Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things

  Observed o’erhead on the ethereal coasts),

  Again are hurried back unto the fears

  Of old religion and adopt again

  Harsh masters, deemed almighty, — wretched men,

  Unwitting what can be and what cannot,

  And by what law to each its scope prescribed,

  Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

  But for the rest, — lest we delay thee here

  Longer by empty promises — behold,

  Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:

  O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,

  Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,

  Three frames so vast, a single day shall give

  Unto annihilation! Then shall crash

  That massive form and fabric of the world

  Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I

  Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous

  This fact must strike the intellect of man, —

  Annihilation of the sky and earth

  That is to be, — and with what toil of words

  ’Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft

  When once ye offer to man’s listening ears

  Something before unheard of, but may not

  Subject it to the view of eyes for him

  Nor put it into hand — the sight and touch,

  Whereby the opened highways of belief

  Lead most directly into human breast

  And regions of intelligence. But yet

  I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,

  Will force belief in these my words, and thou

  Mayst see, in little time, tremendously

  With risen commotions of the lands all things

  Quaking to pieces — which afar from us

  May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may

  Reason, O rather than the fact itself,

  Persuade us that all things can be o’erthrown

  And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!

  But ere on this I take a step to utter

  Oracles holier and soundlier based

  Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men

  From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,

  I will unfold for thee with learned words

  Many a consolation, lest perchance,

  Still bridled by religion, thou suppose

  Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,

  Must dure forever, as of frame divine —

  And so conclude that it is just that those,

  (After the manner of the Giants), should all

  Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,

  Who by their reasonings do overshake

  The ramparts of the universe and wish

  There to put out the splendid sun of heaven,

  Branding with mortal talk immortal things —

  Though these same things are even so far removed

  From any touch of deity and seem

  So far unworthy of numbering with the gods,

  That well they may be thought to furnish rather

  A goodly instance of the sort of things

  That lack the living motion, living sense.

  For sure ’tis quite beside the mark to think

  That judgment and the nature of the mind

  In any kind of body can exist —

  Just as in ether can’t exist a tree,

  Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields

  Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be,

  Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged

  Where everything may grow and have its place.

  Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone

  Without the body, nor have its being far

  From thews and blood. Yet if ‘twere possible? —

  Much rather might this very power of mind

  Be in the head, the shoulders, or the heels,

  And, born in any part soever, yet

  In the same man, in the same vessel abide

  But since within this body even of ours

  Stands fixed and appears arranged sure

  Where soul and mind can each exist and grow,

  Deny we must the more that they can dure

  Outside the body and the breathing form

  In rotting clods of earth, in the sun’s fire,

  In water, or in ether’s skiey coasts.

  Therefore these things no whit are furnished

  With sense divine, since never can they be

  With life-force quickened.

  Likewise, thou canst ne’er

  Believe the sacred seats of gods are here

  In any regions of this mundane world;

  Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle,

  So far removed from these our senses, scarce

  Is seen even by intelligence of mind.

  And since they’ve ever eluded touch and thrust

  Of human hands, they cannot reach to grasp

  Aught tangible to us. For what may not

  Itself be touched in turn can never touch.

  Wherefore, besides, also their seats must be

  Unlike these seats of ours, — even subtle too,

  As meet for subtle essence — as I’ll prove

  Hereafter unto thee with large discourse.

  Further, to say that for the sake of men

  They willed to prepare this world’s magnificence,

  And that ’tis therefore duty and behoof

  To praise the work of gods as worthy praise,

  And that ’tis sacrilege for men to shake

  Ever by any force from out their seats

  What hath been stablished by the Forethought old

  To everlasting for races of mankind,

  And that ’tis sacrilege to assault by words

  And overtopple all from base to beam, —

  Memmius, such notions to concoct and pile,

  Is verily — to dote. Our gratefulness,

  O what emoluments could it confer

  Upon Immortals and upon the Blessed

  That they should take a step to manage aught

  For sake of us? Or what new factor could,

  After so long a time, inveigle them —

  The hitherto reposeful — to desire

  To change their former life? For rather he

  Whom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice

  At new; but one that in fore-passed time

  Hath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years,

  O what could ever enkindle in such an one

  Passion for strange experiment? Or what

  The evil for us, if we had ne’er been born? —

  As though, forsooth, in darkling realms and woe

  Our life were lying till should dawn at last

  The day-spring of creation! Whosoever

  Hath been begotten wills perforce to stay

  In life, so long as fond delight detains;

  But whoso ne’er hath tasted love of life,

  And ne’er was in the count of living things,

  What hurts it him that he was never born?

  Whence, further, first was planted in the gods

  The archetype for gendering the world

  And the fore-notion of what man is like,

  So that they knew and pre-conceived with mind

  Just what they wished to make? Or how were known

  Ever the energies of primal germs,

  And what those germs, by interchange of place,

  Could thus produce, if nature’s self had not

  Given example for creating all?

  For in such wise primordials of things,

  Many in many modes, astir by blows

  From immemorial aeons, in motion too

  By their own weights, have evermore been wont

  To be so borne along and in all modes

  To meet together and to try all sorts


  Which, by combining one with other, they

  Are powerful to create, that thus it is

  No marvel now, if they have also fallen

  Into arrangements such, and if they’ve passed

  Into vibrations such, as those whereby

  This sum of things is carried on to-day

  By fixed renewal. But knew I never what

  The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare

  This to affirm, even from deep judgments based

  Upon the ways and conduct of the skies —

  This to maintain by many a fact besides —

  That in no wise the nature of all things

  For us was fashioned by a power divine —

  So great the faults it stands encumbered with.

  First, mark all regions which are overarched

  By the prodigious reaches of the sky:

  One yawning part thereof the mountain-chains

  And forests of the beasts do have and hold;

  And cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea

  (Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands)

  Possess it merely; and, again, thereof

  Well-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat

  And a perpetual fall of frost doth rob

  From mortal kind. And what is left to till,

  Even that the force of nature would o’errun

  With brambles, did not human force oppose, —

  Long wont for livelihood to groan and sweat

  Over the two-pronged mattock and to cleave

  The soil in twain by pressing on the plough.

  Unless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods

  And kneading the mould, we quicken into birth,

  [The crops] spontaneously could not come up

  Into the free bright air. Even then sometimes,

  When things acquired by the sternest toil

  Are now in leaf, are now in blossom all,

  Either the skiey sun with baneful heats

  Parches, or sudden rains or chilling rime

  Destroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl

  Torment and twist. Beside these matters, why

  Doth nature feed and foster on land and sea

  The dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes

  Of the human clan? Why do the seasons bring

  Distempers with them? Wherefore stalks at large

  Death, so untimely? Then, again, the babe,

  Like to the castaway of the raging surf,

  Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want

  Of every help for life, when nature first

  Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light

  With birth-pangs from within the mother’s womb,

  And with a plaintive wail he fills the place, —

  As well befitting one for whom remains

  In life a journey through so many ills.

  But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts

  Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles,

  Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse’s

  Dear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes

  To suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine,

  Nor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal

  Their own to guard — because the earth herself

  And nature, artificer of the world, bring forth

  Aboundingly all things for all.

  THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL

  And first,

  Since body of earth and water, air’s light breath,

  And fiery exhalations (of which four

  This sum of things is seen to be compact)

  So all have birth and perishable frame,

  Thus the whole nature of the world itself

  Must be conceived as perishable too.

  For, verily, those things of which we see

  The parts and members to have birth in time

  And perishable shapes, those same we mark

  To be invariably born in time

  And born to die. And therefore when I see

  The mightiest members and the parts of this

  Our world consumed and begot again,

  ’Tis mine to know that also sky above

  And earth beneath began of old in time

  And shall in time go under to disaster.

  And lest in these affairs thou deemest me

  To have seized upon this point by sleight to serve

  My own caprice — because I have assumed

  That earth and fire are mortal things indeed,

  And have not doubted water and the air

  Both perish too and have affirmed the same

  To be again begotten and wax big —

  Mark well the argument: in first place, lo,

  Some certain parts of earth, grievously parched

  By unremitting suns, and trampled on

  By a vast throng of feet, exhale abroad

  A powdery haze and flying clouds of dust,

  Which the stout winds disperse in the whole air.

  A part, moreover, of her sod and soil

  Is summoned to inundation by the rains;

  And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.

  Besides, whatever takes a part its own

  In fostering and increasing [aught]...

  Is rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt,

  Earth, the all-mother, is beheld to be

  Likewise the common sepulchre of things,

  Therefore thou seest her minished of her plenty,

  And then again augmented with new growth.

  And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springs

  Forever with new waters overflow,

  And that perennially the fluids well,

  Needeth no words — the mighty flux itself

  Of multitudinous waters round about

  Declareth this. But whatso water first

  Streams up is ever straightway carried off,

  And thus it comes to pass that all in all

  There is no overflow; in part because

  The burly winds (that over-sweep amain)

  And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

  Do minish the level seas; in part because

  The water is diffused underground

  Through all the lands. The brine is filtered off,

  And then the liquid stuff seeps back again

  And all regathers at the river-heads,

  Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows

  Over the lands, adown the channels which

  Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along

  The liquid-footed floods.

  Now, then, of air

  I’ll speak, which hour by hour in all its body

  Is changed innumerably. For whatso’er

  Streams up in dust or vapour off of things,

  The same is all and always borne along

  Into the mighty ocean of the air;

  And did not air in turn restore to things

  Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,

  All things by this time had resolved been

  And changed into air. Therefore it never

  Ceases to be engendered off of things

  And to return to things, since verily

  In constant flux do all things stream.

  Likewise,

  The abounding well-spring of the liquid light,

  The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o’er

  With constant flux of radiance ever new,

  And with fresh light supplies the place of light,

  Upon the instant. For whatever effulgence

  Hath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,

  Is lost unto the sun. And this ’tis thine

  To know from these examples: soon as clouds

  Have first begun to under-pass the sun,

  And, as it were, to rend the rays of light

  In twain, at once the lower part of them

  Is lost entire, and ea
rth is overcast

  Where’er the thunderheads are rolled along —

  So know thou mayst that things forever need

  A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,

  And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,

  Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwise

  Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway

  The fountain-head of light supply new light.

  Indeed your earthly beacons of the night,

  The hanging lampions and the torches, bright

  With darting gleams and dense with livid soot,

  Do hurry in like manner to supply

  With ministering heat new light amain;

  Are all alive to quiver with their fires, —

  Are so alive, that thus the light ne’er leaves

  The spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:

  So speedily is its destruction veiled

  By the swift birth of flame from all the fires.

  Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon

  And stars dart forth their light from under-births

  Ever and ever new, and whatso flames

  First rise do perish always one by one —

  Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure

  Inviolable.

  Again, perceivest not

  How stones are also conquered by Time? —

  Not how the lofty towers ruin down,

  And boulders crumble? — Not how shrines of gods

  And idols crack outworn? — Nor how indeed

  The holy Influence hath yet no power

  There to postpone the Terminals of Fate,

  Or headway make ‘gainst Nature’s fixed decrees?

  Again, behold we not the monuments

  Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us,

  In their turn likewise, if we don’t believe

  They also age with eld? Behold we not

  The rended basalt ruining amain

  Down from the lofty mountains, powerless

  To dure and dree the mighty forces there

  Of finite time? — for they would never fall

  Rended asudden, if from infinite Past

  They had prevailed against all engin’ries

  Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.

  Again, now look at This, which round, above,

  Contains the whole earth in its one embrace:

  If from itself it procreates all things —

  As some men tell — and takes them to itself

  When once destroyed, entirely must it be

  Of mortal birth and body; for whate’er

  From out itself giveth to other things

  Increase and food, the same perforce must be

  Minished, and then recruited when it takes

  Things back into itself.