draw them down.
- Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,
- The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,
- How after them they draw long trails of flame
- Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?
- How stars and constellations drop to earth,
- Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven
- Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,
- And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:
- Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.
- Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;
- Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,
- The fires dash zig-zag- and that flaming power
- Falls likewise down to earth.
- In these affairs
- We wish thee also well aware of this:
- The atoms, as their own weight bears them down
- Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,
- In scarce determined places, from their course
- Decline a little- call it, so to speak,
- Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont
- Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,
- Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;
- And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows
- Among the primal elements; and thus
- Nature would never have created aught.
- But, if perchance be any that believe
- The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne
- Plumb down the void, are able from above
- To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows
- Able to cause those procreant motions, far
- From highways of true reason they retire.
- For whatsoever through the waters fall,
- Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,
- Each after its weight- on this account, because
- Both bulk of water and the subtle air
- By no means can retard each thing alike,
- But give more quick before the heavier weight;
- But contrariwise the empty void cannot,
- On any side, at any time, to aught
- Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,
- True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,
- With equal speed, though equal not in weight,
- Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.
- Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above
- Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes
- Which cause those divers motions, by whose means
- Nature transacts her work. And so I say,
- The atoms must a little swerve at times-
- But only the least, lest we should seem to feign
- Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.
- For this we see forthwith is manifest:
- Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,
- Down on its headlong journey from above,
- At least so far as thou canst mark; but who
- Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve
- At all aside from off its road's straight line?
- Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,
- And from the old ever arise the new
- In fixed order, and primordial seeds
- Produce not by their swerving some new start
- Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,
- That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,
- Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,
- Whence is it wrested from the fates,- this will
- Whereby we step right forward where desire
- Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve
- In motions, not as at some fixed time,
- Nor at some fixed line of space, but where
- The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt
- In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself
- That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs
- Incipient motions are diffused. Again,
- Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,
- The bars are opened, how the eager strength
- Of horses cannot forward break as soon
- As pants their mind to do? For it behooves
- That all the stock of matter, through the frame,
- Be roused, in order that, through every joint,
- Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;
- So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered
- From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds
- First from the spirit's will, whence at the last
- 'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.
- Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,
- Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers
- And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough
- All matter of our total body goes,
- Hurried along, against our own desire-
- Until the will has pulled upon the reins
- And checked it back, throughout our members all;
- At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes
- The stock of matter's forced to change its path,
- Throughout our members and throughout our joints,
- And, after being forward cast, to be
- Reined up, whereat it settles back again.
- So seest thou not, how, though external force
- Drive men before, and often make them move,
- Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,
- Yet is there something in these breasts of ours
- Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?-
- Wherefore no less within the primal seeds
- Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,
- Some other cause of motion, whence derives
- This power in us inborn, of some free act.-
- Since naught from nothing can become, we see.
- For weight prevents all things should come to pass
- Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;
- But that man's mind itself in all it does
- Hath not a fixed necessity within,
- Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled
- To bear and suffer,- this state comes to man
- From that slight swervement of the elements
- In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.