Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  Point out the course before me, as I race

  On to the white line of the utmost goal,

  That I may get with signal praise the crown,

  With thee my guide!

  GREAT METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA, ETC.

  And so in first place, then,

  With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,

  Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,

  Together clash, what time ‘gainst one another

  The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes

  From out the serene regions of the sky;

  But wheresoever in a host more dense

  The clouds foregather, thence more often comes

  A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,

  Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame

  As stones and timbers, nor again so fine

  As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce

  They’d either fall, borne down by their brute weight,

  Like stones, or, like the smoke, they’d powerless be

  To keep their mass, or to retain within

  Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth

  O’er skiey levels of the spreading world

  A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched

  O’er mighty theatres, gives forth at times

  A cracking roar, when much ’tis beaten about

  Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,

  Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves

  And imitates the tearing sound of sheets

  Of paper — even this kind of noise thou mayst

  In thunder hear — or sound as when winds whirl

  With lashings and do buffet about in air

  A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.

  For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds

  Cannot together crash head-on, but rather

  Move side-wise and with motions contrary

  Graze each the other’s body without speed,

  From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,

  So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed

  From out their close positions.

  And, again,

  In following wise all things seem oft to quake

  At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls

  Of the wide reaches of the upper world

  There on the instant to have sprung apart,

  Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast

  Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once

  Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,

  And, there enclosed, ever more and more

  Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud

  To grow all hollow with a thickened crust

  Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force

  And the keen onset of the wind have weakened

  That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,

  Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.

  No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,

  Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,

  Give forth a like large sound.

  There’s reason, too,

  Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:

  We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds

  Rough-edged or branched many forky ways;

  And ’tis the same, as when the sudden flaws

  Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow,

  Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.

  It happens too at times that roused force

  Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud,

  Breaking right through it by a front assault;

  For what a blast of wind may do up there

  Is manifest from facts when here on earth

  A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees

  And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.

  Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these

  Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar;

  As when along deep streams or the great sea

  Breaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever

  Out from one cloud into another falls

  The fiery energy of thunderbolt,

  That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet,

  Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise;

  As iron, white from the hot furnaces,

  Sizzles, when speedily we’ve plunged its glow

  Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud

  More dry receive the fire, ‘twill suddenly

  Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound,

  As if a flame with whirl of winds should range

  Along the laurel-tressed mountains far,

  Upburning with its vast assault those trees;

  Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame

  Consumes with sound more terrible to man

  Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.

  Oft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice

  And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound

  Among the mighty clouds on high; for when

  The wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass

  Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly

  And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...

  Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck,

  By their collision, forth the seeds of fire:

  As if a stone should smite a stone or steel,

  For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters

  The shining sparks. But with our ears we get

  The thunder after eyes behold the flash,

  Because forever things arrive the ears

  More tardily than the eyes — as thou mayst see

  From this example too: when markest thou

  Some man far yonder felling a great tree

  With double-edged ax, it comes to pass

  Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before

  The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears:

  Thus also we behold the flashing ere

  We hear the thunder, which discharged is

  At same time with the fire and by same cause,

  Born of the same collision.

  In following wise

  The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands,

  And the storm flashes with tremulous elan:

  When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there,

  Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud

  Into a hollow with a thickened crust,

  It becomes hot of own velocity:

  Just as thou seest how motion will o’erheat

  And set ablaze all objects, — verily

  A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space,

  Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire

  Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds,

  Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force

  Of sudden from the cloud; — and these do make

  The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth

  The detonation which attacks our ears

  More tardily than aught which comes along

  Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place —

  As know thou mayst — at times when clouds are dense

  And one upon the other piled aloft

  With wonderful upheavings — nor be thou

  Deceived because we see how broad their base

  From underneath, and not how high they tower.

  For make thine observations at a time

  When winds shall bear athwart the horizon’s blue

  Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,

  Or when about the sides of mighty peaks

  Thou seest them one upon the other massed

  And burdening downward, anchored in high repose,

  With the winds sepulchred on all sides round:

  Then canst thou know their mighty masses, then
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br />   Canst view their caverns, as if builded there

  Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes

  In gathered storm have filled utterly,

  Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around

  With mighty roarings, and within those dens

  Bluster like savage beasts, and now from here,

  And now from there, send growlings through the clouds,

  And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about,

  And roll from ‘mid the clouds the seeds of fire,

  And heap them multitudinously there,

  And in the hollow furnaces within

  Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud

  In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.

  Again, from following cause it comes to pass

  That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire

  Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds

  Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire;

  For, when they be without all moisture, then

  They be for most part of a flamy hue

  And a resplendent. And, indeed, they must

  Even from the light of sun unto themselves

  Take multitudinous seeds, and so perforce

  Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.

  And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust,

  Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds,

  They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out,

  Which make to flash these colours of the flame.

  Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds

  Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when

  The wind with gentle touch unravels them

  And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds

  Which make the lightnings must by nature fall;

  At such an hour the horizon lightens round

  Without the hideous terror of dread noise

  And skiey uproar.

  To proceed apace,

  What sort of nature thunderbolts possess

  Is by their strokes made manifest and by

  The brand-marks of their searing heat on things,

  And by the scorched scars exhaling round

  The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these

  Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.

  Again, they often enkindle even the roofs

  Of houses and inside the very rooms

  With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.

  Know thou that nature fashioned this fire

  Subtler than fires all other, with minute

  And dartling bodies, — a fire ‘gainst which there’s naught

  Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,

  The mighty, passes through the hedging walls

  Of houses, like to voices or a shout, —

  Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts

  Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,

  Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,

  The wine-jars intact, — because, ye see,

  Its heat arriving renders loose and porous

  Readily all the wine — jar’s earthen sides,

  And winding its way within, it scattereth

  The elements primordial of the wine

  With speedy dissolution — process which

  Even in an age the fiery steam of sun

  Could not accomplish, however puissant he

  With his hot coruscations: so much more

  Agile and overpowering is this force.

  Now in what manner engendered are these things,

  How fashioned of such impetuous strength

  As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all

  To overtopple, and to wrench apart

  Timbers and beams, and heroes’ monuments

  To pile in ruins and upheave amain,

  And to take breath forever out of men,

  And to o’erthrow the cattle everywhere, —

  Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this,

  All this and more, I will unfold to thee,

  Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.

  The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived

  As all begotten in those crasser clouds

  Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene

  And from the clouds of lighter density,

  None are sent forth forever. That ’tis so

  Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:

  To wit, at such a time the densed clouds

  So mass themselves through all the upper air

  That we might think that round about all murk

  Had parted forth from Acheron and filled

  The mighty vaults of sky — so grievously,

  As gathers thus the storm-clouds’ gruesome might,

  Do faces of black horror hang on high —

  When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.

  Besides, full often also out at sea

  A blackest thunderhead, like cataract

  Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away

  Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves

  Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain

  The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts

  And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed

  Tremendously with fires and winds, that even

  Back on the lands the people shudder round

  And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,

  The storm must be conceived as o’er our head

  Towering most high; for never would the clouds

  O’erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,

  Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,

  To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,

  As on they come, engulf with rain so vast

  As thus to make the rivers overflow

  And fields to float, if ether were not thus

  Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,

  Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires —

  Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.

  For, verily, I’ve taught thee even now

  How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable

  Of fiery exhalations, and they must

  From off the sunbeams and the heat of these

  Take many still. And so, when that same wind

  (Which, haply, into one region of the sky

  Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same

  The many fiery seeds, and with that fire

  Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,

  O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,

  Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round

  In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside

  In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.

  For in a two-fold manner is that wind

  Enkindled all: it trembles into heat

  Both by its own velocity and by

  Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when

  The energy of wind is heated through

  And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped

  Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,

  Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly

  Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash

  Leaps onward, lumining with forky light

  All places round. And followeth anon

  A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,

  As if asunder burst, seem from on high

  To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake

  Pervades the lands, and ‘long the lofty skies

  Run the far rumblings. For at such a time

  Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,

  And roused are the roarings, — from which shock

  Comes such resounding and abounding rain,

  That all the murky ether seems to turn

  Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,

  To summon the fields back to primeval floods:

&
nbsp; So big the rains that be sent down on men

  By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,

  What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt

  That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times

  The force of wind, excited from without,

  Smiteth into a cloud already hot

  With a ripe thunderbolt. And when that wind

  Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith

  Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call,

  Even with our fathers’ word, a thunderbolt.

  The same thing haps toward every other side

  Whither that force hath swept. It happens, too,

  That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth

  Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space

  Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along, —

  Losing some larger bodies which cannot

  Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air, —

  And, scraping together out of air itself

  Some smaller bodies, carries them along,

  And these, commingling, by their flight make fire:

  Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball

  Grows hot upon its aery course, the while

  It loseth many bodies of stark cold

  And taketh into itself along the air

  New particles of fire. It happens, too,

  That force of blow itself arouses fire,

  When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth

  Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain —

  No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke

  ‘Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff

  Can stream together from out the very wind

  And, simultaneously, from out that thing

  Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies

  The fire when with the steel we hack the stone;

  Nor yet, because the force of steel’s a-cold,

  Rush the less speedily together there

  Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.

  And therefore, thuswise must an object too

  Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply

  ‘Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.

  Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed

  As altogether and entirely cold —

  That force which is discharged from on high

  With such stupendous power; but if ’tis not

  Upon its course already kindled with fire,

  It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.

  And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt

  Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift

  Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because

  Their roused force itself collects itself

  First always in the clouds, and then prepares