De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- 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
- Song so pellucid, touching all throughout
- Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,
- Is not without a reasonable ground:
- For 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 dost learn the nature of all things
- And understandest their utility.
- But since I've taught already of what sort
- The seeds of all things are, and how distinct
- In divers forms they flit of own accord,
- Stirred with a motion everlasting on,
- And in what mode things be from them create,
- And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,
- And of what things 'tis with the body knit
- And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn
- That mind returns to its primordials,
- Now will I undertake an argument-
- One for these matters of supreme concern-
- That there exist those somewhats which we call
- The images of things: these, like to films
- Scaled off the utmost outside of the things,
- Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere,
- And the same terrify our intellects,
- Coming upon us waking or in sleep,
- When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes
- And images of people lorn of light,
- Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay
- In slumber- that haply nevermore may we
- Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron,
- Or shades go floating in among the living,
- Or aught of us is left behind at death,
- When body and mind, destroyed together, each
- Back to its own primordials goes away.
- And thus I say that effigies of things,
- And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,
- From off the utmost outside of the things,
- Which are like films or may be named a rind,
- Because the image bears like look and form
- With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-
- A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,
- Well learn from this: mainly, because we see
- Even 'mongst visible objects many be
- That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-
- Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-
- And some more interwoven and condensed-
- As when the locusts in the summertime
- Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves
- At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,
- Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs
- Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see
- The breres augmented with their flying spoils:
- Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too
- That tenuous images from things are sent,
- From off the utmost outside of the things.
- For why those kinds should drop and part from things,
- Rather than others tenuous and thin,
- No power has man to open mouth to tell;
- Especially, since on outsides of things
- Are bodies many and minute which could,
- In the same order which they had before,
- And with the figure of their form preserved,
- Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,
- Being less subject to impediments,
- As few in number and placed along the front.
- For truly many things we see discharge
- Their stuff at large, not only from their cores
- Deep-set within, as we have said above,
- But from their surfaces at times no less-
- Their very colours too. And commonly
- The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,
- Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,
- Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,
- Have such an action quite; for there they dye
- And make to undulate with their every hue
- The circled throng below, and all the stage,
- And rich attire in the patrician seats.
- And ever the more the theatre's dark walls
- Around them shut, the more all things within
- Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,
- The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since
- The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye
- From off their surface, things in general must
- Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,
- Because in either case they are off-thrown
- From off the surface. So there are indeed
- Such certain prints and vestiges of forms
- Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,
- Invisible, when separate, each and one.
- Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such
- Streams out of things diffusedly, because,
- Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth
- And rising out, along their bending path
- They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight
- Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.
- But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film
- Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught
- Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front
- Ready to hand. Lastly those images
- Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
- In water, or in any shining surface,
- Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
- Fashioned from images of things sent out.
- There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
- Like unto them, which no one can divine
- When taken singly, which do yet give back,
- When by continued and recurrent discharge
- Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
- Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
- So well conserved that thus be given back
- Figures so like each object.
- Now then, learn
- How tenuous is the nature of an image.
- And in the first place, since primordials be
- So far beneath our senses, and much less
- E'en than those objects which begin to grow
- Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few
- How nice are the beginnings of all things-
- That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:
- First, living creatures are sometimes so small
- That even their third part can nowise be seen;
- Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-
- What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,
- The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!
- And what besides of those first particles
- Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not
- How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever
- Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-
- The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,
- Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-
- If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain
- Perchance [thou touch] a one of them
- . . . . . .
- Then why not rather know that images
- Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,
- Bodiless and invisible?
- But lest
- Haply thou holdest that those images
- Which come from objects are the sole that flit,
- Others indeed there be of own accord
- Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,
- Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,
- Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,
- Cease not to change appearance and to turn
- Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;
- As we behold the clouds grow thick on high
- And smirch the serene vision of the world,
- Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen
- The giants' faces flying far along
- And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times
- The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks
- Going before and crossing on the sun,
- Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain
- And leading in the other thunderheads.
- Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be
- Engendered, and perpetually flow off
- From things and gliding pass away....
- . . . . . .
- For ever every outside streams away
- From off all objects, since discharge they may;
- And when this outside reaches other things,
- As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where
- It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,
- There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back
- An image. But when gleaming objects dense,
- As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,
- Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't
- Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent- its safety,
- By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.
- 'Tis therefore that from them the images
- Stream back to us; and howso suddenly
- Thou place, at any instant, anything
- Before a mirror, there an image shows;
- Proving that ever from a body's surface
- Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.
- Thus many images in little time
- Are gendered; so their origin is named
- Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun
- Must send below, in little time, to earth
- So many beams to keep all things so full
- Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,
- From things there must be borne, in many modes,
- To every quarter round, upon the moment,
- The many images of things; because
- Unto whatever face of things we turn
- The mirror, things of form and hue the same
- Respond. Besides, though but a moment since
- Serenest was the weather of the sky,
- So fiercely sudden is it foully thick
- That ye 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 night,
- Do faces of black horror hang on high-
- Of which how small a part an image is
- There's none to tell or reckon out in words.
- Now come; with what swift motion they are borne,
- These images, and what the speed assigned
- To them across the breezes swimming on-
- So that o'er lengths of space a little hour
- Alone is wasted, toward whatever region
- Each with its divers impulse tends- I'll tell
- In verses sweeter than they many are;
- Even as the swan's slight note is better far
- Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes
- Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first,
- One oft may see that objects which are light
- And made of tiny bodies are the swift;
- In which class is the sun's light and his heat,
- Since made from small primordial elements
- Which, as it were, are forward knocked along
- And through the interspaces of the air
- To pass delay not, urged by blows behind;
- For light by light is instantly supplied
- And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.
- Thus likewise must the images have power
- Through unimaginable space to speed
- Within a point of time,- first, since a cause
- Exceeding small there is, which at their back
- Far forward drives them and propels, where, too,
- They're carried with such winged lightness on;
- And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off,
- With texture of such rareness that they can
- Through objects whatsoever penetrate
- And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.
- Besides, if those fine particles of things
- Which from so deep within are sent abroad,
- As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide
- And spread themselves through all the space of heaven
- Upon one instant of the day, and fly
- O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then
- Of those which on the outside stand prepared,
- When they're hurled off with not a thing to check
- Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed
- How swifter and how farther must they go
- And speed through manifold the length of space
- In time the same that from the sun the rays
- O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be
- Example chief and true with what swift speed
- The images of things are borne about:
- That soon as ever under open skies
- Is spread the shining water, all at once,
- If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth,
- Serene and radiant in the water there,
- The constellations of the universe-
- Now seest thou not in what a point of time
- An image from the shores of ether falls
- Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,
- And yet again, 'tis needful to confess
- With wondrous...
- . . . . . .
- Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
- From certain things flow odours evermore,
- As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray
- From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls
- Around the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit
- The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.
- Then too there comes into the mouth at times
- The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea
- We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch
- The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.
- To such degree from all things is each thing
- Borne streamingly along, and sent about
- To every region round; and nature grants
- Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,
- Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,
- And all the time are suffered to descry
- And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.