Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  In all its nature, and pain attends its state.

  And so the food is taken to underprop

  The tottering joints, and by its interfusion

  To re-create their powers, and there stop up

  The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins,

  For eating. And the moist no less departs

  Into all regions that demand the moist;

  And many heaped-up particles of hot,

  Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours,

  The liquid on arriving dissipates

  And quenches like a fire, that parching heat

  No longer now can scorch the frame. And so,

  Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away

  From off our body, how the hunger-pang

  It, too, appeased.

  Now, how it comes that we,

  Whene’er we wish, can step with strides ahead,

  And how ’tis given to move our limbs about,

  And what device is wont to push ahead

  This the big load of our corporeal frame,

  I’ll say to thee — do thou attend what’s said.

  I say that first some idol-films of walking

  Into our mind do fall and smite the mind,

  As said before. Thereafter will arises;

  For no one starts to do a thing, before

  The intellect previsions what it wills;

  And what it there pre-visioneth depends

  On what that image is. When, therefore, mind

  Doth so bestir itself that it doth will

  To go and step along, it strikes at once

  That energy of soul that’s sown about

  In all the body through the limbs and frame —

  And this is easy of performance, since

  The soul is close conjoined with the mind.

  Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees

  Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.

  Then too the body rarefies, and air,

  Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness,

  Comes on and penetrates aboundingly

  Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round

  Unto all smallest places in our frame.

  Thus then by these twain factors, severally,

  Body is borne like ship with oars and wind.

  Nor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder

  That particles so fine can whirl around

  So great a body and turn this weight of ours;

  For wind, so tenuous with its subtle body,

  Yet pushes, driving on the mighty ship

  Of mighty bulk; one hand directs the same,

  Whatever its momentum, and one helm

  Whirls it around, whither ye please; and loads,

  Many and huge, are moved and hoisted high

  By enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels,

  With but light strain.

  Now, by what modes this sleep

  Pours through our members waters of repose

  And frees the breast from cares of mind, I’ll tell

  In verses sweeter than they many are;

  Even as the swan’s slight note is better far

  Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes

  Among the southwind’s aery clouds. Do thou

  Give me sharp ears and a sagacious mind, —

  That thou mayst not deny the things to be

  Whereof I’m speaking, nor depart away

  With bosom scorning these the spoken truths,

  Thyself at fault unable to perceive.

  Sleep chiefly comes when energy of soul

  Hath now been scattered through the frame, and part

  Expelled abroad and gone away, and part

  Crammed back and settling deep within the frame —

  Whereafter then our loosened members droop.

  For doubt is none that by the work of soul

  Exist in us this sense, and when by slumber

  That sense is thwarted, we are bound to think

  The soul confounded and expelled abroad —

  Yet not entirely, else the frame would lie

  Drenched in the everlasting cold of death.

  In sooth, where no one part of soul remained

  Lurking among the members, even as fire

  Lurks buried under many ashes, whence

  Could sense amain rekindled be in members,

  As flame can rise anew from unseen fire?

  By what devices this strange state and new

  May be occasioned, and by what the soul

  Can be confounded and the frame grow faint,

  I will untangle: see to it, thou, that I

  Pour forth my words not unto empty winds.

  In first place, body on its outer parts —

  Since these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts —

  Must there be thumped and strook by blows of air

  Repeatedly. And therefore almost all

  Are covered either with hides, or else with shells,

  Or with the horny callus, or with bark.

  Yet this same air lashes their inner parts,

  When creatures draw a breath or blow it out.

  Wherefore, since body thus is flogged alike

  Upon the inside and the out, and blows

  Come in upon us through the little pores

  Even inward to our body’s primal parts

  And primal elements, there comes to pass

  By slow degrees, along our members then,

  A kind of overthrow; for then confounded

  Are those arrangements of the primal germs

  Of body and of mind. It comes to pass

  That next a part of soul’s expelled abroad,

  A part retreateth in recesses hid,

  A part, too, scattered all about the frame,

  Cannot become united nor engage

  In interchange of motion. Nature now

  So hedges off approaches and the paths;

  And thus the sense, its motions all deranged,

  Retires down deep within; and since there’s naught,

  As ‘twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens,

  And all the members languish, and the arms

  And eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed,

  Even there the houghs will sag and loose their powers.

  Again, sleep follows after food, because

  The food produces same result as air,

  Whilst being scattered round through all the veins;

  And much the heaviest is that slumber which,

  Full or fatigued, thou takest; since ’tis then

  That the most bodies disarrange themselves,

  Bruised by labours hard. And in same wise,

  This three-fold change: a forcing of the soul

  Down deeper, more a casting-forth of it,

  A moving more divided in its parts

  And scattered more.

  And to whate’er pursuit

  A man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs

  On which we theretofore have tarried much,

  And mind hath strained upon the more, we seem

  In sleep not rarely to go at the same.

  The lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees,

  Commanders they to fight and go at frays,

  Sailors to live in combat with the winds,

  And we ourselves indeed to make this book,

  And still to seek the nature of the world

  And set it down, when once discovered, here

  In these my country’s leaves. Thus all pursuits,

  All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock

  And master the minds of men. And whosoever

  Day after day for long to games have given

  Attention undivided, still they keep

  (As oft we note), even when they’ve ceased to grasp

  Those games with their own senses, open paths

  Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films

  Of just thos
e games can come. And thus it is

  For many a day thereafter those appear

  Floating before the eyes, that even awake

  They think they view the dancers moving round

  Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears

  The liquid song of harp and speaking chords,

  And view the same assembly on the seats,

  And manifold bright glories of the stage —

  So great the influence of pursuit and zest,

  And of the affairs wherein ‘thas been the wont

  Of men to be engaged-nor only men,

  But soothly all the animals. Behold,

  Thou’lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched,

  Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever,

  And straining utmost strength, as if for prize,

  As if, with barriers opened now...

  And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose

  Yet toss asudden all their legs about,

  And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff

  The winds again, again, as though indeed

  They’d caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts,

  And, even when wakened, often they pursue

  The phantom images of stags, as though

  They did perceive them fleeing on before,

  Until the illusion’s shaken off and dogs

  Come to themselves again. And fawning breed

  Of house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge

  To shake their bodies and start from off the ground,

  As if beholding stranger-visages.

  And ever the fiercer be the stock, the more

  In sleep the same is ever bound to rage.

  But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex

  With sudden wings by night the groves of gods,

  When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed

  Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight.

  Again, the minds of mortals which perform

  With mighty motions mighty enterprises,

  Often in sleep will do and dare the same

  In manner like. Kings take the towns by storm,

  Succumb to capture, battle on the field,

  Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut

  Even then and there. And many wrestle on

  And groan with pains, and fill all regions round

  With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed

  By fangs of panther or of lion fierce.

  Many amid their slumbers talk about

  Their mighty enterprises, and have often

  Enough become the proof of their own crimes.

  Many meet death; many, as if headlong

  From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth

  With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright;

  And after sleep, as if still mad in mind,

  They scarce come to, confounded as they are

  By ferment of their frame. The thirsty man,

  Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring

  Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat

  Nigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young,

  By sleep o’ermastered, think they lift their dress

  By pail or public jordan and then void

  The water filtered down their frame entire

  And drench the Babylonian coverlets,

  Magnificently bright. Again, those males

  Into the surging channels of whose years

  Now first has passed the seed (engendered

  Within their members by the ripened days)

  Are in their sleep confronted from without

  By idol-images of some fair form —

  Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom,

  Which stir and goad the regions turgid now

  With seed abundant; so that, as it were

  With all the matter acted duly out,

  They pour the billows of a potent stream

  And stain their garment.

  And as said before,

  That seed is roused in us when once ripe age

  Has made our body strong...

  As divers causes give to divers things

  Impulse and irritation, so one force

  In human kind rouses the human seed

  To spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues,

  Forced from its first abodes, it passes down

  In the whole body through the limbs and frame,

  Meeting in certain regions of our thews,

  And stirs amain the genitals of man.

  The goaded regions swell with seed, and then

  Comes the delight to dart the same at what

  The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks

  That object, whence the mind by love is pierced.

  For well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound,

  And our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence

  The stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed

  The foe be close, the red jet reaches him.

  Thus, one who gets a stroke from Venus’ shafts —

  Whether a boy with limbs effeminate

  Assault him, or a woman darting love

  From all her body — that one strains to get

  Even to the thing whereby he’s hit, and longs

  To join with it and cast into its frame

  The fluid drawn even from within its own.

  For the mute craving doth presage delight.

  THE PASSION OF LOVE

  This craving ’tis that’s Venus unto us:

  From this, engender all the lures of love,

  From this, O first hath into human hearts

  Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long

  Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,

  Though she thou lovest now be far away,

  Yet idol-images of her are near

  And the sweet name is floating in thy ear.

  But it behooves to flee those images;

  And scare afar whatever feeds thy love;

  And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm,

  Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies,

  Nor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love,

  Keep it for one delight, and so store up

  Care for thyself and pain inevitable.

  For, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing

  Grows to more life with deep inveteracy,

  And day by day the fury swells aflame,

  And the woe waxes heavier day by day —

  Unless thou dost destroy even by new blows

  The former wounds of love, and curest them

  While yet they’re fresh, by wandering freely round

  After the freely-wandering Venus, or

  Canst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind.

  Nor doth that man who keeps away from love

  Yet lack the fruits of Venus; rather takes

  Those pleasures which are free of penalties.

  For the delights of Venus, verily,

  Are more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul

  Than for those sick-at-heart with love-pining.

  Yea, in the very moment of possessing,

  Surges the heat of lovers to and fro,

  Restive, uncertain; and they cannot fix

  On what to first enjoy with eyes and hands.

  The parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight,

  And pain the creature’s body, close their teeth

  Often against her lips, and smite with kiss

  Mouth into mouth, — because this same delight

  Is not unmixed; and underneath are stings

  Which goad a man to hurt the very thing,

  Whate’er it be, from whence arise for him

  Those germs of madness. But with gentle touch

  Venus subdues the pangs in midst of love,

  And the admixture of a fondling joy

  Doth curb the bites of passion. For they hope

  That by the ve
ry body whence they caught

  The heats of love their flames can be put out.

  But nature protests ’tis all quite otherwise;

  For this same love it is the one sole thing

  Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns

  The breast with fell desire. For food and drink

  Are taken within our members; and, since they

  Can stop up certain parts, thus, easily

  Desire of water is glutted and of bread.

  But, lo, from human face and lovely bloom

  Naught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed

  Save flimsy idol-images and vain —

  A sorry hope which oft the winds disperse.

  As when the thirsty man in slumber seeks

  To drink, and water ne’er is granted him

  Wherewith to quench the heat within his members,

  But after idols of the liquids strives

  And toils in vain, and thirsts even whilst he gulps

  In middle of the torrent, thus in love

  Venus deludes with idol-images

  The lovers. Nor they cannot sate their lust

  By merely gazing on the bodies, nor

  They cannot with their palms and fingers rub

  Aught from each tender limb, the while they stray

  Uncertain over all the body. Then,

  At last, with members intertwined, when they

  Enjoy the flower of their age, when now

  Their bodies have sweet presage of keen joys,

  And Venus is about to sow the fields

  Of woman, greedily their frames they lock,

  And mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe

  Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths —

  Yet to no purpose, since they’re powerless

  To rub off aught, or penetrate and pass

  With body entire into body — for oft

  They seem to strive and struggle thus to do;

  So eagerly they cling in Venus’ bonds,

  Whilst melt away their members, overcome

  By violence of delight. But when at last

  Lust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself,

  There come a brief pause in the raging heat —

  But then a madness just the same returns

  And that old fury visits them again,

  When once again they seek and crave to reach

  They know not what, all powerless to find

  The artifice to subjugate the bane.

  In such uncertain state they waste away

  With unseen wound.

  To which be added too,

  They squander powers and with the travail wane;

  Be added too, they spend their futile years

  Under another’s beck and call; their duties

  Neglected languish and their honest name