The Complete Works of
LUCRETIUS
(c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC)
Contents
The Translations
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS: PROSE TRANSLATION
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS: VERSE TRANSLATION
The Latin Text
CONTENTS OF THE LATIN TEXT
The Dual Text
DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT
The Biography
LUCRETIUS by William Young Sellar
© Delphi Classics 2015
Version 1
The Complete Works of
TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS
By Delphi Classics, 2015
The Translations
Ancient Roman forum — virtually nothing is known about the life of Lucretius. He was probably a member of the aristocratic gens Lucretia and his work reveals an intimate knowledge of a luxurious lifestyle in Rome.
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS: PROSE TRANSLATION
Translated by H. A. J. Munro
Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) lived c. 99–c. 55 BC, but the details of his career are unknown. His De rerum natura is a first-century BC didactic poem composed with the purpose of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. Written in approximately 7,400 dactylic hexameters, the epic poem is divided into six untitled books, exploring Epicurean physics through richly poetic language and metaphors. Throughout the work, Lucretius presents the principles of atomism, the nature of the mind and soul, with explanations of sensation and thought. The work considers the development of the world and its phenomena, while exploring a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna, “chance,” and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities.
According to Epicurean thought, the unhappiness and degradation of humans arose largely from the dread which they entertained of the power of the deities, from terror of their wrath, which was supposed to be displayed by the misfortunes inflicted in this life, by the everlasting tortures that were the lot of the guilty in a future state, or where these feelings were not strongly developed, from a vague dread of gloom and misery after death. To remove these fears and establish tranquillity in the heart, was the purpose of Epicurus’ teaching. Thus the deities, whose existence he did not deny, lived forevermore in the enjoyment of absolute peace, strangers to all the passions, desires and fears, which agitate the human heart, totally indifferent to the world and its inhabitants, unmoved alike by their virtues and their crimes. To prove this position he called upon the atomism of Democritus, by which he sought to demonstrate that the material universe was formed not by a Supreme Being, but by the mixing of elemental particles that had existed from all eternity governed by certain simple laws. The task undertaken by Lucretius was to clearly state and fully develop these views in an engaging form. His epic poem attempts to show that everything in nature can be explained by natural laws without the need for the intervention of divine beings.
Lucretius identifies the supernatural with the notion that the deities created our world or interfere with its operations in some way. He argues against fear of such deities by demonstrating through observations and arguments that the operations of the world can be accounted for in terms of natural phenomena — the regular, but purposeless motions and interactions of tiny atoms in empty space. He argues against the fear of death by stating that death is the dissipation of a being’s material mind. The poet uses the analogy of a vessel, stating that the physical body is the vessel that holds both the mind (mens) and spirit (anima) of a human being. Neither the mind nor spirit can survive independent of the body. Therefore, Lucretius states that once the vessel (the body) shatters (dies) its contents (mind and spirit) can no longer exist. As a simple ceasing-to-be, death can be neither good nor bad for this being. Being completely devoid of sensation and thought, a dead person cannot miss being alive. According to Lucretius, fear of death is a projection of terrors experienced in life, of pain that only a living (intact) mind can feel.
The first three books provide a fundamental account of being and nothingness, matter and space, the atoms and their movement, the infinity of the universe both as regards time and space, the regularity of reproduction (no prodigies, everything in its proper habitat), the nature of mind (animus, directing thought) and spirit (anima, sentience) as material bodily entities, and their mortality, since, according to Lucretius, they and their functions (consciousness, pain) end with the bodies that contain them and with which they are interwoven. The last three books give an atomic and materialist explanation of phenomena preoccupying human reflection, such as vision and the senses, sex and reproduction, natural forces and agriculture, the heavens and disease.
Lucretius addressed his epic poem to “Memmius”, who has been identified as Gaius Memmius, a praetor that in 58 BC was a judicial official deciding controversies between citizens and the government. There are over a dozen references to “Memmius” scattered throughout the long poem in a variety of contexts in translation, such as “Memmius mine”, “my Memmius”, and “illustrious Memmius”. According to Lucretius’s frequent statements in his poem, the main purpose of the work was to free Gaius Memmius’s mind of the supernatural and the fear of death — and to induct him into a state of ataraxia by expounding the philosophical system of Epicurus, whom Lucretius glorifies as the hero of his epic poem.
The De rerum natura had a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly with Virgil in his Aeneid and Georgics, and to a lesser extent on the Satires and Eclogues and with Horace’s works. However, the epic poem virtually disappeared during the Middle Ages and was only rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by the Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini. From then on, De rerum natura played an important role both in the development of atomism and the efforts of various figures of the Enlightenment era to construct a new Christian humanism.
Roman marble bust of Epicurus (341–270 BC)
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
BOOK II.
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
Book I of ‘De rerum natura’ from the 1675 edition by Tanaquil Faber
Opening of ‘De rerum natura’, 1483 copy by Girolamo di Matteo de Tauris for Pope Sixtus IV
BOOK I.
[1] MOTHER of the Aeneadae, darling of men and gods, increase-giving Venus, who beneath the gliding signs of heaven fillest with thy presence the ship-carrying sea, the corn-bearing lands, since through thee every kind of living things is conceived, rises up and beholds the light of the sun.
Before thee, goddess, flee the winds, the clouds of heaven, before thee and thy advent; for thee earth, manifold in works, puts forth sweet-smelling flowers; for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven propitiated shines with outspread light.
For soon as the vernal aspect of day is disclosed, and the birth-favoring breeze of Favonius unbarred is blowing fresh, first the fowls of the air, O lady, show signs of thee and thy entering in, thoroughly smitten in heart by thy power.
Next the wild herds bound over the glad pastures and swim the rapid rivers: in such wise each made prisoner by thy charms follows thee with desire, whither thou goest to lead it on.
Yes, throughout seas and mountains and sweeping rivers and leafy homes of birds and grassy plains, striking fond love into the breasts of all thou constrainest them each after its kind to continue their races with desire.
Since thou then art sole mistress of the nature of things and without thee nothing rises up into the divine borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely, fain w
ould I have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses which I essay to pen on the nature of things for our own son of the Memmii, whom thou, goddess, hast willed to have no peer, rich as he ever is in every grace.
Wherefore all the more, O lady, lend my lays an everliving charm.
Cause meanwhile the savage works of war to be lulled to rest throughout all seas and lands; [30] for thou alone canst bless mankind with calm peace, seeing that Mavors lord of battle controls the savage works of war, Mavors who often flings himself into thy lap quite vanquished by the never-healing wound of love; and then with upturned face and shapely neck thrown back feeds with love his greedy sight gazing, goddess, open-mouthed on thee; and as backward he reclines, his breath stays hanging on thy lips While then, lady, he is reposing on thy holy body, shed thyself about him and above, and pour from thy lips sweet discourse, asking, glorious dame, gentle peace for the Romans.
For neither can we in our country’s day of trouble with untroubled mind think only of our work, nor can the illustrious offset of Memmius in times like these be wanting to the general weal.
For what remains to tell, apply to true reason un-busied ears and a keen mind withdrawn from cares, lest my gifts set out for you with steadfast zeal you abandon with disdain, before they are understood.
For I will essay to discourse to you of the most high system of heaven and the gods and will open up the first beginnings of things, out of which nature gives birth to all things and increase and nourishment, and into which nature likewise dissolves them back after their destruction.
These we are accustomed in explaining their ‘reason to call matter and begetting bodies of things and to name seeds of things and also to tern first bodies, because from them as first elements all things are.
When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face.
Him neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar could quell: they only chafed the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature’s portals.
Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns a conqueror to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark.
Therefore religion is put underfoot and trampled upon in turn; [77] us his victory brings level with heaven.
This is what I fear herein, lest haply you should fancy that you are entering on unholy grounds of reason and treading the path of sin; whereas on the contrary often and often that very religion has given birth to sinful and unholy deeds.
Thus in Aulis the chosen chieftains of the Danai, foremost of men, foully polluted with Iphianassa’s blood the altar of the Trivian maid.
Soon as the fillet encircling her maiden tresses shed itself in equal lengths down each cheek, and soon as she saw her father standing sorrowful before the altars and beside him the ministering priests hiding the knife and her countrymen at sight of her shedding tears, speechless in terror she dropped down on her knees and sank to the ground.
Nor aught in such a moment could it avail the luckless girl that she had first bestowed the name of father on the king.
For lifted up in the hands of the men she was carried shivering to the altars, not after due performance of the customary rites to be escorted by the clear-ringing bridal song, but in the very season of marriage, stainless maid mid the stain of blood, to fall a sad victim by the sacrificing stroke of a father, that thus a happy and prosperous departure might be granted to the fleet.
So great the evils to which religion could prompt! You yourself some time or other overcome by the terror-speaking tales of the seers will seek to fall away from us.
Ay indeed for how many dreams may they now imagine for you, enough to upset the calculations of life and trouble all your fortunes with fear! And with good cause; for if men saw that there was a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able in some way to withstand the religious scruples and threatenings of the seers.
As it is, there is no way, no means of resisting, since they must fear after death everlasting pains.
For they cannot tell what is the nature of the soul, whether it be born or on the contrary find its way into men at their birth, and whether it perish together with us when severed from us by death or visit the gloom of Orcus and wasteful pools or by divine decree find its way into brutes in our stead, as sang our Ennius who first brought down from delightful Helicon a crown of unfading leaf, destined to bright renown throughout Italian clans of men.
And yet with all this Ennius sets forth that there are Acherusian quarters, publishing it in immortal verses; [121] though in our passage thither neither our souls nor bodies hold together, but only certain idols pale in wondrous wise.
From these places he tells us the ghost of everliving Homer uprose before him and began to shed salt tears and to unfold in words the nature of things.
Wherefore we must well grasp the principle of things above, the principle by which the courses of the sun and moon go on, the force by which every thing on earth proceeds, but above all we must find out by keen reason what the soul and the nature of the mind consist of, and what thing it is-which meets us when awake and frightens our minds, if we are under the influence of disease; meets and frightens us too when we are buried in sleep; so that we seem to ‘see and hear speaking to us face to face them who are dead, whose bones earth holds in its embrace.
Nor does my mind fail to perceive how hard it is to make clear in Latin verses the dark discoveries of the Greeks, especially as many points must be dealt with in new terms on account of the poverty of the language and the novelty of the questions.
But yet your worth and the looked-for pleasure of sweet friendship prompt me to undergo any labor and lead me on to watch the clear nights through, seeking by what words and in ,what verse I may be able in the end to shed on your mind so clear a light that you can thoroughly scan hidden things.
This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose design we shall begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power.
Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, because they see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine.
For these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which everything can be produced and the manner in which all things are done without the hand of the gods.
If things came from nothing, any kind might be born of any thing, nothing would require seed.
Men for instance might rise out of the sea, the scaly race out of the earth, and birds might burst out of the sky; [163] horned and other herds, every kind of wild beasts would haunt with changing broad tilth and wilderness alike.
Nor would the same fruits keep constant to trees, but would change; any tree might bear any fruit.
For if there were not begetting bodies for each, how could things have a fixed unvarying mother?
But in fact because things are all produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and goes forth into the borders of light out of that in which resides its matter and first bodies; and for this reason all things cannot be gotten out of all things, because in particular things resides a distinct power.
Again, why do we see the rose put forth in spring, corn in the season of heat, vines yielding at the call of autumn, if not because, when the fixed seeds of thing
s have streamed together at the proper time, whatever is born discloses itself, while the due seasons are there and the quickened earth brings its weakly products in safety forth into the borders of light?
But if they came from nothing, they would rise up suddenly at uncertain periods and unsuitable times of year, inasmuch as there would be no first-beginnings to be kept from a begetting union by the unpropitious season.
No nor would time be required for the growth of things after the meeting of the seed, if they could increase out of nothing.
Little babies would at once grow into men and trees in a moment would rise and spring out of the ground.
But none of these events it is plain ever comes to pass, since all things grow step by step [at a fixed time], as is natural, [since they all grow] from a fixed seed and in growing preserve their kind; so that you may be sure that all things increase in size and are fed out of their own matter.
Furthermore without fixed seasons of rain the earth is unable to put forth its gladdening produce, nor again if kept from food could the nature of living things continue its kind and sustain life; so that you may hold with greater truth that many bodies are common to many things, as we see letters common to different words, than that anything could come into being without first-beginnings.
Again why could not nature have produced men of such a size and strength as to be able to wade on foot across the sea and rend great mountains with their hands and outlive many generations of living men, if not because an unchanging matter has been assigned for begetting things and what can arise out of this matter is fixed? We must admit therefore that nothing can come from nothing, since things require seed before they can severally be born and be brought out into the buxom fields of air.
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