*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64024 *** TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS _By the same Author._ THE FOOLISHNESS OF SOLOMON 3s. 6d. LUCRETIUS ON DEATH 2s. 6d. THE PTERODAMOZELS 2s. THE NEW PARSIFAL 3s. 6d. THE BRIDE OF DIONYSUS 3s. 6d. SISYPHUS 5s. POLYPHEMUS 7s. 6d. THE BIRTH OF PARSIVAL 3s. 6d. CECILIA GONZAGA 2s. 6d. MALLOW AND ASPHODEL 2s. 6d. THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES 2s. TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS BY R. C. TREVELYAN LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 _First published in 1920._ _All rights reserved._ TO G. LOWES DICKINSON TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS BOOK I, lines 1-328 Thou mother of the Aenead race, delight Of men and deities, bountiful Venus, thou Who under the sky’s gliding constellations Fillest ship-carrying ocean with thy presence And the corn-bearing lands, since through thy power Each kind of living creature is conceived Then riseth and beholdeth the sun’s light: Before thee and thine advent the winds and clouds Of heaven take flight, O goddess: daedal earth Puts forth sweet-scented flowers beneath thy feet: Beholding thee the smooth deep laughs, the sky Grows calm and shines with wide-outspreading light. For soon as the day’s vernal countenance Has been revealed, and fresh from wintry bonds Blows the birth-giving breeze of the West wind, First do the birds of air give sign of thee, Goddess, and thine approach, as through their hearts Thine influence smites. Next the wild herds of beasts Bound over the rich pastures and swim through The rapid streams, as captured by thy charm Each one with eager longing follows thee Whithersoever thou wouldst lure them on. And thus through seas, mountains and rushing rivers, Through the birds’ leafy homes and the green plains, Striking bland love into the hearts of all, Thou art the cause that following his lust Each should renew his race after his kind. Therefore since thou alone art nature’s mistress, And since without thine aid naught can rise forth Into the glorious regions of the light, Nor aught grow to be gladsome and delectable, Thee would I win to help me while I write These verses, wherein I labour to describe The nature of things in honour of my friend This scion of the Memmian house, whom thou Hast willed to be found peerless all his days In every grace. Therefore the more, great deity, Grant to my words eternal loveliness: Cause meanwhile that the savage works of warfare Over all seas and lands sink hushed to rest. For thou alone hast power to bless mankind With tranquil peace; since of war’s savage works Mavors mighty in battle hath control, Who oft flings himself back upon thy lap, Quite vanquished by love’s never-healing wound; And so with upturned face and shapely neck Thrown backward, feeds with love his hungry looks, Gazing on thee, goddess, while thus he lies Supine, and on thy lips his spirit hangs. O’er him thus couched upon thy holy body Do thou bend down to enfold him, and from thy lips Pour tender speech, petitioning calm peace, O glorious divinity, for thy Romans. For nor can we in our country’s hour of trouble Toil with a mind untroubled at our task, Nor yet may the famed child of Memmius Be spared from public service in such times. For the rest,[A] leisured ears and a keen mind Withdrawn from cares, lend to true reasoning, Lest my gifts, which with loving diligence I set out for you, ere they be understood You should reject disdainfully. For now About the most high theory of the heavens And of the deities, I will undertake To tell you in my discourse, and will reveal The first beginnings of existing things, Out of which nature gives birth and increase And nourishment to all things; into which Nature likewise, when they have been destroyed, Resolves them back in turn. These we are wont, In setting forth our argument, to call Matter, or else begetting particles, Or to name them the seeds of things: again As primal atoms we shall speak of them, Because from them first everything is formed. When prostrate upon earth lay human life Visibly trampled down and foully crushed Beneath religion’s cruelty, who meanwhile Forth from the regions of the heavens above Showed forth her face, lowering down on men With horrible aspect, first did a man of Greece[B] Dare to lift up his mortal eyes against her; The first was he to stand up and defy her. Him neither stories of the gods, nor lightnings, Nor heaven with muttering menaces could quell, But all the more did they arouse his soul’s Keen valour, till he longed to be the first To break through the fast-bolted doors of nature. Therefore his fervent energy of mind Prevailed, and he passed onward, voyaging far Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world, Ranging in mind and spirit far and wide Throughout the unmeasured universe; and thence A conqueror he returns to us, bringing back Knowledge both of what can and what cannot Rise into being, teaching us in fine Upon what principle each thing has its powers Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone. Therefore now has religion been cast down Beneath men’s feet, and trampled on in turn: Ourselves heaven-high his victory exalts. Herein this fear assails me, lest perchance You should suppose I would initiate you Into a school of reasoning unholy, And set your feet upon a path of sin: Whereas in truth often has this religion Given birth to sinful and unholy deeds. So once at Aulis did those chosen chiefs Of Hellas, those most eminent among heros, Foully defile the Trivian Virgin’s altar With Iphianassa’s lifeblood. For so soon As the fillet wreathed around her maiden locks Streamed down in equal lengths from either cheek, And soon as she was aware of her father standing Sorrowful by the altar, and at his side The priestly ministers hiding the knife, And the folk shedding tears at sight of her, Speechless in terror, dropping on her knees To the earth she sank down. Nor in that hour Of anguish might it avail her that she first Had given the name of father to the king; For by the hands of men lifted on high Shuddering to the altar she was borne, Not that, when the due ceremonial rites Had been accomplished, she might be escorted By the clear-sounding hymenaeal song, But that a stainless maiden foully stained, In the very season of marriage she might fall A sorrowful victim by a father’s stroke, That so there might be granted to the fleet A happy and hallowed sailing. Such the crimes Whereto religion has had power to prompt. Yet there may come a time when you yourself, Surrendering to the terror-breathing tales Of seers and bards, will seek to abandon us. Ay verily, how many dreams even now May they be forging for you, which might well Overturn your philosophy of life, And trouble all your happiness with fear! And with good cause: for if men could perceive That there was a fixed limit to their sorrows, By some means they would find strength to withstand The hallowed lies and threatenings of these seers. But as it is, men have no means, no power To make a stand, since everlasting seem The penalties that they must fear in death. For none knows what is the nature of the soul, Whether ’tis born, or on the contrary Enters into our bodies at their birth: Whether, when torn from us by death, it perishes Together with us, or thereafter goes To visit Orcus’ glooms and the vast chasms; Or penetrates by ordinance divine Into brutes in man’s stead, as sang our own Ennius, who first from pleasant Helicon Brought down a garland of unfading leaf, Destined among Italian tribes of men To win bright glory. And yet in spite of this Ennius sets forth in immortal verse That none the less there does exist a realm Of Acheron, though neither do our souls Nor bodies penetrate thither, but a kind Of phantom images, pale in wondrous wise: And thence it was, so he relates, that once The ghost of ever-living Homer rose Before him, shedding salt tears, and began To unfold in discourse the nature of things. Therefore not only must we grasp the truth Concerning things on high, what principle Controls the courses of the sun and moon, And by what force all that takes place on earth Is governed, but above all by keen thought We must investigate whereof consists The soul and the mind’s nature, and what it is That comes before us when we wake, if then We are preyed on by disease, or when we lie Buried in sleep, and terrifies our minds, So that we seem face to face to behold And hear those speaking to us who are dead, Whose bones the earth now holds in its embrace. Nor am I unaware how hard my task In Latin verses to set clearly forth The obscure truths discovered by the Greeks, Chiefly because so much will need new terms To deal with it, owing to our poverty Of language, and the novelty of the themes. Nevertheless your worth and the delight Of your sweet friendship, which I hope to win, Prompt me to bear the burden of any toil, And lead me on to watch the calm nights through, Seeking by means of what words and what measures I may attain my end, and shed so clear A light upon your spirit, that thereby Your gaze may search the depths of hidden things. This terror, then, and darkness of the mind Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation Of nature’s aspect and her inward law. And this first principle of her design Shall be our starting point: nothing is ever By divine will begotten out of nothing. In truth the reason fear so dominates All mortals, is that they behold on earth And in the sky many things happening, Yet of these operations by no means Can they perceive the causes, and so fancy That they must come to pass by power divine. Therefore when we have understood that nothing Can be born out of nothing, we shall then Win juster knowledge of the truth we seek, Both from what elements each thing can be formed, And in what way all things can come to pass Without the intervention of the gods. For if things came from nothing, any kind Might be born out of anything; naught then Would require seed. Thus men might rise from ocean The scaly race out of the land, while birds Might suddenly be hatched forth from the sky: Cattle and other herds and every kind Of wild beast, bred by no fixed law of birth, Would roam o’er tilth and wilderness alike. No fruit would remain constant to its tree, But would change; every tree would bear all kinds. For if there were not for each thing its own Begetting particles, how could they have A fixed unvarying mother? But in fact Since all are formed from fixed seeds, each is born And issues into the borders of the light From that alone wherein resides its substance And its first bodies. And for this cause all things Cannot be generated out of all, Since in each dwells its own particular power. Again why do we see in spring the rose, Corn in the summer’s heat, vines bursting forth When autumn summons them, if not because When in their own time the fixed seeds of things Have flowed together, there is then revealed Whatever has been born, while the due seasons Are present, and the quickened earth brings forth Safely into the borders of the light Its tender nurslings? But if they were formed From nothing, they would suddenly spring up At unfixed periods and hostile times, Since there would then be no fixed particles To be kept from a begetting union By the unpropitious season of the year. Nor yet after the meeting of the seed Would lapse of time be needed for their increase, If they could grow from nothing. Suddenly Small babes would become youths; trees would arise Shooting up in a moment from the ground. But nothing of the kind, ’tis plain, takes place, Seeing that all things grow little by little, As befits, from determined seed, and growing Preserve their kind: so that you may perceive That all things become greater and are nourished Out of their own material. Furthermore Without fixed annual seasons for the rain Earth could not put her gladdening produce forth, Nor yet, if kept apart from nourishment, Could living creatures propagate their kind Or sustain life: so that with greater reason You may think many things have many atoms In common, as we see that different words Have common letters, than that anything Can come to being without first elements. Again, why could not nature have produced Men of such mighty bulk, that they could wade Through the deep places of the sea, or rend Huge mountains with their hands, or in one life Overpass many living generations, If not because there has been set apart A changeless substance for begetting things, And what can thence arise is predetermined? Therefore we must confess this truth, that nothing Can come from nothing, since seed is required For each thing, out of which it may be born And lift itself into the air’s soft breezes. Lastly, since it is evident that tilled lands Excel the untilled, and yield to labouring hands A richer harvest, we may thence infer That in the earth there must be primal atoms, And these, labouring its soil, we stimulate To rise, when with the coulter we turn up The fertile clods. But if none such existed, We should see all things without toil of ours Spring forth far richer of their own accord. Furthermore nature dissolves each form back Into its own first particles, nor ever Annihilates things. For if aught could be mortal In all its parts, then it might from our eyes Be snatched away to perish suddenly. For there would be no need of any force To cause disruption of its parts, and loosen Their fastenings. But in fact each is composed Of everlasting seeds; so till some force Arrives that with a blow can shatter things To pieces, or can penetrate within Their empty spaces, and so break them up, Nature will not permit the dissolution Of anything to be seen. Again, if time Utterly destroys, consuming all the substance Of whatsoever it removes from sight Through lapse of ages, out of what does Venus Bring back into the light of life the race Of living creatures each after its kind? Or, once brought back, whence does the daedal earth Feed and increase them, giving nourishment To each after its kind? Whence do its own Fountains and far-drawn rivers from without Keep full the sea? Whence does the ether feed The stars? For infinite time and lapse of days Surely must long since have devoured all things Formed of a body that must die. But if Throughout that period of time long past Those atoms have existed out of which This universe of things has been composed And recomposed, ’tis plain they are possessed Of an immortal nature: none of them Therefore can turn to nothing. Then again The same force and the same cause would destroy All things without distinction, were it not That an eternal substance held them fast, A substance interwoven part with part By bonds more or less close. For without doubt A mere touch would be cause enough for death, Seeing that any least amount of force Must needs dissolve the texture of such things, No one of which had an eternal body. But in fact since the mutual fastenings Between first elements are dissimilar, And their substance eternal, things endure With body uninjured, till some force arrives Strong enough to dissolve the texture of each. Therefore no single thing ever returns To nothing, but at their disruption all Pass back into the elements of matter. Lastly the rain showers perish, when the sky father Has flung them into the lap of mother earth. But then bright crops spring up luxuriantly; Boughs on the trees are green; the trees themselves Grow, and with fruits are laden: from this source Moreover both our own race and the race Of beasts are nourished; for this cause we see Glad towns teeming with children, leafy woods With young birds’ voices singing on all sides; For this cause cattle about the fertile meadows Wearied with fatness lay their bodies down, And from their swollen udders oozing falls The white milk stream; for this cause a new brood Bounds on weak limbs over the soft grass, frisking And gamboling, their young hearts with pure milk thrilled. None therefore of those things that seem to perish Utterly perishes, since nature forms One thing out of another, and permits Nothing to be begotten, unless first She has been recruited by another’s death. Now listen: since I have proved to you that things Cannot be formed from nothing, lest you yet Should tend in any way to doubt my words, Because the primal particles of things Can never be distinguished by the eyes, I will proceed to give you instances Of bodies which yourself you must admit Are real things, yet cannot be perceived. First the wind’s wakened force scourges the sea, Whelming huge ships and scattering the clouds; And sometimes with impetuous hurricane Scouring the plains, it strews them with great trees, And ravages with forest-rending blasts The mountain-tops: with such rude savagery Does the wind howl and bluster and wreak its rage With menacing uproar. Therefore past all doubt Winds must be formed of unseen particles That sweep the seas, the lands, the clouds of heaven, Ravaging and dishevelling them all With fitful hurricane gusts. Onward they stream Multiplying destruction, just as when The soft nature of water suddenly Swoops forward in one overwhelming flood Swelled with abundant rains by a mighty spate Of water rushing down from the high hills, Hurtling together broken forest boughs And entire trees: nor can the sturdy bridges Sustain the oncoming water’s sudden force: In such wise turbulent with much rain the river Flings its whole mighty strength against the piles. With a loud crashing roar it then deals havoc, And rolls the huge stones on beneath its waves, Sweeping before it all that stems its flood. In this way then wind-blasts must likewise move; And when like a strong stream they have hurled themselves Towards any quarter, they thrust things along And with repeated onslaughts overwhelm them, Often in writhing eddy seizing them To bear them away in swiftly circling swirl. Therefore beyond all doubt winds are composed Of unseen atoms, since in their works and ways We find that they resemble mighty rivers Which are of visible substance. Then again We can perceive the various scents of things, Yet never see them coming to our nostrils: Heat too we see not, nor can we observe Cold with our eyes, nor ever behold words: Yet must all these be of a bodily nature, Since they are able to act upon our senses. For naught can touch or be touched except body. Clothes also, hung up on a shore where waves Are breaking, become moist, and then grow dry If spread out in the sun. Yet in what way The water’s moisture has soaked into them, Has not been seen, nor again in what way The heat has driven it out. The moisture therefore Is dispersed into tiny particles, Which our eyes have no power to see at all. Furthermore after many revolutions Of the sun’s year, a finger-ring is thinned On the under side by being worn: the fall Of dripping eave-drops hollows out a stone: The bent ploughshare of iron insensibly Grows smaller in the fields; and we behold The paving stones of roads worn down at length By the footsteps of the people. Then again The brazen statues at the city gates Show right hands wearing thinner by the touch Of those who greet them ever as they pass by. Thus we perceive that all such things grow less Because they have been worn down: and yet what atoms Are leaving them each moment, that the jealous Nature of vision has quite shut us out From seeing. Finally whatever time And nature gradually add to things, Obliging them to grow in due proportion, No effort of our eyesight can behold. So too whenever things grow old by age Or through corruption, and wherever rocks That overhang the sea are gnawed away By the corroding brine, you cannot discern What they are losing at any single moment. Thus nature operates by unseen atoms. BOOK II, lines 991-1174 Moreover we are sprung, all we that live, From heavenly seed: there is, for all, that same One father[C]; from whom when the bounteous Earth, Our mother, has drunk in the liquid drops Of moisture, then by him impregnated She bears bright crops and glad trees and the race Of men, bears every species of wild beast, Furnishing food with which all feed their bodies, And lead a pleasant life, and propagate Their offspring. Wherefore justly she has won The name of mother. Also that which once Came from the earth, sinks back into the earth, And what was sent down from the coasts of aether, Returning thither, is received once more Into the mansions of the sky. So death Does not demolish things in such a way As to destroy the particles of matter, But only dissipates their union, Then recombines one element with another, And so brings it to pass that all things change Their shapes, alter their colours, and receive Sensations, then in a moment yield them up. Thus you may learn how greatly it signifies Both with what others and in what positions The same primordial atoms are held bound; Also what motions they are mutually Imparting and receiving: and thus too You need no more suppose that what we see Hovering upon the surfaces of things, Or now being born, then suddenly perishing,[D] Can be inherent qualities in atoms That are eternal. Nay, in my verses even It is of moment with what other letters And in what order each one has been placed. If not all, yet by far the greater part Are similar letters: but as their position Varies, so do the words sound different. Thus too with actual things, whenever change Takes place in the collisions motions order Shape and position of their material atoms, Then also must the things themselves be changed. Now to true reasoning turn your mind, I pray; For a new theme is struggling urgently To reach your ears, a new aspect of things Would now reveal itself. But there is naught So easy, that at first it will not seem Difficult of belief, and likewise naught So mighty, naught so wondrous, but that all Little by little abate their wonder at it. Consider first the colour of the heavens, So bright and pure, and all that they contain, The stars wandering everywhere, the moon And the surpassing radiance of the sun; If all these sights were now for the first time To be revealed to mortals suddenly And without warning, what could have been described That would have seemed more marvellous than such things, Or that humanity could less have dared Beforehand to believe might come to pass? Nothing, I think: so wonderful had been This spectacle. Yet think how no one now, Wearied to satiety at the sight, Deigns to look up at the sky’s shining quarters. Cease therefore to cast reason from your mind Terrified by mere novelty, but rather Weigh facts with eager judgment; and if then They appear true, surrender; if they seem A falsehood, gird yourself to prove them so. For since the sum of space outside, beyond This world’s walls, must be infinite, the mind seeks To reason as to what may else exist Yonder in regions whither the intellect Is constantly desiring to prospect, And whither the projection of our thought Reaches in free flight of its own accord. Now first of all we find that everywhere In all directions, horizontally, Below and above throughout the universe There is no limit, as I have demonstrated. Indeed the facts themselves proclaim the truth, And the deep void reveals its nature clearly. Since then on all sides vacant space extends Illimitably, and seeds in countless number And sum immeasurable flit to and fro Eternally driven on in manifold modes Of motion, we must deem it in no wise Probable that this single globe of earth And this one heaven alone have been created, While outside all those particles of matter Are doing nothing: the more so that this world Was formed by nature, as the seeds of things, Casually colliding of their own Spontaneous motion, flocked in manifold ways Together, vainly, without aim or result, Until at last such particles combined As, suddenly thrown together, might become From time to time the rudiments of great things, Earth, sea, sky, and the race of living creatures. Therefore beyond all question we are bound To admit that elsewhere other aggregates Of matter must exist, resembling this Which in its greedy embrace our aether holds. Moreover, when much matter is at hand, And space is there, nor any obstacle Nor cause of hindrance, then you may be sure Things must be forming and dissolving there. Now if there be so vast a store of seeds That the whole lifetime of all conscious beings Would fail to count them, and if likewise nature Abides the same, and so can throw together The seeds of things each into its own place, In the same manner as they were thrown together Into our world, then you must needs admit That in other regions there are other earths, And diverse stocks of men and kinds of beasts. Besides in the whole universe there exists No one thing that is born unique, and grows Unique and sole; but it must needs belong To one class, and there must be many others Of the same kind. Consider first of all Live creatures: you will find that thus are born The mountain-ranging breeds of savage beasts, Thus the human race, thus also the dumb shoals Of scaly fish and every flying fowl. Therefore by a like reasoning you must grant That sky and earth and sun, moon, sea and all That else exists, are not unique, but rather Of number innumerable; since life’s deep-fixed Boundary stone as surely awaits these, And they are of a body that has birth As much as any species here on earth Abounding in examples of its kind. If you learn well and keep these truths in mind, Nature, forthwith enfranchised and released From her proud lords, is seen then to be acting In all things of herself spontaneously Without the interference of the gods. For by the holy breasts of those divinities, Who in calm peace are passing tranquil days Of life untroubled, who, I ask, has power To rule the sum of space immeasurable? Or who to hold in his controlling hand The strong reins of the deep? Who can at once Make all those various firmaments revolve And with the fires of aether warm each one Of all those fruitful earths, or at all times Be present in all places, so to cause Darkness by clouds, and shake the calms of heaven With thunder, to hurl lightnings, and ofttimes Shatter down his own temples, or withdraw To desert regions, there to spend his fury And exercise his bolt, which often indeed Passes the guilty by, and strikes with death The unoffending who deserve it least. Now since the birth-time of the world, since sea And earth’s first natal day and the sun’s origin, Many atoms have been added from without, Many seeds from all round, which, shooting them Hither and thither, the great universe Has brought together: and by means of these Sea and land have been able to increase; Thus too the mansion of the sky has gained New spaciousness, and lifted its high roof Far above earth, and the air has risen with it. For to each thing its own appropriate atoms Are all distributed by blows from all Regions of space, so that they separate Into their proper elements. Moisture joins With moisture: earth from earthy substance grows; Fires generate fire, and ether ether, Till Nature, the creatress, consummating Her labour, has brought all things to their last Limit of growth; as happens, when at length That which is entering the veins of life Is now no more than what is flowing away And ebbing thence. In all things at this point The age of growth must halt: at this point nature Curbs increase by her powers. For all such things As you may see waxing with joyous growth, And climbing step by step to matured age Receive into themselves more particles Than they discharge, so long as food is passing Easily into all their veins, and while They are not so widely spread as to throw off Too many atoms and to cause more waste Than what their life requires for nourishment. For we must surely grant that many atoms Are flowing away from things and leaving them: But still more must be added, till at length They have attained the highest pitch of growth. Then age little by little breaks their powers And their mature strength, as it wastes away On the worse side of life. And out of doubt The bulkier and the wider a thing is, Once its growth ceases, the more particles Does it now shed around it and discharge On all sides: nor is food distributed Easily into all its veins, nor yet In quantity sufficient that therefrom A supply may continually rise up To compensate the copious emanations Which it exhales. For there is need of food To preserve all things by renewing them: Food must uphold, food sustain everything: Yet all is to no purpose, since the veins Fail to convey what should suffice, nor yet Does nature furnish all that is required. There is good reason therefore why all forms Should perish, when they are rarefied by flux Of atoms, and succumb to external blows, Since food must fail advanced age in the end, And atoms cease not ever from outside To buffet each thing till they wear it out And overpower it by beleaguering blows. In this way then it is that the walls too Of the great world from all sides shall be stormed And so collapsing crumble away to ruins. And even now already this world’s age Is broken, and the worn-out earth can scarce Create the tiniest animals, she who once Created every kind, and brought to birth The huge shapes of wild beasts. For, as I think, Neither did any golden rope let down The tribes of mortal creatures from the heights Of heaven on to the fields, nor did the sea Nor its waves beating on the rocks create them, But the same earth gave birth to them, which now Feeds them from her own breast. At first moreover Herself spontaneously did she create Flourishing crops and rich vines for mankind, Herself gave them sweet fruits and joyous pastures; Which now, though aided by our toil, scarce grow To any size. Thus we wear out our oxen And the strength of our peasants: we use up Our iron tools; yet hardly do we win A sustenance from the fields, so niggardly They grudge their produce and increase our toil. And now shaking his head the aged ploughman Sighs ever and anon, when he beholds The labours of his hands all spent in vain; And when with times past he compares the present, He praises often the fortune of his sire, Harping upon that ancient race of men Who rich in piety supported life Upon their narrow plots contentedly, Seeing the land allotted to each man Was far less in those days than now. So too The planter of the worn-out shrivelled vine Disconsolately inveighs against the march Of time, wearying heaven with complaints, And understands not how all things are wasting Little by little, and passing to the grave Tired out by lengthening age and lapse of days. BOOK III, lines 1-160 Thou, who from out such darkness first could’st lift A torch so bright, illumining thereby The benefits of life, thee do I follow, O thou bright glory of the Grecian race, And in thy deepset footprints firmly now I plant my steps, not so much through desire To rival thee, rather because I love And therefore long to imitate thee: for how Should a mere swallow strive with swans; or what Might kids with tottering limbs, matched in a race, Achieve against a horse’s stalwart strength? Thou, father, art discoverer of truth; Thou dost enrich us with a father’s precepts; And from thy pages, glorious sage, as bees In flowery glades sip from all plants, so we Feed likewise upon all thy golden words, Golden words, ever worthy of endless life. For soon as, issuing from thy godlike mind, Thy doctrine has begun to voice abroad The nature of things, straightway the soul’s terrors Take flight; the world’s walls open; I behold Things being formed and changed throughout all space. Revealed is the divinity of the gods, And their serene abodes, which neither winds Buffet, nor clouds drench them with showers, nor snow Congealed by sharp frost, falling in white flakes, Violates, but an ever-cloudless sky Invests them, laughing with wide-spreading light. Moreover all their wants nature provides, And there is nothing that at any time Can minish their tranquillity of soul. But on the other hand nowhere are visible The Acherusian quarters; and yet earth In no wise can obstruct our contemplation Of all those operations that take place Beneath our feet throughout the nether void. At such thoughts there comes over me a kind Of godlike pleasure mixed with thrilling awe, That nature by thy power should be thus clearly Made manifest and unveiled on every side. Now since I have demonstrated of what kind Are the beginnings of all things, and how Varying are the divers shapes wherein They are flying onward of their own free will, Driven in eternal motion, and in what way Out of these can be formed each several thing, After these themes it would seem best that now The nature of the mind and of the soul Should be elucidated in my verses, And fear of Acheron driven headlong forth, That dread which troubles from its lowest depths The life of man, and brooding over all With the blackness of death, will not allow Any pleasure to be unalloyed and pure. For though men often tell us that diseases And a life of public shame are to be feared Far more than Tartarus, the house of death, And that they know the nature of the soul To be of blood, or even perhaps of wind, If such should be their fancy, and that so They have no need of our philosophy, Yet from the following proof you may perceive That all these boasts are uttered to win praise Rather than from conviction of the truth. These same men, exiled from their fatherland, And banished far from human sight, disgraced By foul crime, and beset by every kind Of wretchedness, none the less still live on, And to whatever place they bear their misery, In spite of all make offerings to the dead, Slaughter black sheep, and to the nether powers Do sacrifice, and in their bitter plight Turn their thoughts to religion far more zealously. Thus you can better judge a man in stress Of peril, and amidst adversities Discover what he is; for then at last The language of sincerity and truth Is wrung forth from the bottom of his heart; The mask is torn off; what is real remains. Moreover avarice and blinding lust For honours, which compel unhappy men To overpass the bounds of right, and sometimes, As partners and accomplices of crime, To struggle with vast effort night and day Till they emerge upon the heights of power-- These sores of life are in no small degree Fostered by fear of death. For foul contempt And biting penury are mostly thought To be quite different from a pleasurable And secure life: rather they seem to be Already but a kind of lingering Before the gates of death. And so while men, Urged by an unreal terror, long to escape Far from these ills and drive them far away, They pile up wealth by shedding civil blood, Doubling their riches greedily, while they heap Massacre upon massacre, rejoice Ruthlessly in the sad death of a brother, And shun their kinsmen’s board in hate and dread. Often likewise owing to this same fear They pine with envy because some other man In the world’s eyes is powerful, some other Is gazed at, as he walks robed in bright honours, While they complain that they themselves are wallowing In darkness and in filth. Some sink their lives In ruin to win statues and a name, And often with such force, through dread of death, Does hatred of life and of the sight of day Seize upon mortals, that with anguished heart They will destroy themselves, forgetting quite How this fear is the well-spring of their cares, This it is that enfeebles honour, this That bursts the bonds of friendship, and in fine Prompts them to cast all duty to the ground. Since often ere now men have betrayed their country And beloved parents, seeking so to shun The realms of Acheron. For just as children In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid Of all things, so we sometimes in the light Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded Than those which children shudder at in the dark Imagining that they will come to pass. This terror, then, and darkness of the mind Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation Of nature’s aspect and her inward law. First then the mind, which we shall often call The intellect, wherein is placed the council And government of life, I assert to be No less a part of man than feet and hands And eyes are part of the whole living creature. Yet some would have it that the sense of the mind Resides in no fixed part, but deem it rather A kind of vital habit of the body, Which by the Greeks is called a harmony, Something that causes us to live with sense, Although the intellect is in no one part. Just as good health is often spoken of As though belonging to the body, and yet It is no one part of a healthy man. Thus they refuse to place the sense of the mind In one fixed part: and here to me they seem To wander far indeed astray from truth. For often the body, which is visible, Is sick, while in some other hidden part We experience pleasure; and ofttimes again The contrary will happen, when a man Who is distressed in mind, through his whole body Feels pleasure: in the same way as the foot Of a sick man may suffer pain, and yet His head meanwhile is in no pain at all. Moreover when the limbs are given up To soft sleep, and the wearied body lies Diffused without sensation, there is yet Something else in us which at that same time Is stirred in many ways, and into itself Receives all the emotions of delight, And all the empty troubles of the heart. Now, that the soul too dwells within the limbs, And that it is no harmony whereby The body is wont to feel, this main proof shows. When from the body much has been removed, Yet often life still lingers in our limbs: Whereas, when a few particles of heat Have been dispersed, and through the mouth some air Has been forced out, suddenly that same life Deserts the arteries and quits the bones: Whence you may learn that not all particles Have functions of like moment, nor alike Support existence; but that rather those Which are the seeds of wind and warming heat Are the cause that life stays within the limbs. Therefore this vital heat and wind, residing Within the body itself, is that which quits Our dying frame. So now that we have found The nature of the mind and of the soul To be a part in some sense of the man, Let us give up the name of harmony, Which was brought down from lofty Helicon To the musicians, or else they themselves, Taking it from some other source, transferred it To what was then without a name of its own. However that may be, why, let them keep it. Do you give heed to the rest of my discourse. Now I maintain that mind and soul are bound In union with each other, forming so A single substance, but that the lord that rules Throughout the body is the reasoning power Which we call mind and intellect. Its seat Is fixed in the middle region of the breast. For here it is that fear and panic throb: Around these parts dwell joys that soothe. Here then Is the intellect or mind. The rest of the soul Dispersed through the whole body, obeys and moves At the will and propulsion of the mind, Which for itself and by itself alone Has knowledge and rejoices for itself, When nothing at that time moves soul or body. And just as, when we are attacked by pain In head or eye, we do not feel distress Through our whole body too, so often the mind Suffers pain by itself, or is envigoured By happiness, when all the rest of the soul Throughout the limbs and frame remains unstirred By any new sensation. But when the mind Has been perturbed by some more vehement fear, We see the whole soul feel with it in unison Through all the limbs; sweating and paleness then Spread over the whole body; the tongue halts, Speech dies away, the eyes grow dark with mist, The ears ring and the limbs sink under us. And indeed often we see men drop down From terror of mind. Hence easily we may learn That the soul is united with the mind; For when it has been struck by the mind’s force, Straightway it pushes and propels the body. BOOK III, lines 830-1094 Death then is nothing to us, nor one jot Does it concern us, since the nature of mind Is thus proved mortal. And as in times long past We felt no unhappiness when from every side Gathering for conflict came the Punic hosts, And all that was beneath the height of heaven, Shaken by the tumult and dismay of war, Shuddered and quaked, and mortals were in doubt To whose empire all human things would fall By land and sea, so when we are no more, When body and soul, whereof we were composed Into one being shall have been divorced, ’Tis plain nothing whatever shall have power To trouble us, who then shall be no more, Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky. And even though the powers of mind and soul After they have been severed from the body Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing, Who by the binding marriage tie between Body and soul are formed into one being. Nor if Time should collect our scattered atoms After our death, and should restore them back To where they now are placed, and if once more The light of light were given us, not even that Would in the least concern us, once the chain Of self-awareness had been snapped asunder. So too now what we may have been before Concerns us not, nor causes us distress. For when you look back on the whole past course Of infinite time, and think how manifold Must be the modes of matter’s flux, then easily May you believe this too, that these same atoms Of which we now are formed, have often before Been placed in the same order as they are now. Yet this can no remembrance bring us back. For a break in life has since been interposed, And all our atoms wandering dispersed Have strayed far from that former consciousness. For if a man be destined to endure Misery and suffering, he must first exist In his own person at that very time When evil should befall him. But since death Precludes this, and forbids him to exist Who was to endure distress, we may be sure That in death there is nothing we need dread, That he who exists not cannot become miserable, And that it makes no difference at all Whether he shall already have been born In some past time, when once he has been robbed By death that dies not of his life that dies. Therefore if you should chance to hear some man Pitying his own lot, that after death Either his body must decay in the earth, Or be consumed by flames or jaws of beasts, Then may you know that his words ring not true, That in his heart there lurks some secret sting, Though he himself deny that he believes Any sense will remain with him in death. For in fact he grants not all that he professes, Nor by the roots does he expel and thrust Self forth from life, but all unwittingly Assumes that of self something will survive. For when a living man forbodes that birds And beasts may rend his body after death, Then does he pity himself, nor can he quite Separate and withdraw from the outcast body, But fancying that that other is himself, With his own sense imagines it endued. So he complains because he was born mortal, Nor sees that there will be in real death No other self which living can lament That he has perished, none that will stand by And grieve over his burnt and mangled corpse. For if it be an evil after death To be mauled by teeth of beasts, why should it seem Less cruel to be laid out on a pyre And scorched with hot flames, or to be embalmed In stifling honey, or to lie stiff and cold Couched on the cool slab of a chilly stone, Or to be crushed down under a weight of earth? “Now no more shall thy home, nor thy chaste wife Receive thee in gladness, nor shall thy sweet children Run forth to meet thee and snatch kisses from thee, And touch thee to the heart with silent joy. No more canst thou be prosperous in thy doings, A bulwark to thy friends. Poor wretch!” men cry, “How wretchedly has one disastrous day Stript thee of all life’s many benefits!” Yet this withal they add not: “Nor henceforth Does craving for these things beset thee more.” This truth, could men but grasp it once in thought And follow thought with words, would forthwith set Their spirits free from a huge ache and dread. “Thou, as thou art, sunk in the sleep of death, Shalt so continue through all time to come, Delivered from all feverish miseries: But we who watched thee on thy dreadful pyre Change into ashes, we insatiably Bewept thee; nor shall any lapse of days Remove that lifelong sorrow from our hearts.” Of him who spoke thus, well might we inquire, What grief so exceeding bitter is there here, If in the end all comes to sleep and rest, That one should therefore pine with lifelong misery. This too is oft men’s wont, when they lie feasting Wine-cup in hand with garland-shaded brows: Thus from the heart they speak: “Brief is life’s joy For poor frail men. Soon will it be no more, Nor ever afterwards may it be called back.” As though a foremost evil to be feared After their death were this, that parching thirst Would burn and scorch them in their misery, Or craving for aught else would then beset them. No, for none feels the want of self and life, When mind and body are sunk in sleep together. For all we care, such sleep might be eternal: No craving for ourselves moves us at all. And yet, when starting up from sleep a man Collects himself, then the atoms of his soul Throughout his frame cannot be wandering far From their sense-stirring motions. Therefore death Must needs be thought far less to us than sleep, If less can be than what we see is nothing. For the dispersion of the crowded atoms, That comes with death, is greater; nor has ever Anyone yet awakened, upon whom Has once fallen the chill arrest of death. Furthermore, if Nature suddenly found voice, And thus in person upbraided one of us: “What is it, mortal, can afflict thee so, That thou to such exceeding bitter grief Shouldst yield? Why thus bemoan and bewail death? For if the life thou hast lived hitherto Was pleasant to thee, and not all thy blessings, As though poured into a perforated jar, Have flowed through and gone thanklessly to waste, Why not then, like a guest replete with life, Take thy departure, and resignedly Enter, thou fool, upon secure repose? But if all that thou hast enjoyed has perished Squandered away, and life is a mere grievance, Why seek to add thereto, what in its turn Must all come to destruction and be lost Unprofitably? Why both of life and travail Dost thou not rather make an end at once? For there is nothing more I can contrive Or find to please thee. All things are the same At all times. Though thy body be not yet Decayed with years, nor have thy worn-out limbs Grown feeble, yet all things remain the same; Though thou shouldst overlive all generations, Nay, even more if thou shouldst never die.” What could we answer, save that Nature’s claim Was just, and her indictment a true plea? But if some other more advanced in years Should miserably complain and lament death Beyond all reason, would she not yet more justly Lift up her voice and chide him with sharp speech? “Hence with thy tears, buffoon. Cease thy complaints. After thou hast enjoyed all life’s best gifts Thou now decayest. But because thou hast yearned Always for what was absent, and despised That which was present, life has glided from thee Incomplete and unprofitable. So now Ere thou didst look for it, at thy pillow Death Has taken his stand, before thou canst depart Satisfied with existence and replete. But now resign all vanities that so ill Befit thine age: come then, with a good grace Rise and make room for others; for thou must.” Justly, I think, would she so plead with him, Justly reproach and chide: for things grown old Yield place and are supplanted evermore By new, and each thing out of something else Must be replenished; nor to the black pit Of Tartarus was yet any man consigned. Matter is needed, that therefrom may grow Succeeding generations: which yet all, When they have lived their life, shall follow thee. Thus it is all have perished in past times No less than thou, and shall hereafter perish. So one thing out of another shall not cease For ever to arise; and life is given To none in fee, to all in usufruct. Consider likewise how eternal Time’s Bygone antiquity before our birth Was nothing to us. In such wise does Nature Show us the time to come after our death As in a mirror. Is aught visible Therein so appalling? aught that seems like gloom? Is it not more secure than any sleep? Moreover all those things which people say Are found in Acheron’s gulf, assuredly Exist for us in life. No wretched Tantalus, Numbed by vain terror, quakes, as the tale tells, Beneath a huge rock hanging in the air; But in life rather an empty fear of gods Oppresses mortals; and the fall they dread Is fortune’s fall, which chance may bring to each. Nor verily entering the large breast of Tityos, As he lies stretched in Acheron, do vultures Find food there for their beaks perpetually. How vast soever his body’s bulk extends, Though not nine acres merely with outspread limbs He cover, but the round of the whole earth, Yet would he not be able to endure Eternal pain, nor out of his whole body For ever provide food. But here for us He is a Tityos, whom, while he lies In bonds of love, fretful anxieties Devour like rending birds of prey, or cares, Sprung from some other craving, lacerate. A living Sisyphus also we behold In him who from the people fain would beg The rods and cruel axes, and each time Defeated and disconsolate must retire. For to beg power, which, empty as it is, Is never given, and in pursuit thereof To endure grievous toil continually, Is but to thrust uphill mightily straining A stone, which from the summit after all Rolls bounding back down to the level plain. Moreover to be feeding evermore The thankless nature of the mind, yet never To fill it full and sate it with good things, As do the seasons for us, when each year They return bringing fruits and varied charms, Yet never are we filled with life’s delights, This surely is what is told of those young brides, Who must pour water into a punctured vessel, Though they can have no hope to fill it full. Cerberus and the Furies in like manner Are fables, and that world deprived of day Where from its throat Tartarus belches forth Horrible flames: which things in truth are not, Nor can be anywhere. But there is in life A dread of punishment for things ill done, Terrible as the deeds are terrible; And to expiate men’s guilt there is the dungeon, The awful hurling downward from the rock, Scourgings, mutilations and impalings, The pitch, the torches and the metal plate. And even if these be wanting, yet the mind Conscious of guilt torments itself with goads And scorching whips, nor in its boding fear Perceives what end of misery there can be, Nor what limit at length to punishment, Nay fears lest these same evils after death Should prove more grievous. Thus does the life of fools Become at last an Acheron here on earth. This too thou may’st say sometimes to thyself: “Even the good king Ancus closed his eyes To the light of day, who was so many times Worthier than thou, unconscionable man. And since then many others who bore rule O’er mighty nations, princes and potentates, Have perished: and he too, even he, who once Across the great sea paved a path whereby His legions might pass over, bidding them Cross dry-shod the salt deeps, and to show scorn Trampled upon the roarings of the waves With horses, even he, bereft of light, Forth from his dying body gasped his soul. The Scipios’ offspring, thunderbolt of war, Terror of Carthage, gave his bones to the earth, As though he were the meanest household slave. Consider too the inventors of wise thoughts And arts that charm, consider the companions Of the Heliconian Maidens, among whom Homer still bears the sceptre without peer; Yet he now sleeps the same sleep as they all. Likewise Democritus, when a ripe old age Had warned him that the memory-stirring motions Were waning in his mind, by his own act Willingly offered up his head to death. Even Epicurus died, when his life’s light Had run its course, he who in intellect Surpassed the race of men, quenching the glory Of all else, as the sun in heaven arising Quenches the stars. Then wilt thou hesitate And feel aggrieved to die? thou for whom life Is well nigh dead, whilst yet thou art alive And lookest on the light; thou who dost waste Most of thy time in sleep, and waking snorest, Nor ceasest to see dreams; who hast a mind Troubled with empty terror, and ofttimes Canst not discover what it is that ails thee, When, poor besotted wretch, from every side Cares crowd upon thee, and thou goest astray Drifting in blind perplexity of soul.” If men not only were to feel this load That weighs upon their mind and wears them out, But might have knowledge also of its cause And whence comes this great pile of misery Crushing their breasts, they would not spend their lives, As now so oft we see them, ignorant Each of his life’s true ends, and seeking ever By change of place to lay his burden down. Often, issuing forth from his great mansion, he Who is weary of home will suddenly return Perceiving that abroad he is none the happier. He posts to his villa galloping his ponies, As though hurrying with help to a house on fire, Yawns on the very threshold, nay sinks down Heavily into sleep to seek oblivion, Or even perhaps starts headlong back to town. In this way each man flies from his own self, Yet from that self in fact he has no power To escape. He clings to it in his own despite, Although he loathes it, seeing that he is sick, Yet perceives not the cause of his disease: Which if he could but comprehend aright, Relinquishing all else, each man would study To learn the Nature of Reality, Since ’tis our state during eternal time, Not for one hour merely, that is in doubt, That state wherein mortals must pass the whole Of what may still await them after death. And in conclusion, what base lust of life Is this, that can so potently compel us In dubious perils to feel such dismay? For indeed certain is the end of life That awaits mortals, nor can death be shunned. Meet it we must. Furthermore in the same Pursuits and actions do we pass our days For ever, nor may we by living on Forge for ourselves any new form of pleasure. But what we crave, while it is absent, seems To excel all things else; then, when ’tis ours, We crave some other thing, gaping wide-mouthed, Always possessed by the same thirst of life. What fortune future time may bring, we know not, Nor what chance has in store for us, nor yet What end awaits us. By prolonging life No least jot may we take from death’s duration; Nought may we steal away therefrom, that so Haply a less long while we may be dead. Therefore as many ages as you please Add to your life’s account, yet none the less Will that eternal death be waiting for you. And not less long will that man be no more, Who from to-day has ceased to live, than he Who has died many months and years ago. BOOK IV, lines 962-1287 And generally to what pursuits soever Each of us is attached and closely tied, Or on whatever tasks we have been used To spend much time, so that therein the mind Has borne unwonted strain, in those same tasks We mostly seem in sleep to be engaged. Lawyers imagine they are pleading causes, Or drafting deeds; generals that they are fighting In some pitched battle; mariners that they still Are waging with the winds their lifelong war; And we that we are toiling at our task, Questioning ever the nature of all things, And setting our discoveries forth in books Written in our native tongue. And thus in general Do all other pursuits and arts appear To fill men’s minds and mock them during sleep. And with those who for many days together Have watched stage shows with unremitting zeal, We generally find that when they have ceased To apprehend them with their senses, yet Passages remain open in the mind Through which the same images of things may enter. Thus the same sights for many days keep passing Before their eyes, so that even when awake They seem to be beholding figures dancing And moving supple limbs; also their ears Seem to be listening clear-toned melodies Of the lyre’s eloquent strings, while they behold In fancy the same audience, the stage too, Glowing with all its varied scenery. So great the influence of zeal and pleasure, And of those tasks whereon not only men Are wont to spend their energies, but even All living animals. Thus you will see Strong horses, when their limbs are lying at rest, Nevertheless in slumber sweat and pant Continually, and as though to win some prize Strain their strength to the utmost, or else struggle To start, as if the barriers were thrown open. And often hunters’ dogs while softly slumbering Will yet suddenly toss their legs about And utter hurried yelps, sniffing the air Again and again, as though following the trail Of wild beasts they have scented: and roused from sleep They often chase the empty images Of stags, as if they saw them in full flight, Till having shaken their delusions off They come back to themselves. But the tame brood Of dogs reared in the house, will shake themselves And start up from the ground, as if they saw Unknown figures and faces: and the more savage Each breed is, the more fierce must be its dreams. And in the night-time birds of various kinds, Suddenly taking flight, trouble with their wings The groves of deities, when in gentle sleep Hawks have appeared threatening them with havoc Of battle, flying after them in pursuit. Again the minds of men, which greatly labouring Achieve great aims, will often during sleep Act and perform the same. Kings take by storm, Are made captive, join battle, cry aloud As though assassinated then and there. Many men struggle and utter groans in pain, And as though mangled by a panther’s fangs Or savage lion’s, fill the whole neighbourhood With vehement clamourings. Many in their sleep Discourse of great affairs, and often so Have revealed their own guilt. Many meet death: Many, as though falling with all their weight From high cliffs to the ground, are scared with terror, And like men reft of reason, hardly from sleep Come to themselves again, being quite distraught By the body’s tumult. Likewise a man will sit Thirsting beside a river or pleasant spring And gulp almost the whole stream down his throat. Innocent children also, slumber-bound, Often believe they are lifting up their dress By a tank or broken vessel, and so pour The liquid, drained from their whole body, forth, Soaking the gorgeous-hued magnificence Of Babylonian coverlets. Then too To those into the currents of whose age For the first time seed is entering, when the ripe Fulness of time has formed it in their limbs, From without there come images emanating From some chance body, announcing a glorious face And beautiful colouring, that excites and stirs Those parts that have grown turgid with much seed, So that, as if all things had been performed, The full tide overflows and stains their vesture. This seed whereof we spoke is stirred in us When first ripening age confirms our frame. For different causes move and stimulate Different things. From man the influence Of man alone rouses forth human seed. So soon as, thus dislodged, it has retired From its abodes throughout the limbs and frame, It withdraws from the whole body, and assembling At certain places in the system, straightway Rouses at last the body’s genital parts. These places, irritated, swell with seed; And so the wish arises to eject it Towards that whereto the fell desire tends; While the body seeks that by which the mind Is smitten by love. For all men generally Fall towards the wound, and the blood glistens forth In that direction whence the stroke was dealt us. And if he is at close quarters, the red drops Sprinkle the foe. Thus he who has been struck By the missiles of Venus, whether a boy With womanish limbs launches the shaft, or else Some woman darting love from her whole body, Yearns towards that whereby he has been wounded, And longs to unite with it, and shoot the stream Drawn from the one into the other body. For dumb desire gives presage of the pleasure. This desire we call Venus: from it came The Latin name for love[E]; and from this source There trickled first into the heart that drop Of Venus’ honeyed sweetness, followed soon By chilling care. For though that which you love Be absent, yet are images of it present, And its sweet name still haunts within your ears. But it is wise to shun such images, And scare off from you all that feeds your love, Turning your mind elsewhere, and vent instead Your gathering humours on some other body, Rather than hold them back, set once for all Upon the love of one, and so lay up Care and unfailing anguish for yourself. For the wound gathers strength and grows inveterate By feeding, while the madness day by day Increases, and the misery becomes heavier, Unless you heal the first wounds by new blows, And roving in the steps of vagrant Venus So cure them while yet fresh, or can divert To something else the movements of your mind. Nor does the man who shuns love go without The fruits of Venus; rather he makes choice Of joys that bring no after-pain: for surely The pleasure of intercourse must be more pure For those that are heart-whole than for the love-sick. For in the very moment of possession The passion of lovers fluctuates to and fro, Wandering undecidedly, nor know they What first they would enjoy with eyes and hands. What they have sought, they tightly press, and cause Pain to the body, and often print their teeth Upon the lips, and kiss with bruising mouths, Because the pleasure is not unalloyed, And there are secret stings which stimulate To hurt that very thing, whate’er it be, From which those germs of madness emanate. But easily, while love lasts, Venus allays Such pains; and soft delight, mingled therein, Bridles their bites. For in this there is hope That from that very body whence proceeds Their burning lust, the flame may in turn be quenched, Although Nature protests the opposite Must happen, since this is the one sole thing Whereof the more we have, so much the more Must the heart be consumed by fell desire. For food and drink are taken within the body; And since they are wont to settle in fixed parts, In this way the desire for water and bread Is easily satisfied: but from the face And beautiful colouring of a man there enters Nothing into the body to enjoy Save tenuous images, a love-sick hope Often snatched off by the wind. As when in sleep A thirsty man seeks to drink, and no liquid Is given to quench the burning in his limbs, Yet he pursues the images of water, Toiling in vain, and still thirsts, though he drink In a rushing river’s midst; even so in love Venus deludes lovers with images: For neither, gaze intently as they may, Can bodies satiate them, nor with their hands Can they pluck anything off from the soft limbs, Aimlessly wandering over the whole body. And when at last with limbs knit they enjoy The flower of their age, when now the body Presages rapture, and Venus is in act To sow the fields of woman, eagerly They clasp bodies and join moist mouth to mouth With panted breath, imprinting lips with teeth; In vain, for naught thence can they pluck away, Nor each with the whole body entering pass Into the other’s body; for at times They seem to wish and struggle so to do. So greedily do they hug the bonds of Venus, While their limbs melt, enfeebled by the might Of pleasure. Finally, when the gathered lust Has burst forth from the frame, awhile there comes A brief pause in their passion’s violent heat. Then returns the same madness: the old frenzy Revisits them, when they would fain discover What verily they desire to attain; Yet never can they find out what device May conquer their disease: in such blind doubt They waste away, pined by a secret wound. Consider too how they consume their strength And are worn out with toiling; and consider How at another’s beck their life is passed. Meantime their substance vanishes and is changed To Babylonian stuffs; their duties languish; Their reputation totters and grows sick. While at her lover’s cost she anoints herself With precious unguents, and upon her feet Beautiful Sicyonian slippers laugh. Then doubtless she has set for her in gold Big green-lit emeralds; and the sea-purple dress, Worn out by constant use, imbibes the sweat Of love’s encounters. The wealth which their fathers Had nobly gathered, becomes hair-ribbons And head-dresses, or else may be is turned Into a long Greek gown, or stuffs of Alinda And Ceos. Feasts with goodly broideries And viands are prepared, games, numerous cups, Unguents, crowns and festoons; but all in vain; Since from the well-spring of delights some touch Of bitter rises, to give pain amidst The very flowers; either when the mind Perchance grows conscience-stricken, and remorse Gnaws it, thus to be spending a life of sloth, And ruining itself in wanton haunts; Or else because she has launched forth some word And left its sense in doubt, some word that clings To the hungry heart, and quickens there like fire; Or that he fancies she is casting round Her eyes too freely, or looks upon some other, And on her face sees traces of a smile. When love is permanent and fully prosperous, These evils are experienced; but if love Be crossed and hopeless, there are evils such That you might apprehend them with closed eyes, Beyond numbering; so that it is wiser, As I have taught you, to be vigilant Beforehand, and watch well lest you be snared. For to avoid being tripped up in love’s toils Is not so difficult as, once you are caught, To issue from the nets and to break through The strong meshes of Venus. None the less Even when you are tangled and involved, You may escape the peril, unless you stand In your own way, and always overlook Every defect whether of mind or body In her whom you pursue and long to win. For this is how men generally behave Blinded by lust, and assign to those they love Good qualities which are not truly theirs. So we see women in various ways misformed And ugly, to be fondly loved and held In highest favour. And a man will mock His fellows, urging them to placate Venus, Because they are troubled by a degrading love, Yet often the poor fool will have no eyes For his own far worse plight. The tawny is called A honey brown; the filthy and unclean, Reckless of order; the green-eyed, a Pallas; The sinewy and angular, a gazelle; The tiny and dwarfish is a very Grace, Nothing but sparkle; the monstrous and ungainly, A marvel, and composed of majesty. She stammers, cannot talk, why then she lisps; The mute is bashful; but the fiery-tongued Malicious gossip becomes a brilliant torch. One is a slender darling, when she scarce Can live for lack of flesh; and one half dead With cough, is merely frail and delicate. Then the fat and full-bosomed is Ceres’ self Suckling Iacchus; the snub-nosed, a female Silenus, or a Satyress; the thick-lipped, A kiss incarnate. But more of this sort It were a tedious labour to recite. Yet be she noble of feature as you will, And let the might of Venus emanate From every limb; still there are others too; Still we have lived without her until now; Still she does, and we know she does, the same In all things as the ugly, and, poor wretch, Perfumes herself with evil-smelling scents, While her maids run and hide to giggle in secret. But the excluded lover many a time With flowers and garlands covers tearfully The threshold, and anoints the haughty posts With oil of marjoram, and imprints, poor man, Kisses upon the doors. Yet when at last He has been admitted, if but a single breath Should meet him as he enters, he would seek Specious excuses to be gone, and so The long-studied, deep-drawn complaint would fall To the ground, and he would then convict himself Of folly, now he sees he had attributed More to her than is right to grant a mortal. Nor to our Venuses is this unknown: Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide All that takes place behind the scenes of life From those they would keep fettered in love’s chains But all in vain, since in imagination You yet may draw forth all these things to light, Discovering every cause for ridicule: And if she be of a mind that still can charm, And not malicious, you may in your turn Overlook faults and pardon human frailty. Nor always with feigned love does the woman sigh, When with her own uniting the man’s body She holds him clasped, with moistened kisses sucking His lips into her lips. Nay, from the heart She often does it, and seeking mutual joys Woos him to run to the utmost goal of love. And nowise else could birds, cattle, wild beasts, And sheep and mares submit to males, except That their exuberant nature is in heat, And burning draws towards them joyously The lust of the covering mates. See you not also That those whom mutual pleasure has enchained Are often tormented in their common chains? How often on the highroads dogs desiring To separate, will strain in opposite ways Eagerly with all their might, yet the whole time They are held fast in the strong bonds of Venus! Thus they would never act, unless they had Experience of mutual joys, enough To thrust them into the snare and hold them bound. Therefore I assert, the pleasure must be common. Often when, mingling her seed with the man’s, The woman with sudden force has overwhelmed And mastered the man’s force, then children are borne Like to the mother from the mother’s seed, As from the father’s seed like to the father. But those whom you see sharing the form of both, Mingling their parents’ features side by side, Grow from the father’s body and mother’s blood, When mutual ardour has conspired to fling The seeds together, roused by the goads of Venus Throughout the frame, and neither of the two Has gained the mastery nor yet been mastered. Moreover sometimes children may be born Like their grandparents, and will often recall The forms of their remoter ancestors, Because the parents often hold concealed Within their bodies many primal atoms Mingled in many ways, which, handed down From the first stock, father transmits to father. And out of these Venus produces forms With ever-varying chances, and recalls The look and voice and hair of ancestors: Since truly these things are no more derived From a determined seed, than are our faces Bodies and limbs. Also the female sex May spring from a father’s seed, and males come forth Formed from a mother’s body: for the birth Is always fashioned out of the two seeds. Whichever of the two that which is born Is most like, of that parent it will have More than an equal share; as you may observe, Whether it be a male or female offspring. Nor do divine powers thwart in any man A fruitful sowing, so that he may never Receive from sweet children the name of father, But in sterile wedlock must live out his days; As men in general fancy, and so sprinkle The altars sorrowfully with much blood, And heap the shrine-tables with offerings, To make their wives pregnant with copious seed. But vainly they importune the divinity And sortilege of the gods. For they are sterile Sometimes from too great thickness of the seed, Or else it is unduly thin and fluid. Because the thin cannot adhere and cleave To the right spots, it forthwith flows away Defeated, and departs abortively. Others again discharge a seed too thick, More solid than is suitable, which either Does not shoot forth with so far-flung a stroke, Or cannot so well penetrate where it should, Or having penetrated, does not easily Mix with the woman’s seed. For harmonies Seem to be most important in love’s rites. And some men will more readily fertilise Some women, and other women will conceive More readily and grow pregnant from other men. And many women, sterile hitherto In several marriages, have yet at last Found mates from whom they could conceive children, And so become enriched with a sweet offspring. And even for those to whom their household wives, However fruitful, had failed so far to bear, A well-matched nature has been often found That they might fortify their age with children. So important is it, if seeds are to agree And blend with seeds for purposes of birth, Whether the thick encounters with the fluid, And the fluid with the thick. Also herein It is of moment on what diet life Is nourished; for the seed within the limbs By some foods is made solid, and by others Is thinned and dwindled. Also in what modes Love’s bland delight is dealt with, that likewise Is of the highest moment. For in general Women are thought more readily to conceive After the manner of wild beasts and quadrupeds, Since so the seeds can find the proper spots, The breasts being bent downward, the loins raised. Nor have wives the least need of wanton movements. For a woman thwarts conception and frustrates it, If with her loins she joyously lures on The man’s love, and, with her whole bosom relaxed And limp, provokes lust’s tide to overflow. For then she thrusts the furrow from the share’s Direct path, turning the seed’s stroke aside From its right goal. And thus for their own ends Harlots are wont to move, because they wish Not to conceive nor lie in childbed often, Likewise that Venus may give men more pleasure. But of this surely our wives should have no need. Sometimes, by no divine interposition Nor through the shafts of Venus, a plain woman, Though of inferior beauty, may be loved. For sometimes she herself by her behaviour, Her gentle ways and personal daintiness Will easily accustom you to spend Your whole life with her. And indeed ’tis custom That harmonises love. For what is struck However lightly by repeated blows, Yet after a long lapse of time is conquered And must dissolve. Do you not likewise see That drops of water falling upon stones After long lapse of time will pierce them through? BOOK V Who is there that by energy of mind Could build a poem worthy of our theme’s Majesty and of these discoveries? Or who has such a mastery of words As to devise praises proportionate To his deserts, who to us has bequeathed Such prizes, earned by his own intellect? No man, I think, formed of a mortal body. For if we are to speak as the acknowledged Majesty of our theme demands, a god Was he, most noble Memmius, a god, Who first found out that discipline of life Which now is called philosophy, and whose skill From such great billows and a gloom so dark Delivered life, and steered it into a calm So peaceful and beneath so bright a light. For compare the divine discoveries Of others in old times. ’Tis told that Ceres First revealed corn to men, Liber the juice Of grape-born wine; though life without these things Might well have been sustained; and even now ’Tis said there are some people that live so. But to live happily was not possible Without a serene mind. Therefore more justly Is this man deemed by us a god, from whom Came those sweet solaces of life, which now Already through great nations spread abroad Have power to soothe men’s minds. Should you suppose Moreover that the deeds of Hercules Surpass his, then yet further will you drift Out of true reason’s course. For what harm now Would those great gaping jaws of Nemea’s lion Do to us, and the bristly Arcadian boar? What could the bull of Crete, or Lerna’s pest The Hydra fenced around with venomous snakes, And threefold Gerion’s triple-breasted might, Or those brazen-plumed birds inhabiting Stymphalian swamps, what injury so great Could they inflict upon us, or the steeds Of Thracian Diomede, with fire-breathing nostrils Ranging Bistonia’s wilds and Ismarus? Also the serpent, guardian of the bright Gold-gleaming apples of the Hesperides, Fierce and grim-glancing, with huge body coiled Round the tree’s stem, how were it possible He could molest us by the Atlantic shore And those lone seas, where none of us sets foot, And no barbarian ventures to draw near? And all those other monsters which likewise Have been destroyed, if they had not been vanquished, What harm, pray, could they do, though now alive? None, I presume: for the earth even now abounds With wild beasts to repletion, and is filled With shuddering terror throughout its woods, great mountains And deep forests, regions which we have power For the most part to avoid. But if the heart Has not been purged, what tumults then, what dangers Must needs invade us in our own despite! What fierce anxieties, offspring of desire, Rend the distracted man, what mastering fears! Pride also, sordid avarice, and violence, Of what calamities are not they the cause! Luxury too, and slothfulness! He therefore Who could subdue all these, and banish them Out of our minds by force of words, not arms, Is it not right we should deem such a man Worthy to be numbered among the gods? The more that he was wont in beautiful And godlike speech to utter many truths About the immortal gods themselves, and set The whole nature of things in clear words forth. I, in his footsteps treading, follow out His reasonings and expound in my discourse By what law all things are created, how They are compelled to abide within that law, Without power to annul the immutable Decrees of time; and first above all else The mind’s nature was found to be composed Of a body that had birth, without the power To endure through a long period unscathed: For it was found to be mere images That are wont to deceive the mind in sleep, Whenever we appear to behold one Whom life has abandoned. Now, for what remains, The order of my argument has brought me To the point where I must show both how the world Is composed of a body which must die, Also that it was born; and in what way Matter once congregating and uniting Established earth sky sea, the stars, the sun, And the moon’s globe: also what living creatures Rose from the earth, and which were those that never At any time were born: next in what way Mankind began to employ varied speech One with another by giving names to things: Then for what causes that fear of the gods Entered their breasts, and now through the whole world Gives sanctity to shrines, lakes and groves, Altars and images of gods. Moreover I will make plain by what force and control Nature pilots the courses of the sun And the wanderings of the moon, lest we perchance Deem that they traverse of their own free will Their yearly orbits between heaven and earth, Obsequiously furthering the increase Of crops and living things, or should suppose That they roll onwards by the gods’ design. For those who have learnt rightly that the gods Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder By what means all things can be carried on, Such above all as are perceived to happen In the ethereal regions overhead, They are borne back again into their old Religious fears, and adopt pitiless lords, Whom in their misery they believe to be Almighty; for they are ignorant of what can And what cannot exist; in fine they know not Upon what principle each thing has its powers Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone. But now, lest I detain you with more promises, In the first place consider, Memmius, The seas, the land, the sky, whose threefold nature, Three bodies, three forms so dissimilar, And three such wondrous textures, a single day Shall give to destruction, and the world’s vast mass And fabric, for so many years upheld, Shall fall to ruin. Nor am I unaware How novel and strange, when first it strikes the mind, Must appear this destruction of earth and heaven That is to be, and for myself how difficult It will prove to convince you by mere words, As happens when one brings to a man’s ears Some notion unfamiliar hitherto, If yet one cannot thrust it visibly Beneath his eyes, or place it in his hands; For the paved highway of belief through touch And sight leads straightest into the human heart And the precincts of the mind. Yet none the less I will speak out. Reality itself It may be will bring credence to my words, And in a little while you will behold The earth terribly quaking, and all things Shattered to ruins. But may pilot fortune Steer far from us such disaster, and may reason Convince us rather than reality That the whole universe may well collapse, Tumbling together with a dread crash and roar. But before I attempt concerning this To announce fate’s oracles in more holy wise, And with assurance far more rational Than doth the Pythoness, when from the tripod And laurel wreath of Phoebus her voice sounds, Many consolatories will I first Expound to you in learned words, lest haply Curbed by religion’s bit you should suppose That earth and sun and sky, sea, stars and moon, Their substance being divine, must needs abide Eternally, and should therefore think it just That all, after the manner of the giants, Should suffer penance for their monstrous guilt Who by their reasoning shake the world’s firm walls, And fain would quench the glorious sun in heaven, Shaming with mortal speech immortal things; Though in fact such objects are so far removed From any share in divine energy, And so unworthy to be accounted gods, That they may be considered with more reason To afford us the conception of what is quite Devoid of vital motion and of sense. For truly by no means can we suppose That the nature and judgment of the mind Can exist linked with every kind of body, Even as in the sky trees cannot exist, Nor clouds in the salt waters, nor can fish Live in the fields, neither can blood be found In wood, nor sap in stones: but where each thing Can dwell and grow, is determined and ordained. Even so the nature of mind cannot be born Alone without a body, nor exist Separated from sinews and from blood. But if (for this is likelier by far) The mind’s force might reside within the head Or shoulders, or be born down in the heels, Or in any part you will, it would at least Inhabit the same man and the same vessel. But since even in our body it is seen To be determined and ordained where soul And mind can separately dwell and grow, All the more must it be denied that mind Cannot have being quite outside a body And a living form, in crumbling clods of earth, In the sun’s fire, or water, or aloft In the domains of ether. Such things therefore Are not endowed with divine consciousness, Because they cannot be quickened into life. This too you cannot possibly believe, That there are holy abodes of deities Anywhere in the world. For so tenuous Is the nature of gods, and from our senses So far withdrawn, that hardly can the mind Imagine it. And seeing that hitherto It has eluded touch or blow of hands, It must touch nothing which for us is tangible: For naught can touch that may not itself be touched. So even their abodes must be unlike Our own, tenuous as their bodies are. All this hereafter I will prove to you By plentiful argument. Further, to say That for the sake of mankind the gods willed To frame the wondrous nature of the world, And that on this account we ought to extol Their handiwork as worthy of all praise, And to believe that it will prove eternal And indestructible, and to think it sin Ever by any effort to disturb What by the ancient wisdom of the gods Has been established everlastingly For mankind’s benefit, or by argument To assail and overthrow it utterly From top to bottom, and to invent besides Other such errors--all this, Memmius, Is folly. For what advantage could our thanks Bestow upon immortal and blessed beings That for our sakes they should bestir themselves To perform any task? Or what new fact Could have induced them, tranquil hitherto, After so long to change their former life? For it seems fitting he should take delight In a new state of things, to whom the old Was painful: but for him whom in past times, While he was living in felicity, No evil had befallen, for such a one What could have kindled a desire for change? Must we imagine that their life lay prostrate In darkness and in misery, till the birth And origin of things first dawned upon them? Besides, what evil had it been to us Not to have been created? For whoever Has once been born, must wish to abide in life So long as luring pleasure bids him stay: But one who has never tasted the love of life, Nor even been numbered in life’s ranks, what harm Were it for him not to have been created? Again whence first was implanted in the gods A pattern for begetting things? Whence too The preconception of what men should be, So that they knew and imaged in their minds What they desired to make? And by what means Could they have ever ascertained the energy Latent in primal atoms, or what forms Might be produced by changes in their order, Unless Nature herself had given them first A sample of creation? For indeed These primal atoms in such multitudes And in so many ways, through infinite time Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight, Have been borne onward so incessantly, Uniting in every way and making trial Of every shape they could combine to form, That ’tis not strange if they have also fallen Into such grouping, and acquired such motions As those whereby the present sum of things Is carried on and ceaselessly renewed. But even were I ignorant how things Were formed of primal elements, yet this Would I have ventured to affirm, and prove Not only from the system of the heavens, But from much other evidence, that nature Has by no means been fashioned for our benefit By divine power; so great are the defects Which are its bane. First, of the whole space Covered by the enormous reach of heaven, A greedy portion mountains occupy And forests of wild beasts; rocks and waste swamps Possess it, or the wide land-sundering sea. Besides, well nigh two-thirds are stolen from men By burning heat and frost ceaselessly falling. All that is left for husbandry, even that The force of Nature soon would overspread With thorns, unless resisted by man’s force, Ever wont for his livelihood to groan Over the strong hoe, and with down-pressed plough To cleave the earth. For if we do not turn The fertile clods with coulters, and subduing The soil of earth, summon the crops to birth, They could not of their own accord spring up Into the bright air. Even then sometimes, When answering our long toil throughout the land Every bud puts forth its leaves and flowers, Either the sun in heaven scorches them With too much heat, or sudden gusts of rain Or nipping frosts destroy them, or wind-storms Shatter them with impetuous whirling blasts. Furthermore why does Nature multiply And nourish terrible tribes of savage beasts By land and sea, dangerous to mankind? Why does untimely death range to and fro? Then again, like a mariner cast ashore By raging waves, the human infant lies Naked upon the ground, speechless, in want Of every help needful for life, when first Nature by birth-throes from his mother’s womb Thrusts him into the borders of the light, So that he fills the room with piteous wailing, As well he may, whose fate in life will be To pass through so much misery. But flocks And herds of divers kind, and the wild beasts, These, as they grow up, have no need of rattles: To none of them a foster-nurse must utter Fond broken speech: they seek not different dresses To suit each season: no, nor do they need Weapons nor lofty walls whereby to guard What is their own, since all things for them all The Earth herself brings forth abundantly, And Nature, the creatress manifold. First of all, since the substance of the earth, Moisture, and the light breathings of the air, And burning heats, of which this sum of things Is seen to be composed, have all been formed Of a body that was born and that will die, Of such a body must we likewise deem That the whole nature of the world was made. For things whose parts and members we see formed Of a body that had birth and shapes that die, These we perceive are themselves always mortal, And likewise have been born. Since then we see That the chief parts and members of the world Decay and are reborn, it is no less certain That once for heaven and earth there was a time Of origin, and will be of destruction. Herein lest you should think that without proof I have seized this vantage, in that I have assumed Earth and fire to be mortal, and have not doubted That moisture and air perish, but maintained That these too are reborn and grow afresh, Consider first how no small part of the earth Ceaselessly baked by the sun’s rays and trampled By innumerable feet, gives off a mist And flying clouds of dust, which the strong winds Disperse through the whole atmosphere. Part too Of the earth’s soil is turned to swamp by rains, While scouring rivers gnaw their banks away. Furthermore whatsoever goes to augment Some other thing, is in its turn restored; And since beyond all doubt the all-mother Earth Is seen to be no less the general tomb, You thus may see how she is ever lessened, Yet with new growth increases evermore. Next, that the sea, the rivers and the springs Are always amply fed by new supplies Of moisture oozing up perennially, It needs no words to explain. The vast down-flow Of waters from all sides is proof of this. But as the water that is uppermost Is always taken away, it comes to pass That on the whole there is no overflow; Partly because strong winds, sweeping the seas, Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves Their fabric with his rays; partly because The water is distributed below Throughout all lands. For the salt is strained off, And the pure fluid matter, oozing back, Gathers together at the river-heads, Thence in fresh current streams over the land, Wherever it finds a channel ready scooped To carry down its waves with liquid foot. Now must I speak of air, which every hour Is changed through its whole body in countless ways. For always whatsoever flows from things Is all borne into the vast sea of air: And if it were not in its turn to give Particles back to things, recruiting them As they dissolve, all would have been long since Disintegrated, and so changed to air. Therefore it never ceases to be born Out of things, and to pass back into things, Since, as we know, all are in constant flux. Likewise that bounteous fountain of clear light, The sun in heaven, ceaselessly floods the sky With fresh brightness, and momently supplies The place of light with new light: for each former Emission of his radiance perishes, On whatsoever spot it falls. This truth You may thus learn. So soon as clouds begin To pass below the sun, and as it were To break off the light’s rays, their lower part Forthwith perishes wholly, and the earth Is shadow-swept, wherever the clouds move. Thus you may know that things have ever need Of fresh illumination, and that each Former discharge of radiance perishes, Nor in any other way could things be seen In sunlight, if the fountain-head itself Did not send forth a perpetual supply. Also those lights we use here upon earth At night-time, hanging lamps, and torches bright With darting beams, rich with abundant smoke, Are in haste in like fashion to supply New radiance with ministering fire; The very flames seem eager, eager to flicker; Nor does the still unbroken stream of light One instant quit the spots whereon it played, So suddenly is its perishing concealed By the swift birth of flame from all these fires. It is thus then you must think sun moon and stars Shoot forth their light from ever fresh supplies, And that they always lose whatever beams Come foremost; lest perchance you should believe Their energy to be indestructible. Again, is it not seen that even stones By time are vanquished, that tall towers fall And rocks crumble away, that shrines and idols Of gods grow worn out and dilapidate, Nor may the indwelling holiness prolong The bounds of destiny, or strive against The laws of Nature? Then do we not see The monuments of men, fallen to ruin, Ask for themselves whether you would believe That they also grow old?[F] See we not rocks Split off from mountain heights fall crashing down Unable more to endure the powerful stress Of finite years? Surely they would not fall Thus suddenly split off, if through the lapse Of infinite past years they had withstood All the assaults of time, without being shattered. Now contemplate that which around and above Compasses the whole earth with its embrace. If it begets all things out of itself, As some have told us, and receives them back When they have perished, then the whole sky is made Of a body that had birth and that must die. For whatsoever nourishes and augments Other things from itself, must needs be minished, And be replenished, when it receives them back. Moreover, if there never was a time Of origin when earth and heaven were born, If they have always been from everlasting, Why then before the Theban war and Troy’s Destruction, have not other poets sung Of other deeds as well? Whither have vanished So many exploits of so many men? Why are they nowhere blossoming engrafted On the eternal monuments of fame? But in truth, as I think, this sum of things Is in its youth: the nature of the world Is recent, and began not long ago. Wherefore even now some arts are being wrought To their last polish, some are still in growth. Of late many improvements have been made In navigation, and musicians too Have given birth to new melodious sounds. Also this theory of the nature of things Has been discovered lately, and I myself Have only now been found the very first Able to turn it into our native words. Nevertheless, if you perchance believe That long ago these things were just the same, But that the generations of mankind Perished by scorching heat, or that their cities Fell in some great convulsion of the world, Or else that flooded by incessant rains Devouring rivers broke forth over the earth And swallowed up whole towns, so much the more Must you admit that there will come to pass A like destruction of earth and heaven too. For when things were assailed by such great maladies And dangers, if some yet more fatal cause Had whelmed them, they would then have been dissolved In havoc and vast ruin far and wide. And in no other way do we perceive That we are mortal, save that we all alike In turn fall sick of the same maladies As those whom Nature has withdrawn from life. Again, whatever things abide eternally, Must either, because they are of solid body, Repulse assaults, nor suffer anything To penetrate them, which might have the power To disunite the close-locked parts within: (Such are those bodies whereof matter is made, Whose nature we have shown before:) or else They must be able to endure throughout All time, because they are exempt from blows, As void is, which abides untouched, nor suffers One whit from any stroke: or else because There is no further space surrounding them, Into which things might as it were depart And be dissolved; even as the sum of sums Is eternal, nor is there any space Outside it, into which its particles Might spring asunder, nor are there other bodies That could strike and dissolve them with strong blows. But neither, as I have shown, is this world’s nature Solid, since there is void mixed up in things; Nor yet is it like void; nor verily Are atoms lacking that might well collect Out of the infinite, and overwhelm This sum of things with violent hurricane, Or threaten it with some other form of ruin; Nor further is there any want of room And of deep space, into which the world’s walls Might be dispersed abroad; or they may perish Shattered by any other force you will. Therefore the gates of death are never closed Against sky, sun or earth, or the deep seas; But they stand open, awaiting them with huge Vast-gaping jaws. So you must needs admit That all these likewise once were born: for things Of mortal body could not until now Through infinite past ages have defied The strong powers of immeasurable time. Again, since the chief members of the world So mightily contend together, stirred By unhallowed civil warfare, see you not That some end may be set to their long strife? It may be when the sun and every kind Of heat shall have drunk all the moisture up, And gained the mastery they were struggling for, Though they have failed as yet to achieve their aim: So vast are the supplies the rivers bring, Threatening in turn to deluge every land From out the deep abysses of the ocean; All in vain, since the winds, sweeping the seas, Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves Their fabric with his rays; and ’tis their boast That they are able to dry all things up, Before moisture can achieve its end. So terrible a war do they breathe out On equal terms, striving one with another For mighty issues: though indeed fire once Obtained the mastery, so the fable tells, And water once reigned supreme in the fields. For fire prevailing licked up and consumed Many things, when the ungovernable might Of the Sun’s horses, swerving from their course, Through the whole sky and over every land Whirled Phaëthon. But then the almighty Father, Stirred to fierce wrath, with sudden thunder-stroke Dashed great-souled Phaëthon from his team to the earth, And as he fell the Sun-god meeting him Caught from him the world’s everlasting lamp, And brought back tamed and trembling to the yoke The scattered steeds; then on their wonted course Guiding them, unto all things gave fresh life. Thus verily the old Greek poets sang, Though straying from true reason all too far. For fire can only gain the mastery When an excess of fiery particles Have flocked together out of infinite space; And then its strength fails, vanquished in some way, Or else things perish, utterly consumed By scorching gusts. Likewise moisture once Gathering together, as the story tells, Strove for the mastery, when it overwhelmed Many cities of mankind. But afterwards, When all that force, which out of infinite space Had gathered itself up, was by some means Diverted and withdrew, the rains ceased then, And the violence of the rivers was abated. But in what ways matter converging once Established earth and heaven and the sea’s deeps, The sun’s course and the moon’s, I will set forth In order. For in truth not by design Did the primordial particles of things Arrange themselves each in its own right place With provident mind, nor verily have they bargained What motions each should follow; but because These primal atoms in such multitudes And in so many ways through infinite time Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight, Have been borne onward so incessantly, Uniting in every way and making trial Of every shape they could combine to form, Therefore it is that after wandering wide Through vast periods, attempting every kind Of union and of motion, they at last Collect into such groups as, suddenly Flocking together, oftentimes become The rudiments of mighty things, of earth, Sea and sky, and the race of living creatures. At that time neither could the disk of the sun Be seen flying aloft with bounteous light, Nor the stars of great heaven, nor sea, nor sky, Nor yet earth nor the air, nor anything Resembling those things which we now behold, But only a sort of strange tempest, a mass Gathered together out of primal atoms Of all kinds, which discordantly waged war Disordering so their interspaces, paths, Connections, weights, collisions, meetings, motions, Since with their unlike forms and varied shapes, They could not therefore all remain united, Nor move among themselves harmoniously. Thereupon parts began to fly asunder, And like things to unite with like, and so To separate off the world, and to divide Its members, portioning out its mighty parts; That is, to mark off the high heaven from earth, And the sea by itself, that it might spread With unmixed waters, and likewise the fires Of aether by themselves, pure and unmixed. Now first the several particles of earth, Since they were heavy and close-packed, all met Together in the middle, and took up The lowest places: and the more they met In close-packed throngs, the more did they squeeze out Those particles which were to form sea, stars, Sun and moon, and the walls of the great world. For all these are of smoother rounder seeds, And of much smaller elements than earth. So first through porous openings in the soil The fire-laden aether here and there Bursting forth rose and lightly carried off Many fires with it, much in the same way As often we may see when first the beams Of the radiant sun with golden morning light Blush through the grasses gemmed with dew, and lakes And ever-flowing rivers exhale mist, While earth itself is sometimes seen to smoke; And when floating aloft these vapours all Unite on high, then taking bodily shape As clouds, they weave a veil beneath the heavens. Thus then the light diffusive aether once Took bodily shape, and, arched round on all sides, Far into every quarter spreading out, So with its greedy embrace hemmed in all else. Next came the rudiments of sun and moon, Whose globes turn in the air midway between Aether and earth; for neither did the earth Nor the great aether claim them for itself, Since they were not so heavy as to sink And settle down, nor so light as to glide Along the topmost borders: yet their course Between the two is such, that as they roll Their lifelike bodies onward, they are still Parts of the whole world; even as with us Some of our members may remain at rest, While at the same time others may be in motion. So when these things had been withdrawn, the earth, Where now the ocean’s vast blue region spreads, Sank suddenly down, and flooded with salt surge Its hollow parts. And day by day the more The encircling aether’s heats and the sun’s rays Compressed the earth into a closer mass By constant blows upon its outer surface From every side, so that thus beaten upon It shrank and drew together round its centre, The more did the salt sweat squeezed from its body Increase by its oozings the sea’s floating plains, And the more did those many particles Of heat and air escaping fly abroad, And far away from the earth condensing, form The lofty glittering mansions of the sky. The plains sank lower, the high mountains grew Yet steeper; for the rocks could not sink down, Nor could all parts subside to one same level. Thus then the earth’s ponderous mass was formed With close-packed body, and all the slime of the world Slid to the lowest plane by its own weight, And at the bottom settled down like dregs. Then the sea, then the air, then the fire-laden Aether itself, all these were now left pure With liquid bodies. Some indeed are lighter Than others, and most liquid and light of all Over the airy currents aether floats, Not blending with the turbulent atmosphere Its liquid substance. All below, it suffers To be embroiled by violent hurricanes, Suffers all to be tossed with wayward storms, While itself gliding on with changeless sweep Bears its own fires along. For, that the aether May stream on steadily with one impulse, The Pontos demonstrates, that sea which streams With an unchanging tide, unceasingly Preserving as it glides one constant pace. Now let us sing what cause could set the stars In motion. First, if the great globe of heaven Revolves, then we must needs maintain that air Presses upon the axis at each end, And holds it from outside, closing it in At both poles; also that there streams above Another current, moving the same way, In which the stars of the eternal world Roll glittering onward; or else that beneath There is another stream, that drives the sphere Upwards the opposite way, just as we see Rivers turn mill-wheels with their water-scoops. It likewise may well be that the whole sky Remains at rest, yet that the shining signs Are carried onwards; either because within them Are shut swift tides of aether, that whirl round Seeking a way out, and so roll their fires On all sides through the sky’s nocturnal mansions; Or else that from some other source outside An air-stream whirls and drives the fires along; Or else they may be gliding of themselves, Moving whithersoever the food of each Calls and invites them, nourishing everywhere Their flaming bodies throughout the whole sky. For it is hard to affirm with certainty Which of these causes operates in this world: But what throughout the universe both can And does take place in various worlds, created On various plans, this I teach, and proceed To expound what divers causes may exist Through the universe for the motion of the stars: And one of these in our world too must be The cause which to the heavenly signs imparts Their motive vigour: but dogmatically To assert which this may be, is in no wise The function of those advancing step by step. Now in order that the earth should be at rest In the world’s midst, it would seem probable That its weight gradually diminishing Should disappear, and that the earth should have Another nature underneath, conjoined And blent in union from its earliest age With those aerial portions of the world Wherein it lives embodied. For this cause It is no burden, nor weighs down the air, Just as to a man his own limbs are no weight, Nor is the head a burden to the neck, Nor do we feel that the whole body’s weight Rests on the feet: yet a much smaller burden Laid on us from outside, will often hurt us. Of such great moment is it what each thing’s Function may be. Thus then the earth is not An alien body intruded suddenly, Nor thrust from elsewhere into an alien air, But was conceived together with the world At its first birth as a fixed portion of it, Just as our limbs are seen to be of us. Moreover the earth, when shaken suddenly With violent thunder, by its trembling shakes All that is over it; which in no wise Could happen, if it were not closely bound With the world’s airy parts, and with the sky. For they all, as though by common roots, cohere One with another, from their earliest age Conjoined and blent in union. See you not too That heavy as our body’s weight may be, Yet the soul’s force, though subtle exceedingly, Sustains it, being so closely joined and blent In union with it? Also what has power To lift the body with a nimble leap, Except the mind’s force that controls the limbs? Do you not now perceive how great the power May be of a subtle nature, when ’tis joined With a heavy body, even as with the earth The air is joined, and the mind’s force with us? Also the sun’s disk cannot be much larger, Nor its heat be much less, than to our sense They appear to be. For from whatever distance Fires can fling light, and breathe upon our limbs Their warming heat, these intervening spaces Take away nothing from the body of flame; The fire is not shrunken visibly. So since the sun’s heat and the light it sheds Both reach our senses and caress our limbs, The form also and contour of the sun Must needs be seen from the earth in their true scale, With neither addition nor diminishment. Also the moon, whether it moves along Illuminating earth with borrowed light, Or throws out its own rays from its own body, Howe’er that be, moves with a shape no larger Than seems that shape which our eyes contemplate. For all things which we look at from far off Through much air, seem to our vision to grow dim Before their contours lessen. Therefore the moon, Seeing that it presents a clear aspect And definite shape, must needs by us on earth Be seen on high in its defining outline Just as it is, and of its actual size. Lastly consider all those fires of aether You see from the earth. Since fires, which here below We observe, for so long as their flickering Remains distinct, and their heat is perceived, Are sometimes seen to change their size to less Or greater to some very slight extent According to their distance, you may thence Know that the fires of aether can be smaller Only by infinitesimal degrees, Or larger by the tiniest minute fraction. This also is not wonderful, how the sun Small as it is, can shed so great a light, As with its flood to fill all seas and lands And sky, with warm heat bathing everything. For from this spot perhaps a single well For the whole world may open and gush out, Shooting forth an abundant stream of light, Because from everywhere throughout the world In such wise do the particles of heat Gather together, and their united mass Converges in such wise, that blazing fire Streams forth here from a single fountain-head. See you not too how wide a meadow-land One little spring of water sometimes floods, Overflowing whole fields? It may be also That from the sun’s flame, though it be not great, Heat pervades the whole air with scorching fires, Should the air chance to be susceptible And ready to be kindled, when it is struck By tiny heat-rays. Then we sometimes see A wide-spread conflagration from one spark Catch fields of corn or stubble. Perhaps too The sun shining on high with ruddy torch May be surrounded by much fire and heats Invisible, fire which no radiance Reveals, but laden with heat it does no more Than reinforce the stroke of the sun’s rays. Nor is there any single theory, Certain and obvious, of how the sun Out of his summer stations passing forth Approaches the midwinter turning-point Of Capricorn, and how coming back thence He bends his course to the solstitial goal Of Cancer; then too how the moon is seen To traverse every month that space, whereon The journeying sun spends a year’s period. For these events, I say, no single cause Can be assigned. It seems most probable That the august opinion of Democritus Should be the truth; the nearer to the earth The several constellations move, the less Can they be borne on with the whirl of heaven: For in the lower portions of this whirl He says its speed and energy diminish And disappear; so that little by little The sun is outstripped by the signs that follow, Since he is far beneath the burning stars. And the moon, so he says, more than the sun. The lower and the further from the sky Her course is, and the nearer to the earth, The less can she keep even with the signs. For the more languid is the whirl whereby She is borne along, being lower than the sun, The more do all the signs around her path Overtake and pass by her. Thus it is That she seems to move backward to each sign More quickly, because the signs come up to her. It may be also that two streams of air Cross the sun’s path at fixed times, each in turn Flowing from opposite quarters of the world, Whereof the first may thrust the sun away Out of the summer signs, until he comes To his winter turning-point and the icy frost; While the other from the freezing shades of cold Sweeps him right back to the heat-laden regions And the torrid constellations. And just so We must suppose that the moon and the planets, Which roll in their huge orbits through huge years, May move on streams of air alternately From opposite quarters. Do you not also see How clouds are shifted by opposing winds, The lower in directions contrary To those above? Why should not yonder stars Be likewise carried by opposing currents Upon their mighty orbits through the sky? But night covers the earth with vast darkness Either when after his long course the sun Has entered on the uttermost parts of heaven, And now grown languid has breathed forth his fires, Exhausted by their journey, and worn out By traversing much air; or else because That same force which has borne his orb along Above the earth, compels him now to turn Backward his course and pass beneath the earth. Likewise at a fixed time Matuta spreads The rosy dawn abroad through the sky’s borders, And opens out her light; either because The same sun, travelling back below the earth, Seizes the sky beforehand, and is fain To kindle it with his rays; or else because Fires meet together, and many seeds of heat Are wont at a fixed time to stream together Causing new sunlight each day to be born. Even so ’tis told that from the mountain heights Of Ida at daybreak scattered fires are seen; These then unite as if into one globe And make up the sun’s orb. Nor yet herein Should it cause wonder that these seeds of fire Can stream together at a time so fixed, Repairing thus the radiance of the sun. For everywhere we see many events Happening at fixed times. Thus trees both flower And shed their blossoms at fixed times; and age At a time no less fixed bids the teeth drop, And the boy clothe his features with the down Of puberty, and let a soft beard fall From either cheek. Lastly lightning and snow, Rains, clouds and winds happen at more or less Regular yearly seasons. For where causes From the beginning have remained the same, And things from the first origin of the world Have so fallen out, they still repeat themselves In regular sequence after a fixed order. The cause too why days lengthen and nights wane, While daylight shortens as the nights increase, May either be because the same sun, journeying Underneath and above the earth in curves Of unlike length, parts the celestial regions And into unequal halves divides his orbit: Whatever he has subtracted from one half, Just so much does he add, when he comes round, On to the other half, till he has reached That sign of heaven where the year’s node makes The night’s shade equal to the light of day. For in the sun’s mid course between the blasts Of south wind and of north, the heaven holds His turning-points apart at distances Now equalised, since such is the position Of the whole starry circle, to glide through which The sun takes up the period of a year, Lighting the earth and sky with slanting rays, As is shown by the arguments of those Who have mapped out all the quarters of the sky, Adorned with their twelve signs spaced out in order. Or else because the air in certain parts Is thicker, therefore the trembling lamp of fire Is hindered in its course beneath the earth, And cannot easily force a passage through And emerge at the place where it should rise. So in winter-time the nights are long and lingering, Ere the day’s radiant oriflamme comes forth. Or else again those fires which cause the sun To rise from a fixed point, for a like reason Are wont to stream together slower or quicker In alternating periods of the year. So those would seem to speak the truth who hold That every morning a new sun is born. It may be the moon shines because she is struck By the sun’s rays, and turns towards our eyes A larger portion of this light each day, The further she recedes from the sun’s orb, Until over against him with full light She has shone forth, and as she rises up Has looked upon his setting from on high. Thereafter in her gradual backward course In the same manner she must hide her light, The nearer she now glides to the sun’s fire Travelling through the circle of the signs From an opposite direction: as those hold Who fancy that the moon is like a ball, And moves along a course below the sun. It is also possible that she revolves With her own light, and yet shows varying Phases of brightness: for there may well be Another body which glides on beside her, Obstructing and occulting her continually, And yet cannot be seen, because it moves Without light. Or perhaps she may turn round Like a ball, let us say, whose sphere is tinged With glowing light over one-half its surface; And as she turns her sphere, she may present Varying phases, till she has turned that side Which glows with fire towards our gazing eyes; Then she twists gradually back once more And hides the luminous half of her round ball: As the Chaldean sages seek to prove, Refuting with their Babylonian doctrine The opposing science of the astronomers; Just as though what each sect is fighting for Might not be true, or there were any reason Why you should risk embracing the one creed Less than the other. Again why every time There should not be created a fresh moon, With fixed succession of phases and fixed shapes, So that each day this new-created moon Would perish, and another in its stead Be reproduced, this were no easy task To prove by argument convincingly, Since there can be so many things created In fixed succession. Thus Spring goes its way, And Venus, and the wingèd harbinger Of Venus leads them on; while treading close On Zephyr’s footsteps, mother Flora strews The path before them, covering it all over With every loveliest colour and rich scent. Next in procession follows parching heat, With dusty Ceres in its company, And the Etesian blasts of the North winds. After these Autumn comes, and by its side Advances Euhius Euan,[G] following whom The other Seasons with their winds appear, Volturnus thundering on high, and Auster Terrible with its lightnings. Then at length December brings snow and renews numb frost. Winter follows with teeth chattering for cold. Wherefore it seems less wonderful that the moon Should be begotten and destroyed again At fixed times, seeing that so many things Can come to pass at times so surely fixed. Likewise the occultations of the sun And the moon’s vanishings you must suppose May be produced by many different causes. For why should the moon be able to shut out The earth from the sun’s light, and lift her head On high to obstruct him from the earthward side, Blocking his fiery beams with her dark orb, And yet at the same time some other body Gliding on without light continually Should be supposed unable to do this? Why too should not the sun at a fixed time Grow faint and lose his fires, and then again Revive his light, when he has had to pass Through tracts of air so hostile to his flames That awhile his fires are quenched by them and perish? And why should the earth have power in turn to rob The moon of light, and likewise keep the sun Suppressed, while in her monthly course the moon Glides through the clear-cut shadows of the cone, And yet at the same time some other body Should not have power to pass under the moon, Or glide above the sun’s orb, breaking off The beams of light he sheds? And furthermore, If the moon shines with her own radiance, Why in a certain region of the world Might she not grow faint, while she makes her way Through tracts that are unfriendly to her light? Now since I have demonstrated how each thing Might come to pass throughout the azure spaces Of the great heaven, how we may know what force Can cause the varying motions of the sun, And wanderings of the moon, and in what way Their light being intercepted they might vanish Covering with darkness the astonished earth, When as it were they close their eye of light, And opening it again, survey all places Radiant with shining brightness,--therefore now I will go back to the world’s infancy And the tender age of the world’s fields, and show What in their first fecundity they resolved To raise into the borders of the light And give in charge unto the wayward winds. In the beginning the Earth brought forth all kinds Of plants and growing verdure on hillsides And over all the plains: the flowering meadows Shone with green colour: next to the various trees Was given a mighty emulous impulse To shoot up into the air with unchecked growth. As feathers, hairs and bristles first are born On limbs of quadrupeds and on the bodies Of winged fowl, so the new Earth then put forth Grasses and brushwood first, and afterwards Gave birth to all the breeds of mortal things, That sprang up many in number, in many modes And divers fashions. For no animals Can have dropped from the sky, nor can land-creatures Have issued from the salt pools. Hence it is That with good reason the Earth has won the name Of Mother, since from the Earth all things are born. And many living creatures even now Rise from the soil, formed by rains, and the sun’s Fierce heat. Therefore the less strange it appears If then they arose more numerous and more large Fostered by a new earth and atmosphere. So first of all the varied families And tribes of birds would leave their eggs, hatched out In the spring season, as now the cicadas In summer-time leave of their own accord Their filmy skins in search of food and life. Then was the time when first the Earth produced The race of mortal men. For in the fields Plenteous heat and moisture would abound, So that wherever a fit place occurred, Wombs would grow, fastened to the earth by roots: And when the warmth of the infants in due time, Avoiding moisture and demanding air, Had broken these wombs open, then would Nature Turn to that place the porous ducts of the Earth, Compelling it to exude through open veins A milk-like liquid, just as nowadays After child-bearing every woman is filled With sweet milk; for with her too the whole flow Of nutriment sets streaming towards her breasts. Earth to these children furnished food, the heat Clothing, the grass a bed, well lined with rich Luxuriance of soft down. Moreover then The world in its fresh newness would give rise Neither to rigorous cold nor extreme heat, Nor violent storms of wind, for in a like Proportion all things grow and gather strength. Therefore again and yet again I say That with good reason the Earth has won and keeps The name of Mother, since she of herself Gave birth to humankind, and at a period Well nigh determined shed forth every beast That roams o’er the great mountains far and wide, Likewise the birds of air, many in shape. But because she must have some limit set To her time of bearing, she ceased, like a woman Worn out by lapse of years. For Time transforms The whole world’s nature, and all things must pass From one condition to another: nothing Continues like itself. All is in flux: Nature is ever changing and compelling All that exists to alter. For one thing Moulders and wastes away grown weak with age, And then another comes forth into light, Issuing from obscurity. So thus Time Changes the whole world’s nature, and the Earth Passes from one condition to another: So that what once it bore it can no longer, And now can bear what it did not before. And many monsters too did the Earth essay To produce in those days, creatures arising With marvellous face and limbs, the Hermaphrodite, A thing of neither sex, between the two, Differing from both: some things deprived of feet; Others again with no hands; others dumb Without mouths, or else blind for lack of eyes, Or bound by limbs that everywhere adhered Fast to their bodies, so that they could perform No function, nor go anywhere, nor shun Danger, nor take what their need might require. Many such monstrous prodigies did Earth Produce, in vain, since Nature banned their increase, Nor could they reach the coveted flower of age, Nor find food, nor be joined in bonds of love. For we see numerous conditions first Must meet together, before living things Can beget and perpetuate their kind. First they must have food, then a means by which The seeds of birth may stream throughout the frame From the relaxed limbs; also that the male And female may unite, they must have that Whereby each may exchange mutual joys. And many breeds of creatures in those days Must have died out, being powerless to beget And perpetuate their kind. For those which now You see breathing the breath of life, ’tis craft, Or courage, or else speed, that from its origin Must have protected and preserved each race. Moreover many by their usefulness Commended to us, continue to exist Favoured by our protection. The fierce breed Of lions first, and the other savage beasts, Their courage has preserved, foxes their craft, Stags their swift flight. But the light-slumbering hearts Of faithful dogs, and the whole family Born from the seed of burden-bearing beasts, Also the woolly flocks and horned herds, All these by man’s protection are preserved. For their desire has always been to shun Wild beasts and to live peaceably, supplied Without toil of their own with food in plenty, Which to reward their services we give them. But those whom Nature has not thus endowed With power either to live by their own means Or else to render us such useful service That in return we allow their race to feed And dwell in safety beneath our guardianship, All these, ’tis plain, would lie exposed a prey To others, trammelled in their own fatal bonds, Till Nature had extinguished that whole kind. But Centaurs there have never been, nor yet Ever can things exist of twofold nature And double body moulded into one From limbs of alien kind, whose faculties And functions cannot be on either side Sufficiently alike. That this is so, The dullest intellect may be thus convinced. Consider first that a horse after three years Is in his flower of vigour, but a boy By no means so: for often in sleep even then Will he seek milk still from his mother’s breasts Afterwards, when the horse’s lusty strength Fails him in old age, and his limbs grow languid As life ebbs, then first for a boy begins The flowering time of youth, and clothes his cheeks With soft down. Do not then believe that ever From man’s and burden-bearing horse’s seed Centaurs can be compounded and have being; Nor yet Scyllas with half-fish bodies girdled With raging dogs, and other suchlike things, Whose limbs we see discordant with themselves, Since neither do they reach their flower together, Nor acquire bodily strength, nor in old age Lose it at the same time: dissimilar In each the love that burns them, and their modes Of life incongruous: nor do the same things give Their bodies pleasure. Thus we may often see Bearded goats thrive on hemlock, which for man Is virulent poison. Since moreover flame Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies Of lions no less than every other kind Of flesh and blood on earth, how could it be That one, yet with a triple body, in front A lion, behind a serpent, in the midst Its goat’s self, a Chimaera should breathe forth From such a body fierce flame at the mouth? Therefore he who can fable that when earth Was new and the sky young, such animals Could have been propagated, resting alone Upon this vain term, newness, he no doubt Will babble out many follies in like fashion, Will say that rivers then throughout the earth Commonly flowed with gold, that trees were wont To bloom with jewels, or that man was born Of such huge bulk and force that he could wade With giant strides across deep seas and turn The whole heaven round about him with his hands. For the fact that there were many seeds of things Within the earth at that time when it first Shed living creatures forth, is yet no proof That beasts could have been born of mingled kinds, Or limbs of different animals joined together; Because the various families of plants, The crops and thriving trees, which even now Teem upward from the soil luxuriantly, Can yet never be born woven together; But each thing has its own process of growth: All must preserve their mutual differences, Governed by Nature’s irreversible law. But that first race of men in the open fields Was hardier far, (small wonder, since hard Earth Had brought it forth,) built too around a frame Of bones more large and solid, knit together By powerful sinews; nor was it easily Impaired by heat or cold, nor by strange foods, Nor yet by any bodily disease. And during many revolving periods Of the sun through the sky, they lived their lives After the roving habit of wild beasts. No one was then the bent plough’s stalwart guide, None yet had knowledge how to till the fields With iron, or plant young saplings in the soil, Nor how to lop old boughs from the tall trees With pruning-hooks. What suns and rains had given, What of her own free will Earth had brought forth, Was enough bounty to content their hearts. ’Neath acorn-bearing oak-trees their wont was To alleviate their hunger; and those berries Which now upon the arbutus you see Ripening to scarlet hues in winter-time, The Earth then bore more plentifully and larger Than in these days. Moreover then the world’s Luxuriant youth gave birth to many kinds Of coarse food, ample enough for wretched men. But to allay their thirst rivers and springs Invited, as now waters, tumbling down From the great mountains with clear-sounding plash, Summon from far the thirsting tribes of beasts. Furthermore in their roamings they would visit Those renowned silvan precincts of the Nymphs, Caverns wherefrom they knew that copious streams, Gushing forth smoothly, bathed the dripping rocks, (The dripping rocks, o’er green moss trickling down,) Or sometimes welled up over the level plain. As yet they knew not how to employ fire, Or to make use of skins, and clothe their bodies With spoils of wild beasts; but inhabiting Woods, mountains, caves and forests, they would shelter Their squalid limbs in thickets, when compelled To shun the buffeting of winds and rains. No regard could they have to a general good, Nor did they know how to make use in common Of any laws or customs. Whatsoever Fortune might set before him, that would each Take as his prize, cunning to thrive and live As best might please him, each one for himself. And in the woods Venus would join the bodies Of lovers, whether a mutual desire, Or the man’s violence and vehement lust Had won the woman over, or a bribe Of acorns, arbute-berries or choice pears. Endowed with marvellous strength of hands and feet They chased the forest-roaming tribes of beasts; And many with flung stones and ponderous club They overcame, some few they would avoid In hiding-places. And like bristly swine Just as they were they flung their savage limbs Naked upon the ground, when night o’ertook them, Enveloping themselves with leaves and boughs. Nor did they call for daylight and the sun Wandering terror-stricken about the fields With loud wails through the shadows of the night, But silently, buried in sleep they lay Waiting until the sun with rosy torch Brought light into the sky. For since from childhood They had been wont to see darkness and light Alternately begotten without fail, Never could they feel wonder or misgiving Lest night eternal should possess the earth And the sun’s light for ever be withdrawn. But ’twas a worse anxiety that wild beasts Often made sleep unsafe for these poor wretches. For driven from their homes in sheltering rocks They fled at the entrance of a foaming boar Or strong lion, yielding up at dead of night Their leaf-strewn beds in panic to fierce guests. Yet no more often in those days than now Would mortal men leave the sweet light of life With lamentation. Each one by himself Would doubtless be more likely then than now To be seized and devoured by wild beasts’ teeth, A living food, and with his groans would fill Mountains and forests, while he saw his own Live flesh in a live monument entombed. But those whom flight had saved with mangled body, From that time forth would hold their trembling hands Over their noisome scars, with dreadful cries Invoking death, till agonising throes Rid them of life, with none to give them aid, Ignorant of what wounds required. But then A single day did not consign to death Thousands on thousands, marshalled beneath standards, Nor did the turbulent waters of the deep Shatter upon the rocks both ships and men. At that time vainly, without aim or result The sea would often rise up and turmoil; Nor could the winsome wiles of the calm deep Lure men on treacherously with laughing waves, While reckless seamanship was yet unknown. Moreover lack of food would then consign Their fainting limbs to death: now rather plenty Sinks men to ruin. Often for themselves Would they pour poison out unwittingly: To others now with subtler skill they give it. Afterwards, when they had learnt the use of huts, And skins, and fire; when woman, joined with man In wedlock, dwelt apart in one abode, And they saw offspring born out of themselves, Then first the human race began to soften. For fire made their chilly bodies now Less able to endure the cold beneath The roof of heaven: Venus impaired their strength: And children easily by their blandishments Broke down the haughty temper of their parents. Then too neighbours began to join in bonds Of friendship, wishing neither to inflict Nor suffer violence: and for womankind And children they would claim kind treatment, pleading With cries and gestures inarticulately That all men ought to have pity on the weak. And though harmony could not everywhere Be established, yet the most part faithfully Observed their covenants, or man’s whole race Would even then have perished, nor till now Could propagation have preserved their kind. But it was Nature that constrained their tongues To utter various sounds; and need struck out The names of things, in the same way almost As impotence of tongue is itself seen To teach gesture to infants, prompting them To point at things around them. For all creatures Divine by instinct how far they can use Their natural powers. Thus before horns are born And stand out on the forehead of a calf, When he is angry, he butts and charges with it. Then panther cubs and lion whelps will fight With claws and feet and teeth, even at a time When teeth and claws have hardly yet been formed. Also we see how the whole race of birds Trusting their wings, will seek a fluttering succour From new-fledged pinions. Therefore to suppose That somebody once apportioned names to things, And that from him men learnt to use words first, Is mere folly. For why should this one man Be able to denote all things by words And with his tongue form varied sounds, yet others At the same time be deemed incapable To have done the like? Besides, if others too Had not made use of words among themselves, Whence was the preconception of their usefulness Implanted in this man, and whence was given him The primal power to know and comprehend What he desired to do? Again, one man Could not subdue by force the wills of many And compel them to learn the names of things. It is no easy labour to convince Deaf men, and teach them what they ought to do; Since not for long would they endure his voice, Nor suffer unintelligible sounds Fruitlessly to be dinned into their ears. Lastly what should there be to wonder at So much in this, that mankind, when their voice And tongue were in full vigour, should name things By different sounds as different feelings bade them, Since dumb cattle, and even the wild beasts, Are wont to emit distinct and varied sounds, When they feel fear or pain, or when joy moves them. This indeed may be learnt from manifest facts. When the large soft mouths of Molossian dogs Begin to growl, angrily laying bare Their hard teeth, then far different is the tone In which they threaten, savagely thus drawn back, From the clear sound which, when they bark outright, Fills the whole neighbourhood. And when they essay In gentle mood to lick their cubs, or when They toss them with their paws, and snapping at them Tenderly make as though they would devour them With half-closed teeth, thus fondling them they yelp With a quite different sound from their deep bay When left alone in houses, or from the whimper With which crouching they shrink away from blows. Furthermore does not a young stallion’s neigh Seem different, when he rages among the mares Pierced in his flower of age by winged love’s goads, From when with wide-stretched nostrils he snorts out The battle signal, or when at other times Perchance he whinnies trembling in all his limbs? Lastly the race of fowl and varied birds, Hawks and ospreys and gulls that seek their living In the salt waters of the ocean waves, Utter at different times quite different cries From those they make when they fight over food, Or struggle with their prey. And some will change Their harsh notes in accordance with the weather, As do the long-lived tribes of crows, and flocks Of rooks, when they are said to call for rain, Or sometimes to be summoning wind-storms. Since therefore various feelings can compel Animals, speechless though they be, to utter Such varying sounds, how much more natural Is it that in those days men could denote Dissimilar things by many different sounds! In answer to your silent questioning here, I say it was the lightning first brought fire Down to the earth for men; and from that flame All other flames have spread. Thus we behold Many things blaze forth, lit by fire from heaven, When the sky’s stroke has charged them with its heat. Yet when a branching tree, tossed by the wind, Chafing the branches of another tree, Sways to and fro, then fire may be forced out By violent stress of friction; and at times Hot flames are kindled and flash forth from boughs And stems rubbing together. Of these two chances Either may first have given fire to men. Next the sun taught them to cook food, heating And softening it with flame; since they would note Many things mellowing about the fields Smitten and conquered by his scorching rays. And more and more each day men who excelled In subtlety and power of mind, would show them How by new methods and by using fire To improve their former means of livelihood. Kings began to found cities and build forts As refuges and strongholds for themselves, Dividing cattle and lands, and portioning To each his share according to his beauty, His strength and intellect; for comeliness Was much esteemed, and strength was paramount. Afterwards property was devised, and gold Discovered, which with ease robbed both the strong And beautiful of their honours: for most men, However brave and beautiful by birth, Follow the fortunes of the richer man. But whosoever by true reason’s rule Governs his days, for him plain frugal living And a contented spirit is mighty wealth; For of a little never is there lack. Yet men wished to become renowned and powerful, That so their fortunes on a stable base Might rest, and they, being wealthy, might have power To lead a tranquil life: in vain! For while They strove to mount to the highest pitch of honour Their path was perilous: and even although They have reached the summit, envy will sometimes Strike like a thunderbolt and hurl men down Contemptuously to noisome Tartarus: Since highest things, lifted above all else, Are most wont as by lightning to be blasted By envy; so that quietly to obey Is better than to crave sovereign power And lordship over realms. Therefore let men Sweat drops of blood, wearying themselves in vain, Struggling along ambition’s narrow road; Since from the mouths of others comes their wisdom, And ’tis from hearsay rather than their own Authentic feelings, they pursue such aims: Nor does this happen now, nor will it happen Hereafter any more than once it did. Kings therefore being slain, the ancient majesty Of thrones and haughty sceptres was laid low. The glorious symbol of the sovereign head, Trodden bloodstained beneath the people’s feet, Mourned its proud honour lost; for that is greedily Trampled down which before was too much feared. Thus to the very lees of anarchy The whole state was reduced, while each man grasped At lordship and dominion for himself. Then some among them taught how to create Magistrates, and established codes, that all Might learn to obey laws. For now mankind, Utterly wearied of a violent life, Lay languishing by reason of its feuds. Therefore the sooner of its own free will Did it submit to laws and stringent codes. For seeing that each, when anger prompted him, Strove more severely to avenge himself Than just laws now permit, for this cause men Grew tired of a life of violence. Thenceforward fear of punishment infects The enjoyment of life’s prizes: for the nets Of violence and wrong entangle all those Who inflict them, and most often they recoil On such as used them first: nor is it easy For him to pass a quiet and peaceful life, Whose deeds transgress the bonds of public peace. For though he should elude both gods and men, Yet he must needs mistrust whether his guilt Will remain veiled for ever, since ’tis said That many often by talking in their dreams, Or in delirious sickness have betrayed Their secrets, and revealed long-hidden crimes. Now what may be the cause that has spread wide The cult of deities over mighty nations, And filled cities with altars, and prescribed The observance of such sacred rites as now At solemn times and places are performed, Whence even now is implanted in men’s minds Religious awe, that over the whole earth Raises new temples to the gods, and prompts Worshippers to frequent them on feast-days-- Why this should be, ’tis easy to explain. For in those early times mortals would see With waking mind the glorious images Of deities and behold them in their sleep Of size yet more gigantic. To these then They would attribute sense, because they seemed To move their limbs and utter stately speech Worthy of their noble aspect and great powers. Also they deemed eternal life was theirs, Because their images continually Would reappear, and their form did not change, But most because they could not well conceive How beings who seemed gifted with such powers Could lightly be subdued by any force. And they believed that their felicity Must be beyond compare, since none of them Was ever troubled by the fear of death, Because moreover in sleep they beheld them Performing without effort many miracles. Again they saw how the orderings of heaven And the year’s varying seasons would return According to fixed law, yet could they not Discover from what causes this took place. Therefore they found a refuge from such doubts In handing all things over to the deities And deeming all to be guided by their nod. The abodes of their divinities they placed In heaven, because they saw night and the moon Progressing through the sky, moon day and night, The severe constellations of the night, The sky’s night-wandering meteors and gliding fires, Clouds sun and snow, lightning and winds and hail, Thunder’s swift crash and mightily threatening murmurs. O unhappy race of men, that could assign Such functions to the deities, and thereto Add cruel wrath! What groans then for themselves Did they beget, what wounds for us, what tears For our children’s children! ’Tis no piety To be seen often with veiled head to turn Towards a stone, visiting every altar, Nor to fall grovelling with outspread palms Prostrate before the temples of the gods, Nor sprinkling altars with much blood of beasts To add to votive offering votive offering; But this rather is piety, to have power To survey all things with a tranquil mind. For when we lift our eyes to the celestial Temples of the great universe, and the aether Studded with glittering stars, and contemplate The paths of sun and moon, then in our breasts, Burdened with other evils, this fear too Begins to lift its reawakened head, Lest perchance it be true that with the gods Resides a boundless power, which can move Upon their various courses the bright stars. For ignorance of cause troubles the mind, So that it doubts whether there ever was A birth-time and beginning for the world, And likewise whether there shall be an end; How far the world’s walls can endure this strain Of restless motion, or whether by the gods With eternal stability endowed They may glide on through endless lapse of time, Defying the strong powers of infinite age. Again whose mind shrinks not with awe of gods, Whose limbs creep not for terror, when beneath The appalling stroke of thunder the parched earth Shudders, and mutterings run through the vast sky? Do not the peoples and the nations quake, And proud kings, stricken with religious dread Sit quailing, lest for any wicked deed Or overweening word, the heavy time Of reckoning and punishment be ripe? Also when the full violence of a wind Raging across the sea, sweeps o’er the waves The high commander of a fleet, with all His powerful legions and his elephants, Does he not supplicate the gods with vows For mercy, and with craven prayers entreat them To lull the storm and grant propitious gales? But all in vain; since often none the less, Seized by the violent hurricane, he is whirled Onto the shoals of death. Thus evermore Some hidden power treads human grandeur down, And seems to make its sport of the proud rods And cruel axes, crushed beneath its heel. Lastly, when the whole earth rocks under them, And cities tumble with the shock, or stand In doubt, threatening to fall, what wonder is it That mortal creatures should abase themselves, Assigning vast dominion to the gods, And wondrous powers to govern all below? Now must be told how copper gold and iron, And weighty silver also, and solid lead Were first discovered when on the great hills Fire had consumed huge forests with its heat, Kindled either by lightning from the sky, Or because men waging some forest war Had carried fire among their enemies For terror’s sake; or else because, drawn on By the soil’s goodness, they would wish to clear Fat lands and turn them unto pasturage, Or to kill beasts and grow rich with the spoils. For hunting with the pitfall and with fire Came into use before woods were enclosed With nets or drawn by dogs. Howe’er that be, From whatsoever cause the heat of flame With terrible crackling had devoured whole forests Down to their deepest roots, and throughly baked The soil with fire, forth from the burning veins There would ooze and collect in cavities Streams of silver and gold, of copper too, And lead. When afterwards men found these metals Cooled into masses glittering on the ground With brilliant colours, they would pick them up, Attracted by their bright smooth loveliness; And they would then observe how each was formed Into a shape similar to the imprint Of the hole where it lay. Next it would strike them That, melted down by heat, these could be made To run into any form and mould they pleased, And further could by hammering be wrought Into points tapering as sharp and fine As they might need, so furnishing themselves With tools wherewith to cut down woods, hew timber And plane planks smooth, to drill and pierce and bore. And this they would attempt with silver and gold No less than with stout copper’s mighty strength. But in vain, since their yielding force would fail, Being proved less fit to endure toil and strain. In those days copper was more highly esteemed; Gold lay despised as useless with its dull And blunted edge: now copper lies neglected, Whereas gold has attained the pitch of honour. Thus Time as it revolves is ever changing The seasons of things. What was once esteemed Becomes at length of no repute; whereon Some other thing, issuing from contempt, Mounts up and daily is coveted more and more, And, once discovered, blossoms out in praises, Rising to wondrous honour among men. Now, Memmius, you will easily of yourself Understand in what way were first discovered The properties of iron. Man’s earliest weapons Were hands nails teeth and stones, and boughs torn off From forest trees, and flame and fire, as each Became known. Afterwards the force of iron And copper was discovered. And the use Of copper was known earlier than of iron, Since it was easier to be worked, and found More copiously. With copper they would till The soil of earth, with copper they stirred up The waves of war, and dealt wide-gaping wounds, And seized on lands and cattle: for all else, Being naked and unarmed, would yield to those Who carried weapons. Then by slow degrees The sword of iron made progress, while the type Of the copper sickle came to be despised. With iron they began to cleave the soil, And through its use wavering war’s conflicts Were rendered equal. Earlier was the custom Of mounting armed upon a horse’s back And guiding it with reins, and dealing blows With the right arm, long before men dared tempt The risks of battle in the two-horsed car. And they would learn the art to yoke two steeds Earlier than to yoke four, or to mount armed Upon scythed chariots. Next the Poeni taught The uncouth Lucanian kine,[H] with towered backs And snake-like hands, to endure the wounds of war, And rout great troops of martial chivalry. Thus miserable discord brought to birth One thing after another, to appal Mankind’s embattled nations, every day Making addition to war’s frightfulness. Also in warfare they made trial of bulls, And sought to drive fierce boars against the foe. And some sent mighty lions in their van With armed trainers and savage guardians To govern them and hold them in with chains; In vain, for heated with promiscuous carnage They put to flight whole squadrons in their rage Without distinction, tossing on every side Their terrible crests; nor could the horsemen calm Their horses, panic-stricken by the roaring, Or turn them by the bridle against their foes. The she-lions would spring fiercely on all sides Right in the faces of their adversaries, Or from behind seizing them off their guard Would clasp and tear them wounded down to the earth, Gripping them with their strong teeth and hooked claws. The bulls would toss and trample underfoot Their own friends, goring the horses from beneath In belly and flank, tearing the soil up savagely. Fierce boars would rend their allies with strong tusks. Staining the broken weapons with their blood, And put to rout both horse and foot together. The steeds, to escape from the tusk’s cruel push, Would swerve aside or rearing paw the air, In vain, for with severed tendons they would crash Heavily down to the earth and lie stretched out. Beasts, by the keepers deemed to have been tamed Sufficiently at home, they now would see Heated to madness in the hour of battle, By wounds and shouts, flight panic and uproar. No portion of all the different kinds of beasts, Once scattered in wild flight, could they recall. So often nowadays the Lucanian kine, Gashed cruelly with the steel, will fly dispersed, Inflicting ruinous havoc on their friends. Thus might these men have acted: yet I scarce Can think they were not able to foresee And calculate how horrible a disaster Was certain to befall both sides alike. But men chose to act thus, not in the hope Of victory so much, as from the wish, Though they themselves perished, to give their foes Cause to lament, being desperate through mistrust Of their own numbers, or through lack of arms. The plaited garment came before the dress Of woven stuff. Weaving comes after iron, Since weaving tools need iron to fashion them. By no means else can such smooth things be made As heddles, spindles, shuttles and clattering yarn-beams. Men before womankind did Nature prompt To work wool; for in general the male sex Is by far the more skilful and ingenious: Till the rough peasants chided them so sternly That at length they consented to resign Such lighter tasks into the hands of women, And themselves took their share in heavier toils, Hardening with hard labour limbs and hands. But Nature, the creatress, herself first Taught men to sow and prompted them to graft. For berries and acorns dropping from the trees Would put forth in due season underneath Swarms of seedlings: and hence the fancy came To insert grafts upon the boughs, and plant Young saplings in the soil about the fields. Next they would try another and yet another Method of tilling their loved piece of land, And so could watch how kindly fostering culture Helped the earth to improve its own wild fruits. And they would force the forests day by day To retreat higher up the mountain-sides And yield the ground below to husbandry, That so meadows and ponds, rivulets, crops, And glad vineyards might cover hill and plain, While grey-green boundary strips of olive trees Might run between the fields, stretching far out O’er hillock, valley and plain; as now we see Whole countrysides glowing with varied beauty, Adorned with rows of sweet fruit-bearing trees, And enclosed round about with joyous groves. But the art of imitating with their mouths The liquid notes of birds, came long before Men could delight their ears by singing words To smooth tunes; and the whistlings of the zephyr In hollow reeds first taught the husbandman To blow through hollow stalks. Then by degrees They learnt those sweet sad ditties, which the pipe, Touched by the fingers of the melodist, Pours forth, such as are heard ’mid pathless woods, Forests and glades, or in the lonely haunts Of shepherds, and the abodes of magic calm. Thus would they soothe and gratify their minds, When satiate with food; for all such things Give pleasure then. So often, couched together On the soft grass, beside a waterbrook Beneath a tall tree’s boughs, at no great cost They would regale their bodies joyously, At those times chiefly when the weather smiled, And the year’s seasons painted the green herbage With flowers. Then went round the jest, the tale, The merry laugh, for then the rustic muse Was in full force: then frolick jollity Would prompt them to enwreathe their heads and shoulders With plaited garlands woven of flowers and leaves, Or dancing out of measure to move their limbs Clumsily, and with clumsy foot to beat Their mother earth; whence smiles and jovial laughter Would rise; since the more novel then and strange All such sports seemed, the more they were admired. And they would find a salve for wakefulness In giving voice to many varied tones Of winding melody, running with curved lip Over the reed-pipes: and from them this custom Is handed down to watchmen nowadays, Who, though they have better learnt to observe time, Yet not one whit more pleasure do they enjoy Than once that silvan race of earth-born men. For what is present, if we have never known Anything more delightful, gives us pleasure Beyond all else, and seems to be the best; But if some better thing be afterwards Discovered, this will often spoil for us all That pleased us once, and change our feelings towards it. Thus it was acorns came to be disliked: Thus were abandoned those beds of strewn grass And heaped leaves: the dress too of wild beast’s skin Fell thus into contempt. Yet I suppose That when it was invented it would rouse Such envy, that the man who wore it first Would be waylaid and slain: yet after all It would be torn to pieces among the thieves And with much bloodshed utterly destroyed, So that it never could be turned to use. Therefore skins then, now gold and purple vex Men’s lives with cares and wear them out with war. And here, I think, the greater guilt is ours; For the cold would torment these earth-born men Naked without their skins; but us no harm Whatever can it cause to go without A purple robe broidered with large designs In gold thread, so we have but on our backs A plain plebeian cloak to keep us warm. Therefore mankind is always toiling vainly, Fruitlessly wasting life in empty cares, Doubtless because they will not recognise The limits of possession, nor the bounds Beyond which no true pleasure can increase. And so by slow degrees this ignorance Has carried life out into the deep seas, And from the bottom stirred up war’s huge waves. But those vigilant watchers, sun and moon, That circling round illumine with their light The vast revolving temple of the sky, Taught mankind how the seasons of the year Return, and how all things are brought to pass According to fixed system and fixed law. And now men dwelt securely fenced about By strong towers, and the land was portioned out And marked off to be tilled. Already now The sea was white with flitting sails, and towns Were joined in league of friendship and alliance. Then first poets made record in their songs Of men’s deeds: for not long before this time Letters had been invented. For which cause Our age cannot look backward to things past, Save where reason reveals some evidence. Shipping and agriculture, city-walls, Laws, arms, roads, robes and other suchlike things, Moreover all life’s prizes and refinements, Poems and pictures, and the chiselling Of fine-wrought statues, every one of these Long practice and the untiring mind’s experience Taught men by slow degrees, as they progressed Step after step. Thus time little by little Brings forth each several thing, and reason lifts it Into the borders of the light; for first One thing and then another must in turn Rise from obscurity, until each art Attains its highest pitch of excellence. BOOK VI, lines 1-95 In ancient days Athens of glorious name Was first to spread abroad corn-bearing crops Among unhappy mortals, and to frame Their lives in a new mould and give them laws. She also first bestowed a kindly solace For life, when she gave birth to one endowed With so great intellect, that man who once Poured forth all wisdom from truth-telling lips; Whose glory, even when his light was quenched, Because of his divine discoveries Undimmed by time was noised abroad, and now Is lifted high as heaven. For when he saw That well nigh all those things which need demands For man’s subsistence had been now provided, And that so far as it seemed possible Life was established in security, That men through wealth and honours and renown Had attained power and affluence, and grown proud In their children’s good name, yet that not one At home possessed a heart the less care-stricken, But ceaselessly despite his wiser mind Tormenting all his days, could not refrain From petulant rage and wearisome complaint; Then did he understand it was the vessel Itself that was the cause of imperfection, And by its imperfection all those things That came within it, gathered from outside, Though ne’er so excellent, were spoiled therein; In part because he saw that there were holes Through which it leaked, so that by no means ever Might it be filled full; partly that he perceived How as with a foul savour it defiled All things within it which had entered there. And so with truthful words he purged men’s hearts, And fixed a limit to desire and fear; Then setting forth what was the highest good Which we all strive to attain, he pointed out The path along which by a slender track We might in a straight course arrive at it; Likewise he showed what evils there must be In mortal affairs on every side, arising And flying this way and that, whether it were By natural chance or force, since it was Nature Which has ordained it so; and by what gates To meet each evil men must sally forth: Also he proved how mostly without cause Mankind set darkly tossing in their hearts The sad billows of care. For just as children In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid Of all things, so we sometimes in the light Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded Than those which children shudder at in the dark, Imagining that they will come to pass. This terror then and darkness of the mind Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation Of Nature’s aspect and her inward laws. And now that I have shown you how the sky’s Mansions are mortal, and that heaven is formed Of a body that had birth, and since of all That takes place and must needs take place therein I have unravelled most, give further heed To what remains. Since once I have made bold To mount the glorious chariot of the Muses,[I] I will now tell how in the upper air Tempests of wind arise; how all sinks down To rest once more: the turmoil that has been Vanishes, when its fury is appeased. And I will explain all else that mortals see Coming to pass on earth and in the sky, Such sights as often hold them in terrified Suspense of mind, humiliating themselves With fear of gods, and bow them grovelling Down to the ground, because they are compelled Through ignorance of the causes to assign All such things to the empire of the gods, Acknowledging their power to be supreme. For those who have learnt rightly that the gods Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder By what means all things can be carried on, Such above all as are perceived to happen In the ethereal regions overhead, They are borne back again into their old Religious fears, and adopt pitiless lords, Whom in their misery they believe to be Almighty; for they are ignorant of what can And what cannot exist; in fine they know not Upon what principle each thing has its powers Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone. And therefore all the more they are led astray By blind reasoning. So that if you cannot Fling from your mind and banish far away All such belief in falsehoods that degrade The deities, and consist not with their peace, Then, thus by you disparaged and profaned, Oft will their holy godheads do you hurt; Not that their sovereign power can be impaired, So that in anger they should stoop to exact Fierce penalties, but because you yourself Will fancy that those placid beings throned In serene peace, can verily be tossed By great billows of wrath: nor will you enter With a calm breast the temples of the gods, Nor yet will you be able to receive In tranquil peace of spirit those images Which from their holy bodies, heralding Their divine beauty, float into men’s minds. And to what kind of life these errors lead May be imagined. Such credulity The most veracious reasoning alone Can drive far from us. And though to that end I have set forth much already, yet more still Remains for me to adorn in polished verses. The inward law and aspect of the heavens Must now be grasped: tempests and vivid lightnings, Their action and what cause sets them in motion, Must be described; lest, when you have mapped the sky Into augural divisions, you should then Quake in dismay, beholding from what quarter The flash sped in its flight, or on which side It vanished; in what manner it pierced through Into walled places, and how, having played The tyrant there, it leapt forth and was gone. Yet of these operations by no means Can men perceive the causes, and so fancy That they must come to pass by power divine. O Muse of knowledge, solace of mankind And the delight of gods, Calliope, Point the track out before me as I speed Towards the white line of my final goal, That so with thee to guide me I may win The glorious crown of victory and its praise. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. * * * * * MAETERLINCK ESSAYS Crown 8vo, 5s. net each. 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FOOTNOTES: [A] A few lines seem to have been lost here. [B] Epicurus. [C] The aether. [D] Colour, sensation, etc. [E] Cupido. [F] The text is corrupt and the meaning obscure. [G] Bacchus. [H] Elephants. [I] The text is here corrupt, and several lines are probably lost. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64024 ***