De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- Herein wonder not
- How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all
- Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand
- Supremely still, except in cases where
- A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.
- For far beneath the ken of senses lies
- The nature of those ultimates of the world;
- And so, since those themselves thou canst not see,
- Their motion also must they veil from men-
- For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft
- Yet hide their motions, when afar from us
- Along the distant landscape. Often thus,
- Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks
- Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about
- Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed
- With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,
- Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:
- Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-
- A glint of white at rest on a green hill.
- Again, when mighty legions, marching round,
- Fill all the quarters of the plains below,
- Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen
- Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about
- Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound
- Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,
- And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send
- The voices onward to the stars of heaven,
- And hither and thither darts the cavalry,
- And of a sudden down the midmost fields
- Charges with onset stout enough to rock
- The solid earth: and yet some post there is
- Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem
- To stand- a gleam at rest along the plains.
- Now come, and next hereafter apprehend
- What sorts, how vastly different in form,
- How varied in multitudinous shapes they are-
- These old beginnings of the universe;
- Not in the sense that only few are furnished
- With one like form, but rather not at all
- In general have they likeness each with each,
- No marvel: since the stock of them's so great
- That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,
- They must indeed not one and all be marked
- By equal outline and by shape the same.
- . . . . . .
- Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks
- Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,
- And joyous herds around, and all the wild,
- And all the breeds of birds- both those that teem
- In gladsome regions of the water-haunts,
- About the river-banks and springs and pools,
- And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,
- Through trackless woods- Go, take which one thou wilt,
- In any kind: thou wilt discover still
- Each from the other still unlike in shape.
- Nor in no other wise could offspring know
- Mother, nor mother offspring- which we see
- They yet can do, distinguished one from other,
- No less than human beings, by clear signs.
- Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,
- Beside the incense-burning altars slain,
- Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast
- Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,
- Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,
- Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,
- With eyes regarding every spot about,
- For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;
- And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes
- With her complaints; and oft she seeks again
- Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.
- Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,
- Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,
- Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;
- Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby
- Distract her mind or lighten pain the least-
- So keen her search for something known and hers.
- Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats
- Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs
- The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,
- Unfailingly each to its proper teat,
- As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,
- Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind
- Is so far like another, that there still
- Is not in shapes some difference running through.
- By a like law we see how earth is pied
- With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea
- Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.
- Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things
- Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands
- After a fixed pattern of one other,
- They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes
- In types dissimilar to one another.
- . . . . . .
- Easy enough by thought of mind to solve
- Why fires of lightning more can penetrate
- Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.
- For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,
- So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,
- And passes thus through holes which this our fire,
- Born from the wood, created from the pine,
- Cannot. Again, light passes through the horn
- On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.
- And why?- unless those bodies of light should be
- Finer than those of water's genial showers.
- We see how quickly through a colander
- The wines will flow; how, on the other hand,
- The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,
- Because 'tis wrought of elements more large,
- Or else more crook'd and intertangled. Thus
- It comes that the primordials cannot be
- So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,
- One through each several hole of anything.
- And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk
- Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,
- Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,
- With their foul flavour set the lips awry;
- Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever
- Can touch the senses pleasingly are made
- Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those
- Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held
- Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so
- Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,
- And rend our body as they enter in.
- In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,
- Being up-built of figures so unlike,
- Are mutually at strife- lest thou suppose
- That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw
- Consists of elements as smooth as song
- Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings
- The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose
- That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce
- When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage
- Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,
- And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;
- Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues
- Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting
- Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,
- Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.
- For never a shape which charms our sense was made
- Without some elemental smoothness; whilst
- Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed
- Still with some roughness in its elements.
- Some, too, there are which justly are supposed
- To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,
- With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,
- To tickle rather than to wound the sense-
- And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine
- And flavours of the gummed elecampane.
- Again, that glowing fire and icy rime
- Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting
- Our body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.
- For touch- by sacred majesties of Gods!-
- Touch is indeed the body's only sense-
- Be't that something in-from-outward works,
- Be't that something in the body born
- Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out
- Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;
- Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl
- Disordered in the body and confound
- By tumult and confusion all the sense-
- As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand
- Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.
- On which account, the elemental forms
- Must differ widely, as enabled thus
- To cause diverse sensations.
- And, again,
- What seems to us the hardened and condensed
- Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked,
- Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere
- By branch-like atoms- of which sort the chief
- Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows,
- And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,
- And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,
- Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formed
- Of fluid body, they indeed must be
- Of elements more smooth and round- because
- Their globules severally will not cohere:
- To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand
- Is quite as easy as drinking water down,
- And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.
- But that thou seest among the things that flow
- Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is,
- Is not the least a marvel...
- For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are
- And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;
- Yet need not these be held together hooked:
- In fact, though rough, they're globular besides,
- Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.
- And that the more thou mayst believe me here,
- That with smooth elements are mixed the rough
- (Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes),
- There is a means to separate the twain,
- And thereupon dividedly to see
- How the sweet water, after filtering through
- So often underground, flows freshened forth
- Into some hollow; for it leaves above
- The primal germs of nauseating brine,
- Since cling the rough more readily in earth.
- Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse
- Upon the instant- smoke, and cloud, and flame-
- Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)
- Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,
- That thus they can, without together cleaving,
- So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.
- Whatever we see...
- Given to senses, that thou must perceive
- They're not from linked but pointed elements.
- The which now having taught, I will go on
- To bind thereto a fact to this allied
- And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs
- Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.
- For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds
- Would have a body of infinite increase.
- For in one seed, in one small frame of any,
- The shapes can't vary from one another much.
- Assume, we'll say, that of three minim parts
- Consist the primal bodies, or add a few:
- When, now, by placing all these parts of one
- At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,
- Thou hast with every kind of shift found out
- What the aspect of shape of its whole body
- Each new arrangement gives, for what remains,
- If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,
- New parts must then be added; follows next,
- If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,
- That by like logic each arrangement still
- Requires its increment of other parts.
- Ergo, an augmentation of its frame
- Follows upon each novelty of forms.
- Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake
- That seeds have infinite differences in form,
- Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be
- Of an immeasurable immensity-
- Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
- . . . . . .
- And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam
- Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye
- Of the Thessalian shell...
- The peacock's golden generations, stained
- With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown
- By some new colour of new things more bright;
- The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;
- The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,
- Once modulated on the many chords,
- Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:
- For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,
- Would be arising evermore. So, too,
- Into some baser part might all retire,
- Even as we said to better might they come:
- For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest
- To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,
- Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.
- Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given
- Their fixed limitations which do bound
- Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed
- That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes
- Does differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats
- Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year
- The forward path is fixed, and by like law
- O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.
- For each degree of hot, and each of cold,
- And the half-warm, all filling up the sum
- In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there
- Betwixt the two extremes: the things create
- Must differ, therefore, by a finite change,
- Since at each end marked off they ever are
- By fixed point- on one side plagued by flames
- And on the other by congealing frosts.
- The which now having taught, I will go on
- To bind thereto a fact to this allied
- And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs
- Which have been fashioned all of one like shape
- Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms
- Themselves are finite in divergences,
- Then those which are alike will have to be
- Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains
- A finite- what I've proved is not the fact,
- Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,
- From everlasting and to-day the same,
- Uphold the sum of things, all sides around
- By old succession of unending blows.
- For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare,
- And mark'st in them a less prolific stock,
- Yet in another region, in lands remote,
- That kind abounding may make up the count;
- Even as we mark among the four-foot kind
- Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall
- With ivory ramparts India about,
- That her interiors cannot entered be-
- So big her count of brutes of which we see
- Such few examples. Or suppose, besides,
- We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole
- With body born, to which is nothing like
- In all the lands: yet now unless shall be
- An infinite count of matter out of which
- Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life,
- It cannot be created and- what's more-
- It cannot take its food and get increase.
- Yea, if through all the world in finite tale
- Be tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,
- Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,
- Shall they to meeting come together there,
- In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-
- No means they have of joining into one.
- But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,
- The mighty main is wont to scatter wide
- The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,
- The masts and swimming oars, so that afar
- Along all shores of lands are seen afloat
- The carven fragments of the rended poop,
- Giving a lesson to mortality
- To shun the ambush of the faithless main,
- The violence and the guile, and trust it not
- At any hour, however much may smile
- The crafty enticements of the placid deep:
- Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true
- That certain seeds are finite in their tale,
- The various tides of matter, then, must needs
- Scatter them flung throughout the ages all,
- So that not ever can they join, as driven
- Together into union, nor remain
- In union, nor with increment can grow-
- But facts in proof are manifest for each:
- Things can be both begotten and increase.
- 'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,
- Are infinite in any class thou wilt-
- From whence is furnished matter for all things.
- Nor can those motions that bring death prevail
- Forever, nor eternally entomb
- The welfare of the world; nor, further, can
- Those motions that give birth to things and growth
- Keep them forever when created there.
- Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,
- With equal strife among the elements
- Goes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail
- The vital forces of the world- or fall.
- Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail
- Of infants coming to the shores of light:
- No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed
- That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,
- The wild laments, companions old of death
- And the black rites.
- This, too, in these affairs
- 'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned
- With no forgetting brain: nothing there is
- Whose nature is apparent out of hand
- That of one kind of elements consists-
- Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.
- And whatsoe'er possesses in itself
- More largely many powers and properties
- Shows thus that here within itself there are
- The largest number of kinds and differing shapes
- Of elements. And, chief of all, the earth
- Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs,
- Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore
- The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-
- For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,
- Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed
- From more profounder fires- and she, again,
- Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise
- The shining grains and gladsome trees for men;
- Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures
- Can she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.
- Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,
- And parent of man hath she alone been named.
- Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece
- . . . . . .
- Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air
- To drive her team of lions, teaching thus
- That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie
- Resting on other earth. Unto her car
- They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,
- However savage, must be tamed and chid
- By care of parents. They have girt about
- With turret-crown the summit of her head,
- Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,
- 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned
- With that same token, to-day is carried forth,
- With solemn awe through many a mighty land,
- The image of that mother, the divine.
- Her the wide nations, after antique rite,
- Do name Idaean Mother, giving her
- Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,
- From out those regions 'twas that grain began
- Through all the world. To her do they assign
- The Galli, the emasculate, since thus
- They wish to show that men who violate
- The majesty of the mother and have proved
- Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged
- Unfit to give unto the shores of light
- A living progeny. The Galli come:
- And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines
- Resound around to bangings of their hands;
- The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;
- The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds
- In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,
- Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power
- The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts
- To panic with terror of the goddess' might.
- And so, when through the mighty cities borne,
- She blesses man with salutations mute,
- They strew the highway of her journeyings
- With coin of brass and silver, gifting her
- With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade
- With flowers of roses falling like the snow
- Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.
- Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks
- Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since
- Haply among themselves they use to play
- In games of arms and leap in measure round
- With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake
- The terrorizing crests upon their heads,
- This is the armed troop that represents
- The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,
- As runs the story, whilom did out-drown
- That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,
- Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,
- To measured step beat with the brass on brass,
- That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,
- And give its mother an eternal wound
- Along her heart. And 'tis on this account
- That armed they escort the mighty Mother,
- Or else because they signify by this
- That she, the goddess, teaches men to be
- Eager with armed valour to defend
- Their motherland, and ready to stand forth,
- The guard and glory of their parents' years.
- A tale, however beautifully wrought,
- That's wide of reason by a long remove:
- For all the gods must of themselves enjoy
- Immortal aeons and supreme repose,
- Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:
- Immune from peril and immune from pain,
- Themselves abounding in riches of their own,
- Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath
- They are not taken by service or by gift.
- Truly is earth insensate for all time;
- But, by obtaining germs of many things,
- In many a way she brings the many forth
- Into the light of sun. And here, whoso
- Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or
- The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse
- The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce
- The liquor's proper designation, him
- Let us permit to go on calling earth
- Mother of Gods, if only he will spare
- To taint his soul with foul religion.