Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  The nature of the mighty world a time

  Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see

  So great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!

  And lest the winds blew back again, no force

  Could rein things in nor hold from sure career

  On to disaster. But now because those winds

  Blow back and forth in alternation strong,

  And, so to say, rallying charge again,

  And then repulsed retreat, on this account

  Earth oftener threatens than she brings to pass

  Collapses dire. For to one side she leans,

  Then back she sways; and after tottering

  Forward, recovers then her seats of poise.

  Thus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs

  More than the middle stories, middle more

  Than lowest, and the lowest least of all.

  Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking,

  When wind and some prodigious force of air,

  Collected from without or down within

  The old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves

  Amain into those caverns sub-terrene,

  And there at first tumultuously chafe

  Among the vasty grottos, borne about

  In mad rotations, till their lashed force

  Aroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there,

  Riving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm —

  What once in Syrian Sidon did befall,

  And once in Peloponnesian Aegium,

  Twain cities which such out-break of wild air

  And earth’s convulsion, following hard upon,

  O’erthrew of old. And many a walled town,

  Besides, hath fall’n by such omnipotent

  Convulsions on the land, and in the sea

  Engulfed hath sunken many a city down

  With all its populace. But if, indeed,

  They burst not forth, yet is the very rush

  Of the wild air and fury-force of wind

  Then dissipated, like an ague-fit,

  Through the innumerable pores of earth,

  To set her all a-shake — even as a chill,

  When it hath gone into our marrow-bones,

  Sets us convulsively, despite ourselves,

  A-shivering and a-shaking. Therefore, men

  With two-fold terror bustle in alarm

  Through cities to and fro: they fear the roofs

  Above the head; and underfoot they dread

  The caverns, lest the nature of the earth

  Suddenly rend them open, and she gape,

  Herself asunder, with tremendous maw,

  And, all confounded, seek to chock it full

  With her own ruins. Let men, then, go on

  Feigning at will that heaven and earth shall be

  Inviolable, entrusted evermore

  To an eternal weal: and yet at times

  The very force of danger here at hand

  Prods them on some side with this goad of fear —

  This among others — that the earth, withdrawn

  Abruptly from under their feet, be hurried down,

  Down into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things

  Be following after, utterly fordone,

  Till be but wrack and wreckage of a world.

  EXTRAORDINARY AND PARADOXICAL TELLURIC

  PHENOMENA

  In chief, men marvel nature renders not

  Bigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since

  So vast the down-rush of the waters be,

  And every river out of every realm

  Cometh thereto; and add the random rains

  And flying tempests, which spatter every sea

  And every land bedew; add their own springs:

  Yet all of these unto the ocean’s sum

  Shall be but as the increase of a drop.

  Wherefore ’tis less a marvel that the sea,

  The mighty ocean, increaseth not. Besides,

  Sun with his heat draws off a mighty part:

  Yea, we behold that sun with burning beams

  To dry our garments dripping all with wet;

  And many a sea, and far out-spread beneath,

  Do we behold. Therefore, however slight

  The portion of wet that sun on any spot

  Culls from the level main, he still will take

  From off the waves in such a wide expanse

  Abundantly. Then, further, also winds,

  Sweeping the level waters, can bear off

  A mighty part of wet, since we behold

  Oft in a single night the highways dried

  By winds, and soft mud crusted o’er at dawn.

  Again, I’ve taught thee that the clouds bear off

  Much moisture too, up-taken from the reaches

  Of the mighty main, and sprinkle it about

  O’er all the zones, when rain is on the lands

  And winds convey the aery racks of vapour.

  Lastly, since earth is porous through her frame,

  And neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores,

  The water’s wet must seep into the lands

  From briny ocean, as from lands it comes

  Into the seas. For brine is filtered off,

  And then the liquid stuff seeps back again

  And all re-poureth at the river-heads,

  Whence in fresh-water currents it returns

  Over the lands, adown the channels which

  Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along

  The liquid-footed floods.

  And now the cause

  Whereby athrough the throat of Aetna’s Mount

  Such vast tornado-fires out-breathe at times,

  I will unfold: for with no middling might

  Of devastation the flamy tempest rose

  And held dominion in Sicilian fields:

  Drawing upon itself the upturned faces

  Of neighbouring clans, what time they saw afar

  The skiey vaults a-fume and sparkling all,

  And filled their bosoms with dread anxiety

  Of what new thing nature were travailing at.

  In these affairs it much behooveth thee

  To look both wide and deep, and far abroad

  To peer to every quarter, that thou mayst

  Remember how boundless is the Sum-of-Things,

  And mark how infinitely small a part

  Of the whole Sum is this one sky of ours —

  O not so large a part as is one man

  Of the whole earth. And plainly if thou viewest

  This cosmic fact, placing it square in front,

  And plainly understandest, thou wilt leave

  Wondering at many things. For who of us

  Wondereth if some one gets into his joints

  A fever, gathering head with fiery heat,

  Or any other dolorous disease

  Along his members? For anon the foot

  Grows blue and bulbous; often the sharp twinge

  Seizes the teeth, attacks the very eyes;

  Out-breaks the sacred fire, and, crawling on

  Over the body, burneth every part

  It seizeth on, and works its hideous way

  Along the frame. No marvel this, since, lo,

  Of things innumerable be seeds enough,

  And this our earth and sky do bring to us

  Enough of bane from whence can grow the strength

  Of maladies uncounted. Thuswise, then,

  We must suppose to all the sky and earth

  Are ever supplied from out the infinite

  All things, O all in stores enough whereby

  The shaken earth can of a sudden move,

  And fierce typhoons can over sea and lands

  Go tearing on, and Aetna’s fires o’erflow,

  And heaven become a flame-burst. For that, too,

  Happens at times, and the celestial vaults

  Glow into fire, and rainy tempests rise

 
In heavier congregation, when, percase,

  The seeds of water have foregathered thus

  From out the infinite. “Aye, but passing huge

  The fiery turmoil of that conflagration!”

  So sayst thou; well, huge many a river seems

  To him that erstwhile ne’er a larger saw;

  Thus, huge seems tree or man; and everything

  Which mortal sees the biggest of each class,

  That he imagines to be “huge”; though yet

  All these, with sky and land and sea to boot,

  Are all as nothing to the sum entire

  Of the all-Sum.

  But now I will unfold

  At last how yonder suddenly angered flame

  Out-blows abroad from vasty furnaces

  Aetnaean. First, the mountain’s nature is

  All under-hollow, propped about, about

  With caverns of basaltic piers. And, lo,

  In all its grottos be there wind and air —

  For wind is made when air hath been uproused

  By violent agitation. When this air

  Is heated through and through, and, raging round,

  Hath made the earth and all the rocks it touches

  Horribly hot, and hath struck off from them

  Fierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself

  And hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat

  Into high heav’n, and thus bears on afar

  Its burning blasts and scattereth afar

  Its ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk

  And heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight —

  Leaving no doubt in thee that ’tis the air’s

  Tumultuous power. Besides, in mighty part,

  The sea there at the roots of that same mount

  Breaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.

  And grottos from the sea pass in below

  Even to the bottom of the mountain’s throat.

  Herethrough thou must admit there go...

  And the conditions force [the water and air]

  Deeply to penetrate from the open sea,

  And to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear

  Thereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps

  The boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.

  For at the top be “bowls,” as people there

  Are wont to name what we at Rome do call

  The throats and mouths.

  There be, besides, some thing

  Of which ’tis not enough one only cause

  To state — but rather several, whereof one

  Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy

  Lying afar some fellow’s lifeless corse,

  ‘Twere meet to name all causes of a death,

  That cause of his death might thereby be named:

  For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,

  By cold, nor even by poison nor disease,

  Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him

  We know — And thus we have to say the same

  In divers cases.

  Toward the summer, Nile

  Waxeth and overfloweth the champaign,

  Unique in all the landscape, river sole

  Of the Aegyptians. In mid-season heats

  Often and oft he waters Aegypt o’er,

  Either because in summer against his mouths

  Come those northwinds which at that time of year

  Men name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus

  Upstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves,

  Fill him o’erfull and force his flow to stop.

  For out of doubt these blasts which driven be

  From icy constellations of the pole

  Are borne straight up the river. Comes that river

  From forth the sultry places down the south,

  Rising far up in midmost realm of day,

  Among black generations of strong men

  With sun-baked skins. ’Tis possible, besides,

  That a big bulk of piled sand may bar

  His mouths against his onward waves, when sea,

  Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;

  Whereby the river’s outlet were less free,

  Likewise less headlong his descending floods.

  It may be, too, that in this season rains

  Are more abundant at its fountain head,

  Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds

  Then urge all clouds into those inland parts.

  And, soothly, when they’re thus foregathered there,

  Urged yonder into midmost realm of day,

  Then, crowded against the lofty mountain sides,

  They’re massed and powerfully pressed. Again,

  Perchance, his waters wax, O far away,

  Among the Aethiopians’ lofty mountains,

  When the all-beholding sun with thawing beams

  Drives the white snows to flow into the vales.

  Now come; and unto thee I will unfold,

  As to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns,

  What sort of nature they are furnished with.

  First, as to name of “birdless,” — that derives

  From very fact, because they noxious be

  Unto all birds. For when above those spots

  In horizontal flight the birds have come,

  Forgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails,

  And, with down-drooping of their delicate necks,

  Fall headlong into earth, if haply such

  The nature of the spots, or into water,

  If haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.

  Such spot’s at Cumae, where the mountains smoke,

  Charged with the pungent sulphur, and increased

  With steaming springs. And such a spot there is

  Within the walls of Athens, even there

  On summit of Acropolis, beside

  Fane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful,

  Where never cawing crows can wing their course,

  Not even when smoke the altars with good gifts, —

  But evermore they flee — yet not from wrath

  Of Pallas, grieved at that espial old,

  As poets of the Greeks have sung the tale;

  But very nature of the place compels.

  In Syria also — as men say — a spot

  Is to be seen, where also four-foot kinds,

  As soon as ever they’ve set their steps within,

  Collapse, o’ercome by its essential power,

  As if there slaughtered to the under-gods.

  Lo, all these wonders work by natural law,

  And from what causes they are brought to pass

  The origin is manifest; so, haply,

  Let none believe that in these regions stands

  The gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose,

  Haply, that thence the under-gods draw down

  Souls to dark shores of Acheron — as stags,

  The wing-footed, are thought to draw to light,

  By sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs

  The wriggling generations of wild snakes.

  How far removed from true reason is this,

  Perceive thou straight; for now I’ll try to say

  Somewhat about the very fact.

  And, first,

  This do I say, as oft I’ve said before:

  In earth are atoms of things of every sort;

  And know, these all thus rise from out the earth —

  Many life-giving which be good for food,

  And many which can generate disease

  And hasten death, O many primal seeds

  Of many things in many modes — since earth

  Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete.

  And we have shown before that certain things

  Be unto certain creatures suited more

  For ends of life, by virtue of a nature,

  A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike


  For kinds alike. Then too ’tis thine to see

  How many things oppressive be and foul

  To man, and to sensation most malign:

  Many meander miserably through ears;

  Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too,

  Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath;

  Of not a few must one avoid the touch;

  Of not a few must one escape the sight;

  And some there be all loathsome to the taste;

  And many, besides, relax the languid limbs

  Along the frame, and undermine the soul

  In its abodes within. To certain trees

  There hath been given so dolorous a shade

  That often they gender achings of the head,

  If one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward.

  There is, again, on Helicon’s high hills

  A tree that’s wont to kill a man outright

  By fetid odour of its very flower.

  And when the pungent stench of the night-lamp,

  Extinguished but a moment since, assails

  The nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep

  A man afflicted with the falling sickness

  And foamings at the mouth. A woman, too,

  At the heavy castor drowses back in chair,

  And from her delicate fingers slips away

  Her gaudy handiwork, if haply she

  Hath got the whiff at menstruation-time.

  Once more, if thou delayest in hot baths,

  When thou art over-full, how readily

  From stool in middle of the steaming water

  Thou tumblest in a fit! How readily

  The heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way

  Into the brain, unless beforehand we

  Of water ‘ve drunk. But when a burning fever,

  O’ermastering man, hath seized upon his limbs,

  Then odour of wine is like a hammer-blow.

  And seest thou not how in the very earth

  Sulphur is gendered and bitumen thickens

  With noisome stench? — What direful stenches, too,

  Scaptensula out-breathes from down below,

  When men pursue the veins of silver and gold,

  With pick-axe probing round the hidden realms

  Deep in the earth? — Or what of deadly bane

  The mines of gold exhale? O what a look,

  And what a ghastly hue they give to men!

  And seest thou not, or hearest, how they’re wont

  In little time to perish, and how fail

  The life-stores in those folk whom mighty power

  Of grim necessity confineth there

  In such a task? Thus, this telluric earth

  Out-streams with all these dread effluvia

  And breathes them out into the open world

  And into the visible regions under heaven.