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Title: Translations from Lucretius

Author: Titus Lucretius Carus

Translator: R. C. Trevelyan

Release date: December 12, 2020 [eBook #64024]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Sonya Schermann, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was

produced from images generously made available by The Internet

Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS ***

TRANSLATIONS FROM

LUCRETIUS

By the same Author.

THE FOOLISHNESS OF SOLOMON

3s. 6d.

LUCRETIUS ON DEATH

2s. 6d.

THE PTERODAMOZELS

2s.

THE NEW PARSIFAL

3s. 6d.

THE BRIDE OF DIONYSUS

3s. 6d.

SISYPHUS

5s.

POLYPHEMUS

7s. 6d.

THE BIRTH OF PARSIVAL

3s. 6d.

CECILIA GONZAGA

2s. 6d.

MALLOW AND ASPHODEL

2s. 6d.

THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES

2s.

TRANSLATIONS FROM

LUCRETIUS

BY

R. C. TREVELYAN

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1

First published in 1920.

All rights reserved.

TO

G.   LOWES   DICKINSON

TRANSLATIONS FROM

LUCRETIUS

BOOK I, lines 1-328

BOOK II, lines 991-1174

BOOK III, lines 1-160

BOOK III, lines 830-1094

BOOK IV, lines 962-1287

BOOK V

BOOK VI, lines 1-95

BOOK I, lines 1-328

THOU mother of the Aenead race, delight

Of men and deities, bountiful Venus, thou

Who under the sky’s gliding constellations

Fillest ship-carrying ocean with thy presence

And the corn-bearing lands, since through thy power

Each kind of living creature is conceived

Then riseth and beholdeth the sun’s light:

Before thee and thine advent the winds and clouds

Of heaven take flight, O goddess: daedal earth

Puts forth sweet-scented flowers beneath thy feet:

Beholding thee the smooth deep laughs, the sky

Grows calm and shines with wide-outspreading light.

For soon as the day’s vernal countenance

Has been revealed, and fresh from wintry bonds

Blows the birth-giving breeze of the West wind,

First do the birds of air give sign of thee,

Goddess, and thine approach, as through their hearts

Thine influence smites. Next the wild herds of beasts

Bound over the rich pastures and swim through

The rapid streams, as captured by thy charm

Each one with eager longing follows thee

Whithersoever thou wouldst lure them on.

And thus through seas, mountains and rushing rivers,

Through the birds’ leafy homes and the green plains,

Striking bland love into the hearts of all,

Thou art the cause that following his lust

Each should renew his race after his kind.

Therefore since thou alone art nature’s mistress,

And since without thine aid naught can rise forth

Into the glorious regions of the light,

Nor aught grow to be gladsome and delectable,

Thee would I win to help me while I write

These verses, wherein I labour to describe

The nature of things in honour of my friend

This scion of the Memmian house, whom thou

Hast willed to be found peerless all his days

In every grace. Therefore the more, great deity,

Grant to my words eternal loveliness:

Cause meanwhile that the savage works of warfare

Over all seas and lands sink hushed to rest.

For thou alone hast power to bless mankind

With tranquil peace; since of war’s savage works

Mavors mighty in battle hath control,

Who oft flings himself back upon thy lap,

Quite vanquished by love’s never-healing wound;

And so with upturned face and shapely neck

Thrown backward, feeds with love his hungry looks,

Gazing on thee, goddess, while thus he lies

Supine, and on thy lips his spirit hangs.

O’er him thus couched upon thy holy body

Do thou bend down to enfold him, and from thy lips

Pour tender speech, petitioning calm peace,

O glorious divinity, for thy Romans.

For nor can we in our country’s hour of trouble

Toil with a mind untroubled at our task,

Nor yet may the famed child of Memmius

Be spared from public service in such times.

For the rest,[A] leisured ears and a keen mind

Withdrawn from cares, lend to true reasoning,

Lest my gifts, which with loving diligence

I set out for you, ere they be understood

You should reject disdainfully. For now

About the most high theory of the heavens

And of the deities, I will undertake

To tell you in my discourse, and will reveal

The first beginnings of existing things,

Out of which nature gives birth and increase

And nourishment to all things; into which

Nature likewise, when they have been destroyed,

Resolves them back in turn. These we are wont,

In setting forth our argument, to call

Matter, or else begetting particles,

Or to name them the seeds of things: again

As primal atoms we shall speak of them,

Because from them first everything is formed.

When prostrate upon earth lay human life

Visibly trampled down and foully crushed

Beneath religion’s cruelty, who meanwhile

Forth from the regions of the heavens above

Showed forth her face, lowering down on men

With horrible aspect, first did a man of Greece[B]

Dare to lift up his mortal eyes against her;

The first was he to stand up and defy her.

Him neither stories of the gods, nor lightnings,

Nor heaven with muttering menaces could quell,

But all the more did they arouse his soul’s

Keen valour, till he longed to be the first

To break through the fast-bolted doors of nature.

Therefore his fervent energy of mind

Prevailed, and he passed onward, voyaging far

Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world,

Ranging in mind and spirit far and wide

Throughout the unmeasured universe; and thence

A conqueror he returns to us, bringing back

Knowledge both of what can and what cannot

Rise into being, teaching us in fine

Upon what principle each thing has its powers

Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone.

Therefore now has religion been cast down

Beneath men’s feet, and trampled on in turn:

Ourselves heaven-high his victory exalts.

Herein this fear assails me, lest perchance

You should suppose I would initiate you

Into a school of reasoning unholy,

And set your feet upon a path of sin:

Whereas in truth often has this religion

Given birth to sinful and unholy deeds.

So once at Aulis did those chosen chiefs

Of Hellas, those most eminent among heros,

Foully defile the Trivian Virgin’s altar

With Iphianassa’s lifeblood. For so soon

As the fillet wreathed around her maiden locks

Streamed down in equal lengths from either cheek,

And soon as she was aware of her father standing

Sorrowful by the altar, and at his side

The priestly ministers hiding the knife,

And the folk shedding tears at sight of her,

Speechless in terror, dropping on her knees

To the earth she sank down. Nor in that hour

Of anguish might it avail her that she first

Had given the name of father to the king;

For by the hands of men lifted on high

Shuddering to the altar she was borne,

Not that, when the due ceremonial rites

Had been accomplished, she might be escorted

By the clear-sounding hymenaeal song,

But that a stainless maiden foully stained,

In the very season of marriage she might fall

A sorrowful victim by a father’s stroke,

That so there might be granted to the fleet

A happy and hallowed sailing. Such the crimes

Whereto religion has had power to prompt.

Yet there may come a time when you yourself,

Surrendering to the terror-breathing tales

Of seers and bards, will seek to abandon us.

Ay verily, how many dreams even now

May they be forging for you, which might well

Overturn your philosophy of life,

And trouble all your happiness with fear!

And with good cause: for if men could perceive

That there was a fixed limit to their sorrows,

By some means they would find strength to withstand

The hallowed lies and threatenings of these seers.

But as it is, men have no means, no power

To make a stand, since everlasting seem

The penalties that they must fear in death.

For none knows what is the nature of the soul,

Whether ’tis born, or on the contrary

Enters into our bodies at their birth:

Whether, when torn from us by death, it perishes

Together with us, or thereafter goes

To visit Orcus’ glooms and the vast chasms;

Or penetrates by ordinance divine

Into brutes in man’s stead, as sang our own

Ennius, who first from pleasant Helicon

Brought down a garland of unfading leaf,

Destined among Italian tribes of men

To win bright glory. And yet in spite of this

Ennius sets forth in immortal verse

That none the less there does exist a realm

Of Acheron, though neither do our souls

Nor bodies penetrate thither, but a kind

Of phantom images, pale in wondrous wise:

And thence it was, so he relates, that once

The ghost of ever-living Homer rose

Before him, shedding salt tears, and began

To unfold in discourse the nature of things.

Therefore not only must we grasp the truth

Concerning things on high, what principle

Controls the courses of the sun and moon,

And by what force all that takes place on earth

Is governed, but above all by keen thought

We must investigate whereof consists

The soul and the mind’s nature, and what it is

That comes before us when we wake, if then

We are preyed on by disease, or when we lie

Buried in sleep, and terrifies our minds,

So that we seem face to face to behold

And hear those speaking to us who are dead,

Whose bones the earth now holds in its embrace.

Nor am I unaware how hard my task

In Latin verses to set clearly forth

The obscure truths discovered by the Greeks,

Chiefly because so much will need new terms

To deal with it, owing to our poverty

Of language, and the novelty of the themes.

Nevertheless your worth and the delight

Of your sweet friendship, which I hope to win,

Prompt me to bear the burden of any toil,

And lead me on to watch the calm nights through,

Seeking by means of what words and what measures

I may attain my end, and shed so clear

A light upon your spirit, that thereby

Your gaze may search the depths of hidden things.

This terror, then, and darkness of the mind

Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams

And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation

Of nature’s aspect and her inward law.

And this first principle of her design

Shall be our starting point: nothing is ever

By divine will begotten out of nothing.

In truth the reason fear so dominates

All mortals, is that they behold on earth

And in the sky many things happening,

Yet of these operations by no means

Can they perceive the causes, and so fancy

That they must come to pass by power divine.

Therefore when we have understood that nothing

Can be born out of nothing, we shall then

Win juster knowledge of the truth we seek,

Both from what elements each thing can be formed,

And in what way all things can come to pass

Without the intervention of the gods.

For if things came from nothing, any kind

Might be born out of anything; naught then

Would require seed. Thus men might rise from ocean

The scaly race out of the land, while birds

Might suddenly be hatched forth from the sky:

Cattle and other herds and every kind

Of wild beast, bred by no fixed law of birth,

Would roam o’er tilth and wilderness alike.

No fruit would remain constant to its tree,

But would change; every tree would bear all kinds.

For if there were not for each thing its own

Begetting particles, how could they have

A fixed unvarying mother? But in fact

Since all are formed from fixed seeds, each is born

And issues into the borders of the light

From that alone wherein resides its substance

And its first bodies. And for this cause all things

Cannot be generated out of all,

Since in each dwells its own particular power.

Again why do we see in spring the rose,

Corn in the summer’s heat, vines bursting forth

When autumn summons them, if not because

When in their own time the fixed seeds of things

Have flowed together, there is then revealed

Whatever has been born, while the due seasons

Are present, and the quickened earth brings forth

Safely into the borders of the light

Its tender nurslings? But if they were formed

From nothing, they would suddenly spring up

At unfixed periods and hostile times,

Since there would then be no fixed particles

To be kept from a begetting union

By the unpropitious season of the year.

Nor yet after the meeting of the seed

Would lapse of time be needed for their increase,

If they could grow from nothing. Suddenly

Small babes would become youths; trees would arise

Shooting up in a moment from the ground.

But nothing of the kind, ’tis plain, takes place,

Seeing that all things grow little by little,

As befits, from determined seed, and growing

Preserve their kind: so that you may perceive

That all things become greater and are nourished

Out of their own material. Furthermore

Without fixed annual seasons for the rain

Earth could not put her gladdening produce forth,

Nor yet, if kept apart from nourishment,

Could living creatures propagate their kind

Or sustain life: so that with greater reason

You may think many things have many atoms

In common, as we see that different words

Have common letters, than that anything

Can come to being without first elements.

Again, why could not nature have produced

Men of such mighty bulk, that they could wade

Through the deep places of the sea, or rend

Huge mountains with their hands, or in one life

Overpass many living generations,

If not because there has been set apart

A changeless substance for begetting things,

And what can thence arise is predetermined?

Therefore we must confess this truth, that nothing

Can come from nothing, since seed is required

For each thing, out of which it may be born

And lift itself into the air’s soft breezes.

Lastly, since it is evident that tilled lands

Excel the untilled, and yield to labouring hands

A richer harvest, we may thence infer

That in the earth there must be primal atoms,

And these, labouring its soil, we stimulate

To rise, when with the coulter we turn up

The fertile clods. But if none such existed,

We should see all things without toil of ours

Spring forth far richer of their own accord.

Furthermore nature dissolves each form back

Into its own first particles, nor ever

Annihilates things. For if aught could be mortal

In all its parts, then it might from our eyes

Be snatched away to perish suddenly.

For there would be no need of any force

To cause disruption of its parts, and loosen

Their fastenings. But in fact each is composed

Of everlasting seeds; so till some force

Arrives that with a blow can shatter things

To pieces, or can penetrate within

Their empty spaces, and so break them up,

Nature will not permit the dissolution

Of anything to be seen. Again, if time

Utterly destroys, consuming all the substance

Of whatsoever it removes from sight

Through lapse of ages, out of what does Venus

Bring back into the light of life the race

Of living creatures each after its kind?

Or, once brought back, whence does the daedal earth

Feed and increase them, giving nourishment

To each after its kind? Whence do its own

Fountains and far-drawn rivers from without

Keep full the sea? Whence does the ether feed

The stars? For infinite time and lapse of days

Surely must long since have devoured all things

Formed of a body that must die. But if

Throughout that period of time long past

Those atoms have existed out of which

This universe of things has been composed

And recomposed, ’tis plain they are possessed

Of an immortal nature: none of them

Therefore can turn to nothing. Then again

The same force and the same cause would destroy

All things without distinction, were it not

That an eternal substance held them fast,

A substance interwoven part with part

By bonds more or less close. For without doubt

A mere touch would be cause enough for death,

Seeing that any least amount of force

Must needs dissolve the texture of such things,

No one of which had an eternal body.

But in fact since the mutual fastenings

Between first elements are dissimilar,

And their substance eternal, things endure

With body uninjured, till some force arrives

Strong enough to dissolve the texture of each.

Therefore no single thing ever returns

To nothing, but at their disruption all

Pass back into the elements of matter.

Lastly the rain showers perish, when the sky father

Has flung them into the lap of mother earth.

But then bright crops spring up luxuriantly;

Boughs on the trees are green; the trees themselves

Grow, and with fruits are laden: from this source

Moreover both our own race and the race

Of beasts are nourished; for this cause we see

Glad towns teeming with children, leafy woods

With young birds’ voices singing on all sides;

For this cause cattle about the fertile meadows

Wearied with fatness lay their bodies down,

And from their swollen udders oozing falls

The white milk stream; for this cause a new brood

Bounds on weak limbs over the soft grass, frisking

And gamboling, their young hearts with pure milk thrilled.

None therefore of those things that seem to perish

Utterly perishes, since nature forms

One thing out of another, and permits

Nothing to be begotten, unless first

She has been recruited by another’s death.

Now listen: since I have proved to you that things

Cannot be formed from nothing, lest you yet

Should tend in any way to doubt my words,

Because the primal particles of things

Can never be distinguished by the eyes,

I will proceed to give you instances

Of bodies which yourself you must admit

Are real things, yet cannot be perceived.

First the wind’s wakened force scourges the sea,

Whelming huge ships and scattering the clouds;

And sometimes with impetuous hurricane

Scouring the plains, it strews them with great trees,

And ravages with forest-rending blasts

The mountain-tops: with such rude savagery

Does the wind howl and bluster and wreak its rage

With menacing uproar. Therefore past all doubt

Winds must be formed of unseen particles

That sweep the seas, the lands, the clouds of heaven,

Ravaging and dishevelling them all

With fitful hurricane gusts. Onward they stream

Multiplying destruction, just as when

The soft nature of water suddenly

Swoops forward in one overwhelming flood

Swelled with abundant rains by a mighty spate

Of water rushing down from the high hills,

Hurtling together broken forest boughs

And entire trees: nor can the sturdy bridges

Sustain the oncoming water’s sudden force:

In such wise turbulent with much rain the river

Flings its whole mighty strength against the piles.

With a loud crashing roar it then deals havoc,

And rolls the huge stones on beneath its waves,

Sweeping before it all that stems its flood.

In this way then wind-blasts must likewise move;

And when like a strong stream they have hurled themselves

Towards any quarter, they thrust things along

And with repeated onslaughts overwhelm them,

Often in writhing eddy seizing them

To bear them away in swiftly circling swirl.

Therefore beyond all doubt winds are composed

Of unseen atoms, since in their works and ways

We find that they resemble mighty rivers

Which are of visible substance. Then again

We can perceive the various scents of things,

Yet never see them coming to our nostrils:

Heat too we see not, nor can we observe

Cold with our eyes, nor ever behold words:

Yet must all these be of a bodily nature,

Since they are able to act upon our senses.

For naught can touch or be touched except body.

Clothes also, hung up on a shore where waves

Are breaking, become moist, and then grow dry

If spread out in the sun. Yet in what way

The water’s moisture has soaked into them,

Has not been seen, nor again in what way

The heat has driven it out. The moisture therefore

Is dispersed into tiny particles,

Which our eyes have no power to see at all.

Furthermore after many revolutions

Of the sun’s year, a finger-ring is thinned

On the under side by being worn: the fall

Of dripping eave-drops hollows out a stone:

The bent ploughshare of iron insensibly

Grows smaller in the fields; and we behold

The paving stones of roads worn down at length

By the footsteps of the people. Then again

The brazen statues at the city gates

Show right hands wearing thinner by the touch

Of those who greet them ever as they pass by.

Thus we perceive that all such things grow less

Because they have been worn down: and yet what atoms

Are leaving them each moment, that the jealous

Nature of vision has quite shut us out

From seeing. Finally whatever time

And nature gradually add to things,

Obliging them to grow in due proportion,

No effort of our eyesight can behold.

So too whenever things grow old by age

Or through corruption, and wherever rocks

That overhang the sea are gnawed away

By the corroding brine, you cannot discern

What they are losing at any single moment.

Thus nature operates by unseen atoms.

BOOK II, lines 991-1174

MOREOVER we are sprung, all we that live,

From heavenly seed: there is, for all, that same

One father[C]; from whom when the bounteous Earth,

Our mother, has drunk in the liquid drops

Of moisture, then by him impregnated

She bears bright crops and glad trees and the race

Of men, bears every species of wild beast,

Furnishing food with which all feed their bodies,

And lead a pleasant life, and propagate

Their offspring. Wherefore justly she has won

The name of mother. Also that which once

Came from the earth, sinks back into the earth,

And what was sent down from the coasts of aether,

Returning thither, is received once more

Into the mansions of the sky. So death

Does not demolish things in such a way

As to destroy the particles of matter,

But only dissipates their union,

Then recombines one element with another,

And so brings it to pass that all things change

Their shapes, alter their colours, and receive

Sensations, then in a moment yield them up.

Thus you may learn how greatly it signifies

Both with what others and in what positions

The same primordial atoms are held bound;

Also what motions they are mutually

Imparting and receiving: and thus too

You need no more suppose that what we see

Hovering upon the surfaces of things,

Or now being born, then suddenly perishing,[D]

Can be inherent qualities in atoms

That are eternal. Nay, in my verses even

It is of moment with what other letters

And in what order each one has been placed.

If not all, yet by far the greater part

Are similar letters: but as their position

Varies, so do the words sound different.

Thus too with actual things, whenever change

Takes place in the collisions motions order

Shape and position of their material atoms,

Then also must the things themselves be changed.

Now to true reasoning turn your mind, I pray;

For a new theme is struggling urgently

To reach your ears, a new aspect of things

Would now reveal itself. But there is naught

So easy, that at first it will not seem

Difficult of belief, and likewise naught

So mighty, naught so wondrous, but that all

Little by little abate their wonder at it.

Consider first the colour of the heavens,

So bright and pure, and all that they contain,

The stars wandering everywhere, the moon

And the surpassing radiance of the sun;

If all these sights were now for the first time

To be revealed to mortals suddenly

And without warning, what could have been described

That would have seemed more marvellous than such things,

Or that humanity could less have dared

Beforehand to believe might come to pass?

Nothing, I think: so wonderful had been

This spectacle. Yet think how no one now,

Wearied to satiety at the sight,

Deigns to look up at the sky’s shining quarters.

Cease therefore to cast reason from your mind

Terrified by mere novelty, but rather

Weigh facts with eager judgment; and if then

They appear true, surrender; if they seem

A falsehood, gird yourself to prove them so.

For since the sum of space outside, beyond

This world’s walls, must be infinite, the mind seeks

To reason as to what may else exist

Yonder in regions whither the intellect

Is constantly desiring to prospect,

And whither the projection of our thought

Reaches in free flight of its own accord.

Now first of all we find that everywhere

In all directions, horizontally,

Below and above throughout the universe

There is no limit, as I have demonstrated.

Indeed the facts themselves proclaim the truth,

And the deep void reveals its nature clearly.

Since then on all sides vacant space extends

Illimitably, and seeds in countless number

And sum immeasurable flit to and fro

Eternally driven on in manifold modes

Of motion, we must deem it in no wise

Probable that this single globe of earth

And this one heaven alone have been created,

While outside all those particles of matter

Are doing nothing: the more so that this world

Was formed by nature, as the seeds of things,

Casually colliding of their own

Spontaneous motion, flocked in manifold ways

Together, vainly, without aim or result,

Until at last such particles combined

As, suddenly thrown together, might become

From time to time the rudiments of great things,

Earth, sea, sky, and the race of living creatures.

Therefore beyond all question we are bound

To admit that elsewhere other aggregates

Of matter must exist, resembling this

Which in its greedy embrace our aether holds.

Moreover, when much matter is at hand,

And space is there, nor any obstacle

Nor cause of hindrance, then you may be sure

Things must be forming and dissolving there.

Now if there be so vast a store of seeds

That the whole lifetime of all conscious beings

Would fail to count them, and if likewise nature

Abides the same, and so can throw together

The seeds of things each into its own place,

In the same manner as they were thrown together

Into our world, then you must needs admit

That in other regions there are other earths,

And diverse stocks of men and kinds of beasts.

Besides in the whole universe there exists

No one thing that is born unique, and grows

Unique and sole; but it must needs belong

To one class, and there must be many others

Of the same kind. Consider first of all

Live creatures: you will find that thus are born

The mountain-ranging breeds of savage beasts,

Thus the human race, thus also the dumb shoals

Of scaly fish and every flying fowl.

Therefore by a like reasoning you must grant

That sky and earth and sun, moon, sea and all

That else exists, are not unique, but rather

Of number innumerable; since life’s deep-fixed

Boundary stone as surely awaits these,

And they are of a body that has birth

As much as any species here on earth

Abounding in examples of its kind.

If you learn well and keep these truths in mind,

Nature, forthwith enfranchised and released

From her proud lords, is seen then to be acting

In all things of herself spontaneously

Without the interference of the gods.

For by the holy breasts of those divinities,

Who in calm peace are passing tranquil days

Of life untroubled, who, I ask, has power

To rule the sum of space immeasurable?

Or who to hold in his controlling hand

The strong reins of the deep? Who can at once

Make all those various firmaments revolve

And with the fires of aether warm each one

Of all those fruitful earths, or at all times

Be present in all places, so to cause

Darkness by clouds, and shake the calms of heaven

With thunder, to hurl lightnings, and ofttimes

Shatter down his own temples, or withdraw

To desert regions, there to spend his fury

And exercise his bolt, which often indeed

Passes the guilty by, and strikes with death

The unoffending who deserve it least.

Now since the birth-time of the world, since sea

And earth’s first natal day and the sun’s origin,

Many atoms have been added from without,

Many seeds from all round, which, shooting them

Hither and thither, the great universe

Has brought together: and by means of these

Sea and land have been able to increase;

Thus too the mansion of the sky has gained

New spaciousness, and lifted its high roof

Far above earth, and the air has risen with it.

For to each thing its own appropriate atoms

Are all distributed by blows from all

Regions of space, so that they separate

Into their proper elements. Moisture joins

With moisture: earth from earthy substance grows;

Fires generate fire, and ether ether,

Till Nature, the creatress, consummating

Her labour, has brought all things to their last

Limit of growth; as happens, when at length

That which is entering the veins of life

Is now no more than what is flowing away

And ebbing thence. In all things at this point

The age of growth must halt: at this point nature

Curbs increase by her powers. For all such things

As you may see waxing with joyous growth,

And climbing step by step to matured age

Receive into themselves more particles

Than they discharge, so long as food is passing

Easily into all their veins, and while

They are not so widely spread as to throw off

Too many atoms and to cause more waste

Than what their life requires for nourishment.

For we must surely grant that many atoms

Are flowing away from things and leaving them:

But still more must be added, till at length

They have attained the highest pitch of growth.

Then age little by little breaks their powers

And their mature strength, as it wastes away

On the worse side of life. And out of doubt

The bulkier and the wider a thing is,

Once its growth ceases, the more particles

Does it now shed around it and discharge

On all sides: nor is food distributed

Easily into all its veins, nor yet

In quantity sufficient that therefrom

A supply may continually rise up

To compensate the copious emanations

Which it exhales. For there is need of food

To preserve all things by renewing them:

Food must uphold, food sustain everything:

Yet all is to no purpose, since the veins

Fail to convey what should suffice, nor yet

Does nature furnish all that is required.

There is good reason therefore why all forms

Should perish, when they are rarefied by flux

Of atoms, and succumb to external blows,

Since food must fail advanced age in the end,

And atoms cease not ever from outside

To buffet each thing till they wear it out

And overpower it by beleaguering blows.

In this way then it is that the walls too

Of the great world from all sides shall be stormed

And so collapsing crumble away to ruins.

And even now already this world’s age

Is broken, and the worn-out earth can scarce

Create the tiniest animals, she who once

Created every kind, and brought to birth

The huge shapes of wild beasts. For, as I think,

Neither did any golden rope let down

The tribes of mortal creatures from the heights

Of heaven on to the fields, nor did the sea

Nor its waves beating on the rocks create them,

But the same earth gave birth to them, which now

Feeds them from her own breast. At first moreover

Herself spontaneously did she create

Flourishing crops and rich vines for mankind,

Herself gave them sweet fruits and joyous pastures;

Which now, though aided by our toil, scarce grow

To any size. Thus we wear out our oxen

And the strength of our peasants: we use up

Our iron tools; yet hardly do we win

A sustenance from the fields, so niggardly

They grudge their produce and increase our toil.

And now shaking his head the aged ploughman

Sighs ever and anon, when he beholds

The labours of his hands all spent in vain;

And when with times past he compares the present,

He praises often the fortune of his sire,

Harping upon that ancient race of men

Who rich in piety supported life

Upon their narrow plots contentedly,

Seeing the land allotted to each man

Was far less in those days than now. So too

The planter of the worn-out shrivelled vine

Disconsolately inveighs against the march

Of time, wearying heaven with complaints,

And understands not how all things are wasting

Little by little, and passing to the grave

Tired out by lengthening age and lapse of days.

BOOK III, lines 1-160

THOU, who from out such darkness first could’st lift

A torch so bright, illumining thereby

The benefits of life, thee do I follow,

O thou bright glory of the Grecian race,

And in thy deepset footprints firmly now

I plant my steps, not so much through desire

To rival thee, rather because I love

And therefore long to imitate thee: for how

Should a mere swallow strive with swans; or what

Might kids with tottering limbs, matched in a race,

Achieve against a horse’s stalwart strength?

Thou, father, art discoverer of truth;

Thou dost enrich us with a father’s precepts;

And from thy pages, glorious sage, as bees

In flowery glades sip from all plants, so we

Feed likewise upon all thy golden words,

Golden words, ever worthy of endless life.

For soon as, issuing from thy godlike mind,

Thy doctrine has begun to voice abroad

The nature of things, straightway the soul’s terrors

Take flight; the world’s walls open; I behold

Things being formed and changed throughout all space.

Revealed is the divinity of the gods,

And their serene abodes, which neither winds

Buffet, nor clouds drench them with showers, nor snow

Congealed by sharp frost, falling in white flakes,

Violates, but an ever-cloudless sky

Invests them, laughing with wide-spreading light.

Moreover all their wants nature provides,

And there is nothing that at any time

Can minish their tranquillity of soul.

But on the other hand nowhere are visible

The Acherusian quarters; and yet earth

In no wise can obstruct our contemplation

Of all those operations that take place

Beneath our feet throughout the nether void.

At such thoughts there comes over me a kind

Of godlike pleasure mixed with thrilling awe,

That nature by thy power should be thus clearly

Made manifest and unveiled on every side.

Now since I have demonstrated of what kind

Are the beginnings of all things, and how

Varying are the divers shapes wherein

They are flying onward of their own free will,

Driven in eternal motion, and in what way

Out of these can be formed each several thing,

After these themes it would seem best that now

The nature of the mind and of the soul

Should be elucidated in my verses,

And fear of Acheron driven headlong forth,

That dread which troubles from its lowest depths

The life of man, and brooding over all

With the blackness of death, will not allow

Any pleasure to be unalloyed and pure.

For though men often tell us that diseases

And a life of public shame are to be feared

Far more than Tartarus, the house of death,

And that they know the nature of the soul

To be of blood, or even perhaps of wind,

If such should be their fancy, and that so

They have no need of our philosophy,

Yet from the following proof you may perceive

That all these boasts are uttered to win praise

Rather than from conviction of the truth.

These same men, exiled from their fatherland,

And banished far from human sight, disgraced

By foul crime, and beset by every kind

Of wretchedness, none the less still live on,

And to whatever place they bear their misery,

In spite of all make offerings to the dead,

Slaughter black sheep, and to the nether powers

Do sacrifice, and in their bitter plight

Turn their thoughts to religion far more zealously.

Thus you can better judge a man in stress

Of peril, and amidst adversities

Discover what he is; for then at last

The language of sincerity and truth

Is wrung forth from the bottom of his heart;

The mask is torn off; what is real remains.

Moreover avarice and blinding lust

For honours, which compel unhappy men

To overpass the bounds of right, and sometimes,

As partners and accomplices of crime,

To struggle with vast effort night and day

Till they emerge upon the heights of power—

These sores of life are in no small degree

Fostered by fear of death. For foul contempt

And biting penury are mostly thought

To be quite different from a pleasurable

And secure life: rather they seem to be

Already but a kind of lingering

Before the gates of death. And so while men,

Urged by an unreal terror, long to escape

Far from these ills and drive them far away,

They pile up wealth by shedding civil blood,

Doubling their riches greedily, while they heap

Massacre upon massacre, rejoice

Ruthlessly in the sad death of a brother,

And shun their kinsmen’s board in hate and dread.

Often likewise owing to this same fear

They pine with envy because some other man

In the world’s eyes is powerful, some other

Is gazed at, as he walks robed in bright honours,

While they complain that they themselves are wallowing

In darkness and in filth. Some sink their lives

In ruin to win statues and a name,

And often with such force, through dread of death,

Does hatred of life and of the sight of day

Seize upon mortals, that with anguished heart

They will destroy themselves, forgetting quite

How this fear is the well-spring of their cares,

This it is that enfeebles honour, this

That bursts the bonds of friendship, and in fine

Prompts them to cast all duty to the ground.

Since often ere now men have betrayed their country

And beloved parents, seeking so to shun

The realms of Acheron. For just as children

In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid

Of all things, so we sometimes in the light

Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded

Than those which children shudder at in the dark

Imagining that they will come to pass.

This terror, then, and darkness of the mind

Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams

And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation

Of nature’s aspect and her inward law.

First then the mind, which we shall often call

The intellect, wherein is placed the council

And government of life, I assert to be

No less a part of man than feet and hands

And eyes are part of the whole living creature.

Yet some would have it that the sense of the mind

Resides in no fixed part, but deem it rather

A kind of vital habit of the body,

Which by the Greeks is called a harmony,

Something that causes us to live with sense,

Although the intellect is in no one part.

Just as good health is often spoken of

As though belonging to the body, and yet

It is no one part of a healthy man.

Thus they refuse to place the sense of the mind

In one fixed part: and here to me they seem

To wander far indeed astray from truth.

For often the body, which is visible,

Is sick, while in some other hidden part

We experience pleasure; and ofttimes again

The contrary will happen, when a man

Who is distressed in mind, through his whole body

Feels pleasure: in the same way as the foot

Of a sick man may suffer pain, and yet

His head meanwhile is in no pain at all.

Moreover when the limbs are given up

To soft sleep, and the wearied body lies

Diffused without sensation, there is yet

Something else in us which at that same time

Is stirred in many ways, and into itself

Receives all the emotions of delight,

And all the empty troubles of the heart.

Now, that the soul too dwells within the limbs,

And that it is no harmony whereby

The body is wont to feel, this main proof shows.

When from the body much has been removed,

Yet often life still lingers in our limbs:

Whereas, when a few particles of heat

Have been dispersed, and through the mouth some air

Has been forced out, suddenly that same life

Deserts the arteries and quits the bones:

Whence you may learn that not all particles

Have functions of like moment, nor alike

Support existence; but that rather those

Which are the seeds of wind and warming heat

Are the cause that life stays within the limbs.

Therefore this vital heat and wind, residing

Within the body itself, is that which quits

Our dying frame. So now that we have found

The nature of the mind and of the soul

To be a part in some sense of the man,

Let us give up the name of harmony,

Which was brought down from lofty Helicon

To the musicians, or else they themselves,

Taking it from some other source, transferred it

To what was then without a name of its own.

However that may be, why, let them keep it.

Do you give heed to the rest of my discourse.

Now I maintain that mind and soul are bound

In union with each other, forming so

A single substance, but that the lord that rules

Throughout the body is the reasoning power

Which we call mind and intellect. Its seat

Is fixed in the middle region of the breast.

For here it is that fear and panic throb:

Around these parts dwell joys that soothe. Here then

Is the intellect or mind. The rest of the soul

Dispersed through the whole body, obeys and moves

At the will and propulsion of the mind,

Which for itself and by itself alone

Has knowledge and rejoices for itself,

When nothing at that time moves soul or body.

And just as, when we are attacked by pain

In head or eye, we do not feel distress

Through our whole body too, so often the mind

Suffers pain by itself, or is envigoured

By happiness, when all the rest of the soul

Throughout the limbs and frame remains unstirred

By any new sensation. But when the mind

Has been perturbed by some more vehement fear,

We see the whole soul feel with it in unison

Through all the limbs; sweating and paleness then

Spread over the whole body; the tongue halts,

Speech dies away, the eyes grow dark with mist,

The ears ring and the limbs sink under us.

And indeed often we see men drop down

From terror of mind. Hence easily we may learn

That the soul is united with the mind;

For when it has been struck by the mind’s force,

Straightway it pushes and propels the body.

BOOK III, lines 830-1094

DEATH then is nothing to us, nor one jot

Does it concern us, since the nature of mind

Is thus proved mortal. And as in times long past

We felt no unhappiness when from every side

Gathering for conflict came the Punic hosts,

And all that was beneath the height of heaven,

Shaken by the tumult and dismay of war,

Shuddered and quaked, and mortals were in doubt

To whose empire all human things would fall

By land and sea, so when we are no more,

When body and soul, whereof we were composed

Into one being shall have been divorced,

’Tis plain nothing whatever shall have power

To trouble us, who then shall be no more,

Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea

In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky.

And even though the powers of mind and soul

After they have been severed from the body

Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing,

Who by the binding marriage tie between

Body and soul are formed into one being.

Nor if Time should collect our scattered atoms

After our death, and should restore them back

To where they now are placed, and if once more

The light of light were given us, not even that

Would in the least concern us, once the chain

Of self-awareness had been snapped asunder.

So too now what we may have been before

Concerns us not, nor causes us distress.

For when you look back on the whole past course

Of infinite time, and think how manifold

Must be the modes of matter’s flux, then easily

May you believe this too, that these same atoms

Of which we now are formed, have often before

Been placed in the same order as they are now.

Yet this can no remembrance bring us back.

For a break in life has since been interposed,

And all our atoms wandering dispersed

Have strayed far from that former consciousness.

For if a man be destined to endure

Misery and suffering, he must first exist

In his own person at that very time

When evil should befall him. But since death

Precludes this, and forbids him to exist

Who was to endure distress, we may be sure

That in death there is nothing we need dread,

That he who exists not cannot become miserable,

And that it makes no difference at all

Whether he shall already have been born

In some past time, when once he has been robbed

By death that dies not of his life that dies.

Therefore if you should chance to hear some man

Pitying his own lot, that after death

Either his body must decay in the earth,

Or be consumed by flames or jaws of beasts,

Then may you know that his words ring not true,

That in his heart there lurks some secret sting,

Though he himself deny that he believes

Any sense will remain with him in death.

For in fact he grants not all that he professes,

Nor by the roots does he expel and thrust

Self forth from life, but all unwittingly

Assumes that of self something will survive.

For when a living man forbodes that birds

And beasts may rend his body after death,

Then does he pity himself, nor can he quite

Separate and withdraw from the outcast body,

But fancying that that other is himself,

With his own sense imagines it endued.

So he complains because he was born mortal,

Nor sees that there will be in real death

No other self which living can lament

That he has perished, none that will stand by

And grieve over his burnt and mangled corpse.

For if it be an evil after death

To be mauled by teeth of beasts, why should it seem

Less cruel to be laid out on a pyre

And scorched with hot flames, or to be embalmed

In stifling honey, or to lie stiff and cold

Couched on the cool slab of a chilly stone,

Or to be crushed down under a weight of earth?

“Now no more shall thy home, nor thy chaste wife

Receive thee in gladness, nor shall thy sweet children

Run forth to meet thee and snatch kisses from thee,

And touch thee to the heart with silent joy.

No more canst thou be prosperous in thy doings,

A bulwark to thy friends. Poor wretch!” men cry,

“How wretchedly has one disastrous day

Stript thee of all life’s many benefits!”

Yet this withal they add not: “Nor henceforth

Does craving for these things beset thee more.”

This truth, could men but grasp it once in thought

And follow thought with words, would forthwith set

Their spirits free from a huge ache and dread.

“Thou, as thou art, sunk in the sleep of death,

Shalt so continue through all time to come,

Delivered from all feverish miseries:

But we who watched thee on thy dreadful pyre

Change into ashes, we insatiably

Bewept thee; nor shall any lapse of days

Remove that lifelong sorrow from our hearts.”

Of him who spoke thus, well might we inquire,

What grief so exceeding bitter is there here,

If in the end all comes to sleep and rest,

That one should therefore pine with lifelong misery.

This too is oft men’s wont, when they lie feasting

Wine-cup in hand with garland-shaded brows:

Thus from the heart they speak: “Brief is life’s joy

For poor frail men. Soon will it be no more,

Nor ever afterwards may it be called back.”

As though a foremost evil to be feared

After their death were this, that parching thirst

Would burn and scorch them in their misery,

Or craving for aught else would then beset them.

No, for none feels the want of self and life,

When mind and body are sunk in sleep together.

For all we care, such sleep might be eternal:

No craving for ourselves moves us at all.

And yet, when starting up from sleep a man

Collects himself, then the atoms of his soul

Throughout his frame cannot be wandering far

From their sense-stirring motions. Therefore death

Must needs be thought far less to us than sleep,

If less can be than what we see is nothing.

For the dispersion of the crowded atoms,

That comes with death, is greater; nor has ever

Anyone yet awakened, upon whom

Has once fallen the chill arrest of death.

Furthermore, if Nature suddenly found voice,

And thus in person upbraided one of us:

“What is it, mortal, can afflict thee so,

That thou to such exceeding bitter grief

Shouldst yield? Why thus bemoan and bewail death?

For if the life thou hast lived hitherto

Was pleasant to thee, and not all thy blessings,

As though poured into a perforated jar,

Have flowed through and gone thanklessly to waste,

Why not then, like a guest replete with life,

Take thy departure, and resignedly

Enter, thou fool, upon secure repose?

But if all that thou hast enjoyed has perished

Squandered away, and life is a mere grievance,

Why seek to add thereto, what in its turn

Must all come to destruction and be lost

Unprofitably? Why both of life and travail

Dost thou not rather make an end at once?

For there is nothing more I can contrive

Or find to please thee. All things are the same

At all times. Though thy body be not yet

Decayed with years, nor have thy worn-out limbs

Grown feeble, yet all things remain the same;

Though thou shouldst overlive all generations,

Nay, even more if thou shouldst never die.”

What could we answer, save that Nature’s claim

Was just, and her indictment a true plea?

But if some other more advanced in years

Should miserably complain and lament death

Beyond all reason, would she not yet more justly

Lift up her voice and chide him with sharp speech?

“Hence with thy tears, buffoon. Cease thy complaints.

After thou hast enjoyed all life’s best gifts

Thou now decayest. But because thou hast yearned

Always for what was absent, and despised

That which was present, life has glided from thee

Incomplete and unprofitable. So now

Ere thou didst look for it, at thy pillow Death

Has taken his stand, before thou canst depart

Satisfied with existence and replete.

But now resign all vanities that so ill

Befit thine age: come then, with a good grace

Rise and make room for others; for thou must.”

Justly, I think, would she so plead with him,

Justly reproach and chide: for things grown old

Yield place and are supplanted evermore

By new, and each thing out of something else

Must be replenished; nor to the black pit

Of Tartarus was yet any man consigned.

Matter is needed, that therefrom may grow

Succeeding generations: which yet all,

When they have lived their life, shall follow thee.

Thus it is all have perished in past times

No less than thou, and shall hereafter perish.

So one thing out of another shall not cease

For ever to arise; and life is given

To none in fee, to all in usufruct.

Consider likewise how eternal Time’s

Bygone antiquity before our birth

Was nothing to us. In such wise does Nature

Show us the time to come after our death

As in a mirror. Is aught visible

Therein so appalling? aught that seems like gloom?

Is it not more secure than any sleep?

Moreover all those things which people say

Are found in Acheron’s gulf, assuredly

Exist for us in life. No wretched Tantalus,

Numbed by vain terror, quakes, as the tale tells,

Beneath a huge rock hanging in the air;

But in life rather an empty fear of gods

Oppresses mortals; and the fall they dread

Is fortune’s fall, which chance may bring to each.

Nor verily entering the large breast of Tityos,

As he lies stretched in Acheron, do vultures

Find food there for their beaks perpetually.

How vast soever his body’s bulk extends,

Though not nine acres merely with outspread limbs

He cover, but the round of the whole earth,

Yet would he not be able to endure

Eternal pain, nor out of his whole body

For ever provide food. But here for us

He is a Tityos, whom, while he lies

In bonds of love, fretful anxieties

Devour like rending birds of prey, or cares,

Sprung from some other craving, lacerate.

A living Sisyphus also we behold

In him who from the people fain would beg

The rods and cruel axes, and each time

Defeated and disconsolate must retire.

For to beg power, which, empty as it is,

Is never given, and in pursuit thereof

To endure grievous toil continually,

Is but to thrust uphill mightily straining

A stone, which from the summit after all

Rolls bounding back down to the level plain.

Moreover to be feeding evermore

The thankless nature of the mind, yet never

To fill it full and sate it with good things,

As do the seasons for us, when each year

They return bringing fruits and varied charms,

Yet never are we filled with life’s delights,

This surely is what is told of those young brides,

Who must pour water into a punctured vessel,

Though they can have no hope to fill it full.

Cerberus and the Furies in like manner

Are fables, and that world deprived of day

Where from its throat Tartarus belches forth

Horrible flames: which things in truth are not,

Nor can be anywhere. But there is in life

A dread of punishment for things ill done,

Terrible as the deeds are terrible;

And to expiate men’s guilt there is the dungeon,

The awful hurling downward from the rock,

Scourgings, mutilations and impalings,

The pitch, the torches and the metal plate.

And even if these be wanting, yet the mind

Conscious of guilt torments itself with goads

And scorching whips, nor in its boding fear

Perceives what end of misery there can be,

Nor what limit at length to punishment,

Nay fears lest these same evils after death

Should prove more grievous. Thus does the life of fools

Become at last an Acheron here on earth.

This too thou may’st say sometimes to thyself:

“Even the good king Ancus closed his eyes

To the light of day, who was so many times

Worthier than thou, unconscionable man.

And since then many others who bore rule

O’er mighty nations, princes and potentates,

Have perished: and he too, even he, who once

Across the great sea paved a path whereby

His legions might pass over, bidding them

Cross dry-shod the salt deeps, and to show scorn

Trampled upon the roarings of the waves

With horses, even he, bereft of light,

Forth from his dying body gasped his soul.

The Scipios’ offspring, thunderbolt of war,

Terror of Carthage, gave his bones to the earth,

As though he were the meanest household slave.

Consider too the inventors of wise thoughts

And arts that charm, consider the companions

Of the Heliconian Maidens, among whom

Homer still bears the sceptre without peer;

Yet he now sleeps the same sleep as they all.

Likewise Democritus, when a ripe old age

Had warned him that the memory-stirring motions

Were waning in his mind, by his own act

Willingly offered up his head to death.

Even Epicurus died, when his life’s light

Had run its course, he who in intellect

Surpassed the race of men, quenching the glory

Of all else, as the sun in heaven arising

Quenches the stars. Then wilt thou hesitate

And feel aggrieved to die? thou for whom life

Is well nigh dead, whilst yet thou art alive

And lookest on the light; thou who dost waste

Most of thy time in sleep, and waking snorest,

Nor ceasest to see dreams; who hast a mind

Troubled with empty terror, and ofttimes

Canst not discover what it is that ails thee,

When, poor besotted wretch, from every side

Cares crowd upon thee, and thou goest astray

Drifting in blind perplexity of soul.”

If men not only were to feel this load

That weighs upon their mind and wears them out,

But might have knowledge also of its cause

And whence comes this great pile of misery

Crushing their breasts, they would not spend their lives,

As now so oft we see them, ignorant

Each of his life’s true ends, and seeking ever

By change of place to lay his burden down.

Often, issuing forth from his great mansion, he

Who is weary of home will suddenly return

Perceiving that abroad he is none the happier.

He posts to his villa galloping his ponies,

As though hurrying with help to a house on fire,

Yawns on the very threshold, nay sinks down

Heavily into sleep to seek oblivion,

Or even perhaps starts headlong back to town.

In this way each man flies from his own self,

Yet from that self in fact he has no power

To escape. He clings to it in his own despite,

Although he loathes it, seeing that he is sick,

Yet perceives not the cause of his disease:

Which if he could but comprehend aright,

Relinquishing all else, each man would study

To learn the Nature of Reality,

Since ’tis our state during eternal time,

Not for one hour merely, that is in doubt,

That state wherein mortals must pass the whole

Of what may still await them after death.

And in conclusion, what base lust of life

Is this, that can so potently compel us

In dubious perils to feel such dismay?

For indeed certain is the end of life

That awaits mortals, nor can death be shunned.

Meet it we must. Furthermore in the same

Pursuits and actions do we pass our days

For ever, nor may we by living on

Forge for ourselves any new form of pleasure.

But what we crave, while it is absent, seems

To excel all things else; then, when ’tis ours,

We crave some other thing, gaping wide-mouthed,

Always possessed by the same thirst of life.

What fortune future time may bring, we know not,

Nor what chance has in store for us, nor yet

What end awaits us. By prolonging life

No least jot may we take from death’s duration;

Nought may we steal away therefrom, that so

Haply a less long while we may be dead.

Therefore as many ages as you please

Add to your life’s account, yet none the less

Will that eternal death be waiting for you.

And not less long will that man be no more,

Who from to-day has ceased to live, than he

Who has died many months and years ago.

BOOK IV, lines 962-1287

AND generally to what pursuits soever

Each of us is attached and closely tied,

Or on whatever tasks we have been used

To spend much time, so that therein the mind

Has borne unwonted strain, in those same tasks

We mostly seem in sleep to be engaged.

Lawyers imagine they are pleading causes,

Or drafting deeds; generals that they are fighting

In some pitched battle; mariners that they still

Are waging with the winds their lifelong war;

And we that we are toiling at our task,

Questioning ever the nature of all things,

And setting our discoveries forth in books

Written in our native tongue. And thus in general

Do all other pursuits and arts appear

To fill men’s minds and mock them during sleep.

And with those who for many days together

Have watched stage shows with unremitting zeal,

We generally find that when they have ceased

To apprehend them with their senses, yet

Passages remain open in the mind

Through which the same images of things may enter.

Thus the same sights for many days keep passing

Before their eyes, so that even when awake

They seem to be beholding figures dancing

And moving supple limbs; also their ears

Seem to be listening clear-toned melodies

Of the lyre’s eloquent strings, while they behold

In fancy the same audience, the stage too,

Glowing with all its varied scenery.

So great the influence of zeal and pleasure,

And of those tasks whereon not only men

Are wont to spend their energies, but even

All living animals. Thus you will see

Strong horses, when their limbs are lying at rest,

Nevertheless in slumber sweat and pant

Continually, and as though to win some prize

Strain their strength to the utmost, or else struggle

To start, as if the barriers were thrown open.

And often hunters’ dogs while softly slumbering

Will yet suddenly toss their legs about

And utter hurried yelps, sniffing the air

Again and again, as though following the trail

Of wild beasts they have scented: and roused from sleep

They often chase the empty images

Of stags, as if they saw them in full flight,

Till having shaken their delusions off

They come back to themselves. But the tame brood

Of dogs reared in the house, will shake themselves

And start up from the ground, as if they saw

Unknown figures and faces: and the more savage

Each breed is, the more fierce must be its dreams.

And in the night-time birds of various kinds,

Suddenly taking flight, trouble with their wings

The groves of deities, when in gentle sleep

Hawks have appeared threatening them with havoc

Of battle, flying after them in pursuit.

Again the minds of men, which greatly labouring

Achieve great aims, will often during sleep

Act and perform the same. Kings take by storm,

Are made captive, join battle, cry aloud

As though assassinated then and there.

Many men struggle and utter groans in pain,

And as though mangled by a panther’s fangs

Or savage lion’s, fill the whole neighbourhood

With vehement clamourings. Many in their sleep

Discourse of great affairs, and often so

Have revealed their own guilt. Many meet death:

Many, as though falling with all their weight

From high cliffs to the ground, are scared with terror,

And like men reft of reason, hardly from sleep

Come to themselves again, being quite distraught

By the body’s tumult. Likewise a man will sit

Thirsting beside a river or pleasant spring

And gulp almost the whole stream down his throat.

Innocent children also, slumber-bound,

Often believe they are lifting up their dress

By a tank or broken vessel, and so pour

The liquid, drained from their whole body, forth,

Soaking the gorgeous-hued magnificence

Of Babylonian coverlets. Then too

To those into the currents of whose age

For the first time seed is entering, when the ripe

Fulness of time has formed it in their limbs,

From without there come images emanating

From some chance body, announcing a glorious face

And beautiful colouring, that excites and stirs

Those parts that have grown turgid with much seed,

So that, as if all things had been performed,

The full tide overflows and stains their vesture.

This seed whereof we spoke is stirred in us

When first ripening age confirms our frame.

For different causes move and stimulate

Different things. From man the influence

Of man alone rouses forth human seed.

So soon as, thus dislodged, it has retired

From its abodes throughout the limbs and frame,

It withdraws from the whole body, and assembling

At certain places in the system, straightway

Rouses at last the body’s genital parts.

These places, irritated, swell with seed;

And so the wish arises to eject it

Towards that whereto the fell desire tends;

While the body seeks that by which the mind

Is smitten by love. For all men generally

Fall towards the wound, and the blood glistens forth

In that direction whence the stroke was dealt us.

And if he is at close quarters, the red drops

Sprinkle the foe. Thus he who has been struck

By the missiles of Venus, whether a boy

With womanish limbs launches the shaft, or else

Some woman darting love from her whole body,

Yearns towards that whereby he has been wounded,

And longs to unite with it, and shoot the stream

Drawn from the one into the other body.

For dumb desire gives presage of the pleasure.

This desire we call Venus: from it came

The Latin name for love[E]; and from this source

There trickled first into the heart that drop

Of Venus’ honeyed sweetness, followed soon

By chilling care. For though that which you love

Be absent, yet are images of it present,

And its sweet name still haunts within your ears.

But it is wise to shun such images,

And scare off from you all that feeds your love,

Turning your mind elsewhere, and vent instead

Your gathering humours on some other body,

Rather than hold them back, set once for all

Upon the love of one, and so lay up

Care and unfailing anguish for yourself.

For the wound gathers strength and grows inveterate

By feeding, while the madness day by day

Increases, and the misery becomes heavier,

Unless you heal the first wounds by new blows,

And roving in the steps of vagrant Venus

So cure them while yet fresh, or can divert

To something else the movements of your mind.

Nor does the man who shuns love go without

The fruits of Venus; rather he makes choice

Of joys that bring no after-pain: for surely

The pleasure of intercourse must be more pure

For those that are heart-whole than for the love-sick.

For in the very moment of possession

The passion of lovers fluctuates to and fro,

Wandering undecidedly, nor know they

What first they would enjoy with eyes and hands.

What they have sought, they tightly press, and cause

Pain to the body, and often print their teeth

Upon the lips, and kiss with bruising mouths,

Because the pleasure is not unalloyed,

And there are secret stings which stimulate

To hurt that very thing, whate’er it be,

From which those germs of madness emanate.

But easily, while love lasts, Venus allays

Such pains; and soft delight, mingled therein,

Bridles their bites. For in this there is hope

That from that very body whence proceeds

Their burning lust, the flame may in turn be quenched,

Although Nature protests the opposite

Must happen, since this is the one sole thing

Whereof the more we have, so much the more

Must the heart be consumed by fell desire.

For food and drink are taken within the body;

And since they are wont to settle in fixed parts,

In this way the desire for water and bread

Is easily satisfied: but from the face

And beautiful colouring of a man there enters

Nothing into the body to enjoy

Save tenuous images, a love-sick hope

Often snatched off by the wind. As when in sleep

A thirsty man seeks to drink, and no liquid

Is given to quench the burning in his limbs,

Yet he pursues the images of water,

Toiling in vain, and still thirsts, though he drink

In a rushing river’s midst; even so in love

Venus deludes lovers with images:

For neither, gaze intently as they may,

Can bodies satiate them, nor with their hands

Can they pluck anything off from the soft limbs,

Aimlessly wandering over the whole body.

And when at last with limbs knit they enjoy

The flower of their age, when now the body

Presages rapture, and Venus is in act

To sow the fields of woman, eagerly

They clasp bodies and join moist mouth to mouth

With panted breath, imprinting lips with teeth;

In vain, for naught thence can they pluck away,

Nor each with the whole body entering pass

Into the other’s body; for at times

They seem to wish and struggle so to do.

So greedily do they hug the bonds of Venus,

While their limbs melt, enfeebled by the might

Of pleasure. Finally, when the gathered lust

Has burst forth from the frame, awhile there comes

A brief pause in their passion’s violent heat.

Then returns the same madness: the old frenzy

Revisits them, when they would fain discover

What verily they desire to attain;

Yet never can they find out what device

May conquer their disease: in such blind doubt

They waste away, pined by a secret wound.

Consider too how they consume their strength

And are worn out with toiling; and consider

How at another’s beck their life is passed.

Meantime their substance vanishes and is changed

To Babylonian stuffs; their duties languish;

Their reputation totters and grows sick.

While at her lover’s cost she anoints herself

With precious unguents, and upon her feet

Beautiful Sicyonian slippers laugh.

Then doubtless she has set for her in gold

Big green-lit emeralds; and the sea-purple dress,

Worn out by constant use, imbibes the sweat

Of love’s encounters. The wealth which their fathers

Had nobly gathered, becomes hair-ribbons

And head-dresses, or else may be is turned

Into a long Greek gown, or stuffs of Alinda

And Ceos. Feasts with goodly broideries

And viands are prepared, games, numerous cups,

Unguents, crowns and festoons; but all in vain;

Since from the well-spring of delights some touch

Of bitter rises, to give pain amidst

The very flowers; either when the mind

Perchance grows conscience-stricken, and remorse

Gnaws it, thus to be spending a life of sloth,

And ruining itself in wanton haunts;

Or else because she has launched forth some word

And left its sense in doubt, some word that clings

To the hungry heart, and quickens there like fire;

Or that he fancies she is casting round

Her eyes too freely, or looks upon some other,

And on her face sees traces of a smile.

When love is permanent and fully prosperous,

These evils are experienced; but if love

Be crossed and hopeless, there are evils such

That you might apprehend them with closed eyes,

Beyond numbering; so that it is wiser,

As I have taught you, to be vigilant

Beforehand, and watch well lest you be snared.

For to avoid being tripped up in love’s toils

Is not so difficult as, once you are caught,

To issue from the nets and to break through

The strong meshes of Venus. None the less

Even when you are tangled and involved,

You may escape the peril, unless you stand

In your own way, and always overlook

Every defect whether of mind or body

In her whom you pursue and long to win.

For this is how men generally behave

Blinded by lust, and assign to those they love

Good qualities which are not truly theirs.

So we see women in various ways misformed

And ugly, to be fondly loved and held

In highest favour. And a man will mock

His fellows, urging them to placate Venus,

Because they are troubled by a degrading love,

Yet often the poor fool will have no eyes

For his own far worse plight. The tawny is called

A honey brown; the filthy and unclean,

Reckless of order; the green-eyed, a Pallas;

The sinewy and angular, a gazelle;

The tiny and dwarfish is a very Grace,

Nothing but sparkle; the monstrous and ungainly,

A marvel, and composed of majesty.

She stammers, cannot talk, why then she lisps;

The mute is bashful; but the fiery-tongued

Malicious gossip becomes a brilliant torch.

One is a slender darling, when she scarce

Can live for lack of flesh; and one half dead

With cough, is merely frail and delicate.

Then the fat and full-bosomed is Ceres’ self

Suckling Iacchus; the snub-nosed, a female

Silenus, or a Satyress; the thick-lipped,

A kiss incarnate. But more of this sort

It were a tedious labour to recite.

Yet be she noble of feature as you will,

And let the might of Venus emanate

From every limb; still there are others too;

Still we have lived without her until now;

Still she does, and we know she does, the same

In all things as the ugly, and, poor wretch,

Perfumes herself with evil-smelling scents,

While her maids run and hide to giggle in secret.

But the excluded lover many a time

With flowers and garlands covers tearfully

The threshold, and anoints the haughty posts

With oil of marjoram, and imprints, poor man,

Kisses upon the doors. Yet when at last

He has been admitted, if but a single breath

Should meet him as he enters, he would seek

Specious excuses to be gone, and so

The long-studied, deep-drawn complaint would fall

To the ground, and he would then convict himself

Of folly, now he sees he had attributed

More to her than is right to grant a mortal.

Nor to our Venuses is this unknown:

Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide

All that takes place behind the scenes of life

From those they would keep fettered in love’s chains

But all in vain, since in imagination

You yet may draw forth all these things to light,

Discovering every cause for ridicule:

And if she be of a mind that still can charm,

And not malicious, you may in your turn

Overlook faults and pardon human frailty.

Nor always with feigned love does the woman sigh,

When with her own uniting the man’s body

She holds him clasped, with moistened kisses sucking

His lips into her lips. Nay, from the heart

She often does it, and seeking mutual joys

Woos him to run to the utmost goal of love.

And nowise else could birds, cattle, wild beasts,

And sheep and mares submit to males, except

That their exuberant nature is in heat,

And burning draws towards them joyously

The lust of the covering mates. See you not also

That those whom mutual pleasure has enchained

Are often tormented in their common chains?

How often on the highroads dogs desiring

To separate, will strain in opposite ways

Eagerly with all their might, yet the whole time

They are held fast in the strong bonds of Venus!

Thus they would never act, unless they had

Experience of mutual joys, enough

To thrust them into the snare and hold them bound.

Therefore I assert, the pleasure must be common.

Often when, mingling her seed with the man’s,

The woman with sudden force has overwhelmed

And mastered the man’s force, then children are borne

Like to the mother from the mother’s seed,

As from the father’s seed like to the father.

But those whom you see sharing the form of both,

Mingling their parents’ features side by side,

Grow from the father’s body and mother’s blood,

When mutual ardour has conspired to fling

The seeds together, roused by the goads of Venus

Throughout the frame, and neither of the two

Has gained the mastery nor yet been mastered.

Moreover sometimes children may be born

Like their grandparents, and will often recall

The forms of their remoter ancestors,

Because the parents often hold concealed

Within their bodies many primal atoms

Mingled in many ways, which, handed down

From the first stock, father transmits to father.

And out of these Venus produces forms

With ever-varying chances, and recalls

The look and voice and hair of ancestors:

Since truly these things are no more derived

From a determined seed, than are our faces

Bodies and limbs. Also the female sex

May spring from a father’s seed, and males come forth

Formed from a mother’s body: for the birth

Is always fashioned out of the two seeds.

Whichever of the two that which is born

Is most like, of that parent it will have

More than an equal share; as you may observe,

Whether it be a male or female offspring.

Nor do divine powers thwart in any man

A fruitful sowing, so that he may never

Receive from sweet children the name of father,

But in sterile wedlock must live out his days;

As men in general fancy, and so sprinkle

The altars sorrowfully with much blood,

And heap the shrine-tables with offerings,

To make their wives pregnant with copious seed.

But vainly they importune the divinity

And sortilege of the gods. For they are sterile

Sometimes from too great thickness of the seed,

Or else it is unduly thin and fluid.

Because the thin cannot adhere and cleave

To the right spots, it forthwith flows away

Defeated, and departs abortively.

Others again discharge a seed too thick,

More solid than is suitable, which either

Does not shoot forth with so far-flung a stroke,

Or cannot so well penetrate where it should,

Or having penetrated, does not easily

Mix with the woman’s seed. For harmonies

Seem to be most important in love’s rites.

And some men will more readily fertilise

Some women, and other women will conceive

More readily and grow pregnant from other men.

And many women, sterile hitherto

In several marriages, have yet at last

Found mates from whom they could conceive children,

And so become enriched with a sweet offspring.

And even for those to whom their household wives,

However fruitful, had failed so far to bear,

A well-matched nature has been often found

That they might fortify their age with children.

So important is it, if seeds are to agree

And blend with seeds for purposes of birth,

Whether the thick encounters with the fluid,

And the fluid with the thick. Also herein

It is of moment on what diet life

Is nourished; for the seed within the limbs

By some foods is made solid, and by others

Is thinned and dwindled. Also in what modes

Love’s bland delight is dealt with, that likewise

Is of the highest moment. For in general

Women are thought more readily to conceive

After the manner of wild beasts and quadrupeds,

Since so the seeds can find the proper spots,

The breasts being bent downward, the loins raised.

Nor have wives the least need of wanton movements.

For a woman thwarts conception and frustrates it,

If with her loins she joyously lures on

The man’s love, and, with her whole bosom relaxed

And limp, provokes lust’s tide to overflow.

For then she thrusts the furrow from the share’s

Direct path, turning the seed’s stroke aside

From its right goal. And thus for their own ends

Harlots are wont to move, because they wish

Not to conceive nor lie in childbed often,

Likewise that Venus may give men more pleasure.

But of this surely our wives should have no need.

Sometimes, by no divine interposition

Nor through the shafts of Venus, a plain woman,

Though of inferior beauty, may be loved.

For sometimes she herself by her behaviour,

Her gentle ways and personal daintiness

Will easily accustom you to spend

Your whole life with her. And indeed ’tis custom

That harmonises love. For what is struck

However lightly by repeated blows,

Yet after a long lapse of time is conquered

And must dissolve. Do you not likewise see

That drops of water falling upon stones

After long lapse of time will pierce them through?

BOOK V

WHO is there that by energy of mind

Could build a poem worthy of our theme’s

Majesty and of these discoveries?

Or who has such a mastery of words

As to devise praises proportionate

To his deserts, who to us has bequeathed

Such prizes, earned by his own intellect?

No man, I think, formed of a mortal body.

For if we are to speak as the acknowledged

Majesty of our theme demands, a god

Was he, most noble Memmius, a god,

Who first found out that discipline of life

Which now is called philosophy, and whose skill

From such great billows and a gloom so dark

Delivered life, and steered it into a calm

So peaceful and beneath so bright a light.

For compare the divine discoveries

Of others in old times. ’Tis told that Ceres

First revealed corn to men, Liber the juice

Of grape-born wine; though life without these things

Might well have been sustained; and even now

’Tis said there are some people that live so.

But to live happily was not possible

Without a serene mind. Therefore more justly

Is this man deemed by us a god, from whom

Came those sweet solaces of life, which now

Already through great nations spread abroad

Have power to soothe men’s minds. Should you suppose

Moreover that the deeds of Hercules

Surpass his, then yet further will you drift

Out of true reason’s course. For what harm now

Would those great gaping jaws of Nemea’s lion

Do to us, and the bristly Arcadian boar?

What could the bull of Crete, or Lerna’s pest

The Hydra fenced around with venomous snakes,

And threefold Gerion’s triple-breasted might,

Or those brazen-plumed birds inhabiting

Stymphalian swamps, what injury so great

Could they inflict upon us, or the steeds

Of Thracian Diomede, with fire-breathing nostrils

Ranging Bistonia’s wilds and Ismarus?

Also the serpent, guardian of the bright

Gold-gleaming apples of the Hesperides,

Fierce and grim-glancing, with huge body coiled

Round the tree’s stem, how were it possible

He could molest us by the Atlantic shore

And those lone seas, where none of us sets foot,

And no barbarian ventures to draw near?

And all those other monsters which likewise

Have been destroyed, if they had not been vanquished,

What harm, pray, could they do, though now alive?

None, I presume: for the earth even now abounds

With wild beasts to repletion, and is filled

With shuddering terror throughout its woods, great mountains

And deep forests, regions which we have power

For the most part to avoid. But if the heart

Has not been purged, what tumults then, what dangers

Must needs invade us in our own despite!

What fierce anxieties, offspring of desire,

Rend the distracted man, what mastering fears!

Pride also, sordid avarice, and violence,

Of what calamities are not they the cause!

Luxury too, and slothfulness! He therefore

Who could subdue all these, and banish them

Out of our minds by force of words, not arms,

Is it not right we should deem such a man

Worthy to be numbered among the gods?

The more that he was wont in beautiful

And godlike speech to utter many truths

About the immortal gods themselves, and set

The whole nature of things in clear words forth.

I, in his footsteps treading, follow out

His reasonings and expound in my discourse

By what law all things are created, how

They are compelled to abide within that law,

Without power to annul the immutable

Decrees of time; and first above all else

The mind’s nature was found to be composed

Of a body that had birth, without the power

To endure through a long period unscathed:

For it was found to be mere images

That are wont to deceive the mind in sleep,

Whenever we appear to behold one

Whom life has abandoned. Now, for what remains,

The order of my argument has brought me

To the point where I must show both how the world

Is composed of a body which must die,

Also that it was born; and in what way

Matter once congregating and uniting

Established earth sky sea, the stars, the sun,

And the moon’s globe: also what living creatures

Rose from the earth, and which were those that never

At any time were born: next in what way

Mankind began to employ varied speech

One with another by giving names to things:

Then for what causes that fear of the gods

Entered their breasts, and now through the whole world

Gives sanctity to shrines, lakes and groves,

Altars and images of gods. Moreover

I will make plain by what force and control

Nature pilots the courses of the sun

And the wanderings of the moon, lest we perchance

Deem that they traverse of their own free will

Their yearly orbits between heaven and earth,

Obsequiously furthering the increase

Of crops and living things, or should suppose

That they roll onwards by the gods’ design.

For those who have learnt rightly that the gods

Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder

By what means all things can be carried on,

Such above all as are perceived to happen

In the ethereal regions overhead,

They are borne back again into their old

Religious fears, and adopt pitiless lords,

Whom in their misery they believe to be

Almighty; for they are ignorant of what can

And what cannot exist; in fine they know not

Upon what principle each thing has its powers

Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone.

But now, lest I detain you with more promises,

In the first place consider, Memmius,

The seas, the land, the sky, whose threefold nature,

Three bodies, three forms so dissimilar,

And three such wondrous textures, a single day

Shall give to destruction, and the world’s vast mass

And fabric, for so many years upheld,

Shall fall to ruin. Nor am I unaware

How novel and strange, when first it strikes the mind,

Must appear this destruction of earth and heaven

That is to be, and for myself how difficult

It will prove to convince you by mere words,

As happens when one brings to a man’s ears

Some notion unfamiliar hitherto,

If yet one cannot thrust it visibly

Beneath his eyes, or place it in his hands;

For the paved highway of belief through touch

And sight leads straightest into the human heart

And the precincts of the mind. Yet none the less

I will speak out. Reality itself

It may be will bring credence to my words,

And in a little while you will behold

The earth terribly quaking, and all things

Shattered to ruins. But may pilot fortune

Steer far from us such disaster, and may reason

Convince us rather than reality

That the whole universe may well collapse,

Tumbling together with a dread crash and roar.

But before I attempt concerning this

To announce fate’s oracles in more holy wise,

And with assurance far more rational

Than doth the Pythoness, when from the tripod

And laurel wreath of Phoebus her voice sounds,

Many consolatories will I first

Expound to you in learned words, lest haply

Curbed by religion’s bit you should suppose

That earth and sun and sky, sea, stars and moon,

Their substance being divine, must needs abide

Eternally, and should therefore think it just

That all, after the manner of the giants,

Should suffer penance for their monstrous guilt

Who by their reasoning shake the world’s firm walls,

And fain would quench the glorious sun in heaven,

Shaming with mortal speech immortal things;

Though in fact such objects are so far removed

From any share in divine energy,

And so unworthy to be accounted gods,

That they may be considered with more reason

To afford us the conception of what is quite

Devoid of vital motion and of sense.

For truly by no means can we suppose

That the nature and judgment of the mind

Can exist linked with every kind of body,

Even as in the sky trees cannot exist,

Nor clouds in the salt waters, nor can fish

Live in the fields, neither can blood be found

In wood, nor sap in stones: but where each thing

Can dwell and grow, is determined and ordained.

Even so the nature of mind cannot be born

Alone without a body, nor exist

Separated from sinews and from blood.

But if (for this is likelier by far)

The mind’s force might reside within the head

Or shoulders, or be born down in the heels,

Or in any part you will, it would at least

Inhabit the same man and the same vessel.

But since even in our body it is seen

To be determined and ordained where soul

And mind can separately dwell and grow,

All the more must it be denied that mind

Cannot have being quite outside a body

And a living form, in crumbling clods of earth,

In the sun’s fire, or water, or aloft

In the domains of ether. Such things therefore

Are not endowed with divine consciousness,

Because they cannot be quickened into life.

This too you cannot possibly believe,

That there are holy abodes of deities

Anywhere in the world. For so tenuous

Is the nature of gods, and from our senses

So far withdrawn, that hardly can the mind

Imagine it. And seeing that hitherto

It has eluded touch or blow of hands,

It must touch nothing which for us is tangible:

For naught can touch that may not itself be touched.

So even their abodes must be unlike

Our own, tenuous as their bodies are.

All this hereafter I will prove to you

By plentiful argument. Further, to say

That for the sake of mankind the gods willed

To frame the wondrous nature of the world,

And that on this account we ought to extol

Their handiwork as worthy of all praise,

And to believe that it will prove eternal

And indestructible, and to think it sin

Ever by any effort to disturb

What by the ancient wisdom of the gods

Has been established everlastingly

For mankind’s benefit, or by argument

To assail and overthrow it utterly

From top to bottom, and to invent besides

Other such errors—all this, Memmius,

Is folly. For what advantage could our thanks

Bestow upon immortal and blessed beings

That for our sakes they should bestir themselves

To perform any task? Or what new fact

Could have induced them, tranquil hitherto,

After so long to change their former life?

For it seems fitting he should take delight

In a new state of things, to whom the old

Was painful: but for him whom in past times,

While he was living in felicity,

No evil had befallen, for such a one

What could have kindled a desire for change?

Must we imagine that their life lay prostrate

In darkness and in misery, till the birth

And origin of things first dawned upon them?

Besides, what evil had it been to us

Not to have been created? For whoever

Has once been born, must wish to abide in life

So long as luring pleasure bids him stay:

But one who has never tasted the love of life,

Nor even been numbered in life’s ranks, what harm

Were it for him not to have been created?

Again whence first was implanted in the gods

A pattern for begetting things? Whence too

The preconception of what men should be,

So that they knew and imaged in their minds

What they desired to make? And by what means

Could they have ever ascertained the energy

Latent in primal atoms, or what forms

Might be produced by changes in their order,

Unless Nature herself had given them first

A sample of creation? For indeed

These primal atoms in such multitudes

And in so many ways, through infinite time

Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight,

Have been borne onward so incessantly,

Uniting in every way and making trial

Of every shape they could combine to form,

That ’tis not strange if they have also fallen

Into such grouping, and acquired such motions

As those whereby the present sum of things

Is carried on and ceaselessly renewed.

But even were I ignorant how things

Were formed of primal elements, yet this

Would I have ventured to affirm, and prove

Not only from the system of the heavens,

But from much other evidence, that nature

Has by no means been fashioned for our benefit

By divine power; so great are the defects

Which are its bane. First, of the whole space

Covered by the enormous reach of heaven,

A greedy portion mountains occupy

And forests of wild beasts; rocks and waste swamps

Possess it, or the wide land-sundering sea.

Besides, well nigh two-thirds are stolen from men

By burning heat and frost ceaselessly falling.

All that is left for husbandry, even that

The force of Nature soon would overspread

With thorns, unless resisted by man’s force,

Ever wont for his livelihood to groan

Over the strong hoe, and with down-pressed plough

To cleave the earth. For if we do not turn

The fertile clods with coulters, and subduing

The soil of earth, summon the crops to birth,

They could not of their own accord spring up

Into the bright air. Even then sometimes,

When answering our long toil throughout the land

Every bud puts forth its leaves and flowers,

Either the sun in heaven scorches them

With too much heat, or sudden gusts of rain

Or nipping frosts destroy them, or wind-storms

Shatter them with impetuous whirling blasts.

Furthermore why does Nature multiply

And nourish terrible tribes of savage beasts

By land and sea, dangerous to mankind?

Why does untimely death range to and fro?

Then again, like a mariner cast ashore

By raging waves, the human infant lies

Naked upon the ground, speechless, in want

Of every help needful for life, when first

Nature by birth-throes from his mother’s womb

Thrusts him into the borders of the light,

So that he fills the room with piteous wailing,

As well he may, whose fate in life will be

To pass through so much misery. But flocks

And herds of divers kind, and the wild beasts,

These, as they grow up, have no need of rattles:

To none of them a foster-nurse must utter

Fond broken speech: they seek not different dresses

To suit each season: no, nor do they need

Weapons nor lofty walls whereby to guard

What is their own, since all things for them all

The Earth herself brings forth abundantly,

And Nature, the creatress manifold.

First of all, since the substance of the earth,

Moisture, and the light breathings of the air,

And burning heats, of which this sum of things

Is seen to be composed, have all been formed

Of a body that was born and that will die,

Of such a body must we likewise deem

That the whole nature of the world was made.

For things whose parts and members we see formed

Of a body that had birth and shapes that die,

These we perceive are themselves always mortal,

And likewise have been born. Since then we see

That the chief parts and members of the world

Decay and are reborn, it is no less certain

That once for heaven and earth there was a time

Of origin, and will be of destruction.

Herein lest you should think that without proof

I have seized this vantage, in that I have assumed

Earth and fire to be mortal, and have not doubted

That moisture and air perish, but maintained

That these too are reborn and grow afresh,

Consider first how no small part of the earth

Ceaselessly baked by the sun’s rays and trampled

By innumerable feet, gives off a mist

And flying clouds of dust, which the strong winds

Disperse through the whole atmosphere. Part too

Of the earth’s soil is turned to swamp by rains,

While scouring rivers gnaw their banks away.

Furthermore whatsoever goes to augment

Some other thing, is in its turn restored;

And since beyond all doubt the all-mother Earth

Is seen to be no less the general tomb,

You thus may see how she is ever lessened,

Yet with new growth increases evermore.

Next, that the sea, the rivers and the springs

Are always amply fed by new supplies

Of moisture oozing up perennially,

It needs no words to explain. The vast down-flow

Of waters from all sides is proof of this.

But as the water that is uppermost

Is always taken away, it comes to pass

That on the whole there is no overflow;

Partly because strong winds, sweeping the seas,

Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves

Their fabric with his rays; partly because

The water is distributed below

Throughout all lands. For the salt is strained off,

And the pure fluid matter, oozing back,

Gathers together at the river-heads,

Thence in fresh current streams over the land,

Wherever it finds a channel ready scooped

To carry down its waves with liquid foot.

Now must I speak of air, which every hour

Is changed through its whole body in countless ways.

For always whatsoever flows from things

Is all borne into the vast sea of air:

And if it were not in its turn to give

Particles back to things, recruiting them

As they dissolve, all would have been long since

Disintegrated, and so changed to air.

Therefore it never ceases to be born

Out of things, and to pass back into things,

Since, as we know, all are in constant flux.

Likewise that bounteous fountain of clear light,

The sun in heaven, ceaselessly floods the sky

With fresh brightness, and momently supplies

The place of light with new light: for each former

Emission of his radiance perishes,

On whatsoever spot it falls. This truth

You may thus learn. So soon as clouds begin

To pass below the sun, and as it were

To break off the light’s rays, their lower part

Forthwith perishes wholly, and the earth

Is shadow-swept, wherever the clouds move.

Thus you may know that things have ever need

Of fresh illumination, and that each

Former discharge of radiance perishes,

Nor in any other way could things be seen

In sunlight, if the fountain-head itself

Did not send forth a perpetual supply.

Also those lights we use here upon earth

At night-time, hanging lamps, and torches bright

With darting beams, rich with abundant smoke,

Are in haste in like fashion to supply

New radiance with ministering fire;

The very flames seem eager, eager to flicker;

Nor does the still unbroken stream of light

One instant quit the spots whereon it played,

So suddenly is its perishing concealed

By the swift birth of flame from all these fires.

It is thus then you must think sun moon and stars

Shoot forth their light from ever fresh supplies,

And that they always lose whatever beams

Come foremost; lest perchance you should believe

Their energy to be indestructible.

Again, is it not seen that even stones

By time are vanquished, that tall towers fall

And rocks crumble away, that shrines and idols

Of gods grow worn out and dilapidate,

Nor may the indwelling holiness prolong

The bounds of destiny, or strive against

The laws of Nature? Then do we not see

The monuments of men, fallen to ruin,

Ask for themselves whether you would believe

That they also grow old?[F] See we not rocks

Split off from mountain heights fall crashing down

Unable more to endure the powerful stress

Of finite years? Surely they would not fall

Thus suddenly split off, if through the lapse

Of infinite past years they had withstood

All the assaults of time, without being shattered.

Now contemplate that which around and above

Compasses the whole earth with its embrace.

If it begets all things out of itself,

As some have told us, and receives them back

When they have perished, then the whole sky is made

Of a body that had birth and that must die.

For whatsoever nourishes and augments

Other things from itself, must needs be minished,

And be replenished, when it receives them back.

Moreover, if there never was a time

Of origin when earth and heaven were born,

If they have always been from everlasting,

Why then before the Theban war and Troy’s

Destruction, have not other poets sung

Of other deeds as well? Whither have vanished

So many exploits of so many men?

Why are they nowhere blossoming engrafted

On the eternal monuments of fame?

But in truth, as I think, this sum of things

Is in its youth: the nature of the world

Is recent, and began not long ago.

Wherefore even now some arts are being wrought

To their last polish, some are still in growth.

Of late many improvements have been made

In navigation, and musicians too

Have given birth to new melodious sounds.

Also this theory of the nature of things

Has been discovered lately, and I myself

Have only now been found the very first

Able to turn it into our native words.

Nevertheless, if you perchance believe

That long ago these things were just the same,

But that the generations of mankind

Perished by scorching heat, or that their cities

Fell in some great convulsion of the world,

Or else that flooded by incessant rains

Devouring rivers broke forth over the earth

And swallowed up whole towns, so much the more

Must you admit that there will come to pass

A like destruction of earth and heaven too.

For when things were assailed by such great maladies

And dangers, if some yet more fatal cause

Had whelmed them, they would then have been dissolved

In havoc and vast ruin far and wide.

And in no other way do we perceive

That we are mortal, save that we all alike

In turn fall sick of the same maladies

As those whom Nature has withdrawn from life.

Again, whatever things abide eternally,

Must either, because they are of solid body,

Repulse assaults, nor suffer anything

To penetrate them, which might have the power

To disunite the close-locked parts within:

(Such are those bodies whereof matter is made,

Whose nature we have shown before:) or else

They must be able to endure throughout

All time, because they are exempt from blows,

As void is, which abides untouched, nor suffers

One whit from any stroke: or else because

There is no further space surrounding them,

Into which things might as it were depart

And be dissolved; even as the sum of sums

Is eternal, nor is there any space

Outside it, into which its particles

Might spring asunder, nor are there other bodies

That could strike and dissolve them with strong blows.

But neither, as I have shown, is this world’s nature

Solid, since there is void mixed up in things;

Nor yet is it like void; nor verily

Are atoms lacking that might well collect

Out of the infinite, and overwhelm

This sum of things with violent hurricane,

Or threaten it with some other form of ruin;

Nor further is there any want of room

And of deep space, into which the world’s walls

Might be dispersed abroad; or they may perish

Shattered by any other force you will.

Therefore the gates of death are never closed

Against sky, sun or earth, or the deep seas;

But they stand open, awaiting them with huge

Vast-gaping jaws. So you must needs admit

That all these likewise once were born: for things

Of mortal body could not until now

Through infinite past ages have defied

The strong powers of immeasurable time.

Again, since the chief members of the world

So mightily contend together, stirred

By unhallowed civil warfare, see you not

That some end may be set to their long strife?

It may be when the sun and every kind

Of heat shall have drunk all the moisture up,

And gained the mastery they were struggling for,

Though they have failed as yet to achieve their aim:

So vast are the supplies the rivers bring,

Threatening in turn to deluge every land

From out the deep abysses of the ocean;

All in vain, since the winds, sweeping the seas,

Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves

Their fabric with his rays; and ’tis their boast

That they are able to dry all things up,

Before moisture can achieve its end.

So terrible a war do they breathe out

On equal terms, striving one with another

For mighty issues: though indeed fire once

Obtained the mastery, so the fable tells,

And water once reigned supreme in the fields.

For fire prevailing licked up and consumed

Many things, when the ungovernable might

Of the Sun’s horses, swerving from their course,

Through the whole sky and over every land

Whirled Phaëthon. But then the almighty Father,

Stirred to fierce wrath, with sudden thunder-stroke

Dashed great-souled Phaëthon from his team to the earth,

And as he fell the Sun-god meeting him

Caught from him the world’s everlasting lamp,

And brought back tamed and trembling to the yoke

The scattered steeds; then on their wonted course

Guiding them, unto all things gave fresh life.

Thus verily the old Greek poets sang,

Though straying from true reason all too far.

For fire can only gain the mastery

When an excess of fiery particles

Have flocked together out of infinite space;

And then its strength fails, vanquished in some way,

Or else things perish, utterly consumed

By scorching gusts. Likewise moisture once

Gathering together, as the story tells,

Strove for the mastery, when it overwhelmed

Many cities of mankind. But afterwards,

When all that force, which out of infinite space

Had gathered itself up, was by some means

Diverted and withdrew, the rains ceased then,

And the violence of the rivers was abated.

But in what ways matter converging once

Established earth and heaven and the sea’s deeps,

The sun’s course and the moon’s, I will set forth

In order. For in truth not by design

Did the primordial particles of things

Arrange themselves each in its own right place

With provident mind, nor verily have they bargained

What motions each should follow; but because

These primal atoms in such multitudes

And in so many ways through infinite time

Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight,

Have been borne onward so incessantly,

Uniting in every way and making trial

Of every shape they could combine to form,

Therefore it is that after wandering wide

Through vast periods, attempting every kind

Of union and of motion, they at last

Collect into such groups as, suddenly

Flocking together, oftentimes become

The rudiments of mighty things, of earth,

Sea and sky, and the race of living creatures.

At that time neither could the disk of the sun

Be seen flying aloft with bounteous light,

Nor the stars of great heaven, nor sea, nor sky,

Nor yet earth nor the air, nor anything

Resembling those things which we now behold,

But only a sort of strange tempest, a mass

Gathered together out of primal atoms

Of all kinds, which discordantly waged war

Disordering so their interspaces, paths,

Connections, weights, collisions, meetings, motions,

Since with their unlike forms and varied shapes,

They could not therefore all remain united,

Nor move among themselves harmoniously.

Thereupon parts began to fly asunder,

And like things to unite with like, and so

To separate off the world, and to divide

Its members, portioning out its mighty parts;

That is, to mark off the high heaven from earth,

And the sea by itself, that it might spread

With unmixed waters, and likewise the fires

Of aether by themselves, pure and unmixed.

Now first the several particles of earth,

Since they were heavy and close-packed, all met

Together in the middle, and took up

The lowest places: and the more they met

In close-packed throngs, the more did they squeeze out

Those particles which were to form sea, stars,

Sun and moon, and the walls of the great world.

For all these are of smoother rounder seeds,

And of much smaller elements than earth.

So first through porous openings in the soil

The fire-laden aether here and there

Bursting forth rose and lightly carried off

Many fires with it, much in the same way

As often we may see when first the beams

Of the radiant sun with golden morning light

Blush through the grasses gemmed with dew, and lakes

And ever-flowing rivers exhale mist,

While earth itself is sometimes seen to smoke;

And when floating aloft these vapours all

Unite on high, then taking bodily shape

As clouds, they weave a veil beneath the heavens.

Thus then the light diffusive aether once

Took bodily shape, and, arched round on all sides,

Far into every quarter spreading out,

So with its greedy embrace hemmed in all else.

Next came the rudiments of sun and moon,

Whose globes turn in the air midway between

Aether and earth; for neither did the earth

Nor the great aether claim them for itself,

Since they were not so heavy as to sink

And settle down, nor so light as to glide

Along the topmost borders: yet their course

Between the two is such, that as they roll

Their lifelike bodies onward, they are still

Parts of the whole world; even as with us

Some of our members may remain at rest,

While at the same time others may be in motion.

So when these things had been withdrawn, the earth,

Where now the ocean’s vast blue region spreads,

Sank suddenly down, and flooded with salt surge

Its hollow parts. And day by day the more

The encircling aether’s heats and the sun’s rays

Compressed the earth into a closer mass

By constant blows upon its outer surface

From every side, so that thus beaten upon

It shrank and drew together round its centre,

The more did the salt sweat squeezed from its body

Increase by its oozings the sea’s floating plains,

And the more did those many particles

Of heat and air escaping fly abroad,

And far away from the earth condensing, form

The lofty glittering mansions of the sky.

The plains sank lower, the high mountains grew

Yet steeper; for the rocks could not sink down,

Nor could all parts subside to one same level.

Thus then the earth’s ponderous mass was formed

With close-packed body, and all the slime of the world

Slid to the lowest plane by its own weight,

And at the bottom settled down like dregs.

Then the sea, then the air, then the fire-laden

Aether itself, all these were now left pure

With liquid bodies. Some indeed are lighter

Than others, and most liquid and light of all

Over the airy currents aether floats,

Not blending with the turbulent atmosphere

Its liquid substance. All below, it suffers

To be embroiled by violent hurricanes,

Suffers all to be tossed with wayward storms,

While itself gliding on with changeless sweep

Bears its own fires along. For, that the aether

May stream on steadily with one impulse,

The Pontos demonstrates, that sea which streams

With an unchanging tide, unceasingly

Preserving as it glides one constant pace.

Now let us sing what cause could set the stars

In motion. First, if the great globe of heaven

Revolves, then we must needs maintain that air

Presses upon the axis at each end,

And holds it from outside, closing it in

At both poles; also that there streams above

Another current, moving the same way,

In which the stars of the eternal world

Roll glittering onward; or else that beneath

There is another stream, that drives the sphere

Upwards the opposite way, just as we see

Rivers turn mill-wheels with their water-scoops.

It likewise may well be that the whole sky

Remains at rest, yet that the shining signs

Are carried onwards; either because within them

Are shut swift tides of aether, that whirl round

Seeking a way out, and so roll their fires

On all sides through the sky’s nocturnal mansions;

Or else that from some other source outside

An air-stream whirls and drives the fires along;

Or else they may be gliding of themselves,

Moving whithersoever the food of each

Calls and invites them, nourishing everywhere

Their flaming bodies throughout the whole sky.

For it is hard to affirm with certainty

Which of these causes operates in this world:

But what throughout the universe both can

And does take place in various worlds, created

On various plans, this I teach, and proceed

To expound what divers causes may exist

Through the universe for the motion of the stars:

And one of these in our world too must be

The cause which to the heavenly signs imparts

Their motive vigour: but dogmatically

To assert which this may be, is in no wise

The function of those advancing step by step.

Now in order that the earth should be at rest

In the world’s midst, it would seem probable

That its weight gradually diminishing

Should disappear, and that the earth should have

Another nature underneath, conjoined

And blent in union from its earliest age

With those aerial portions of the world

Wherein it lives embodied. For this cause

It is no burden, nor weighs down the air,

Just as to a man his own limbs are no weight,

Nor is the head a burden to the neck,

Nor do we feel that the whole body’s weight

Rests on the feet: yet a much smaller burden

Laid on us from outside, will often hurt us.

Of such great moment is it what each thing’s

Function may be. Thus then the earth is not

An alien body intruded suddenly,

Nor thrust from elsewhere into an alien air,

But was conceived together with the world

At its first birth as a fixed portion of it,

Just as our limbs are seen to be of us.

Moreover the earth, when shaken suddenly

With violent thunder, by its trembling shakes

All that is over it; which in no wise

Could happen, if it were not closely bound

With the world’s airy parts, and with the sky.

For they all, as though by common roots, cohere

One with another, from their earliest age

Conjoined and blent in union. See you not too

That heavy as our body’s weight may be,

Yet the soul’s force, though subtle exceedingly,

Sustains it, being so closely joined and blent

In union with it? Also what has power

To lift the body with a nimble leap,

Except the mind’s force that controls the limbs?

Do you not now perceive how great the power

May be of a subtle nature, when ’tis joined

With a heavy body, even as with the earth

The air is joined, and the mind’s force with us?

Also the sun’s disk cannot be much larger,

Nor its heat be much less, than to our sense

They appear to be. For from whatever distance

Fires can fling light, and breathe upon our limbs

Their warming heat, these intervening spaces

Take away nothing from the body of flame;

The fire is not shrunken visibly.

So since the sun’s heat and the light it sheds

Both reach our senses and caress our limbs,

The form also and contour of the sun

Must needs be seen from the earth in their true scale,

With neither addition nor diminishment.

Also the moon, whether it moves along

Illuminating earth with borrowed light,

Or throws out its own rays from its own body,

Howe’er that be, moves with a shape no larger

Than seems that shape which our eyes contemplate.

For all things which we look at from far off

Through much air, seem to our vision to grow dim

Before their contours lessen. Therefore the moon,

Seeing that it presents a clear aspect

And definite shape, must needs by us on earth

Be seen on high in its defining outline

Just as it is, and of its actual size.

Lastly consider all those fires of aether

You see from the earth. Since fires, which here below

We observe, for so long as their flickering

Remains distinct, and their heat is perceived,

Are sometimes seen to change their size to less

Or greater to some very slight extent

According to their distance, you may thence

Know that the fires of aether can be smaller

Only by infinitesimal degrees,

Or larger by the tiniest minute fraction.

This also is not wonderful, how the sun

Small as it is, can shed so great a light,

As with its flood to fill all seas and lands

And sky, with warm heat bathing everything.

For from this spot perhaps a single well

For the whole world may open and gush out,

Shooting forth an abundant stream of light,

Because from everywhere throughout the world

In such wise do the particles of heat

Gather together, and their united mass

Converges in such wise, that blazing fire

Streams forth here from a single fountain-head.

See you not too how wide a meadow-land

One little spring of water sometimes floods,

Overflowing whole fields? It may be also

That from the sun’s flame, though it be not great,

Heat pervades the whole air with scorching fires,

Should the air chance to be susceptible

And ready to be kindled, when it is struck

By tiny heat-rays. Then we sometimes see

A wide-spread conflagration from one spark

Catch fields of corn or stubble. Perhaps too

The sun shining on high with ruddy torch

May be surrounded by much fire and heats

Invisible, fire which no radiance

Reveals, but laden with heat it does no more

Than reinforce the stroke of the sun’s rays.

Nor is there any single theory,

Certain and obvious, of how the sun

Out of his summer stations passing forth

Approaches the midwinter turning-point

Of Capricorn, and how coming back thence

He bends his course to the solstitial goal

Of Cancer; then too how the moon is seen

To traverse every month that space, whereon

The journeying sun spends a year’s period.

For these events, I say, no single cause

Can be assigned. It seems most probable

That the august opinion of Democritus

Should be the truth; the nearer to the earth

The several constellations move, the less

Can they be borne on with the whirl of heaven:

For in the lower portions of this whirl

He says its speed and energy diminish

And disappear; so that little by little

The sun is outstripped by the signs that follow,

Since he is far beneath the burning stars.

And the moon, so he says, more than the sun.

The lower and the further from the sky

Her course is, and the nearer to the earth,

The less can she keep even with the signs.

For the more languid is the whirl whereby

She is borne along, being lower than the sun,

The more do all the signs around her path

Overtake and pass by her. Thus it is

That she seems to move backward to each sign

More quickly, because the signs come up to her.

It may be also that two streams of air

Cross the sun’s path at fixed times, each in turn

Flowing from opposite quarters of the world,

Whereof the first may thrust the sun away

Out of the summer signs, until he comes

To his winter turning-point and the icy frost;

While the other from the freezing shades of cold

Sweeps him right back to the heat-laden regions

And the torrid constellations. And just so

We must suppose that the moon and the planets,

Which roll in their huge orbits through huge years,

May move on streams of air alternately

From opposite quarters. Do you not also see

How clouds are shifted by opposing winds,

The lower in directions contrary

To those above? Why should not yonder stars

Be likewise carried by opposing currents

Upon their mighty orbits through the sky?

But night covers the earth with vast darkness

Either when after his long course the sun

Has entered on the uttermost parts of heaven,

And now grown languid has breathed forth his fires,

Exhausted by their journey, and worn out

By traversing much air; or else because

That same force which has borne his orb along

Above the earth, compels him now to turn

Backward his course and pass beneath the earth.

Likewise at a fixed time Matuta spreads

The rosy dawn abroad through the sky’s borders,

And opens out her light; either because

The same sun, travelling back below the earth,

Seizes the sky beforehand, and is fain

To kindle it with his rays; or else because

Fires meet together, and many seeds of heat

Are wont at a fixed time to stream together

Causing new sunlight each day to be born.

Even so ’tis told that from the mountain heights

Of Ida at daybreak scattered fires are seen;

These then unite as if into one globe

And make up the sun’s orb. Nor yet herein

Should it cause wonder that these seeds of fire

Can stream together at a time so fixed,

Repairing thus the radiance of the sun.

For everywhere we see many events

Happening at fixed times. Thus trees both flower

And shed their blossoms at fixed times; and age

At a time no less fixed bids the teeth drop,

And the boy clothe his features with the down

Of puberty, and let a soft beard fall

From either cheek. Lastly lightning and snow,

Rains, clouds and winds happen at more or less

Regular yearly seasons. For where causes

From the beginning have remained the same,

And things from the first origin of the world

Have so fallen out, they still repeat themselves

In regular sequence after a fixed order.

The cause too why days lengthen and nights wane,

While daylight shortens as the nights increase,

May either be because the same sun, journeying

Underneath and above the earth in curves

Of unlike length, parts the celestial regions

And into unequal halves divides his orbit:

Whatever he has subtracted from one half,

Just so much does he add, when he comes round,

On to the other half, till he has reached

That sign of heaven where the year’s node makes

The night’s shade equal to the light of day.

For in the sun’s mid course between the blasts

Of south wind and of north, the heaven holds

His turning-points apart at distances

Now equalised, since such is the position

Of the whole starry circle, to glide through which

The sun takes up the period of a year,

Lighting the earth and sky with slanting rays,

As is shown by the arguments of those

Who have mapped out all the quarters of the sky,

Adorned with their twelve signs spaced out in order.

Or else because the air in certain parts

Is thicker, therefore the trembling lamp of fire

Is hindered in its course beneath the earth,

And cannot easily force a passage through

And emerge at the place where it should rise.

So in winter-time the nights are long and lingering,

Ere the day’s radiant oriflamme comes forth.

Or else again those fires which cause the sun

To rise from a fixed point, for a like reason

Are wont to stream together slower or quicker

In alternating periods of the year.

So those would seem to speak the truth who hold

That every morning a new sun is born.

It may be the moon shines because she is struck

By the sun’s rays, and turns towards our eyes

A larger portion of this light each day,

The further she recedes from the sun’s orb,

Until over against him with full light

She has shone forth, and as she rises up

Has looked upon his setting from on high.

Thereafter in her gradual backward course

In the same manner she must hide her light,

The nearer she now glides to the sun’s fire

Travelling through the circle of the signs

From an opposite direction: as those hold

Who fancy that the moon is like a ball,

And moves along a course below the sun.

It is also possible that she revolves

With her own light, and yet shows varying

Phases of brightness: for there may well be

Another body which glides on beside her,

Obstructing and occulting her continually,

And yet cannot be seen, because it moves

Without light. Or perhaps she may turn round

Like a ball, let us say, whose sphere is tinged

With glowing light over one-half its surface;

And as she turns her sphere, she may present

Varying phases, till she has turned that side

Which glows with fire towards our gazing eyes;

Then she twists gradually back once more

And hides the luminous half of her round ball:

As the Chaldean sages seek to prove,

Refuting with their Babylonian doctrine

The opposing science of the astronomers;

Just as though what each sect is fighting for

Might not be true, or there were any reason

Why you should risk embracing the one creed

Less than the other. Again why every time

There should not be created a fresh moon,

With fixed succession of phases and fixed shapes,

So that each day this new-created moon

Would perish, and another in its stead

Be reproduced, this were no easy task

To prove by argument convincingly,

Since there can be so many things created

In fixed succession. Thus Spring goes its way,

And Venus, and the wingèd harbinger

Of Venus leads them on; while treading close

On Zephyr’s footsteps, mother Flora strews

The path before them, covering it all over

With every loveliest colour and rich scent.

Next in procession follows parching heat,

With dusty Ceres in its company,

And the Etesian blasts of the North winds.

After these Autumn comes, and by its side

Advances Euhius Euan,[G] following whom

The other Seasons with their winds appear,

Volturnus thundering on high, and Auster

Terrible with its lightnings. Then at length

December brings snow and renews numb frost.

Winter follows with teeth chattering for cold.

Wherefore it seems less wonderful that the moon

Should be begotten and destroyed again

At fixed times, seeing that so many things

Can come to pass at times so surely fixed.

Likewise the occultations of the sun

And the moon’s vanishings you must suppose

May be produced by many different causes.

For why should the moon be able to shut out

The earth from the sun’s light, and lift her head

On high to obstruct him from the earthward side,

Blocking his fiery beams with her dark orb,

And yet at the same time some other body

Gliding on without light continually

Should be supposed unable to do this?

Why too should not the sun at a fixed time

Grow faint and lose his fires, and then again

Revive his light, when he has had to pass

Through tracts of air so hostile to his flames

That awhile his fires are quenched by them and perish?

And why should the earth have power in turn to rob

The moon of light, and likewise keep the sun

Suppressed, while in her monthly course the moon

Glides through the clear-cut shadows of the cone,

And yet at the same time some other body

Should not have power to pass under the moon,

Or glide above the sun’s orb, breaking off

The beams of light he sheds? And furthermore,

If the moon shines with her own radiance,

Why in a certain region of the world

Might she not grow faint, while she makes her way

Through tracts that are unfriendly to her light?

Now since I have demonstrated how each thing

Might come to pass throughout the azure spaces

Of the great heaven, how we may know what force

Can cause the varying motions of the sun,

And wanderings of the moon, and in what way

Their light being intercepted they might vanish

Covering with darkness the astonished earth,

When as it were they close their eye of light,

And opening it again, survey all places

Radiant with shining brightness,—therefore now

I will go back to the world’s infancy

And the tender age of the world’s fields, and show

What in their first fecundity they resolved

To raise into the borders of the light

And give in charge unto the wayward winds.

In the beginning the Earth brought forth all kinds

Of plants and growing verdure on hillsides

And over all the plains: the flowering meadows

Shone with green colour: next to the various trees

Was given a mighty emulous impulse

To shoot up into the air with unchecked growth.

As feathers, hairs and bristles first are born

On limbs of quadrupeds and on the bodies

Of winged fowl, so the new Earth then put forth

Grasses and brushwood first, and afterwards

Gave birth to all the breeds of mortal things,

That sprang up many in number, in many modes

And divers fashions. For no animals

Can have dropped from the sky, nor can land-creatures

Have issued from the salt pools. Hence it is

That with good reason the Earth has won the name

Of Mother, since from the Earth all things are born.

And many living creatures even now

Rise from the soil, formed by rains, and the sun’s

Fierce heat. Therefore the less strange it appears

If then they arose more numerous and more large

Fostered by a new earth and atmosphere.

So first of all the varied families

And tribes of birds would leave their eggs, hatched out

In the spring season, as now the cicadas

In summer-time leave of their own accord

Their filmy skins in search of food and life.

Then was the time when first the Earth produced

The race of mortal men. For in the fields

Plenteous heat and moisture would abound,

So that wherever a fit place occurred,

Wombs would grow, fastened to the earth by roots:

And when the warmth of the infants in due time,

Avoiding moisture and demanding air,

Had broken these wombs open, then would Nature

Turn to that place the porous ducts of the Earth,

Compelling it to exude through open veins

A milk-like liquid, just as nowadays

After child-bearing every woman is filled

With sweet milk; for with her too the whole flow

Of nutriment sets streaming towards her breasts.

Earth to these children furnished food, the heat

Clothing, the grass a bed, well lined with rich

Luxuriance of soft down. Moreover then

The world in its fresh newness would give rise

Neither to rigorous cold nor extreme heat,

Nor violent storms of wind, for in a like

Proportion all things grow and gather strength.

Therefore again and yet again I say

That with good reason the Earth has won and keeps

The name of Mother, since she of herself

Gave birth to humankind, and at a period

Well nigh determined shed forth every beast

That roams o’er the great mountains far and wide,

Likewise the birds of air, many in shape.

But because she must have some limit set

To her time of bearing, she ceased, like a woman

Worn out by lapse of years. For Time transforms

The whole world’s nature, and all things must pass

From one condition to another: nothing

Continues like itself. All is in flux:

Nature is ever changing and compelling

All that exists to alter. For one thing

Moulders and wastes away grown weak with age,

And then another comes forth into light,

Issuing from obscurity. So thus Time

Changes the whole world’s nature, and the Earth

Passes from one condition to another:

So that what once it bore it can no longer,

And now can bear what it did not before.

And many monsters too did the Earth essay

To produce in those days, creatures arising

With marvellous face and limbs, the Hermaphrodite,

A thing of neither sex, between the two,

Differing from both: some things deprived of feet;

Others again with no hands; others dumb

Without mouths, or else blind for lack of eyes,

Or bound by limbs that everywhere adhered

Fast to their bodies, so that they could perform

No function, nor go anywhere, nor shun

Danger, nor take what their need might require.

Many such monstrous prodigies did Earth

Produce, in vain, since Nature banned their increase,

Nor could they reach the coveted flower of age,

Nor find food, nor be joined in bonds of love.

For we see numerous conditions first

Must meet together, before living things

Can beget and perpetuate their kind.

First they must have food, then a means by which

The seeds of birth may stream throughout the frame

From the relaxed limbs; also that the male

And female may unite, they must have that

Whereby each may exchange mutual joys.

And many breeds of creatures in those days

Must have died out, being powerless to beget

And perpetuate their kind. For those which now

You see breathing the breath of life, ’tis craft,

Or courage, or else speed, that from its origin

Must have protected and preserved each race.

Moreover many by their usefulness

Commended to us, continue to exist

Favoured by our protection. The fierce breed

Of lions first, and the other savage beasts,

Their courage has preserved, foxes their craft,

Stags their swift flight. But the light-slumbering hearts

Of faithful dogs, and the whole family

Born from the seed of burden-bearing beasts,

Also the woolly flocks and horned herds,

All these by man’s protection are preserved.

For their desire has always been to shun

Wild beasts and to live peaceably, supplied

Without toil of their own with food in plenty,

Which to reward their services we give them.

But those whom Nature has not thus endowed

With power either to live by their own means

Or else to render us such useful service

That in return we allow their race to feed

And dwell in safety beneath our guardianship,

All these, ’tis plain, would lie exposed a prey

To others, trammelled in their own fatal bonds,

Till Nature had extinguished that whole kind.

But Centaurs there have never been, nor yet

Ever can things exist of twofold nature

And double body moulded into one

From limbs of alien kind, whose faculties

And functions cannot be on either side

Sufficiently alike. That this is so,

The dullest intellect may be thus convinced.

Consider first that a horse after three years

Is in his flower of vigour, but a boy

By no means so: for often in sleep even then

Will he seek milk still from his mother’s breasts

Afterwards, when the horse’s lusty strength

Fails him in old age, and his limbs grow languid

As life ebbs, then first for a boy begins

The flowering time of youth, and clothes his cheeks

With soft down. Do not then believe that ever

From man’s and burden-bearing horse’s seed

Centaurs can be compounded and have being;

Nor yet Scyllas with half-fish bodies girdled

With raging dogs, and other suchlike things,

Whose limbs we see discordant with themselves,

Since neither do they reach their flower together,

Nor acquire bodily strength, nor in old age

Lose it at the same time: dissimilar

In each the love that burns them, and their modes

Of life incongruous: nor do the same things give

Their bodies pleasure. Thus we may often see

Bearded goats thrive on hemlock, which for man

Is virulent poison. Since moreover flame

Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies

Of lions no less than every other kind

Of flesh and blood on earth, how could it be

That one, yet with a triple body, in front

A lion, behind a serpent, in the midst

Its goat’s self, a Chimaera should breathe forth

From such a body fierce flame at the mouth?

Therefore he who can fable that when earth

Was new and the sky young, such animals

Could have been propagated, resting alone

Upon this vain term, newness, he no doubt

Will babble out many follies in like fashion,

Will say that rivers then throughout the earth

Commonly flowed with gold, that trees were wont

To bloom with jewels, or that man was born

Of such huge bulk and force that he could wade

With giant strides across deep seas and turn

The whole heaven round about him with his hands.

For the fact that there were many seeds of things

Within the earth at that time when it first

Shed living creatures forth, is yet no proof

That beasts could have been born of mingled kinds,

Or limbs of different animals joined together;

Because the various families of plants,

The crops and thriving trees, which even now

Teem upward from the soil luxuriantly,

Can yet never be born woven together;

But each thing has its own process of growth:

All must preserve their mutual differences,

Governed by Nature’s irreversible law.

But that first race of men in the open fields

Was hardier far, (small wonder, since hard Earth

Had brought it forth,) built too around a frame

Of bones more large and solid, knit together

By powerful sinews; nor was it easily

Impaired by heat or cold, nor by strange foods,

Nor yet by any bodily disease.

And during many revolving periods

Of the sun through the sky, they lived their lives

After the roving habit of wild beasts.

No one was then the bent plough’s stalwart guide,

None yet had knowledge how to till the fields

With iron, or plant young saplings in the soil,

Nor how to lop old boughs from the tall trees

With pruning-hooks. What suns and rains had given,

What of her own free will Earth had brought forth,

Was enough bounty to content their hearts.

’Neath acorn-bearing oak-trees their wont was

To alleviate their hunger; and those berries

Which now upon the arbutus you see

Ripening to scarlet hues in winter-time,

The Earth then bore more plentifully and larger

Than in these days. Moreover then the world’s

Luxuriant youth gave birth to many kinds

Of coarse food, ample enough for wretched men.

But to allay their thirst rivers and springs

Invited, as now waters, tumbling down

From the great mountains with clear-sounding plash,

Summon from far the thirsting tribes of beasts.

Furthermore in their roamings they would visit

Those renowned silvan precincts of the Nymphs,

Caverns wherefrom they knew that copious streams,

Gushing forth smoothly, bathed the dripping rocks,

(The dripping rocks, o’er green moss trickling down,)

Or sometimes welled up over the level plain.

As yet they knew not how to employ fire,

Or to make use of skins, and clothe their bodies

With spoils of wild beasts; but inhabiting

Woods, mountains, caves and forests, they would shelter

Their squalid limbs in thickets, when compelled

To shun the buffeting of winds and rains.

No regard could they have to a general good,

Nor did they know how to make use in common

Of any laws or customs. Whatsoever

Fortune might set before him, that would each

Take as his prize, cunning to thrive and live

As best might please him, each one for himself.

And in the woods Venus would join the bodies

Of lovers, whether a mutual desire,

Or the man’s violence and vehement lust

Had won the woman over, or a bribe

Of acorns, arbute-berries or choice pears.

Endowed with marvellous strength of hands and feet

They chased the forest-roaming tribes of beasts;

And many with flung stones and ponderous club

They overcame, some few they would avoid

In hiding-places. And like bristly swine

Just as they were they flung their savage limbs

Naked upon the ground, when night o’ertook them,

Enveloping themselves with leaves and boughs.

Nor did they call for daylight and the sun

Wandering terror-stricken about the fields

With loud wails through the shadows of the night,

But silently, buried in sleep they lay

Waiting until the sun with rosy torch

Brought light into the sky. For since from childhood

They had been wont to see darkness and light

Alternately begotten without fail,

Never could they feel wonder or misgiving

Lest night eternal should possess the earth

And the sun’s light for ever be withdrawn.

But ’twas a worse anxiety that wild beasts

Often made sleep unsafe for these poor wretches.

For driven from their homes in sheltering rocks

They fled at the entrance of a foaming boar

Or strong lion, yielding up at dead of night

Their leaf-strewn beds in panic to fierce guests.

Yet no more often in those days than now

Would mortal men leave the sweet light of life

With lamentation. Each one by himself

Would doubtless be more likely then than now

To be seized and devoured by wild beasts’ teeth,

A living food, and with his groans would fill

Mountains and forests, while he saw his own

Live flesh in a live monument entombed.

But those whom flight had saved with mangled body,

From that time forth would hold their trembling hands

Over their noisome scars, with dreadful cries

Invoking death, till agonising throes

Rid them of life, with none to give them aid,

Ignorant of what wounds required. But then

A single day did not consign to death

Thousands on thousands, marshalled beneath standards,

Nor did the turbulent waters of the deep

Shatter upon the rocks both ships and men.

At that time vainly, without aim or result

The sea would often rise up and turmoil;

Nor could the winsome wiles of the calm deep

Lure men on treacherously with laughing waves,

While reckless seamanship was yet unknown.

Moreover lack of food would then consign

Their fainting limbs to death: now rather plenty

Sinks men to ruin. Often for themselves

Would they pour poison out unwittingly:

To others now with subtler skill they give it.

Afterwards, when they had learnt the use of huts,

And skins, and fire; when woman, joined with man

In wedlock, dwelt apart in one abode,

And they saw offspring born out of themselves,

Then first the human race began to soften.

For fire made their chilly bodies now

Less able to endure the cold beneath

The roof of heaven: Venus impaired their strength:

And children easily by their blandishments

Broke down the haughty temper of their parents.

Then too neighbours began to join in bonds

Of friendship, wishing neither to inflict

Nor suffer violence: and for womankind

And children they would claim kind treatment, pleading

With cries and gestures inarticulately

That all men ought to have pity on the weak.

And though harmony could not everywhere

Be established, yet the most part faithfully

Observed their covenants, or man’s whole race

Would even then have perished, nor till now

Could propagation have preserved their kind.

But it was Nature that constrained their tongues

To utter various sounds; and need struck out

The names of things, in the same way almost

As impotence of tongue is itself seen

To teach gesture to infants, prompting them

To point at things around them. For all creatures

Divine by instinct how far they can use

Their natural powers. Thus before horns are born

And stand out on the forehead of a calf,

When he is angry, he butts and charges with it.

Then panther cubs and lion whelps will fight

With claws and feet and teeth, even at a time

When teeth and claws have hardly yet been formed.

Also we see how the whole race of birds

Trusting their wings, will seek a fluttering succour

From new-fledged pinions. Therefore to suppose

That somebody once apportioned names to things,

And that from him men learnt to use words first,

Is mere folly. For why should this one man

Be able to denote all things by words

And with his tongue form varied sounds, yet others

At the same time be deemed incapable

To have done the like? Besides, if others too

Had not made use of words among themselves,

Whence was the preconception of their usefulness

Implanted in this man, and whence was given him

The primal power to know and comprehend

What he desired to do? Again, one man

Could not subdue by force the wills of many

And compel them to learn the names of things.

It is no easy labour to convince

Deaf men, and teach them what they ought to do;

Since not for long would they endure his voice,

Nor suffer unintelligible sounds

Fruitlessly to be dinned into their ears.

Lastly what should there be to wonder at

So much in this, that mankind, when their voice

And tongue were in full vigour, should name things

By different sounds as different feelings bade them,

Since dumb cattle, and even the wild beasts,

Are wont to emit distinct and varied sounds,

When they feel fear or pain, or when joy moves them.

This indeed may be learnt from manifest facts.

When the large soft mouths of Molossian dogs

Begin to growl, angrily laying bare

Their hard teeth, then far different is the tone

In which they threaten, savagely thus drawn back,

From the clear sound which, when they bark outright,

Fills the whole neighbourhood. And when they essay

In gentle mood to lick their cubs, or when

They toss them with their paws, and snapping at them

Tenderly make as though they would devour them

With half-closed teeth, thus fondling them they yelp

With a quite different sound from their deep bay

When left alone in houses, or from the whimper

With which crouching they shrink away from blows.

Furthermore does not a young stallion’s neigh

Seem different, when he rages among the mares

Pierced in his flower of age by winged love’s goads,

From when with wide-stretched nostrils he snorts out

The battle signal, or when at other times

Perchance he whinnies trembling in all his limbs?

Lastly the race of fowl and varied birds,

Hawks and ospreys and gulls that seek their living

In the salt waters of the ocean waves,

Utter at different times quite different cries

From those they make when they fight over food,

Or struggle with their prey. And some will change

Their harsh notes in accordance with the weather,

As do the long-lived tribes of crows, and flocks

Of rooks, when they are said to call for rain,

Or sometimes to be summoning wind-storms.

Since therefore various feelings can compel

Animals, speechless though they be, to utter

Such varying sounds, how much more natural

Is it that in those days men could denote

Dissimilar things by many different sounds!

In answer to your silent questioning here,

I say it was the lightning first brought fire

Down to the earth for men; and from that flame

All other flames have spread. Thus we behold

Many things blaze forth, lit by fire from heaven,

When the sky’s stroke has charged them with its heat.

Yet when a branching tree, tossed by the wind,

Chafing the branches of another tree,

Sways to and fro, then fire may be forced out

By violent stress of friction; and at times

Hot flames are kindled and flash forth from boughs

And stems rubbing together. Of these two chances

Either may first have given fire to men.

Next the sun taught them to cook food, heating

And softening it with flame; since they would note

Many things mellowing about the fields

Smitten and conquered by his scorching rays.

And more and more each day men who excelled

In subtlety and power of mind, would show them

How by new methods and by using fire

To improve their former means of livelihood.

Kings began to found cities and build forts

As refuges and strongholds for themselves,

Dividing cattle and lands, and portioning

To each his share according to his beauty,

His strength and intellect; for comeliness

Was much esteemed, and strength was paramount.

Afterwards property was devised, and gold

Discovered, which with ease robbed both the strong

And beautiful of their honours: for most men,

However brave and beautiful by birth,

Follow the fortunes of the richer man.

But whosoever by true reason’s rule

Governs his days, for him plain frugal living

And a contented spirit is mighty wealth;

For of a little never is there lack.

Yet men wished to become renowned and powerful,

That so their fortunes on a stable base

Might rest, and they, being wealthy, might have power

To lead a tranquil life: in vain! For while

They strove to mount to the highest pitch of honour

Their path was perilous: and even although

They have reached the summit, envy will sometimes

Strike like a thunderbolt and hurl men down

Contemptuously to noisome Tartarus:

Since highest things, lifted above all else,

Are most wont as by lightning to be blasted

By envy; so that quietly to obey

Is better than to crave sovereign power

And lordship over realms. Therefore let men

Sweat drops of blood, wearying themselves in vain,

Struggling along ambition’s narrow road;

Since from the mouths of others comes their wisdom,

And ’tis from hearsay rather than their own

Authentic feelings, they pursue such aims:

Nor does this happen now, nor will it happen

Hereafter any more than once it did.

Kings therefore being slain, the ancient majesty

Of thrones and haughty sceptres was laid low.

The glorious symbol of the sovereign head,

Trodden bloodstained beneath the people’s feet,

Mourned its proud honour lost; for that is greedily

Trampled down which before was too much feared.

Thus to the very lees of anarchy

The whole state was reduced, while each man grasped

At lordship and dominion for himself.

Then some among them taught how to create

Magistrates, and established codes, that all

Might learn to obey laws. For now mankind,

Utterly wearied of a violent life,

Lay languishing by reason of its feuds.

Therefore the sooner of its own free will

Did it submit to laws and stringent codes.

For seeing that each, when anger prompted him,

Strove more severely to avenge himself

Than just laws now permit, for this cause men

Grew tired of a life of violence.

Thenceforward fear of punishment infects

The enjoyment of life’s prizes: for the nets

Of violence and wrong entangle all those

Who inflict them, and most often they recoil

On such as used them first: nor is it easy

For him to pass a quiet and peaceful life,

Whose deeds transgress the bonds of public peace.

For though he should elude both gods and men,

Yet he must needs mistrust whether his guilt

Will remain veiled for ever, since ’tis said

That many often by talking in their dreams,

Or in delirious sickness have betrayed

Their secrets, and revealed long-hidden crimes.

Now what may be the cause that has spread wide

The cult of deities over mighty nations,

And filled cities with altars, and prescribed

The observance of such sacred rites as now

At solemn times and places are performed,

Whence even now is implanted in men’s minds

Religious awe, that over the whole earth

Raises new temples to the gods, and prompts

Worshippers to frequent them on feast-days—

Why this should be, ’tis easy to explain.

For in those early times mortals would see

With waking mind the glorious images

Of deities and behold them in their sleep

Of size yet more gigantic. To these then

They would attribute sense, because they seemed

To move their limbs and utter stately speech

Worthy of their noble aspect and great powers.

Also they deemed eternal life was theirs,

Because their images continually

Would reappear, and their form did not change,

But most because they could not well conceive

How beings who seemed gifted with such powers

Could lightly be subdued by any force.

And they believed that their felicity

Must be beyond compare, since none of them

Was ever troubled by the fear of death,

Because moreover in sleep they beheld them

Performing without effort many miracles.

Again they saw how the orderings of heaven

And the year’s varying seasons would return

According to fixed law, yet could they not

Discover from what causes this took place.

Therefore they found a refuge from such doubts

In handing all things over to the deities

And deeming all to be guided by their nod.

The abodes of their divinities they placed

In heaven, because they saw night and the moon

Progressing through the sky, moon day and night,

The severe constellations of the night,

The sky’s night-wandering meteors and gliding fires,

Clouds sun and snow, lightning and winds and hail,

Thunder’s swift crash and mightily threatening murmurs.

O unhappy race of men, that could assign

Such functions to the deities, and thereto

Add cruel wrath! What groans then for themselves

Did they beget, what wounds for us, what tears

For our children’s children! ’Tis no piety

To be seen often with veiled head to turn

Towards a stone, visiting every altar,

Nor to fall grovelling with outspread palms

Prostrate before the temples of the gods,

Nor sprinkling altars with much blood of beasts

To add to votive offering votive offering;

But this rather is piety, to have power

To survey all things with a tranquil mind.

For when we lift our eyes to the celestial

Temples of the great universe, and the aether

Studded with glittering stars, and contemplate

The paths of sun and moon, then in our breasts,

Burdened with other evils, this fear too

Begins to lift its reawakened head,

Lest perchance it be true that with the gods

Resides a boundless power, which can move

Upon their various courses the bright stars.

For ignorance of cause troubles the mind,

So that it doubts whether there ever was

A birth-time and beginning for the world,

And likewise whether there shall be an end;

How far the world’s walls can endure this strain

Of restless motion, or whether by the gods

With eternal stability endowed

They may glide on through endless lapse of time,

Defying the strong powers of infinite age.

Again whose mind shrinks not with awe of gods,

Whose limbs creep not for terror, when beneath

The appalling stroke of thunder the parched earth

Shudders, and mutterings run through the vast sky?

Do not the peoples and the nations quake,

And proud kings, stricken with religious dread

Sit quailing, lest for any wicked deed

Or overweening word, the heavy time

Of reckoning and punishment be ripe?

Also when the full violence of a wind

Raging across the sea, sweeps o’er the waves

The high commander of a fleet, with all

His powerful legions and his elephants,

Does he not supplicate the gods with vows

For mercy, and with craven prayers entreat them

To lull the storm and grant propitious gales?

But all in vain; since often none the less,

Seized by the violent hurricane, he is whirled

Onto the shoals of death. Thus evermore

Some hidden power treads human grandeur down,

And seems to make its sport of the proud rods

And cruel axes, crushed beneath its heel.

Lastly, when the whole earth rocks under them,

And cities tumble with the shock, or stand

In doubt, threatening to fall, what wonder is it

That mortal creatures should abase themselves,

Assigning vast dominion to the gods,

And wondrous powers to govern all below?

Now must be told how copper gold and iron,

And weighty silver also, and solid lead

Were first discovered when on the great hills

Fire had consumed huge forests with its heat,

Kindled either by lightning from the sky,

Or because men waging some forest war

Had carried fire among their enemies

For terror’s sake; or else because, drawn on

By the soil’s goodness, they would wish to clear

Fat lands and turn them unto pasturage,

Or to kill beasts and grow rich with the spoils.

For hunting with the pitfall and with fire

Came into use before woods were enclosed

With nets or drawn by dogs. Howe’er that be,

From whatsoever cause the heat of flame

With terrible crackling had devoured whole forests

Down to their deepest roots, and throughly baked

The soil with fire, forth from the burning veins

There would ooze and collect in cavities

Streams of silver and gold, of copper too,

And lead. When afterwards men found these metals

Cooled into masses glittering on the ground

With brilliant colours, they would pick them up,

Attracted by their bright smooth loveliness;

And they would then observe how each was formed

Into a shape similar to the imprint

Of the hole where it lay. Next it would strike them

That, melted down by heat, these could be made

To run into any form and mould they pleased,

And further could by hammering be wrought

Into points tapering as sharp and fine

As they might need, so furnishing themselves

With tools wherewith to cut down woods, hew timber

And plane planks smooth, to drill and pierce and bore.

And this they would attempt with silver and gold

No less than with stout copper’s mighty strength.

But in vain, since their yielding force would fail,

Being proved less fit to endure toil and strain.

In those days copper was more highly esteemed;

Gold lay despised as useless with its dull

And blunted edge: now copper lies neglected,

Whereas gold has attained the pitch of honour.

Thus Time as it revolves is ever changing

The seasons of things. What was once esteemed

Becomes at length of no repute; whereon

Some other thing, issuing from contempt,

Mounts up and daily is coveted more and more,

And, once discovered, blossoms out in praises,

Rising to wondrous honour among men.

Now, Memmius, you will easily of yourself

Understand in what way were first discovered

The properties of iron. Man’s earliest weapons

Were hands nails teeth and stones, and boughs torn off

From forest trees, and flame and fire, as each

Became known. Afterwards the force of iron

And copper was discovered. And the use

Of copper was known earlier than of iron,

Since it was easier to be worked, and found

More copiously. With copper they would till

The soil of earth, with copper they stirred up

The waves of war, and dealt wide-gaping wounds,

And seized on lands and cattle: for all else,

Being naked and unarmed, would yield to those

Who carried weapons. Then by slow degrees

The sword of iron made progress, while the type

Of the copper sickle came to be despised.

With iron they began to cleave the soil,

And through its use wavering war’s conflicts

Were rendered equal. Earlier was the custom

Of mounting armed upon a horse’s back

And guiding it with reins, and dealing blows

With the right arm, long before men dared tempt

The risks of battle in the two-horsed car.

And they would learn the art to yoke two steeds

Earlier than to yoke four, or to mount armed

Upon scythed chariots. Next the Poeni taught

The uncouth Lucanian kine,[H] with towered backs

And snake-like hands, to endure the wounds of war,

And rout great troops of martial chivalry.

Thus miserable discord brought to birth

One thing after another, to appal

Mankind’s embattled nations, every day

Making addition to war’s frightfulness.

Also in warfare they made trial of bulls,

And sought to drive fierce boars against the foe.

And some sent mighty lions in their van

With armed trainers and savage guardians

To govern them and hold them in with chains;

In vain, for heated with promiscuous carnage

They put to flight whole squadrons in their rage

Without distinction, tossing on every side

Their terrible crests; nor could the horsemen calm

Their horses, panic-stricken by the roaring,

Or turn them by the bridle against their foes.

The she-lions would spring fiercely on all sides

Right in the faces of their adversaries,

Or from behind seizing them off their guard

Would clasp and tear them wounded down to the earth,

Gripping them with their strong teeth and hooked claws.

The bulls would toss and trample underfoot

Their own friends, goring the horses from beneath

In belly and flank, tearing the soil up savagely.

Fierce boars would rend their allies with strong tusks.

Staining the broken weapons with their blood,

And put to rout both horse and foot together.

The steeds, to escape from the tusk’s cruel push,

Would swerve aside or rearing paw the air,

In vain, for with severed tendons they would crash

Heavily down to the earth and lie stretched out.

Beasts, by the keepers deemed to have been tamed

Sufficiently at home, they now would see

Heated to madness in the hour of battle,

By wounds and shouts, flight panic and uproar.

No portion of all the different kinds of beasts,

Once scattered in wild flight, could they recall.

So often nowadays the Lucanian kine,

Gashed cruelly with the steel, will fly dispersed,

Inflicting ruinous havoc on their friends.

Thus might these men have acted: yet I scarce

Can think they were not able to foresee

And calculate how horrible a disaster

Was certain to befall both sides alike.

But men chose to act thus, not in the hope

Of victory so much, as from the wish,

Though they themselves perished, to give their foes

Cause to lament, being desperate through mistrust

Of their own numbers, or through lack of arms.

The plaited garment came before the dress

Of woven stuff. Weaving comes after iron,

Since weaving tools need iron to fashion them.

By no means else can such smooth things be made

As heddles, spindles, shuttles and clattering yarn-beams.

Men before womankind did Nature prompt

To work wool; for in general the male sex

Is by far the more skilful and ingenious:

Till the rough peasants chided them so sternly

That at length they consented to resign

Such lighter tasks into the hands of women,

And themselves took their share in heavier toils,

Hardening with hard labour limbs and hands.

But Nature, the creatress, herself first

Taught men to sow and prompted them to graft.

For berries and acorns dropping from the trees

Would put forth in due season underneath

Swarms of seedlings: and hence the fancy came

To insert grafts upon the boughs, and plant

Young saplings in the soil about the fields.

Next they would try another and yet another

Method of tilling their loved piece of land,

And so could watch how kindly fostering culture

Helped the earth to improve its own wild fruits.

And they would force the forests day by day

To retreat higher up the mountain-sides

And yield the ground below to husbandry,

That so meadows and ponds, rivulets, crops,

And glad vineyards might cover hill and plain,

While grey-green boundary strips of olive trees

Might run between the fields, stretching far out

O’er hillock, valley and plain; as now we see

Whole countrysides glowing with varied beauty,

Adorned with rows of sweet fruit-bearing trees,

And enclosed round about with joyous groves.

But the art of imitating with their mouths

The liquid notes of birds, came long before

Men could delight their ears by singing words

To smooth tunes; and the whistlings of the zephyr

In hollow reeds first taught the husbandman

To blow through hollow stalks. Then by degrees

They learnt those sweet sad ditties, which the pipe,

Touched by the fingers of the melodist,

Pours forth, such as are heard ’mid pathless woods,

Forests and glades, or in the lonely haunts

Of shepherds, and the abodes of magic calm.

Thus would they soothe and gratify their minds,

When satiate with food; for all such things

Give pleasure then. So often, couched together

On the soft grass, beside a waterbrook

Beneath a tall tree’s boughs, at no great cost

They would regale their bodies joyously,

At those times chiefly when the weather smiled,

And the year’s seasons painted the green herbage

With flowers. Then went round the jest, the tale,

The merry laugh, for then the rustic muse

Was in full force: then frolick jollity

Would prompt them to enwreathe their heads and shoulders

With plaited garlands woven of flowers and leaves,

Or dancing out of measure to move their limbs

Clumsily, and with clumsy foot to beat

Their mother earth; whence smiles and jovial laughter

Would rise; since the more novel then and strange

All such sports seemed, the more they were admired.

And they would find a salve for wakefulness

In giving voice to many varied tones

Of winding melody, running with curved lip

Over the reed-pipes: and from them this custom

Is handed down to watchmen nowadays,

Who, though they have better learnt to observe time,

Yet not one whit more pleasure do they enjoy

Than once that silvan race of earth-born men.

For what is present, if we have never known

Anything more delightful, gives us pleasure

Beyond all else, and seems to be the best;

But if some better thing be afterwards

Discovered, this will often spoil for us all

That pleased us once, and change our feelings towards it.

Thus it was acorns came to be disliked:

Thus were abandoned those beds of strewn grass

And heaped leaves: the dress too of wild beast’s skin

Fell thus into contempt. Yet I suppose

That when it was invented it would rouse

Such envy, that the man who wore it first

Would be waylaid and slain: yet after all

It would be torn to pieces among the thieves

And with much bloodshed utterly destroyed,

So that it never could be turned to use.

Therefore skins then, now gold and purple vex

Men’s lives with cares and wear them out with war.

And here, I think, the greater guilt is ours;

For the cold would torment these earth-born men

Naked without their skins; but us no harm

Whatever can it cause to go without

A purple robe broidered with large designs

In gold thread, so we have but on our backs

A plain plebeian cloak to keep us warm.

Therefore mankind is always toiling vainly,

Fruitlessly wasting life in empty cares,

Doubtless because they will not recognise

The limits of possession, nor the bounds

Beyond which no true pleasure can increase.

And so by slow degrees this ignorance

Has carried life out into the deep seas,

And from the bottom stirred up war’s huge waves.

But those vigilant watchers, sun and moon,

That circling round illumine with their light

The vast revolving temple of the sky,

Taught mankind how the seasons of the year

Return, and how all things are brought to pass

According to fixed system and fixed law.

And now men dwelt securely fenced about

By strong towers, and the land was portioned out

And marked off to be tilled. Already now

The sea was white with flitting sails, and towns

Were joined in league of friendship and alliance.

Then first poets made record in their songs

Of men’s deeds: for not long before this time

Letters had been invented. For which cause

Our age cannot look backward to things past,

Save where reason reveals some evidence.

Shipping and agriculture, city-walls,

Laws, arms, roads, robes and other suchlike things,

Moreover all life’s prizes and refinements,

Poems and pictures, and the chiselling

Of fine-wrought statues, every one of these

Long practice and the untiring mind’s experience

Taught men by slow degrees, as they progressed

Step after step. Thus time little by little

Brings forth each several thing, and reason lifts it

Into the borders of the light; for first

One thing and then another must in turn

Rise from obscurity, until each art

Attains its highest pitch of excellence.

BOOK VI, lines 1-95

IN ancient days Athens of glorious name

Was first to spread abroad corn-bearing crops

Among unhappy mortals, and to frame

Their lives in a new mould and give them laws.

She also first bestowed a kindly solace

For life, when she gave birth to one endowed

With so great intellect, that man who once

Poured forth all wisdom from truth-telling lips;

Whose glory, even when his light was quenched,

Because of his divine discoveries

Undimmed by time was noised abroad, and now

Is lifted high as heaven. For when he saw

That well nigh all those things which need demands

For man’s subsistence had been now provided,

And that so far as it seemed possible

Life was established in security,

That men through wealth and honours and renown

Had attained power and affluence, and grown proud

In their children’s good name, yet that not one

At home possessed a heart the less care-stricken,

But ceaselessly despite his wiser mind

Tormenting all his days, could not refrain

From petulant rage and wearisome complaint;

Then did he understand it was the vessel

Itself that was the cause of imperfection,

And by its imperfection all those things

That came within it, gathered from outside,

Though ne’er so excellent, were spoiled therein;

In part because he saw that there were holes

Through which it leaked, so that by no means ever

Might it be filled full; partly that he perceived

How as with a foul savour it defiled

All things within it which had entered there.

And so with truthful words he purged men’s hearts,

And fixed a limit to desire and fear;

Then setting forth what was the highest good

Which we all strive to attain, he pointed out

The path along which by a slender track

We might in a straight course arrive at it;

Likewise he showed what evils there must be

In mortal affairs on every side, arising

And flying this way and that, whether it were

By natural chance or force, since it was Nature

Which has ordained it so; and by what gates

To meet each evil men must sally forth:

Also he proved how mostly without cause

Mankind set darkly tossing in their hearts

The sad billows of care. For just as children

In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid

Of all things, so we sometimes in the light

Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded

Than those which children shudder at in the dark,

Imagining that they will come to pass.

This terror then and darkness of the mind

Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams

And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation

Of Nature’s aspect and her inward laws.

And now that I have shown you how the sky’s

Mansions are mortal, and that heaven is formed

Of a body that had birth, and since of all

That takes place and must needs take place therein

I have unravelled most, give further heed

To what remains. Since once I have made bold

To mount the glorious chariot of the Muses,[I]

I will now tell how in the upper air

Tempests of wind arise; how all sinks down

To rest once more: the turmoil that has been

Vanishes, when its fury is appeased.

And I will explain all else that mortals see

Coming to pass on earth and in the sky,

Such sights as often hold them in terrified

Suspense of mind, humiliating themselves

With fear of gods, and bow them grovelling

Down to the ground, because they are compelled

Through ignorance of the causes to assign

All such things to the empire of the gods,

Acknowledging their power to be supreme.

For those who have learnt rightly that the gods

Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder

By what means all things can be carried on,

Such above all as are perceived to happen

In the ethereal regions overhead,

They are borne back again into their old

Religious fears, and adopt pitiless lords,

Whom in their misery they believe to be

Almighty; for they are ignorant of what can

And what cannot exist; in fine they know not

Upon what principle each thing has its powers

Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone.

And therefore all the more they are led astray

By blind reasoning. So that if you cannot

Fling from your mind and banish far away

All such belief in falsehoods that degrade

The deities, and consist not with their peace,

Then, thus by you disparaged and profaned,

Oft will their holy godheads do you hurt;

Not that their sovereign power can be impaired,

So that in anger they should stoop to exact

Fierce penalties, but because you yourself

Will fancy that those placid beings throned

In serene peace, can verily be tossed

By great billows of wrath: nor will you enter

With a calm breast the temples of the gods,

Nor yet will you be able to receive

In tranquil peace of spirit those images

Which from their holy bodies, heralding

Their divine beauty, float into men’s minds.

And to what kind of life these errors lead

May be imagined. Such credulity

The most veracious reasoning alone

Can drive far from us. And though to that end

I have set forth much already, yet more still

Remains for me to adorn in polished verses.

The inward law and aspect of the heavens

Must now be grasped: tempests and vivid lightnings,

Their action and what cause sets them in motion,

Must be described; lest, when you have mapped the sky

Into augural divisions, you should then

Quake in dismay, beholding from what quarter

The flash sped in its flight, or on which side

It vanished; in what manner it pierced through

Into walled places, and how, having played

The tyrant there, it leapt forth and was gone.

Yet of these operations by no means

Can men perceive the causes, and so fancy

That they must come to pass by power divine.

O Muse of knowledge, solace of mankind

And the delight of gods, Calliope,

Point the track out before me as I speed

Towards the white line of my final goal,

That so with thee to guide me I may win

The glorious crown of victory and its praise.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.

MAETERLINCK

ESSAYS

Crown 8vo, 5s. net each. Pocket edition: Cloth, 3s. 6d. net each: Special binding, 4s. 6d. net each: Leather (if, and when procurable) 5s. 6d. net.

THE LIFE OF THE BEE. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

THE TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

WISDOM AND DESTINY. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

THE BURIED TEMPLE. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

THE DOUBLE GARDEN. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

LIFE AND FLOWERS. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

PLAYS

Globe 8vo, 3s. 6d. net each. Pocket edition: Cloth 3s. 6d. net each; Leather, 4s. 6d. net each.

MONNA VANNA. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

AGLAVAINE AND SELYSETTE. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

JOYZELLE. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

SISTER BEATRICE, AND ARDIANE AND BARBE BLEUE. Translated by Bernard Miall.

PELLEAS AND MELISANDA AND THE SIGHTLESS. Translated by Laurence Alma Tadema.

MY DOG: Illustrated in colour by Cecil Aldin. Pott 4to, 4s. 6d. net. Illustrated in colour by G. Vernon Stokes. Imp. 16mo. New edition, 3s. 6d. net.

OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS: Illustrated in colour by G. S. Elgood. Imp. 16mo. New edition, 3s. 6d. net.

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 1s. net. Paper, 6d. net.

THOUGHTS FROM MÆTERLINCK: Chosen and arranged by E. S. S. F’cap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. net.

EDITIONS DE LUXE

Illustrated in colour by E. J. Detmold. Demy 4to, 21s. net each.

THE LIFE OF THE BEE

HOURS OF GLADNESS

GILBERT MURRAY’S

Translations of the Plays of EURIPIDES, ARISTOPHANES and SOPHOCLES

Translated into English Rhyming Verse, with Commentaries and Explanatory Notes. Cr. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net each. Paper, 1s. 6d. net each.

EURIPIDES

Alcestis

II

Iphigenia in Tauris

I

Bacchæ

II

Medea

II

Electra

Rhesus

I

Hippolytus

I

Trojan Women

ARISTOPHANES

SOPHOCLES

Frogs

Œdipus, King of Thebes

Six of the plays of Euripides are also issued in 2 volumes. Cr. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. net per volume. Vol. I.: Hippolytus, Trojan Women and Bacchæ Vol. II.: Medea, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Electra.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] A few lines seem to have been lost here.

[B] Epicurus.

[C] The aether.

[D] Colour, sensation, etc.

[E] Cupido.

[F] The text is corrupt and the meaning obscure.

[G] Bacchus.

[H] Elephants.

[I] The text is here corrupt, and several lines are probably lost.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS ***

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Table of Contents

TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS

TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS

TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS

BOOK I, lines 1-328

BOOK II, lines 991-1174

BOOK III, lines 1-160

BOOK III, lines 830-1094

BOOK IV, lines 962-1287

BOOK V

BOOK VI, lines 1-95

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