De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- Thus, when from deep within our frame we force
- These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,
- The mobile tongue, artificer of words,
- Makes them articulate, and too the lips
- By their formations share in shaping them.
- Hence when the space is short from starting-point
- To where that voice arrives, the very words
- Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.
- For then the voice conserves its own formation,
- Conserves its shape. But if the space between
- Be longer than is fit, the words must be
- Through the much air confounded, and the voice
- Disordered in its flight across the winds-
- And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,
- Yet not determine what the words may mean;
- To such degree confounded and encumbered
- The voice approaches us. Again, one word,
- Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears
- Among the populace. And thus one voice
- Scatters asunder into many voices,
- Since it divides itself for separate ears,
- Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.
- But whatso part of voices fails to hit
- The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,
- Idly diffused among the winds. A part,
- Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back
- Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear
- With a mere phantom of a word.
- When this
- Thou well hast noted, thou canst render count
- Unto thyself and others why it is
- Along the lonely places that the rocks
- Give back like shapes of words in order like,
- When search we after comrades wandering
- Among the shady mountains, and aloud
- Call unto them, the scattered. I have seen
- Spots that gave back even voices six or seven
- For one thrown forth- for so the very hills,
- Dashing them back against the hills, kept on
- With their reverberations. And these spots
- The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be
- Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;
- And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise
- And antic revels yonder they declare
- The voiceless silences are broken oft,
- And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet
- Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,
- Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race
- Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings
- Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan
- With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er
- The open reeds,- lest flute should cease to pour
- The woodland music! Other prodigies
- And wonders of this ilk they love to tell,
- Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots
- And even by gods deserted. This is why
- They boast of marvels in their story-tellings;
- Or by some other reason are led on-
- Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been,
- To prattle fables into ears.
- Again,
- One need not wonder how it comes about
- That through those places (through which eyes cannot
- View objects manifest) sounds yet may pass
- And assail the ears. For often we observe
- People conversing, though the doors be closed;
- No marvel either, since all voice unharmed
- Can wind through bended apertures of things,
- While idol-films decline to- for they're rent,
- Unless along straight apertures they swim,
- Like those in glass, through which all images
- Do fly across. And yet this voice itself,
- In passing through shut chambers of a house,
- Is dulled, and in a jumble enters ears,
- And sound we seem to hear far more than words.
- Moreover, a voice is into all directions
- Divided up, since off from one another
- New voices are engendered, when one voice
- Hath once leapt forth, outstarting into many-
- As oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle
- Itself into its several fires. And so,
- Voices do fill those places hid behind,
- Which all are in a hubbub round about,
- Astir with sound. But idol-films do tend,
- As once sent forth, in straight directions all;
- Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught,
- Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.
- Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,
- Present more problems for more work of thought.
- Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,
- When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,-
- As any one perchance begins to squeeze
- With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.
- Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about
- Along the pores and intertwined paths
- Of the loose-textured tongue. And so, when smooth
- The bodies of the oozy flavour, then
- Delightfully they touch, delightfully
- They treat all spots, around the wet and trickling
- Enclosures of the tongue. And contrariwise,
- They sting and pain the sense with their assault,
- According as with roughness they're supplied.
- Next, only up to palate is the pleasure
- Coming from flavour; for in truth when down
- 'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is,
- Whilst into all the frame it spreads around;
- Nor aught it matters with what food is fed
- The body, if only what thou take thou canst
- Distribute well digested to the frame
- And keep the stomach in a moist career.
- Now, how it is we see some food for some,
- Others for others....
- . . . . . .
- I will unfold, or wherefore what to some
- Is foul and bitter, yet the same to others
- Can seem delectable to eat,- why here
- So great the distance and the difference is
- That what is food to one to some becomes
- Fierce poison, as a certain snake there is
- Which, touched by spittle of a man, will waste
- And end itself by gnawing up its coil.
- Again, fierce poison is the hellebore
- To us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.
- That thou mayst know by what devices this
- Is brought about, in chief thou must recall
- What we have said before, that seeds are kept
- Commixed in things in divers modes. Again,
- As all the breathing creatures which take food
- Are outwardly unlike, and outer cut
- And contour of their members bounds them round,
- Each differing kind by kind, they thus consist
- Of seeds of varying shape. And furthermore,
- Since seeds do differ, divers too must be
- The interstices and paths (which we do call
- The apertures) in all the members, even
- In mouth and palate too. Thus some must be
- More small or yet more large, three-cornered some
- And others squared, and many others round,
- And certain of them many-angled too
- In many modes. For, as the combination
- And motion of their divers shapes demand,
- The shapes of apertures must be diverse
- And paths must vary according to their walls
- That bound them. Hence when what is sweet to some,
- Becomes to others bitter, for him to whom
- 'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs
- Have entered caressingly the palate's pores.
- And, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet
- Is sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt
- The rough and barbed particles have got
- Into the narrows of the apertures.
- Now easy it is from these affairs to know
- Whatever...
- . . . . . .
- Indeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile
- Is stricken with fever, or in other wise
- Feels the roused violence of some malady,
- There the whole frame is now upset, and there
- All the positions of the seeds are changed,-
- So that the bodies which before were fit
- To cause the savour, now are fit no more,
- And now more apt are others which be able
- To get within the pores and gender sour.
- Both sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey-
- What oft we've proved above to thee before.
- Now come, and I will indicate what wise
- Impact of odour on the nostrils touches.
- And first, 'tis needful there be many things
- From whence the streaming flow of varied odours
- May roll along, and we're constrained to think
- They stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about
- Impartially. But for some breathing creatures
- One odour is more apt, to others another-
- Because of differing forms of seeds and pores.
- Thus on and on along the zephyrs bees
- Are led by odour of honey, vultures too
- By carcasses. Again, the forward power
- Of scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on
- Whithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast
- Hath hastened its career; and the white goose,
- The saviour of the Roman citadel,
- Forescents afar the odour of mankind.
- Thus, diversly to divers ones is given
- Peculiar smell that leadeth each along
- To his own food or makes him start aback
- From loathsome poison, and in this wise are
- The generations of the wild preserved.
- Yet is this pungence not alone in odours
- Or in the class of flavours; but, likewise,
- The look of things and hues agree not all
- So well with senses unto all, but that
- Some unto some will be, to gaze upon,
- More keen and painful. Lo, the raving lions,
- They dare not face and gaze upon the cock
- Who's wont with wings to flap away the night
- From off the stage, and call the beaming morn
- With clarion voice- and lions straightway thus
- Bethink themselves of flight, because, ye see,
- Within the body of the cocks there be
- Some certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes
- Injected, bore into the pupils deep
- And yield such piercing pain they can't hold out
- Against the cocks, however fierce they be-
- Whilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least,
- Either because they do not penetrate,
- Or since they have free exit from the eyes
- As soon as penetrating, so that thus
- They cannot hurt our eyes in any part
- By there remaining.
- To speak once more of odour;
- Whatever assail the nostrils, some can travel
- A longer way than others. None of them,
- However, 's borne so far as sound or voice-
- While I omit all mention of such things
- As hit the eyesight and assail the vision.
- For slowly on a wandering course it comes
- And perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed
- Easily into all the winds of air;-
- And first, because from deep inside the thing
- It is discharged with labour (for the fact
- That every object, when 'tis shivered, ground,
- Or crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger
- Is sign that odours flow and part away
- From inner regions of the things). And next,
- Thou mayest see that odour is create
- Of larger primal germs than voice, because
- It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough
- Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne;
- Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not
- So easy to trace out in whatso place
- The smelling object is. For, dallying on
- Along the winds, the particles cool off,
- And then the scurrying messengers of things
- Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.
- So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.
- Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind,
- And learn, in few, whence unto intellect
- Do come what come. And first I tell thee this:
- That many images of objects rove
- In many modes to every region round-
- So thin that easily the one with other,
- When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air,
- Like gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed,
- Far thinner are they in their fabric than
- Those images which take a hold on eyes
- And smite the vision, since through body's pores
- They penetrate, and inwardly stir up
- The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.
- Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus
- The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see,
- And images of people gone before-
- Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago;
- Because the images of every kind
- Are everywhere about us borne- in part
- Those which are gendered in the very air
- Of own accord, in part those others which
- From divers things do part away, and those
- Which are compounded, made from out their shapes.
- For soothly from no living Centaur is
- That phantom gendered, since no breed of beast
- Like him was ever; but, when images
- Of horse and man by chance have come together,
- They easily cohere, as aforesaid,
- At once, through subtle nature and fabric thin.
- In the same fashion others of this ilk
- Created are. And when they're quickly borne
- In their exceeding lightness, easily
- (As earlier I showed) one subtle image,
- Compounded, moves by its one blow the mind,
- Itself so subtle and so strangely quick.
- That these things come to pass as I record,
- From this thou easily canst understand:
- So far as one is unto other like,
- Seeing with mind as well as with the eyes
- Must come to pass in fashion not unlike.
- Well, now, since I have shown that I perceive
- Haply a lion through those idol-films
- Such as assail my eyes, 'tis thine to know
- Also the mind is in like manner moved,
- And sees, nor more nor less than eyes do see
- (Except that it perceives more subtle films)
- The lion and aught else through idol-films.
- And when the sleep has overset our frame,
- The mind's intelligence is now awake,
- Still for no other reason, save that these-
- The self-same films as when we are awake-
- Assail our minds, to such degree indeed
- That we do seem to see for sure the man
- Whom, void of life, now death and earth have gained
- Dominion over. And nature forces this
- To come to pass because the body's senses
- Are resting, thwarted through the members all,
- Unable now to conquer false with true;
- And memory lies prone and languishes
- In slumber, nor protests that he, the man
- Whom the mind feigns to see alive, long since
- Hath been the gain of death and dissolution.
- And further, 'tis no marvel idols move
- And toss their arms and other members round
- In rhythmic time- and often in men's sleeps
- It haps an image this is seen to do;
- In sooth, when perishes the former image,
- And other is gendered of another pose,
- That former seemeth to have changed its gestures.
- Of course the change must be conceived as speedy;
- So great the swiftness and so great the store
- Of idol-things, and (in an instant brief
- As mind can mark) so great, again, the store
- Of separate idol-parts to bring supplies.
- It happens also that there is supplied
- Sometimes an image not of kind the same;
- But what before was woman, now at hand
- Is seen to stand there, altered into male;
- Or other visage, other age succeeds;
- But slumber and oblivion take care
- That we shall feel no wonder at the thing.