Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  With earth together, unquenched heat with water.

  But primal germs in bringing things to birth

  Must have a latent, unseen quality,

  Lest some outstanding alien element

  Confuse and minish in the thing create

  Its proper being.

  But these men begin

  From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign

  That fire will turn into the winds of air,

  Next, that from air the rain begotten is,

  And earth created out of rain, and then

  That all, reversely, are returned from earth —

  The moisture first, then air thereafter heat —

  And that these same ne’er cease in interchange,

  To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth

  Unto the stars of the aethereal world —

  Which in no wise at all the germs can do.

  Since an immutable somewhat still must be,

  Lest all things utterly be sped to naught;

  For change in anything from out its bounds

  Means instant death of that which was before.

  Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore,

  Suffer a changed state, they must derive

  From others ever unconvertible,

  Lest an things utterly return to naught.

  Then why not rather presuppose there be

  Bodies with such a nature furnished forth

  That, if perchance they have created fire,

  Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn,

  Or added few, and motion and order changed)

  Fashion the winds of air, and thus all things

  Forevermore be interchanged with all?

  “But facts in proof are manifest,” thou sayest,

  “That all things grow into the winds of air

  And forth from earth are nourished, and unless

  The season favour at propitious hour

  With rains enough to set the trees a-reel

  Under the soak of bulking thunderheads,

  And sun, for its share, foster and give heat,

  No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow.”

  True — and unless hard food and moisture soft

  Recruited man, his frame would waste away,

  And life dissolve from out his thews and bones;

  For out of doubt recruited and fed are we

  By certain things, as other things by others.

  Because in many ways the many germs

  Common to many things are mixed in things,

  No wonder ’tis that therefore divers things

  By divers things are nourished. And, again,

  Often it matters vastly with what others,

  In what positions the primordial germs

  Are bound together, and what motions, too,

  They give and get among themselves; for these

  Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands,

  Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things,

  But yet commixed they are in divers modes

  With divers things, forever as they move.

  Nay, thou beholdest in our verses here

  Elements many, common to many worlds,

  Albeit thou must confess each verse, each word

  From one another differs both in sense

  And ring of sound — so much the elements

  Can bring about by change of order alone.

  But those which are the primal germs of things

  Have power to work more combinations still,

  Whence divers things can be produced in turn.

  Now let us also take for scrutiny

  The homeomeria of Anaxagoras,

  So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech

  Yieldeth no name in the Italian tongue,

  Although the thing itself is not o’erhard

  For explanation. First, then, when he speaks

  Of this homeomeria of things, he thinks

  Bones to be sprung from littlest bones minute,

  And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh,

  And blood created out of drops of blood,

  Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold,

  And earth concreted out of bits of earth,

  Fire made of fires, and water out of waters,

  Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.

  Yet he concedes not any void in things,

  Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.

  Wherefore to me he seems on both accounts

  To err no less than those we named before.

  Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail —

  If they be germs primordial furnished forth

  With but same nature as the things themselves,

  And travail and perish equally with those,

  And no rein curbs them from annihilation.

  For which will last against the grip and crush

  Under the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?

  Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?

  No one, methinks, when every thing will be

  At bottom as mortal as whate’er we mark

  To perish by force before our gazing eyes.

  But my appeal is to the proofs above

  That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet

  From naught increase. And now again, since food

  Augments and nourishes the human frame,

  ’Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones

  And thews are formed of particles unlike

  To them in kind; or if they say all foods

  Are of mixed substance having in themselves

  Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins

  And particles of blood, then every food,

  Solid or liquid, must itself be thought

  As made and mixed of things unlike in kind —

  Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.

  Again, if all the bodies which upgrow

  From earth, are first within the earth, then earth

  Must be compound of alien substances.

  Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.

  Transfer the argument, and thou may’st use

  The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash

  Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood

  Must be compound of alien substances

  Which spring from out the wood.

  Right here remains

  A certain slender means to skulk from truth,

  Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,

  Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all

  While that one only comes to view, of which

  The bodies exceed in number all the rest,

  And lie more close to hand and at the fore —

  A notion banished from true reason far.

  For then ‘twere meet that kernels of the grains

  Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones,

  Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else

  Which in our human frame is fed; and that

  Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.

  Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops

  Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep’s;

  Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up

  The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,

  All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;

  Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood

  Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.

  But since fact teaches this is not the case,

  ’Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things

  Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,

  Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.

  “But often it happens on skiey hills” thou sayest,

  “That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed

  One against other, smote by the bl
ustering south,

  Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame.”

  Good sooth — yet fire is not ingraft in wood,

  But many are the seeds of heat, and when

  Rubbing together they together flow,

  They start the conflagrations in the forests.

  Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay

  Stored up within the forests, then the fires

  Could not for any time be kept unseen,

  But would be laying all the wildwood waste

  And burning all the boscage. Now dost see

  (Even as we said a little space above)

  How mightily it matters with what others,

  In what positions these same primal germs

  Are bound together? And what motions, too,

  They give and get among themselves? how, hence,

  The same, if altered ‘mongst themselves, can body

  Both igneous and ligneous objects forth —

  Precisely as these words themselves are made

  By somewhat altering their elements,

  Although we mark with name indeed distinct

  The igneous from the ligneous. Once again,

  If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,

  Among all visible objects, cannot be,

  Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed

  With a like nature, — by thy vain device

  For thee will perish all the germs of things:

  ‘Twill come to pass they’ll laugh aloud, like men,

  Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,

  Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.

  THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE

  Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!

  And for myself, my mind is not deceived

  How dark it is: But the large hope of praise

  Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;

  On the same hour hath strook into my breast

  Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,

  I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,

  Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,

  Trodden by step of none before. I joy

  To come on undefiled fountains there,

  To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,

  To seek for this my head a signal crown

  From regions where the Muses never yet

  Have garlanded the temples of a man:

  First, since I teach concerning mighty things,

  And go right on to loose from round the mind

  The tightened coils of dread religion;

  Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame

  Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout

  Even with the Muses’ charm — which, as ’twould seem,

  Is not without a reasonable ground:

  But as physicians, when they seek to give

  Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch

  The brim around the cup with the sweet juice

  And yellow of the honey, in order that

  The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled

  As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down

  The wormwood’s bitter draught, and, though befooled,

  Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus

  Grow strong again with recreated health:

  So now I too (since this my doctrine seems

  In general somewhat woeful unto those

  Who’ve had it not in hand, and since the crowd

  Starts back from it in horror) have desired

  To expound our doctrine unto thee in song

  Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as ‘twere,

  To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse —

  If by such method haply I might hold

  The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,

  Till thou see through the nature of all things,

  And how exists the interwoven frame.

  But since I’ve taught that bodies of matter, made

  Completely solid, hither and thither fly

  Forevermore unconquered through all time,

  Now come, and whether to the sum of them

  There be a limit or be none, for thee

  Let us unfold; likewise what has been found

  To be the wide inane, or room, or space

  Wherein all things soever do go on,

  Let us examine if it finite be

  All and entire, or reach unmeasured round

  And downward an illimitable profound.

  Thus, then, the All that is is limited

  In no one region of its onward paths,

  For then ‘tmust have forever its beyond.

  And a beyond ’tis seen can never be

  For aught, unless still further on there be

  A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same —

  So that the thing be seen still on to where

  The nature of sensation of that thing

  Can follow it no longer. Now because

  Confess we must there’s naught beside the sum,

  There’s no beyond, and so it lacks all end.

  It matters nothing where thou post thyself,

  In whatsoever regions of the same;

  Even any place a man has set him down

  Still leaves about him the unbounded all

  Outward in all directions; or, supposing

  A moment the all of space finite to be,

  If some one farthest traveller runs forth

  Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead

  A flying spear, is’t then thy wish to think

  It goes, hurled off amain, to where ’twas sent

  And shoots afar, or that some object there

  Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other

  Thou must admit and take. Either of which

  Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel

  That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,

  Owning no confines. Since whether there be

  Aught that may block and check it so it comes

  Not where ’twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,

  Or whether borne along, in either view

  ‘Thas started not from any end. And so

  I’ll follow on, and whereso’er thou set

  The extreme coasts, I’ll query, “what becomes

  Thereafter of thy spear?” ‘Twill come to pass

  That nowhere can a world’s-end be, and that

  The chance for further flight prolongs forever

  The flight itself. Besides, were all the space

  Of the totality and sum shut in

  With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,

  Then would the abundance of world’s matter flow

  Together by solid weight from everywhere

  Still downward to the bottom of the world,

  Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,

  Nor could there be a sky at all or sun —

  Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,

  By having settled during infinite time.

  But in reality, repose is given

  Unto no bodies ‘mongst the elements,

  Because there is no bottom whereunto

  They might, as ‘twere, together flow, and where

  They might take up their undisturbed abodes.

  In endless motion everything goes on

  Forevermore; out of all regions, even

  Out of the pit below, from forth the vast,

  Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.

  The nature of room, the space of the abyss

  Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts

  Can neither speed upon their courses through,

  Gliding across eternal tracts of time,

  Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,

  That they may bate their journeying one whit:

  Such huge abundance spreads for things around —

  Room off to every quarter, without end.

>   Lastly, before our very eyes is seen

  Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,

  And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,

  And sea in turn all lands; but for the All

  Truly is nothing which outside may bound.

  That, too, the sum of things itself may not

  Have power to fix a measure of its own,

  Great nature guards, she who compels the void

  To bound all body, as body all the void,

  Thus rendering by these alternates the whole

  An infinite; or else the one or other,

  Being unbounded by the other, spreads,

  Even by its single nature, ne’ertheless

  Immeasurably forth....

  Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,

  Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods

  Could keep their place least portion of an hour:

  For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,

  The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne

  Along the illimitable inane afar,

  Or rather, in fact, would ne’er have once combined

  And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,

  It could not be united. For of truth

  Neither by counsel did the primal germs

  ‘Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,

  Each in its proper place; nor did they make,

  Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;

  But since, being many and changed in many modes

  Along the All, they’re driven abroad and vexed

  By blow on blow, even from all time of old,

  They thus at last, after attempting all

  The kinds of motion and conjoining, come

  Into those great arrangements out of which

  This sum of things established is create,

  By which, moreover, through the mighty years,

  It is preserved, when once it has been thrown

  Into the proper motions, bringing to pass

  That ever the streams refresh the greedy main

  With river-waves abounding, and that earth,

  Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,

  Renews her broods, and that the lusty race

  Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that

  The gliding fires of ether are alive —

  What still the primal germs nowise could do,

  Unless from out the infinite of space

  Could come supply of matter, whence in season

  They’re wont whatever losses to repair.

  For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,

  Losing its body, when deprived of food:

  So all things have to be dissolved as soon

  As matter, diverted by what means soever

  From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.