Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  Of space much vaster, in the self-same time

  The sun’s effulgence widens round the sky.

  Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,

  To see the law whereby each thing goes on.

  But some men, ignorant of matter, think,

  Opposing this, that not without the gods,

  In such adjustment to our human ways,

  Can nature change the seasons of the years,

  And bring to birth the grains and all of else

  To which divine Delight, the guide of life,

  Persuades mortality and leads it on,

  That, through her artful blandishments of love,

  It propagate the generations still,

  Lest humankind should perish. When they feign

  That gods have stablished all things but for man,

  They seem in all ways mightily to lapse

  From reason’s truth: for ev’n if ne’er I knew

  What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare

  This to affirm, ev’n from deep judgment based

  Upon the ways and conduct of the skies —

  This to maintain by many a fact besides —

  That in no wise the nature of the world

  For us was builded by a power divine —

  So great the faults it stands encumbered with:

  The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee

  We will clear up. Now as to what remains

  Concerning motions we’ll unfold our thought.

  Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs

  To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal

  Of its own force can e’er be upward borne,

  Or upward go — nor let the bodies of flames

  Deceive thee here: for they engendered are

  With urge to upwards, taking thus increase,

  Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,

  Though all the weight within them downward bears.

  Nor, when the fires will leap from under round

  The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up

  Timber and beam, ’tis then to be supposed

  They act of own accord, no force beneath

  To urge them up. ’Tis thus that blood, discharged

  From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft

  And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked

  With what a force the water will disgorge

  Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,

  We push them in, and, many though we be,

  The more we press with main and toil, the more

  The water vomits up and flings them back,

  That, more than half their length, they there emerge,

  Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,

  That all the weight within them downward bears

  Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames

  Ought also to be able, when pressed out,

  Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though

  The weight within them strive to draw them down.

  Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,

  The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,

  How after them they draw long trails of flame

  Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?

  How stars and constellations drop to earth,

  Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven

  Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,

  And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:

  Thus also sun’s heat downward tends to earth.

  Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;

  Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,

  The fires dash zig-zag — and that flaming power

  Falls likewise down to earth.

  In these affairs

  We wish thee also well aware of this:

  The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

  Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,

  In scarce determined places, from their course

  Decline a little — call it, so to speak,

  Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

  Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,

  Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;

  And then collisions ne’er could be nor blows

  Among the primal elements; and thus

  Nature would never have created aught.

  But, if perchance be any that believe

  The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne

  Plumb down the void, are able from above

  To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows

  Able to cause those procreant motions, far

  From highways of true reason they retire.

  For whatsoever through the waters fall,

  Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,

  Each after its weight — on this account, because

  Both bulk of water and the subtle air

  By no means can retard each thing alike,

  But give more quick before the heavier weight;

  But contrariwise the empty void cannot,

  On any side, at any time, to aught

  Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,

  True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,

  With equal speed, though equal not in weight,

  Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.

  Thus ne’er at all have heavier from above

  Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes

  Which cause those divers motions, by whose means

  Nature transacts her work. And so I say,

  The atoms must a little swerve at times —

  But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

  Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.

  For this we see forthwith is manifest:

  Whatever the weight, it can’t obliquely go,

  Down on its headlong journey from above,

  At least so far as thou canst mark; but who

  Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

  At all aside from off its road’s straight line?

  Again, if ev’r all motions are co-linked,

  And from the old ever arise the new

  In fixed order, and primordial seeds

  Produce not by their swerving some new start

  Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,

  That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,

  Whence this free will for creatures o’er the lands,

  Whence is it wrested from the fates, — this will

  Whereby we step right forward where desire

  Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

  In motions, not as at some fixed time,

  Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

  The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

  In these affairs ’tis each man’s will itself

  That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

  Incipient motions are diffused. Again,

  Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,

  The bars are opened, how the eager strength

  Of horses cannot forward break as soon

  As pants their mind to do? For it behooves

  That all the stock of matter, through the frame,

  Be roused, in order that, through every joint,

  Aroused, it press and follow mind’s desire;

  So thus thou seest initial motion’s gendered

  From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds

  First from the spirit’s will, whence at the last

  ’Tis given forth through joints and body entire.

  Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,

  Impelled by a blow of another’s mighty powers

  And mighty urge; for then ’tis clear enough

  All matter of our total body goes,

  Hurried along, against our own desire —
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  Until the will has pulled upon the reins

  And checked it back, throughout our members all;

  At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes

  The stock of matter’s forced to change its path,

  Throughout our members and throughout our joints,

  And, after being forward cast, to be

  Reined up, whereat it settles back again.

  So seest thou not, how, though external force

  Drive men before, and often make them move,

  Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,

  Yet is there something in these breasts of ours

  Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same? —

  Wherefore no less within the primal seeds

  Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,

  Some other cause of motion, whence derives

  This power in us inborn, of some free act. —

  Since naught from nothing can become, we see.

  For weight prevents all things should come to pass

  Through blows, as ‘twere, by some external force;

  But that man’s mind itself in all it does

  Hath not a fixed necessity within,

  Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled

  To bear and suffer, — this state comes to man

  From that slight swervement of the elements

  In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.

  Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,

  Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:

  For naught gives increase and naught takes away;

  On which account, just as they move to-day,

  The elemental bodies moved of old

  And shall the same hereafter evermore.

  And what was wont to be begot of old

  Shall be begotten under selfsame terms

  And grow and thrive in power, so far as given

  To each by Nature’s changeless, old decrees.

  The sum of things there is no power can change,

  For naught exists outside, to which can flee

  Out of the world matter of any kind,

  Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,

  Break in upon the founded world, and change

  Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.

  ATOMIC FORMS AND THEIR COMBINATIONS

  Now come, and next hereafter apprehend

  What sorts, how vastly different in form,

  How varied in multitudinous shapes they are —

  These old beginnings of the universe;

  Not in the sense that only few are furnished

  With one like form, but rather not at all

  In general have they likeness each with each,

  No marvel: since the stock of them’s so great

  That there’s no end (as I have taught) nor sum,

  They must indeed not one and all be marked

  By equal outline and by shape the same.

  Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks

  Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,

  And joyous herds around, and all the wild,

  And all the breeds of birds — both those that teem

  In gladsome regions of the water-haunts,

  About the river-banks and springs and pools,

  And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,

  Through trackless woods — Go, take which one thou wilt,

  In any kind: thou wilt discover still

  Each from the other still unlike in shape.

  Nor in no other wise could offspring know

  Mother, nor mother offspring — which we see

  They yet can do, distinguished one from other,

  No less than human beings, by clear signs.

  Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,

  Beside the incense-burning altars slain,

  Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast

  Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,

  Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,

  Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,

  With eyes regarding every spot about,

  For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;

  And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes

  With her complaints; and oft she seeks again

  Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.

  Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,

  Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,

  Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;

  Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby

  Distract her mind or lighten pain the least —

  So keen her search for something known and hers.

  Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats

  Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs

  The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,

  Unfailingly each to its proper teat,

  As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,

  Thou’lt see that no one kernel in one kind

  Is so far like another, that there still

  Is not in shapes some difference running through.

  By a like law we see how earth is pied

  With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea

  Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.

  Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things

  Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands

  After a fixed pattern of one other,

  They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes

  In types dissimilar to one another.

  Easy enough by thought of mind to solve

  Why fires of lightning more can penetrate

  Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.

  For thou canst say lightning’s celestial fire,

  So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,

  And passes thus through holes which this our fire,

  Born from the wood, created from the pine,

  Cannot. Again, light passes through the horn

  On the lantern’s side, while rain is dashed away.

  And why? — unless those bodies of light should be

  Finer than those of water’s genial showers.

  We see how quickly through a colander

  The wines will flow; how, on the other hand,

  The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,

  Because ’tis wrought of elements more large,

  Or else more crook’d and intertangled. Thus

  It comes that the primordials cannot be

  So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,

  One through each several hole of anything.

  And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk

  Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,

  Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,

  With their foul flavour set the lips awry;

  Thus simple ’tis to see that whatsoever

  Can touch the senses pleasingly are made

  Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those

  Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held

  Entwined by elements more crook’d, and so

  Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,

  And rend our body as they enter in.

  In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,

  Being up-built of figures so unlike,

  Are mutually at strife — lest thou suppose

  That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw

  Consists of elements as smooth as song

  Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings

  The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose

  That same-shaped atoms through men’s nostrils pierce

  When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage

  Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,

  And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;

  O
r hold as of like seed the goodly hues

  Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting

  Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,

  Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.

  For never a shape which charms our sense was made

  Without some elemental smoothness; whilst

  Whate’er is harsh and irksome has been framed

  Still with some roughness in its elements.

  Some, too, there are which justly are supposed

  To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,

  With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,

  To tickle rather than to wound the sense —

  And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine

  And flavours of the gummed elecampane.

  Again, that glowing fire and icy rime

  Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting

  Our body’s sense, the touch of each gives proof.

  For touch — by sacred majesties of Gods! —

  Touch is indeed the body’s only sense —

  Be’t that something in-from-outward works,

  Be’t that something in the body born

  Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out

  Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;

  Or be’t the seeds by some collision whirl

  Disordered in the body and confound

  By tumult and confusion all the sense —

  As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand

  Thyself thou strike thy body’s any part.

  On which account, the elemental forms

  Must differ widely, as enabled thus

  To cause diverse sensations.

  And, again,

  What seems to us the hardened and condensed

  Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked,

  Be held compacted deep within, as ‘twere

  By branch-like atoms — of which sort the chief

  Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows,

  And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,

  And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,

  Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formed

  Of fluid body, they indeed must be

  Of elements more smooth and round — because

  Their globules severally will not cohere:

  To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand

  Is quite as easy as drinking water down,

  And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.

  But that thou seest among the things that flow

  Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is,

  Is not the least a marvel...

  For since ’tis fluid, smooth its atoms are

  And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;