"BOOK I\n\nPROEM\n\nMother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,\nDear Venus that beneath the gliding stars\nMakest to teem the many-voyaged main\nAnd fruitful lands- for all of living things\nThrough thee alone are evermore conceived,\nThrough thee are risen to visit the great sun-\nBefore thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,\nFlee stormy wind and massy cloud away,\nFor thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,\nFor thee waters of the unvexed deep\nSmile, and the hollows of the serene sky\nGlow with diffused radiance for thee!\nFor soon as comes the springtime face of day,\nAnd procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,\nFirst fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,\nForetoken thy approach, O thou Divine,\nAnd leap the wild herds round the happy fields\nOr swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,\nSeized with the spell, all creatures follow thee\nWhithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,\nAnd thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,\nThrough leafy homes of birds and greening plains,\nKindling the lure of love in every breast,\nThou bringest the eternal generations forth,\nKind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone\nGuidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught\nIs risen to reach the shining shores of light,\nNor aught of joyful or of lovely born,\nThee do I crave co-partner in that verse\nWhich I presume on Nature to compose\nFor Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be\nPeerless in every grace at every hour-\nWherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words\nImmortal charm. Lull to a timely rest\nO'er sea and land the savage works of war,\nFor thou alone hast power with public peace\nTo aid mortality; since he who rules\nThe savage works of battle, puissant Mars,\nHow often to thy bosom flings his strength\nO'ermastered by the eternal wound of love-\nAnd there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,\nGazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,\nPastures on love his greedy sight, his breath\nHanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined\nFill with thy holy body, round, above!\nPour from those lips soft syllables to win\nPeace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!\nFor in a season troublous to the state\nNeither may I attend this task of mine\nWith thought untroubled, nor mid such events\nThe illustrious scion of the Memmian house\nNeglect the civic cause.\n Whilst human kind\nThroughout the lands lay miserably crushed\nBefore all eyes beneath Religion- who\nWould show her head along the region skies,\nGlowering on mortals with her hideous face-\nA Greek it was who first opposing dared\nRaise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,\nWhom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke\nNor threatening thunder of the ominous sky\nAbashed; but rather chafed to angry zest\nHis dauntless heart to be the first to rend\nThe crossbars at the gates of Nature old.\nAnd thus his will and hardy wisdom won;\nAnd forward thus he fared afar, beyond\nThe flaming ramparts of the world, until\nHe wandered the unmeasurable All.\nWhence he to us, a conqueror, reports\nWhat things can rise to being, what cannot,\nAnd by what law to each its scope prescribed,\nIts boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.\nWherefore Religion now is under foot,\nAnd us his victory now exalts to heaven.\n I know how hard it is in Latian verse\nTo tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,\nChiefly because our pauper-speech must find\nStrange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;\nYet worth of thine and the expected joy\nOf thy sweet friendship do persuade me on\nTo bear all toil and wake the clear nights through,\nSeeking with what of words and what of song\nI may at last most gloriously uncloud\nFor thee the light beyond, wherewith to view\nThe core of being at the centre hid.\nAnd for the rest, summon to judgments true,\nUnbusied ears and singleness of mind\nWithdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged\nFor thee with eager service, thou disdain\nBefore thou comprehendest: since for thee\nI prove the supreme law of Gods and sky,\nAnd the primordial germs of things unfold,\nWhence Nature all creates, and multiplies\nAnd fosters all, and whither she resolves\nEach in the end when each is overthrown.\nThis ultimate stock we have devised to name\nProcreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,\nOr primal bodies, as primal to the world.\n I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fare\nAn impious road to realms of thought profane;\nBut 'tis that same religion oftener far\nHath bred the foul impieties of men:\nAs once at Aulis, the elected chiefs,\nForemost of heroes, Danaan counsellors,\nDefiled Diana's altar, virgin queen,\nWith Agamemnon's daughter, foully slain.\nShe felt the chaplet round her maiden locks\nAnd fillets, fluttering down on either cheek,\nAnd at the altar marked her grieving sire,\nThe priests beside him who concealed the knife,\nAnd all the folk in tears at sight of her.\nWith a dumb terror and a sinking knee\nShe dropped; nor might avail her now that first\n'Twas she who gave the king a father's name.\nThey raised her up, they bore the trembling girl\nOn to the altar- hither led not now\nWith solemn rites and hymeneal choir,\nBut sinless woman, sinfully foredone,\nA parent felled her on her bridal day,\nMaking his child a sacrificial beast\nTo give the ships auspicious winds for Troy:\nSuch are the crimes to which Religion leads.\n And there shall come the time when even thou,\nForced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek\nTo break from us. Ah, many a dream even now\nCan they concoct to rout thy plans of life,\nAnd trouble all thy fortunes with base fears.\nI own with reason: for, if men but knew\nSome fixed end to ills, they would be strong\nBy some device unconquered to withstand\nReligions and the menacings of seers.\nBut now nor skill nor instrument is theirs,\nSince men must dread eternal pains in death.\nFor what the soul may be they do not know,\nWhether 'tis born, or enter in at birth,\nAnd whether, snatched by death, it die with us,\nOr visit the shadows and the vasty caves\nOf Orcus, or by some divine decree\nEnter the brute herds, as our Ennius sang,\nWho first from lovely Helicon brought down\nA laurel wreath of bright perennial leaves,\nRenowned forever among the Italian clans.\nYet Ennius too in everlasting verse\nProclaims those vaults of Acheron to be,\nThough thence, he said, nor souls nor bodies fare,\nBut only phantom figures, strangely wan,\nAnd tells how once from out those regions rose\nOld Homer's ghost to him and shed salt tears\nAnd with his words unfolded Nature's source.\nThen be it ours with steady mind to clasp\nThe purport of the skies- the law behind\nThe wandering courses of the sun and moon;\nTo scan the powers that speed all life below;\nBut most to see with reasonable eyes\nOf what the mind, of what the soul is made,\nAnd what it is so terrible that breaks\nOn us asleep, or waking in disease,\nUntil we seem to mark and hear at hand\nDead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.\n \nSUBSTANCE IS ETERNAL\n\nThis terror, then, this darkness of the mind,\nNot sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,\nNor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,\nBut only Nature's aspect and her law,\nWhich, teaching us, hath this exordium:\nNothing from nothing ever yet was born.\nFear holds dominion over mortality\nOnly because, seeing in land and sky\nSo much the cause whereof no wise they know,\nMen think Divinities are working there.\nMeantime, when once we know from nothing still\nNothing can be create, we shall divine\nMore clearly what we seek: those elements\nFrom which alone all things created are,\nAnd how accomplished by no tool of Gods.\nSuppose all sprang from all things: any kind\nMight take its origin from any thing,\nNo fixed seed required. Men from the sea\nMight rise, and from the land the scaly breed,\nAnd, fowl full fledged come bursting from the sky;\nThe horned cattle, the herds and all the wild\nWould haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste;\nNor would the same fruits keep their olden trees,\nBut each might grow from any stock or limb\nBy chance and change. Indeed, and were there not\nFor each its procreant atoms, could things have\nEach its unalterable mother old?\nBut, since produced from fixed seeds are all,\nEach birth goes forth upon the shores of light\nFrom its own stuff, from its own primal bodies.\nAnd all from all cannot become, because\nIn each resides a secret power its own.\nAgain, why see we lavished o'er the lands\nAt spring the rose, at summer heat the corn,\nThe vines that mellow when the autumn lures,\nIf not because the fixed seeds of things\nAt their own season must together stream,\nAnd new creations only be revealed\nWhen the due times arrive and pregnant earth\nSafely may give unto the shores of light\nHer tender progenies? But if from naught\nWere their becoming, they would spring abroad\nSuddenly, unforeseen, in alien months,\nWith no primordial germs, to be preserved\nFrom procreant unions at an adverse hour.\nNor on the mingling of the living seeds\nWould space be needed for the growth of things\nWere life an increment of nothing: then\nThe tiny babe forthwith would walk a man,\nAnd from the turf would leap a branching tree-\nWonders unheard of; for, by Nature, each\nSlowly increases from its lawful seed,\nAnd through that increase shall conserve its kind.\nWhence take the proof that things enlarge and feed\nFrom out their proper matter. Thus it comes\nThat earth, without her seasons of fixed rains,\nCould bear no produce such as makes us glad,\nAnd whatsoever lives, if shut from food,\nProlongs its kind and guards its life no more.\nThus easier 'tis to hold that many things\nHave primal bodies in common (as we see\nThe single letters common to many words)\nThan aught exists without its origins.\nMoreover, why should Nature not prepare\nMen of a bulk to ford the seas afoot,\nOr rend the mighty mountains with their hands,\nOr conquer Time with length of days, if not\nBecause for all begotten things abides\nThe changeless stuff, and what from that may spring\nIs fixed forevermore? Lastly we see\nHow far the tilled surpass the fields untilled\nAnd to the labour of our hands return\nTheir more abounding crops; there are indeed\nWithin the earth primordial germs of things,\nWhich, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods\nAnd kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.\nElse would ye mark, without all toil of ours,\nSpontaneous generations, fairer forms.\nConfess then, naught from nothing can become,\nSince all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow,\nWherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.\nHence too it comes that Nature all dissolves\nInto their primal bodies again, and naught\nPerishes ever to annihilation.\nFor, were aught mortal in its every part,\nBefore our eyes it might be snatched away\nUnto destruction; since no force were needed\nTo sunder its members and undo its bands.\nWhereas, of truth, because all things exist,\nWith seed imperishable, Nature allows\nDestruction nor collapse of aught, until\nSome outward force may shatter by a blow,\nOr inward craft, entering its hollow cells,\nDissolve it down. And more than this, if Time,\nThat wastes with eld the works along the world,\nDestroy entire, consuming matter all,\nWhence then may Venus back to light of life\nRestore the generations kind by kind?\nOr how, when thus restored, may daedal Earth\nFoster and plenish with her ancient food,\nWhich, kind by kind, she offers unto each?\nWhence may the water-springs, beneath the sea,\nOr inland rivers, far and wide away,\nKeep the unfathomable ocean full?\nAnd out of what does Ether feed the stars?\nFor lapsed years and infinite age must else\nHave eat all shapes of mortal stock away:\nBut be it the Long Ago contained those germs,\nBy which this sum of things recruited lives,\nThose same infallibly can never die,\nNor nothing to nothing evermore return.\nAnd, too, the selfsame power might end alike\nAll things, were they not still together held\nBy matter eternal, shackled through its parts,\nNow more, now less. A touch might be enough\nTo cause destruction. For the slightest force\nWould loose the weft of things wherein no part\nWere of imperishable stock. But now\nBecause the fastenings of primordial parts\nAre put together diversely and stuff\nIs everlasting, things abide the same\nUnhurt and sure, until some power comes on\nStrong to destroy the warp and woof of each:\nNothing returns to naught; but all return\nAt their collapse to primal forms of stuff.\nLo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws\nDown to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then\nUpsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green\nAmid the trees, and trees themselves wax big\nAnd lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn\nThe race of man and all the wild are fed;\nHence joyful cities thrive with boys and girls;\nAnd leafy woodlands echo with new birds;\nHence cattle, fat and drowsy, lay their bulk\nAlong the joyous pastures whilst the drops\nOf white ooze trickle from distended bags;\nHence the young scamper on their weakling joints\nAlong the tender herbs, fresh hearts afrisk\nWith warm new milk. Thus naught of what so seems\nPerishes utterly, since Nature ever\nUpbuilds one thing from other, suffering naught\nTo come to birth but through some other's death.\n\nAnd now, since I have taught that things cannot\nBe born from nothing, nor the same, when born,\nTo nothing be recalled, doubt not my words,\nBecause our eyes no primal germs perceive;\nFor mark those bodies which, though known to be\nIn this our world, are yet invisible:\nThe winds infuriate lash our face and frame,\nUnseen, and swamp huge ships and rend the clouds,\nOr, eddying wildly down, bestrew the plains\nWith mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops\nWith forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they rave\nWith uproar shrill and ominous moan. The winds,\n'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping through\nThe sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky,\nVexing and whirling and seizing all amain;\nAnd forth they flow and pile destruction round,\nEven as the water's soft and supple bulk\nBecoming a river of abounding floods,\nWhich a wide downpour from the lofty hills\nSwells with big showers, dashes headlong down\nFragments of woodland and whole branching trees;\nNor can the solid bridges bide the shock\nAs on the waters whelm: the turbulent stream,\nStrong with a hundred rains, beats round the piers,\nCrashes with havoc, and rolls beneath its waves\nDown-toppled masonry and ponderous stone,\nHurling away whatever would oppose.\nEven so must move the blasts of all the winds,\nWhich, when they spread, like to a mighty flood,\nHither or thither, drive things on before\nAnd hurl to ground with still renewed assault,\nOr sometimes in their circling vortex seize\nAnd bear in cones of whirlwind down the world:\nThe winds are sightless bodies and naught else-\nSince both in works and ways they rival well\nThe mighty rivers, the visible in form.\nThen too we know the varied smells of things\nYet never to our nostrils see them come;\nWith eyes we view not burning heats, nor cold,\nNor are we wont men's voices to behold.\nYet these must be corporeal at the base,\nSince thus they smite the senses: naught there is\nSave body, having property of touch.\nAnd raiment, hung by surf-beat shore, grows moist,\nThe same, spread out before the sun, will dry;\nYet no one saw how sank the moisture in,\nNor how by heat off-driven. Thus we know,\nThat moisture is dispersed about in bits\nToo small for eyes to see. Another case:\nA ring upon the finger thins away\nAlong the under side, with years and suns;\nThe drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone;\nThe hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastes\nAmid the fields insidiously. We view\nThe rock-paved highways worn by many feet;\nAnd at the gates the brazen statues show\nTheir right hands leaner from the frequent touch\nOf wayfarers innumerable who greet.\nWe see how wearing-down hath minished these,\nBut just what motes depart at any time,\nThe envious nature of vision bars our sight.\nLastly whatever days and nature add\nLittle by little, constraining things to grow\nIn due proportion, no gaze however keen\nOf these our eyes hath watched and known. No more\nCan we observe what's lost at any time,\nWhen things wax old with eld and foul decay,\nOr when salt seas eat under beetling crags.\nThus Nature ever by unseen bodies works.\n \nTHE VOID\n\nBut yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked\nAbout by body: there's in things a void-\nWhich to have known will serve thee many a turn,\nNor will not leave thee wandering in doubt,\nForever searching in the sum of all,\nAnd losing faith in these pronouncements mine.\nThere's place intangible, a void and room.\nFor were it not, things could in nowise move;\nSince body's property to block and check\nWould work on all and at an times the same.\nThus naught could evermore push forth and go,\nSince naught elsewhere would yield a starting place.\nBut now through oceans, lands, and heights of heaven,\nBy divers causes and in divers modes,\nBefore our eyes we mark how much may move,\nWhich, finding not a void, would fail deprived\nOf stir and motion; nay, would then have been\nNowise begot at all, since matter, then,\nHad staid at rest, its parts together crammed.\nThen too, however solid objects seem,\nThey yet are formed of matter mixed with void:\nIn rocks and caves the watery moisture seeps,\nAnd beady drops stand out like plenteous tears;\nAnd food finds way through every frame that lives;\nThe trees increase and yield the season's fruit\nBecause their food throughout the whole is poured,\nEven from the deepest roots, through trunks and boughs;\nAnd voices pass the solid walls and fly\nReverberant through shut doorways of a house;\nAnd stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.\nWhich but for voids for bodies to go through\n'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.\nAgain, why see we among objects some\nOf heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?\nIndeed, if in a ball of wool there be\nAs much of body as in lump of lead,\nThe two should weigh alike, since body tends\nTo load things downward, while the void abides,\nBy contrary nature, the imponderable.\nTherefore, an object just as large but lighter\nDeclares infallibly its more of void;\nEven as the heavier more of matter shows,\nAnd how much less of vacant room inside.\nThat which we're seeking with sagacious quest\nExists, infallibly, commixed with things-\nThe void, the invisible inane.\n Right here\nI am compelled a question to expound,\nForestalling something certain folk suppose,\nLest it avail to lead thee off from truth:\nWaters (they say) before the shining breed\nOf the swift scaly creatures somehow give,\nAnd straightway open sudden liquid paths,\nBecause the fishes leave behind them room\nTo which at once the yielding billows stream.\nThus things among themselves can yet be moved,\nAnd change their place, however full the Sum-\nReceived opinion, wholly false forsooth.\nFor where can scaly creatures forward dart,\nSave where the waters give them room? Again,\nWhere can the billows yield a way, so long\nAs ever the fish are powerless to go?\nThus either all bodies of motion are deprived,\nOr things contain admixture of a void\nWhere each thing gets its start in moving on.\n Lastly, where after impact two broad bodies\nSuddenly spring apart, the air must crowd\nThe whole new void between those bodies formed;\nBut air, however it stream with hastening gusts,\nCan yet not fill the gap at once- for first\nIt makes for one place, ere diffused through all.\nAnd then, if haply any think this comes,\nWhen bodies spring apart, because the air\nSomehow condenses, wander they from truth:\nFor then a void is formed, where none before;\nAnd, too, a void is filled which was before.\nNor can air be condensed in such a wise;\nNor, granting it could, without a void, I hold,\nIt still could not contract upon itself\nAnd draw its parts together into one.\nWherefore, despite demur and counter-speech,\nConfess thou must there is a void in things.\n And still I might by many an argument\nHere scrape together credence for my words.\nBut for the keen eye these mere footprints serve,\nWhereby thou mayest know the rest thyself.\nAs dogs full oft with noses on the ground,\nFind out the silent lairs, though hid in brush,\nOf beasts, the mountain-rangers, when but once\nThey scent the certain footsteps of the way,\nThus thou thyself in themes like these alone\nCan hunt from thought to thought, and keenly wind\nAlong even onward to the secret places\nAnd drag out truth. But, if thou loiter loth\nOr veer, however little, from the point,\nThis I can promise, Memmius, for a fact:\nSuch copious drafts my singing tongue shall pour\nFrom the large well-springs of my plenished breast\nThat much I dread slow age will steal and coil\nAlong our members, and unloose the gates\nOf life within us, ere for thee my verse\nHath put within thine ears the stores of proofs\nAt hand for one soever question broached.\n\nNOTHING EXISTS per se EXCEPT ATOMS AND THE VOID\n\nBut, now again to weave the tale begun,\nAll nature, then, as self-sustained, consists\nOf twain of things: of bodies and of void\nIn which they're set, and where they're moved around.\nFor common instinct of our race declares\nThat body of itself exists: unless\nThis primal faith, deep-founded, fail us not,\nNaught will there be whereunto to appeal\nOn things occult when seeking aught to prove\nBy reasonings of mind. Again, without\nThat place and room, which we do call the inane,\nNowhere could bodies then be set, nor go\nHither or thither at all- as shown before.\nBesides, there's naught of which thou canst declare\nIt lives disjoined from body, shut from void-\nA kind of third in nature. For whatever\nExists must be a somewhat; and the same,\nIf tangible, however fight and slight,\nWill yet increase the count of body's sum,\nWith its own augmentation big or small;\nBut, if intangible and powerless ever\nTo keep a thing from passing through itself\nOn any side, 'twill be naught else but that\nWhich we do call the empty, the inane.\nAgain, whate'er exists, as of itself,\nMust either act or suffer action on it,\nOr else be that wherein things move and be:\nNaught, saving body, acts, is acted on;\nNaught but the inane can furnish room. And thus,\nBeside the inane and bodies, is no third\nNature amid the number of all things-\nRemainder none to fall at any time\nUnder our senses, nor be seized and seen\nBy any man through reasonings of mind.\nName o'er creation with what names thou wilt,\nThou'lt find but properties of those first twain,\nOr see but accidents those twain produce.\n A property is that which not at all\nCan be disjoined and severed from a thing\nWithout a fatal dissolution: such,\nWeight to the rocks, heat to the fire, and flow\nTo the wide waters, touch to corporal things,\nIntangibility to the viewless void.\nBut state of slavery, pauperhood, and wealth,\nFreedom, and war, and concord, and all else\nWhich come and go whilst nature stands the same,\nWe're wont, and rightly, to call accidents.\nEven time exists not of itself; but sense\nReads out of things what happened long ago,\nWhat presses now, and what shall follow after:\nNo man, we must admit, feels time itself,\nDisjoined from motion and repose of things.\nThus, when they say there \"is\" the ravishment\nOf Princess Helen, \"is\" the siege and sack\nOf Trojan Town, look out, they force us not\nTo admit these acts existent by themselves,\nMerely because those races of mankind\n(Of whom these acts were accidents) long since\nIrrevocable age has borne away:\nFor all past actions may be said to be\nBut accidents, in one way, of mankind,-\nIn other, of some region of the world.\nAdd, too, had been no matter, and no room\nWherein all things go on, the fire of love\nUpblown by that fair form, the glowing coal\nUnder the Phrygian Alexander's breast,\nHad ne'er enkindled that renowned strife\nOf savage war, nor had the wooden horse\nInvolved in flames old Pergama, by a birth\nAt midnight of a brood of the Hellenes.\nAnd thus thou canst remark that every act\nAt bottom exists not of itself, nor is\nAs body is, nor has like name with void;\nBut rather of sort more fitly to be called\nAn accident of body, and of place\nWherein all things go on.\n\nCHARACTER OF THE ATOMS\n\n Bodies, again,\nAre partly primal germs of things, and partly\nUnions deriving from the primal germs.\nAnd those which are the primal germs of things\nNo power can quench; for in the end they conquer\nBy their own solidness; though hard it be\nTo think that aught in things has solid frame;\nFor lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout,\nThrough hedging walls of houses, and the iron\nWhite-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burn\nWith exhalations fierce and burst asunder.\nTotters the rigid gold dissolved in heat;\nThe ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame;\nWarmth and the piercing cold through silver seep,\nSince, with the cups held rightly in the hand,\nWe oft feel both, as from above is poured\nThe dew of waters between their shining sides:\nSo true it is no solid form is found.\nBut yet because true reason and nature of things\nConstrain us, come, whilst in few verses now\nI disentangle how there still exist\nBodies of solid, everlasting frame-\nThe seeds of things, the primal germs we teach,\nWhence all creation around us came to be.\nFirst since we know a twofold nature exists,\nOf things, both twain and utterly unlike-\nBody, and place in which an things go on-\nThen each must be both for and through itself,\nAnd all unmixed: where'er be empty space,\nThere body's not; and so where body bides,\nThere not at all exists the void inane.\nThus primal bodies are solid, without a void.\nBut since there's void in all begotten things,\nAll solid matter must be round the same;\nNor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hides\nAnd holds a void within its body, unless\nThou grant what holds it be a solid. Know,\nThat which can hold a void of things within\nCan be naught else than matter in union knit.\nThus matter, consisting of a solid frame,\nHath power to be eternal, though all else,\nThough all creation, be dissolved away.\nAgain, were naught of empty and inane,\nThe world were then a solid; as, without\nSome certain bodies to fill the places held,\nThe world that is were but a vacant void.\nAnd so, infallibly, alternate-wise\nBody and void are still distinguished,\nSince nature knows no wholly full nor void.\nThere are, then, certain bodies, possessed of power\nTo vary forever the empty and the full;\nAnd these can nor be sundered from without\nBy beats and blows, nor from within be torn\nBy penetration, nor be overthrown\nBy any assault soever through the world-\nFor without void, naught can be crushed, it seems,\nNor broken, nor severed by a cut in twain,\nNor can it take the damp, or seeping cold\nOr piercing fire, those old destroyers three;\nBut the more void within a thing, the more\nEntirely it totters at their sure assault.\nThus if first bodies be, as I have taught,\nSolid, without a void, they must be then\nEternal; and, if matter ne'er had been\nEternal, long ere now had all things gone\nBack into nothing utterly, and all\nWe see around from nothing had been born-\nBut since I taught above that naught can be\nFrom naught created, nor the once begotten\nTo naught be summoned back, these primal germs\nMust have an immortality of frame.\nAnd into these must each thing be resolved,\nWhen comes its supreme hour, that thus there be\nAt hand the stuff for plenishing the world.\n\nSo primal germs have solid singleness\nNor otherwise could they have been conserved\nThrough aeons and infinity of time\nFor the replenishment of wasted worlds.\nOnce more, if nature had given a scope for things\nTo be forever broken more and more,\nBy now the bodies of matter would have been\nSo far reduced by breakings in old days\nThat from them nothing could, at season fixed,\nBe born, and arrive its prime and top of life.\nFor, lo, each thing is quicker marred than made;\nAnd so whate'er the long infinitude\nOf days and all fore-passed time would now\nBy this have broken and ruined and dissolved,\nThat same could ne'er in all remaining time\nBe builded up for plenishing the world.\nBut mark: infallibly a fixed bound\nRemaineth stablished 'gainst their breaking down;\nSince we behold each thing soever renewed,\nAnd unto all, their seasons, after their kind,\nWherein they arrive the flower of their age.\n Again, if bounds have not been set against\nThe breaking down of this corporeal world,\nYet must all bodies of whatever things\nHave still endured from everlasting time\nUnto this present, as not yet assailed\nBy shocks of peril. But because the same\nAre, to thy thinking, of a nature frail,\nIt ill accords that thus they could remain\n(As thus they do) through everlasting time,\nVexed through the ages (as indeed they are)\nBy the innumerable blows of chance.\n So in our programme of creation, mark\nHow 'tis that, though the bodies of all stuff\nAre solid to the core, we yet explain\nThe ways whereby some things are fashioned soft-\nAir, water, earth, and fiery exhalations-\nAnd by what force they function and go on:\nThe fact is founded in the void of things.\nBut if the primal germs themselves be soft,\nReason cannot be brought to bear to show\nThe ways whereby may be created these\nGreat crags of basalt and the during iron;\nFor their whole nature will profoundly lack\nThe first foundations of a solid frame.\nBut powerful in old simplicity,\nAbide the solid, the primeval germs;\nAnd by their combinations more condensed,\nAll objects can be tightly knit and bound\nAnd made to show unconquerable strength.\nAgain, since all things kind by kind obtain\nFixed bounds of growing and conserving life;\nSince Nature hath inviolably decreed\nWhat each can do, what each can never do;\nSince naught is changed, but all things so abide\nThat ever the variegated birds reveal\nThe spots or stripes peculiar to their kind,\nSpring after spring: thus surely all that is\nMust be composed of matter immutable.\nFor if the primal germs in any wise\nWere open to conquest and to change, 'twould be\nUncertain also what could come to birth\nAnd what could not, and by what law to each\nIts scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings\nSo deep in Time. Nor could the generations\nKind after kind so often reproduce\nThe nature, habits, motions, ways of life,\nOf their progenitors.\n And then again,\nSince there is ever an extreme bounding point\n\nOf that first body which our senses now\nCannot perceive: That bounding point indeed\nExists without all parts, a minimum\nOf nature, nor was e'er a thing apart,\nAs of itself,- nor shall hereafter be,\nSince 'tis itself still parcel of another,\nA first and single part, whence other parts\nAnd others similar in order lie\nIn a packed phalanx, filling to the full\nThe nature of first body: being thus\nNot self-existent, they must cleave to that\nFrom which in nowise they can sundered be.\nSo primal germs have solid singleness,\nWhich tightly packed and closely joined cohere\nBy virtue of their minim particles-\nNo compound by mere union of the same;\nBut strong in their eternal singleness,\nNature, reserving them as seeds for things,\nPermitteth naught of rupture or decrease.\n Moreover, were there not a minimum,\nThe smallest bodies would have infinites,\nSince then a half-of-half could still be halved,\nWith limitless division less and less.\nThen what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?\nNone: for however infinite the sum,\nYet even the smallest would consist the same\nOf infinite parts. But since true reason here\nProtests, denying that the mind can think it,\nConvinced thou must confess such things there are\nAs have no parts, the minimums of nature.\nAnd since these are, likewise confess thou must\nThat primal bodies are solid and eterne.\nAgain, if Nature, creatress of all things,\nWere wont to force all things to be resolved\nUnto least parts, then would she not avail\nTo reproduce from out them anything;\nBecause whate'er is not endowed with parts\nCannot possess those properties required\nOf generative stuff- divers connections,\nWeights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things\nForevermore have being and go on.\n\nCONFUTATION OF OTHER PHILOSOPHERS\n\n And on such grounds it is that those who held\nThe stuff of things is fire, and out of fire\nAlone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen\nMightily from true reason to have lapsed.\nOf whom, chief leader to do battle, comes\nThat Heraclitus, famous for dark speech\nAmong the silly, not the serious Greeks\nWho search for truth. For dolts are ever prone\nThat to bewonder and adore which hides\nBeneath distorted words, holding that true\nWhich sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,\nOr which is rouged in finely finished phrase.\nFor how, I ask, can things so varied be,\nIf formed of fire, single and pure? No whit\n'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,\nIf all the parts of fire did still preserve\nBut fire's own nature, seen before in gross.\nThe heat were keener with the parts compressed,\nMilder, again, when severed or dispersed-\nAnd more than this thou canst conceive of naught\nThat from such causes could become; much less\nMight earth's variety of things be born\nFrom any fires soever, dense or rare.\nThis too: if they suppose a void in things,\nThen fires can be condensed and still left rare;\nBut since they see such opposites of thought\nRising against them, and are loath to leave\nAn unmixed void in things, they fear the steep\nAnd lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,\nThat, if from things we take away the void,\nAll things are then condensed, and out of all\nOne body made, which has no power to dart\nSwiftly from out itself not anything-\nAs throws the fire its light and warmth around,\nGiving thee proof its parts are not compact.\nBut if perhaps they think, in other wise,\nFires through their combinations can be quenched\nAnd change their substance, very well: behold,\nIf fire shall spare to do so in no part,\nThen heat will perish utterly and all,\nAnd out of nothing would the world be formed.\nFor change in anything from out its bounds\nMeans instant death of that which was before;\nAnd thus a somewhat must persist unharmed\nAmid the world, lest all return to naught,\nAnd, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.\nNow since indeed there are those surest bodies\nWhich keep their nature evermore the same,\nUpon whose going out and coming in\nAnd changed order things their nature change,\nAnd all corporeal substances transformed,\n'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then,\nAre not of fire. For 'twere of no avail\nShould some depart and go away, and some\nBe added new, and some be changed in order,\nIf still all kept their nature of old heat:\nFor whatsoever they created then\nWould still in any case be only fire.\nThe truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are\nWhose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes\nProduce the fire and which, by order changed,\nDo change the nature of the thing produced,\nAnd are thereafter nothing like to fire\nNor whatso else has power to send its bodies\nWith impact touching on the senses' touch.\n Again, to say that all things are but fire\nAnd no true thing in number of all things\nExists but fire, as this same fellow says,\nSeems crazed folly. For the man himself\nAgainst the senses by the senses fights,\nAnd hews at that through which is all belief,\nThrough which indeed unto himself is known\nThe thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinks\nThe senses truly can perceive the fire,\nHe thinks they cannot as regards all else,\nWhich still are palpably as clear to sense-\nTo me a thought inept and crazy too.\nFor whither shall we make appeal? for what\nMore certain than our senses can there be\nWhereby to mark asunder error and truth?\nBesides, why rather do away with all,\nAnd wish to allow heat only, then deny\nThe fire and still allow all else to be?-\nAlike the madness either way it seems.\nThus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things\nTo be but fire, and out of fire the sum,\nAnd whosoever have constituted air\nAs first beginning of begotten things,\nAnd all whoever have held that of itself\nWater alone contrives things, or that earth\nCreateth all and changes things anew\nTo divers natures, mightily they seem\nA long way to have wandered from the truth.\n Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff\nTwofold, by joining air to fire, and earth\nTo water; add who deem that things can grow\nOut of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain;\nAs first Empedocles of Acragas,\nWhom that three-cornered isle of all the lands\nBore on her coasts, around which flows and flows\nIn mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas,\nSplashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.\nHere, billowing onward through the narrow straits,\nSwift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores\nOf the Italic mainland. Here the waste\nCharybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats\nTo gather anew such furies of its flames\nAs with its force anew to vomit fires,\nBelched from its throat, and skyward bear anew\nIts lightnings' flash. And though for much she seem\nThe mighty and the wondrous isle to men,\nMost rich in all good things, and fortified\nWith generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'er\nPossessed within her aught of more renown,\nNor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear\nThan this true man. Nay, ever so far and pure\nThe lofty music of his breast divine\nLifts up its voice and tells of glories found,\nThat scarce he seems of human stock create.\n Yet he and those forementioned (known to be\nSo far beneath him, less than he in all),\nThough, as discoverers of much goodly truth,\nThey gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine,\nResponses holier and soundlier based\nThan ever the Pythia pronounced for men\nFrom out the triped and the Delphian laurel,\nHave still in matter of first-elements\nMade ruin of themselves, and, great men, great\nIndeed and heavy there for them the fall:\nFirst, because, banishing the void from things,\nThey yet assign them motion, and allow\nThings soft and loosely textured to exist,\nAs air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains,\nWithout admixture of void amid their frame.\nNext, because, thinking there can be no end\nIn cutting bodies down to less and less\nNor pause established to their breaking up,\nThey hold there is no minimum in things;\nAlbeit we see the boundary point of aught\nIs that which to our senses seems its least,\nWhereby thou mayst conjecture, that, because\nThe things thou canst not mark have boundary points,\nThey surely have their minimums. Then, too,\nSince these philosophers ascribe to things\nSoft primal germs, which we behold to be\nOf birth and body mortal, thus, throughout,\nThe sum of things must be returned to naught,\nAnd, born from naught, abundance thrive anew-\nThou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.\nAnd, next, these bodies are among themselves\nIn many ways poisons and foes to each,\nWherefore their congress will destroy them quite\nOr drive asunder as we see in storms\nRains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.\n Thus too, if all things are create of four,\nAnd all again dissolved into the four,\nHow can the four be called the primal germs\nOf things, more than all things themselves be thought,\nBy retroversion, primal germs of them?\nFor ever alternately are both begot,\nWith interchange of nature and aspect\nFrom immemorial time. But if percase\nThou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air,\nThe dew of water can in such wise meet\nAs not by mingling to resign their nature,\nFrom them for thee no world can be create-\nNo thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree:\nIn the wild congress of this varied heap\nEach thing its proper nature will display,\nAnd air will palpably be seen mixed up\nWith earth together, unquenched heat with water.\nBut primal germs in bringing things to birth\nMust have a latent, unseen quality,\nLest some outstanding alien element\nConfuse and minish in the thing create\nIts proper being.\n But these men begin\nFrom heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign\nThat fire will turn into the winds of air,\nNext, that from air the rain begotten is,\nAnd earth created out of rain, and then\nThat all, reversely, are returned from earth-\nThe moisture first, then air thereafter heat-\nAnd that these same ne'er cease in interchange,\nTo go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth\nUnto the stars of the aethereal world-\nWhich in no wise at all the germs can do.\nSince an immutable somewhat still must be,\nLest all things utterly be sped to naught;\nFor change in anything from out its bounds\nMeans instant death of that which was before.\nWherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore,\nSuffer a changed state, they must derive\nFrom others ever unconvertible,\nLest an things utterly return to naught.\nThen why not rather presuppose there be\nBodies with such a nature furnished forth\nThat, if perchance they have created fire,\nCan still (by virtue of a few withdrawn,\nOr added few, and motion and order changed)\nFashion the winds of air, and thus all things\nForevermore be interchanged with all?\n \"But facts in proof are manifest,\" thou sayest,\n\"That all things grow into the winds of air\nAnd forth from earth are nourished, and unless\nThe season favour at propitious hour\nWith rains enough to set the trees a-reel\nUnder the soak of bulking thunderheads,\nAnd sun, for its share, foster and give heat,\nNo grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow.\"\nTrue- and unless hard food and moisture soft\nRecruited man, his frame would waste away,\nAnd life dissolve from out his thews and bones;\nFor out of doubt recruited and fed are we\nBy certain things, as other things by others.\nBecause in many ways the many germs\nCommon to many things are mixed in things,\nNo wonder 'tis that therefore divers things\nBy divers things are nourished. And, again,\nOften it matters vastly with what others,\nIn what positions the primordial germs\nAre bound together, and what motions, too,\nThey give and get among themselves; for these\nSame germs do put together sky, sea, lands,\nRivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things,\nBut yet commixed they are in divers modes\nWith divers things, forever as they move.\nNay, thou beholdest in our verses here\nElements many, common to many worlds,\nAlbeit thou must confess each verse, each word\nFrom one another differs both in sense\nAnd ring of sound- so much the elements\nCan bring about by change of order alone.\nBut those which are the primal germs of things\nHave power to work more combinations still,\nWhence divers things can be produced in turn.\n Now let us also take for scrutiny\nThe homeomeria of Anaxagoras,\nSo called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech\nYieldeth no name in the Italian tongue,\nAlthough the thing itself is not o'erhard\nFor explanation. First, then, when he speaks\nOf this homeomeria of things, he thinks\nBones to be sprung from littlest bones minute,\nAnd from minute and littlest flesh all flesh,\nAnd blood created out of drops of blood,\nConceiving gold compact of grains of gold,\nAnd earth concreted out of bits of earth,\nFire made of fires, and water out of waters,\nFeigning the like with all the rest of stuff.\nYet he concedes not any void in things,\nNor any limit to cutting bodies down.\nWherefore to me he seems on both accounts\nTo err no less than those we named before.\nAdd too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-\nIf they be germs primordial furnished forth\nWith but same nature as the things themselves,\nAnd travail and perish equally with those,\nAnd no rein curbs them from annihilation.\nFor which will last against the grip and crush\nUnder the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?\nOr else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?\nNo one, methinks, when every thing will be\nAt bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark\nTo perish by force before our gazing eyes.\nBut my appeal is to the proofs above\nThat things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet\nFrom naught increase. And now again, since food\nAugments and nourishes the human frame,\n'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones\nAnd thews are formed of particles unlike\nTo them in kind; or if they say all foods\nAre of mixed substance having in themselves\nSmall bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins\nAnd particles of blood, then every food,\nSolid or liquid, must itself be thought\nAs made and mixed of things unlike in kind-\nOf bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.\nAgain, if all the bodies which upgrow\nFrom earth, are first within the earth, then earth\nMust be compound of alien substances.\nWhich spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.\nTransfer the argument, and thou may'st use\nThe selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash\nStill lurk unseen within the wood, the wood\nMust be compound of alien substances\nWhich spring from out the wood.\n Right here remains\nA certain slender means to skulk from truth,\nWhich Anaxagoras takes unto himself,\nWho holds that all things lurk commixed with all\nWhile that one only comes to view, of which\nThe bodies exceed in number all the rest,\nAnd lie more close to hand and at the fore-\nA notion banished from true reason far.\nFor then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains\nShould oft, when crunched between the might of stones,\nGive forth a sign of blood, or of aught else\nWhich in our human frame is fed; and that\nRock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.\nLikewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops\nOf sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;\nIndeed we ought to find, when crumbling up\nThe earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,\nAll sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;\nLastly we ought to find in cloven wood\nAshes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.\nBut since fact teaches this is not the case,\n'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things\nThuswise; but seeds, common to many things,\nCommixed in many ways, must lurk in things.\n \"But often it happens on skiey hills\" thou sayest,\n\"That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed\nOne against other, smote by the blustering south,\nTill all ablaze with bursting flower of flame.\"\nGood sooth- yet fire is not ingraft in wood,\nBut many are the seeds of heat, and when\nRubbing together they together flow,\nThey start the conflagrations in the forests.\nWhereas if flame, already fashioned, lay\nStored up within the forests, then the fires\nCould not for any time be kept unseen,\nBut would be laying all the wildwood waste\nAnd burning all the boscage. Now dost see\n(Even as we said a little space above)\nHow mightily it matters with what others,\nIn what positions these same primal germs\nAre bound together? And what motions, too,\nThey give and get among themselves? how, hence,\nThe same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body\nBoth igneous and ligneous objects forth-\nPrecisely as these words themselves are made\nBy somewhat altering their elements,\nAlthough we mark with name indeed distinct\nThe igneous from the ligneous. Once again,\nIf thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,\nAmong all visible objects, cannot be,\nUnless thou feign bodies of matter endowed\nWith a like nature,- by thy vain device\nFor thee will perish all the germs of things:\n'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,\nShaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,\nOr moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.\n\nTHE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE\n\n Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!\nAnd for myself, my mind is not deceived\nHow dark it is: But the large hope of praise\nHath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;\nOn the same hour hath strook into my breast\nSweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,\nI wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,\nThrough unpathed haunts of the Pierides,\nTrodden by step of none before. I joy\nTo come on undefiled fountains there,\nTo drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,\nTo seek for this my head a signal crown\nFrom regions where the Muses never yet\nHave garlanded the temples of a man:\nFirst, since I teach concerning mighty things,\nAnd go right on to loose from round the mind\nThe tightened coils of dread religion;\nNext, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame\nSongs so pellucid, touching all throughout\nEven with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,\nIs not without a reasonable ground:\nBut as physicians, when they seek to give\nYoung boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch\nThe brim around the cup with the sweet juice\nAnd yellow of the honey, in order that\nThe thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled\nAs far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down\nThe wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,\nBe yet not merely duped, but rather thus\nGrow strong again with recreated health:\nSo now I too (since this my doctrine seems\nIn general somewhat woeful unto those\nWho've had it not in hand, and since the crowd\nStarts back from it in horror) have desired\nTo expound our doctrine unto thee in song\nSoft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,\nTo touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-\nIf by such method haply I might hold\nThe mind of thee upon these lines of ours,\nTill thou see through the nature of all things,\nAnd how exists the interwoven frame.\n But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made\nCompletely solid, hither and thither fly\nForevermore unconquered through all time,\nNow come, and whether to the sum of them\nThere be a limit or be none, for thee\nLet us unfold; likewise what has been found\nTo be the wide inane, or room, or space\nWherein all things soever do go on,\nLet us examine if it finite be\nAll and entire, or reach unmeasured round\nAnd downward an illimitable profound.\n Thus, then, the All that is is limited\nIn no one region of its onward paths,\nFor then 'tmust have forever its beyond.\nAnd a beyond 'tis seen can never be\nFor aught, unless still further on there be\nA somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-\nSo that the thing be seen still on to where\nThe nature of sensation of that thing\nCan follow it no longer. Now because\nConfess we must there's naught beside the sum,\nThere's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.\nIt matters nothing where thou post thyself,\nIn whatsoever regions of the same;\nEven any place a man has set him down\nStill leaves about him the unbounded all\nOutward in all directions; or, supposing\nA moment the all of space finite to be,\nIf some one farthest traveller runs forth\nUnto the extreme coasts and throws ahead\nA flying spear, is't then thy wish to think\nIt goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent\nAnd shoots afar, or that some object there\nCan thwart and stop it? For the one or other\nThou must admit and take. Either of which\nShuts off escape for thee, and does compel\nThat thou concede the all spreads everywhere,\nOwning no confines. Since whether there be\nAught that may block and check it so it comes\nNot where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,\nOr whether borne along, in either view\n'Thas started not from any end. And so\nI'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set\nThe extreme coasts, I'll query, \"what becomes\nThereafter of thy spear?\" 'Twill come to pass\nThat nowhere can a world's-end be, and that\nThe chance for further flight prolongs forever\nThe flight itself. Besides, were all the space\nOf the totality and sum shut in\nWith fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,\nThen would the abundance of world's matter flow\nTogether by solid weight from everywhere\nStill downward to the bottom of the world,\nNor aught could happen under cope of sky,\nNor could there be a sky at all or sun-\nIndeed, where matter all one heap would lie,\nBy having settled during infinite time.\nBut in reality, repose is given\nUnto no bodies 'mongst the elements,\nBecause there is no bottom whereunto\nThey might, as 'twere, together flow, and where\nThey might take up their undisturbed abodes.\nIn endless motion everything goes on\nForevermore; out of all regions, even\nOut of the pit below, from forth the vast,\nAre hurtled bodies evermore supplied.\nThe nature of room, the space of the abyss\nIs such that even the flashing thunderbolts\nCan neither speed upon their courses through,\nGliding across eternal tracts of time,\nNor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,\nThat they may bate their journeying one whit:\nSuch huge abundance spreads for things around-\nRoom off to every quarter, without end.\nLastly, before our very eyes is seen\nThing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,\nAnd mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,\nAnd sea in turn all lands; but for the All\nTruly is nothing which outside may bound.\nThat, too, the sum of things itself may not\nHave power to fix a measure of its own,\nGreat nature guards, she who compels the void\nTo bound all body, as body all the void,\nThus rendering by these alternates the whole\nAn infinite; or else the one or other,\nBeing unbounded by the other, spreads,\nEven by its single nature, ne'ertheless\nImmeasurably forth....\nNor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,\nNor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods\nCould keep their place least portion of an hour:\nFor, driven apart from out its meetings fit,\nThe stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne\nAlong the illimitable inane afar,\nOr rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined\nAnd given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,\nIt could not be united. For of truth\nNeither by counsel did the primal germs\n'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,\nEach in its proper place; nor did they make,\nForsooth, a compact how each germ should move;\nBut since, being many and changed in many modes\nAlong the All, they're driven abroad and vexed\nBy blow on blow, even from all time of old,\nThey thus at last, after attempting all\nThe kinds of motion and conjoining, come\nInto those great arrangements out of which\nThis sum of things established is create,\nBy which, moreover, through the mighty years,\nIt is preserved, when once it has been thrown\nInto the proper motions, bringing to pass\nThat ever the streams refresh the greedy main\nWith river-waves abounding, and that earth,\nLapped in warm exhalations of the sun,\nRenews her broods, and that the lusty race\nOf breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that\nThe gliding fires of ether are alive-\nWhat still the primal germs nowise could do,\nUnless from out the infinite of space\nCould come supply of matter, whence in season\nThey're wont whatever losses to repair.\nFor as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,\nLosing its body, when deprived of food:\nSo all things have to be dissolved as soon\nAs matter, diverted by what means soever\nFrom off its course, shall fail to be on hand.\nNor can the blows from outward still conserve,\nOn every side, whatever sum of a world\nHas been united in a whole. They can\nIndeed, by frequent beating, check a part,\nTill others arriving may fulfil the sum;\nBut meanwhile often are they forced to spring\nRebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,\nUnto those elements whence a world derives,\nRoom and a time for flight, permitting them\nTo be from off the massy union borne\nFree and afar. Wherefore, again, again:\nNeeds must there come a many for supply;\nAnd also, that the blows themselves shall be\nUnfailing ever, must there ever be\nAn infinite force of matter all sides round.\n And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far\nFrom yielding faith to that notorious talk:\nThat all things inward to the centre press;\nAnd thus the nature of the world stands firm\nWith never blows from outward, nor can be\nNowhere disparted- since all height and depth\nHave always inward to the centre pressed\n(If thou art ready to believe that aught\nItself can rest upon itself ); or that\nThe ponderous bodies which be under earth\nDo all press upwards and do come to rest\nUpon the earth, in some way upside down,\nLike to those images of things we see\nAt present through the waters. They contend,\nWith like procedure, that all breathing things\nHead downward roam about, and yet cannot\nTumble from earth to realms of sky below,\nNo more than these our bodies wing away\nSpontaneously to vaults of sky above;\nThat, when those creatures look upon the sun,\nWe view the constellations of the night;\nAnd that with us the seasons of the sky\nThey thus alternately divide, and thus\nDo pass the night coequal to our days,\nBut a vain error has given these dreams to fools,\nWhich they've embraced with reasoning perverse\nFor centre none can be where world is still\nBoundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,\nCould aught take there a fixed position more\nThan for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.\nFor all of room and space we call the void\nMust both through centre and non-centre yield\nAlike to weights where'er their motions tend.\nNor is there any place, where, when they've come,\nBodies can be at standstill in the void,\nDeprived of force of weight; nor yet may void\nFurnish support to any,- nay, it must,\nTrue to its bent of nature, still give way.\nThus in such manner not at all can things\nBe held in union, as if overcome\nBy craving for a centre.\n But besides,\nSeeing they feign that not all bodies press\nTo centre inward, rather only those\nOf earth and water (liquid of the sea,\nAnd the big billows from the mountain slopes,\nAnd whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,\nIn earthen body), contrariwise, they teach\nHow the thin air, and with it the hot fire,\nIs borne asunder from the centre, and how,\nFor this all ether quivers with bright stars,\nAnd the sun's flame along the blue is fed\n(Because the heat, from out the centre flying,\nAll gathers there), and how, again, the boughs\nUpon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,\nUnless, little by little, from out the earth\nFor each were nutriment...\n\nLest, after the manner of the winged flames,\nThe ramparts of the world should flee away,\nDissolved amain throughout the mighty void,\nAnd lest all else should likewise follow after,\nAye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst\nAnd splinter upward, and the earth forthwith\nWithdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,\nAmong its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,\nWith slipping asunder of the primal seeds,\nShould pass, along the immeasurable inane,\nAway forever, and, that instant, naught\nOf wrack and remnant would be left, beside\nThe desolate space, and germs invisible.\nFor on whatever side thou deemest first\nThe primal bodies lacking, lo, that side\nWill be for things the very door of death:\nWherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,\nOut and abroad.\n These points, if thou wilt ponder,\nThen, with but paltry trouble led along...\n\nFor one thing after other will grow clear,\nNor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,\nTo hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.\nThus things for things shall kindle torches new.\n\nBOOK II\n\nPROEM\n\n'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds\nRoll up its waste of waters, from the land\nTo watch another's labouring anguish far,\nNot that we joyously delight that man\nShould thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet\nTo mark what evils we ourselves be spared;\n'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife\nOf armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,\nOurselves no sharers in the peril; but naught\nThere is more goodly than to hold the high\nSerene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,\nWhence thou may'st look below on other men\nAnd see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed\nIn their lone seeking for the road of life;\nRivals in genius, or emulous in rank,\nPressing through days and nights with hugest toil\nFor summits of power and mastery of the world.\nO wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!\nIn how great perils, in what darks of life\nAre spent the human years, however brief!-\nO not to see that nature for herself\nBarks after nothing, save that pain keep off,\nDisjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy\nDelightsome feeling, far from care and fear!\nTherefore we see that our corporeal life\nNeeds little, altogether, and only such\nAs takes the pain away, and can besides\nStrew underneath some number of delights.\nMore grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves\nNo artifice nor luxury), if forsooth\nThere be no golden images of boys\nAlong the halls, with right hands holding out\nThe lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,\nAnd if the house doth glitter not with gold\nNor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound\nNo fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,\nYet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass\nBeside a river of water, underneath\nA big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh\nOur frames, with no vast outlay- most of all\nIf the weather is laughing and the times of the year\nBesprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.\nNor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,\nIf on a pictured tapestry thou toss,\nOr purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie\nUpon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since\nTreasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign\nAvail us naught for this our body, thus\nReckon them likewise nothing for the mind:\nSave then perchance, when thou beholdest forth\nThy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,\nRousing a mimic warfare- either side\nStrengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,\nAlike equipped with arms, alike inspired;\nOr save when also thou beholdest forth\nThy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:\nFor then, by such bright circumstance abashed,\nReligion pales and flees thy mind; O then\nThe fears of death leave heart so free of care.\nBut if we note how all this pomp at last\nIs but a drollery and a mocking sport,\nAnd of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,\nDreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords\nBut among kings and lords of all the world\nMingles undaunted, nor is overawed\nBy gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright\nOf purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this\nIs aught, but power of thinking?- when, besides\nThe whole of life but labours in the dark.\nFor just as children tremble and fear all\nIn the viewless dark, so even we at times\nDread in the light so many things that be\nNo whit more fearsome than what children feign,\nShuddering, will be upon them in the dark.\nThis terror then, this darkness of the mind,\nNot sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,\nNor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,\nBut only nature's aspect and her law.\n\n ATOMIC MOTIONS\n\n Now come: I will untangle for thy steps\nNow by what motions the begetting bodies\nOf the world-stuff beget the varied world,\nAnd then forever resolve it when begot,\nAnd by what force they are constrained to this,\nAnd what the speed appointed unto them\nWherewith to travel down the vast inane:\nDo thou remember to yield thee to my words.\nFor truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,\nSince we behold each thing to wane away,\nAnd we observe how all flows on and off,\nAs 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes\nHow eld withdraws each object at the end,\nAlbeit the sum is seen to bide the same,\nUnharmed, because these motes that leave each thing\nDiminish what they part from, but endow\nWith increase those to which in turn they come,\nConstraining these to wither in old age,\nAnd those to flower at the prime (and yet\nBiding not long among them). Thus the sum\nForever is replenished, and we live\nAs mortals by eternal give and take.\nThe nations wax, the nations wane away;\nIn a brief space the generations pass,\nAnd like to runners hand the lamp of life\nOne unto other.\n But if thou believe\nThat the primordial germs of things can stop,\nAnd in their stopping give new motions birth,\nAfar thou wanderest from the road of truth.\nFor since they wander through the void inane,\nAll the primordial germs of things must needs\nBe borne along, either by weight their own,\nOr haply by another's blow without.\nFor, when, in their incessancy so oft\nThey meet and clash, it comes to pass amain\nThey leap asunder, face to face: not strange-\nBeing most hard, and solid in their weights,\nAnd naught opposing motion, from behind.\nAnd that more clearly thou perceive how all\nThese mites of matter are darted round about,\nRecall to mind how nowhere in the sum\nOf All exists a bottom,- nowhere is\nA realm of rest for primal bodies; since\n(As amply shown and proved by reason sure)\nSpace has no bound nor measure, and extends\nUnmetered forth in all directions round.\nSince this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt\nNo rest is rendered to the primal bodies\nAlong the unfathomable inane; but rather,\nInveterately plied by motions mixed,\nSome, at their jamming, bound aback and leave\nHuge gaps between, and some from off the blow\nAre hurried about with spaces small between.\nAnd all which, brought together with slight gaps,\nIn more condensed union bound aback,\nLinked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-\nThese form the irrefragable roots of rocks\nAnd the brute bulks of iron, and what else\nIs of their kind...\nThe rest leap far asunder, far recoil,\nLeaving huge gaps between: and these supply\nFor us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.\nAnd many besides wander the mighty void-\nCast back from unions of existing things,\nNowhere accepted in the universe,\nAnd nowise linked in motions to the rest.\nAnd of this fact (as I record it here)\nAn image, a type goes on before our eyes\nPresent each moment; for behold whenever\nThe sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down\nAcross dark halls of houses: thou wilt see\nThe many mites in many a manner mixed\nAmid a void in the very light of the rays,\nAnd battling on, as in eternal strife,\nAnd in battalions contending without halt,\nIn meetings, partings, harried up and down.\nFrom this thou mayest conjecture of what sort\nThe ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds\nAmid the mightier void- at least so far\nAs small affair can for a vaster serve,\nAnd by example put thee on the spoor\nOf knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit\nThou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies\nWhich here are witnessed tumbling in the light:\nNamely, because such tumblings are a sign\nThat motions also of the primal stuff\nSecret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.\nFor thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled\nBy viewless blows, to change its little course,\nAnd beaten backwards to return again,\nHither and thither in all directions round.\nLo, all their shifting movement is of old,\nFrom the primeval atoms; for the same\nPrimordial seeds of things first move of self,\nAnd then those bodies built of unions small\nAnd nearest, as it were, unto the powers\nOf the primeval atoms, are stirred up\nBy impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,\nAnd these thereafter goad the next in size:\nThus motion ascends from the primevals on,\nAnd stage by stage emerges to our sense,\nUntil those objects also move which we\nCan mark in sunbeams, though it not appears\nWhat blows do urge them.\n Herein wonder not\nHow 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all\nMoving forever, the sum yet seems to stand\nSupremely still, except in cases where\nA thing shows motion of its frame as whole.\nFor far beneath the ken of senses lies\nThe nature of those ultimates of the world;\nAnd so, since those themselves thou canst not see,\nTheir motion also must they veil from men-\nFor mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft\nYet hide their motions, when afar from us\nAlong the distant landscape. Often thus,\nUpon a hillside will the woolly flocks\nBe cropping their goodly food and creeping about\nWhither the summons of the grass, begemmed\nWith the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,\nWell filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:\nYet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-\nA glint of white at rest on a green hill.\nAgain, when mighty legions, marching round,\nFill all the quarters of the plains below,\nRousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen\nShoots up the sky, and all the fields about\nGlitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound\nGoes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,\nAnd mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send\nThe voices onward to the stars of heaven,\nAnd hither and thither darts the cavalry,\nAnd of a sudden down the midmost fields\nCharges with onset stout enough to rock\nThe solid earth: and yet some post there is\nUp the high mountains, viewed from which they seem\nTo stand- a gleam at rest along the plains.\n Now what the speed to matter's atoms given\nThou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:\nWhen first the dawn is sprinkling with new light\nThe lands, and all the breed of birds abroad\nFlit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes\nFilling the regions along the mellow air,\nWe see 'tis forthwith manifest to man\nHow suddenly the risen sun is wont\nAt such an hour to overspread and clothe\nThe whole with its own splendour; but the sun's\nWarm exhalations and this serene light\nTravel not down an empty void; and thus\nThey are compelled more slowly to advance,\nWhilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;\nNor one by one travel these particles\nOf the warm exhalations, but are all\nEntangled and enmassed, whereby at once\nEach is restrained by each, and from without\nChecked, till compelled more slowly to advance.\nBut the primordial atoms with their old\nSimple solidity, when forth they travel\nAlong the empty void, all undelayed\nBy aught outside them there, and they, each one\nBeing one unit from nature of its parts,\nAre borne to that one place on which they strive\nStill to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,\nOutstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne\nThan light of sun, and over regions rush,\nOf space much vaster, in the self-same time\nThe sun's effulgence widens round the sky.\n\nNor to pursue the atoms one by one,\nTo see the law whereby each thing goes on.\nBut some men, ignorant of matter, think,\nOpposing this, that not without the gods,\nIn such adjustment to our human ways,\nCan nature change the seasons of the years,\nAnd bring to birth the grains and all of else\nTo which divine Delight, the guide of life,\nPersuades mortality and leads it on,\nThat, through her artful blandishments of love,\nIt propagate the generations still,\nLest humankind should perish. When they feign\nThat gods have stablished all things but for man,\nThey seem in all ways mightily to lapse\nFrom reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew\nWhat seeds primordial are, yet would I dare\nThis to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based\nUpon the ways and conduct of the skies-\nThis to maintain by many a fact besides-\nThat in no wise the nature of the world\nFor us was builded by a power divine-\nSo great the faults it stands encumbered with:\nThe which, my Memmius, later on, for thee\nWe will clear up. Now as to what remains\nConcerning motions we'll unfold our thought.\n Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs\nTo prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal\nOf its own force can e'er be upward borne,\nOr upward go- nor let the bodies of flames\nDeceive thee here: for they engendered are\nWith urge to upwards, taking thus increase,\nWhereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,\nThough all the weight within them downward bears.\nNor, when the fires will leap from under round\nThe roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up\nTimber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed\nThey act of own accord, no force beneath\nTo urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged\nFrom out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft\nAnd spatters gore. And hast thou never marked\nWith what a force the water will disgorge\nTimber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,\nWe push them in, and, many though we be,\nThe more we press with main and toil, the more\nThe water vomits up and flings them back,\nThat, more than half their length, they there emerge,\nRebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,\nThat all the weight within them downward bears\nThrough empty void. Well, in like manner, flames\nOught also to be able, when pressed out,\nThrough winds of air to rise aloft, even though\nThe weight within them strive to draw them down.\nHast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,\nThe meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,\nHow after them they draw long trails of flame\nWherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?\nHow stars and constellations drop to earth,\nSeest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven\nSheds round to every quarter its large heat,\nAnd sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:\nThus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.\nAthwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;\nNow here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,\nThe fires dash zig-zag- and that flaming power\nFalls likewise down to earth.\n In these affairs\nWe wish thee also well aware of this:\nThe atoms, as their own weight bears them down\nPlumb through the void, at scarce determined times,\nIn scarce determined places, from their course\nDecline a little- call it, so to speak,\nMere changed trend. For were it not their wont\nThuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,\nLike drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;\nAnd then collisions ne'er could be nor blows\nAmong the primal elements; and thus\nNature would never have created aught.\n But, if perchance be any that believe\nThe heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne\nPlumb down the void, are able from above\nTo strike the lighter, thus engendering blows\nAble to cause those procreant motions, far\nFrom highways of true reason they retire.\nFor whatsoever through the waters fall,\nOr through thin air, must quicken their descent,\nEach after its weight- on this account, because\nBoth bulk of water and the subtle air\nBy no means can retard each thing alike,\nBut give more quick before the heavier weight;\nBut contrariwise the empty void cannot,\nOn any side, at any time, to aught\nOppose resistance, but will ever yield,\nTrue to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,\nWith equal speed, though equal not in weight,\nMust rush, borne downward through the still inane.\nThus ne'er at all have heavier from above\nBeen swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes\nWhich cause those divers motions, by whose means\nNature transacts her work. And so I say,\nThe atoms must a little swerve at times-\nBut only the least, lest we should seem to feign\nMotions oblique, and fact refute us there.\nFor this we see forthwith is manifest:\nWhatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,\nDown on its headlong journey from above,\nAt least so far as thou canst mark; but who\nIs there can mark by sense that naught can swerve\nAt all aside from off its road's straight line?\n Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,\nAnd from the old ever arise the new\nIn fixed order, and primordial seeds\nProduce not by their swerving some new start\nOf motion to sunder the covenants of fate,\nThat cause succeed not cause from everlasting,\nWhence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,\nWhence is it wrested from the fates,- this will\nWhereby we step right forward where desire\nLeads each man on, whereby the same we swerve\nIn motions, not as at some fixed time,\nNor at some fixed line of space, but where\nThe mind itself has urged? For out of doubt\nIn these affairs 'tis each man's will itself\nThat gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs\nIncipient motions are diffused. Again,\nDost thou not see, when, at a point of time,\nThe bars are opened, how the eager strength\nOf horses cannot forward break as soon\nAs pants their mind to do? For it behooves\nThat all the stock of matter, through the frame,\nBe roused, in order that, through every joint,\nAroused, it press and follow mind's desire;\nSo thus thou seest initial motion's gendered\nFrom out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds\nFirst from the spirit's will, whence at the last\n'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.\nQuite otherwise it is, when forth we move,\nImpelled by a blow of another's mighty powers\nAnd mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough\nAll matter of our total body goes,\nHurried along, against our own desire-\nUntil the will has pulled upon the reins\nAnd checked it back, throughout our members all;\nAt whose arbitrament indeed sometimes\nThe stock of matter's forced to change its path,\nThroughout our members and throughout our joints,\nAnd, after being forward cast, to be\nReined up, whereat it settles back again.\nSo seest thou not, how, though external force\nDrive men before, and often make them move,\nOnward against desire, and headlong snatched,\nYet is there something in these breasts of ours\nStrong to combat, strong to withstand the same?-\nWherefore no less within the primal seeds\nThou must admit, besides all blows and weight,\nSome other cause of motion, whence derives\nThis power in us inborn, of some free act.-\nSince naught from nothing can become, we see.\nFor weight prevents all things should come to pass\nThrough blows, as 'twere, by some external force;\nBut that man's mind itself in all it does\nHath not a fixed necessity within,\nNor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled\nTo bear and suffer,- this state comes to man\nFrom that slight swervement of the elements\nIn no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.\n Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,\nNor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:\nFor naught gives increase and naught takes away;\nOn which account, just as they move to-day,\nThe elemental bodies moved of old\nAnd shall the same hereafter evermore.\nAnd what was wont to be begot of old\nShall be begotten under selfsame terms\nAnd grow and thrive in power, so far as given\nTo each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.\nThe sum of things there is no power can change,\nFor naught exists outside, to which can flee\nOut of the world matter of any kind,\nNor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,\nBreak in upon the founded world, and change\nWhole nature of things, and turn their motions about.\n\n ATOMIC FORMS AND THEIR COMBINATIONS\n\n Now come, and next hereafter apprehend\nWhat sorts, how vastly different in form,\nHow varied in multitudinous shapes they are-\nThese old beginnings of the universe;\nNot in the sense that only few are furnished\nWith one like form, but rather not at all\nIn general have they likeness each with each,\nNo marvel: since the stock of them's so great\nThat there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,\nThey must indeed not one and all be marked\nBy equal outline and by shape the same.\n\nMoreover, humankind, and the mute flocks\nOf scaly creatures swimming in the streams,\nAnd joyous herds around, and all the wild,\nAnd all the breeds of birds- both those that teem\nIn gladsome regions of the water-haunts,\nAbout the river-banks and springs and pools,\nAnd those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,\nThrough trackless woods- Go, take which one thou wilt,\nIn any kind: thou wilt discover still\nEach from the other still unlike in shape.\nNor in no other wise could offspring know\nMother, nor mother offspring- which we see\nThey yet can do, distinguished one from other,\nNo less than human beings, by clear signs.\nThus oft before fair temples of the gods,\nBeside the incense-burning altars slain,\nDrops down the yearling calf, from out its breast\nBreathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,\nRanging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,\nKnows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,\nWith eyes regarding every spot about,\nFor sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;\nAnd, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes\nWith her complaints; and oft she seeks again\nWithin the stall, pierced by her yearning still.\nNor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,\nNor the loved streams that glide along low banks,\nCan lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;\nNor other shapes of calves that graze thereby\nDistract her mind or lighten pain the least-\nSo keen her search for something known and hers.\nMoreover, tender kids with bleating throats\nDo know their horned dams, and butting lambs\nThe flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,\nUnfailingly each to its proper teat,\nAs nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,\nThou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind\nIs so far like another, that there still\nIs not in shapes some difference running through.\nBy a like law we see how earth is pied\nWith shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea\nBeats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.\nWherefore again, again, since seeds of things\nExist by nature, nor were wrought with hands\nAfter a fixed pattern of one other,\nThey needs must flitter to and fro with shapes\nIn types dissimilar to one another.\n\nEasy enough by thought of mind to solve\nWhy fires of lightning more can penetrate\nThan these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.\nFor thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,\nSo subtle, is formed of figures finer far,\nAnd passes thus through holes which this our fire,\nBorn from the wood, created from the pine,\nCannot. Again, light passes through the horn\nOn the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.\nAnd why?- unless those bodies of light should be\nFiner than those of water's genial showers.\nWe see how quickly through a colander\nThe wines will flow; how, on the other hand,\nThe sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,\nBecause 'tis wrought of elements more large,\nOr else more crook'd and intertangled. Thus\nIt comes that the primordials cannot be\nSo suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,\nOne through each several hole of anything.\n And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk\nYields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,\nWhilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,\nWith their foul flavour set the lips awry;\nThus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever\nCan touch the senses pleasingly are made\nOf smooth and rounded elements, whilst those\nWhich seem the bitter and the sharp, are held\nEntwined by elements more crook'd, and so\nAre wont to tear their ways into our senses,\nAnd rend our body as they enter in.\nIn short all good to sense, all bad to touch,\nBeing up-built of figures so unlike,\nAre mutually at strife- lest thou suppose\nThat the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw\nConsists of elements as smooth as song\nWhich, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings\nThe sweet musicians fashion; or suppose\nThat same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce\nWhen foul cadavers burn, as when the stage\nIs with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,\nAnd the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;\nOr hold as of like seed the goodly hues\nOf things which feast our eyes, as those which sting\nAgainst the smarting pupil and draw tears,\nOr show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.\nFor never a shape which charms our sense was made\nWithout some elemental smoothness; whilst\nWhate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed\nStill with some roughness in its elements.\nSome, too, there are which justly are supposed\nTo be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,\nWith bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,\nTo tickle rather than to wound the sense-\nAnd of which sort is the salt tartar of wine\nAnd flavours of the gummed elecampane.\nAgain, that glowing fire and icy rime\nAre fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting\nOur body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.\nFor touch- by sacred majesties of Gods!-\nTouch is indeed the body's only sense-\nBe't that something in-from-outward works,\nBe't that something in the body born\nWounds, or delighteth as it passes out\nAlong the procreant paths of Aphrodite;\nOr be't the seeds by some collision whirl\nDisordered in the body and confound\nBy tumult and confusion all the sense-\nAs thou mayst find, if haply with the hand\nThyself thou strike thy body's any part.\nOn which account, the elemental forms\nMust differ widely, as enabled thus\nTo cause diverse sensations.\n And, again,\nWhat seems to us the hardened and condensed\nMust be of atoms among themselves more hooked,\nBe held compacted deep within, as 'twere\nBy branch-like atoms- of which sort the chief\nAre diamond stones, despisers of all blows,\nAnd stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,\nAnd brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,\nDo grate and scream. But what are liquid, formed\nOf fluid body, they indeed must be\nOf elements more smooth and round- because\nTheir globules severally will not cohere:\nTo suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand\nIs quite as easy as drinking water down,\nAnd they, once struck, roll like unto the same.\nBut that thou seest among the things that flow\nSome bitter, as the brine of ocean is,\nIs not the least a marvel...\nFor since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are\nAnd round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;\nYet need not these be held together hooked:\nIn fact, though rough, they're globular besides,\nAble at once to roll, and rasp the sense.\nAnd that the more thou mayst believe me here,\nThat with smooth elements are mixed the rough\n(Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes),\nThere is a means to separate the twain,\nAnd thereupon dividedly to see\nHow the sweet water, after filtering through\nSo often underground, flows freshened forth\nInto some hollow; for it leaves above\nThe primal germs of nauseating brine,\nSince cling the rough more readily in earth.\nLastly, whatso thou markest to disperse\nUpon the instant- smoke, and cloud, and flame-\nMust not (even though not all of smooth and round)\nBe yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,\nThat thus they can, without together cleaving,\nSo pierce our body and so bore the rocks.\nWhatever we see...\nGiven to senses, that thou must perceive\nThey're not from linked but pointed elements.\n The which now having taught, I will go on\nTo bind thereto a fact to this allied\nAnd drawing from this its proof: these primal germs\nVary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.\nFor were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds\nWould have a body of infinite increase.\nFor in one seed, in one small frame of any,\nThe shapes can't vary from one another much.\nAssume, we'll say, that of three minim parts\nConsist the primal bodies, or add a few:\nWhen, now, by placing all these parts of one\nAt top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,\nThou hast with every kind of shift found out\nWhat the aspect of shape of its whole body\nEach new arrangement gives, for what remains,\nIf thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,\nNew parts must then be added; follows next,\nIf thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,\nThat by like logic each arrangement still\nRequires its increment of other parts.\nErgo, an augmentation of its frame\nFollows upon each novelty of forms.\nWherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake\nThat seeds have infinite differences in form,\nLest thus thou forcest some indeed to be\nOf an immeasurable immensity-\nWhich I have taught above cannot be proved.\n\nAnd now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam\nOf Meliboean purple, touched with dye\nOf the Thessalian shell...\nThe peacock's golden generations, stained\nWith spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown\nBy some new colour of new things more bright;\nThe odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;\nThe swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,\nOnce modulated on the many chords,\nWould likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:\nFor, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,\nWould be arising evermore. So, too,\nInto some baser part might all retire,\nEven as we said to better might they come:\nFor, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest\nTo nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,\nWould then, by reasoning reversed, be there.\nSince 'tis not so, but unto things are given\nTheir fixed limitations which do bound\nTheir sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed\nThat matter, too, by finite tale of shapes\nDoes differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats\nUnto the icy hoar-frosts of the year\nThe forward path is fixed, and by like law\nO'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.\nFor each degree of hot, and each of cold,\nAnd the half-warm, all filling up the sum\nIn due progression, lie, my Memmius, there\nBetwixt the two extremes: the things create\nMust differ, therefore, by a finite change,\nSince at each end marked off they ever are\nBy fixed point- on one side plagued by flames\nAnd on the other by congealing frosts.\n The which now having taught, I will go on\nTo bind thereto a fact to this allied\nAnd drawing from this its proof: those primal germs\nWhich have been fashioned all of one like shape\nAre infinite in tale; for, since the forms\nThemselves are finite in divergences,\nThen those which are alike will have to be\nInfinite, else the sum of stuff remains\nA finite- what I've proved is not the fact,\nShowing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,\nFrom everlasting and to-day the same,\nUphold the sum of things, all sides around\nBy old succession of unending blows.\nFor though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare,\nAnd mark'st in them a less prolific stock,\nYet in another region, in lands remote,\nThat kind abounding may make up the count;\nEven as we mark among the four-foot kind\nSnake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall\nWith ivory ramparts India about,\nThat her interiors cannot entered be-\nSo big her count of brutes of which we see\nSuch few examples. Or suppose, besides,\nWe feign some thing, one of its kind and sole\nWith body born, to which is nothing like\nIn all the lands: yet now unless shall be\nAn infinite count of matter out of which\nThus to conceive and bring it forth to life,\nIt cannot be created and- what's more-\nIt cannot take its food and get increase.\nYea, if through all the world in finite tale\nBe tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,\nWhence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,\nShall they to meeting come together there,\nIn such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-\nNo means they have of joining into one.\nBut, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,\nThe mighty main is wont to scatter wide\nThe rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,\nThe masts and swimming oars, so that afar\nAlong all shores of lands are seen afloat\nThe carven fragments of the rended poop,\nGiving a lesson to mortality\nTo shun the ambush of the faithless main,\nThe violence and the guile, and trust it not\nAt any hour, however much may smile\nThe crafty enticements of the placid deep:\nExactly thus, if once thou holdest true\nThat certain seeds are finite in their tale,\nThe various tides of matter, then, must needs\nScatter them flung throughout the ages all,\nSo that not ever can they join, as driven\nTogether into union, nor remain\nIn union, nor with increment can grow-\nBut facts in proof are manifest for each:\nThings can be both begotten and increase.\n'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,\nAre infinite in any class thou wilt-\nFrom whence is furnished matter for all things.\n Nor can those motions that bring death prevail\nForever, nor eternally entomb\nThe welfare of the world; nor, further, can\nThose motions that give birth to things and growth\nKeep them forever when created there.\nThus the long war, from everlasting waged,\nWith equal strife among the elements\nGoes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail\nThe vital forces of the world- or fall.\nMixed with the funeral is the wildered wail\nOf infants coming to the shores of light:\nNo night a day, no dawn a night hath followed\nThat heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,\nThe wild laments, companions old of death\nAnd the black rites.\n This, too, in these affairs\n'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned\nWith no forgetting brain: nothing there is\nWhose nature is apparent out of hand\nThat of one kind of elements consists-\nNothing there is that's not of mixed seed.\nAnd whatsoe'er possesses in itself\nMore largely many powers and properties\nShows thus that here within itself there are\nThe largest number of kinds and differing shapes\nOf elements. And, chief of all, the earth\nHath in herself first bodies whence the springs,\nRolling chill waters, renew forevermore\nThe unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-\nFor burns in many a spot her flamed crust,\nWhilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed\nFrom more profounder fires- and she, again,\nHath in herself the seed whence she can raise\nThe shining grains and gladsome trees for men;\nWhence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures\nCan she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.\nWherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,\nAnd parent of man hath she alone been named.\n Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece\n\nSeated in chariot o'er the realms of air\nTo drive her team of lions, teaching thus\nThat the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie\nResting on other earth. Unto her car\nThey've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,\nHowever savage, must be tamed and chid\nBy care of parents. They have girt about\nWith turret-crown the summit of her head,\nSince, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,\n'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned\nWith that same token, to-day is carried forth,\nWith solemn awe through many a mighty land,\nThe image of that mother, the divine.\nHer the wide nations, after antique rite,\nDo name Idaean Mother, giving her\nEscort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,\nFrom out those regions 'twas that grain began\nThrough all the world. To her do they assign\nThe Galli, the emasculate, since thus\nThey wish to show that men who violate\nThe majesty of the mother and have proved\nIngrate to parents are to be adjudged\nUnfit to give unto the shores of light\nA living progeny. The Galli come:\nAnd hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines\nResound around to bangings of their hands;\nThe fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;\nThe tubed pipe excites their maddened minds\nIn Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,\nWild emblems of their frenzy, which have power\nThe rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts\nTo panic with terror of the goddess' might.\nAnd so, when through the mighty cities borne,\nShe blesses man with salutations mute,\nThey strew the highway of her journeyings\nWith coin of brass and silver, gifting her\nWith alms and largesse, and shower her and shade\nWith flowers of roses falling like the snow\nUpon the Mother and her companion-bands.\nHere is an armed troop, the which by Greeks\nAre called the Phrygian Curetes. Since\nHaply among themselves they use to play\nIn games of arms and leap in measure round\nWith bloody mirth and by their nodding shake\nThe terrorizing crests upon their heads,\nThis is the armed troop that represents\nThe arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,\nAs runs the story, whilom did out-drown\nThat infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,\nYoung boys, in a swift dance around the boy,\nTo measured step beat with the brass on brass,\nThat Saturn might not get him for his jaws,\nAnd give its mother an eternal wound\nAlong her heart. And 'tis on this account\nThat armed they escort the mighty Mother,\nOr else because they signify by this\nThat she, the goddess, teaches men to be\nEager with armed valour to defend\nTheir motherland, and ready to stand forth,\nThe guard and glory of their parents' years.\nA tale, however beautifully wrought,\nThat's wide of reason by a long remove:\nFor all the gods must of themselves enjoy\nImmortal aeons and supreme repose,\nWithdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:\nImmune from peril and immune from pain,\nThemselves abounding in riches of their own,\nNeeding not us, they are not touched by wrath\nThey are not taken by service or by gift.\nTruly is earth insensate for all time;\nBut, by obtaining germs of many things,\nIn many a way she brings the many forth\nInto the light of sun. And here, whoso\nDecides to call the ocean Neptune, or\nThe grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse\nThe name of Bacchus rather than pronounce\nThe liquor's proper designation, him\nLet us permit to go on calling earth\nMother of Gods, if only he will spare\nTo taint his soul with foul religion.\n So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,\n And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing\nOften together along one grassy plain,\nUnder the cope of one blue sky, and slaking\nFrom out one stream of water each its thirst,\nAll live their lives with face and form unlike,\nKeeping the parents' nature, parents' habits,\nWhich, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.\nSo great in any sort of herb thou wilt,\nSo great again in any river of earth\nAre the distinct diversities of matter.\nHence, further, every creature- any one\nFrom out them all- compounded is the same\nOf bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews-\nAll differing vastly in their forms, and built\nOf elements dissimilar in shape.\nAgain, all things by fire consumed ablaze,\nWithin their frame lay up, if naught besides,\nAt least those atoms whence derives their power\nTo throw forth fire and send out light from under,\nTo shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.\nIf, with like reasoning of mind, all else\nThou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus\nThat in their frame the seeds of many things\nThey hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.\nFurther, thou markest much, to which are given\nAlong together colour and flavour and smell,\nAmong which, chief, are most burnt offerings.\n\nThus must they be of divers shapes composed.\nA smell of scorching enters in our frame\nWhere the bright colour from the dye goes not;\nAnd colour in one way, flavour in quite another\nWorks inward to our senses- so mayst see\nThey differ too in elemental shapes.\nThus unlike forms into one mass combine,\nAnd things exist by intermixed seed.\n But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways\nAll things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view\nPortents begot about thee every side:\nHulks of mankind half brute astarting up,\nAt times big branches sprouting from man's trunk,\nLimbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,\nAnd nature along the all-producing earth\nFeeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame\nFrom hideous jaws- Of which 'tis simple fact\nThat none have been begot; because we see\nAll are from fixed seed and fixed dam\nEngendered and so function as to keep\nThroughout their growth their own ancestral type.\nThis happens surely by a fixed law:\nFor from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,\nGo sundered atoms, suited to each creature,\nThroughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,\nProduce the proper motions; but we see\nHow, contrariwise, nature upon the ground\nThrows off those foreign to their frame; and many\nWith viewless bodies from their bodies fly,\nBy blows impelled- those impotent to join\nTo any part, or, when inside, to accord\nAnd to take on the vital motions there.\nBut think not, haply, living forms alone\nAre bound by these laws: they distinguished all.\n\nFor just as all things of creation are,\nIn their whole nature, each to each unlike,\nSo must their atoms be in shape unlike-\nNot since few only are fashioned of like form,\nBut since they all, as general rule, are not\nThe same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,\nElements many, common to many words,\nThou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess\nThe words and verses differ, each from each,\nCompounded out of different elements-\nNot since few only, as common letters, run\nThrough all the words, or no two words are made,\nOne and the other, from all like elements,\nBut since they all, as general rule, are not\nThe same as all. Thus, too, in other things,\nWhilst many germs common to many things\nThere are, yet they, combined among themselves,\nCan form new wholes to others quite unlike.\nThus fairly one may say that humankind,\nThe grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up\nOf different atoms. Further, since the seeds\nAre different, difference must there also be\nIn intervening spaces, thoroughfares,\nConnections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all\nWhich not alone distinguish living forms,\nBut sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands,\nAnd hold all heaven from the lands away.\n\n ABSENCE OF SECONDARY QUALITIES\n\n Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought\nLook thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess\nThat the white objects shining to thine eyes\nAre gendered of white atoms, or the black\nOf a black seed; or yet believe that aught\nThat's steeped in any hue should take its dye\nFrom bits of matter tinct with hue the same.\nFor matter's bodies own no hue the least-\nOr like to objects or, again, unlike.\nBut, if percase it seem to thee that mind\nItself can dart no influence of its own\nInto these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.\nFor since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed\nThe light of sun, yet recognise by touch\nThings that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,\n'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought\nNo less unto the ken of our minds too,\nThough yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.\nAgain, ourselves whatever in the dark\nWe touch, the same we do not find to be\nTinctured with any colour.\n Now that here\nI win the argument, I next will teach\n\nNow, every colour changes, none except,\nAnd every...\nWhich the primordials ought nowise to do.\nSince an immutable somewhat must remain,\nLest all things utterly be brought to naught.\nFor change of anything from out its bounds\nMeans instant death of that which was before.\nWherefore be mindful not to stain with colour\nThe seeds of things, lest things return for thee\nAll utterly to naught.\n But now, if seeds\nReceive no property of colour, and yet\nBe still endowed with variable forms\nFrom which all kinds of colours they beget\nAnd vary (by reason that ever it matters much\nWith what seeds, and in what positions joined,\nAnd what the motions that they give and get),\nForthwith most easily thou mayst devise\nWhy what was black of hue an hour ago\nCan of a sudden like the marble gleam,-\nAs ocean, when the high winds have upheaved\nIts level plains, is changed to hoary waves\nOf marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,\nThat, when the thing we often see as black\nIs in its matter then commixed anew,\nSome atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,\nAnd added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn\nGlowing and white. But if of azure seeds\nConsist the level waters of the deep,\nThey could in nowise whiten: for however\nThou shakest azure seeds, the same can never\nPass into marble hue. But, if the seeds-\nWhich thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen-\nBe now with one hue, now another dyed,\nAs oft from alien forms and divers shapes\nA cube's produced all uniform in shape,\n'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube\nWe see the forms to be dissimilar,\nThat thus we'd see in brightness of the deep\n(Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)\nColours diverse and all dissimilar.\nBesides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least\nThe whole in being externally a cube;\nBut differing hues of things do block and keep\nThe whole from being of one resultant hue.\nThen, too, the reason which entices us\nAt times to attribute colours to the seeds\nFalls quite to pieces, since white things are not\nCreate from white things, nor are black from black,\nBut evermore they are create from things\nOf divers colours. Verily, the white\nWill rise more readily, is sooner born\nOut of no colour, than of black or aught\nWhich stands in hostile opposition thus.\n Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,\nAnd the primordials come not forth to light,\n'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour-\nTruly, what kind of colour could there be\nIn the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself\nA colour changes, gleaming variedly,\nWhen smote by vertical or slanting ray.\nThus in the sunlight shows the down of doves\nThat circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:\nNow it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,\nNow, by a strange sensation it becomes\nGreen-emerald blended with the coral-red.\nThe peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,\nChanges its colours likewise, when it turns.\nWherefore, since by some blow of light begot,\nWithout such blow these colours can't become.\n And since the pupil of the eye receives\nWithin itself one kind of blow, when said\nTo feel a white hue, then another kind,\nWhen feeling a black or any other hue,\nAnd since it matters nothing with what hue\nThe things thou touchest be perchance endowed,\nBut rather with what sort of shape equipped,\n'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,\nBut render forth sensations, as of touch,\nThat vary with their varied forms.\n Besides,\nSince special shapes have not a special colour,\nAnd all formations of the primal germs\nCan be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,\nAre not those objects which are of them made\nSuffused, each kind with colours of every kind?\nFor then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly,\nShould dartle from white pinions a white sheen,\nOr swans turn black from seed of black, or be\nOf any single varied dye thou wilt.\n Again, the more an object's rent to bits,\nThe more thou see its colour fade away\nLittle by little till 'tis quite extinct;\nAs happens when the gaudy linen's picked\nShred after shred away: the purple there,\nPhoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,\nIs lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;\nHence canst perceive the fragments die away\nFrom out their colour, long ere they depart\nBack to the old primordials of things.\nAnd, last, since thou concedest not all bodies\nSend out a voice or smell, it happens thus\nThat not to all thou givest sounds and smells.\nSo, too, since we behold not all with eyes,\n'Tis thine to know some things there are as much\nOrphaned of colour, as others without smell,\nAnd reft of sound; and those the mind alert\nNo less can apprehend than it can mark\nThe things that lack some other qualities.\n But think not haply that the primal bodies\nRemain despoiled alone of colour: so,\nAre they from warmth dissevered and from cold\nAnd from hot exhalations; and they move,\nBoth sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw\nNot any odour from their proper bodies.\nJust as, when undertaking to prepare\nA liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,\nAnd flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes\nOdour of nectar, first of all behooves\nThou seek, as far as find thou may and can,\nThe inodorous olive-oil (which never sends\nOne whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may\nThe least debauch and ruin with sharp tang\nThe odorous essence with its body mixed\nAnd in it seethed. And on the same account\nThe primal germs of things must not be thought\nTo furnish colour in begetting things,\nNor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught\nFrom out themselves, nor any flavour, too,\nNor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.\n\nThe rest; yet since these things are mortal all-\nThe pliant mortal, with a body soft;\nThe brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame;\nThe hollow with a porous-all must be\nDisjoined from the primal elements,\nIf still we wish under the world to lay\nImmortal ground-works, whereupon may rest\nThe sum of weal and safety, lest for thee\nAll things return to nothing utterly.\n Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense\nMust yet confessedly be stablished all\nFrom elements insensate. And those signs,\nSo clear to all and witnessed out of hand,\nDo not refute this dictum nor oppose;\nBut rather themselves do lead us by the hand,\nCompelling belief that living things are born\nOf elements insensate, as I say.\nSooth, we may see from out the stinking dung\nLive worms spring up, when, after soaking rains,\nThe drenched earth rots; and all things change the same:\nLo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures\nInto the cattle, the cattle their nature change\nInto our bodies, and from our body, oft\nGrow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts\nAnd mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changes\nAll foods to living frames, and procreates\nFrom them the senses of live creatures all,\nIn manner about as she uncoils in flames\nDry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.\nAnd seest not, therefore, how it matters much\nAfter what order are set the primal germs,\nAnd with what other germs they all are mixed,\nAnd what the motions that they give and get?\n But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind,\nConstraining thee to sundry arguments\nAgainst belief that from insensate germs\nThe sensible is gendered?- Verily,\n'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed,\nAre yet unable to gender vital sense.\nAnd, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs\nThis to remember: that I have not said\nSenses are born, under conditions all,\nFrom all things absolutely which create\nObjects that feel; but much it matters here\nFirstly, how small the seeds which thus compose\nThe feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed,\nAnd lastly what they in positions be,\nIn motions, in arrangements. Of which facts\nNaught we perceive in logs of wood and clods;\nAnd yet even these, when sodden by the rains,\nGive birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies\nOf matter, from their old arrangements stirred\nBy the new factor, then combine anew\nIn such a way as genders living things.\n Next, they who deem that feeling objects can\nFrom feeling objects be create, and these,\nIn turn, from others that are wont to feel\n\nWhen soft they make them; for all sense is linked\nWith flesh, and thews, and veins- and such, we see,\nAre fashioned soft and of a mortal frame.\nYet be't that these can last forever on:\nThey'll have the sense that's proper to a part,\nOr else be judged to have a sense the same\nAs that within live creatures as a whole.\nBut of themselves those parts can never feel,\nFor all the sense in every member back\nTo something else refers- a severed hand,\nOr any other member of our frame,\nItself alone cannot support sensation.\nIt thus remains they must resemble, then,\nLive creatures as a whole, to have the power\nOf feeling sensation concordant in each part\nWith the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel\nThe things we feel exactly as do we.\nIf such the case, how, then, can they be named\nThe primal germs of things, and how avoid\nThe highways of destruction?- since they be\nMere living things and living things be all\nOne and the same with mortal. Grant they could,\nYet by their meetings and their unions all,\nNaught would result, indeed, besides a throng\nAnd hurly-burly all of living things-\nPrecisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts,\nBy mere conglomeration each with each\nCan still beget not anything of new.\nBut if by chance they lose, inside a body,\nTheir own sense and another sense take on,\nWhat, then, avails it to assign them that\nWhich is withdrawn thereafter? And besides,\nTo touch on proof that we pronounced before,\nJust as we see the eggs of feathered fowls\nTo change to living chicks, and swarming worms\nTo bubble forth when from the soaking rains\nThe earth is sodden, sure, sensations all\nCan out of non-sensations be begot.\n But if one say that sense can so far rise\nFrom non-sense by mutation, or because\nBrought forth as by a certain sort of birth,\n'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove\nThere is no birth, unless there be before\nSome formed union of the elements,\nNor any change, unless they be unite.\n In first place, senses can't in body be\nBefore its living nature's been begot,-\nSince all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed\nAbout through rivers, air, and earth, and all\nThat is from earth created, nor has met\nIn combination, and, in proper mode,\nConjoined into those vital motions which\nKindle the all-perceiving senses- they\nThat keep and guard each living thing soever.\n Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength\nShatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,\nAnd on it goes confounding all the sense\nOf body and mind. For of the primal germs\nAre loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout,\nThe vital motions blocked,- until the stuff,\nShaken profoundly through the frame entire,\nUndoes the vital knots of soul from body\nAnd throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,\nThrough all the pores. For what may we surmise\nA blow inflicted can achieve besides\nShaking asunder and loosening all apart?\nIt happens also, when less sharp the blow,\nThe vital motions which are left are wont\nOft to win out- win out, and stop and still\nThe uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,\nAnd call each part to its own courses back,\nAnd shake away the motion of death which now\nBegins its own dominion in the body,\nAnd kindle anew the senses almost gone.\nFor by what other means could they the more\nCollect their powers of thought and turn again\nFrom very doorways of destruction\nBack unto life, rather than pass whereto\nThey be already well-nigh sped and so\nPass quite away?\n Again, since pain is there\nWhere bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,\nThrough vitals and through joints, within their seats\nQuiver and quake inside, but soft delight,\nWhen they remove unto their place again:\n'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be\nAssaulted by no pain, nor from themselves\nTake no delight; because indeed they are\nNot made of any bodies of first things,\nUnder whose strange new motions they might ache\nOr pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.\nAnd so they must be furnished with no sense.\n Once more, if thus, that every living thing\nMay have sensation, needful 'tis to assign\nSense also to its elements, what then\nOf those fixed elements from which mankind\nHath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed?\nOf verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men,\nShaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,\nOr sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins,\nAnd have the cunning hardihood to say\nMuch on the composition of the world,\nAnd in their turn inquire what elements\nThey have themselves,- since, thus the same in kind\nAs a whole mortal creature, even they\nMust also be from other elements,\nAnd then those others from others evermore-\nSo that thou darest nowhere make a stop.\nOho, I'll follow thee until thou grant\nThe seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and\n thinks)\nIs yet derived out of other seeds\nWhich in their turn are doing just the same.\nBut if we see what raving nonsense this,\nAnd that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,\nCompounded out of laughing elements,\nAnd think and utter reason with learn'd speech,\nThough not himself compounded, for a fact,\nOf sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then,\nCannot those things which we perceive to have\nTheir own sensation be composed as well\nOf intermixed seeds quite void of sense?\n\n INFINITE WORLDS\n\n Once more, we all from seed celestial spring,\nTo all is that same father, from whom earth,\nThe fostering mother, as she takes the drops\nOf liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods-\nThe shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees,\nAnd bears the human race and of the wild\nThe generations all, the while she yields\nThe foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead\nThe genial life and propagate their kind;\nWherefore she owneth that maternal name,\nBy old desert. What was before from earth,\nThe same in earth sinks back, and what was sent\nFrom shores of ether, that, returning home,\nThe vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth death\nSo far annihilate things that she destroys\nThe bodies of matter; but she dissipates\nTheir combinations, and conjoins anew\nOne element with others; and contrives\nThat all things vary forms and change their colours\nAnd get sensations and straight give them o'er.\nAnd thus may'st know it matters with what others\nAnd in what structure the primordial germs\nAre held together, and what motions they\nAmong themselves do give and get; nor think\nThat aught we see hither and thither afloat\nUpon the crest of things, and now a birth\nAnd straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest\nDeep in the eternal atoms of the world.\n Why, even in these our very verses here\nIt matters much with what and in what order\nEach element is set: the same denote\nSky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun;\nThe same, the grains, and trees, and living things.\nAnd if not all alike, at least the most-\nBut what distinctions by positions wrought!\nAnd thus no less in things themselves, when once\nAround are changed the intervals between,\nThe paths of matter, its connections, weights,\nBlows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes,\nThe things themselves must likewise changed be.\n Now to true reason give thy mind for us.\nSince here strange truth is putting forth its might\nTo hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect\nOf things to show its front. Yet naught there is\nSo easy that it standeth not at first\nMore hard to credit than it after is;\nAnd naught soe'er that's great to such degree,\nNor wonderful so far, but all mankind\nLittle by little abandon their surprise.\nLook upward yonder at the bright clear sky\nAnd what it holds- the stars that wander o'er,\nThe moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:\nYet all, if now they first for mortals were,\nIf unforeseen now first asudden shown,\nWhat might there be more wonderful to tell,\nWhat that the nations would before have dared\nLess to believe might be?- I fancy, naught-\nSo strange had been the marvel of that sight.\nThe which o'erwearied to behold, to-day\nNone deigns look upward to those lucent realms.\nThen, spew not reason from thy mind away,\nBeside thyself because the matter's new,\nBut rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;\nAnd if to thee it then appeareth true,\nRender thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last,\nGird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man\nNow seeks the nature of the vast Beyond\nThere on the other side, that boundless sum\nWhich lies without the ramparts of the world,\nToward which the spirit longs to peer afar,\nToward which indeed the swift elan of thought\nFlies unencumbered forth.\n Firstly, we find,\nOff to all regions round, on either side,\nAbove, beneath, throughout the universe\nEnd is there none- as I have taught, as too\nThe very thing of itself declares aloud,\nAnd as from nature of the unbottomed deep\nShines clearly forth. Nor can we once suppose\nIn any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space\nTo all sides stretches infinite and free,\nAnd seeds, innumerable in number, in sum\nBottomless, there in many a manner fly,\nBestirred in everlasting motion there),\nThat only this one earth and sky of ours\nHath been create and that those bodies of stuff,\nSo many, perform no work outside the same;\nSeeing, moreover, this world too hath been\nBy nature fashioned, even as seeds of things\nBy innate motion chanced to clash and cling-\nAfter they'd been in many a manner driven\nTogether at random, without design, in vain-\nAnd as at last those seeds together dwelt,\nWhich, when together of a sudden thrown,\nShould alway furnish the commencements fit\nOf mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky,\nAnd race of living creatures. Thus, I say,\nAgain, again, 'tmust be confessed there are\nSuch congregations of matter otherwhere,\nLike this our world which vasty ether holds\nIn huge embrace.\n Besides, when matter abundant\nIs ready there, when space on hand, nor object\nNor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis\nThat things are carried on and made complete,\nPerforce. And now, if store of seeds there is\nSo great that not whole life-times of the living\nCan count the tale...\nAnd if their force and nature abide the same,\nAble to throw the seeds of things together\nInto their places, even as here are thrown\nThe seeds together in this world of ours,\n'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are\nStill other worlds, still other breeds of men,\nAnd other generations of the wild.\n Hence too it happens in the sum there is\nNo one thing single of its kind in birth,\nAnd single and sole in growth, but rather it is\nOne member of some generated race,\nAmong full many others of like kind.\nFirst, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:\nThou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild\nEven thus to be, and thus the scions of men\nTo be begot, and lastly the mute flocks\nOf scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.\nWherefore confess we must on grounds the same\nThat earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,\nExist not sole and single- rather in number\nExceeding number. Since that deeply set\nOld boundary stone of life remains for them\nNo less, and theirs a body of mortal birth\nNo less, than every kind which here on earth\nIs so abundant in its members found.\n Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,\nThen Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,\nAnd forthwith free, is seen to do all things\nHerself and through herself of own accord,\nRid of all gods. For- by their holy hearts\nWhich pass in long tranquillity of peace\nUntroubled ages and a serene life!-\nWho hath the power (I ask), who hath the power\nTo rule the sum of the immeasurable,\nTo hold with steady hand the giant reins\nOf the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power\nAt once to roll a multitude of skies,\nAt once to heat with fires ethereal all\nThe fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,\nTo be at all times in all places near,\nTo stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake\nThe serene spaces of the sky with sound,\nAnd hurl his lightnings,- ha, and whelm how oft\nIn ruins his own temples, and to rave,\nRetiring to the wildernesses, there\nAt practice with that thunderbolt of his,\nWhich yet how often shoots the guilty by,\nAnd slays the honourable blameless ones!\n Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since\nThe risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,\nHave many germs been added from outside,\nHave many seeds been added round about,\nWhich the great All, the while it flung them on,\nBrought hither, that from them the sea and lands\nCould grow more big, and that the house of heaven\nMight get more room and raise its lofty roofs\nFar over earth, and air arise around.\nFor bodies all, from out all regions, are\nDivided by blows, each to its proper thing,\nAnd all retire to their own proper kinds:\nThe moist to moist retires; earth gets increase\nFrom earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,\nBeat out new fire; and ether forges ether;\nTill nature, author and ender of the world,\nHath led all things to extreme bound of growth:\nAs haps when that which hath been poured inside\nThe vital veins of life is now no more\nThan that which ebbs within them and runs off.\nThis is the point where life for each thing ends;\nThis is the point where nature with her powers\nCurbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest\nGrow big with glad increase, and step by step\nClimb upward to ripe age, these to themselves\nTake in more bodies than they send from selves,\nWhilst still the food is easily infused\nThrough all the veins, and whilst the things are not\nSo far expanded that they cast away\nSuch numerous atoms as to cause a waste\nGreater than nutriment whereby they wax.\nFor 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things\nMany a body ebbeth and runs off;\nBut yet still more must come, until the things\nHave touched development's top pinnacle;\nThen old age breaks their powers and ripe strength\nAnd falls away into a worser part.\nFor ever the ampler and more wide a thing,\nAs soon as ever its augmentation ends,\nIt scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round\nMore bodies, sending them from out itself.\nNor easily now is food disseminate\nThrough all its veins; nor is that food enough\nTo equal with a new supply on hand\nThose plenteous exhalations it gives off.\nThus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing\nThey're made less dense and when from blows without\nThey are laid low; since food at last will fail\nExtremest eld, and bodies from outside\nCease not with thumping to undo a thing\nAnd overmaster by infesting blows.\n Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world\nOn all sides round shall taken be by storm,\nAnd tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.\nFor food it is must keep things whole, renewing;\n'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-\nBut to no purpose, since nor veins suffice\nTo hold enough, nor nature ministers\nAs much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:\nIts age is broken and the earth, outworn\nWith many parturitions, scarce creates\nThe little lives- she who created erst\nAll generations and gave forth at birth\nEnormous bodies of wild beasts of old.\nFor never, I fancy, did a golden cord\nFrom off the firmament above let down\nThe mortal generations to the fields;\nNor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks\nCreated them; but earth it was who bore-\nThe same to-day who feeds them from herself.\nBesides, herself of own accord, she first\nThe shining grains and vineyards of all joy\nCreated for mortality; herself\nGave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,\nWhich now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,\nEven when aided by our toiling arms.\nWe break the ox, and wear away the strength\nOf sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day\nBarely avail for tilling of the fields,\nSo niggardly they grudge our harvestings,\nSo much increase our labour. Now to-day\nThe aged ploughman, shaking of his head,\nSighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands\nHave fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks\nHow present times are not as times of old,\nOften he praises the fortunes of his sire,\nAnd crackles, prating, how the ancient race,\nFulfilled with piety, supported life\nWith simple comfort in a narrow plot,\nSince, man for man, the measure of each field\nWas smaller far i' the old days. And, again,\nThe gloomy planter of the withered vine\nRails at the season's change and wearies heaven,\nNor grasps that all of things by sure degrees\nAre wasting away and going to the tomb,\nOutworn by venerable length of life.\n\nBOOK III\n\nPROEM\n\nO thou who first uplifted in such dark\nSo clear a torch aloft, who first shed light\nUpon the profitable ends of man,\nO thee I follow, glory of the Greeks,\nAnd set my footsteps squarely planted now\nEven in the impress and the marks of thine-\nLess like one eager to dispute the palm,\nMore as one craving out of very love\nThat I may copy thee!- for how should swallow\nContend with swans or what compare could be\nIn a race between young kids with tumbling legs\nAnd the strong might of the horse? Our father thou,\nAnd finder-out of truth, and thou to us\nSuppliest a father's precepts; and from out\nThose scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul\n(Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds),\nWe feed upon thy golden sayings all-\nGolden, and ever worthiest endless life.\nFor soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang\nFrom god-like mind begins its loud proclaim\nOf nature's courses, terrors of the brain\nAsunder flee, the ramparts of the world\nDispart away, and through the void entire\nI see the movements of the universe.\nRises to vision the majesty of gods,\nAnd their abodes of everlasting calm\nWhich neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash,\nNor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm\nWith its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky\nO'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light.\nAnd nature gives to them their all, nor aught\nMay ever pluck their peace of mind away.\nBut nowhere to my vision rise no more\nThe vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth\nBars me no more from gazing down o'er all\nWhich under our feet is going on below\nAlong the void. O, here in these affairs\nSome new divine delight and trembling awe\nTakes hold through me, that thus by power of thine\nNature, so plain and manifest at last,\nHath been on every side laid bare to man!\n And since I've taught already of what sort\nThe seeds of all things are, and how, distinct\nIn divers forms, they flit of own accord,\nStirred with a motion everlasting on,\nAnd in what mode things be from them create,\nNow, after such matters, should my verse, meseems,\nMake clear the nature of the mind and soul,\nAnd drive that dread of Acheron without,\nHeadlong, which so confounds our human life\nUnto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is\nThe black of death, nor leaves not anything\nTo prosper- a liquid and unsullied joy.\nFor as to what men sometimes will affirm:\nThat more than Tartarus (the realm of death)\nThey fear diseases and a life of shame,\nAnd know the substance of the soul is blood,\nOr rather wind (if haply thus their whim),\nAnd so need naught of this our science, then\nThou well may'st note from what's to follow now\nThat more for glory do they braggart forth\nThan for belief. For mark these very same:\nExiles from country, fugitives afar\nFrom sight of men, with charges foul attaint,\nAbased with every wretchedness, they yet\nLive, and where'er the wretches come, they yet\nMake the ancestral sacrifices there,\nButcher the black sheep, and to gods below\nOffer the honours, and in bitter case\nTurn much more keenly to religion.\nWherefore, it's surer testing of a man\nIn doubtful perils- mark him as he is\nAmid adversities; for then alone\nAre the true voices conjured from his breast,\nThe mask off-stripped, reality behind.\nAnd greed, again, and the blind lust of honours\nWhich force poor wretches past the bounds of law,\nAnd, oft allies and ministers of crime,\nTo push through nights and days with hugest toil\nTo rise untrammelled to the peaks of power-\nThese wounds of life in no mean part are kept\nFestering and open by this fright of death.\nFor ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace\nDislodged afar from secure life and sweet,\nLike huddling Shapes before the doors of death.\nAnd whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar,\nDriven by false terror, and afar remove,\nWith civic blood a fortune they amass,\nThey double their riches, greedy, heapers-up\nOf corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh\nFor the sad burial of a brother-born,\nAnd hatred and fear of tables of their kin.\nLikewise, through this same terror, envy oft\nMakes them to peak because before their eyes\nThat man is lordly, that man gazed upon\nWho walks begirt with honour glorious,\nWhilst they in filth and darkness roll around;\nSome perish away for statues and a name,\nAnd oft to that degree, from fright of death,\nWill hate of living and beholding light\nTake hold on humankind that they inflict\nTheir own destruction with a gloomy heart-\nForgetful that this fear is font of cares,\nThis fear the plague upon their sense of shame,\nAnd this that breaks the ties of comradry\nAnd oversets all reverence and faith,\nMid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day\nOften were traitors to country and dear parents\nThrough quest to shun the realms of Acheron.\nFor just as children tremble and fear all\nIn the viewless dark, so even we at times\nDread in the light so many things that be\nNo whit more fearsome than what children feign,\nShuddering, will be upon them in the dark.\nThis terror, then, this darkness of the mind,\nNot sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,\nNor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse,\nBut only nature's aspect and her law.\n\n NATURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE MIND\n\n First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call\nThe intellect, wherein is seated life's\nCounsel and regimen, is part no less\nOf man than hand and foot and eyes are parts\nOf one whole breathing creature. [But some hold]\nThat sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,\nBut is of body some one vital state,-\nNamed \"harmony\" by Greeks, because thereby\nWe live with sense, though intellect be not\nIn any part: as oft the body is said\nTo have good health (when health, however, 's not\nOne part of him who has it), so they place\nThe sense of mind in no fixed part of man.\nMightily, diversly, meseems they err.\nOften the body palpable and seen\nSickens, while yet in some invisible part\nWe feel a pleasure; oft the other way,\nA miserable in mind feels pleasure still\nThroughout his body- quite the same as when\nA foot may pain without a pain in head.\nBesides, when these our limbs are given o'er\nTo gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame\nAt random void of sense, a something else\nIs yet within us, which upon that time\nBestirs itself in many a wise, receiving\nAll motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.\nNow, for to see that in man's members dwells\nAlso the soul, and body ne'er is wont\nTo feel sensation by a \"harmony\"\nTake this in chief: the fact that life remains\nOft in our limbs, when much of body's gone;\nYet that same life, when particles of heat,\nThough few, have scattered been, and through the mouth\nAir has been given forth abroad, forthwith\nForever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.\nThus mayst thou know that not all particles\nPerform like parts, nor in like manner all\nAre props of weal and safety: rather those-\nThe seeds of wind and exhalations warm-\nTake care that in our members life remains.\nTherefore a vital heat and wind there is\nWithin the very body, which at death\nDeserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind\nAnd even of soul is found to be, as 'twere,\nA part of man, give over \"harmony\"-\nName to musicians brought from Helicon,-\nUnless themselves they filched it otherwise,\nTo serve for what was lacking name till then.\nWhate'er it be, they're welcome to it- thou,\nHearken my other maxims.\n Mind and soul,\nI say, are held conjoined one with other,\nAnd form one single nature of themselves;\nBut chief and regnant through the frame entire\nIs still that counsel which we call the mind,\nAnd that cleaves seated in the midmost breast.\nHere leap dismay and terror; round these haunts\nBe blandishments of joys; and therefore here\nThe intellect, the mind. The rest of soul,\nThroughout the body scattered, but obeys-\nMoved by the nod and motion of the mind.\nThis, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought;\nThis for itself hath mirth, even when the thing\nThat moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all.\nAnd as, when head or eye in us is smit\nBy assailing pain, we are not tortured then\nThrough all the body, so the mind alone\nIs sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy,\nWhilst yet the soul's remainder through the limbs\nAnd through the frame is stirred by nothing new.\nBut when the mind is moved by shock more fierce,\nWe mark the whole soul suffering all at once\nAlong man's members: sweats and pallors spread\nOver the body, and the tongue is broken,\nAnd fails the voice away, and ring the ears,\nMists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse,-\nAye, men drop dead from terror of the mind.\nHence, whoso will can readily remark\nThat soul conjoined is with mind, and, when\n'Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith\nIn turn it hits and drives the body too.\n And this same argument establisheth\nThat nature of mind and soul corporeal is:\nFor when 'tis seen to drive the members on,\nTo snatch from sleep the body, and to change\nThe countenance, and the whole state of man\nTo rule and turn,- what yet could never be\nSans contact, and sans body contact fails-\nMust we not grant that mind and soul consist\nOf a corporeal nature?- And besides\nThou markst that likewise with this body of ours\nSuffers the mind and with our body feels.\nIf the dire speed of spear that cleaves the bones\nAnd bares the inner thews hits not the life,\nYet follows a fainting and a foul collapse,\nAnd, on the ground, dazed tumult in the mind,\nAnd whiles a wavering will to rise afoot.\nSo nature of mind must be corporeal, since\nFrom stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes.\n Now, of what body, what components formed\nIs this same mind I will go on to tell.\nFirst, I aver, 'tis superfine, composed\nOf tiniest particles- that such the fact\nThou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this:\nNothing is seen to happen with such speed\nAs what the mind proposes and begins;\nTherefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly\nThan aught whose nature's palpable to eyes.\nBut what's so agile must of seeds consist\nMost round, most tiny, that they may be moved,\nWhen hit by impulse slight. So water moves,\nIn waves along, at impulse just the least-\nBeing create of little shapes that roll;\nBut, contrariwise, the quality of honey\nMore stable is, its liquids more inert,\nMore tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter\nCleaves more together, since, indeed, 'tis made\nOf atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round.\nFor the light breeze that hovers yet can blow\nHigh heaps of poppy-seed away for thee\nDownward from off the top; but, contrariwise,\nA pile of stones or spiny ears of wheat\nIt can't at all. Thus, in so far as bodies\nAre small and smooth, is their mobility;\nBut, contrariwise, the heavier and more rough,\nThe more immovable they prove. Now, then,\nSince nature of mind is movable so much,\nConsist it must of seeds exceeding small\nAnd smooth and round. Which fact once known to thee,\nGood friend, will serve thee opportune in else.\nThis also shows the nature of the same,\nHow nice its texture, in how small a space\n'Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet:\nWhen death's unvexed repose gets hold on man\nAnd mind and soul retire, thou markest there\nFrom the whole body nothing ta'en in form,\nNothing in weight. Death grants ye everything,\nBut vital sense and exhalation hot.\nThus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds,\nTwined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews,\nSeeing that, when 'tis from whole body gone,\nThe outward figuration of the limbs\nIs unimpaired and weight fails not a whit.\nJust so, when vanished the bouquet of wine,\nOr when an unguent's perfume delicate\nInto the winds away departs, or when\nFrom any body savour's gone, yet still\nThe thing itself seems minished naught to eyes,\nThereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight-\nNo marvel, because seeds many and minute\nProduce the savours and the redolence\nIn the whole body of the things. And so,\nAgain, again, nature of mind and soul\n'Tis thine to know created is of seeds\nThe tiniest ever, since at flying-forth\nIt beareth nothing of the weight away.\n Yet fancy not its nature simple so.\nFor an impalpable aura, mixed with heat,\nDeserts the dying, and heat draws off the air;\nAnd heat there's none, unless commixed with air:\nFor, since the nature of all heat is rare,\nAthrough it many seeds of air must move.\nThus nature of mind is triple; yet those all\nSuffice not for creating sense- since mind\nAccepteth not that aught of these can cause\nSense-bearing motions, and much less the thoughts\nA man revolves in mind. So unto these\nMust added be a somewhat, and a fourth;\nThat somewhat's altogether void of name;\nThan which existeth naught more mobile, naught\nMore an impalpable, of elements\nMore small and smooth and round. That first transmits\nSense-bearing motions through the frame, for that\nIs roused the first, composed of little shapes;\nThence heat and viewless force of wind take up\nThe motions, and thence air, and thence all things\nAre put in motion; the blood is strook, and then\nThe vitals all begin to feel, and last\nTo bones and marrow the sensation comes-\nPleasure or torment. Nor will pain for naught\nEnter so far, nor a sharp ill seep through,\nBut all things be perturbed to that degree\nThat room for life will fail, and parts of soul\nWill scatter through the body's every pore.\nYet as a rule, almost upon the skin\nThese motion aIl are stopped, and this is why\nWe have the power to retain our life.\n Now in my eagerness to tell thee how\nThey are commixed, through what unions fit\nThey function so, my country's pauper-speech\nConstrains me sadly. As I can, however,\nI'll touch some points and pass. In such a wise\nCourse these primordials 'mongst one another\nWith inter-motions that no one can be\nFrom other sundered, nor its agency\nPerform, if once divided by a space;\nLike many powers in one body they work.\nAs in the flesh of any creature still\nIs odour and savour and a certain warmth,\nAnd yet from all of these one bulk of body\nIs made complete, so, viewless force of wind\nAnd warmth and air, commingled, do create\nOne nature, by that mobile energy\nAssisted which from out itself to them\nImparts initial motion, whereby first\nSense-bearing motion along the vitals springs.\nFor lurks this essence far and deep and under,\nNor in our body is aught more shut from view,\nAnd 'tis the very soul of all the soul.\nAnd as within our members and whole frame\nThe energy of mind and power of soul\nIs mixed and latent, since create it is\nOf bodies small and few, so lurks this fourth,\nThis essence void of name, composed of small,\nAnd seems the very soul of all the soul,\nAnd holds dominion o'er the body all.\nAnd by like reason wind and air and heat\nMust function so, commingled through the frame,\nAnd now the one subside and now another\nIn interchange of dominance, that thus\nFrom all of them one nature be produced,\nLest heat and wind apart, and air apart,\nMake sense to perish, by disseverment.\nThere is indeed in mind that heat it gets\nWhen seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes\nMore swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind,\nMuch, and so cold, companion of all dread,\nWhich rouses the shudder in the shaken frame;\nThere is no less that state of air composed,\nMaking the tranquil breast, the serene face.\nBut more of hot have they whose restive hearts,\nWhose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage-\nOf which kind chief are fierce abounding lions,\nWho often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought,\nUnable to hold the surging wrath within;\nBut the cold mind of stags has more of wind,\nAnd speedier through their inwards rouses up\nThe icy currents which make their members quake.\nBut more the oxen live by tranquil air,\nNor e'er doth smoky torch of wrath applied,\nO'erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk,\nRouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark,\nPierced through by icy javelins of fear;\nBut have their place half-way between the two-\nStags and fierce lions. Thus the race of men:\nThough training make them equally refined,\nIt leaves those pristine vestiges behind\nOf each mind's nature. Nor may we suppose\nEvil can e'er be rooted up so far\nThat one man's not more given to fits of wrath,\nAnother's not more quickly touched by fear,\nA third not more long-suffering than he should.\nAnd needs must differ in many things besides\nThe varied natures and resulting habits\nOf humankind- of which not now can I\nExpound the hidden causes, nor find names\nEnough for all the divers shapes of those\nPrimordials whence this variation springs.\nBut this meseems I'm able to declare:\nThose vestiges of natures left behind\nWhich reason cannot quite expel from us\nAre still so slight that naught prevents a man\nFrom living a life even worthy of the gods.\n So then this soul is kept by all the body,\nItself the body's guard, and source of weal:\nFor they with common roots cleave each to each,\nNor can be torn asunder without death.\nNot easy 'tis from lumps of frankincense\nTo tear their fragrance forth, without its nature\nPerishing likewise: so, not easy 'tis\nFrom all the body nature of mind and soul\nTo draw away, without the whole dissolved.\nWith seeds so intertwined even from birth,\nThey're dowered conjointly with a partner-life;\nNo energy of body or mind, apart,\nEach of itself without the other's power,\nCan have sensation; but our sense, enkindled\nAlong the vitals, to flame is blown by both\nWith mutual motions. Besides the body alone\nIs nor begot nor grows, nor after death\nSeen to endure. For not as water at times\nGives off the alien heat, nor is thereby\nItself destroyed, but unimpaired remains-\nNot thus, I say, can the deserted frame\nBear the dissevering of its joined soul,\nBut, rent and ruined, moulders all away.\nThus the joint contact of the body and soul\nLearns from their earliest age the vital motions,\nEven when still buried in the mother's womb;\nSo no dissevering can hap to them,\nWithout their bane and ill. And thence mayst see\nThat, as conjoined is their source of weal,\nConjoined also must their nature be.\n If one, moreover, denies that body feel,\nAnd holds that soul, through all the body mixed,\nTakes on this motion which we title \"sense,\"\nHe battles in vain indubitable facts:\nFor who'll explain what body's feeling is,\nExcept by what the public fact itself\nHas given and taught us? \"But when soul is parted,\nBody's without all sense.\" True!- loses what\nWas even in its life-time not its own;\nAnd much beside it loses, when soul's driven\nForth from that life-time. Or, to say that eyes\nThemselves can see no thing, but through the same\nThe mind looks forth, as out of opened doors,\nIs- a hard saying; since the feel in eyes\nSays the reverse. For this itself draws on\nAnd forces into the pupils of our eyes\nOur consciousness. And note the case when often\nWe lack the power to see refulgent things,\nBecause our eyes are hampered by their light-\nWith a mere doorway this would happen not;\nFor, since it is our very selves that see,\nNo open portals undertake the toil.\nBesides, if eyes of ours but act as doors,\nMethinks that, were our sight removed, the mind\nOught then still better to behold a thing-\nWhen even the door-posts have been cleared away.\n Herein in these affairs nowise take up\nWhat honoured sage, Democritus, lays down-\nThat proposition, that primordials\nOf body and mind, each super-posed on each,\nVary alternately and interweave\nThe fabric of our members. For not only\nAre the soul-elements smaller far than those\nWhich this our body and inward parts compose,\nBut also are they in their number less,\nAnd scattered sparsely through our frame. And thus\nThis canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs\nMaintain between them intervals as large\nAt least as are the smallest bodies, which,\nWhen thrown against us, in our body rouse\nSense-bearing motions. Hence it comes that we\nSometimes don't feel alighting on our frames\nThe clinging dust, or chalk that settles soft;\nNor mists of night, nor spider's gossamer\nWe feel against us, when, upon our road,\nIts net entangles us, nor on our head\nThe dropping of its withered garmentings;\nNor bird-feathers, nor vegetable down,\nFlying about, so light they barely fall;\nNor feel the steps of every crawling thing,\nNor each of all those footprints on our skin\nOf midges and the like. To that degree\nMust many primal germs be stirred in us\nEre once the seeds of soul that through our frame\nAre intermingled 'gin to feel that those\nPrimordials of the body have been strook,\nAnd ere, in pounding with such gaps between,\nThey clash, combine and leap apart in turn.\n But mind is more the keeper of the gates,\nHath more dominion over life than soul.\nFor without intellect and mind there's not\nOne part of soul can rest within our frame\nLeast part of time; companioning, it goes\nWith mind into the winds away, and leaves\nThe icy members in the cold of death.\nBut he whose mind and intellect abide\nHimself abides in life. However much\nThe trunk be mangled, with the limbs lopped off,\nThe soul withdrawn and taken from the limbs,\nStill lives the trunk and draws the vital air.\nEven when deprived of all but all the soul,\nYet will it linger on and cleave to life,-\nJust as the power of vision still is strong,\nIf but the pupil shall abide unharmed,\nEven when the eye around it's sorely rent-\nProvided only thou destroyest not\nWholly the ball, but, cutting round the pupil,\nLeavest that pupil by itself behind-\nFor more would ruin sight. But if that centre,\nThat tiny part of eye, be eaten through,\nForthwith the vision fails and darkness comes,\nThough in all else the unblemished ball be clear.\n'Tis by like compact that the soul and mind\nAre each to other bound forevermore.\n\nTHE SOUL IS MORTAL\n\n Now come: that thou mayst able be to know\nThat minds and the light souls of all that live\nHave mortal birth and death, I will go on\nVerses to build meet for thy rule of life,\nSought after long, discovered with sweet toil.\nBut under one name I'd have thee yoke them both;\nAnd when, for instance, I shall speak of soul,\nTeaching the same to be but mortal, think\nThereby I'm speaking also of the mind-\nSince both are one, a substance inter-joined.\nFirst, then, since I have taught how soul exists\nA subtle fabric, of particles minute,\nMade up from atoms smaller much than those\nOf water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke,\nSo in mobility it far excels,\nMore prone to move, though strook by lighter cause\nEven moved by images of smoke or fog-\nAs where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled,\nThe altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-\nFor, beyond doubt, these apparitions come\nTo us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest,\nTheir liquids depart, their waters flow away,\nWhen jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke\nDepart into the winds away, believe\nThe soul no less is shed abroad and dies\nMore quickly far, more quickly is dissolved\nBack to its primal bodies, when withdrawn\nFrom out man's members it has gone away.\nFor, sure, if body (container of the same\nLike as a jar), when shivered from some cause,\nAnd rarefied by loss of blood from veins,\nCannot for longer hold the soul, how then\nThinkst thou it can be held by any air-\nA stuff much rarer than our bodies be?\n Besides we feel that mind to being comes\nAlong with body, with body grows and ages.\nFor just as children totter round about\nWith frames infirm and tender, so there follows\nA weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,\nWhere years have ripened into robust powers,\nCounsel is also greater, more increased\nThe power of mind; thereafter, where already\nThe body's shattered by master-powers of eld,\nAnd fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,\nThought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;\nAll fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.\nTherefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,\nLike smoke, into the lofty winds of air;\nSince we behold the same to being come\nAlong with body and grow, and, as I've taught,\nCrumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.\n Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes\nMonstrous diseases and the dreadful pain,\nSo mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear;\nWherefore it tallies that the mind no less\nPartaker is of death; for pain and disease\nAre both artificers of death,- as well\nWe've learned by the passing of many a man ere now.\nNay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind\nWanders afield; for 'tis beside itself,\nAnd crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks,\nWith eyelids closing and a drooping nod,\nIn heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep;\nFrom whence nor hears it any voices more,\nNor able is to know the faces here\nOf those about him standing with wet cheeks\nWho vainly call him back to light and life.\nWherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves,\nSeeing, indeed, contagions of disease\nEnter into the same. Again, O why,\nWhen the strong wine has entered into man,\nAnd its diffused fire gone round the veins,\nWhy follows then a heaviness of limbs,\nA tangle of the legs as round he reels,\nA stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked,\nEyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls,\nAnd whatso else is of that ilk?- Why this?-\nIf not that violent and impetuous wine\nIs wont to confound the soul within the body?\nBut whatso can confounded be and balked,\nGives proof, that if a hardier cause got in,\n'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved\nOf any life thereafter. And, moreover,\nOften will some one in a sudden fit,\nAs if by stroke of lightning, tumble down\nBefore our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt,\nBlither, and twist about with sinews taut,\nGasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs\nWith tossing round. No marvel, since distract\nThrough frame by violence of disease.\n\nConfounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul,\nAs on the salt sea boil the billows round\nUnder the master might of winds. And now\nA groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped,\nBut, in the main, because the seeds of voice\nAre driven forth and carried in a mass\nOutwards by mouth, where they are wont to go,\nAnd have a builded highway. He becomes\nMere fool, since energy of mind and soul\nConfounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven,\nAsunder thrown, and torn to pieces all\nBy the same venom. But, again, where cause\nOf that disease has faced about, and back\nRetreats sharp poison of corrupted frame\nInto its shadowy lairs, the man at first\nArises reeling, and gradually comes back\nTo all his senses and recovers soul.\nThus, since within the body itself of man\nThe mind and soul are by such great diseases\nShaken, so miserably in labour distraught,\nWhy, then, believe that in the open air,\nWithout a body, they can pass their life,\nImmortal, battling with the master winds?\nAnd, since we mark the mind itself is cured,\nLike the sick body, and restored can be\nBy medicine, this is forewarning too\nThat mortal lives the mind. For proper it is\nThat whosoe'er begins and undertakes\nTo alter the mind, or meditates to change\nAny another nature soever, should add\nNew parts, or readjust the order given,\nOr from the sum remove at least a bit.\nBut what's immortal willeth for itself\nIts parts be nor increased, nor rearranged,\nNor any bit soever flow away:\nFor change of anything from out its bounds\nMeans instant death of that which was before.\nErgo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen,\nOr by the medicine restored, gives signs,\nAs I have taught, of its mortality.\nSo surely will a fact of truth make head\n'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off\nAll refuge from the adversary, and rout\nError by two-edged confutation.\n And since the mind is of a man one part,\nWhich in one fixed place remains, like ears,\nAnd eyes, and every sense which pilots life;\nAnd just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,\nSevered from us, can neither feel nor be,\nBut in the least of time is left to rot,\nThus mind alone can never be, without\nThe body and the man himself, which seems,\nAs 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught\nWhate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined:\nSince body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.\n Again, the body's and the mind's live powers\nOnly in union prosper and enjoy;\nFor neither can nature of mind, alone of self\nSans body, give the vital motions forth;\nNor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure\nAnd use the senses. Verily, as the eye,\nAlone, up-rended from its roots, apart\nFrom all the body, can peer about at naught,\nSo soul and mind it seems are nothing able,\nWhen by themselves. No marvel, because, commixed\nThrough veins and inwards, and through bones and thews,\nTheir elements primordial are confined\nBy all the body, and own no power free\nTo bound around through interspaces big,\nThus, shut within these confines, they take on\nMotions of sense, which, after death, thrown out\nBeyond the body to the winds of air,\nTake on they cannot- and on this account,\nBecause no more in such a way confined.\nFor air will be a body, be alive,\nIf in that air the soul can keep itself,\nAnd in that air enclose those motions all\nWhich in the thews and in the body itself\nA while ago 'twas making. So for this,\nAgain, again, I say confess we must,\nThat, when the body's wrappings are unwound,\nAnd when the vital breath is forced without,\nThe soul, the senses of the mind dissolve,-\nSince for the twain the cause and ground of life\nIs in the fact of their conjoined estate.\n Once more, since body's unable to sustain\nDivision from the soul, without decay\nAnd obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that\nThe soul, uprisen from the body's deeps,\nHas filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke,\nOr that the changed body crumbling fell\nWith ruin so entire, because, indeed,\nIts deep foundations have been moved from place,\nThe soul out-filtering even through the frame,\nAnd through the body's every winding way\nAnd orifice? And so by many means\nThou'rt free to learn that nature of the soul\nHath passed in fragments out along the frame,\nAnd that 'twas shivered in the very body\nEre ever it slipped abroad and swam away\nInto the winds of air. For never a man\nDying appears to feel the soul go forth\nAs one sure whole from all his body at once,\nNor first come up the throat and into mouth;\nBut feels it failing in a certain spot,\nEven as he knows the senses too dissolve\nEach in its own location in the frame.\nBut were this mind of ours immortal mind,\nDying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution,\nBut rather the going, the leaving of its coat,\nLike to a snake. Wherefore, when once the body\nHath passed away, admit we must that soul,\nShivered in all that body, perished too.\nNay, even when moving in the bounds of life,\nOften the soul, now tottering from some cause,\nCraves to go out, and from the frame entire\nLoosened to be; the countenance becomes\nFlaccid, as if the supreme hour were there;\nAnd flabbily collapse the members all\nAgainst the bloodless trunk- the kind of case\nWe see when we remark in common phrase,\n\"That man's quite gone,\" or \"fainted dead away\";\nAnd where there's now a bustle of alarm,\nAnd all are eager to get some hold upon\nThe man's last link of life. For then the mind\nAnd all the power of soul are shook so sore,\nAnd these so totter along with all the frame,\nThat any cause a little stronger might\nDissolve them altogether.- Why, then, doubt\nThat soul, when once without the body thrust,\nThere in the open, an enfeebled thing,\nIts wrappings stripped away, cannot endure\nNot only through no everlasting age,\nBut even, indeed, through not the least of time?\n Then, too, why never is the intellect,\nThe counselling mind, begotten in the head,\nThe feet, the hands, instead of cleaving still\nTo one sole seat, to one fixed haunt, the breast,\nIf not that fixed places be assigned\nFor each thing's birth, where each, when 'tis create,\nIs able to endure, and that our frames\nHave such complex adjustments that no shift\nIn order of our members may appear?\nTo that degree effect succeeds to cause,\nNor is the flame once wont to be create\nIn flowing streams, nor cold begot in fire.\n Besides, if nature of soul immortal be,\nAnd able to feel, when from our frame disjoined,\nThe same, I fancy, must be thought to be\nEndowed with senses five,- nor is there way\nBut this whereby to image to ourselves\nHow under-souls may roam in Acheron.\nThus painters and the elder race of bards\nHave pictured souls with senses so endowed.\nBut neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, alone\nApart from body can exist for soul,\nNor tongue nor ears apart. And hence indeed\nAlone by self they can nor feel nor be.\n And since we mark the vital sense to be\nIn the whole body, all one living thing,\nIf of a sudden a force with rapid stroke\nShould slice it down the middle and cleave in twain,\nBeyond a doubt likewise the soul itself,\nDivided, dissevered, asunder will be flung\nAlong with body. But what severed is\nAnd into sundry parts divides, indeed\nAdmits it owns no everlasting nature.\nWe hear how chariots of war, areek\nWith hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythes\nThe limbs away so suddenly that there,\nFallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth,\nThe while the mind and powers of the man\nCan feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt,\nAnd sheer abandon in the zest of battle:\nWith the remainder of his frame he seeks\nAnew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks\nHow the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged\nOff with the horses his left arm and shield;\nNor other how his right has dropped away,\nMounting again and on. A third attempts\nWith leg dismembered to arise and stand,\nWhilst, on the ground hard by, the dying foot\nTwitches its spreading toes. And even the head,\nWhen from the warm and living trunk lopped off,\nKeeps on the ground the vital countenance\nAnd open eyes, until 't has rendered up\nAll remnants of the soul. Nay, once again:\nIf, when a serpent's darting forth its tongue,\nAnd lashing its tail, thou gettest chance to hew\nWith axe its length of trunk to many parts,\nThou'lt see each severed fragment writhing round\nWith its fresh wound, and spattering up the sod,\nAnd there the fore-part seeking with the jaws\nAfter the hinder, with bite to stop the pain.\nSo shall we say that these be souls entire\nIn all those fractions?- but from that 'twould follow\nOne creature'd have in body many souls.\nTherefore, the soul, which was indeed but one,\nHas been divided with the body too:\nEach is but mortal, since alike is each\nHewn into many parts. Again, how often\nWe view our fellow going by degrees,\nAnd losing limb by limb the vital sense;\nFirst nails and fingers of the feet turn blue,\nNext die the feet and legs, then o'er the rest\nSlow crawl the certain footsteps of cold death.\nAnd since this nature of the soul is torn,\nNor mounts away, as at one time, entire,\nWe needs must hold it mortal. But perchance\nIf thou supposest that the soul itself\nCan inward draw along the frame, and bring\nIts parts together to one place, and so\nFrom all the members draw the sense away,\nWhy, then, that place in which such stock of soul\nCollected is, should greater seem in sense.\nBut since such place is nowhere, for a fact,\nAs said before, 'tis rent and scattered forth,\nAnd so goes under. Or again, if now\nI please to grant the false, and say that soul\nCan thus be lumped within the frames of those\nWho leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit,\nStill must the soul as mortal be confessed;\nNor aught it matters whether to wrack it go,\nDispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a mass\nFrom all its parts, sink down to brutish death,\nSince more and more in every region sense\nFails the whole man, and less and less of life\nIn every region lingers.\n And besides,\nIf soul immortal is, and winds its way\nInto the body at the birth of man,\nWhy can we not remember something, then,\nOf life-time spent before? why keep we not\nSome footprints of the things we did of, old?\nBut if so changed hath been the power of mind,\nThat every recollection of things done\nIs fallen away, at no o'erlong remove\nIs that, I trow, from what we mean by death.\nWherefore 'tis sure that what hath been before\nHath died, and what now is is now create.\n Moreover, if after the body hath been built\nOur mind's live powers are wont to be put in,\nJust at the moment that we come to birth,\nAnd cross the sills of life, 'twould scarcely fit\nFor them to live as if they seemed to grow\nAlong with limbs and frame, even in the blood,\nBut rather as in a cavern all alone.\n(Yet all the body duly throngs with sense.)\nBut public fact declares against all this:\nFor soul is so entwined through the veins,\nThe flesh, the thews, the bones, that even the teeth\nShare in sensation, as proven by dull ache,\nBy twinge from icy water, or grating crunch\nUpon a stone that got in mouth with bread.\nWherefore, again, again, souls must be thought\nNor void of birth, nor free from law of death;\nNor, if, from outward, in they wound their way,\nCould they be thought as able so to cleave\nTo these our frames, nor, since so interwove,\nAppears it that they're able to go forth\nUnhurt and whole and loose themselves unscathed\nFrom all the thews, articulations, bones.\nBut, if perchance thou thinkest that the soul,\nFrom outward winding in its way, is wont\nTo seep and soak along these members ours,\nThen all the more 'twill perish, being thus\nWith body fused- for what will seep and soak\nWill be dissolved and will therefore die.\nFor just as food, dispersed through all the pores\nOf body, and passed through limbs and all the frame,\nPerishes, supplying from itself the stuff\nFor other nature, thus the soul and mind,\nThough whole and new into a body going,\nAre yet, by seeping in, dissolved away,\nWhilst, as through pores, to all the frame there pass\nThose particles from which created is\nThis nature of mind, now ruler of our body,\nBorn from that soul which perished, when divided\nAlong the frame. Wherefore it seems that soul\nHath both a natal and funeral hour.\n Besides are seeds of soul there left behind\nIn the breathless body, or not? If there they are,\nIt cannot justly be immortal deemed,\nSince, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away:\nBut if, borne off with members uncorrupt,\n'Thas fled so absolutely all away\nIt leaves not one remainder of itself\nBehind in body, whence do cadavers, then,\nFrom out their putrid flesh exhale the worms,\nAnd whence does such a mass of living things,\nBoneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frame\nBubble and swarm? But if perchance thou thinkest\nThat souls from outward into worms can wind,\nAnd each into a separate body come,\nAnd reckonest not why many thousand souls\nCollect where only one has gone away,\nHere is a point, in sooth, that seems to need\nInquiry and a putting to the test:\nWhether the souls go on a hunt for seeds\nOf worms wherewith to build their dwelling places,\nOr enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere.\nBut why themselves they thus should do and toil\n'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body,\nThey flit around, harassed by no disease,\nNor cold nor famine; for the body labours\nBy more of kinship to these flaws of life,\nAnd mind by contact with that body suffers\nSo many ills. But grant it be for them\nHowever useful to construct a body\nTo which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't.\nThen, souls for self no frames nor bodies make,\nNor is there how they once might enter in\nTo bodies ready-made- for they cannot\nBe nicely interwoven with the same,\nAnd there'll be formed no interplay of sense\nCommon to each.\n Again, why is't there goes\nImpetuous rage with lion's breed morose,\nAnd cunning with foxes, and to deer why given\nThe ancestral fear and tendency to flee,\nAnd why in short do all the rest of traits\nEngender from the very start of life\nIn the members and mentality, if not\nBecause one certain power of mind that came\nFrom its own seed and breed waxes the same\nAlong with all the body? But were mind\nImmortal, were it wont to change its bodies,\nHow topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act!\nThe Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oft\nOf antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quake\nAlong the winds of air at the coming dove,\nAnd men would dote, and savage beasts be wise;\nFor false the reasoning of those that say\nImmortal mind is changed by change of body-\nFor what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies.\nFor parts are re-disposed and leave their order;\nWherefore they must be also capable\nOf dissolution through the frame at last,\nThat they along with body perish all.\nBut should some say that always souls of men\nGo into human bodies, I will ask:\nHow can a wise become a dullard soul?\nAnd why is never a child's a prudent soul?\nAnd the mare's filly why not trained so well\nAs sturdy strength of steed? We may be sure\nThey'll take their refuge in the thought that mind\nBecomes a weakling in a weakling frame.\nYet be this so, 'tis needful to confess\nThe soul but mortal, since, so altered now\nThroughout the frame, it loses the life and sense\nIt had before. Or how can mind wax strong\nCoequally with body and attain\nThe craved flower of life, unless it be\nThe body's colleague in its origins?\nOr what's the purport of its going forth\nFrom aged limbs?- fears it, perhaps, to stay,\nPent in a crumbled body? Or lest its house,\nOutworn by venerable length of days,\nMay topple down upon it? But indeed\nFor an immortal perils are there none.\n Again, at parturitions of the wild\nAnd at the rites of Love, that souls should stand\nReady hard by seems ludicrous enough-\nImmortals waiting for their mortal limbs\nIn numbers innumerable, contending madly\nWhich shall be first and chief to enter in!-\nUnless perchance among the souls there be\nSuch treaties stablished that the first to come\nFlying along, shall enter in the first,\nAnd that they make no rivalries of strength!\n Again, in ether can't exist a tree,\nNor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fields\nCan fishes live, nor blood in timber be,\nNor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged\nWhere everything may grow and have its place.\nThus nature of mind cannot arise alone\nWithout the body, nor exist afar\nFrom thews and blood. But if 'twere possible,\nMuch rather might this very power of mind\nBe in the head, the shoulders or the heels,\nAnd, born in any part soever, yet\nIn the same man, in the same vessel abide.\nBut since within this body even of ours\nStands fixed and appears arranged sure\nWhere soul and mind can each exist and grow,\nDeny we must the more that they can have\nDuration and birth, wholly outside the frame.\nFor, verily, the mortal to conjoin\nWith the eternal, and to feign they feel\nTogether, and can function each with each,\nIs but to dote: for what can be conceived\nOf more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted,\nThan something mortal in a union joined\nWith an immortal and a secular\nTo bear the outrageous tempests?\n Then, again,\nWhatever abides eternal must indeed\nEither repel all strokes, because 'tis made\nOf solid body, and permit no entrance\nOf aught with power to sunder from within\nThe parts compact- as are those seeds of stuff\nWhose nature we've exhibited before;\nOr else be able to endure through time\nFor this: because they are from blows exempt,\nAs is the void, the which abides untouched,\nUnsmit by any stroke; or else because\nThere is no room around, whereto things can,\nAs 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-\nEven as the sum of sums eternal is,\nWithout or place beyond whereto things may\nAsunder fly, or bodies which can smite,\nAnd thus dissolve them by the blows of might.\n But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged\nImmortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure\nIn vital forces- either because there come\nNever at all things hostile to its weal,\nOr else because what come somehow retire,\nRepelled or ere we feel the harm they work,\n\nFor, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased,\nSoul sickens too, there cometh, many a time,\nThat which torments it with the things to be,\nKeeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares;\nAnd even when evil acts are of the past,\nStill gnaw the old transgressions bitterly.\nAdd, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind,\nAnd that oblivion of the things that were;\nAdd its submergence in the murky waves\nOf drowse and torpor.\n\nFOLLY OF THE FEAR OF DEATH\n\n Therefore death to us\nIs nothing, nor concerns us in the least,\nSince nature of mind is mortal evermore.\nAnd just as in the ages gone before\nWe felt no touch of ill, when all sides round\nTo battle came the Carthaginian host,\nAnd the times, shaken by tumultuous war,\nUnder the aery coasts of arching heaven\nShuddered and trembled, and all humankind\nDoubted to which the empery should fall\nBy land and sea, thus when we are no more,\nWhen comes that sundering of our body and soul\nThrough which we're fashioned to a single state,\nVerily naught to us, us then no more,\nCan come to pass, naught move our senses then-\nNo, not if earth confounded were with sea,\nAnd sea with heaven. But if indeed do feel\nThe nature of mind and energy of soul,\nAfter their severance from this body of ours,\nYet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds\nAnd wedlock of the soul and body live,\nThrough which we're fashioned to a single state.\nAnd, even if time collected after death\nThe matter of our frames and set it all\nAgain in place as now, and if again\nTo us the light of life were given, O yet\nThat process too would not concern us aught,\nWhen once the self-succession of our sense\nHas been asunder broken. And now and here,\nLittle enough we're busied with the selves\nWe were aforetime, nor, concerning them,\nSuffer a sore distress. For shouldst thou gaze\nBackwards across all yesterdays of time\nThe immeasurable, thinking how manifold\nThe motions of matter are, then couldst thou well\nCredit this too: often these very seeds\n(From which we are to-day) of old were set\nIn the same order as they are to-day-\nYet this we can't to consciousness recall\nThrough the remembering mind. For there hath been\nAn interposed pause of life, and wide\nHave all the motions wandered everywhere\nFrom these our senses. For if woe and ail\nPerchance are toward, then the man to whom\nThe bane can happen must himself be there\nAt that same time. But death precludeth this,\nForbidding life to him on whom might crowd\nSuch irk and care; and granted 'tis to know:\nNothing for us there is to dread in death,\nNo wretchedness for him who is no more,\nThe same estate as if ne'er born before,\nWhen death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.\n Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because\nWhen dead he rots with body laid away,\nOr perishes in flames or jaws of beasts,\nKnow well: he rings not true, and that beneath\nStill works an unseen sting upon his heart,\nHowever he deny that he believes.\nHis shall be aught of feeling after death.\nFor he, I fancy, grants not what he says,\nNor what that presupposes, and he fails\nTo pluck himself with all his roots from life\nAnd cast that self away, quite unawares\nFeigning that some remainder's left behind.\nFor when in life one pictures to oneself\nHis body dead by beasts and vultures torn,\nHe pities his state, dividing not himself\nTherefrom, removing not the self enough\nFrom the body flung away, imagining\nHimself that body, and projecting there\nHis own sense, as he stands beside it: hence\nHe grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks\nThat in true death there is no second self\nAlive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,\nOr stand lamenting that the self lies there\nMangled or burning. For if it an evil is\nDead to be jerked about by jaw and fang\nOf the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not\nBitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,\nOr suffocate in honey, and, reclined\nOn the smooth oblong of an icy slab,\nGrow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth\nDown-crushing from above.\n \"Thee now no more\nThe joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,\nNor little sons run up to snatch their kisses\nAnd touch with silent happiness thy heart.\nThou shalt not speed in undertakings more,\nNor be the warder of thine own no more.\nPoor wretch,\" they say, \"one hostile hour hath ta'en\nWretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,\"\nBut add not, \"yet no longer unto thee\nRemains a remnant of desire for them\"\nIf this they only well perceived with mind\nAnd followed up with maxims, they would free\nTheir state of man from anguish and from fear.\n\"O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,\nSo shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,\nReleased from every harrying pang. But we,\nWe have bewept thee with insatiate woe,\nStanding beside whilst on the awful pyre\nThou wert made ashes; and no day shall take\nFor us the eternal sorrow from the breast.\"\nBut ask the mourner what's the bitterness\nThat man should waste in an eternal grief,\nIf, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?\nFor when the soul and frame together are sunk\nIn slumber, no one then demands his self\nOr being. Well, this sleep may be forever,\nWithout desire of any selfhood more,\nFor all it matters unto us asleep.\nYet not at all do those primordial germs\nRoam round our members, at that time, afar\nFrom their own motions that produce our senses-\nSince, when he's startled from his sleep, a man\nCollects his senses. Death is, then, to us\nMuch less- if there can be a less than that\nWhich is itself a nothing: for there comes\nHard upon death a scattering more great\nOf the throng of matter, and no man wakes up\nOn whom once falls the icy pause of life.\n This too, O often from the soul men say,\nAlong their couches holding of the cups,\nWith faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry:\n\"Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man,\nSoon, soon departed, and thereafter, no,\nIt may not be recalled.\"- As if, forsooth,\nIt were their prime of evils in great death\nTo parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought,\nOr chafe for any lack.\n Once more, if Nature\nShould of a sudden send a voice abroad,\nAnd her own self inveigh against us so:\n\"Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern\nThat thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?\nWhy this bemoaning and beweeping death?\nFor if thy life aforetime and behind\nTo thee was grateful, and not all thy good\nWas heaped as in sieve to flow away\nAnd perish unavailingly, why not,\nEven like a banqueter, depart the halls,\nLaden with life? why not with mind content\nTake now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?\nBut if whatever thou enjoyed hath been\nLavished and lost, and life is now offence,\nWhy seekest more to add- which in its turn\nWill perish foully and fall out in vain?\nO why not rather make an end of life,\nOf labour? For all I may devise or find\nTo pleasure thee is nothing: all things are\nThe same forever. Though not yet thy body\nWrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts\nOutworn, still things abide the same, even if\nThou goest on to conquer all of time\nWith length of days, yea, if thou never diest\"-\nWhat were our answer, but that Nature here\nUrges just suit and in her words lays down\nTrue cause of action? Yet should one complain,\nRiper in years and elder, and lament,\nPoor devil, his death more sorely than is fit,\nThen would she not, with greater right, on him\nCry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill:\n\"Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!\nThou wrinklest- after thou hast had the sum\nOf the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever\nWhat's not at hand, contemning present good,\nThat life has slipped away, unperfected\nAnd unavailing unto thee. And now,\nOr ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head\nStands- and before thou canst be going home\nSated and laden with the goodly feast.\nBut now yield all that's alien to thine age,-\nUp, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must.\"\nJustly, I fancy, would she reason thus,\nJustly inveigh and gird: since ever the old\nOutcrowded by the new gives way, and ever\nThe one thing from the others is repaired.\nNor no man is consigned to the abyss\nOf Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be,\nThat thus the after-generations grow,-\nThough these, their life completed, follow thee;\nAnd thus like thee are generations all-\nAlready fallen, or some time to fall.\nSo one thing from another rises ever;\nAnd in fee-simple life is given to none,\nBut unto all mere usufruct.\n Look back:\nNothing to us was all fore-passed eld\nOf time the eternal, ere we had a birth.\nAnd Nature holds this like a mirror up\nOf time-to-be when we are dead and gone.\nAnd what is there so horrible appears?\nNow what is there so sad about it all?\nIs't not serener far than any sleep?\n And, verily, those tortures said to be\nIn Acheron, the deep, they all are ours\nHere in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed\nWith baseless terror, as the fables tell,\nFears the huge boulder hanging in the air:\nBut, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods\nUrges mortality, and each one fears\nSuch fall of fortune as may chance to him.\nNor eat the vultures into Tityus\nProstrate in Acheron, nor can they find,\nForsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught\nTo pry around for in that mighty breast.\nHowever hugely he extend his bulk-\nWho hath for outspread limbs not acres nine,\nBut the whole earth- he shall not able be\nTo bear eternal pain nor furnish food\nFrom his own frame forever. But for us\nA Tityus is he whom vultures rend\nProstrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats,\nWhom troubles of any unappeased desires\nAsunder rip. We have before our eyes\nHere in this life also a Sisyphus\nIn him who seeketh of the populace\nThe rods, the axes fell, and evermore\nRetires a beaten and a gloomy man.\nFor to seek after power- an empty name,\nNor given at all- and ever in the search\nTo endure a world of toil, O this it is\nTo shove with shoulder up the hill a stone\nWhich yet comes rolling back from off the top,\nAnd headlong makes for levels of the plain.\nThen to be always feeding an ingrate mind,\nFilling with good things, satisfying never-\nAs do the seasons of the year for us,\nWhen they return and bring their progenies\nAnd varied charms, and we are never filled\nWith the fruits of life- O this, I fancy, 'tis\nTo pour, like those young virgins in the tale,\nWaters into a sieve, unfilled forever.\n\nCerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light\n\nTartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge\nOf horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor\nIndeed can be: but in this life is fear\nOf retributions just and expiations\nFor evil acts: the dungeon and the leap\nFrom that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,\nThe executioners, the oaken rack,\nThe iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.\nAnd even though these are absent, yet the mind,\nWith a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads\nAnd burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile\nWhat terminus of ills, what end of pine\nCan ever be, and feareth lest the same\nBut grow more heavy after death. Of truth,\nThe life of fools is Acheron on earth.\n This also to thy very self sometimes\nRepeat thou mayst: \"Lo, even good Ancus left\nThe sunshine with his eyes, in divers things\nA better man than thou, O worthless hind;\nAnd many other kings and lords of rule\nThereafter have gone under, once who swayed\nO'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-\nWho whilom paved a highway down the sea,\nAnd gave his legionaries thoroughfare\nAlong the deep, and taught them how to cross\nThe pools of brine afoot, and did contemn,\nTrampling upon it with his cavalry,\nThe bellowings of ocean- poured his soul\nFrom dying body, as his light was ta'en.\nAnd Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war,\nHorror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth,\nLike to the lowliest villein in the house.\nAdd finders-out of sciences and arts;\nAdd comrades of the Heliconian dames,\nAmong whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all,\nNow lies in slumber sunken with the rest.\nThen, too, Democritus, when ripened eld\nAdmonished him his memory waned away,\nOf own accord offered his head to death.\nEven Epicurus went, his light of life\nRun out, the man in genius who o'er-topped\nThe human race, extinguishing all others,\nAs sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.\nWilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-\nFor whom already life's as good as dead,\nWhilst yet thou livest and lookest?- who in sleep\nWastest thy life- time's major part, and snorest\nEven when awake, and ceasest not to see\nThe stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset\nBy baseless terror, nor discoverest oft\nWhat's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch,\nThou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares,\nAnd wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim.\"\n If men, in that same way as on the mind\nThey feel the load that wearies with its weight,\nCould also know the causes whence it comes,\nAnd why so great the heap of ill on heart,\nO not in this sort would they live their life,\nAs now so much we see them, knowing not\nWhat 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever\nA change of place, as if to drop the burden.\nThe man who sickens of his home goes out,\nForth from his splendid halls, and straight- returns,\nFeeling i'faith no better off abroad.\nHe races, driving his Gallic ponies along,\nDown to his villa, madly,- as in haste\nTo hurry help to a house afire.- At once\nHe yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,\nOr drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks\nForgetfulness, or maybe bustles about\nAnd makes for town again. In such a way\nEach human flees himself- a self in sooth,\nAs happens, he by no means can escape;\nAnd willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,\nSick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.\nYet should he see but that, O chiefly then,\nLeaving all else, he'd study to divine\nThe nature of things, since here is in debate\nEternal time and not the single hour,\nMortal's estate in whatsoever remains\nAfter great death.\n And too, when all is said,\nWhat evil lust of life is this so great\nSubdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught\nIn perils and alarms? one fixed end\nOf life abideth for mortality;\nDeath's not to shun, and we must go to meet.\nBesides we're busied with the same devices,\nEver and ever, and we are at them ever,\nAnd there's no new delight that may be forged\nBy living on. But whilst the thing we long for\nIs lacking, that seems good above all else;\nThereafter, when we've touched it, something else\nWe long for; ever one equal thirst of life\nGrips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune\nThe future times may carry, or what be\nThat chance may bring, or what the issue next\nAwaiting us. Nor by prolonging life\nTake we the least away from death's own time,\nNor can we pluck one moment off, whereby\nTo minish the aeons of our state of death.\nTherefore, O man, by living on, fulfil\nAs many generations as thou may:\nEternal death shall there be waiting still;\nAnd he who died with light of yesterday\nShall be no briefer time in death's No-more\nThan he who perished months or years before.\n\nBOOK IV\n\nPROEM\n\nI wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,\nThrough unpathed haunts of the Pierides,\nTrodden by step of none before. I joy\nTo come on undefiled fountains there,\nTo drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,\nTo seek for this my head a signal crown\nFrom regions where the Muses never yet\nHave garlanded the temples of a man:\nFirst, since I teach concerning mighty things,\nAnd go right on to loose from round the mind\nThe tightened coils of dread religion;\nNext, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame\nSong so pellucid, touching all throughout\nEven with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,\nIs not without a reasonable ground:\nFor as physicians, when they seek to give\nYoung boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch\nThe brim around the cup with the sweet juice\nAnd yellow of the honey, in order that\nThe thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled\nAs far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down\nThe wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,\nBe yet not merely duped, but rather thus\nGrow strong again with recreated health:\nSo now I too (since this my doctrine seems\nIn general somewhat woeful unto those\nWho've had it not in hand, and since the crowd\nStarts back from it in horror) have desired\nTo expound our doctrine unto thee in song\nSoft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,\nTo touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-\nIf by such method haply I might hold\nThe mind of thee upon these lines of ours,\nTill thou dost learn the nature of all things\nAnd understandest their utility.\n\nEXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES\n\n But since I've taught already of what sort\nThe seeds of all things are, and how distinct\nIn divers forms they flit of own accord,\nStirred with a motion everlasting on,\nAnd in what mode things be from them create,\nAnd since I've taught what the mind's nature is,\nAnd of what things 'tis with the body knit\nAnd thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn\nThat mind returns to its primordials,\nNow will I undertake an argument-\nOne for these matters of supreme concern-\nThat there exist those somewhats which we call\nThe images of things: these, like to films\nScaled off the utmost outside of the things,\nFlit hither and thither through the atmosphere,\nAnd the same terrify our intellects,\nComing upon us waking or in sleep,\nWhen oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes\nAnd images of people lorn of light,\nWhich oft have horribly roused us when we lay\nIn slumber- that haply nevermore may we\nSuppose that souls get loose from Acheron,\nOr shades go floating in among the living,\nOr aught of us is left behind at death,\nWhen body and mind, destroyed together, each\nBack to its own primordials goes away.\n And thus I say that effigies of things,\nAnd tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,\nFrom off the utmost outside of the things,\nWhich are like films or may be named a rind,\nBecause the image bears like look and form\nWith whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-\nA fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,\nWell learn from this: mainly, because we see\nEven 'mongst visible objects many be\nThat send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-\nLike smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-\nAnd some more interwoven and condensed-\nAs when the locusts in the summertime\nPut off their glossy tunics, or when calves\nAt birth drop membranes from their body's surface,\nOr when, again, the slippery serpent doffs\nIts vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see\nThe breres augmented with their flying spoils:\nSince such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too\nThat tenuous images from things are sent,\nFrom off the utmost outside of the things.\nFor why those kinds should drop and part from things,\nRather than others tenuous and thin,\nNo power has man to open mouth to tell;\nEspecially, since on outsides of things\nAre bodies many and minute which could,\nIn the same order which they had before,\nAnd with the figure of their form preserved,\nBe thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,\nBeing less subject to impediments,\nAs few in number and placed along the front.\nFor truly many things we see discharge\nTheir stuff at large, not only from their cores\nDeep-set within, as we have said above,\nBut from their surfaces at times no less-\nTheir very colours too. And commonly\nThe awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,\nStretched overhead in mighty theatres,\nUpon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,\nHave such an action quite; for there they dye\nAnd make to undulate with their every hue\nThe circled throng below, and all the stage,\nAnd rich attire in the patrician seats.\nAnd ever the more the theatre's dark walls\nAround them shut, the more all things within\nLaugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,\nThe daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since\nThe canvas hangings thus discharge their dye\nFrom off their surface, things in general must\nLikewise their tenuous effigies discharge,\nBecause in either case they are off-thrown\nFrom off the surface. So there are indeed\nSuch certain prints and vestiges of forms\nWhich flit around, of subtlest texture made,\nInvisible, when separate, each and one.\nAgain, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such\nStreams out of things diffusedly, because,\nWhilst coming from the deeps of body forth\nAnd rising out, along their bending path\nThey're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight\nWherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.\nBut contrariwise, when such a tenuous film\nOf outside colour is thrown off, there's naught\nCan rend it, since 'tis placed along the front\nReady to hand. Lastly those images\nWhich to our eyes in mirrors do appear,\nIn water, or in any shining surface,\nMust be, since furnished with like look of things,\nFashioned from images of things sent out.\nThere are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,\nLike unto them, which no one can divine\nWhen taken singly, which do yet give back,\nWhen by continued and recurrent discharge\nExpelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.\nNor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept\nSo well conserved that thus be given back\nFigures so like each object.\n Now then, learn\nHow tenuous is the nature of an image.\nAnd in the first place, since primordials be\nSo far beneath our senses, and much less\nE'en than those objects which begin to grow\nToo small for eyes to note, learn now in few\nHow nice are the beginnings of all things-\nThat this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:\nFirst, living creatures are sometimes so small\nThat even their third part can nowise be seen;\nJudge, then, the size of any inward organ-\nWhat of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,\nThe skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!\nAnd what besides of those first particles\nWhence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not\nHow nice and how minute? Besides, whatever\nExhales from out its body a sharp smell-\nThe nauseous absinth, or the panacea,\nStrong southernwood, or bitter centaury-\nIf never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain\nPerchance [thou touch] a one of them\n\nThen why not rather know that images\nFlit hither and thither, many, in many modes,\nBodiless and invisible?\n But lest\nHaply thou holdest that those images\nWhich come from objects are the sole that flit,\nOthers indeed there be of own accord\nBegot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,\nWhich, moulded to innumerable shapes,\nAre borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,\nCease not to change appearance and to turn\nInto new outlines of all sorts of forms;\nAs we behold the clouds grow thick on high\nAnd smirch the serene vision of the world,\nStroking the air with motions. For oft are seen\nThe giants' faces flying far along\nAnd trailing a spread of shadow; and at times\nThe mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks\nGoing before and crossing on the sun,\nWhereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain\nAnd leading in the other thunderheads.\nNow [hear] how easy and how swift they be\nEngendered, and perpetually flow off\nFrom things and gliding pass away....\n\nFor ever every outside streams away\nFrom off all objects, since discharge they may;\nAnd when this outside reaches other things,\nAs chiefly glass, it passes through; but where\nIt reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,\nThere 'tis so rent that it cannot give back\nAn image. But when gleaming objects dense,\nAs chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,\nNothing of this sort happens. For it can't\nGo, as through glass, nor yet be rent- its safety,\nBy virtue of that smoothness, being sure.\n'Tis therefore that from them the images\nStream back to us; and howso suddenly\nThou place, at any instant, anything\nBefore a mirror, there an image shows;\nProving that ever from a body's surface\nFlow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.\nThus many images in little time\nAre gendered; so their origin is named\nRightly a speedy. And even as the sun\nMust send below, in little time, to earth\nSo many beams to keep all things so full\nOf light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,\nFrom things there must be borne, in many modes,\nTo every quarter round, upon the moment,\nThe many images of things; because\nUnto whatever face of things we turn\nThe mirror, things of form and hue the same\nRespond. Besides, though but a moment since\nSerenest was the weather of the sky,\nSo fiercely sudden is it foully thick\nThat ye might think that round about all murk\nHad parted forth from Acheron and filled\nThe mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,\nAs gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night,\nDo faces of black horror hang on high-\nOf which how small a part an image is\nThere's none to tell or reckon out in words.\n Now come; with what swift motion they are borne,\nThese images, and what the speed assigned\nTo them across the breezes swimming on-\nSo that o'er lengths of space a little hour\nAlone is wasted, toward whatever region\nEach with its divers impulse tends- I'll tell\nIn verses sweeter than they many are;\nEven as the swan's slight note is better far\nThan that dispersed clamour of the cranes\nAmong the southwind's aery clouds. And first,\nOne oft may see that objects which are light\nAnd made of tiny bodies are the swift;\nIn which class is the sun's light and his heat,\nSince made from small primordial elements\nWhich, as it were, are forward knocked along\nAnd through the interspaces of the air\nTo pass delay not, urged by blows behind;\nFor light by light is instantly supplied\nAnd gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.\nThus likewise must the images have power\nThrough unimaginable space to speed\nWithin a point of time,- first, since a cause\nExceeding small there is, which at their back\nFar forward drives them and propels, where, too,\nThey're carried with such winged lightness on;\nAnd, secondly, since furnished, when sent off,\nWith texture of such rareness that they can\nThrough objects whatsoever penetrate\nAnd ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.\nBesides, if those fine particles of things\nWhich from so deep within are sent abroad,\nAs light and heat of sun, are seen to glide\nAnd spread themselves through all the space of heaven\nUpon one instant of the day, and fly\nO'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then\nOf those which on the outside stand prepared,\nWhen they're hurled off with not a thing to check\nTheir going out? Dost thou not see indeed\nHow swifter and how farther must they go\nAnd speed through manifold the length of space\nIn time the same that from the sun the rays\nO'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be\nExample chief and true with what swift speed\nThe images of things are borne about:\nThat soon as ever under open skies\nIs spread the shining water, all at once,\nIf stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth,\nSerene and radiant in the water there,\nThe constellations of the universe-\nNow seest thou not in what a point of time\nAn image from the shores of ether falls\nUnto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,\nAnd yet again, 'tis needful to confess\nWith wondrous...\n\n\nTHE SENSES AND MENTAL PICTURES\n\nBodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.\nFrom certain things flow odours evermore,\nAs cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray\nFrom waves of ocean, eater-out of walls\nAround the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit\nThe varied voices, sounds athrough the air.\nThen too there comes into the mouth at times\nThe wet of a salt taste, when by the sea\nWe roam about; and so, whene'er we watch\nThe wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.\nTo such degree from all things is each thing\nBorne streamingly along, and sent about\nTo every region round; and nature grants\nNor rest nor respite of the onward flow,\nSince 'tis incessantly we feeling have,\nAnd all the time are suffered to descry\nAnd smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.\nBesides, since shape examined by our hands\nWithin the dark is known to be the same\nAs that by eyes perceived within the light\nAnd lustrous day, both touch and sight must be\nBy one like cause aroused. So, if we test\nA square and get its stimulus on us\nWithin the dark, within the light what square\nCan fall upon our sight, except a square\nThat images the things? Wherefore it seems\nThe source of seeing is in images,\nNor without these can anything be viewed.\n Now these same films I name are borne about\nAnd tossed and scattered into regions all.\nBut since we do perceive alone through eyes,\nIt follows hence that whitherso we turn\nOur sight, all things do strike against it there\nWith form and hue. And just how far from us\nEach thing may be away, the image yields\nTo us the power to see and chance to tell:\nFor when 'tis sent, at once it shoves ahead\nAnd drives along the air that's in the space\nBetwixt it and our eyes. And thus this air\nAll glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as 'twere,\nBrushes athrough our pupils and thuswise\nPasses across. Therefore it comes we see\nHow far from us each thing may be away,\nAnd the more air there be that's driven before,\nAnd too the longer be the brushing breeze\nAgainst our eyes, the farther off removed\nEach thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work\nWith mightily swift order all goes on,\nSo that upon one instant we may see\nWhat kind the object and how far away.\n Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed\nIn these affairs that, though the films which strike\nUpon the eyes cannot be singly seen,\nThe things themselves may be perceived. For thus\nWhen the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke\nAnd when the sharp cold streams, 'tis not our wont\nTo feel each private particle of wind\nOr of that cold, but rather all at once;\nAnd so we see how blows affect our body,\nAs if one thing were beating on the same\nAnd giving us the feel of its own body\nOutside of us. Again, whene'er we thump\nWith finger-tip upon a stone, we touch\nBut the rock's surface and the outer hue,\nNor feel that hue by contact- rather feel\nThe very hardness deep within the rock.\n Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass\nAn image may be seen, perceive. For seen\nIt soothly is, removed far within.\n'Tis the same sort as objects peered upon\nOutside in their true shape, whene'er a door\nYields through itself an open peering-place,\nAnd lets us see so many things outside\nBeyond the house. Also that sight is made\nBy a twofold twin air: for first is seen\nThe air inside the door-posts; next the doors,\nThe twain to left and right; and afterwards\nA light beyond comes brushing through our eyes,\nThen other air, then objects peered upon\nOutside in their true shape. And thus, when first\nThe image of the glass projects itself,\nAs to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead\nAnd drives along the air that's in the space\nBetwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass\nThat we perceive the air ere yet the glass.\nBut when we've also seen the glass itself,\nForthwith that image which from us is borne\nReaches the glass, and there thrown back again\nComes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls\nAhead of itself another air, that then\n'Tis this we see before itself, and thus\nIt looks so far removed behind the glass.\nWherefore again, again, there's naught for wonder\n\nIn those which render from the mirror's plane\nA vision back, since each thing comes to pass\nBy means of the two airs. Now, in the glass\nThe right part of our members is observed\nUpon the left, because, when comes the image\nHitting against the level of the glass,\n'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off\nBackwards in line direct and not oblique,-\nExactly as whoso his plaster-mask\nShould dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam,\nAnd it should straightway keep, at clinging there,\nIts shape, reversed, facing him who threw,\nAnd so remould the features it gives back:\nIt comes that now the right eye is the left,\nThe left the right. An image too may be\nFrom mirror into mirror handed on,\nUntil of idol-films even five or six\nHave thus been gendered. For whatever things\nShall hide back yonder in the house, the same,\nHowever far removed in twisting ways,\nMay still be all brought forth through bending paths\nAnd by these several mirrors seen to be\nWithin the house, since nature so compels\nAll things to be borne backward and spring off\nAt equal angles from all other things.\nTo such degree the image gleams across\nFrom mirror unto mirror; where 'twas left\nIt comes to be the right, and then again\nReturns and changes round unto the left.\nAgain, those little sides of mirrors curved\nProportionate to the bulge of our own flank\nSend back to us their idols with the right\nUpon the right; and this is so because\nEither the image is passed on along\nFrom mirror unto mirror, and thereafter,\nWhen twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves;\nOr else the image wheels itself around,\nWhen once unto the mirror it has come,\nSince the curved surface teaches it to turn\nTo usward. Further, thou might'st well believe\nThat these film-idols step along with us\nAnd set their feet in unison with ours\nAnd imitate our carriage, since from that\nPart of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn\nStraightway no images can be returned.\n Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright\nAnd shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds,\nIf thou goest on to strain them unto him,\nBecause his strength is mighty, and the films\nHeavily downward from on high are borne\nThrough the pure ether and the viewless winds,\nAnd strike the eyes, disordering their joints.\nSo piecing lustre often burns the eyes,\nBecause it holdeth many seeds of fire\nWhich, working into eyes, engender pain.\nAgain, whatever jaundiced people view\nBecomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies\nFlow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet\nThe films of things, and many too are mixed\nWithin their eye, which by contagion paint\nAll things with sallowness. Again, we view\nFrom dark recesses things that stand in light,\nBecause, when first has entered and possessed\nThe open eyes this nearer darkling air,\nSwiftly the shining air and luminous\nFolloweth in, which purges then the eyes\nAnd scatters asunder of that other air\nThe sable shadows, for in large degrees\nThis air is nimbler, nicer, and more strong.\nAnd soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light\nThe pathways of the eyeballs, which before\nBlack air had blocked, there follow straightaway\nThose films of things out-standing in the light,\nProvoking vision- what we cannot do\nFrom out the light with objects in the dark,\nBecause that denser darkling air behind\nFolloweth in, and fills each aperture\nAnd thus blockades the pathways of the eyes\nThat there no images of any things\nCan be thrown in and agitate the eyes.\n And when from far away we do behold\nThe squared towers of a city, oft\nRounded they seem,- on this account because\nEach distant angle is perceived obtuse,\nOr rather it is not perceived at all;\nAnd perishes its blow nor to our gaze\nArrives its stroke, since through such length of air\nAre borne along the idols that the air\nMakes blunt the idol of the angle's point\nBy numerous collidings. When thuswise\nThe angles of the tower each and all\nHave quite escaped the sense, the stones appear\nAs rubbed and rounded on a turner's wheel-\nYet not like objects near and truly round,\nBut with a semblance to them, shadowily.\nLikewise, our shadow in the sun appears\nTo move along and follow our own steps\nAnd imitate our carriage- if thou thinkest\nAir that is thus bereft of light can walk,\nFollowing the gait and motion of mankind.\nFor what we use to name a shadow, sure\nIs naught but air deprived of light. No marvel:\nBecause the earth from spot to spot is reft\nProgressively of light of sun, whenever\nIn moving round we get within its way,\nWhile any spot of earth by us abandoned\nIs filled with light again, on this account\nIt comes to pass that what was body's shadow\nSeems still the same to follow after us\nIn one straight course. Since, evermore pour in\nNew lights of rays, and perish then the old,\nJust like the wool that's drawn into the flame.\nTherefore the earth is easily spoiled of light\nAnd easily refilled and from herself\nWasheth the black shadows quite away.\n And yet in this we don't at all concede\nThat eyes be cheated. For their task it is\nTo note in whatsoever place be light,\nIn what be shadow: whether or no the gleams\nBe still the same, and whether the shadow which\nJust now was here is that one passing thither,\nOr whether the facts be what we said above,\n'Tis after all the reasoning of mind\nThat must decide; nor can our eyeballs know\nThe nature of reality. And so\nAttach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,\nNor lightly think our senses everywhere\nAre tottering. The ship in which we sail\nIs borne along, although it seems to stand;\nThe ship that bides in roadstead is supposed\nThere to be passing by. And hills and fields\nSeem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge\nThe ship and fly under the bellying sails.\nThe stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed\nTo the ethereal caverns, though they all\nForever are in motion, rising out\nAnd thence revisiting their far descents\nWhen they have measured with their bodies bright\nThe span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon\nSeem biding in a roadstead,- objects which,\nAs plain fact proves, are really borne along.\nBetween two mountains far away aloft\nFrom midst the whirl of waters open lies\nA gaping exit for the fleet, and yet\nThey seem conjoined in a single isle.\nWhen boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,\nThe halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,\nUntil they now must almost think the roofs\nThreaten to ruin down upon their heads.\nAnd now, when nature begins to lift on high\nThe sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires,\nAnd raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains-\nO'er which he seemeth then to thee to be,\nHis glowing self hard by atingeing them\nWith his own fire- are yet away from us\nScarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed\nOft scarce five hundred courses of a dart;\nAlthough between those mountains and the sun\nLie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath\nThe vasty shores of ether, and intervene\nA thousand lands, possessed by many a folk\nAnd generations of wild beasts. Again,\nA pool of water of but a finger's depth,\nWhich lies between the stones along the pave,\nOffers a vision downward into earth\nAs far, as from the earth o'erspread on high\nThe gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view\nClouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged\nWondrously in heaven under earth.\nThen too, when in the middle of the stream\nSticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze\nInto the river's rapid waves, some force\nSeems then to bear the body of the horse,\nThough standing still, reversely from his course,\nAnd swiftly push up-stream. And wheresoe'er\nWe cast our eyes across, all objects seem\nThus to be onward borne and flow along\nIn the same way as we. A portico,\nAlbeit it stands well propped from end to end\nOn equal columns, parallel and big,\nContracts by stages in a narrow cone,\nWhen from one end the long, long whole is seen,-\nUntil, conjoining ceiling with the floor,\nAnd the whole right side with the left, it draws\nTogether to a cone's nigh-viewless point.\nTo sailors on the main the sun he seems\nFrom out the waves to rise, and in the waves\nTo set and bury his light- because indeed\nThey gaze on naught but water and the sky.\nAgain, to gazers ignorant of the sea,\nVessels in port seem, as with broken poops,\nTo lean upon the water, quite agog;\nFor any portion of the oars that's raised\nAbove the briny spray is straight, and straight\nThe rudders from above. But other parts,\nThose sunk, immersed below the water-line,\nSeem broken all and bended and inclined\nSloping to upwards, and turned back to float\nAlmost atop the water. And when the winds\nCarry the scattered drifts along the sky\nIn the night-time, then seem to glide along\nThe radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds\nAnd there on high to take far other course\nFrom that whereon in truth they're borne. And then,\nIf haply our hand be set beneath one eye\nAnd press below thereon, then to our gaze\nEach object which we gaze on seems to be,\nBy some sensation twain- then twain the lights\nOf lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame,\nAnd twain the furniture in all the house,\nTwo-fold the visages of fellow-men,\nAnd twain their bodies. And again, when sleep\nHas bound our members down in slumber soft\nAnd all the body lies in deep repose,\nYet then we seem to self to be awake\nAnd move our members; and in night's blind gloom\nWe think to mark the daylight and the sun;\nAnd, shut within a room, yet still we seem\nTo change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills,\nTo cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds,\nThough still the austere silence of the night\nAbides around us, and to speak replies,\nThough voiceless. Other cases of the sort\nWondrously many do we see, which all\nSeek, so to say, to injure faith in sense-\nIn vain, because the largest part of these\nDeceives through mere opinions of the mind,\nWhich we do add ourselves, feigning to see\nWhat by the senses are not seen at all.\nFor naught is harder than to separate\nPlain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith\nAdds by itself.\n Again, if one suppose\nThat naught is known, he knows not whether this\nItself is able to be known, since he\nConfesses naught to know. Therefore with him\nI waive discussion- who has set his head\nEven where his feet should be. But let me grant\nThat this he knows,- I question: whence he knows\nWhat 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn,\nAnd what created concept of the truth,\nAnd what device has proved the dubious\nTo differ from the certain?- since in things\nHe's heretofore seen naught of true. Thou'lt find\nThat from the senses first hath been create\nConcept of truth, nor can the senses be\nRebutted. For criterion must be found\nWorthy of greater trust, which shall defeat\nThrough own authority the false by true;\nWhat, then, than these our senses must there be\nWorthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung\nFrom some false sense, prevail to contradict\nThose senses, sprung as reason wholly is\nFrom out the senses?- For lest these be true,\nAll reason also then is falsified.\nOr shall the ears have power to blame the eyes,\nOr yet the touch the ears? Again, shall taste\nAccuse this touch or shall the nose confute\nOr eyes defeat it? Methinks not so it is:\nFor unto each has been divided off\nIts function quite apart, its power to each;\nAnd thus we're still constrained to perceive\nThe soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart\nAll divers hues and whatso things there be\nConjoined with hues. Likewise the tasting tongue\nHas its own power apart, and smells apart\nAnd sounds apart are known. And thus it is\nThat no one sense can e'er convict another.\nNor shall one sense have power to blame itself,\nBecause it always must be deemed the same,\nWorthy of equal trust. And therefore what\nAt any time unto these senses showed,\nThe same is true. And if the reason be\nUnable to unravel us the cause\nWhy objects, which at hand were square, afar\nSeemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,\nLacking the reason, to pretend a cause\nFor each configuration, than to let\nFrom out our hands escape the obvious things\nAnd injure primal faith in sense, and wreck\nAll those foundations upon which do rest\nOur life and safety. For not only reason\nWould topple down; but even our very life\nWould straightaway collapse, unless we dared\nTo trust our senses and to keep away\nFrom headlong heights and places to be shunned\nOf a like peril, and to seek with speed\nTheir opposites! Again, as in a building,\nIf the first plumb-line be askew, and if\nThe square deceiving swerve from lines exact,\nAnd if the level waver but the least\nIn any part, the whole construction then\nMust turn out faulty- shelving and askew,\nLeaning to back and front, incongruous,\nThat now some portions seem about to fall,\nAnd falls the whole ere long- betrayed indeed\nBy first deceiving estimates: so too\nThy calculations in affairs of life\nMust be askew and false, if sprung for thee\nFrom senses false. So all that troop of words\nMarshalled against the senses is quite vain.\n And now remains to demonstrate with ease\nHow other senses each their things perceive.\n Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,\nWhen, getting into ears, they strike the sense\nWith their own body. For confess we must\nEven voice and sound to be corporeal,\nBecause they're able on the sense to strike.\nBesides voice often scrapes against the throat,\nAnd screams in going out do make more rough\nThe wind-pipe- naturally enough, methinks,\nWhen, through the narrow exit rising up\nIn larger throng, these primal germs of voice\nHave thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,\nAlso the door of the mouth is scraped against\n[By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].\n\nAnd thus no doubt there is, that voice and words\nConsist of elements corporeal,\nWith power to pain. Nor art thou unaware\nLikewise how much of body's ta'en away,\nHow much from very thews and powers of men\nMay be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged\nEven from the rising splendour of the morn\nTo shadows of black evening,- above all\nIf 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.\nTherefore the voice must be corporeal,\nSince the long talker loses from his frame\nA part.\n Moreover, roughness in the sound\nComes from the roughness in the primal germs,\nAs a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;\nNor have these elements a form the same\nWhen the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,\nAs when barbaric Berecynthian pipe\nBuzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans\nBy night from icy shores of Helicon\nWith wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.\n Thus, when from deep within our frame we force\nThese voices, and at mouth expel them forth,\nThe mobile tongue, artificer of words,\nMakes them articulate, and too the lips\nBy their formations share in shaping them.\nHence when the space is short from starting-point\nTo where that voice arrives, the very words\nMust too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.\nFor then the voice conserves its own formation,\nConserves its shape. But if the space between\nBe longer than is fit, the words must be\nThrough the much air confounded, and the voice\nDisordered in its flight across the winds-\nAnd so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,\nYet not determine what the words may mean;\nTo such degree confounded and encumbered\nThe voice approaches us. Again, one word,\nSent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears\nAmong the populace. And thus one voice\nScatters asunder into many voices,\nSince it divides itself for separate ears,\nImprinting form of word and a clear tone.\nBut whatso part of voices fails to hit\nThe ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,\nIdly diffused among the winds. A part,\nBeating on solid porticoes, tossed back\nReturns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear\nWith a mere phantom of a word. When this\nThou well hast noted, thou canst render count\nUnto thyself and others why it is\nAlong the lonely places that the rocks\nGive back like shapes of words in order like,\nWhen search we after comrades wandering\nAmong the shady mountains, and aloud\nCall unto them, the scattered. I have seen\nSpots that gave back even voices six or seven\nFor one thrown forth- for so the very hills,\nDashing them back against the hills, kept on\nWith their reverberations. And these spots\nThe neighbouring country-side doth feign to be\nHaunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;\nAnd tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise\nAnd antic revels yonder they declare\nThe voiceless silences are broken oft,\nAnd tones of strings are made and wailings sweet\nWhich the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,\nPours out; and far and wide the farmer-race\nBegins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings\nOf pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan\nWith puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er\nThe open reeds,- lest flute should cease to pour\nThe woodland music! Other prodigies\nAnd wonders of this ilk they love to tell,\nLest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots\nAnd even by gods deserted. This is why\nThey boast of marvels in their story-tellings;\nOr by some other reason are led on-\nGreedy, as all mankind hath ever been,\nTo prattle fables into ears.\n Again,\nOne need not wonder how it comes about\nThat through those places (through which eyes cannot\nView objects manifest) sounds yet may pass\nAnd assail the ears. For often we observe\nPeople conversing, though the doors be closed;\nNo marvel either, since all voice unharmed\nCan wind through bended apertures of things,\nWhile idol-films decline to- for they're rent,\nUnless along straight apertures they swim,\nLike those in glass, through which all images\nDo fly across. And yet this voice itself,\nIn passing through shut chambers of a house,\nIs dulled, and in a jumble enters ears,\nAnd sound we seem to hear far more than words.\nMoreover, a voice is into all directions\nDivided up, since off from one another\nNew voices are engendered, when one voice\nHath once leapt forth, outstarting into many-\nAs oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle\nItself into its several fires. And so,\nVoices do fill those places hid behind,\nWhich all are in a hubbub round about,\nAstir with sound. But idol-films do tend,\nAs once sent forth, in straight directions all;\nWherefore one can inside a wall see naught,\nYet catch the voices from beyond the same.\n Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,\nPresent more problems for more work of thought.\nFirstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,\nWhen forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,-\nAs any one perchance begins to squeeze\nWith hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.\nNext, all which forth we squeeze is spread about\nAlong the pores and intertwined paths\nOf the loose-textured tongue. And so, when smooth\nThe bodies of the oozy flavour, then\nDelightfully they touch, delightfully\nThey treat all spots, around the wet and trickling\nEnclosures of the tongue. And contrariwise,\nThey sting and pain the sense with their assault,\nAccording as with roughness they're supplied.\nNext, only up to palate is the pleasure\nComing from flavour; for in truth when down\n'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is,\nWhilst into all the frame it spreads around;\nNor aught it matters with what food is fed\nThe body, if only what thou take thou canst\nDistribute well digested to the frame\nAnd keep the stomach in a moist career.\n Now, how it is we see some food for some,\nOthers for others....\n\nI will unfold, or wherefore what to some\nIs foul and bitter, yet the same to others\nCan seem delectable to eat,- why here\nSo great the distance and the difference is\nThat what is food to one to some becomes\nFierce poison, as a certain snake there is\nWhich, touched by spittle of a man, will waste\nAnd end itself by gnawing up its coil.\nAgain, fierce poison is the hellebore\nTo us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.\nThat thou mayst know by what devices this\nIs brought about, in chief thou must recall\nWhat we have said before, that seeds are kept\nCommixed in things in divers modes. Again,\nAs all the breathing creatures which take food\nAre outwardly unlike, and outer cut\nAnd contour of their members bounds them round,\nEach differing kind by kind, they thus consist\nOf seeds of varying shape. And furthermore,\nSince seeds do differ, divers too must be\nThe interstices and paths (which we do call\nThe apertures) in all the members, even\nIn mouth and palate too. Thus some must be\nMore small or yet more large, three-cornered some\nAnd others squared, and many others round,\nAnd certain of them many-angled too\nIn many modes. For, as the combination\nAnd motion of their divers shapes demand,\nThe shapes of apertures must be diverse\nAnd paths must vary according to their walls\nThat bound them. Hence when what is sweet to some,\nBecomes to others bitter, for him to whom\n'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs\nHave entered caressingly the palate's pores.\nAnd, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet\nIs sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt\nThe rough and barbed particles have got\nInto the narrows of the apertures.\nNow easy it is from these affairs to know\nWhatever...\n\nIndeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile\nIs stricken with fever, or in other wise\nFeels the roused violence of some malady,\nThere the whole frame is now upset, and there\nAll the positions of the seeds are changed,-\nSo that the bodies which before were fit\nTo cause the savour, now are fit no more,\nAnd now more apt are others which be able\nTo get within the pores and gender sour.\nBoth sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey-\nWhat oft we've proved above to thee before.\nNow come, and I will indicate what wise\nImpact of odour on the nostrils touches.\nAnd first, 'tis needful there be many things\nFrom whence the streaming flow of varied odours\nMay roll along, and we're constrained to think\nThey stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about\nImpartially. But for some breathing creatures\nOne odour is more apt, to others another-\nBecause of differing forms of seeds and pores.\nThus on and on along the zephyrs bees\nAre led by odour of honey, vultures too\nBy carcasses. Again, the forward power\nOf scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on\nWhithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast\nHath hastened its career; and the white goose,\nThe saviour of the Roman citadel,\nForescents afar the odour of mankind.\nThus, diversly to divers ones is given\nPeculiar smell that leadeth each along\nTo his own food or makes him start aback\nFrom loathsome poison, and in this wise are\nThe generations of the wild preserved.\n Yet is this pungence not alone in odours\nOr in the class of flavours; but, likewise,\nThe look of things and hues agree not all\nSo well with senses unto all, but that\nSome unto some will be, to gaze upon,\nMore keen and painful. Lo, the raving lions,\nThey dare not face and gaze upon the cock\nWho's wont with wings to flap away the night\nFrom off the stage, and call the beaming morn\nWith clarion voice- and lions straightway thus\nBethink themselves of flight, because, ye see,\nWithin the body of the cocks there be\nSome certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes\nInjected, bore into the pupils deep\nAnd yield such piercing pain they can't hold out\nAgainst the cocks, however fierce they be-\nWhilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least,\nEither because they do not penetrate,\nOr since they have free exit from the eyes\nAs soon as penetrating, so that thus\nThey cannot hurt our eyes in any part\nBy there remaining.\n To speak once more of odour;\nWhatever assail the nostrils, some can travel\nA longer way than others. None of them,\nHowever, 's borne so far as sound or voice-\nWhile I omit all mention of such things\nAs hit the eyesight and assail the vision.\nFor slowly on a wandering course it comes\nAnd perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed\nEasily into all the winds of air;-\nAnd first, because from deep inside the thing\nIt is discharged with labour (for the fact\nThat every object, when 'tis shivered, ground,\nOr crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger\nIs sign that odours flow and part away\nFrom inner regions of the things). And next,\nThou mayest see that odour is create\nOf larger primal germs than voice, because\nIt enters not through stony walls, wherethrough\nUnfailingly the voice and sound are borne;\nWherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not\nSo easy to trace out in whatso place\nThe smelling object is. For, dallying on\nAlong the winds, the particles cool off,\nAnd then the scurrying messengers of things\nArrive our senses, when no longer hot.\nSo dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.\n Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind,\nAnd learn, in few, whence unto intellect\nDo come what come. And first I tell thee this:\nThat many images of objects rove\nIn many modes to every region round-\nSo thin that easily the one with other,\nWhen once they meet, uniteth in mid-air,\nLike gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed,\nFar thinner are they in their fabric than\nThose images which take a hold on eyes\nAnd smite the vision, since through body's pores\nThey penetrate, and inwardly stir up\nThe subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.\nThus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus\nThe Cerberus-visages of dogs we see,\nAnd images of people gone before-\nDead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago;\nBecause the images of every kind\nAre everywhere about us borne- in part\nThose which are gendered in the very air\nOf own accord, in part those others which\nFrom divers things do part away, and those\nWhich are compounded, made from out their shapes.\nFor soothly from no living Centaur is\nThat phantom gendered, since no breed of beast\nLike him was ever; but, when images\nOf horse and man by chance have come together,\nThey easily cohere, as aforesaid,\nAt once, through subtle nature and fabric thin.\nIn the same fashion others of this ilk\nCreated are. And when they're quickly borne\nIn their exceeding lightness, easily\n(As earlier I showed) one subtle image,\nCompounded, moves by its one blow the mind,\nItself so subtle and so strangely quick.\n That these things come to pass as I record,\nFrom this thou easily canst understand:\nSo far as one is unto other like,\nSeeing with mind as well as with the eyes\nMust come to pass in fashion not unlike.\nWell, now, since I have shown that I perceive\nHaply a lion through those idol-films\nSuch as assail my eyes, 'tis thine to know\nAlso the mind is in like manner moved,\nAnd sees, nor more nor less than eyes do see\n(Except that it perceives more subtle films)\nThe lion and aught else through idol-films.\nAnd when the sleep has overset our frame,\nThe mind's intelligence is now awake,\nStill for no other reason, save that these-\nThe self-same films as when we are awake-\nAssail our minds, to such degree indeed\nThat we do seem to see for sure the man\nWhom, void of life, now death and earth have gained\nDominion over. And nature forces this\nTo come to pass because the body's senses\nAre resting, thwarted through the members all,\nUnable now to conquer false with true;\nAnd memory lies prone and languishes\nIn slumber, nor protests that he, the man\nWhom the mind feigns to see alive, long since\nHath been the gain of death and dissolution.\n And further, 'tis no marvel idols move\nAnd toss their arms and other members round\nIn rhythmic time- and often in men's sleeps\nIt haps an image this is seen to do;\nIn sooth, when perishes the former image,\nAnd other is gendered of another pose,\nThat former seemeth to have changed its gestures.\nOf course the change must be conceived as speedy;\nSo great the swiftness and so great the store\nOf idol-things, and (in an instant brief\nAs mind can mark) so great, again, the store\nOf separate idol-parts to bring supplies.\n It happens also that there is supplied\nSometimes an image not of kind the same;\nBut what before was woman, now at hand\nIs seen to stand there, altered into male;\nOr other visage, other age succeeds;\nBut slumber and oblivion take care\nThat we shall feel no wonder at the thing.\n And much in these affairs demands inquiry,\nAnd much, illumination- if we crave\nWith plainness to exhibit facts. And first,\nWhy doth the mind of one to whom the whim\nTo think has come behold forthwith that thing?\nOr do the idols watch upon our will,\nAnd doth an image unto us occur,\nDirectly we desire- if heart prefer\nThe sea, the land, or after all the sky?\nAssemblies of the citizens, parades,\nBanquets, and battles, these and all doth she,\nNature, create and furnish at our word?-\nMaugre the fact that in same place and spot\nAnother's mind is meditating things\nAll far unlike. And what, again, of this:\nWhen we in sleep behold the idols step,\nIn measure, forward, moving supple limbs,\nWhilst forth they put each supple arm in turn\nWith speedy motion, and with eyeing heads\nRepeat the movement, as the foot keeps time?\nForsooth, the idols they are steeped in art,\nAnd wander to and fro well taught indeed,-\nThus to be able in the time of night\nTo make such games! Or will the truth be this:\nBecause in one least moment that we mark-\nThat is, the uttering of a single sound-\nThere lurk yet many moments, which the reason\nDiscovers to exist, therefore it comes\nThat, in a moment how so brief ye will,\nThe divers idols are hard by, and ready\nEach in its place diverse? So great the swiftness,\nSo great, again, the store of idol-things,\nAnd so, when perishes the former image,\nAnd other is gendered of another pose,\nThe former seemeth to have changed its gestures.\nAnd since they be so tenuous, mind can mark\nSharply alone the ones it strains to see;\nAnd thus the rest do perish one and all,\nSave those for which the mind prepares itself.\nFurther, it doth prepare itself indeed,\nAnd hopes to see what follows after each-\nHence this result. For hast thou not observed\nHow eyes, essaying to perceive the fine,\nWill strain in preparation, otherwise\nUnable sharply to perceive at all?\nYet know thou canst that, even in objects plain,\nIf thou attendest not, 'tis just the same\nAs if 'twere all the time removed and far.\nWhat marvel, then, that mind doth lose the rest,\nSave those to which 'thas given up itself?\nSo 'tis that we conjecture from small signs\nThings wide and weighty, and involve ourselves\nIn snarls of self-deceit.\n\nSOME VITAL FUNCTIONS\n\n In these affairs\nWe crave that thou wilt passionately flee\nThe one offence, and anxiously wilt shun\nThe error of presuming the clear lights\nOf eyes created were that we might see;\nOr thighs and knees, aprop upon the feet,\nThuswise can bended be, that we might step\nWith goodly strides ahead; or forearms joined\nUnto the sturdy uppers, or serving hands\nOn either side were given, that we might do\nLife's own demands. All such interpretation\nIs aft-for-fore with inverse reasoning,\nSince naught is born in body so that we\nMay use the same, but birth engenders use:\nNo seeing ere the lights of eyes were born,\nNo speaking ere the tongue created was;\nBut origin of tongue came long before\nDiscourse of words, and ears created were\nMuch earlier than any sound was heard;\nAnd all the members, so meseems, were there\nBefore they got their use: and therefore, they\nCould not be gendered for the sake of use.\nBut contrariwise, contending in the fight\nWith hand to hand, and rending of the joints,\nAnd fouling of the limbs with gore, was there,\nO long before the gleaming spears ere flew;\nAnd nature prompted man to shun a wound,\nBefore the left arm by the aid of art\nOpposed the shielding targe. And, verily,\nYielding the weary body to repose,\nFar ancienter than cushions of soft beds,\nAnd quenching thirst is earlier than cups.\nThese objects, therefore, which for use and life\nHave been devised, can be conceived as found\nFor sake of using. But apart from such\nAre all which first were born and afterwards\nGave knowledge of their own utility-\nChief in which sort we note the senses, limbs:\nWherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power\nTo hold that these could thus have been create\nFor office of utility.\n Likewise,\n'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures\nSeek, even by nature of their frame, their food.\nYes, since I've taught thee that from off the things\nStream and depart innumerable bodies\nIn modes innumerable too; but most\nMust be the bodies streaming from the living-\nWhich bodies, vexed by motion evermore,\nAre through the mouth exhaled innumerable,\nWhen weary creatures pant, or through the sweat\nSqueezed forth innumerable from deep within.\nThus body rarefies, so undermined\nIn all its nature, and pain attends its state.\nAnd so the food is taken to underprop\nThe tottering joints, and by its interfusion\nTo re-create their powers, and there stop up\nThe longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins,\nFor eating. And the moist no less departs\nInto all regions that demand the moist;\nAnd many heaped-up particles of hot,\nWhich cause such burnings in these bellies of ours,\nThe liquid on arriving dissipates\nAnd quenches like a fire, that parching heat\nNo longer now can scorch the frame. And so,\nThou seest how panting thirst is washed away\nFrom off our body, how the hunger-pang\nIt, too, appeased.\n Now, how it comes that we,\nWhene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead,\nAnd how 'tis given to move our limbs about,\nAnd what device is wont to push ahead\nThis the big load of our corporeal frame,\nI'll say to thee- do thou attend what's said.\nI say that first some idol-films of walking\nInto our mind do fall and smite the mind,\nAs said before. Thereafter will arises;\nFor no one starts to do a thing, before\nThe intellect previsions what it wills;\nAnd what it there pre-visioneth depends\nOn what that image is. When, therefore, mind\nDoth so bestir itself that it doth will\nTo go and step along, it strikes at once\nThat energy of soul that's sown about\nIn all the body through the limbs and frame-\nAnd this is easy of performance, since\nThe soul is close conjoined with the mind.\nNext, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees\nThus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.\nThen too the body rarefies, and air,\nForsooth as ever of such nimbleness,\nComes on and penetrates aboundingly\nThrough opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round\nUnto all smallest places in our frame.\nThus then by these twain factors, severally,\nBody is borne like ship with oars and wind.\nNor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder\nThat particles so fine can whirl around\nSo great a body and turn this weight of ours;\nFor wind, so tenuous with its subtle body,\nYet pushes, driving on the mighty ship\nOf mighty bulk; one hand directs the same,\nWhatever its momentum, and one helm\nWhirls it around, whither ye please; and loads,\nMany and huge, are moved and hoisted high\nBy enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels,\nWith but light strain.\n Now, by what modes this sleep\nPours through our members waters of repose\nAnd frees the breast from cares of mind, I'll tell\nIn verses sweeter than they many are;\nEven as the swan's slight note is better far\nThan that dispersed clamour of the cranes\nAmong the southwind's aery clouds. Do thou\nGive me sharp ears and a sagacious mind,-\nThat thou mayst not deny the things to be\nWhereof I'm speaking, nor depart away\nWith bosom scorning these the spoken truths,\nThyself at fault unable to perceive.\nSleep chiefly comes when energy of soul\nHath now been scattered through the frame, and part\nExpelled abroad and gone away, and part\nCrammed back and settling deep within the frame-\nWhereafter then our loosened members droop.\nFor doubt is none that by the work of soul\nExist in us this sense, and when by slumber\nThat sense is thwarted, we are bound to think\nThe soul confounded and expelled abroad-\nYet not entirely, else the frame would lie\nDrenched in the everlasting cold of death.\nIn sooth, where no one part of soul remained\nLurking among the members, even as fire\nLurks buried under many ashes, whence\nCould sense amain rekindled be in members,\nAs flame can rise anew from unseen fire?\n By what devices this strange state and new\nMay be occasioned, and by what the soul\nCan be confounded and the frame grow faint,\nI will untangle: see to it, thou, that I\nPour forth my words not unto empty winds.\nIn first place, body on its outer parts-\nSince these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts-\nMust there be thumped and strook by blows of air\nRepeatedly. And therefore almost all\nAre covered either with hides, or else with shells,\nOr with the horny callus, or with bark.\nYet this same air lashes their inner parts,\nWhen creatures draw a breath or blow it out.\nWherefore, since body thus is flogged alike\nUpon the inside and the out, and blows\nCome in upon us through the little pores\nEven inward to our body's primal parts\nAnd primal elements, there comes to pass\nBy slow degrees, along our members then,\nA kind of overthrow; for then confounded\nAre those arrangements of the primal germs\nOf body and of mind. It comes to pass\nThat next a part of soul's expelled abroad,\nA part retreateth in recesses hid,\nA part, too, scattered all about the frame,\nCannot become united nor engage\nIn interchange of motion. Nature now\nSo hedges off approaches and the paths;\nAnd thus the sense, its motions all deranged,\nRetires down deep within; and since there's naught,\nAs 'twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens,\nAnd all the members languish, and the arms\nAnd eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed,\nEven there the houghs will sag and loose their powers.\nAgain, sleep follows after food, because\nThe food produces same result as air,\nWhilst being scattered round through all the veins;\nAnd much the heaviest is that slumber which,\nFull or fatigued, thou takest; since 'tis then\nThat the most bodies disarrange themselves,\nBruised by labours hard. And in same wise,\nThis three-fold change: a forcing of the soul\nDown deeper, more a casting-forth of it,\nA moving more divided in its parts\nAnd scattered more.\n And to whate'er pursuit\nA man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs\nOn which we theretofore have tarried much,\nAnd mind hath strained upon the more, we seem\nIn sleep not rarely to go at the same.\nThe lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees,\nCommanders they to fight and go at frays,\nSailors to live in combat with the winds,\nAnd we ourselves indeed to make this book,\nAnd still to seek the nature of the world\nAnd set it down, when once discovered, here\nIn these my country's leaves. Thus all pursuits,\nAll arts in general seem in sleeps to mock\nAnd master the minds of men. And whosoever\nDay after day for long to games have given\nAttention undivided, still they keep\n(As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp\nThose games with their own senses, open paths\nWithin the mind wherethrough the idol-films\nOf just those games can come. And thus it is\nFor many a day thereafter those appear\nFloating before the eyes, that even awake\nThey think they view the dancers moving round\nTheir supple limbs, and catch with both the ears\nThe liquid song of harp and speaking chords,\nAnd view the same assembly on the seats,\nAnd manifold bright glories of the stage-\nSo great the influence of pursuit and zest,\nAnd of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont\nOf men to be engaged-nor only men,\nBut soothly all the animals. Behold,\nThou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched,\nYet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever,\nAnd straining utmost strength, as if for prize,\nAs if, with barriers opened now...\nAnd hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose\nYet toss asudden all their legs about,\nAnd growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff\nThe winds again, again, as though indeed\nThey'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts,\nAnd, even when wakened, often they pursue\nThe phantom images of stags, as though\nThey did perceive them fleeing on before,\nUntil the illusion's shaken off and dogs\nCome to themselves again. And fawning breed\nOf house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge\nTo shake their bodies and start from off the ground,\nAs if beholding stranger-visages.\nAnd ever the fiercer be the stock, the more\nIn sleep the same is ever bound to rage.\nBut flee the divers tribes of birds and vex\nWith sudden wings by night the groves of gods,\nWhen in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed\nOf hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight.\nAgain, the minds of mortals which perform\nWith mighty motions mighty enterprises,\nOften in sleep will do and dare the same\nIn manner like. Kings take the towns by storm,\nSuccumb to capture, battle on the field,\nRaise a wild cry as if their throats were cut\nEven then and there. And many wrestle on\nAnd groan with pains, and fill all regions round\nWith mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed\nBy fangs of panther or of lion fierce.\nMany amid their slumbers talk about\nTheir mighty enterprises, and have often\nEnough become the proof of their own crimes.\nMany meet death; many, as if headlong\nFrom lofty mountains tumbling down to earth\nWith all their frame, are frenzied in their fright;\nAnd after sleep, as if still mad in mind,\nThey scarce come to, confounded as they are\nBy ferment of their frame. The thirsty man,\nLikewise, he sits beside delightful spring\nOr river and gulpeth down with gaping throat\nNigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young,\nBy sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress\nBy pail or public jordan and then void\nThe water filtered down their frame entire\nAnd drench the Babylonian coverlets,\nMagnificently bright. Again, those males\nInto the surging channels of whose years\nNow first has passed the seed (engendered\nWithin their members by the ripened days)\nAre in their sleep confronted from without\nBy idol-images of some fair form-\nTidings of glorious face and lovely bloom,\nWhich stir and goad the regions turgid now\nWith seed abundant; so that, as it were\nWith all the matter acted duly out,\nThey pour the billows of a potent stream\nAnd stain their garment.\n And as said before,\nThat seed is roused in us when once ripe age\nHas made our body strong...\nAs divers causes give to divers things\nImpulse and irritation, so one force\nIn human kind rouses the human seed\nTo spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues,\nForced from its first abodes, it passes down\nIn the whole body through the limbs and frame,\nMeeting in certain regions of our thews,\nAnd stirs amain the genitals of man.\nThe goaded regions swell with seed, and then\nComes the delight to dart the same at what\nThe mad desire so yearns, and body seeks\nThat object, whence the mind by love is pierced.\nFor well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound,\nAnd our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence\nThe stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed\nThe foe be close, the red jet reaches him.\nThus, one who gets a stroke from Venus' shafts-\nWhether a boy with limbs effeminate\nAssault him, or a woman darting love\nFrom all her body- that one strains to get\nEven to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs\nTo join with it and cast into its frame\nThe fluid drawn even from within its own.\nFor the mute craving doth presage delight.\n\nTHE PASSION OF LOVE\n\n This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us:\nFrom this, engender all the lures of love,\nFrom this, O first hath into human hearts\nTrickled that drop of joyance which ere long\nIs by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,\nThough she thou lovest now be far away,\nYet idol-images of her are near\nAnd the sweet name is floating in thy ear.\nBut it behooves to flee those images;\nAnd scare afar whatever feeds thy love;\nAnd turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm,\nWithin thee gathered, into sundry bodies,\nNor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love,\nKeep it for one delight, and so store up\nCare for thyself and pain inevitable.\nFor, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing\nGrows to more life with deep inveteracy,\nAnd day by day the fury swells aflame,\nAnd the woe waxes heavier day by day-\nUnless thou dost destroy even by new blows\nThe former wounds of love, and curest them\nWhile yet they're fresh, by wandering freely round\nAfter the freely-wandering Venus, or\nCanst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind.\n Nor doth that man who keeps away from love\nYet lack the fruits of Venus; rather takes\nThose pleasures which are free of penalties.\nFor the delights of Venus, verily,\nAre more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul\nThan for those sick-at-heart with love-pining.\nYea, in the very moment of possessing,\nSurges the heat of lovers to and fro,\nRestive, uncertain; and they cannot fix\nOn what to first enjoy with eyes and hands.\nThe parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight,\nAnd pain the creature's body, close their teeth\nOften against her lips, and smite with kiss\nMouth into mouth,- because this same delight\nIs not unmixed; and underneath are stings\nWhich goad a man to hurt the very thing,\nWhate'er it be, from whence arise for him\nThose germs of madness. But with gentle touch\nVenus subdues the pangs in midst of love,\nAnd the admixture of a fondling joy\nDoth curb the bites of passion. For they hope\nThat by the very body whence they caught\nThe heats of love their flames can be put out.\nBut nature protests 'tis all quite otherwise;\nFor this same love it is the one sole thing\nOf which, the more we have, the fiercer burns\nThe breast with fell desire. For food and drink\nAre taken within our members; and, since they\nCan stop up certain parts, thus, easily\nDesire of water is glutted and of bread.\nBut, lo, from human face and lovely bloom\nNaught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed\nSave flimsy idol-images and vain-\nA sorry hope which oft the winds disperse.\nAs when the thirsty man in slumber seeks\nTo drink, and water ne'er is granted him\nWherewith to quench the heat within his members,\nBut after idols of the liquids strives\nAnd toils in vain, and thirsts even whilst he gulps\nIn middle of the torrent, thus in love\nVenus deludes with idol-images\nThe lovers. Nor they cannot sate their lust\nBy merely gazing on the bodies, nor\nThey cannot with their palms and fingers rub\nAught from each tender limb, the while they stray\nUncertain over all the body. Then,\nAt last, with members intertwined, when they\nEnjoy the flower of their age, when now\nTheir bodies have sweet presage of keen joys,\nAnd Venus is about to sow the fields\nOf woman, greedily their frames they lock,\nAnd mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe\nInto each other, pressing teeth on mouths-\nYet to no purpose, since they're powerless\nTo rub off aught, or penetrate and pass\nWith body entire into body- for oft\nThey seem to strive and struggle thus to do;\nSo eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds,\nWhilst melt away their members, overcome\nBy violence of delight. But when at last\nLust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself,\nThere come a brief pause in the raging heat-\nBut then a madness just the same returns\nAnd that old fury visits them again,\nWhen once again they seek and crave to reach\nThey know not what, all powerless to find\nThe artifice to subjugate the bane.\nIn such uncertain state they waste away\nWith unseen wound.\n To which be added too,\nThey squander powers and with the travail wane;\nBe added too, they spend their futile years\nUnder another's beck and call; their duties\nNeglected languish and their honest name\nReeleth sick, sick; and meantime their estates\nAre lost in Babylonian tapestries;\nAnd unguents and dainty Sicyonian shoes\nLaugh on her feet; and (as ye may be sure)\nBig emeralds of green light are set in gold;\nAnd rich sea-purple dress by constant wear\nGrows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat;\nAnd the well-earned ancestral property\nBecometh head-bands, coifs, and many a time\nThe cloaks, or garments Alidensian\nOr of the Cean isle. And banquets, set\nWith rarest cloth and viands, are prepared-\nAnd games of chance, and many a drinking cup,\nAnd unguents, crowns and garlands. All in vain,\nSince from amid the well-spring of delights\nBubbles some drop of bitter to torment\nAmong the very flowers- when haply mind\nGnaws into self, now stricken with remorse\nFor slothful years and ruin in baudels,\nOr else because she's left him all in doubt\nBy launching some sly word, which still like fire\nLives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart;\nOr else because he thinks she darts her eyes\nToo much about and gazes at another,-\nAnd in her face sees traces of a laugh.\n These ills are found in prospering love and true;\nBut in crossed love and helpless there be such\nAs through shut eyelids thou canst still take in-\nUncounted ills; so that 'tis better far\nTo watch beforehand, in the way I've shown,\nAnd guard against enticements. For to shun\nA fall into the hunting-snares of love\nIs not so hard, as to get out again,\nWhen tangled in the very nets, and burst\nThe stoutly-knotted cords of Aphrodite.\nYet even when there enmeshed with tangled feet,\nStill canst thou scape the danger-lest indeed\nThou standest in the way of thine own good,\nAnd overlookest first all blemishes\nOf mind and body of thy much preferred,\nDesirable dame. For so men do,\nEyeless with passion, and assign to them\nGraces not theirs in fact. And thus we see\nCreatures in many a wise crooked and ugly\nThe prosperous sweethearts in a high esteem;\nAnd lovers gird each other and advise\nTo placate Venus, since their friends are smit\nWith a base passion- miserable dupes\nWho seldom mark their own worst bane of all.\nThe black-skinned girl is \"tawny like the honey\";\nThe filthy and the fetid's \"negligee\";\nThe cat-eyed she's \"a little Pallas,\" she;\nThe sinewy and wizened's \"a gazelle\";\nThe pudgy and the pigmy is \"piquant,\nOne of the Graces sure\"; the big and bulky\nO she's \"an Admiration, imposante\";\nThe stuttering and tongue-tied \"sweetly lisps\";\nThe mute girl's \"modest\"; and the garrulous,\nThe spiteful spit-fire, is \"a sparkling wit\";\nAnd she who scarcely lives for scrawniness\nBecomes \"a slender darling\"; \"delicate\"\nIs she who's nearly dead of coughing-fit;\nThe pursy female with protuberant breasts\nShe is \"like Ceres when the goddess gave\nYoung Bacchus suck\"; the pug-nosed lady-love\n\"A Satyress, a feminine Silenus\";\nThe blubber-lipped is \"all one luscious kiss\"-\nA weary while it were to tell the whole.\nBut let her face possess what charm ye will,\nLet Venus' glory rise from all her limbs,-\nForsooth there still are others; and forsooth\nWe lived before without her; and forsooth\nShe does the same things- and we know she does-\nAll, as the ugly creature, and she scents,\nYes she, her wretched self with vile perfumes;\nWhom even her handmaids flee and giggle at\nBehind her back. But he, the lover, in tears\nBecause shut out, covers her threshold o'er\nOften with flowers and garlands, and anoints\nHer haughty door-posts with the marjoram,\nAnd prints, poor fellow, kisses on the doors-\nAdmitted at last, if haply but one whiff\nGot to him on approaching, he would seek\nDecent excuses to go out forthwith;\nAnd his lament, long pondered, then would fall\nDown at his heels; and there he'd damn himself\nFor his fatuity, observing how\nHe had assigned to that same lady more-\nThan it is proper to concede to mortals.\nAnd these our Venuses are 'ware of this.\nWherefore the more are they at pains to hide\nAll the-behind-the-scenes of life from those\nWhom they desire to keep in bonds of love-\nIn vain, since ne'ertheless thou canst by thought\nDrag all the matter forth into the light\nAnd well search out the cause of all these smiles;\nAnd if of graceful mind she be and kind,\nDo thou, in thy turn, overlook the same,\nAnd thus allow for poor mortality.\nNor sighs the woman always with feigned love,\nWho links her body round man's body locked\nAnd holds him fast, making his kisses wet\nWith lips sucked into lips; for oft she acts\nEven from desire, and, seeking mutual joys,\nIncites him there to run love's race-course through.\nNor otherwise can cattle, birds, wild beasts,\nAnd sheep and mares submit unto the males,\nExcept that their own nature is in heat,\nAnd burns abounding and with gladness takes\nOnce more the Venus of the mounting males.\nAnd seest thou not how those whom mutual pleasure\nHath bound are tortured in their common bonds?\nHow often in the cross-roads dogs that pant\nTo get apart strain eagerly asunder\nWith utmost might?- When all the while they're fast\nIn the stout links of Venus. But they'd ne'er\nSo pull, except they knew those mutual joys-\nSo powerful to cast them unto snares\nAnd hold them bound. Wherefore again, again,\nEven as I say, there is a joint delight.\n And when perchance, in mingling seed with his,\nThe female hath o'erpowered the force of male\nAnd by a sudden fling hath seized it fast,\nThen are the offspring, more from mothers' seed,\nMore like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed,\nThey're like to fathers. But whom seest to be\nPartakers of each shape, one equal blend\nOf parents' features, these are generate\nFrom fathers' body and from mothers' blood,\nWhen mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed\nTogether seeds, aroused along their frames\nBy Venus' goads, and neither of the twain\nMastereth or is mastered. Happens too\nThat sometimes offspring can to being come\nIn likeness of their grandsires, and bring back\nOften the shapes of grandsires' sires, because\nTheir parents in their bodies oft retain\nConcealed many primal germs, commixed\nIn many modes, which, starting with the stock,\nSire handeth down to son, himself a sire;\nWhence Venus by a variable chance\nEngenders shapes, and diversely brings back\nAncestral features, voices too, and hair.\nA female generation rises forth\nFrom seed paternal, and from mother's body\nExist created males: since sex proceeds\nNo more from singleness of seed than faces\nOr bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth\nIs from a twofold seed; and what's created\nHath, of that parent which it is more like,\nMore than its equal share; as thou canst mark,-\nWhether the breed be male or female stock.\n Nor do the powers divine grudge any man\nThe fruits of his seed-sowing, so that never\nHe be called \"father\" by sweet children his,\nAnd end his days in sterile love forever.\nWhat many men suppose; and gloomily\nThey sprinkle the altars with abundant blood,\nAnd make the high platforms odorous with burnt gifts,\nTo render big by plenteous seed their wives-\nAnd plague in vain godheads and sacred lots.\nFor sterile are these men by seed too thick,\nOr else by far too watery and thin.\nBecause the thin is powerless to cleave\nFast to the proper places, straightaway\nIt trickles from them, and, returned again,\nRetires abortively. And then since seed\nMore gross and solid than will suit is spent\nBy some men, either it flies not forth amain\nWith spurt prolonged enough, or else it fails\nTo enter suitably the proper places,\nOr, having entered, the seed is weakly mixed\nWith seed of the woman: harmonies of Venus\nAre seen to matter vastly here; and some\nImpregnate some more readily, and from some\nSome women conceive more readily and become\nPregnant. And many women, sterile before\nIn several marriage-beds, have yet thereafter\nObtained the mates from whom they could conceive\nThe baby-boys, and with sweet progeny\nGrow rich. And even for husbands (whose own wives,\nAlthough of fertile wombs, have borne for them\nNo babies in the house) are also found\nConcordant natures so that they at last\nCan bulwark their old age with goodly sons.\nA matter of great moment 'tis in truth,\nThat seeds may mingle readily with seeds\nSuited for procreation, and that thick\nShould mix with fluid seeds, with thick the fluid.\nAnd in this business 'tis of some import\nUpon what diet life is nourished:\nFor some foods thicken seeds within our members,\nAnd others thin them out and waste away.\nAnd in what modes the fond delight itself\nIs carried on- this too importeth vastly.\nFor commonly 'tis thought that wives conceive\nMore readily in manner of wild-beasts,\nAfter the custom of the four-foot breeds,\nBecause so postured, with the breasts beneath\nAnd buttocks then upreared, the seeds can take\nTheir proper places. Nor is need the least\nFor wives to use the motions of blandishment;\nFor thus the woman hinders and resists\nHer own conception, if too joyously\nHerself she treats the Venus of the man\nWith haunches heaving, and with all her bosom\nNow yielding like the billows of the sea-\nAye, from the ploughshare's even course and track\nShe throws the furrow, and from proper places\nDeflects the spurt of seed. And courtesans\nAre thuswise wont to move for their own ends,\nTo keep from pregnancy and lying in,\nAnd all the while to render Venus more\nA pleasure for the men- the which meseems\nOur wives have never need of.\n Sometimes too\nIt happens- and through no divinity\nNor arrows of Venus- that a sorry chit\nOf scanty grace will be beloved by man;\nFor sometimes she herself by very deeds,\nBy her complying ways, and tidy habits,\nWill easily accustom thee to pass\nWith her thy life-time- and, moreover, lo,\nLong habitude can gender human love,\nEven as an object smitten o'er and o'er\nBy blows, however lightly, yet at last\nIs overcome and wavers. Seest thou not,\nBesides, how drops of water falling down\nAgainst the stones at last bore through the stones?\n\nBOOK V\n\nPROEM\n \nO WHO can build with puissant breast a song\nWorthy the majesty of these great finds?\nOr who in words so strong that he can frame\nThe fit laudations for deserts of him\nWho left us heritors of such vast prizes,\nBy his own breast discovered and sought out?-\nThere shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock.\nFor if must needs be named for him the name\nDemanded by the now known majesty\nOf these high matters, then a god was he,-\nHear me, illustrious Memmius- a god;\nWho first and chief found out that plan of life\nWhich now is called philosophy, and who\nBy cunning craft, out of such mighty waves,\nOut of such mighty darkness, moored life\nIn havens so serene, in light so clear.\nCompare those old discoveries divine\nOf others: lo, according to the tale,\nCeres established for mortality\nThe grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape,\nThough life might yet without these things abide,\nEven as report saith now some peoples live.\nBut man's well-being was impossible\nWithout a breast all free. Wherefore the more\nThat man doth justly seem to us a god,\nFrom whom sweet solaces of life, afar\nDistributed o'er populous domains,\nNow soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkest\nLabours of Hercules excel the same,\nMuch farther from true reasoning thou farest.\nFor what could hurt us now that mighty maw\nOf Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar\nWho bristled in Arcadia? Or, again,\nO what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest\nOf Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous?\nOr what the triple-breasted power of her\nThe three-fold Geryon...\nThe sojourners in the Stymphalian fens\nSo dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds\nOf Thracian Diomedes breathing fire\nFrom out their nostrils off along the zones\nBistonian and Ismarian? And the Snake,\nThe dread fierce gazer, guardian of the golden\nAnd gleaming apples of the Hesperides,\nCoiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk,\nO what, again, could he inflict on us\nAlong the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea?-\nWhere neither one of us approacheth nigh\nNor no barbarian ventures. And the rest\nOf all those monsters slain, even if alive,\nUnconquered still, what injury could they do?\nNone, as I guess. For so the glutted earth\nSwarms even now with savage beasts, even now\nIs filled with anxious terrors through the woods\nAnd mighty mountains and the forest deeps-\nQuarters 'tis ours in general to avoid.\nBut lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then,\nWhat perils, must bosom, in our own despite!\nO then how great and keen the cares of lust\nThat split the man distraught! How great the fears!\nAnd lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness-\nHow great the slaughters in their train! and lo,\nDebaucheries and every breed of sloth!\nTherefore that man who subjugated these,\nAnd from the mind expelled, by words indeed,\nNot arms, O shall it not be seemly him\nTo dignify by ranking with the gods?-\nAnd all the more since he was wont to give,\nConcerning the immortal gods themselves,\nMany pronouncements with a tongue divine,\nAnd to unfold by his pronouncements all\nThe nature of the world.\n\nARGUMENT OF THE BOOK AND NEW PROEM\nAGAINST A TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT\n\n And walking now\nIn his own footprints, I do follow through\nHis reasonings, and with pronouncements teach\nThe covenant whereby all things are framed,\nHow under that covenant they must abide\nNor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'\nInexorable decrees,- how (as we've found),\nIn class of mortal objects, o'er all else,\nThe mind exists of earth-born frame create\nAnd impotent unscathed to abide\nAcross the mighty aeons, and how come\nIn sleep those idol-apparitions,\nThat so befool intelligence when we\nDo seem to view a man whom life has left.\nThus far we've gone; the order of my plan\nHath brought me now unto the point where I\nMust make report how, too, the universe\nConsists of mortal body, born in time,\nAnd in what modes that congregated stuff\nEstablished itself as earth and sky,\nOcean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;\nAnd then what living creatures rose from out\nThe old telluric places, and what ones\nWere never born at all; and in what mode\nThe human race began to name its things\nAnd use the varied speech from man to man;\nAnd in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts\nThat awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands\nFanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.\nAlso I shall untangle by what power\nThe steersman nature guides the sun's courses,\nAnd the meanderings of the moon, lest we,\nPercase, should fancy that of own free will\nThey circle their perennial courses round,\nTiming their motions for increase of crops\nAnd living creatures, or lest we should think\nThey roll along by any plan of gods.\nFor even those men who have learned full well\nThat godheads lead a long life free of care,\nIf yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan\nThings can go on (and chiefly yon high things\nObserved o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),\nAgain are hurried back unto the fears\nOf old religion and adopt again\nHarsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,\nUnwitting what can be and what cannot,\nAnd by what law to each its scope prescribed,\nIts boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.\n But for the rest,- lest we delay thee here\nLonger by empty promises- behold,\nBefore all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:\nO Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,\nTheir bodies three, three aspects so unlike,\nThree frames so vast, a single day shall give\nUnto annihilation! Then shall crash\nThat massive form and fabric of the world\nSustained so many aeons! Nor do I\nFail to perceive how strange and marvellous\nThis fact must strike the intellect of man,-\nAnnihilation of the sky and earth\nThat is to be,- and with what toil of words\n'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft\nWhen once ye offer to man's listening ears\nSomething before unheard of, but may not\nSubject it to the view of eyes for him\nNor put it into hand- the sight and touch,\nWhereby the opened highways of belief\nLead most directly into human breast\nAnd regions of intelligence. But yet\nI will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,\nWill force belief in these my words, and thou\nMayst see, in little time, tremendously\nWith risen commotions of the lands all things\nQuaking to pieces- which afar from us\nMay she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may\nReason, O rather than the fact itself,\nPersuade us that all things can be o'erthrown\nAnd sink with awful-sounding breakage down!\n But ere on this I take a step to utter\nOracles holier and soundlier based\nThan ever the Pythian pronounced for men\nFrom out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,\nI will unfold for thee with learned words\nMany a consolation, lest perchance,\nStill bridled by religion, thou suppose\nLands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,\nMust dure forever, as of frame divine-\nAnd so conclude that it is just that those,\n(After the manner of the Giants), should all\nPay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,\nWho by their reasonings do overshake\nThe ramparts of the universe and wish\nThere to put out the splendid sun of heaven,\nBranding with mortal talk immortal things-\nThough these same things are even so far removed\nFrom any touch of deity and seem\nSo far unworthy of numbering with the gods,\nThat well they may be thought to furnish rather\nA goodly instance of the sort of things\nThat lack the living motion, living sense.\nFor sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think\nThat judgment and the nature of the mind\nIn any kind of body can exist-\nJust as in ether can't exist a tree,\nNor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields\nCan fishes live, nor blood in timber be,\nNor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged\nWhere everything may grow and have its place.\nThus nature of mind cannot arise alone\nWithout the body, nor have its being far\nFrom thews and blood. Yet if 'twere possible?-\nMuch rather might this very power of mind\nBe in the head, the shoulders, or the heels,\nAnd, born in any part soever, yet\nIn the same man, in the same vessel abide\nBut since within this body even of ours\nStands fixed and appears arranged sure\nWhere soul and mind can each exist and grow,\nDeny we must the more that they can dure\nOutside the body and the breathing form\nIn rotting clods of earth, in the sun's fire,\nIn water, or in ether's skiey coasts.\nTherefore these things no whit are furnished\nWith sense divine, since never can they be\nWith life-force quickened.\n Likewise, thou canst ne'er\nBelieve the sacred seats of gods are here\nIn any regions of this mundane world;\nIndeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle,\nSo far removed from these our senses, scarce\nIs seen even by intelligence of mind.\nAnd since they've ever eluded touch and thrust\nOf human hands, they cannot reach to grasp\nAught tangible to us. For what may not\nItself be touched in turn can never touch.\nWherefore, besides, also their seats must be\nUnlike these seats of ours,- even subtle too,\nAs meet for subtle essence- as I'll prove\nHereafter unto thee with large discourse.\nFurther, to say that for the sake of men\nThey willed to prepare this world's magnificence,\nAnd that 'tis therefore duty and behoof\nTo praise the work of gods as worthy praise,\nAnd that 'tis sacrilege for men to shake\nEver by any force from out their seats\nWhat hath been stablished by the Forethought old\nTo everlasting for races of mankind,\nAnd that 'tis sacrilege to assault by words\nAnd overtopple all from base to beam,-\nMemmius, such notions to concoct and pile,\nIs verily- to dote. Our gratefulness,\nO what emoluments could it confer\nUpon Immortals and upon the Blessed\nThat they should take a step to manage aught\nFor sake of us? Or what new factor could,\nAfter so long a time, inveigle them-\nThe hitherto reposeful- to desire\nTo change their former life? For rather he\nWhom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice\nAt new; but one that in fore-passed time\nHath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years,\nO what could ever enkindle in such an one\nPassion for strange experiment? Or what\nThe evil for us, if we had ne'er been born?-\nAs though, forsooth, in darkling realms and woe\nOur life were lying till should dawn at last\nThe day-spring of creation! Whosoever\nHath been begotten wills perforce to stay\nIn life, so long as fond delight detains;\nBut whoso ne'er hath tasted love of life,\nAnd ne'er was in the count of living things,\nWhat hurts it him that he was never born?\nWhence, further, first was planted in the gods\nThe archetype for gendering the world\nAnd the fore-notion of what man is like,\nSo that they knew and pre-conceived with mind\nJust what they wished to make? Or how were known\nEver the energies of primal germs,\nAnd what those germs, by interchange of place,\nCould thus produce, if nature's self had not\nGiven example for creating all?\nFor in such wise primordials of things,\nMany in many modes, astir by blows\nFrom immemorial aeons, in motion too\nBy their own weights, have evermore been wont\nTo be so borne along and in all modes\nTo meet together and to try all sorts\nWhich, by combining one with other, they\nAre powerful to create, that thus it is\nNo marvel now, if they have also fallen\nInto arrangements such, and if they've passed\nInto vibrations such, as those whereby\nThis sum of things is carried on to-day\nBy fixed renewal. But knew I never what\nThe seeds primordial were, yet would I dare\nThis to affirm, even from deep judgments based\nUpon the ways and conduct of the skies-\nThis to maintain by many a fact besides-\nThat in no wise the nature of all things\nFor us was fashioned by a power divine-\nSo great the faults it stands encumbered with.\nFirst, mark all regions which are overarched\nBy the prodigious reaches of the sky:\nOne yawning part thereof the mountain-chains\nAnd forests of the beasts do have and hold;\nAnd cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea\n(Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands)\nPossess it merely; and, again, thereof\nWell-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat\nAnd a perpetual fall of frost doth rob\nFrom mortal kind. And what is left to till,\nEven that the force of nature would o'errun\nWith brambles, did not human force oppose,-\nLong wont for livelihood to groan and sweat\nOver the two-pronged mattock and to cleave\nThe soil in twain by pressing on the plough.\n\nUnless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods\nAnd kneading the mould, we quicken into birth,\n[The crops] spontaneously could not come up\nInto the free bright air. Even then sometimes,\nWhen things acquired by the sternest toil\nAre now in leaf, are now in blossom all,\nEither the skiey sun with baneful heats\nParches, or sudden rains or chilling rime\nDestroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl\nTorment and twist. Beside these matters, why\nDoth nature feed and foster on land and sea\nThe dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes\nOf the human clan? Why do the seasons bring\nDistempers with them? Wherefore stalks at large\nDeath, so untimely? Then, again, the babe,\nLike to the castaway of the raging surf,\nLies naked on the ground, speechless, in want\nOf every help for life, when nature first\nHath poured him forth upon the shores of light\nWith birth-pangs from within the mother's womb,\nAnd with a plaintive wail he fills the place,-\nAs well befitting one for whom remains\nIn life a journey through so many ills.\nBut all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts\nCome forth and grow, nor need the little rattles,\nNor must be treated to the humouring nurse's\nDear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes\nTo suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine,\nNor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal\nTheir own to guard- because the earth herself\nAnd nature, artificer of the world, bring forth\nAboundingly all things for all.\n\nTHE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL\n\n And first,\nSince body of earth and water, air's light breath,\nAnd fiery exhalations (of which four\nThis sum of things is seen to be compact)\nSo all have birth and perishable frame,\nThus the whole nature of the world itself\nMust be conceived as perishable too.\nFor, verily, those things of which we see\nThe parts and members to have birth in time\nAnd perishable shapes, those same we mark\nTo be invariably born in time\nAnd born to die. And therefore when I see\nThe mightiest members and the parts of this\nOur world consumed and begot again,\n'Tis mine to know that also sky above\nAnd earth beneath began of old in time\nAnd shall in time go under to disaster.\n And lest in these affairs thou deemest me\nTo have seized upon this point by sleight to serve\nMy own caprice- because I have assumed\nThat earth and fire are mortal things indeed,\nAnd have not doubted water and the air\nBoth perish too and have affirmed the same\nTo be again begotten and wax big-\nMark well the argument: in first place, lo,\nSome certain parts of earth, grievously parched\nBy unremitting suns, and trampled on\nBy a vast throng of feet, exhale abroad\nA powdery haze and flying clouds of dust,\nWhich the stout winds disperse in the whole air.\nA part, moreover, of her sod and soil\nIs summoned to inundation by the rains;\nAnd rivers graze and gouge the banks away.\nBesides, whatever takes a part its own\nIn fostering and increasing [aught]...\n\nIs rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt,\nEarth, the all-mother, is beheld to be\nLikewise the common sepulchre of things,\nTherefore thou seest her minished of her plenty,\nAnd then again augmented with new growth.\n And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springs\nForever with new waters overflow,\nAnd that perennially the fluids well,\nNeedeth no words- the mighty flux itself\nOf multitudinous waters round about\nDeclareth this. But whatso water first\nStreams up is ever straightway carried off,\nAnd thus it comes to pass that all in all\nThere is no overflow; in part because\nThe burly winds (that over-sweep amain)\nAnd skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)\nDo minish the level seas; in part because\nThe water is diffused underground\nThrough all the lands. The brine is filtered off,\nAnd then the liquid stuff seeps back again\nAnd all regathers at the river-heads,\nWhence in fresh-water currents on it flows\nOver the lands, adown the channels which\nWere cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along\nThe liquid-footed floods.\n Now, then, of air\nI'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body\nIs changed innumerably. For whatso'er\nStreams up in dust or vapour off of things,\nThe same is all and always borne along\nInto the mighty ocean of the air;\nAnd did not air in turn restore to things\nBodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,\nAll things by this time had resolved been\nAnd changed into air. Therefore it never\nCeases to be engendered off of things\nAnd to return to things, since verily\nIn constant flux do all things stream.\n Likewise,\nThe abounding well-spring of the liquid light,\nThe ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o'er\nWith constant flux of radiance ever new,\nAnd with fresh light supplies the place of light,\nUpon the instant. For whatever effulgence\nHath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,\nIs lost unto the sun. And this 'tis thine\nTo know from these examples: soon as clouds\nHave first begun to under-pass the sun,\nAnd, as it were, to rend the rays of light\nIn twain, at once the lower part of them\nIs lost entire, and earth is overcast\nWhere'er the thunderheads are rolled along-\nSo know thou mayst that things forever need\nA fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,\nAnd each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,\nPerisheth one by one. Nor otherwise\nCan things be seen in sunlight, lest alway\nThe fountain-head of light supply new light.\nIndeed your earthly beacons of the night,\nThe hanging lampions and the torches, bright\nWith darting gleams and dense with livid soot,\nDo hurry in like manner to supply\nWith ministering heat new light amain;\nAre all alive to quiver with their fires,-\nAre so alive, that thus the light ne'er leaves\nThe spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:\nSo speedily is its destruction veiled\nBy the swift birth of flame from all the fires.\nThus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon\nAnd stars dart forth their light from under-births\nEver and ever new, and whatso flames\nFirst rise do perish always one by one-\nLest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure\nInviolable.\n Again, perceivest not\nHow stones are also conquered by Time?-\nNot how the lofty towers ruin down,\nAnd boulders crumble?- Not how shrines of gods\nAnd idols crack outworn?- Nor how indeed\nThe holy Influence hath yet no power\nThere to postpone the Terminals of Fate,\nOr headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees?\nAgain, behold we not the monuments\nOf heroes, now in ruins, asking us,\nIn their turn likewise, if we don't believe\nThey also age with eld? Behold we not\nThe rended basalt ruining amain\nDown from the lofty mountains, powerless\nTo dure and dree the mighty forces there\nOf finite time?- for they would never fall\nRended asudden, if from infinite Past\nThey had prevailed against all engin'ries\nOf the assaulting aeons, with no crash.\n Again, now look at This, which round, above,\nContains the whole earth in its one embrace:\nIf from itself it procreates all things-\nAs some men tell- and takes them to itself\nWhen once destroyed, entirely must it be\nOf mortal birth and body; for whate'er\nFrom out itself giveth to other things\nIncrease and food, the same perforce must be\nMinished, and then recruited when it takes\nThings back into itself.\n Besides all this,\nIf there had been no origin-in-birth\nOf lands and sky, and they had ever been\nThe everlasting, why, ere Theban war\nAnd obsequies of Troy, have other bards\nNot also chanted other high affairs?\nWhither have sunk so oft so many deeds\nOf heroes? Why do those deeds live no more,\nIngrafted in eternal monuments\nOf glory? Verily, I guess, because\nThe Sum is new, and of a recent date\nThe nature of our universe, and had\nNot long ago its own exordium.\nWherefore, even now some arts are being still\nRefined, still increased: now unto ships\nIs being added many a new device;\nAnd but the other day musician-folk\nGave birth to melic sounds of organing;\nAnd, then, this nature, this account of things\nHath been discovered latterly, and I\nMyself have been discovered only now,\nAs first among the first, able to turn\nThe same into ancestral Roman speech.\nYet if, percase, thou deemest that ere this\nExisted all things even the same, but that\nPerished the cycles of the human race\nIn fiery exhalations, or cities fell\nBy some tremendous quaking of the world,\nOr rivers in fury, after constant rains,\nHad plunged forth across the lands of earth\nAnd whelmed the towns- then, all the more must thou\nConfess, defeated by the argument,\nThat there shall be annihilation too\nOf lands and sky. For at a time when things\nWere being taxed by maladies so great,\nAnd so great perils, if some cause more fell\nHad then assailed them, far and wide they would\nHave gone to disaster and supreme collapse.\nAnd by no other reasoning are we\nSeen to be mortal, save that all of us\nSicken in turn with those same maladies\nWith which have sickened in the past those men\nWhom nature hath removed from life.\n Again,\nWhatever abides eternal must indeed\nEither repel all strokes, because 'tis made\nOf solid body, and permit no entrance\nOf aught with power to sunder from within\nThe parts compact- as are those seeds of stuff\nWhose nature we've exhibited before;\nOr else be able to endure through time\nFor this: because they are from blows exempt,\nAs is the void, the which abides untouched,\nUnsmit by any stroke; or else because\nThere is no room around, whereto things can,\nAs 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-\nEven as the sum of sums eternal is,\nWithout or place beyond whereto things may\nAsunder fly, or bodies which can smite,\nAnd thus dissolve them by the blows of might.\nBut not of solid body, as I've shown,\nExists the nature of the world, because\nIn things is intermingled there a void;\nNor is the world yet as the void, nor are,\nMoreover, bodies lacking which, percase,\nRising from out the infinite, can fell\nWith fury-whirlwinds all this sum of things,\nOr bring upon them other cataclysm\nOf peril strange; and yonder, too, abides\nThe infinite space and the profound abyss-\nWhereinto, lo, the ramparts of the world\nCan yet be shivered. Or some other power\nCan pound upon them till they perish all.\nThus is the door of doom, O nowise barred\nAgainst the sky, against the sun and earth\nAnd deep-sea waters, but wide open stands\nAnd gloats upon them, monstrous and agape.\nWherefore, again, 'tis needful to confess\nThat these same things are born in time; for things\nWhich are of mortal body could indeed\nNever from infinite past until to-day\nHave spurned the multitudinous assaults\nOf the immeasurable aeons old.\n Again, since battle so fiercely one with other\nThe four most mighty members the world,\nAroused in an all unholy war,\nSeest not that there may be for them an end\nOf the long strife?- Or when the skiey sun\nAnd all the heat have won dominion o'er\nThe sucked-up waters all?- And this they try\nStill to accomplish, though as yet they fail,-\nFor so aboundingly the streams supply\nNew store of waters that 'tis rather they\nWho menace the world with inundations vast\nFrom forth the unplumbed chasms of the sea.\nBut vain- since winds (that over-sweep amain)\nAnd skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)\nDo minish the level seas and trust their power\nTo dry up all, before the waters can\nArrive at the end of their endeavouring.\nBreathing such vasty warfare, they contend\nIn balanced strife the one with other still\nConcerning mighty issues,- though indeed\nThe fire was once the more victorious,\nAnd once- as goes the tale- the water won\nA kingdom in the fields. For fire o'ermastered\nAnd licked up many things and burnt away,\nWhat time the impetuous horses of the Sun\nSnatched Phaethon headlong from his skiey road\nDown the whole ether and over all the lands.\nBut the omnipotent Father in keen wrath\nThen with the sudden smite of thunderbolt\nDid hurl the mighty-minded hero off\nThose horses to the earth. And Sol, his sire,\nMeeting him as he fell, caught up in hand\nThe ever-blazing lampion of the world,\nAnd drave together the pell-mell horses there\nAnd yoked them all a-tremble, and amain,\nSteering them over along their own old road,\nRestored the cosmos,- as forsooth we hear\nFrom songs of ancient poets of the Greeks-\nA tale too far away from truth, meseems.\nFor fire can win when from the infinite\nHas risen a larger throng of particles\nOf fiery stuff; and then its powers succumb,\nSomehow subdued again, or else at last\nIt shrivels in torrid atmospheres the world.\nAnd whilom water too began to win-\nAs goes the story- when it overwhelmed\nThe lives of men with billows; and thereafter,\nWhen all that force of water-stuff which forth\nFrom out the infinite had risen up\nDid now retire, as somehow turned aside,\nThe rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.\n\nFORMATION OF THE WORLD AND\nASTRONOMICAL QUESTIONS\n\n But in what modes that conflux of first-stuff\nDid found the multitudinous universe\nOf earth, and sky, and the unfathomed deeps\nOf ocean, and courses of the sun and moon,\nI'll now in order tell. For of a truth\nNeither by counsel did the primal germs\n'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,\nEach in its proper place; nor did they make,\nForsooth, a compact how each germ should move;\nBut, lo, because primordials of things,\nMany in many modes, astir by blows\nFrom immemorial aeons, in motion too\nBy their own weights, have evermore been wont\nTo be so borne along and in all modes\nTo meet together and to try all sorts\nWhich, by combining one with other, they\nAre powerful to create: because of this\nIt comes to pass that those primordials,\nDiffused far and wide through mighty aeons,\nThe while they unions try, and motions too,\nOf every kind, meet at the last amain,\nAnd so become oft the commencements fit\nOf mighty things- earth, sea, and sky, and race\nOf living creatures.\n In that long-ago\nThe wheel of the sun could nowhere be discerned\nFlying far up with its abounding blaze,\nNor constellations of the mighty world,\nNor ocean, nor heaven, nor even earth nor air.\nNor aught of things like unto things of ours\nCould then be seen- but only some strange storm\nAnd a prodigious hurly-burly mass\nCompounded of all kinds of primal germs,\nWhose battling discords in disorder kept\nInterstices, and paths, coherencies,\nAnd weights, and blows, encounterings, and motions,\nBecause, by reason of their forms unlike\nAnd varied shapes, they could not all thuswise\nRemain conjoined nor harmoniously\nHave interplay of movements. But from there\nPortions began to fly asunder, and like\nWith like to join, and to block out a world,\nAnd to divide its members and dispose\nIts mightier parts- that is, to set secure\nThe lofty heavens from the lands, and cause\nThe sea to spread with waters separate,\nAnd fires of ether separate and pure\nLikewise to congregate apart.\n For, lo,\nFirst came together the earthy particles\n(As being heavy and intertangled) there\nIn the mid-region, and all began to take\nThe lowest abodes; and ever the more they got\nOne with another intertangled, the more\nThey pressed from out their mass those particles\nWhich were to form the sea, the stars, the sun,\nAnd moon, and ramparts of the mighty world-\nFor these consist of seeds more smooth and round\nAnd of much smaller elements than earth.\nAnd thus it was that ether, fraught with fire,\nFirst broke away from out the earthen parts,\nAthrough the innumerable pores of earth,\nAnd raised itself aloft, and with itself\nBore lightly off the many starry fires;\nAnd not far otherwise we often see\n\nAnd the still lakes and the perennial streams\nExhale a mist, and even as earth herself\nIs seen at times to smoke, when first at dawn\nThe light of the sun, the many-rayed, begins\nTo redden into gold, over the grass\nBegemmed with dew. When all of these are brought\nTogether overhead, the clouds on high\nWith now concreted body weave a cover\nBeneath the heavens. And thuswise ether too,\nLight and diffusive, with concreted body\nOn all sides spread, on all sides bent itself\nInto a dome, and, far and wide diffused\nOn unto every region on all sides,\nThus hedged all else within its greedy clasp.\nHard upon ether came the origins\nOf sun and moon, whose globes revolve in air\nMidway between the earth and mightiest ether,-\nFor neither took them, since they weighed too little\nTo sink and settle, but too much to glide\nAlong the upmost shores; and yet they are\nIn such a wise midway between the twain\nAs ever to whirl their living bodies round,\nAnd ever to dure as parts of the wide Whole;\nIn the same fashion as certain members may\nIn us remain at rest, whilst others move.\nWhen, then, these substances had been withdrawn,\nAmain the earth, where now extend the vast\nCerulean zones of all the level seas,\nCaved in, and down along the hollows poured\nThe whirlpools of her brine; and day by day\nThe more the tides of ether and rays of sun\nOn every side constrained into one mass\nThe earth by lashing it again, again,\nUpon its outer edges (so that then,\nBeing thus beat upon, 'twas all condensed\nAbout its proper centre), ever the more\nThe salty sweat, from out its body squeezed,\nAugmented ocean and the fields of foam\nBy seeping through its frame, and all the more\nThose many particles of heat and air\nEscaping, began to fly aloft, and form,\nBy condensation there afar from earth,\nThe high refulgent circuits of the heavens.\nThe plains began to sink, and windy slopes\nOf the high mountains to increase; for rocks\nCould not subside, nor all the parts of ground\nSettle alike to one same level there.\n Thus, then, the massy weight of earth stood firm\nWith now concreted body, when (as 'twere)\nAll of the slime of the world, heavy and gross,\nHad run together and settled at the bottom,\nLike lees or bilge. Then ocean, then the air,\nThen ether herself, the fraught-with-fire, were all\nLeft with their liquid bodies pure and free,\nAnd each more lighter than the next below;\nAnd ether, most light and liquid of the three,\nFloats on above the long aerial winds,\nNor with the brawling of the winds of air\nMingles its liquid body. It doth leave\nAll there- those under-realms below her heights-\nThere to be overset in whirlwinds wild,-\nDoth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts,\nWhilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still,\nItself it bears its fires along. For, lo,\nThat ether can flow thus steadily on, on,\nWith one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves-\nThat sea which floweth forth with fixed tides,\nKeeping one onward tenor as it glides.\n And that the earth may there abide at rest\nIn the mid-region of the world, it needs\nMust vanish bit by bit in weight and lessen,\nAnd have another substance underneath,\nConjoined to it from its earliest age\nIn linked unison with the vasty world's\nRealms of the air in which it roots and lives.\nOn this account, the earth is not a load,\nNor presses down on winds of air beneath;\nEven as unto a man his members be\nWithout all weight- the head is not a load\nUnto the neck; nor do we feel the whole\nWeight of the body to centre in the feet.\nBut whatso weights come on us from without,\nWeights laid upon us, these harass and chafe,\nThough often far lighter. For to such degree\nIt matters always what the innate powers\nOf any given thing may be. The earth\nWas, then, no alien substance fetched amain,\nAnd from no alien firmament cast down\nOn alien air; but was conceived, like air,\nIn the first origin of this the world,\nAs a fixed portion of the same, as now\nOur members are seen to be a part of us.\n Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook\nBy the big thunder, doth with her motion shake\nAll that's above her- which she ne'er could do\nBy any means, were earth not bounden fast\nUnto the great world's realms of air and sky:\nFor they cohere together with common roots,\nConjoined both, even from their earliest age,\nIn linked unison. Aye, seest thou not\nThat this most subtle energy of soul\nSupports our body, though so heavy a weight,-\nBecause, indeed, 'tis with it so conjoined\nIn linked unison? What power, in sum,\nCan raise with agile leap our body aloft,\nSave energy of mind which steers the limbs?\nNow seest thou not how powerful may be\nA subtle nature, when conjoined it is\nWith heavy body, as air is with the earth\nConjoined, and energy of mind with us?\n Now let us sing what makes the stars to move.\nIn first place, if the mighty sphere of heaven\nRevolveth round, then needs we must aver\nThat on the upper and the under pole\nPresses a certain air, and from without\nConfines them and encloseth at each end;\nAnd that, moreover, another air above\nStreams on athwart the top of the sphere and tends\nIn same direction as are rolled along\nThe glittering stars of the eternal world;\nOr that another still streams on below\nTo whirl the sphere from under up and on\nIn opposite direction- as we see\nThe rivers turn the wheels and water-scoops.\nIt may be also that the heavens do all\nRemain at rest, whilst yet are borne along\nThe lucid constellations; either because\nSwift tides of ether are by sky enclosed,\nAnd whirl around, seeking a passage out,\nAnd everywhere make roll the starry fires\nThrough the Summanian regions of the sky;\nOr else because some air, streaming along\nFrom an eternal quarter off beyond,\nWhileth the driven fires, or, then, because\nThe fires themselves have power to creep along,\nGoing wherever their food invites and calls,\nAnd feeding their flaming bodies everywhere\nThroughout the sky. Yet which of these is cause\nIn this our world 'tis hard to say for sure;\nBut what can be throughout the universe,\nIn divers worlds on divers plan create,\nThis only do I show, and follow on\nTo assign unto the motions of the stars\nEven several causes which 'tis possible\nExist throughout the universal All;\nOf which yet one must be the cause even here\nWhich maketh motion for our constellations.\nYet to decide which one of them it be\nIs not the least the business of a man\nAdvancing step by cautious step, as I.\n Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much\nNor its own blaze much less than either seems\nUnto our senses. For from whatso spaces\nFires have the power on us to cast their beams\nAnd blow their scorching exhalations forth\nAgainst our members, those same distances\nTake nothing by those intervals away\nFrom bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire\nIs nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat\nAnd the outpoured light of skiey sun\nArrive our senses and caress our limbs,\nForm too and bigness of the sun must look\nEven here from earth just as they really be,\nSo that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.\nAnd whether the journeying moon illuminate\nThe regions round with bastard beams, or throw\nFrom off her proper body her own light,-\nWhichever it be, she journeys with a form\nNaught larger than the form doth seem to be\nWhich we with eyes of ours perceive. For all\nThe far removed objects of our gaze\nSeem through much air confused in their look\nEre minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,\nSince she presents bright look and clear-cut form,\nMay there on high by us on earth be seen\nJust as she is with extreme bounds defined,\nAnd just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires\nOf ether thou from earth beholdest, these\nThou mayst consider as possibly of size\nThe least bit less, or larger by a hair\nThan they appear- since whatso fires we view\nHere in the lands of earth are seen to change\nFrom time to time their size to less or more\nOnly the least, when more or less away,\nSo long as still they bicker clear, and still\nTheir glow's perceived.\n Nor need there be for men\nAstonishment that yonder sun so small\nCan yet send forth so great a light as fills\nOceans and all the lands and sky aflood,\nAnd with its fiery exhalations steeps\nThe world at large. For it may be, indeed,\nThat one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole\nWide world from here hath opened and out-gushed,\nAnd shot its light abroad; because thuswise\nThe elements of fiery exhalations\nFrom all the world around together come,\nAnd thuswise flow into a bulk so big\nThat from one single fountain-head may stream\nThis heat and light. And seest thou not, indeed,\nHow widely one small water-spring may wet\nThe meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?\n'Tis even possible, besides, that heat\nFrom forth the sun's own fire, albeit that fire\nBe not a great, may permeate the air\nWith the fierce hot- if but, perchance, the air\nBe of condition and so tempered then\nAs to be kindled, even when beat upon\nOnly by little particles of heat-\nJust as we sometimes see the standing grain\nOr stubble straw in conflagration all\nFrom one lone spark. And possibly the sun,\nAgleam on high with rosy lampion,\nPossesses about him with invisible heats\nA plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,\nSo that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire,\nIncrease to such degree the force of rays.\n Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men\nHow the sun journeys from his summer haunts\nOn to the mid-most winter turning-points\nIn Capricorn, the thence reverting veers\nBack to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor\nHow 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross\nThat very distance which in traversing\nThe sun consumes the measure of a year.\nI say, no one clear reason hath been given\nFor these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood\nSeemeth the doctrine which the holy thought\nOf great Democritus lays down: that ever\nThe nearer the constellations be to earth\nThe less can they by whirling of the sky\nBe borne along, because those skiey powers\nOf speed aloft do vanish and decrease\nIn under-regions, and the sun is thus\nLeft by degrees behind amongst those signs\nThat follow after, since the sun he lies\nFar down below the starry signs that blaze;\nAnd the moon lags even tardier than the sun:\nIn just so far as is her course removed\nFrom upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,\nIn just so far she fails to keep the pace\nWith starry signs above; for just so far\nAs feebler is the whirl that bears her on,\n(Being, indeed, still lower than the sun),\nIn just so far do all the starry signs,\nCircling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.\nTherefore it happens that the moon appears\nMore swiftly to return to any sign\nAlong the Zodiac, than doth the sun,\nBecause those signs do visit her again\nMore swiftly than they visit the great sun.\nIt can be also that two streams of air\nAlternately at fixed periods\nBlow out from transverse regions of the world,\nOf which the one may thrust the sun away\nFrom summer-signs to mid-most winter goals\nAnd rigors of the cold, and the other then\nMay cast him back from icy shades of chill\nEven to the heat-fraught regions and the signs\nThat blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,\nWe must suppose the moon and all the stars,\nWhich through the mighty and sidereal years\nRoll round in mighty orbits, may be sped\nBy streams of air from regions alternate.\nSeest thou not also how the clouds be sped\nBy contrary winds to regions contrary,\nThe lower clouds diversely from the upper?\nThen, why may yonder stars in ether there\nAlong their mighty orbits not be borne\nBy currents opposite the one to other?\n But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk\nEither when sun, after his diurnal course,\nHath walked the ultimate regions of the sky\nAnd wearily hath panted forth his fires,\nShivered by their long journeying and wasted\nBy traversing the multitudinous air,\nOr else because the self-same force that drave\nHis orb along above the lands compels\nHim then to turn his course beneath the lands.\nMatuta also at a fixed hour\nSpreadeth the roseate morning out along\nThe coasts of heaven and deploys the light,\nEither because the self-same sun, returning\nUnder the lands, aspires to seize the sky,\nStriving to set it blazing with his rays\nEre he himself appear, or else because\nFires then will congregate and many seeds\nOf heat are wont, even at a fixed time,\nTo stream together- gendering evermore\nNew suns and light. Just so the story goes\nThat from the Idaean mountain-tops are seen\nDispersed fires upon the break of day\nWhich thence combine, as 'twere, into one ball\nAnd form an orb. Nor yet in these affairs\nIs aught for wonder that these seeds of fire\nCan thus together stream at time so fixed\nAnd shape anew the splendour of the sun.\nFor many facts we see which come to pass\nAt fixed time in all things: burgeon shrubs\nAt fixed time, and at a fixed time\nThey cast their flowers; and Eld commands the teeth,\nAt time as surely fixed, to drop away,\nAnd Youth commands the growing boy to bloom\nWith the soft down and let from both his cheeks\nThe soft beard fall. And lastly, thunder-bolts,\nSnow, rains, clouds, winds, at seasons of the year\nNowise unfixed, all do come to pass.\nFor where, even from their old primordial start\nCauses have ever worked in such a way,\nAnd where, even from the world's first origin,\nThuswise have things befallen, so even now\nAfter a fixed order they come round\nIn sequence also.\n Likewise, days may wax\nWhilst the nights wane, and daylight minished be\nWhilst nights do take their augmentations,\nEither because the self-same sun, coursing\nUnder the lands and over in two arcs,\nA longer and a briefer, doth dispart\nThe coasts of ether and divides in twain\nHis orbit all unequally, and adds,\nAs round he's borne, unto the one half there\nAs much as from the other half he's ta'en,\nUntil he then arrives that sign of heaven\nWhere the year's node renders the shades of night\nEqual unto the periods of light.\nFor when the sun is midway on his course\nBetween the blasts of northwind and of south,\nHeaven keeps his two goals parted equally,\nBy virtue of the fixed position old\nOf the whole starry Zodiac, through which\nThat sun, in winding onward, takes a year,\nIllumining the sky and all the lands\nWith oblique light- as men declare to us\nWho by their diagrams have charted well\nThose regions of the sky which be adorned\nWith the arranged signs of Zodiac.\nOr else, because in certain parts the air\nUnder the lands is denser, the tremulous\nBright beams of fire do waver tardily,\nNor easily can penetrate that air\nNor yet emerge unto their rising-place:\nFor this it is that nights in winter time\nDo linger long, ere comes the many-rayed\nRound Badge of the day. Or else because, as said,\nIn alternating seasons of the year\nFires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont\nTo stream together,- the fires which make the sun\nTo rise in some one spot- therefore it is\nThat those men seem to speak the truth [who hold\nA new sun is with each new daybreak born].\n The moon she possibly doth shine because\nStrook by the rays of sun, and day by day\nMay turn unto our gaze her light, the more\nShe doth recede from orb of sun, until,\nFacing him opposite across the world,\nShe hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad,\nAnd, at her rising as she soars above,\nHath there observed his setting; thence likewise\nShe needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind\nBy slow degrees, the nearer now she glides,\nAlong the circle of the Zodiac,\nFrom her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-\nAs those men hold who feign the moon to be\nJust like a ball and to pursue a course\nBetwixt the sun and earth. There is, again,\nSome reason to suppose that moon may roll\nWith light her very own, and thus display\nThe varied shapes of her resplendence there.\nFor near her is, percase, another body,\nInvisible, because devoid of light,\nBorne on and gliding all along with her,\nWhich in three modes may block and blot her disk.\nAgain, she may revolve upon herself,\nLike to a ball's sphere- if perchance that be-\nOne half of her dyed o'er with glowing light,\nAnd by the revolution of that sphere\nShe may beget for us her varying shapes,\nUntil she turns that fiery part of her\nFull to the sight and open eyes of men;\nThence by slow stages round and back she whirls,\nWithdrawing thus the luminiferous part\nOf her sphered mass and ball, as, verily,\nThe Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees,\nRefuting the art of Greek astrologers,\nLabours, in opposition, to prove sure-\nAs if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights,\nMight not alike be true,- or aught there were\nWherefore thou mightest risk embracing one\nMore than the other notion. Then, again,\nWhy a new moon might not forevermore\nCreated be with fixed successions there\nOf shapes and with configurations fixed,\nAnd why each day that bright created moon\nMight not miscarry and another be,\nIn its stead and place, engendered anew,\n'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words\nTo prove absurd- since, lo, so many things\nCan be create with fixed successions:\nSpring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy,\nThe winged harbinger, steps on before,\nAnd hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,\nSprinkling the ways before them, filleth all\nWith colours and with odours excellent;\nWhereafter follows arid Heat, and he\nCompanioned is by Ceres, dusty one,\nAnd by the Etesian Breezes of the north;\nThen cometh Autumn on, and with him steps\nLord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too\nAnd other Winds do follow- the high roar\nOf great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong\nWith thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day\nBears on to men the snows and brings again\nThe numbing cold. And Winter follows her,\nHis teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis\nThe less a marvel, if at fixed time\nA moon is thus begotten and again\nAt fixed time destroyed, since things so many\nCan come to being thus at fixed time.\nLikewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's\nFar occultations rightly thou mayst deem\n As due to several causes. For, indeed,\nWhy should the moon be able to shut out\nEarth from the light of sun, and on the side\nTo earthward thrust her high head under sun,\nOpposing dark orb to his glowing beams-\nAnd yet, at same time, one suppose the effect\nCould not result from some one other body\nWhich glides devoid of light forevermore?\nAgain, why could not sun, in weakened state,\nAt fixed time for-lose his fires, and then,\nWhen he has passed on along the air\nBeyond the regions, hostile to his flames,\nThat quench and kill his fires, why could not he\nRenew his light? And why should earth in turn\nHave power to rob the moon of light, and there,\nHerself on high, keep the sun hid beneath,\nWhilst the moon glideth in her monthly course\nAthrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-\nAnd yet, at same time, some one other body\nNot have the power to under-pass the moon,\nOr glide along above the orb of sun,\nBreaking his rays and outspread light asunder?\nAnd still, if moon herself refulgent be\nWith her own sheen, why could she not at times\nIn some one quarter of the mighty world\nGrow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through\nRegions unfriendly to the beams her own?\n\nORIGINS OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE\n\n And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved\nBy what arrangements all things come to pass\nThrough the blue regions of the mighty world,-\nHow we can know what energy and cause\nStarted the various courses of the sun\nAnd the moon's goings, and by what far means\nThey can succumb, the while with thwarted light,\nAnd veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,\nWhen, as it were, they blink, and then again\nWith open eye survey all regions wide,\nResplendent with white radiance- I do now\nReturn unto the world's primeval age\nAnd tell what first the soft young fields of earth\nWith earliest parturition had decreed\nTo raise in air unto the shores of light\nAnd to entrust unto the wayward winds.\nIn the beginning, earth gave forth, around\nThe hills and over all the length of plains,\nThe race of grasses and the shining green;\nThe flowery meadows sparkled all aglow\nWith greening colour, and thereafter, lo,\nUnto the divers kinds of trees was given\nAn emulous impulse mightily to shoot,\nWith a free rein, aloft into the air.\nAs feathers and hairs and bristles are begot\nThe first on members of the four-foot breeds\nAnd on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,\nThus then the new Earth first of all put forth\nGrasses and shrubs, and afterward begat\nThe mortal generations, there upsprung-\nInnumerable in modes innumerable-\nAfter diverging fashions. For from sky\nThese breathing-creatures never can have dropped,\nNor the land-dwellers ever have come up\nOut of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,\nHow merited is that adopted name\nOf earth- \"The Mother!\"- since from out the earth\nAre all begotten. And even now arise\nFrom out the loams how many living things-\nConcreted by the rains and heat of the sun.\nWherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang\nIn Long Ago more many, and more big,\nMatured of those days in the fresh young years\nOf earth and ether. First of all, the race\nOf the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,\nHatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;\nAs now-a-days in summer tree-crickets\nDo leave their shiny husks of own accord,\nSeeking their food and living. Then it was\nThis earth of thine first gave unto the day\nThe mortal generations; for prevailed\nAmong the fields abounding hot and wet.\nAnd hence, where any fitting spot was given,\nThere 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots\nAffixed to earth. And when in ripened time\nThe age of the young within (that sought the air\nAnd fled earth's damps) had burst these wombs, O then\nWould Nature thither turn the pores of earth\nAnd make her spurt from open veins a juice\nLike unto milk; even as a woman now\nIs filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk,\nBecause all that swift stream of aliment\nIs thither turned unto the mother-breasts.\nThere earth would furnish to the children food;\nWarmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed\nAbounding in soft down. Earth's newness then\nWould rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold,\nNor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers-\nFor all things grow and gather strength through time\nIn like proportions; and then earth was young.\n Wherefore, again, again, how merited\nIs that adopted name of Earth- The Mother!-\nSince she herself begat the human race,\nAnd at one well-nigh fixed time brought forth\nEach breast that ranges raving round about\nUpon the mighty mountains and all birds\nAerial with many a varied shape.\nBut, lo, because her bearing years must end,\nShe ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.\nFor lapsing aeons change the nature of\nThe whole wide world, and all things needs must take\nOne status after other, nor aught persists\nForever like itself. All things depart;\nNature she changeth all, compelleth all\nTo transformation. Lo, this moulders down,\nA-slack with weary eld, and that, again,\nProspers in glory, issuing from contempt.\nIn suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change\nThe nature of the whole wide world, and earth\nTaketh one status after other. And what\nShe bore of old, she now can bear no longer,\nAnd what she never bore, she can to-day.\n In those days also the telluric world\nStrove to beget the monsters that upsprung\nWith their astounding visages and limbs-\nThe Man-woman- a thing betwixt the twain,\nYet neither, and from either sex remote-\nSome gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet,\nSome widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too\nWithout a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye,\nOr Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms\nCleaving unto the body fore and aft,\nThuswise, that never could they do or go,\nNor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.\nAnd other prodigies and monsters earth\nWas then begetting of this sort- in vain,\nSince Nature banned with horror their increase,\nAnd powerless were they to reach unto\nThe coveted flower of fair maturity,\nOr to find aliment, or to intertwine\nIn works of Venus. For we see there must\nConcur in life conditions manifold,\nIf life is ever by begetting life\nTo forge the generations one by one:\nFirst, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby\nThe seeds of impregnation in the frame\nMay ooze, released from the members all;\nLast, the possession of those instruments\nWhereby the male with female can unite,\nThe one with other in mutual ravishments.\n And in the ages after monsters died,\nPerforce there perished many a stock, unable\nBy propagation to forge a progeny.\nFor whatsoever creatures thou beholdest\nBreathing the breath of life, the same have been\nEven from their earliest age preserved alive\nBy cunning, or by valour, or at least\nBy speed of foot or wing. And many a stock\nRemaineth yet, because of use to man,\nAnd so committed to man's guardianship.\nValour hath saved alive fierce lion-breeds\nAnd many another terrorizing race,\nCunning the foxes, flight the antlered stags.\nLight-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast,\nHowever, and every kind begot from seed\nOf beasts of draft, as, too, the woolly flocks\nAnd horned cattle, all, my Memmius,\nHave been committed to guardianship of men.\nFor anxiously they fled the savage beasts,\nAnd peace they sought and their abundant foods,\nObtained with never labours of their own,\nWhich we secure to them as fit rewards\nFor their good service. But those beasts to whom\nNature has granted naught of these same things-\nBeasts quite unfit by own free will to thrive\nAnd vain for any service unto us\nIn thanks for which we should permit their kind\nTo feed and be in our protection safe-\nThose, of a truth, were wont to be exposed,\nEnshackled in the gruesome bonds of doom,\nAs prey and booty for the rest, until\nNature reduced that stock to utter death.\n But Centaurs ne'er have been, nor can there be\nCreatures of twofold stock and double frame,\nCompact of members alien in kind,\nYet formed with equal function, equal force\nIn every bodily part- a fact thou mayst,\nHowever dull thy wits, well learn from this:\nThe horse, when his three years have rolled away,\nFlowers in his prime of vigour; but the boy\nNot so, for oft even then he gropes in sleep\nAfter the milky nipples of the breasts,\nAn infant still. And later, when at last\nThe lusty powers of horses and stout limbs,\nNow weak through lapsing life, do fail with age,\nLo, only then doth youth with flowering years\nBegin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks\nWith the soft down. So never deem, percase,\nThat from a man and from the seed of horse,\nThe beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed\nOr e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-\nThe half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-\nNor others of this sort, in whom we mark\nMembers discordant each with each; for ne'er\nAt one same time they reach their flower of age\nOr gain and lose full vigour of their frame,\nAnd never burn with one same lust of love,\nAnd never in their habits they agree,\nNor find the same foods equally delightsome-\nSooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats\nBatten upon the hemlock which to man\nIs violent poison. Once again, since flame\nIs wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks\nOf the great lions as much as other kinds\nOf flesh and blood existing in the lands,\nHow could it be that she, Chimaera lone,\nWith triple body- fore, a lion she;\nAnd aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat-\nMight at the mouth from out the body belch\nInfuriate flame? Wherefore, the man who feigns\nSuch beings could have been engendered\nWhen earth was new and the young sky was fresh\n(Basing his empty argument on new)\nMay babble with like reason many whims\nInto our ears: he'll say, perhaps, that then\nRivers of gold through every landscape flowed,\nThat trees were wont with precious stones to flower,\nOr that in those far aeons man was born\nWith such gigantic length and lift of limbs\nAs to be able, based upon his feet,\nDeep oceans to bestride or with his hands\nTo whirl the firmament around his head.\nFor though in earth were many seeds of things\nIn the old time when this telluric world\nFirst poured the breeds of animals abroad,\nStill that is nothing of a sign that then\nSuch hybrid creatures could have been begot\nAnd limbs of all beasts heterogeneous\nHave been together knit; because, indeed,\nThe divers kinds of grasses and the grains\nAnd the delightsome trees- which even now\nSpring up abounding from within the earth-\nCan still ne'er be begotten with their stems\nBegrafted into one; but each sole thing\nProceeds according to its proper wont\nAnd all conserve their own distinctions based\nIn nature's fixed decree.\n\n ORIGINS AND SAVAGE PERIOD OF MANKIND\n\n But mortal man\nWas then far hardier in the old champaign,\nAs well he should be, since a hardier earth\nHad him begotten; builded too was he\nOf bigger and more solid bones within,\nAnd knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh,\nNor easily seized by either heat or cold,\nOr alien food or any ail or irk.\nAnd whilst so many lustrums of the sun\nRolled on across the sky, men led a life\nAfter the roving habit of wild beasts.\nNot then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,\nAnd none knew then to work the fields with iron,\nOr plant young shoots in holes of delved loam,\nOr lop with hooked knives from off high trees\nThe boughs of yester-year. What sun and rains\nTo them had given, what earth of own accord\nCreated then, was boon enough to glad\nTheir simple hearts. Mid acorn-laden oaks\nWould they refresh their bodies for the nonce;\nAnd the wild berries of the arbute-tree,\nWhich now thou seest to ripen purple-red\nIn winter time, the old telluric soil\nWould bear then more abundant and more big.\nAnd many coarse foods, too, in long ago\nThe blooming freshness of the rank young world\nProduced, enough for those poor wretches there.\nAnd rivers and springs would summon them of old\nTo slake the thirst, as now from the great hills\nThe water's down-rush calls aloud and far\nThe thirsty generations of the wild.\nSo, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs-\nThe woodland haunts discovered as they ranged-\nFrom forth of which they knew that gliding rills\nWith gush and splash abounding laved the rocks,\nThe dripping rocks, and trickled from above\nOver the verdant moss; and here and there\nWelled up and burst across the open flats.\nAs yet they knew not to enkindle fire\nAgainst the cold, nor hairy pelts to use\nAnd clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts;\nBut huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods,\nAnd 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs,\nWhen driven to flee the lashings of the winds\nAnd the big rains. Nor could they then regard\nThe general good, nor did they know to use\nIn common any customs, any laws:\nWhatever of booty fortune unto each\nHad proffered, each alone would bear away,\nBy instinct trained for self to thrive and live.\nAnd Venus in the forests then would link\nThe lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded\nEither from mutual flame, or from the man's\nImpetuous fury and insatiate lust,\nOr from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears,\nOr the wild berries of the arbute-tree.\nAnd trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs,\nThey'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts;\nAnd many they'd conquer, but some few they fled,\nA-skulk into their hiding-places...\n\nWith the flung stones and with the ponderous heft\nOf gnarled branch. And by the time of night\nO'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars,\nTheir wildman's limbs naked upon the earth,\nRolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.\nNor would they call with lamentations loud\nAround the fields for daylight and the sun,\nQuaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night;\nBut, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait\nUntil the sun with rosy flambeau brought\nThe glory to the sky. From childhood wont\nEver to see the dark and day begot\nIn times alternate, never might they be\nWildered by wild misgiving, lest a night\nEternal should possess the lands, with light\nOf sun withdrawn forever. But their care\nWas rather that the clans of savage beasts\nWould often make their sleep-time horrible\nFor those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven,\nThey'd flee their rocky shelters at approach\nOf boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong,\nAnd in the midnight yield with terror up\nTo those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.\n And yet in those days not much more than now\nWould generations of mortality\nLeave the sweet light of fading life behind.\nIndeed, in those days here and there a man,\nMore oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs,\nAfforded the beasts a food that roared alive,\nEchoing through groves and hills and forest-trees,\nEven as he viewed his living flesh entombed\nWithin a living grave; whilst those whom flight\nHad saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked,\nPressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores,\nWith horrible voices for eternal death-\nUntil, forlorn of help, and witless what\nMight medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs\nTook them from life. But not in those far times\nWould one lone day give over unto doom\nA soldiery in thousands marching on\nBeneath the battle-banners, nor would then\nThe ramping breakers of the main seas dash\nWhole argosies and crews upon the rocks.\nBut ocean uprisen would often rave in vain,\nWithout all end or outcome, and give up\nIts empty menacings as lightly too;\nNor soft seductions of a serene sea\nCould lure by laughing billows any man\nOut to disaster: for the science bold\nOf ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.\nAgain, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er\nMen's fainting limbs to dissolution: now\n'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they\nOft for themselves themselves would then outpour\nThe poison; now, with nicer art, themselves\nThey give the drafts to others.\n\n BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION\n\n Afterwards,\nWhen huts they had procured and pelts and fire,\nAnd when the woman, joined unto the man,\nWithdrew with him into one dwelling place,\n\nWere known; and when they saw an offspring born\nFrom out themselves, then first the human race\nBegan to soften. For 'twas now that fire\nRendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear,\nUnder the canopy of the sky, the cold;\nAnd Love reduced their shaggy hardiness;\nAnd children, with the prattle and the kiss,\nSoon broke the parents' haughty temper down.\nThen, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends,\nEager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,\nAnd urged for children and the womankind\nMercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures\nThey stammered hints how meet it was that all\nShould have compassion on the weak. And still,\nThough concord not in every wise could then\nBegotten be, a good, a goodly part\nKept faith inviolate- or else mankind\nLong since had been unutterably cut off,\nAnd propagation never could have brought\nThe species down the ages.\n Lest, perchance,\nConcerning these affairs thou ponderest\nIn silent meditation, let me say\n'Twas lightning brought primevally to earth\nThe fire for mortals, and from thence hath spread\nO'er all the lands the flames of heat. For thus\nEven now we see so many objects, touched\nBy the celestial flames, to flash aglow,\nWhen thunderbolt has dowered them with heat.\nYet also when a many-branched tree,\nBeaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro,\nPressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree,\nThere by the power of mighty rub and rub\nIs fire engendered; and at times out-flares\nThe scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe\nAgainst the trunks. And of these causes, either\nMay well have given to mortal men the fire.\nNext, food to cook and soften in the flame\nThe sun instructed, since so oft they saw\nHow objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth\nAnd by the raining blows of fiery beams,\nThrough all the fields.\n And more and more each day\nWould men more strong in sense, more wise in heart,\nTeach them to change their earlier mode and life\nBy fire and new devices. Kings began\nCities to found and citadels to set,\nAs strongholds and asylums for themselves,\nAnd flocks and fields to portion for each man\nAfter the beauty, strength, and sense of each-\nFor beauty then imported much, and strength\nHad its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth\nDiscovered was, and gold was brought to light,\nWhich soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;\nFor men, however beautiful in form\nOr valorous, will follow in the main\nThe rich man's party. Yet were man to steer\nHis life by sounder reasoning, he'd own\nAbounding riches, if with mind content\nHe lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,\nIs there a lack of little in the world.\nBut men wished glory for themselves and power\nEven that their fortunes on foundations firm\nMight rest forever, and that they themselves,\nThe opulent, might pass a quiet life-\nIn vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb\nOn to the heights of honour, men do make\nTheir pathway terrible; and even when once\nThey reach them, envy like the thunderbolt\nAt times will smite, O hurling headlong down\nTo murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo,\nAll summits, all regions loftier than the rest,\nSmoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts;\nSo better far in quiet to obey,\nThan to desire chief mastery of affairs\nAnd ownership of empires. Be it so;\nAnd let the weary sweat their life-blood out\nAll to no end, battling in hate along\nThe narrow path of man's ambition;\nSince all their wisdom is from others' lips,\nAnd all they seek is known from what they've heard\nAnd less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly\nGreater to-day, nor greater soon to be,\nThan' twas of old.\n And therefore kings were slain,\nAnd pristine majesty of golden thrones\nAnd haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust;\nAnd crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,\nSoon bloody under the proletarian feet,\nGroaned for their glories gone- for erst o'er-much\nDreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest\nTrampled beneath the rabble heel. Thus things\nDown to the vilest lees of brawling mobs\nSuccumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself\nDominion and supremacy. So next\nSome wiser heads instructed men to found\nThe magisterial office, and did frame\nCodes that they might consent to follow laws.\nFor humankind, o'er wearied with a life\nFostered by force, was ailing from its feuds;\nAnd so the sooner of its own free will\nYielded to laws and strictest codes. For since\nEach hand made ready in its wrath to take\nA vengeance fiercer than by man's fair laws\nIs now conceded, men on this account\nLoathed the old life fostered by force. 'Tis thence\nThat fear of punishments defiles each prize\nOf wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare\nEach man around, and in the main recoil\nOn him from whence they sprung. Not easy 'tis\nFor one who violates by ugly deeds\nThe bonds of common peace to pass a life\nComposed and tranquil. For albeit he 'scape\nThe race of gods and men, he yet must dread\n'Twill not be hid forever- since, indeed,\nSo many, oft babbling on amid their dreams\nOr raving in sickness, have betrayed themselves\n(As stories tell) and published at last\nOld secrets and the sins.\n But nature 'twas\nUrged men to utter various sounds of tongue\nAnd need and use did mould the names of things,\nAbout in same wise as the lack-speech years\nCompel young children unto gesturings,\nMaking them point with finger here and there\nAt what's before them. For each creature feels\nBy instinct to what use to put his powers.\nEre yet the bull-calf's scarce begotten horns\nProject above his brows, with them he 'gins\nEnraged to butt and savagely to thrust.\nBut whelps of panthers and the lion's cubs\nWith claws and paws and bites are at the fray\nAlready, when their teeth and claws be scarce\nAs yet engendered. So again, we see\nAll breeds of winged creatures trust to wings\nAnd from their fledgling pinions seek to get\nA fluttering assistance. Thus, to think\nThat in those days some man apportioned round\nTo things their names, and that from him men learned\nTheir first nomenclature, is foolery.\nFor why could he mark everything by words\nAnd utter the various sounds of tongue, what time\nThe rest may be supposed powerless\nTo do the same? And, if the rest had not\nAlready one with other used words,\nWhence was implanted in the teacher, then,\nFore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given\nTo him alone primordial faculty\nTo know and see in mind what 'twas he willed?\nBesides, one only man could scarce subdue\nAn overmastered multitude to choose\nTo get by heart his names of things. A task\nNot easy 'tis in any wise to teach\nAnd to persuade the deaf concerning what\n'Tis needful for to do. For ne'er would they\nAllow, nor ne'er in anywise endure\nPerpetual vain dingdong in their ears\nOf spoken sounds unheard before. And what,\nAt last, in this affair so wondrous is,\nThat human race (in whom a voice and tongue\nWere now in vigour) should by divers words\nDenote its objects, as each divers sense\nMight prompt?- since even the speechless herds, aye, since\nThe very generations of wild beasts\nAre wont dissimilar and divers sounds\nTo rouse from in them, when there's fear or pain,\nAnd when they burst with joys. And this, forsooth,\n'Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first\nHuge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds,\nBaring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl,\nThey threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back,\nIn sounds far other than with which they bark\nAnd fill with voices all the regions round.\nAnd when with fondling tongue they start to lick\nTheir puppies, or do toss them round with paws,\nFeigning with gentle bites to gape and snap,\nThey fawn with yelps of voice far other then\nThan when, alone within the house, they bay,\nOr whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.\nAgain the neighing of the horse, is that\nNot seen to differ likewise, when the stud\nIn buoyant flower of his young years raves,\nGoaded by winged Love, amongst the mares,\nAnd when with widening nostrils out he snorts\nThe call to battle, and when haply he\nWhinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?\nLastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,\nHawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life\nAmid the ocean billows in the brine,\nUtter at other times far other cries\nThan when they fight for food, or with their prey\nStruggle and strain. And birds there are which change\nWith changing weather their own raucous songs-\nAs long-lived generations of the crows\nOr flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry\nFor rain and water and to call at times\nFor winds and gales. Ergo, if divers moods\nCompel the brutes, though speechless evermore,\nTo send forth divers sounds, O truly then\nHow much more likely 'twere that mortal men\nIn those days could with many a different sound\nDenote each separate thing.\n And now what cause\nHath spread divinities of gods abroad\nThrough mighty nations, and filled the cities full\nOf the high altars, and led to practices\nOf solemn rites in season- rites which still\nFlourish in midst of great affairs of state\nAnd midst great centres of man's civic life,\nThe rites whence still a poor mortality\nIs grafted that quaking awe which rears aloft\nStill the new temples of gods from land to land\nAnd drives mankind to visit them in throngs\nOn holy days- 'tis not so hard to give\nReason thereof in speech. Because, in sooth,\nEven in those days would the race of man\nBe seeing excelling visages of gods\nWith mind awake; and in his sleeps, yet more-\nBodies of wondrous growth. And, thus, to these\nWould men attribute sense, because they seemed\nTo move their limbs and speak pronouncements high,\nBefitting glorious visage and vast powers.\nAnd men would give them an eternal life,\nBecause their visages forevermore\nWere there before them, and their shapes remained,\nAnd chiefly, however, because men would not think\nBeings augmented with such mighty powers\nCould well by any force o'ermastered be.\nAnd men would think them in their happiness\nExcelling far, because the fear of death\nVexed no one of them at all, and since\nAt same time in men's sleeps men saw them do\nSo many wonders, and yet feel therefrom\nThemselves no weariness. Besides, men marked\nHow in a fixed order rolled around\nThe systems of the sky, and changed times\nOf annual seasons, nor were able then\nTo know thereof the causes. Therefore 'twas\nMen would take refuge in consigning all\nUnto divinities, and in feigning all\nWas guided by their nod. And in the sky\nThey set the seats and vaults of gods, because\nAcross the sky night and the moon are seen\nTo roll along- moon, day, and night, and night's\nOld awesome constellations evermore,\nAnd the night-wandering fireballs of the sky,\nAnd flying flames, clouds, and the sun, the rains,\nSnow and the winds, the lightnings, and the hail,\nAnd the swift rumblings, and the hollow roar\nOf mighty menacings forevermore.\n O humankind unhappy!- when it ascribed\nUnto divinities such awesome deeds,\nAnd coupled thereto rigours of fierce wrath!\nWhat groans did men on that sad day beget\nEven for themselves, and O what wounds for us,\nWhat tears for our children's children! Nor, O man,\nIs thy true piety in this: with head\nUnder the veil, still to be seen to turn\nFronting a stone, and ever to approach\nUnto all altars; nor so prone on earth\nForward to fall, to spread upturned palms\nBefore the shrines of gods, nor yet to dew\nAltars with profuse blood of four-foot beasts,\nNor vows with vows to link. But rather this:\nTo look on all things with a master eye\nAnd mind at peace. For when we gaze aloft\nUpon the skiey vaults of yon great world\nAnd ether, fixed high o'er twinkling stars,\nAnd into our thought there come the journeyings\nOf sun and moon, O then into our breasts,\nO'erburdened already with their other ills,\nBegins forthwith to rear its sudden head\nOne more misgiving: lest o'er us, percase,\nIt be the gods' immeasurable power\nThat rolls, with varied motion, round and round\nThe far white constellations. For the lack\nOf aught of reasons tries the puzzled mind:\nWhether was ever a birth-time of the world,\nAnd whether, likewise, any end shall be\nHow far the ramparts of the world can still\nOutstand this strain of ever-roused motion,\nOr whether, divinely with eternal weal\nEndowed, they can through endless tracts of age\nGlide on, defying the o'er-mighty powers\nOf the immeasurable ages. Lo,\nWhat man is there whose mind with dread of gods\nCringes not close, whose limbs with terror-spell\nCrouch not together, when the parched earth\nQuakes with the horrible thunderbolt amain,\nAnd across the mighty sky the rumblings run?\nDo not the peoples and the nations shake,\nAnd haughty kings do they not hug their limbs,\nStrook through with fear of the divinities,\nLest for aught foully done or madly said\nThe heavy time be now at hand to pay?\nWhen, too, fierce force of fury-winds at sea\nSweepeth a navy's admiral down the main\nWith his stout legions and his elephants,\nDoth he not seek the peace of gods with vows,\nAnd beg in prayer, a-tremble, lulled winds\nAnd friendly gales?- in vain, since, often up-caught\nIn fury-cyclones, is he borne along,\nFor all his mouthings, to the shoals of doom.\nAh, so irrevocably some hidden power\nBetramples forevermore affairs of men,\nAnd visibly grindeth with its heel in mire\nThe lictors' glorious rods and axes dire,\nHaving them in derision! Again, when earth\nFrom end to end is rocking under foot,\nAnd shaken cities ruin down, or threaten\nUpon the verge, what wonder is it then\nThat mortal generations abase themselves,\nAnd unto gods in all affairs of earth\nAssign as last resort almighty powers\nAnd wondrous energies to govern all?\n Now for the rest: copper and gold and iron\nDiscovered were, and with them silver's weight\nAnd power of lead, when with prodigious heat\nThe conflagrations burned the forest trees\nAmong the mighty mountains, by a bolt\nOf lightning from the sky, or else because\nMen, warring in the woodlands, on their foes\nHad hurled fire to frighten and dismay,\nOr yet because, by goodness of the soil\nInvited, men desired to clear rich fields\nAnd turn the countryside to pasture-lands,\nOr slay the wild and thrive upon the spoils.\n(For hunting by pit-fall and by fire arose\nBefore the art of hedging the covert round\nWith net or stirring it with dogs of chase.)\nHowso the fact, and from what cause soever\nThe flamy heat with awful crack and roar\nHad there devoured to their deepest roots\nThe forest trees and baked the earth with fire,\nThen from the boiling veins began to ooze\nO rivulets of silver and of gold,\nOf lead and copper too, collecting soon\nInto the hollow places of the ground.\nAnd when men saw the cooled lumps anon\nTo shine with splendour-sheen upon the ground,\nMuch taken with that lustrous smooth delight,\nThey 'gan to pry them out, and saw how each\nHad got a shape like to its earthy mould.\nThen would it enter their heads how these same lumps,\nIf melted by heat, could into any form\nOr figure of things be run, and how, again,\nIf hammered out, they could be nicely drawn\nTo sharpest points or finest edge, and thus\nYield to the forgers tools and give them power\nTo chop the forest down, to hew the logs,\nTo shave the beams and planks, besides to bore\nAnd punch and drill. And men began such work\nAt first as much with tools of silver and gold\nAs with the impetuous strength of the stout copper;\nBut vainly- since their over-mastered power\nWould soon give way, unable to endure,\nLike copper, such hard labour. In those days\nCopper it was that was the thing of price;\nAnd gold lay useless, blunted with dull edge.\nNow lies the copper low, and gold hath come\nUnto the loftiest honours. Thus it is\nThat rolling ages change the times of things:\nWhat erst was of a price, becomes at last\nA discard of no honour; whilst another\nSucceeds to glory, issuing from contempt,\nAnd day by day is sought for more and more,\nAnd, when 'tis found, doth flower in men's praise,\nObjects of wondrous honour.\n Now, Memmius,\nHow nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst\nOf thine own self divine. Man's ancient arms\nWere hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-\nBreakage of forest trees- and flame and fire,\nAs soon as known. Thereafter force of iron\nAnd copper discovered was; and copper's use\nWas known ere iron's, since more tractable\nIts nature is and its abundance more.\nWith copper men to work the soil began,\nWith copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,\nTo straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away\nAnother's flocks and fields. For unto them,\nThus armed, all things naked of defence\nReadily yielded. Then by slow degrees\nThe sword of iron succeeded, and the shape\nOf brazen sickle into scorn was turned:\nWith iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan,\nAnd the contentions of uncertain war\nWere rendered equal.\n And, lo, man was wont\nArmed to mount upon the ribs of horse\nAnd guide him with the rein, and play about\nWith right hand free, oft times before he tried\nPerils of war in yoked chariot;\nAnd yoked pairs abreast came earlier\nThan yokes of four, or scythed chariots\nWhereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next\nThe Punic folk did train the elephants-\nThose curst Lucanian oxen, hideous,\nThe serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-\nTo dure the wounds of war and panic-strike\nThe mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad\nBegat the one Thing after other, to be\nThe terror of the nations under arms,\nAnd day by day to horrors of old war\nShe added an increase.\n Bulls, too, they tried\nIn war's grim business; and essayed to send\nOutrageous boars against the foes. And some\nSent on before their ranks puissant lions\nWith armed trainers and with masters fierce\nTo guide and hold in chains- and yet in vain,\nSince fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew,\nAnd blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought,\nShaking the frightful crests upon their heads,\nNow here, now there. Nor could the horsemen calm\nTheir horses, panic-breasted at the roar,\nAnd rein them round to front the foe. With spring\nThe infuriate she-lions would up-leap\nNow here, now there; and whoso came apace\nAgainst them, these they'd rend across the face;\nAnd others unwitting from behind they'd tear\nDown from their mounts, and twining round them, bring\nTumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound,\nAnd with those powerful fangs and hooked claws\nFasten upon them. Bulls would toss their friends,\nAnd trample under foot, and from beneath\nRip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns,\nAnd with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod;\nAnd boars would gore with stout tusks their allies,\nSplashing in fury their own blood on spears\nSplintered in their own bodies, and would fell\nIn rout and ruin infantry and horse.\nFor there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape\nThe savage thrusts of tusk by shying off,\nOr rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.\nIn vain- since there thou mightest see them sink,\nTheir sinews severed, and with heavy fall\nBestrew the ground. And such of these as men\nSupposed well-trained long ago at home,\nWere in the thick of action seen to foam\nIn fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight,\nThe panic, and the tumult; nor could men\nAught of their numbers rally. For each breed\nAnd various of the wild beasts fled apart\nHither or thither, as often in wars to-day\nFlee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel\nGrievously mangled, after they have wrought\nUpon their friends so many a dreadful doom.\n(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all:\nBut scarcely I'll believe that men could not\nWith mind foreknow and see, as sure to come,\nSuch foul and general disaster.- This\nWe, then, may hold as true in the great All,\nIn divers worlds on divers plan create,-\nSomewhere afar more likely than upon\nOne certain earth.) But men chose this to do\nLess in the hope of conquering than to give\nTheir enemies a goodly cause of woe,\nEven though thereby they perished themselves,\nSince weak in numbers and since wanting arms.\n Now, clothes of roughly inter-plaited strands\nWere earlier than loom-wove coverings;\nThe loom-wove later than man's iron is,\nSince iron is needful in the weaving art,\nNor by no other means can there be wrought\nSuch polished tools- the treadles, spindles, shuttles,\nAnd sounding yarn-beams. And nature forced the men,\nBefore the woman kind, to work the wool:\nFor all the male kind far excels in skill,\nAnd cleverer is by much- until at last\nThe rugged farmer folk jeered at such tasks,\nAnd so were eager soon to give them o'er\nTo women's hands, and in more hardy toil\nTo harden arms and hands.\n But nature herself,\nMother of things, was the first seed-sower\nAnd primal grafter; since the berries and acorns,\nDropping from off the trees, would there beneath\nPut forth in season swarms of little shoots;\nHence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips\nUpon the boughs and setting out in holes\nThe young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try\nEver new modes of tilling their loved crofts,\nAnd mark they would how earth improved the taste\nOf the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.\nAnd day by day they'd force the woods to move\nStill higher up the mountain, and to yield\nThe place below for tilth, that there they might,\nOn plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats,\nCisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain,\nAnd happy vineyards, and that all along\nO'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run\nThe silvery-green belt of olive-trees,\nMarking the plotted landscape; even as now\nThou seest so marked with varied loveliness\nAll the terrain which men adorn and plant\nWith rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round\nWith thriving shrubberies sown.\n But by the mouth\nTo imitate the liquid notes of birds\nWas earlier far 'mongst men than power to make,\nBy measured song, melodious verse and give\nDelight to ears. And whistlings of the wind\nAthrough the hollows of the reeds first taught\nThe peasantry to blow into the stalks\nOf hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit\nThey learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours,\nBeaten by finger-tips of singing men,\nWhen heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps\nAnd woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts\nOf shepherd folk and spots divinely still.\nThus time draws forward each and everything\nLittle by little unto the midst of men,\nAnd reason uplifts it to the shores of light.\nThese tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals\nWhen sated with food,- for songs are welcome then.\nAnd often, lounging with friends in the soft grass\nBeside a river of water, underneath\nA big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh\nTheir frames, with no vast outlay- most of all\nIf the weather were smiling and the times of the year\nWere painting the green of the grass around with flowers.\nThen jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity\nWould circle round; for then the rustic muse\nWas in her glory; then would antic Mirth\nPrompt them to garland head and shoulders about\nWith chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,\nAnd to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs\nClownishly swaying, and with clownish foot\nTo beat our mother earth- from whence arose\nLaughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,\nSuch frolic acts were in their glory then,\nBeing more new and strange. And wakeful men\nFound solaces for their unsleeping hours\nIn drawing forth variety of notes,\nIn modulating melodies, in running\nWith puckered lips along the tuned reeds,\nWhence, even in our day do the watchmen guard\nThese old traditions, and have learned well\nTo keep true measure. And yet they no whit\nDo get a larger fruit of gladsomeness\nThan got the woodland aborigines\nIn olden times. For what we have at hand-\nIf theretofore naught sweeter we have known-\nThat chiefly pleases and seems best of all;\nBut then some later, likely better, find\nDestroys its worth and changes our desires\nRegarding good of yesterday.\n And thus\nBegan the loathing of the acorn; thus\nAbandoned were those beds with grasses strewn\nAnd with the leaves beladen. Thus, again,\nFell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-\nErstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess,\nAroused in those days envy so malign\nThat the first wearer went to woeful death\nBy ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize,\nRent into rags by greedy foemen there\nAnd splashed by blood, was ruined utterly\nBeyond all use or vantage. Thus of old\n'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold\nThat cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.\nWherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame\nWith us vain men to-day: for cold would rack,\nWithout their pelts, the naked sons of earth;\nBut us it nothing hurts to do without\nThe purple vestment, broidered with gold\nAnd with imposing figures, if we still\nMake shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.\nSo man in vain futilities toils on\nForever and wastes in idle cares his years-\nBecause, of very truth, he hath not learnt\nWhat the true end of getting is, nor yet\nAt all how far true pleasure may increase.\nAnd 'tis desire for better and for more\nHath carried by degrees mortality\nOut onward to the deep, and roused up\nFrom the far bottom mighty waves of war.\n But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world,\nWith their own lanterns traversing around\nThe mighty, the revolving vault, have taught\nUnto mankind that seasons of the years\nReturn again, and that the Thing takes place\nAfter a fixed plan and order fixed.\n Already would they pass their life, hedged round\nBy the strong towers; and cultivate an earth\nAll portioned out and boundaried; already\nWould the sea flower and sail-winged ships;\nAlready men had, under treaty pacts,\nConfederates and allies, when poets began\nTo hand heroic actions down in verse;\nNor long ere this had letters been devised-\nHence is our age unable to look back\nOn what has gone before, except where reason\nShows us a footprint.\n Sailings on the seas,\nTillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads,\nDress and the like, all prizes, all delights\nOf finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes\nOf polished sculptures- all these arts were learned\nBy practice and the mind's experience,\nAs men walked forward step by eager step.\nThus time draws forward each and everything\nLittle by little into the midst of men,\nAnd reason uplifts it to the shores of light.\nFor one thing after other did men see\nGrow clear by intellect, till with their arts\nThey've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.\n\nBOOK VI\n\nPROEM\n\n'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name,\nThat whilom gave to hapless sons of men\nThe sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life,\nAnd decreed laws; and she the first that gave\nLife its sweet solaces, when she begat\nA man of heart so wise, who whilom poured\nAll wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth;\nThe glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day,\nBecause of those discoveries divine\nRenowned of old, exalted to the sky.\nFor when saw he that well-nigh everything\nWhich needs of man most urgently require\nWas ready to hand for mortals, and that life,\nAs far as might be, was established safe,\nThat men were lords in riches, honour, praise,\nAnd eminent in goodly fame of sons,\nAnd that they yet, O yet, within the home,\nStill had the anxious heart which vexed life\nUnpausingly with torments of the mind,\nAnd raved perforce with angry plaints, then he,\nThen he, the master, did perceive that 'twas\nThe vessel itself which worked the bane, and all,\nHowever wholesome, which from here or there\nWas gathered into it, was by that bane\nSpoilt from within,- in part, because he saw\nThe vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise\n'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because\nHe marked how it polluted with foul taste\nWhate'er it got within itself. So he,\nThe master, then by his truth-speaking words,\nPurged the breasts of men, and set the bounds\nOf lust and terror, and exhibited\nThe supreme good whither we all endeavour,\nAnd showed the path whereby we might arrive\nThereunto by a little cross-cut straight,\nAnd what of ills in all affairs of mortals\nUpsprang and flitted deviously about\n(Whether by chance or force), since nature thus\nHad destined; and from out what gates a man\nShould sally to each combat. And he proved\nThat mostly vainly doth the human race\nRoll in its bosom the grim waves of care.\nFor just as children tremble and fear all\nIn the viewless dark, so even we at times\nDread in the light so many things that be\nNo whit more fearsome than what children feign,\nShuddering, will be upon them in the dark.\nThis terror then, this darkness of the mind,\nNot sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,\nNor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,\nBut only nature's aspect and her law.\nWherefore the more will I go on to weave\nIn verses this my undertaken task.\n And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults\nAre mortal and that sky is fashioned\nOf frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er\nTherein go on and must perforce go on\n\nThe most I have unravelled; what remains\nDo thou take in, besides; since once for all\nTo climb into that chariot' renowned\n\nOf winds arise; and they appeased are\nSo that all things again...\n\nWhich were, are changed now, with fury stilled;\nAll other movements through the earth and sky\nWhich mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft\nIn quaking thoughts!), and which abase their minds\nWith dread of deities and press them crushed\nDown to the earth, because their ignorance\nOf cosmic causes forces them to yield\nAll things unto the empery of gods\nAnd to concede the kingly rule to them.\nFor even those men who have learned full well\nThat godheads lead a long life free of care,\nIf yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan\nThings can go on (and chiefly yon high things\nObserved o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),\nAgain are hurried back unto the fears\nOf old religion and adopt again\nHarsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,\nUnwitting what can be and what cannot,\nAnd by what law to each its scope prescribed,\nIts boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.\nWherefore the more are they borne wandering on\nBy blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless\nFrom out thy mind thou spuest all of this\nAnd casteth far from thee all thoughts which be\nUnworthy gods and alien to their peace,\nThen often will the holy majesties\nOf the high gods be harmful unto thee,\nAs by thy thought degraded,- not, indeed,\nThat essence supreme of gods could be by this\nSo outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek\nRevenges keen; but even because thyself\nThou plaguest with the notion that the gods,\nEven they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,\nDo roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;\nNor wilt thou enter with a serene breast\nShrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be\nIn tranquil peace of mind to take and know\nThose images which from their holy bodies\nAre carried into intellects of men,\nAs the announcers of their form divine.\nWhat sort of life will follow after this\n'Tis thine to see. But that afar from us\nVeriest reason may drive such life away,\nMuch yet remains to be embellished yet\nIn polished verses, albeit hath issued forth\nSo much from me already; lo, there is\nThe law and aspect of the sky to be\nBy reason grasped; there are the tempest times\nAnd the bright lightnings to be hymned now-\nEven what they do and from what cause soe'er\nThey're borne along- that thou mayst tremble not,\nMarking off regions of prophetic skies\nFor auguries, O foolishly distraught\nEven as to whence the flying flame hath come,\nOr to which half of heaven it turns, or how\nThrough walled places it hath wound its way,\nOr, after proving its dominion there,\nHow it hath speeded forth from thence amain-\nWhereof nowise the causes do men know,\nAnd think divinities are working there.\nDo thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse,\nSolace of mortals and delight of gods,\nPoint out the course before me, as I race\nOn to the white line of the utmost goal,\nThat I may get with signal praise the crown,\nWith thee my guide!\n\nGREAT METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA, ETC.\n\n And so in first place, then,\nWith thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,\nBecause the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,\nTogether clash, what time 'gainst one another\nThe winds are battling. For never a sound there comes\nFrom out the serene regions of the sky;\nBut wheresoever in a host more dense\nThe clouds foregather, thence more often comes\nA crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,\nClouds cannot be of so condensed a frame\nAs stones and timbers, nor again so fine\nAs mists and flying smoke; for then perforce\nThey'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,\nLike stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be\nTo keep their mass, or to retain within\nFrore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth\nO'er skiey levels of the spreading world\nA sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched\nO'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times\nA cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about\nBetwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,\nAsunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves\nAnd imitates the tearing sound of sheets\nOf paper- even this kind of noise thou mayst\nIn thunder hear- or sound as when winds whirl\nWith lashings and do buffet about in air\nA hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.\nFor sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds\nCannot together crash head-on, but rather\nMove side-wise and with motions contrary\nGraze each the other's body without speed,\nFrom whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,\nSo long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed\nFrom out their close positions.\n And, again,\nIn following wise all things seem oft to quake\nAt shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls\nOf the wide reaches of the upper world\nThere on the instant to have sprung apart,\nRiven asunder, what time a gathered blast\nOf the fierce hurricane hath all at once\nTwisted its way into a mass of clouds,\nAnd, there enclosed, ever more and more\nCompelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud\nTo grow all hollow with a thickened crust\nSurrounding; for thereafter, when the force\nAnd the keen onset of the wind have weakened\nThat crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,\nGives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.\nNo marvel this; since oft a bladder small,\nFilled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,\nGive forth a like large sound.\n There's reason, too,\nWhy clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:\nWe see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds\nRough-edged or branched many forky ways;\nAnd 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws\nOf north-west wind through the dense forest blow,\nMaking the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.\nIt happens too at times that roused force\nOf the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud,\nBreaking right through it by a front assault;\nFor what a blast of wind may do up there\nIs manifest from facts when here on earth\nA blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees\nAnd sucks them madly from their deepest roots.\nBesides, among the clouds are waves, and these\nGive, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar;\nAs when along deep streams or the great sea\nBreaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever\nOut from one cloud into another falls\nThe fiery energy of thunderbolt,\nThat straightaway the cloud, if full of wet,\nExtinguishes the fire with mighty noise;\nAs iron, white from the hot furnaces,\nSizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow\nDown the cold water. Further, if a cloud\nMore dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly\nKindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound,\nAs if a flame with whirl of winds should range\nAlong the laurel-tressed mountains far,\nUpburning with its vast assault those trees;\nNor is there aught that in the crackling flame\nConsumes with sound more terrible to man\nThan Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.\nOft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice\nAnd down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound\nAmong the mighty clouds on high; for when\nThe wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass\nOf rain-cloud, there congealed utterly\nAnd mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...\n\nLikewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck,\nBy their collision, forth the seeds of fire:\nAs if a stone should smite a stone or steel,\nFor light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters\nThe shining sparks. But with our ears we get\nThe thunder after eyes behold the flash,\nBecause forever things arrive the ears\nMore tardily than the eyes- as thou mayst see\nFrom this example too: when markest thou\nSome man far yonder felling a great tree\nWith double-edged ax, it comes to pass\nThine eye beholds the swinging stroke before\nThe blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears:\nThus also we behold the flashing ere\nWe hear the thunder, which discharged is\nAt same time with the fire and by same cause,\nBorn of the same collision.\n In following wise\nThe clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands,\nAnd the storm flashes with tremulous elan:\nWhen the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there,\nHath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud\nInto a hollow with a thickened crust,\nIt becomes hot of own velocity:\nJust as thou seest how motion will o'erheat\nAnd set ablaze all objects,- verily\nA leaden ball, hurtling through length of space,\nEven melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire\nHath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds,\nWhich, so to say, have been pressed out by force\nOf sudden from the cloud;- and these do make\nThe pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth\nThe detonation which attacks our ears\nMore tardily than aught which comes along\nUnto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place-\nAs know thou mayst- at times when clouds are dense\nAnd one upon the other piled aloft\nWith wonderful upheavings- nor be thou\nDeceived because we see how broad their base\nFrom underneath, and not how high they tower.\nFor make thine observations at a time\nWhen winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue\nClouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,\nOr when about the sides of mighty peaks\nThou seest them one upon the other massed\nAnd burdening downward, anchored in high repose,\nWith the winds sepulchred on all sides round:\nThen canst thou know their mighty masses, then\nCanst view their caverns, as if builded there\nOf beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes\nIn gathered storm have filled utterly,\nThen, prisoned in clouds, they rave around\nWith mighty roarings, and within those dens\nBluster like savage beasts, and now from here,\nAnd now from there, send growlings through the clouds,\nAnd seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about,\nAnd roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire,\nAnd heap them multitudinously there,\nAnd in the hollow furnaces within\nWheel flame around, until from bursted cloud\nIn forky flashes they have gleamed forth.\n Again, from following cause it comes to pass\nThat yon swift golden hue of liquid fire\nDarts downward to the earth: because the clouds\nThemselves must hold abundant seeds of fire;\nFor, when they be without all moisture, then\nThey be for most part of a flamy hue\nAnd a resplendent. And, indeed, they must\nEven from the light of sun unto themselves\nTake multitudinous seeds, and so perforce\nRedden and pour their bright fires all abroad.\nAnd therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust,\nHath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds,\nThey pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out,\nWhich make to flash these colours of the flame.\nLikewise, it lightens also when the clouds\nGrow rare and thin along the sky; for, when\nThe wind with gentle touch unravels them\nAnd breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds\nWhich make the lightnings must by nature fall;\nAt such an hour the horizon lightens round\nWithout the hideous terror of dread noise\nAnd skiey uproar.\n To proceed apace,\nWhat sort of nature thunderbolts possess\nIs by their strokes made manifest and by\nThe brand-marks of their searing heat on things,\nAnd by the scorched scars exhaling round\nThe heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these\nAre marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.\nAgain, they often enkindle even the roofs\nOf houses and inside the very rooms\nWith swift flame hold a fierce dominion.\nKnow thou that nature fashioned this fire\nSubtler than fires all other, with minute\nAnd dartling bodies,- a fire 'gainst which there's naught\nCan in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,\nThe mighty, passes through the hedging walls\nOf houses, like to voices or a shout,-\nThrough stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts\nUpon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,\nLikewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,\nThe wine-jars intact,- because, ye see,\nIts heat arriving renders loose and porous\nReadily all the wine- jar's earthen sides,\nAnd winding its way within, it scattereth\nThe elements primordial of the wine\nWith speedy dissolution- process which\nEven in an age the fiery steam of sun\nCould not accomplish, however puissant he\nWith his hot coruscations: so much more\nAgile and overpowering is this force.\n\nNow in what manner engendered are these things,\nHow fashioned of such impetuous strength\nAs to cleave towers asunder, and houses all\nTo overtopple, and to wrench apart\nTimbers and beams, and heroes' monuments\nTo pile in ruins and upheave amain,\nAnd to take breath forever out of men,\nAnd to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-\nYes, by what force the lightnings do all this,\nAll this and more, I will unfold to thee,\nNor longer keep thee in mere promises.\n The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived\nAs all begotten in those crasser clouds\nUp-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene\nAnd from the clouds of lighter density,\nNone are sent forth forever. That 'tis so\nBeyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:\nTo wit, at such a time the densed clouds\nSo mass themselves through all the upper air\nThat we might think that round about all murk\nHad parted forth from Acheron and filled\nThe mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,\nAs gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might,\nDo faces of black horror hang on high-\nWhen tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.\nBesides, full often also out at sea\nA blackest thunderhead, like cataract\nOf pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away\nBulging with murkiness, down on the waves\nFalls with vast uproar, and draws on amain\nThe darkling tempests big with thunderbolts\nAnd hurricanes, itself the while so crammed\nTremendously with fires and winds, that even\nBack on the lands the people shudder round\nAnd seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,\nThe storm must be conceived as o'er our head\nTowering most high; for never would the clouds\nO'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,\nUnless up-builded heap on lofty heap,\nTo shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,\nAs on they come, engulf with rain so vast\nAs thus to make the rivers overflow\nAnd fields to float, if ether were not thus\nFurnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,\nHere be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-\nHence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.\nFor, verily, I've taught thee even now\nHow cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable\nOf fiery exhalations, and they must\nFrom off the sunbeams and the heat of these\nTake many still. And so, when that same wind\n(Which, haply, into one region of the sky\nCollects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same\nThe many fiery seeds, and with that fire\nHath at the same time inter-mixed itself,\nO then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,\nDeep in the belly of the cloud spins round\nIn narrow confines, and sharpens there inside\nIn glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.\nFor in a two-fold manner is that wind\nEnkindled all: it trembles into heat\nBoth by its own velocity and by\nRepeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when\nThe energy of wind is heated through\nAnd the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped\nDeeply within, O then the thunderbolt,\nNow ripened, so to say, doth suddenly\nSplinter the cloud, and the aroused flash\nLeaps onward, lumining with forky light\nAll places round. And followeth anon\nA clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,\nAs if asunder burst, seem from on high\nTo engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake\nPervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies\nRun the far rumblings. For at such a time\nNigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,\nAnd roused are the roarings,- from which shock\nComes such resounding and abounding rain,\nThat all the murky ether seems to turn\nNow into rain, and, as it tumbles down,\nTo summon the fields back to primeval floods:\nSo big the rains that be sent down on men\nBy burst of cloud and by the hurricane,\nWhat time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt\nThat cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times\nThe force of wind, excited from without,\nSmiteth into a cloud already hot\nWith a ripe thunderbolt. And when that wind\nHath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith\nYon fiery coil of flame which still we call,\nEven with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.\nThe same thing haps toward every other side\nWhither that force hath swept. It happens, too,\nThat sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth\nWithout all fire, yet in its voyage through space\nIgniteth, whilst it comes along, along,-\nLosing some larger bodies which cannot\nPass, like the others, through the bulks of air,-\nAnd, scraping together out of air itself\nSome smaller bodies, carries them along,\nAnd these, commingling, by their flight make fire:\nMuch in the manner as oft a leaden ball\nGrows hot upon its aery course, the while\nIt loseth many bodies of stark cold\nAnd taketh into itself along the air\nNew particles of fire. It happens, too,\nThat force of blow itself arouses fire,\nWhen force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth\nWithout all fire, hath strook somewhere amain-\nNo marvel, because, when with terrific stroke\n'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff\nCan stream together from out the very wind\nAnd, simultaneously, from out that thing\nWhich then and there receives the stroke: as flies\nThe fire when with the steel we hack the stone;\nNor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold,\nRush the less speedily together there\nUnder the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.\nAnd therefore, thuswise must an object too\nBe kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply\n'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.\nYet force of wind must not be rashly deemed\nAs altogether and entirely cold-\nThat force which is discharged from on high\nWith such stupendous power; but if 'tis not\nUpon its course already kindled with fire,\nIt yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.\n And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt\nIs so tremendous, and with glide so swift\nThose thunderbolts rush on and down, because\nTheir roused force itself collects itself\nFirst always in the clouds, and then prepares\nFor the huge effort of their going-forth;\nNext, when the cloud no longer can retain\nThe increment of their fierce impetus,\nTheir force is pressed out, and therefore flies\nWith impetus so wondrous, like to shots\nHurled from the powerful Roman catapults.\nNote, too, this force consists of elements\nBoth small and smooth, nor is there aught that can\nWith ease resist such nature. For it darts\nBetween and enters through the pores of things;\nAnd so it never falters in delay\nDespite innumerable collisions, but\nFlies shooting onward with a swift elan.\nNext, since by nature always every weight\nBears downward, doubled is the swiftness then\nAnd that elan is still more wild and dread,\nWhen, verily, to weight are added blows,\nSo that more madly and more fiercely then\nThe thunderbolt shakes into shivers all\nThat blocks its path, following on its way.\nThen, too, because it comes along, along\nWith one continuing elan, it must\nTake on velocity anew, anew,\nWhich still increases as it goes, and ever\nAugments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow\nGives larger vigour; for it forces all,\nAll of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep\nIn a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,-\nCasting them one by other, as they roll,\nInto that onward course. Again, perchance,\nIn coming along, it pulls from out the air\nSome certain bodies, which by their own blows\nEnkindle its velocity. And, lo,\nIt comes through objects leaving them unharmed,\nIt goes through many things and leaves them whole,\nBecause the liquid fire flieth along\nAthrough their pores. And much it does transfix,\nWhen these primordial atoms of the bolt\nHave fallen upon the atoms of these things\nPrecisely where the intertwined atoms\nAre held together. And, further, easily\nBrass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold,\nBecause its force is so minutely made\nOf tiny parts and elements so smooth\nThat easily they wind their way within,\nAnd, when once in, quickly unbind all knots\nAnd loosen all the bonds of union there.\n And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven,\nThe house so studded with the glittering stars,\nAnd the whole earth around- most too in spring\nWhen flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo,\nIn the cold season is there lack of fire,\nAnd winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds\nHave not so dense a bulk. But when, indeed,\nThe seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain,\nThe divers causes of the thunderbolt\nThen all concur; for then both cold and heat\nAre mixed in the cross-seas of the year,\nSo that a discord rises among things\nAnd air in vast tumultuosity\nBillows, infuriate with the fires and winds-\nOf which the both are needed by the cloud\nFor fabrication of the thunderbolt.\nFor the first part of heat and last of cold\nIs the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike\nDo battle one with other, and, when mixed,\nTumultuously rage. And when rolls round\nThe latest heat mixed with the earliest chill-\nThe time which bears the name of autumn- then\nLikewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.\nOn this account these seasons of the year\nAre nominated \"cross-seas.\"- And no marvel\nIf in those times the thunderbolts prevail\nAnd storms are roused turbulent in heaven,\nSince then both sides in dubious warfare rage\nTumultuously, the one with flames, the other\nWith winds and with waters mixed with winds.\n This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through\nThe very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;\nO this it is to mark by what blind force\nIt maketh each effect, and not, O not\nTo unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,\nInquiring tokens of occult will of gods,\nEven as to whence the flying flame hath come,\nOr to which half of heaven it turns, or how\nThrough walled places it hath wound its way,\nOr, after proving its dominion there,\nHow it hath speeded forth from thence amain,\nOr what the thunderstroke portends of ill\nFrom out high heaven. But if Jupiter\nAnd other gods shake those refulgent vaults\nWith dread reverberations and hurl fire\nWhither it pleases each, why smite they not\nMortals of reckless and revolting crimes,\nThat such may pant from a transpierced breast\nForth flames of the red levin- unto men\nA drastic lesson?- why is rather he-\nO he self-conscious of no foul offence-\nInvolved in flames, though innocent, and clasped\nUp-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?\nNay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes,\nAnd spend themselves in vain?- perchance, even so\nTo exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?\nWhy suffer they the Father's javelin\nTo be so blunted on the earth? And why\nDoth he himself allow it, nor spare the same\nEven for his enemies? O why most oft\nAims he at lofty places? Why behold we\nMarks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?\nThen for what reason shoots he at the sea?-\nWhat sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine\nAnd floating fields of foam been guilty of?\nBesides, if 'tis his will that we beware\nAgainst the lightning-stroke, why feareth he\nTo grant us power for to behold the shot?\nAnd, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us,\nQuite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he\nOff in yon quarter, so that we may shun?\nWhy rouseth he beforehand darkling air\nAnd the far din and rumblings? And O how\nCanst thou believe he shoots at one same time\nInto diverse directions? Or darest thou\nContend that never hath it come to pass\nThat divers strokes have happened at one time?\nBut oft and often hath it come to pass,\nAnd often still it must, that, even as showers\nAnd rains o'er many regions fall, so too\nDart many thunderbolts at one same time.\nAgain, why never hurtles Jupiter\nA bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad\nClap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?\nOr, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds\nHave come thereunder, then into the same\nDescend in person, that from thence he may\nNear-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?\nAnd, lastly, why, with devastating bolt\nShakes he asunder holy shrines of gods\nAnd his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks\nThe well-wrought idols of divinities,\nAnd robs of glory his own images\nBy wound of violence?\n But to return apace,\nEasy it is from these same facts to know\nIn just what wise those things (which from their sort\nThe Greeks have named \"bellows\") do come down,\nDischarged from on high, upon the seas.\nFor it haps that sometimes from the sky descends\nUpon the seas a column, as if pushed,\nRound which the surges seethe, tremendously\nAroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er\nOf ships are caught within that tumult then\nCome into extreme peril, dashed along.\nThis haps when sometimes wind's aroused force\nCan't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs\nThat cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky\nUpon the seas pushed downward- gradually,\nAs if a Somewhat from on high were shoved\nBy fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened\nFar to the waves. And when the force of wind\nHath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes\nDown on the seas, and starts among the waves\nA wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl\nDescends and downward draws along with it\nThat cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever\n'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main\nThat laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then\nPlunges its whole self into the waters there\nAnd rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,\nConstraining it to seethe. It happens too\nThat very vortex of the wind involves\nItself in clouds, scraping from out the air\nThe seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,\nThe \"bellows\" pushed from heaven. And when this shape\nHath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,\nIt belches forth immeasurable might\nOf whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed\nAt most but rarely, and on land the hills\nMust block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there\nOn the broad prospect of the level main\nAlong the free horizons.\n Into being\nThe clouds condense, when in this upper space\nOf the high heaven have gathered suddenly,\nAs round they flew, unnumbered particles-\nWorld's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked\nWith scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,\nThe one on other caught. These particles\nFirst cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,\nThese catch the one on other and swarm in a flock\nAnd grow by their conjoining, and by winds\nAre borne along, along, until collects\nThe tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer\nThe mountain summits neighbour to the sky,\nThe more unceasingly their far crags smoke\nWith the thick darkness of swart cloud, because\nWhen first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes\nCan there behold them (tenuous as they be),\nThe carrier-winds will drive them up and on\nUnto the topmost summits of the mountain;\nAnd then at last it happens, when they be\nIn vaster throng upgathered, that they can\nBy this very condensation lie revealed,\nAnd that at same time they are seen to surge\nFrom very vertex of the mountain up\nInto far ether. For very fact and feeling,\nAs we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear\nThat windy are those upward regions free.\nBesides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,\nWhen in they take the clinging moisture, prove\nThat nature lifts from over all the sea\nUnnumbered particles. Whereby the more\n'Tis manifest that many particles\nEven from the salt upheavings of the main\nCan rise together to augment the bulk\nOf massed clouds. For moistures in these twain\nAre near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,\nAs well as from the land itself, we see\nUp-rising mists and steam, which like a breath\nAre forced out from them and borne aloft,\nTo curtain heaven with their murk, and make,\nBy slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.\nFor, in addition, lo, the heat on high\nOf constellated ether burdens down\nUpon them, and by sort of condensation\nWeaveth beneath the azure firmament\nThe reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too,\nThat hither to the skies from the Beyond\nDo come those particles which make the clouds\nAnd flying thunderheads. For I have taught\nThat this their number is innumerable\nAnd infinite the sum of the Abyss,\nAnd I have shown with what stupendous speed\nThose bodies fly and how they're wont to pass\nAmain through incommunicable space.\nTherefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft\nIn little time tempest and darkness cover\nWith bulking thunderheads hanging on high\nThe oceans and the lands, since everywhere\nThrough all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,\nYea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes\nOf the great upper-world encompassing,\nThere be for the primordial elements\nExits and entrances.\n Now come, and how\nThe rainy moisture thickens into being\nIn the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands\n'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,\nI will unfold. And first triumphantly\nWill I persuade thee that up-rise together,\nWith clouds themselves, full many seeds of water\nFrom out all things, and that they both increase-\nBoth clouds and water which is in the clouds-\nIn like proportion, as our frames increase\nIn like proportion with our blood, as well\nAs sweat or any moisture in our members.\nBesides, the clouds take in from time to time\nMuch moisture risen from the broad marine,-\nWhilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea,\nLike hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise,\nEven from all rivers is there lifted up\nMoisture into the clouds. And when therein\nThe seeds of water so many in many ways\nHave come together, augmented from all sides,\nThe close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge\nTheir rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,\nThe wind's force crowds them, and the very excess\nOf storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)\nGiveth an urge and pressure from above\nAnd makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too,\nThe clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered\nSmitten on top by heat of sun, they send\nTheir rainy moisture, and distil their drops,\nEven as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,\nWasteth and liquefies abundantly.\nBut comes the violence of the bigger rains\nWhen violently the clouds are weighted down\nBoth by their cumulated mass and by\nThe onset of the wind. And rains are wont\nTo endure awhile and to abide for long,\nWhen many seeds of waters are aroused,\nAnd clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream\nIn piled layers and are borne along\nFrom every quarter, and when all the earth\nSmoking exhales her moisture. At such a time\nWhen sun with beams amid the tempest-murk\nHath shone against the showers of black rains,\nThen in the swart clouds there emerges bright\nThe radiance of the bow.\n And as to things\nNot mentioned here which of themselves do grow\nOr of themselves are gendered, and all things\nWhich in the clouds condense to being- all,\nSnow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill,\nAnd freezing, mighty force- of lakes and pools\nThe mighty hardener, and mighty check\nWhich in the winter curbeth everywhere\nThe rivers as they go- 'tis easy still,\nSoon to discover and with mind to see\nHow they all happen, whereby gendered,\nWhen once thou well hast understood just what\nFunctions have been vouchsafed from of old\nUnto the procreant atoms of the world.\nNow come, and what the law of earthquakes is\nHearken, and first of all take care to know\nThat the under-earth, like to the earth around us,\nIs full of windy caverns all about;\nAnd many a pool and many a grim abyss\nShe bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs\nAnd jagged scarps; and many a river, hid\nBeneath her chine, rolls rapidly along\nIts billows and plunging boulders. For clear fact\nRequires that earth must be in every part\nAlike in constitution. Therefore, earth,\nWith these things underneath affixed and set,\nTrembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings,\nWhen time hath undermined the huge caves,\nThe subterranean. Yea, whole mountains fall,\nAnd instantly from spot of that big jar\nThere quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.\nAnd with good reason: since houses on the street\nBegin to quake throughout, when jarred by a cart\nOf no large weight; and, too, the furniture\nWithin the house up-bounds, when a paving-block\nGives either iron rim of the wheels a jolt.\nIt happens, too, when some prodigious bulk\nOf age-worn soil is rolled from mountain slopes\nInto tremendous pools of water dark,\nThat the reeling land itself is rocked about\nBy the water's undulations; as a basin\nSometimes won't come to rest until the fluid\nWithin it ceases to be rocked about\nIn random undulations.\n And besides,\nWhen subterranean winds, up-gathered there\nIn the hollow deeps, bulk forward from one spot,\nAnd press with the big urge of mighty powers\nAgainst the lofty grottos, then the earth\nBulks to that quarter whither push amain\nThe headlong winds. Then all the builded houses\nAbove ground- and the more, the higher up-reared\nUnto the sky- lean ominously, careening\nInto the same direction; and the beams,\nWrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go.\nYet dread men to believe that there awaits\nThe nature of the mighty world a time\nOf doom and cataclysm, albeit they see\nSo great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!\nAnd lest the winds blew back again, no force\nCould rein things in nor hold from sure career\nOn to disaster. But now because those winds\nBlow back and forth in alternation strong,\nAnd, so to say, rallying charge again,\nAnd then repulsed retreat, on this account\nEarth oftener threatens than she brings to pass\nCollapses dire. For to one side she leans,\nThen back she sways; and after tottering\nForward, recovers then her seats of poise.\nThus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs\nMore than the middle stories, middle more\nThan lowest, and the lowest least of all.\n Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking,\nWhen wind and some prodigious force of air,\nCollected from without or down within\nThe old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves\nAmain into those caverns sub-terrene,\nAnd there at first tumultuously chafe\nAmong the vasty grottos, borne about\nIn mad rotations, till their lashed force\nAroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there,\nRiving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm-\nWhat once in Syrian Sidon did befall,\nAnd once in Peloponnesian Aegium,\nTwain cities which such out-break of wild air\nAnd earth's convulsion, following hard upon,\nO'erthrew of old. And many a walled town,\nBesides, hath fall'n by such omnipotent\nConvulsions on the land, and in the sea\nEngulfed hath sunken many a city down\nWith all its populace. But if, indeed,\nThey burst not forth, yet is the very rush\nOf the wild air and fury-force of wind\nThen dissipated, like an ague-fit,\nThrough the innumerable pores of earth,\nTo set her all a-shake- even as a chill,\nWhen it hath gone into our marrow-bones,\nSets us convulsively, despite ourselves,\nA-shivering and a-shaking. Therefore, men\nWith two-fold terror bustle in alarm\nThrough cities to and fro: they fear the roofs\nAbove the head; and underfoot they dread\nThe caverns, lest the nature of the earth\nSuddenly rend them open, and she gape,\nHerself asunder, with tremendous maw,\nAnd, all confounded, seek to chock it full\nWith her own ruins. Let men, then, go on\nFeigning at will that heaven and earth shall be\nInviolable, entrusted evermore\nTo an eternal weal: and yet at times\nThe very force of danger here at hand\nProds them on some side with this goad of fear-\nThis among others- that the earth, withdrawn\nAbruptly from under their feet, be hurried down,\nDown into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things\nBe following after, utterly fordone,\nTill be but wrack and wreckage of a world.\n\n\nEXTRAORDINARY AND PARADOXICAL TELLURIC \nPHENOMENA\n\n In chief, men marvel nature renders not\nBigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since\nSo vast the down-rush of the waters be,\nAnd every river out of every realm\nCometh thereto; and add the random rains\nAnd flying tempests, which spatter every sea\nAnd every land bedew; add their own springs:\nYet all of these unto the ocean's sum\nShall be but as the increase of a drop.\nWherefore 'tis less a marvel that the sea,\nThe mighty ocean, increaseth not. Besides,\nSun with his heat draws off a mighty part:\nYea, we behold that sun with burning beams\nTo dry our garments dripping all with wet;\nAnd many a sea, and far out-spread beneath,\nDo we behold. Therefore, however slight\nThe portion of wet that sun on any spot\nCulls from the level main, he still will take\nFrom off the waves in such a wide expanse\nAbundantly. Then, further, also winds,\nSweeping the level waters, can bear off\nA mighty part of wet, since we behold\nOft in a single night the highways dried\nBy winds, and soft mud crusted o'er at dawn.\nAgain, I've taught thee that the clouds bear off\nMuch moisture too, up-taken from the reaches\nOf the mighty main, and sprinkle it about\nO'er all the zones, when rain is on the lands\nAnd winds convey the aery racks of vapour.\nLastly, since earth is porous through her frame,\nAnd neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores,\nThe water's wet must seep into the lands\nFrom briny ocean, as from lands it comes\nInto the seas. For brine is filtered off,\nAnd then the liquid stuff seeps back again\nAnd all re-poureth at the river-heads,\nWhence in fresh-water currents it returns\nOver the lands, adown the channels which\nWere cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along\nThe liquid-footed floods.\n And now the cause\nWhereby athrough the throat of Aetna's Mount\nSuch vast tornado-fires out-breathe at times,\nI will unfold: for with no middling might\nOf devastation the flamy tempest rose\nAnd held dominion in Sicilian fields:\nDrawing upon itself the upturned faces\nOf neighbouring clans, what time they saw afar\nThe skiey vaults a-fume and sparkling all,\nAnd filled their bosoms with dread anxiety\nOf what new thing nature were travailing at.\n In these affairs it much behooveth thee\nTo look both wide and deep, and far abroad\nTo peer to every quarter, that thou mayst\nRemember how boundless is the Sum-of-Things,\nAnd mark how infinitely small a part\nOf the whole Sum is this one sky of ours-\nO not so large a part as is one man\nOf the whole earth. And plainly if thou viewest\nThis cosmic fact, placing it square in front,\nAnd plainly understandest, thou wilt leave\nWondering at many things. For who of us\nWondereth if some one gets into his joints\nA fever, gathering head with fiery heat,\nOr any other dolorous disease\nAlong his members? For anon the foot\nGrows blue and bulbous; often the sharp twinge\nSeizes the teeth, attacks the very eyes;\nOut-breaks the sacred fire, and, crawling on\nOver the body, burneth every part\nIt seizeth on, and works its hideous way\nAlong the frame. No marvel this, since, lo,\nOf things innumerable be seeds enough,\nAnd this our earth and sky do bring to us\nEnough of bane from whence can grow the strength\nOf maladies uncounted. Thuswise, then,\nWe must suppose to all the sky and earth\nAre ever supplied from out the infinite\nAll things, O all in stores enough whereby\nThe shaken earth can of a sudden move,\nAnd fierce typhoons can over sea and lands\nGo tearing on, and Aetna's fires o'erflow,\nAnd heaven become a flame-burst. For that, too,\nHappens at times, and the celestial vaults\nGlow into fire, and rainy tempests rise\nIn heavier congregation, when, percase,\nThe seeds of water have foregathered thus\nFrom out the infinite. \"Aye, but passing huge\nThe fiery turmoil of that conflagration!\"\nSo sayst thou; well, huge many a river seems\nTo him that erstwhile ne'er a larger saw;\nThus, huge seems tree or man; and everything\nWhich mortal sees the biggest of each class,\nThat he imagines to be \"huge\"; though yet\nAll these, with sky and land and sea to boot,\nAre all as nothing to the sum entire\nOf the all-Sum.\n But now I will unfold\nAt last how yonder suddenly angered flame\nOut-blows abroad from vasty furnaces\nAetnaean. First, the mountain's nature is\nAll under-hollow, propped about, about\nWith caverns of basaltic piers. And, lo,\nIn all its grottos be there wind and air-\nFor wind is made when air hath been uproused\nBy violent agitation. When this air\nIs heated through and through, and, raging round,\nHath made the earth and all the rocks it touches\nHorribly hot, and hath struck off from them\nFierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself\nAnd hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat\nInto high heav'n, and thus bears on afar\nIts burning blasts and scattereth afar\nIts ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk\nAnd heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight-\nLeaving no doubt in thee that 'tis the air's\nTumultuous power. Besides, in mighty part,\nThe sea there at the roots of that same mount\nBreaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.\nAnd grottos from the sea pass in below\nEven to the bottom of the mountain's throat.\nHerethrough thou must admit there go...\n\nAnd the conditions force [the water and air]\nDeeply to penetrate from the open sea,\nAnd to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear\nThereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps\nThe boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.\nFor at the top be \"bowls,\" as people there\nAre wont to name what we at Rome do call\nThe throats and mouths.\n There be, besides, some thing\nOf which 'tis not enough one only cause\nTo state- but rather several, whereof one\nWill be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy\nLying afar some fellow's lifeless corse,\n'Twere meet to name all causes of a death,\nThat cause of his death might thereby be named:\nFor prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,\nBy cold, nor even by poison nor disease,\nYet somewhat of this sort hath come to him\nWe know- And thus we have to say the same\nIn divers cases.\n Toward the summer, Nile\nWaxeth and overfloweth the champaign,\nUnique in all the landscape, river sole\nOf the Aegyptians. In mid-season heats\nOften and oft he waters Aegypt o'er,\nEither because in summer against his mouths\nCome those northwinds which at that time of year\nMen name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus\nUpstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves,\nFill him o'erfull and force his flow to stop.\nFor out of doubt these blasts which driven be\nFrom icy constellations of the pole\nAre borne straight up the river. Comes that river\nFrom forth the sultry places down the south,\nRising far up in midmost realm of day,\nAmong black generations of strong men\nWith sun-baked skins. 'Tis possible, besides,\nThat a big bulk of piled sand may bar\nHis mouths against his onward waves, when sea,\nWild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;\nWhereby the river's outlet were less free,\nLikewise less headlong his descending floods.\nIt may be, too, that in this season rains\nAre more abundant at its fountain head,\nBecause the Etesian blasts of those northwinds\nThen urge all clouds into those inland parts.\nAnd, soothly, when they're thus foregathered there,\nUrged yonder into midmost realm of day,\nThen, crowded against the lofty mountain sides,\nThey're massed and powerfully pressed. Again,\nPerchance, his waters wax, O far away,\nAmong the Aethiopians' lofty mountains,\nWhen the all-beholding sun with thawing beams\nDrives the white snows to flow into the vales.\n Now come; and unto thee I will unfold,\nAs to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns,\nWhat sort of nature they are furnished with.\nFirst, as to name of \"birdless,\"- that derives\nFrom very fact, because they noxious be\nUnto all birds. For when above those spots\nIn horizontal flight the birds have come,\nForgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails,\nAnd, with down-drooping of their delicate necks,\nFall headlong into earth, if haply such\nThe nature of the spots, or into water,\nIf haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.\nSuch spot's at Cumae, where the mountains smoke,\nCharged with the pungent sulphur, and increased\nWith steaming springs. And such a spot there is\nWithin the walls of Athens, even there\nOn summit of Acropolis, beside\nFane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful,\nWhere never cawing crows can wing their course,\nNot even when smoke the altars with good gifts,-\nBut evermore they flee- yet not from wrath\nOf Pallas, grieved at that espial old,\nAs poets of the Greeks have sung the tale;\nBut very nature of the place compels.\nIn Syria also- as men say- a spot\nIs to be seen, where also four-foot kinds,\nAs soon as ever they've set their steps within,\nCollapse, o'ercome by its essential power,\nAs if there slaughtered to the under-gods.\nLo, all these wonders work by natural law,\nAnd from what causes they are brought to pass\nThe origin is manifest; so, haply,\nLet none believe that in these regions stands\nThe gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose,\nHaply, that thence the under-gods draw down\nSouls to dark shores of Acheron- as stags,\nThe wing-footed, are thought to draw to light,\nBy sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs\nThe wriggling generations of wild snakes.\nHow far removed from true reason is this,\nPerceive thou straight; for now I'll try to say\nSomewhat about the very fact.\n And, first,\nThis do I say, as oft I've said before:\nIn earth are atoms of things of every sort;\nAnd know, these all thus rise from out the earth-\nMany life-giving which be good for food,\nAnd many which can generate disease\nAnd hasten death, O many primal seeds\nOf many things in many modes- since earth\nContains them mingled and gives forth discrete.\nAnd we have shown before that certain things\nBe unto certain creatures suited more\nFor ends of life, by virtue of a nature,\nA texture, and primordial shapes, unlike\nFor kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see\nHow many things oppressive be and foul\nTo man, and to sensation most malign:\nMany meander miserably through ears;\nMany in-wind athrough the nostrils too,\nMalign and harsh when mortal draws a breath;\nOf not a few must one avoid the touch;\nOf not a few must one escape the sight;\nAnd some there be all loathsome to the taste;\nAnd many, besides, relax the languid limbs\nAlong the frame, and undermine the soul\nIn its abodes within. To certain trees\nThere hath been given so dolorous a shade\nThat often they gender achings of the head,\nIf one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward.\nThere is, again, on Helicon's high hills\nA tree that's wont to kill a man outright\nBy fetid odour of its very flower.\nAnd when the pungent stench of the night-lamp,\nExtinguished but a moment since, assails\nThe nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep\nA man afflicted with the falling sickness\nAnd foamings at the mouth. A woman, too,\nAt the heavy castor drowses back in chair,\nAnd from her delicate fingers slips away\nHer gaudy handiwork, if haply she\nHath got the whiff at menstruation-time.\nOnce more, if thou delayest in hot baths,\nWhen thou art over-full, how readily\nFrom stool in middle of the steaming water\nThou tumblest in a fit! How readily\nThe heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way\nInto the brain, unless beforehand we\nOf water 've drunk. But when a burning fever,\nO'ermastering man, hath seized upon his limbs,\nThen odour of wine is like a hammer-blow.\nAnd seest thou not how in the very earth\nSulphur is gendered and bitumen thickens\nWith noisome stench?- What direful stenches, too,\nScaptensula out-breathes from down below,\nWhen men pursue the veins of silver and gold,\nWith pick-axe probing round the hidden realms\nDeep in the earth?- Or what of deadly bane\nThe mines of gold exhale? O what a look,\nAnd what a ghastly hue they give to men!\nAnd seest thou not, or hearest, how they're wont\nIn little time to perish, and how fail\nThe life-stores in those folk whom mighty power\nOf grim necessity confineth there\nIn such a task? Thus, this telluric earth\nOut-streams with all these dread effluvia\nAnd breathes them out into the open world\nAnd into the visible regions under heaven.\n Thus, too, those Birdless places must up-send\nAn essence bearing death to winged things,\nWhich from the earth rises into the breezes\nTo poison part of skiey space, and when\nThither the winged is on pennons borne,\nThere, seized by the unseen poison, 'tis ensnared,\nAnd from the horizontal of its flight\nDrops to the spot whence sprang the effluvium.\nAnd when 'thas there collapsed, then the same power\nOf that effluvium takes from all its limbs\nThe relics of its life. That power first strikes\nThe creatures with a wildering dizziness,\nAnd then thereafter, when they're once down-fallen\nInto the poison's very fountains, then\nLife, too, they vomit out perforce, because\nSo thick the stores of bane around them fume.\n Again, at times it happens that this power,\nThis exhalation of the Birdless places,\nDispels the air betwixt the ground and birds,\nLeaving well-nigh a void. And thither when\nIn horizontal flight the birds have come,\nForthwith their buoyancy of pennons limps,\nAll useless, and each effort of both wings\nFalls out in vain. Here, when without all power\nTo buoy themselves and on their wings to lean,\nLo, nature constrains them by their weight to slip\nDown to the earth, and lying prostrate there\nAlong the well-nigh empty void, they spend\nTheir souls through all the openings of their frame.\n\n Further, the water of wells is colder then\nAt summer time, because the earth by heat\nIs rarefied, and sends abroad in air\nWhatever seeds it peradventure have\nOf its own fiery exhalations.\nThe more, then, the telluric ground is drained\nOf heat, the colder grows the water hid\nWithin the earth. Further, when all the earth\nIs by the cold compressed, and thus contracts\nAnd, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo,\nThat by contracting it expresses then\nInto the wells what heat it bears itself.\n 'Tis said at Hammon's fane a fountain is,\nIn daylight cold and hot in time of night.\nThis fountain men be-wonder over-much,\nAnd think that suddenly it seethes in heat\nBy intense sun, the subterranean, when\nNight with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands-\nWhat's not true reasoning by a long remove:\nI' faith when sun o'erhead, touching with beams\nAn open body of water, had no power\nTo render it hot upon its upper side,\nThough his high light possess such burning glare,\nHow, then, can he, when under the gross earth,\nMake water boil and glut with fiery heat?-\nAnd, specially, since scarcely potent he\nThrough hedging walls of houses to inject\nHis exhalations hot, with ardent rays.\nWhat, then's, the principle? Why, this, indeed:\nThe earth about that spring is porous more\nThan elsewhere the telluric ground, and be\nMany the seeds of fire hard by the water;\nOn this account, when night with dew-fraught shades\nHath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down\nGrows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out\nInto the spring what seeds she holds of fire\n(As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot\nThe touch and steam of the fluid. Next, when sun,\nUp-risen, with his rays has split the soil\nAnd rarefied the earth with waxing heat,\nAgain into their ancient abodes return\nThe seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water\nInto the earth retires; and this is why\nThe fountain in the daylight gets so cold.\nBesides, the water's wet is beat upon\nBy rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes\nRarer in texture under his pulsing blaze;\nAnd, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire\nIt renders up, even as it renders oft\nThe frost that it contains within itself\nAnd thaws its ice and looseneth the knots.\nThere is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind\nThat makes a bit of tow (above it held)\nTake fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too,\nA pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round\nAlong its waves, wherever 'tis impelled\nAfloat before the breeze. No marvel, this:\nBecause full many seeds of heat there be\nWithin the water; and, from earth itself\nOut of the deeps must particles of fire\nAthrough the entire fountain surge aloft,\nAnd speed in exhalations into air\nForth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow\nAs to make hot the fountain). And, moreo'er,\nSome force constrains them, scattered through the water,\nForthwith to burst abroad, and to combine\nIn flame above. Even as a fountain far\nThere is at Aradus amid the sea,\nWhich bubbles out sweet water and disparts\nFrom round itself the salt waves; and, behold,\nIn many another region the broad main\nYields to the thirsty mariners timely help,\nBelching sweet waters forth amid salt waves.\nJust so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth\nAthrough that other fount, and bubble out\nAbroad against the bit of tow; and when\nThey there collect or cleave unto the torch,\nForthwith they readily flash aflame, because\nThe tow and torches, also, in themselves\nHave many seeds of latent fire. Indeed,\nAnd seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps\nThou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished\nA moment since, it catches fire before\n'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch?\nAnd many another object flashes aflame\nWhen at a distance, touched by heat alone,\nBefore 'tis steeped in veritable fire.\nThis, then, we must suppose to come to pass\nIn that spring also.\n Now to other things!\nAnd I'll begin to treat by what decree\nOf nature it came to pass that iron can be\nBy that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call\nAfter the country's name (its origin\nBeing in country of Magnesian folk).\nThis stone men marvel at; and sure it oft\nMaketh a chain of rings, depending, lo,\nFrom off itself! Nay, thou mayest see at times\nFive or yet more in order dangling down\nAnd swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one\nDepends from other, cleaving to under-side,\nAnd ilk one feels the stone's own power and bonds-\nSo over-masteringly its power flows down.\n In things of this sort, much must be made sure\nEre thou account of the thing itself canst give,\nAnd the approaches roundabout must be;\nWherefore the more do I exact of thee\nA mind and ears attent.\n First, from all things\nWe see soever, evermore must flow,\nMust be discharged and strewn about, about,\nBodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.\nFrom certain things flow odours evermore,\nAs cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray\nFrom waves of ocean, eater-out of walls\nAlong the coasts. Nor ever cease to seep\nThe varied echoings athrough the air.\nThen, too, there comes into the mouth at times\nThe wet of a salt taste, when by the sea\nWe roam about; and so, whene'er we watch\nThe wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings.\nTo such degree from all things is each thing\nBorne streamingly along, and sent about\nTo every region round; and nature grants\nNor rest nor respite of the onward flow,\nSince 'tis incessantly we feeling have,\nAnd all the time are suffered to descry\nAnd smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.\n Now will I seek again to bring to mind\nHow porous a body all things have- a fact\nMade manifest in my first canto, too.\nFor, truly, though to know this doth import\nFor many things, yet for this very thing\nOn which straightway I'm going to discourse,\n'Tis needful most of all to make it sure\nThat naught's at hand but body mixed with void.\nA first ensample: in grottos, rocks o'erhead\nSweat moisture and distil the oozy drops;\nLikewise, from all our body seeps the sweat;\nThere grows the beard, and along our members all\nAnd along our frame the hairs. Through all our veins\nDisseminates the foods, and gives increase\nAnd aliment down to the extreme parts,\nEven to the tiniest finger-nails. Likewise,\nThrough solid bronze the cold and fiery heat\nWe feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass\nThrough gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand\nThe brimming goblets. And, again, there flit\nVoices through houses' hedging walls of stone;\nOdour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire\nThat's wont to penetrate even strength of iron.\nAgain, where corselet of the sky girds round\n\nAnd at same time, some Influence of bane,\nWhen from Beyond 'thas stolen into [our world].\nAnd tempests, gathering from the earth and sky,\nBack to the sky and earth absorbed retire-\nWith reason, since there's naught that's fashioned not\nWith body porous.\n Furthermore, not all\nThe particles which be from things thrown off\nAre furnished with same qualities for sense,\nNor be for all things equally adapt.\nA first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch\nThe earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams\nCompels the lofty snows, up-reared white\nUpon the lofty hills, to waste away;\nThen, wax, if set beneath the heat of him,\nMelts to a liquid. And the fire, likewise,\nWill melt the copper and will fuse the gold,\nBut hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks.\nThe water hardens the iron just off the fire,\nBut hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens.\nThe oleaster-tree as much delights\nThe bearded she-goats, verily as though\n'Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia;\nThan which is naught that burgeons into leaf\nMore bitter food for man. A hog draws back\nFor marjoram oil, and every unguent fears\nFierce poison these unto the bristled hogs,\nYet unto us from time to time they seem,\nAs 'twere, to give new life. But, contrariwise,\nThough unto us the mire be filth most foul,\nTo hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem\nThat they with wallowing from belly to back\nAre never cloyed.\n A point remains, besides,\nWhich best it seems to tell of, ere I go\nTo telling of the fact at hand itself.\nSince to the varied things assigned be\nThe many pores, those pores must be diverse\nIn nature one from other, and each have\nIts very shape, its own direction fixed.\nAnd so, indeed, in breathing creatures be\nThe several senses, of which each takes in\nUnto itself, in its own fashion ever,\nIts own peculiar object. For we mark\nHow sounds do into one place penetrate,\nInto another flavours of all juice,\nAnd savour of smell into a third. Moreover,\nOne sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo,\nOne sort to pass through wood, another still\nThrough gold, and others to go out and off\nThrough silver and through glass. For we do see\nThrough some pores form-and-look of things to flow,\nThrough others heat to go, and some things still\nTo speedier pass than others through same pores.\nOf verity, the nature of these same paths,\nVarying in many modes (as aforesaid)\nBecause of unlike nature and warp and woof\nOf cosmic things, constrains it so to be.\n Wherefore, since all these matters now have been\nEstablished and settled well for us\nAs premises prepared, for what remains\n'Twill not be hard to render clear account\nBy means of these, and the whole cause reveal\nWhereby the magnet lures the strength of iron.\nFirst, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds\nInnumerable, a very tide, which smites\nBy blows that air asunder lying betwixt\nThe stone and iron. And when is emptied out\nThis space, and a large place between the two\nIs made a void, forthwith the primal germs\nOf iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined\nInto the vacuum, and the ring itself\nBy reason thereof doth follow after and go\nThuswise with all its body. And naught there is\nThat of its own primordial elements\nMore thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres\nThan nature and cold roughness of stout iron.\nWherefore, 'tis less a marvel what I said,\nThat from such elements no bodies can\nFrom out the iron collect in larger throng\nAnd be into the vacuum borne along,\nWithout the ring itself do follow after.\nAnd this it does, and followeth on until\n'Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it\nBy links invisible. Moreover, likewise,\nThe motion's assisted by a thing of aid\n(Whereby the process easier becomes),-\nNamely, by this: as soon as rarer grows\nThat air in front of the ring, and space between\nIs emptied more and made a void, forthwith\nIt happens all the air that lies behind\nConveys it onward, pushing from the rear.\nFor ever doth the circumambient air\nDrub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth\nThe iron, because upon one side the space\nLies void and thus receives the iron in.\nThis air, whereof I am reminding thee,\nWinding athrough the iron's abundant pores\nSo subtly into the tiny parts thereof,\nShoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails.\nThe same doth happen in all directions forth:\nFrom whatso side a space is made a void,\nWhether from crosswise or above, forthwith\nThe neighbour particles are borne along\nInto the vacuum; for of verity,\nThey're set a-going by poundings from elsewhere,\nNor by themselves of own accord can they\nRise upwards into the air. Again, all things\nMust in their framework hold some air, because\nThey are of framework porous, and the air\nEncompasses and borders on all things.\nThus, then, this air in iron so deeply stored\nIs tossed evermore in vexed motion,\nAnd therefore drubs upon the ring sans doubt\nAnd shakes it up inside....\n\nIn sooth, that ring is thither borne along\nTo where 'thas once plunged headlong- thither, lo,\nUnto the void whereto it took its start.\n It happens, too, at times that nature of iron\nShrinks from this stone away, accustomed\nBy turns to flee and follow. Yea, I've seen\nThose Samothracian iron rings leap up,\nAnd iron filings in the brazen bowls\nSeethe furiously, when underneath was set\nThe magnet stone. So strongly iron seems\nTo crave to flee that rock. Such discord great\nIs gendered by the interposed brass,\nBecause, forsooth, when first the tide of brass\nHath seized upon and held possession of\nThe iron's open passage-ways, thereafter\nCometh the tide of the stone, and in that iron\nFindeth all spaces full, nor now hath holes\nTo swim through, as before. 'Tis thus constrained\nWith its own current 'gainst the iron's fabric\nTo dash and beat; by means whereof it spues\nForth from itself- and through the brass stirs up-\nThe things which otherwise without the brass\nIt sucks into itself. In these affairs\nMarvel thou not that from this stone the tide\nPrevails not likewise other things to move\nWith its own blows: for some stand firm by weight,\nAs gold; and some cannot be moved forever,\nBecause so porous in their framework they\nThat there the tide streams through without a break,\nOf which sort stuff of wood is seen to be.\nTherefore, when iron (which lies between the two)\nHath taken in some atoms of the brass,\nThen do the streams of that Magnesian rock\nMove iron by their smitings.\n Yet these things\nAre not so alien from others, that I\nOf this same sort am ill prepared to name\nEnsamples still of things exclusively\nTo one another adapt. Thou seest, first,\nHow lime alone cementeth stones: how wood\nOnly by glue-of-bull with wood is joined-\nSo firmly too that oftener the boards\nCrack open along the weakness of the grain\nEre ever those taurine bonds will lax their hold.\nThe vine-born juices with the water-springs\nAre bold to mix, though not the heavy pitch\nWith the light oil-of-olive. And purple dye\nOf shell-fish so uniteth with the wool's\nBody alone that it cannot be ta'en\nAway forever- nay, though thou gavest toil\nTo restore the same with the Neptunian flood,\nNay, though all ocean willed to wash it out\nWith all its waves. Again, gold unto gold\nDoth not one substance bind, and only one?\nAnd is not brass by tin joined unto brass?\nAnd other ensamples how many might one find!\nWhat then? Nor is there unto thee a need\nOf such long ways and roundabout, nor boots it\nFor me much toil on this to spend. More fit\nIt is in few words briefly to embrace\nThings many: things whose textures fall together\nSo mutually adapt, that cavities\nTo solids correspond, these cavities\nOf this thing to the solid parts of that,\nAnd those of that to solid parts of this-\nSuch joinings are the best. Again, some things\nCan be the one with other coupled and held,\nLinked by hooks and eyes, as 'twere; and this\nSeems more the fact with iron and this stone.\nNow, of diseases what the law, and whence\nThe Influence of bane upgathering can\nUpon the race of man and herds of cattle\nKindle a devastation fraught with death,\nI will unfold. And, first, I've taught above\nThat seeds there be of many things to us\nLife-giving, and that, contrariwise, there must\nFly many round bringing disease and death.\nWhen these have, haply, chanced to collect\nAnd to derange the atmosphere of earth,\nThe air becometh baneful. And, lo, all\nThat Influence of bane, that pestilence,\nOr from Beyond down through our atmosphere,\nLike clouds and mists, descends, or else collects\nFrom earth herself and rises, when, a-soak\nAnd beat by rains unseasonable and suns,\nOur earth hath then contracted stench and rot.\nSeest thou not, also, that whoso arrive\nIn region far from fatherland and home\nAre by the strangeness of the clime and waters\nDistempered?- since conditions vary much.\nFor in what else may we suppose the clime\nAmong the Britons to differ from Aegypt's own\n(Where totters awry the axis of the world),\nOr in what else to differ Pontic clime\nFrom Gades' and from climes adown the south,\nOn to black generations of strong men\nWith sun-baked skins? Even as we thus do see\nFour climes diverse under the four main-winds\nAnd under the four main-regions of the sky,\nSo, too, are seen the colour and face of men\nVastly to disagree, and fixed diseases\nTo seize the generations, kind by kind:\nThere is the elephant-disease which down\nIn midmost Aegypt, hard by streams of Nile,\nEngendered is- and never otherwhere.\nIn Attica the feet are oft attacked,\nAnd in Achaean lands the eyes. And so\nThe divers spots to divers parts and limbs\nAre noxious; 'tis a variable air\nThat causes this. Thus when an atmosphere,\nAlien by chance to us, begins to heave,\nAnd noxious airs begin to crawl along,\nThey creep and wind like unto mist and cloud,\nSlowly, and everything upon their way\nThey disarrange and force to change its state.\nIt happens, too, that when they've come at last\nInto this atmosphere of ours, they taint\nAnd make it like themselves and alien.\nTherefore, asudden this devastation strange,\nThis pestilence, upon the waters falls,\nOr settles on the very crops of grain\nOr other meat of men and feed of flocks.\nOr it remains a subtle force, suspense\nIn the atmosphere itself; and when therefrom\nWe draw our inhalations of mixed air,\nInto our body equally its bane\nAlso we must suck in. In manner like,\nOft comes the pestilence upon the kine,\nAnd sickness, too, upon the sluggish sheep.\nNor aught it matters whether journey we\nTo regions adverse to ourselves and change\nThe atmospheric cloak, or whether nature\nHerself import a tainted atmosphere\nTo us or something strange to our own use\nWhich can attack us soon as ever it come.\n\n THE PLAGUE ATHENS\n\n 'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such\nMortal miasma in Cecropian lands\nWhilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones,\nUnpeopled the highways, drained of citizens\nThe Athenian town. For coming from afar,\nRising in lands of Aegypt, traversing\nReaches of air and floating fields of foam,\nAt last on all Pandion's folk it swooped;\nWhereat by troops unto disease and death\nWere they o'er-given. At first, they'd bear about\nA skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain\nRed with suffusion of blank glare. Their throats,\nBlack on the inside, sweated oozy blood;\nAnd the walled pathway of the voice of man\nWas clogged with ulcers; and the very tongue,\nThe mind's interpreter, would trickle gore,\nWeakened by torments, tardy, rough to touch.\nNext when that Influence of bane had chocked,\nDown through the throat, the breast, and streamed had\nE'en into sullen heart of those sick folk,\nThen, verily, all the fences of man's life\nBegan to topple. From the mouth the breath\nWould roll a noisome stink, as stink to heaven\nRotting cadavers flung unburied out.\nAnd, lo, thereafter, all the body's strength\nAnd every power of mind would languish, now\nIn very doorway of destruction.\nAnd anxious anguish and ululation (mixed\nWith many a groan) companioned alway\nThe intolerable torments. Night and day,\nRecurrent spasms of vomiting would rack\nAlway their thews and members, breaking down\nWith sheer exhaustion men already spent.\nAnd yet on no one's body couldst thou mark\nThe skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow,\nBut rather the body unto touch of hands\nWould offer a warmish feeling, and thereby\nShow red all over, with ulcers, so to say,\nInbranded, like the \"sacred fires\" o'erspread\nAlong the members. The inward parts of men,\nIn truth, would blaze unto the very bones;\nA flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze\nWithin the stomach. Nor couldst aught apply\nUnto their members light enough and thin\nFor shift of aid- but coolness and a breeze\nEver and ever. Some would plunge those limbs\nOn fire with bane into the icy streams,\nHurling the body naked into the waves;\nMany would headlong fling them deeply down\nThe water-pits, tumbling with eager mouth\nAlready agape. The insatiable thirst\nThat whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make\nA goodly shower seem like to scanty drops.\nRespite of torment was there none. Their frames\nForspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear\nWould Medicine mumble low, the while she saw\nSo many a time men roll their eyeballs round,\nStaring wide-open, unvisited of sleep,\nThe heralds of old death. And in those months\nWas given many another sign of death:\nThe intellect of mind by sorrow and dread\nDeranged, the sad brow, the countenance\nFierce and delirious, the tormented ears\nBeset with ringings, the breath quick and short\nOr huge and intermittent, soaking sweat\nA-glisten on neck, the spittle in fine gouts\nTainted with colour of crocus and so salt,\nThe cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat.\nAye, and the sinews in the fingered hands\nWere sure to contract, and sure the jointed frame\nTo shiver, and up from feet the cold to mount\nInch after inch: and toward the supreme hour\nAt last the pinched nostrils, nose's tip\nA very point, eyes sunken, temples hollow,\nSkin cold and hard, the shuddering grimace,\nThe pulled and puffy flesh above the brows!-\nO not long after would their frames lie prone\nIn rigid death. And by about the eighth\nResplendent light of sun, or at the most\nOn the ninth flaming of his flambeau, they\nWould render up the life. If any then\nHad 'scaped the doom of that destruction, yet\nHim there awaited in the after days\nA wasting and a death from ulcers vile\nAnd black discharges of the belly, or else\nThrough the clogged nostrils would there ooze along\nMuch fouled blood, oft with an aching head:\nHither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh.\nAnd whoso had survived that virulent flow\nOf the vile blood, yet into thews of him\nAnd into his joints and very genitals\nWould pass the old disease. And some there were,\nDreading the doorways of destruction\nSo much, lived on, deprived by the knife\nOf the male member; not a few, though lopped\nOf hands and feet, would yet persist in life,\nAnd some there were who lost their eyeballs: O\nSo fierce a fear of death had fallen on them!\nAnd some, besides, were by oblivion\nOf all things seized, that even themselves they knew\nNo longer. And though corpse on corpse lay piled\nUnburied on ground, the race of birds and beasts\nWould or spring back, scurrying to escape\nThe virulent stench, or, if they'd tasted there,\nWould languish in approaching death. But yet\nHardly at all during those many suns\nAppeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth\nThe sullen generations of wild beasts-\nThey languished with disease and died and died.\nIn chief, the faithful dogs, in all the streets\nOutstretched, would yield their breath distressfully\nFor so that Influence of bane would twist\nLife from their members. Nor was found one sure\nAnd universal principle of cure:\nFor what to one had given the power to take\nThe vital winds of air into his mouth,\nAnd to gaze upward at the vaults of sky,\nThe same to others was their death and doom.\n In those affairs, O awfullest of all,\nO pitiable most was this, was this:\nWhoso once saw himself in that disease\nEntangled, ay, as damned unto death,\nWould lie in wanhope, with a sullen heart,\nWould, in fore-vision of his funeral,\nGive up the ghost, O then and there. For, lo,\nAt no time did they cease one from another\nTo catch contagion of the greedy plague,-\nAs though but woolly flocks and horned herds;\nAnd this in chief would heap the dead on dead:\nFor who forbore to look to their own sick,\nO these (too eager of life, of death afeard)\nWould then, soon after, slaughtering Neglect\nVisit with vengeance of evil death and base-\nThemselves deserted and forlorn of help.\nBut who had stayed at hand would perish there\nBy that contagion and the toil which then\nA sense of honour and the pleading voice\nOf weary watchers, mixed with voice of wail\nOf dying folk, forced them to undergo.\nThis kind of death each nobler soul would meet.\nThe funerals, uncompanioned, forsaken,\nLike rivals contended to be hurried through.\n\nAnd men contending to ensepulchre\nPile upon pile the throng of their own dead:\nAnd weary with woe and weeping wandered home;\nAnd then the most would take to bed from grief.\nNor could be found not one, whom nor disease\nNor death, nor woe had not in those dread times\nAttacked.\n By now the shepherds and neatherds all,\nYea, even the sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,\nBegan to sicken, and their bodies would lie\nHuddled within back-corners of their huts,\nDelivered by squalor and disease to death.\nO often and often couldst thou then have seen\nOn lifeless children lifeless parents prone,\nOr offspring on their fathers', mothers' corpse\nYielding the life. And into the city poured\nO not in least part from the countryside\nThat tribulation, which the peasantry\nSick, sick, brought thither, thronging from every quarter,\nPlague-stricken mob. All places would they crowd,\nAll buildings too; whereby the more would death\nUp-pile a-heap the folk so crammed in town.\nAh, many a body thirst had dragged and rolled\nAlong the highways there was lying strewn\nBesides Silenus-headed water-fountains,-\nThe life-breath choked from that too dear desire\nOf pleasant waters. Ah, everywhere along\nThe open places of the populace,\nAnd along the highways, O thou mightest see\nOf many a half-dead body the sagged limbs,\nRough with squalor, wrapped around with rags,\nPerish from very nastiness, with naught\nBut skin upon the bones, well-nigh already\nBuried- in ulcers vile and obscene filth.\nAll holy temples, too, of deities\nHad Death becrammed with the carcasses;\nAnd stood each fane of the Celestial Ones\nLaden with stark cadavers everywhere-\nPlaces which warders of the shrines had crowded\nWith many a guest. For now no longer men\nDid mightily esteem the old Divine,\nThe worship of the gods: the woe at hand\nDid over-master. Nor in the city then\nRemained those rites of sepulture, with which\nThat pious folk had evermore been wont\nTo buried be. For it was wildered all\nIn wild alarms, and each and every one\nWith sullen sorrow would bury his own dead,\nAs present shift allowed. And sudden stress\nAnd poverty to many an awful act\nImpelled; and with a monstrous screaming they\nWould, on the frames of alien funeral pyres,\nPlace their own kin, and thrust the torch beneath\nOft brawling with much bloodshed round about\nRather than quit dead bodies loved in life."