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Original / primary: Perseus Eng1
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Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
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Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
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Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
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And fruitful lands- for all of living things
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Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
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Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
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Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
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Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
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For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
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For thee waters of the unvexed deep
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Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
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Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
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For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
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And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
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First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
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Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
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And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
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Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
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Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
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Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
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And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
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Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
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Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
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Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
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Kind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone
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Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
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Is risen to reach the shining shores of light,
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Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
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Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
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Which I presume on Nature to compose
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For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
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Peerless in every grace at every hour-
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Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words
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Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
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O'er sea and land the savage works of war,
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For thou alone hast power with public peace
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To aid mortality; since he who rules
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The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
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How often to thy bosom flings his strength
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O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love-
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And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
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Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
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Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
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Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined
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Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
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Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
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Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!
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For in a season troublous to the state
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Neither may I attend this task of mine
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With thought untroubled, nor mid such events
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The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
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Neglect the civic cause.
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And for the rest, summon to judgments true,
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Unbusied ears and singleness of mind
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Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged
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For thee with eager service, thou disdain
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Before thou comprehendest: since for thee
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I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky,
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And the primordial germs of things unfold,
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Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies
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And fosters all, and whither she resolves
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Each in the end when each is overthrown.
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This ultimate stock we have devised to name
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Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,
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Or primal bodies, as primal to the world.
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Whilst human kind
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Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
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Before all eyes beneath Religion- who
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Would show her head along the region skies,
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Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-
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A Greek it was who first opposing dared
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Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
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Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
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Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
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Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
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His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
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The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
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And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
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And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
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The flaming ramparts of the world, until
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He wandered the unmeasurable All.
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Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
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What things can rise to being, what cannot,
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And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
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Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
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Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
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And us his victory now exalts to heaven.
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I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fare
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An impious road to realms of thought profane;
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But 'tis that same religion oftener far
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Hath bred the foul impieties of men:
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As once at Aulis, the elected chiefs,
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Foremost of heroes, Danaan counsellors,
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Defiled Diana's altar, virgin queen,
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With Agamemnon's daughter, foully slain.
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She felt the chaplet round her maiden locks
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And fillets, fluttering down on either cheek,
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And at the altar marked her grieving sire,
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The priests beside him who concealed the knife,
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And all the folk in tears at sight of her.
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With a dumb terror and a sinking knee
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She dropped; nor might avail her now that first
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'Twas she who gave the king a father's name.
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They raised her up, they bore the trembling girl
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On to the altar- hither led not now
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With solemn rites and hymeneal choir,
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But sinless woman, sinfully foredone,
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A parent felled her on her bridal day,
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Making his child a sacrificial beast
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To give the ships auspicious winds for Troy:
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Such are the crimes to which Religion leads.
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And there shall come the time when even thou,
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Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek
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To break from us. Ah, many a dream even now
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Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life,
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And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears.
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I own with reason: for, if men but knew
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Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong
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By some device unconquered to withstand
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Religions and the menacings of seers.
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But now nor skill nor instrument is theirs,
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Since men must dread eternal pains in death.
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For what the soul may be they do not know,
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Whether 'tis born, or enter in at birth,
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And whether, snatched by death, it die with us,
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Or visit the shadows and the vasty caves
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Of Orcus, or by some divine decree
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Enter the brute herds, as our Ennius sang,
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Who first from lovely Helicon brought down
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A laurel wreath of bright perennial leaves,
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Renowned forever among the Italian clans.
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Yet Ennius too in everlasting verse
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Proclaims those vaults of Acheron to be,
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Though thence, he said, nor souls nor bodies fare,
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But only phantom figures, strangely wan,
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And tells how once from out those regions rose
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Old Homer's ghost to him and shed salt tears
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And with his words unfolded Nature's source.
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Then be it ours with steady mind to clasp
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The purport of the skies- the law behind
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The wandering courses of the sun and moon;
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To scan the powers that speed all life below;
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But most to see with reasonable eyes
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Of what the mind, of what the soul is made,
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And what it is so terrible that breaks
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On us asleep, or waking in disease,
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Until we seem to mark and hear at hand
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Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.
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I know how hard it is in Latian verse
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To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
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Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find
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Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;
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Yet worth of thine and the expected joy
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Of thy sweet friendship do persuade me on
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To bear all toil and wake the clear nights through,
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Seeking with what of words and what of song
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I may at last most gloriously uncloud
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For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view
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The core of being at the centre hid.
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This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,
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Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
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Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
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But only Nature's aspect and her law,
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Which, teaching us, hath this exordium:
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Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
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Fear holds dominion over mortality
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Only because, seeing in land and sky
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So much the cause whereof no wise they know,
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Men think Divinities are working there.
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Meantime, when once we know from nothing still
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Nothing can be create, we shall divine
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More clearly what we seek: those elements
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From which alone all things created are,
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And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.
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Suppose all sprang from all things: any kind
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Might take its origin from any thing,
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No fixed seed required. Men from the sea
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Might rise, and from the land the scaly breed,
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And, fowl full fledged come bursting from the sky;
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The horned cattle, the herds and all the wild
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Would haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste;
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Nor would the same fruits keep their olden trees,
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But each might grow from any stock or limb
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By chance and change. Indeed, and were there not
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For each its procreant atoms, could things have
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Each its unalterable mother old?
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But, since produced from fixed seeds are all,
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Each birth goes forth upon the shores of light
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From its own stuff, from its own primal bodies.
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And all from all cannot become, because
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In each resides a secret power its own.
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Again, why see we lavished o'er the lands
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At spring the rose, at summer heat the corn,
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The vines that mellow when the autumn lures,
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If not because the fixed seeds of things
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At their own season must together stream,
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And new creations only be revealed
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When the due times arrive and pregnant earth
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Safely may give unto the shores of light
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Her tender progenies? But if from naught
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Were their becoming, they would spring abroad
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Suddenly, unforeseen, in alien months,
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With no primordial germs, to be preserved
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From procreant unions at an adverse hour.
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Nor on the mingling of the living seeds
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Would space be needed for the growth of things
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Were life an increment of nothing: then
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The tiny babe forthwith would walk a man,
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And from the turf would leap a branching tree-
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Wonders unheard of; for, by Nature, each
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Slowly increases from its lawful seed,
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And through that increase shall conserve its kind.
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Whence take the proof that things enlarge and feed
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From out their proper matter. Thus it comes
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That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains,
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Could bear no produce such as makes us glad,
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And whatsoever lives, if shut from food,
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Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.
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Thus easier 'tis to hold that many things
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Have primal bodies in common (as we see
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The single letters common to many words)
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Than aught exists without its origins.
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Moreover, why should Nature not prepare
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Men of a bulk to ford the seas afoot,
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Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands,
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Or conquer Time with length of days, if not
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Because for all begotten things abides
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The changeless stuff, and what from that may spring
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Is fixed forevermore? Lastly we see
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How far the tilled surpass the fields untilled
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And to the labour of our hands return
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Their more abounding crops; there are indeed
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Within the earth primordial germs of things,
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Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods
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And kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.
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Else would ye mark, without all toil of ours,
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Spontaneous generations, fairer forms.
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Confess then, naught from nothing can become,
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Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow,
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Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.
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Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolves
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Into their primal bodies again, and naught
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Perishes ever to annihilation.
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For, were aught mortal in its every part,
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Before our eyes it might be snatched away
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Unto destruction; since no force were needed
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To sunder its members and undo its bands.
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Whereas, of truth, because all things exist,
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With seed imperishable, Nature allows
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Destruction nor collapse of aught, until
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Some outward force may shatter by a blow,
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Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells,
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Dissolve it down. And more than this, if Time,
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That wastes with eld the works along the world,
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Destroy entire, consuming matter all,
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Whence then may Venus back to light of life
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Restore the generations kind by kind?
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Or how, when thus restored, may daedal Earth
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Foster and plenish with her ancient food,
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Which, kind by kind, she offers unto each?
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Whence may the water-springs, beneath the sea,
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Or inland rivers, far and wide away,
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Keep the unfathomable ocean full?
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And out of what does Ether feed the stars?
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For lapsed years and infinite age must else
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Have eat all shapes of mortal stock away:
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But be it the Long Ago contained those germs,
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By which this sum of things recruited lives,
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Those same infallibly can never die,
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Nor nothing to nothing evermore return.
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And, too, the selfsame power might end alike
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All things, were they not still together held
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By matter eternal, shackled through its parts,
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Now more, now less. A touch might be enough
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To cause destruction. For the slightest force
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Would loose the weft of things wherein no part
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Were of imperishable stock. But now
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Because the fastenings of primordial parts
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Are put together diversely and stuff
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Is everlasting, things abide the same
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Unhurt and sure, until some power comes on
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Strong to destroy the warp and woof of each:
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Nothing returns to naught; but all return
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At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.
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Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws
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Down to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then
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Upsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green
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Amid the trees, and trees themselves wax big
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And lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn
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The race of man and all the wild are fed;
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Hence joyful cities thrive with boys and girls;
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And leafy woodlands echo with new birds;
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Hence cattle, fat and drowsy, lay their bulk
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Along the joyous pastures whilst the drops
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Of white ooze trickle from distended bags;
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Hence the young scamper on their weakling joints
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Along the tender herbs, fresh hearts afrisk
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With warm new milk. Thus naught of what so seems
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Perishes utterly, since Nature ever
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Upbuilds one thing from other, suffering naught
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To come to birth but through some other's death.
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. . . . . .
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And now, since I have taught that things cannot
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Be born from nothing, nor the same, when born,
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To nothing be recalled, doubt not my words,
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Because our eyes no primal germs perceive;
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For mark those bodies which, though known to be
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In this our world, are yet invisible:
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The winds infuriate lash our face and frame,
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Unseen, and swamp huge ships and rend the clouds,
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Or, eddying wildly down, bestrew the plains
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With mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops
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With forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they rave
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With uproar shrill and ominous moan. The winds,
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'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping through
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The sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky,
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Vexing and whirling and seizing all amain;
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And forth they flow and pile destruction round,
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Even as the water's soft and supple bulk
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Becoming a river of abounding floods,
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Which a wide downpour from the lofty hills
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Swells with big showers, dashes headlong down
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Fragments of woodland and whole branching trees;
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Nor can the solid bridges bide the shock
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As on the waters whelm: the turbulent stream,
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Strong with a hundred rains, beats round the piers,
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Crashes with havoc, and rolls beneath its waves
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Down-toppled masonry and ponderous stone,
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Hurling away whatever would oppose.
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Even so must move the blasts of all the winds,
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Which, when they spread, like to a mighty flood,
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Hither or thither, drive things on before
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And hurl to ground with still renewed assault,
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Or sometimes in their circling vortex seize
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And bear in cones of whirlwind down the world:
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The winds are sightless bodies and naught else-
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Since both in works and ways they rival well
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The mighty rivers, the visible in form.
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Then too we know the varied smells of things
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Yet never to our nostrils see them come;
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With eyes we view not burning heats, nor cold,
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Nor are we wont men's voices to behold.
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Yet these must be corporeal at the base,
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Since thus they smite the senses: naught there is
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Save body, having property of touch.
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And raiment, hung by surf-beat shore, grows moist,
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The same, spread out before the sun, will dry;
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Yet no one saw how sank the moisture in,
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Nor how by heat off-driven. Thus we know,
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That moisture is dispersed about in bits
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Too small for eyes to see. Another case:
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A ring upon the finger thins away
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Along the under side, with years and suns;
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The drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone;
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The hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastes
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Amid the fields insidiously. We view
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The rock-paved highways worn by many feet;
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And at the gates the brazen statues show
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Their right hands leaner from the frequent touch
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Of wayfarers innumerable who greet.
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We see how wearing-down hath minished these,
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But just what motes depart at any time,
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The envious nature of vision bars our sight.
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Lastly whatever days and nature add
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Little by little, constraining things to grow
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In due proportion, no gaze however keen
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Of these our eyes hath watched and known. No more
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Can we observe what's lost at any time,
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When things wax old with eld and foul decay,
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Or when salt seas eat under beetling crags.
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Thus Nature ever by unseen bodies works.
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But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked
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About by body: there's in things a void-
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Which to have known will serve thee many a turn,
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Nor will not leave thee wandering in doubt,
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Forever searching in the sum of all,
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And losing faith in these pronouncements mine.
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There's place intangible, a void and room.
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For were it not, things could in nowise move;
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Since body's property to block and check
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Would work on all and at an times the same.
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Thus naught could evermore push forth and go,
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Since naught elsewhere would yield a starting place.
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But now through oceans, lands, and heights of heaven,
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By divers causes and in divers modes,
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Before our eyes we mark how much may move,
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Which, finding not a void, would fail deprived
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Of stir and motion; nay, would then have been
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Nowise begot at all, since matter, then,
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Had staid at rest, its parts together crammed.
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Then too, however solid objects seem,
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They yet are formed of matter mixed with void:
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In rocks and caves the watery moisture seeps,
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And beady drops stand out like plenteous tears;
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And food finds way through every frame that lives;
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The trees increase and yield the season's fruit
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Because their food throughout the whole is poured,
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Even from the deepest roots, through trunks and boughs;
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And voices pass the solid walls and fly
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Reverberant through shut doorways of a house;
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And stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.
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Which but for voids for bodies to go through
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'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.
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Again, why see we among objects some
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Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?
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Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be
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As much of body as in lump of lead,
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The two should weigh alike, since body tends
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To load things downward, while the void abides,
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By contrary nature, the imponderable.
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Therefore, an object just as large but lighter
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Declares infallibly its more of void;
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Even as the heavier more of matter shows,
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And how much less of vacant room inside.
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That which we're seeking with sagacious quest
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Exists, infallibly, commixed with things-
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The void, the invisible inane.
1.370
Right here
1.370
I am compelled a question to expound,
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Forestalling something certain folk suppose,
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Lest it avail to lead thee off from truth:
1.370
Waters (they say) before the shining breed
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Of the swift scaly creatures somehow give,
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And straightway open sudden liquid paths,
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Because the fishes leave behind them room
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To which at once the yielding billows stream.
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Thus things among themselves can yet be moved,
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And change their place, however full the Sum-
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Received opinion, wholly false forsooth.
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For where can scaly creatures forward dart,
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Save where the waters give them room? Again,
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Where can the billows yield a way, so long
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As ever the fish are powerless to go?
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Thus either all bodies of motion are deprived,
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Or things contain admixture of a void
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Where each thing gets its start in moving on.
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Lastly, where after impact two broad bodies
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Suddenly spring apart, the air must crowd
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The whole new void between those bodies formed;
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But air, however it stream with hastening gusts,
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Can yet not fill the gap at once- for first
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It makes for one place, ere diffused through all.
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And then, if haply any think this comes,
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When bodies spring apart, because the air
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Somehow condenses, wander they from truth:
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For then a void is formed, where none before;
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And, too, a void is filled which was before.
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Nor can air be condensed in such a wise;
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Nor, granting it could, without a void, I hold,
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It still could not contract upon itself
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And draw its parts together into one.
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Wherefore, despite demur and counter-speech,
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Confess thou must there is a void in things.
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And still I might by many an argument
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Here scrape together credence for my words.
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But for the keen eye these mere footprints serve,
1.370
Whereby thou mayest know the rest thyself.
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As dogs full oft with noses on the ground,
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Find out the silent lairs, though hid in brush,
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Of beasts, the mountain-rangers, when but once
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They scent the certain footsteps of the way,
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Thus thou thyself in themes like these alone
1.370
Can hunt from thought to thought, and keenly wind
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Along even onward to the secret places
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And drag out truth. But, if thou loiter loth
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Or veer, however little, from the point,
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This I can promise, Memmius, for a fact:
1.370
Such copious drafts my singing tongue shall pour
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From the large well-springs of my plenished breast
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That much I dread slow age will steal and coil
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Along our members, and unloose the gates
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Of life within us, ere for thee my verse
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Hath put within thine ears the stores of proofs
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At hand for one soever question broached.
1.418
But, now again to weave the tale begun,
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All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
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Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
1.418
In which they're set, and where they're moved around.
1.418
For common instinct of our race declares
1.418
That body of itself exists: unless
1.418
This primal faith, deep-founded, fail us not,
1.418
Naught will there be whereunto to appeal
1.418
On things occult when seeking aught to prove
1.418
By reasonings of mind. Again, without
1.418
That place and room, which we do call the inane,
1.418
Nowhere could bodies then be set, nor go
1.418
Hither or thither at all- as shown before.
1.418
Besides, there's naught of which thou canst declare
1.418
It lives disjoined from body, shut from void-
1.418
A kind of third in nature. For whatever
1.418
Exists must be a somewhat; and the same,
1.418
If tangible, however fight and slight,
1.418
Will yet increase the count of body's sum,
1.418
With its own augmentation big or small;
1.418
But, if intangible and powerless ever
1.418
To keep a thing from passing through itself
1.418
On any side, 'twill be naught else but that
1.418
Which we do call the empty, the inane.
1.418
Again, whate'er exists, as of itself,
1.418
Must either act or suffer action on it,
1.418
Or else be that wherein things move and be:
1.418
Naught, saving body, acts, is acted on;
1.418
Naught but the inane can furnish room. And thus,
1.418
Beside the inane and bodies, is no third
1.418
Nature amid the number of all things-
1.418
Remainder none to fall at any time
1.418
Under our senses, nor be seized and seen
1.418
By any man through reasonings of mind.
1.418
Name o'er creation with what names thou wilt,
1.418
Thou'lt find but properties of those first twain,
1.418
Or see but accidents those twain produce.
1.418
A property is that which not at all
1.418
Can be disjoined and severed from a thing
1.418
Without a fatal dissolution: such,
1.418
Weight to the rocks, heat to the fire, and flow
1.418
To the wide waters, touch to corporal things,
1.418
Intangibility to the viewless void.
1.418
But state of slavery, pauperhood, and wealth,
1.418
Freedom, and war, and concord, and all else
1.418
Which come and go whilst nature stands the same,
1.418
We're wont, and rightly, to call accidents.
1.418
Even time exists not of itself; but sense
1.418
Reads out of things what happened long ago,
1.418
What presses now, and what shall follow after:
1.418
No man, we must admit, feels time itself,
1.418
Disjoined from motion and repose of things.
1.418
Thus, when they say there "is" the ravishment
1.418
Of Princess Helen, "is" the siege and sack
1.418
Of Trojan Town, look out, they force us not
1.418
To admit these acts existent by themselves,
1.418
Merely because those races of mankind
1.418
(Of whom these acts were accidents) long since
1.418
Irrevocable age has borne away:
1.418
For all past actions may be said to be
1.418
But accidents, in one way, of mankind,-
1.418
In other, of some region of the world.
1.418
Add, too, had been no matter, and no room
1.418
Wherein all things go on, the fire of love
1.418
Upblown by that fair form, the glowing coal
1.418
Under the Phrygian Alexander's breast,
1.418
Had ne'er enkindled that renowned strife
1.418
Of savage war, nor had the wooden horse
1.418
Involved in flames old Pergama, by a birth
1.418
At midnight of a brood of the Hellenes.
1.418
And thus thou canst remark that every act
1.418
At bottom exists not of itself, nor is
1.418
As body is, nor has like name with void;
1.418
But rather of sort more fitly to be called
1.418
An accident of body, and of place
1.418
Wherein all things go on.
1.483
Bodies, again,
1.483
Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
1.483
Unions deriving from the primal germs.
1.483
And those which are the primal germs of things
1.483
No power can quench; for in the end they conquer
1.483
By their own solidness; though hard it be
1.483
To think that aught in things has solid frame;
1.483
For lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout,
1.483
Through hedging walls of houses, and the iron
1.483
White-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burn
1.483
With exhalations fierce and burst asunder.
1.483
Totters the rigid gold dissolved in heat;
1.483
The ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame;
1.483
Warmth and the piercing cold through silver seep,
1.483
Since, with the cups held rightly in the hand,
1.483
We oft feel both, as from above is poured
1.483
The dew of waters between their shining sides:
1.483
So true it is no solid form is found.
1.483
But yet because true reason and nature of things
1.483
Constrain us, come, whilst in few verses now
1.483
I disentangle how there still exist
1.483
Bodies of solid, everlasting frame-
1.483
The seeds of things, the primal germs we teach,
1.483
Whence all creation around us came to be.
1.483
First since we know a twofold nature exists,
1.483
Of things, both twain and utterly unlike-
1.483
Body, and place in which an things go on-
1.483
Then each must be both for and through itself,
1.483
And all unmixed: where'er be empty space,
1.483
There body's not; and so where body bides,
1.483
There not at all exists the void inane.
1.483
Thus primal bodies are solid, without a void.
1.483
But since there's void in all begotten things,
1.483
All solid matter must be round the same;
1.483
Nor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hides
1.483
And holds a void within its body, unless
1.483
Thou grant what holds it be a solid. Know,
1.483
That which can hold a void of things within
1.483
Can be naught else than matter in union knit.
1.483
Thus matter, consisting of a solid frame,
1.483
Hath power to be eternal, though all else,
1.483
Though all creation, be dissolved away.
1.483
Again, were naught of empty and inane,
1.483
The world were then a solid; as, without
1.483
Some certain bodies to fill the places held,
1.483
The world that is were but a vacant void.
1.483
And so, infallibly, alternate-wise
1.483
Body and void are still distinguished,
1.483
Since nature knows no wholly full nor void.
1.483
There are, then, certain bodies, possessed of power
1.483
To vary forever the empty and the full;
1.483
And these can nor be sundered from without
1.483
By beats and blows, nor from within be torn
1.483
By penetration, nor be overthrown
1.483
By any assault soever through the world-
1.483
For without void, naught can be crushed, it seems,
1.483
Nor broken, nor severed by a cut in twain,
1.483
Nor can it take the damp, or seeping cold
1.483
Or piercing fire, those old destroyers three;
1.483
But the more void within a thing, the more
1.483
Entirely it totters at their sure assault.
1.483
Thus if first bodies be, as I have taught,
1.483
Solid, without a void, they must be then
1.483
Eternal; and, if matter ne'er had been
1.483
Eternal, long ere now had all things gone
1.483
Back into nothing utterly, and all
1.483
We see around from nothing had been born-
1.483
But since I taught above that naught can be
1.483
From naught created, nor the once begotten
1.483
To naught be summoned back, these primal germs
1.483
Must have an immortality of frame.
1.483
And into these must each thing be resolved,
1.483
When comes its supreme hour, that thus there be
1.483
At hand the stuff for plenishing the world.
1.483
. . . . . .
1.483
So primal germs have solid singleness
1.483
Nor otherwise could they have been conserved
1.483
Through aeons and infinity of time
1.483
For the replenishment of wasted worlds.
1.483
Once more, if nature had given a scope for things
1.483
To be forever broken more and more,
1.483
By now the bodies of matter would have been
1.483
So far reduced by breakings in old days
1.483
That from them nothing could, at season fixed,
1.483
Be born, and arrive its prime and top of life.
1.483
For, lo, each thing is quicker marred than made;
1.483
And so whate'er the long infinitude
1.483
Of days and all fore-passed time would now
1.483
By this have broken and ruined and dissolved,
1.483
That same could ne'er in all remaining time
1.483
Be builded up for plenishing the world.
1.483
But mark: infallibly a fixed bound
1.483
Remaineth stablished 'gainst their breaking down;
1.483
Since we behold each thing soever renewed,
1.483
And unto all, their seasons, after their kind,
1.483
Wherein they arrive the flower of their age.
1.551
Again, if bounds have not been set against
1.551
The breaking down of this corporeal world,
1.551
Yet must all bodies of whatever things
1.551
Have still endured from everlasting time
1.551
Unto this present, as not yet assailed
1.551
By shocks of peril. But because the same
1.551
Are, to thy thinking, of a nature frail,
1.551
It ill accords that thus they could remain
1.551
(As thus they do) through everlasting time,
1.551
Vexed through the ages (as indeed they are)
1.551
By the innumerable blows of chance.
1.551
So in our programme of creation, mark
1.551
How 'tis that, though the bodies of all stuff
1.551
Are solid to the core, we yet explain
1.551
The ways whereby some things are fashioned soft-
1.551
Air, water, earth, and fiery exhalations-
1.551
And by what force they function and go on:
1.551
The fact is founded in the void of things.
1.551
But if the primal germs themselves be soft,
1.551
Reason cannot be brought to bear to show
1.551
The ways whereby may be created these
1.551
Great crags of basalt and the during iron;
1.551
For their whole nature will profoundly lack
1.551
The first foundations of a solid frame.
1.551
But powerful in old simplicity,
1.551
Abide the solid, the primeval germs;
1.551
And by their combinations more condensed,
1.551
All objects can be tightly knit and bound
1.551
And made to show unconquerable strength.
1.551
Again, since all things kind by kind obtain
1.551
Fixed bounds of growing and conserving life;
1.551
Since Nature hath inviolably decreed
1.551
What each can do, what each can never do;
1.551
Since naught is changed, but all things so abide
1.551
That ever the variegated birds reveal
1.551
The spots or stripes peculiar to their kind,
1.551
Spring after spring: thus surely all that is
1.551
Must be composed of matter immutable.
1.551
For if the primal germs in any wise
1.551
Were open to conquest and to change, 'twould be
1.551
Uncertain also what could come to birth
1.551
And what could not, and by what law to each
1.551
Its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings
1.551
So deep in Time. Nor could the generations
1.551
Kind after kind so often reproduce
1.551
The nature, habits, motions, ways of life,
1.551
Of their progenitors.
1.599
And then again,
1.599
Since there is ever an extreme bounding point
1.599
. . . . . .
1.599
Of that first body which our senses now
1.599
Cannot perceive: That bounding point indeed
1.599
Exists without all parts, a minimum
1.599
Of nature, nor was e'er a thing apart,
1.599
As of itself,- nor shall hereafter be,
1.599
Since 'tis itself still parcel of another,
1.599
A first and single part, whence other parts
1.599
And others similar in order lie
1.599
In a packed phalanx, filling to the full
1.599
The nature of first body: being thus
1.599
Not self-existent, they must cleave to that
1.599
From which in nowise they can sundered be.
1.599
So primal germs have solid singleness,
1.599
Which tightly packed and closely joined cohere
1.599
By virtue of their minim particles-
1.599
No compound by mere union of the same;
1.599
But strong in their eternal singleness,
1.599
Nature, reserving them as seeds for things,
1.599
Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.
1.599
Moreover, were there not a minimum,
1.599
The smallest bodies would have infinites,
1.599
Since then a half-of-half could still be halved,
1.599
With limitless division less and less.
1.599
Then what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?
1.599
None: for however infinite the sum,
1.599
Yet even the smallest would consist the same
1.599
Of infinite parts. But since true reason here
1.599
Protests, denying that the mind can think it,
1.599
Convinced thou must confess such things there are
1.599
As have no parts, the minimums of nature.
1.599
And since these are, likewise confess thou must
1.599
That primal bodies are solid and eterne.
1.599
Again, if Nature, creatress of all things,
1.599
Were wont to force all things to be resolved
1.599
Unto least parts, then would she not avail
1.599
To reproduce from out them anything;
1.599
Because whate'er is not endowed with parts
1.599
Cannot possess those properties required
1.599
Of generative stuff- divers connections,
1.599
Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things
1.599
Forevermore have being and go on.
1.635
And on such grounds it is that those who held
1.635
The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire
1.635
Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen
1.635
Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
1.635
Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes
1.635
That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
1.635
Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
1.635
Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone
1.635
That to bewonder and adore which hides
1.635
Beneath distorted words, holding that true
1.635
Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,
1.635
Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
1.635
For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
1.635
If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit
1.635
'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,
1.635
If all the parts of fire did still preserve
1.635
But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
1.635
The heat were keener with the parts compressed,
1.635
Milder, again, when severed or dispersed-
1.635
And more than this thou canst conceive of naught
1.635
That from such causes could become; much less
1.635
Might earth's variety of things be born
1.635
From any fires soever, dense or rare.
1.635
This too: if they suppose a void in things,
1.635
Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;
1.635
But since they see such opposites of thought
1.635
Rising against them, and are loath to leave
1.635
An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep
1.635
And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,
1.635
That, if from things we take away the void,
1.635
All things are then condensed, and out of all
1.635
One body made, which has no power to dart
1.635
Swiftly from out itself not anything-
1.635
As throws the fire its light and warmth around,
1.635
Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
1.635
But if perhaps they think, in other wise,
1.635
Fires through their combinations can be quenched
1.635
And change their substance, very well: behold,
1.635
If fire shall spare to do so in no part,
1.635
Then heat will perish utterly and all,
1.635
And out of nothing would the world be formed.
1.635
For change in anything from out its bounds
1.635
Means instant death of that which was before;
1.635
And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed
1.635
Amid the world, lest all return to naught,
1.635
And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.
1.635
Now since indeed there are those surest bodies
1.635
Which keep their nature evermore the same,
1.635
Upon whose going out and coming in
1.635
And changed order things their nature change,
1.635
And all corporeal substances transformed,
1.635
'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then,
1.635
Are not of fire. For 'twere of no avail
1.635
Should some depart and go away, and some
1.635
Be added new, and some be changed in order,
1.635
If still all kept their nature of old heat:
1.635
For whatsoever they created then
1.635
Would still in any case be only fire.
1.635
The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are
1.635
Whose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes
1.635
Produce the fire and which, by order changed,
1.635
Do change the nature of the thing produced,
1.635
And are thereafter nothing like to fire
1.635
Nor whatso else has power to send its bodies
1.635
With impact touching on the senses' touch.
1.635
Again, to say that all things are but fire
1.635
And no true thing in number of all things
1.635
Exists but fire, as this same fellow says,
1.635
Seems crazed folly. For the man himself
1.635
Against the senses by the senses fights,
1.635
And hews at that through which is all belief,
1.635
Through which indeed unto himself is known
1.635
The thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinks
1.635
The senses truly can perceive the fire,
1.635
He thinks they cannot as regards all else,
1.635
Which still are palpably as clear to sense-
1.635
To me a thought inept and crazy too.
1.635
For whither shall we make appeal? for what
1.635
More certain than our senses can there be
1.635
Whereby to mark asunder error and truth?
1.635
Besides, why rather do away with all,
1.635
And wish to allow heat only, then deny
1.635
The fire and still allow all else to be?-
1.635
Alike the madness either way it seems.
1.705
Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things
1.705
To be but fire, and out of fire the sum,
1.705
And whosoever have constituted air
1.705
As first beginning of begotten things,
1.705
And all whoever have held that of itself
1.705
Water alone contrives things, or that earth
1.705
Createth all and changes things anew
1.705
To divers natures, mightily they seem
1.705
A long way to have wandered from the truth.
1.705
Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff
1.705
Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth
1.705
To water; add who deem that things can grow
1.705
Out of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain;
1.705
As first Empedocles of Acragas,
1.705
Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands
1.705
Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows
1.705
In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas,
1.705
Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.
1.705
Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits,
1.705
Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores
1.705
Of the Italic mainland. Here the waste
1.705
Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats
1.705
To gather anew such furies of its flames
1.705
As with its force anew to vomit fires,
1.705
Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anew
1.705
Its lightnings' flash. And though for much she seem
1.705
The mighty and the wondrous isle to men,
1.705
Most rich in all good things, and fortified
1.705
With generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'er
1.705
Possessed within her aught of more renown,
1.705
Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear
1.705
Than this true man. Nay, ever so far and pure
1.705
The lofty music of his breast divine
1.705
Lifts up its voice and tells of glories found,
1.705
That scarce he seems of human stock create.
1.705
Yet he and those forementioned (known to be
1.705
So far beneath him, less than he in all),
1.705
Though, as discoverers of much goodly truth,
1.705
They gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine,
1.705
Responses holier and soundlier based
1.705
Than ever the Pythia pronounced for men
1.705
From out the triped and the Delphian laurel,
1.705
Have still in matter of first-elements
1.705
Made ruin of themselves, and, great men, great
1.705
Indeed and heavy there for them the fall:
1.705
First, because, banishing the void from things,
1.705
They yet assign them motion, and allow
1.705
Things soft and loosely textured to exist,
1.705
As air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains,
1.705
Without admixture of void amid their frame.
1.705
Next, because, thinking there can be no end
1.705
In cutting bodies down to less and less
1.705
Nor pause established to their breaking up,
1.705
They hold there is no minimum in things;
1.705
Albeit we see the boundary point of aught
1.705
Is that which to our senses seems its least,
1.705
Whereby thou mayst conjecture, that, because
1.705
The things thou canst not mark have boundary points,
1.705
They surely have their minimums. Then, too,
1.705
Since these philosophers ascribe to things
1.705
Soft primal germs, which we behold to be
1.705
Of birth and body mortal, thus, throughout,
1.705
The sum of things must be returned to naught,
1.705
And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew-
1.705
Thou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.
1.705
And, next, these bodies are among themselves
1.705
In many ways poisons and foes to each,
1.705
Wherefore their congress will destroy them quite
1.705
Or drive asunder as we see in storms
1.705
Rains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.
1.763
Thus too, if all things are create of four,
1.763
And all again dissolved into the four,
1.763
How can the four be called the primal germs
1.763
Of things, more than all things themselves be thought,
1.763
By retroversion, primal germs of them?
1.763
For ever alternately are both begot,
1.763
With interchange of nature and aspect
1.763
From immemorial time. But if percase
1.763
Thou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air,
1.763
The dew of water can in such wise meet
1.763
As not by mingling to resign their nature,
1.763
From them for thee no world can be create-
1.763
No thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree:
1.763
In the wild congress of this varied heap
1.763
Each thing its proper nature will display,
1.763
And air will palpably be seen mixed up
1.763
With earth together, unquenched heat with water.
1.763
But primal germs in bringing things to birth
1.763
Must have a latent, unseen quality,
1.763
Lest some outstanding alien element
1.763
Confuse and minish in the thing create
1.763
Its proper being.
1.763
But these men begin
1.763
From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign
1.763
That fire will turn into the winds of air,
1.763
Next, that from air the rain begotten is,
1.763
And earth created out of rain, and then
1.763
That all, reversely, are returned from earth-
1.763
The moisture first, then air thereafter heat-
1.763
And that these same ne'er cease in interchange,
1.763
To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth
1.763
Unto the stars of the aethereal world-
1.763
Which in no wise at all the germs can do.
1.763
Since an immutable somewhat still must be,
1.763
Lest all things utterly be sped to naught;
1.763
For change in anything from out its bounds
1.763
Means instant death of that which was before.
1.763
Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore,
1.763
Suffer a changed state, they must derive
1.763
From others ever unconvertible,
1.763
Lest an things utterly return to naught.
1.763
Then why not rather presuppose there be
1.763
Bodies with such a nature furnished forth
1.763
That, if perchance they have created fire,
1.763
Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn,
1.763
Or added few, and motion and order changed)
1.763
Fashion the winds of air, and thus all things
1.763
Forevermore be interchanged with all?
1.763
"But facts in proof are manifest," thou sayest,
1.763
"That all things grow into the winds of air
1.763
And forth from earth are nourished, and unless
1.763
The season favour at propitious hour
1.763
With rains enough to set the trees a-reel
1.763
Under the soak of bulking thunderheads,
1.763
And sun, for its share, foster and give heat,
1.763
No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow."
1.763
True- and unless hard food and moisture soft
1.763
Recruited man, his frame would waste away,
1.763
And life dissolve from out his thews and bones;
1.763
For out of doubt recruited and fed are we
1.763
By certain things, as other things by others.
1.763
Because in many ways the many germs
1.763
Common to many things are mixed in things,
1.763
No wonder 'tis that therefore divers things
1.763
By divers things are nourished. And, again,
1.763
Often it matters vastly with what others,
1.763
In what positions the primordial germs
1.763
Are bound together, and what motions, too,
1.763
They give and get among themselves; for these
1.763
Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands,
1.763
Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things,
1.763
But yet commixed they are in divers modes
1.763
With divers things, forever as they move.
1.763
Nay, thou beholdest in our verses here
1.763
Elements many, common to many worlds,
1.763
Albeit thou must confess each verse, each word
1.763
From one another differs both in sense
1.763
And ring of sound- so much the elements
1.763
Can bring about by change of order alone.
1.763
But those which are the primal germs of things
1.763
Have power to work more combinations still,
1.763
Whence divers things can be produced in turn.
1.830
Now let us also take for scrutiny
1.830
The homeomeria of Anaxagoras,
1.830
So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech
1.830
Yieldeth no name in the Italian tongue,
1.830
Although the thing itself is not o'erhard
1.830
For explanation. First, then, when he speaks
1.830
Of this homeomeria of things, he thinks
1.830
Bones to be sprung from littlest bones minute,
1.830
And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh,
1.830
And blood created out of drops of blood,
1.830
Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold,
1.830
And earth concreted out of bits of earth,
1.830
Fire made of fires, and water out of waters,
1.830
Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.
1.830
Yet he concedes not any void in things,
1.830
Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.
1.830
Wherefore to me he seems on both accounts
1.830
To err no less than those we named before.
1.847
Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-
1.847
If they be germs primordial furnished forth
1.847
With but same nature as the things themselves,
1.847
And travail and perish equally with those,
1.847
And no rein curbs them from annihilation.
1.847
For which will last against the grip and crush
1.847
Under the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?
1.847
Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?
1.847
No one, methinks, when every thing will be
1.847
At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark
1.847
To perish by force before our gazing eyes.
1.847
But my appeal is to the proofs above
1.847
That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet
1.847
From naught increase. And now again, since food
1.847
Augments and nourishes the human frame,
1.847
'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones
1.847
And thews are formed of particles unlike
1.847
To them in kind; or if they say all foods
1.847
Are of mixed substance having in themselves
1.847
Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins
1.847
And particles of blood, then every food,
1.847
Solid or liquid, must itself be thought
1.847
As made and mixed of things unlike in kind-
1.847
Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.
1.847
Again, if all the bodies which upgrow
1.847
From earth, are first within the earth, then earth
1.847
Must be compound of alien substances.
1.847
Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.
1.847
Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use
1.847
The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash
1.847
Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood
1.847
Must be compound of alien substances
1.847
Which spring from out the wood.
1.875
Right here remains
1.875
A certain slender means to skulk from truth,
1.875
Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,
1.875
Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all
1.875
While that one only comes to view, of which
1.875
The bodies exceed in number all the rest,
1.875
And lie more close to hand and at the fore-
1.875
A notion banished from true reason far.
1.875
For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains
1.875
Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones,
1.875
Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else
1.875
Which in our human frame is fed; and that
1.875
Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.
1.875
Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops
1.875
Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;
1.875
Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up
1.875
The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,
1.875
All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;
1.875
Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood
1.875
Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.
1.875
But since fact teaches this is not the case,
1.875
'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things
1.875
Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,
1.875
Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
1.875
"But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,
1.875
"That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed
1.875
One against other, smote by the blustering south,
1.875
Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."
1.875
Good sooth- yet fire is not ingraft in wood,
1.875
But many are the seeds of heat, and when
1.875
Rubbing together they together flow,
1.875
They start the conflagrations in the forests.
1.875
Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay
1.875
Stored up within the forests, then the fires
1.875
Could not for any time be kept unseen,
1.875
But would be laying all the wildwood waste
1.875
And burning all the boscage. Now dost see
1.875
(Even as we said a little space above)
1.875
How mightily it matters with what others,
1.875
In what positions these same primal germs
1.875
Are bound together? And what motions, too,
1.875
They give and get among themselves? how, hence,
1.875
The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body
1.875
Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-
1.875
Precisely as these words themselves are made
1.875
By somewhat altering their elements,
1.875
Although we mark with name indeed distinct
1.875
The igneous from the ligneous. Once again,
1.875
If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,
1.875
Among all visible objects, cannot be,
1.875
Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed
1.875
With a like nature,- by thy vain device
1.875
For thee will perish all the germs of things:
1.875
'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,
1.875
Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
1.875
Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
1.921
Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!
1.921
And for myself, my mind is not deceived
1.921
How dark it is: But the large hope of praise
1.921
Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;
1.921
On the same hour hath strook into my breast
1.921
Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,
1.921
I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,
1.921
Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,
1.921
Trodden by step of none before. I joy
1.921
To come on undefiled fountains there,
1.921
To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,
1.921
To seek for this my head a signal crown
1.921
From regions where the Muses never yet
1.921
Have garlanded the temples of a man:
1.921
First, since I teach concerning mighty things,
1.921
And go right on to loose from round the mind
1.921
The tightened coils of dread religion;
1.921
Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame
1.921
Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout
1.921
Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem,
1.921
Is not without a reasonable ground:
1.921
But as physicians, when they seek to give
1.921
Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch
1.921
The brim around the cup with the sweet juice
1.921
And yellow of the honey, in order that
1.921
The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled
1.921
As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down
1.921
The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,
1.921
Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus
1.921
Grow strong again with recreated health:
1.921
So now I too (since this my doctrine seems
1.921
In general somewhat woeful unto those
1.921
Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd
1.921
Starts back from it in horror) have desired
1.921
To expound our doctrine unto thee in song
1.921
Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,
1.921
To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-
1.921
If by such method haply I might hold
1.921
The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,
1.921
Till thou see through the nature of all things,
1.921
And how exists the interwoven frame.
1.951
But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
1.951
Completely solid, hither and thither fly
1.951
Forevermore unconquered through all time,
1.951
Now come, and whether to the sum of them
1.951
There be a limit or be none, for thee
1.951
Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
1.951
To be the wide inane, or room, or space
1.951
Wherein all things soever do go on,
1.951
Let us examine if it finite be
1.951
All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
1.951
And downward an illimitable profound.
1.951
Thus, then, the All that is is limited
1.951
In no one region of its onward paths,
1.951
For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
1.951
And a beyond 'tis seen can never be
1.951
For aught, unless still further on there be
1.951
A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-
1.951
So that the thing be seen still on to where
1.951
The nature of sensation of that thing
1.951
Can follow it no longer. Now because
1.951
Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,
1.951
There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
1.951
It matters nothing where thou post thyself,
1.951
In whatsoever regions of the same;
1.951
Even any place a man has set him down
1.951
Still leaves about him the unbounded all
1.951
Outward in all directions; or, supposing
1.951
A moment the all of space finite to be,
1.951
If some one farthest traveller runs forth
1.951
Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead
1.951
A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think
1.951
It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent
1.951
And shoots afar, or that some object there
1.951
Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other
1.951
Thou must admit and take. Either of which
1.951
Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel
1.951
That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,
1.951
Owning no confines. Since whether there be
1.951
Aught that may block and check it so it comes
1.951
Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,
1.951
Or whether borne along, in either view
1.951
'Thas started not from any end. And so
1.951
I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set
1.951
The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes
1.951
Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass
1.951
That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that
1.951
The chance for further flight prolongs forever
1.951
The flight itself. Besides, were all the space
1.951
Of the totality and sum shut in
1.951
With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,
1.951
Then would the abundance of world's matter flow
1.951
Together by solid weight from everywhere
1.951
Still downward to the bottom of the world,
1.951
Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,
1.951
Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-
1.951
Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,
1.951
By having settled during infinite time.
1.951
But in reality, repose is given
1.951
Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements,
1.951
Because there is no bottom whereunto
1.951
They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where
1.951
They might take up their undisturbed abodes.
1.951
In endless motion everything goes on
1.951
Forevermore; out of all regions, even
1.951
Out of the pit below, from forth the vast,
1.951
Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.
1.1002
The nature of room, the space of the abyss
1.1002
Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts
1.1002
Can neither speed upon their courses through,
1.1002
Gliding across eternal tracts of time,
1.1002
Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,
1.1002
That they may bate their journeying one whit:
1.1002
Such huge abundance spreads for things around-
1.1002
Room off to every quarter, without end.
1.1002
Lastly, before our very eyes is seen
1.1002
Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,
1.1002
And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,
1.1002
And sea in turn all lands; but for the All
1.1002
Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
1.1002
That, too, the sum of things itself may not
1.1002
Have power to fix a measure of its own,
1.1002
Great nature guards, she who compels the void
1.1002
To bound all body, as body all the void,
1.1002
Thus rendering by these alternates the whole
1.1002
An infinite; or else the one or other,
1.1002
Being unbounded by the other, spreads,
1.1002
Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless
1.1002
Immeasurably forth....
1.1002
Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,
1.1002
Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods
1.1002
Could keep their place least portion of an hour:
1.1002
For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,
1.1002
The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne
1.1002
Along the illimitable inane afar,
1.1002
Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined
1.1002
And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,
1.1002
It could not be united. For of truth
1.1002
Neither by counsel did the primal germs
1.1002
'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,
1.1002
Each in its proper place; nor did they make,
1.1002
Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;
1.1002
But since, being many and changed in many modes
1.1002
Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed
1.1002
By blow on blow, even from all time of old,
1.1002
They thus at last, after attempting all
1.1002
The kinds of motion and conjoining, come
1.1002
Into those great arrangements out of which
1.1002
This sum of things established is create,
1.1002
By which, moreover, through the mighty years,
1.1002
It is preserved, when once it has been thrown
1.1002
Into the proper motions, bringing to pass
1.1002
That ever the streams refresh the greedy main
1.1002
With river-waves abounding, and that earth,
1.1002
Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,
1.1002
Renews her broods, and that the lusty race
1.1002
Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that
1.1002
The gliding fires of ether are alive-
1.1002
What still the primal germs nowise could do,
1.1002
Unless from out the infinite of space
1.1002
Could come supply of matter, whence in season
1.1002
They're wont whatever losses to repair.
1.1002
For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,
1.1002
Losing its body, when deprived of food:
1.1002
So all things have to be dissolved as soon
1.1002
As matter, diverted by what means soever
1.1002
From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.
1.1002
Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,
1.1002
On every side, whatever sum of a world
1.1002
Has been united in a whole. They can
1.1002
Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,
1.1002
Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;
1.1002
But meanwhile often are they forced to spring
1.1002
Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,
1.1002
Unto those elements whence a world derives,
1.1002
Room and a time for flight, permitting them
1.1002
To be from off the massy union borne
1.1002
Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:
1.1002
Needs must there come a many for supply;
1.1002
And also, that the blows themselves shall be
1.1002
Unfailing ever, must there ever be
1.1002
An infinite force of matter all sides round.
1.1052
And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
1.1052
From yielding faith to that notorious talk:
1.1052
That all things inward to the centre press;
1.1052
And thus the nature of the world stands firm
1.1052
With never blows from outward, nor can be
1.1052
Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth
1.1052
Have always inward to the centre pressed
1.1052
(If thou art ready to believe that aught
1.1052
Itself can rest upon itself ); or that
1.1052
The ponderous bodies which be under earth
1.1052
Do all press upwards and do come to rest
1.1052
Upon the earth, in some way upside down,
1.1052
Like to those images of things we see
1.1052
At present through the waters. They contend,
1.1052
With like procedure, that all breathing things
1.1052
Head downward roam about, and yet cannot
1.1052
Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,
1.1052
No more than these our bodies wing away
1.1052
Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
1.1052
That, when those creatures look upon the sun,
1.1052
We view the constellations of the night;
1.1052
And that with us the seasons of the sky
1.1052
They thus alternately divide, and thus
1.1052
Do pass the night coequal to our days,
1.1052
But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,
1.1052
Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse
1.1052
For centre none can be where world is still
1.1052
Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,
1.1052
Could aught take there a fixed position more
1.1052
Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
1.1052
For all of room and space we call the void
1.1052
Must both through centre and non-centre yield
1.1052
Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
1.1052
Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,
1.1052
Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
1.1052
Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
1.1052
Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,
1.1052
True to its bent of nature, still give way.
1.1052
Thus in such manner not at all can things
1.1052
Be held in union, as if overcome
1.1052
By craving for a centre.
1.1083
But besides,
1.1083
Seeing they feign that not all bodies press
1.1083
To centre inward, rather only those
1.1083
Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,
1.1083
And the big billows from the mountain slopes,
1.1083
And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,
1.1083
In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach
1.1083
How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,
1.1083
Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,
1.1083
For this all ether quivers with bright stars,
1.1083
And the sun's flame along the blue is fed
1.1083
(Because the heat, from out the centre flying,
1.1083
All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs
1.1083
Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,
1.1083
Unless, little by little, from out the earth
1.1083
For each were nutriment...
1.1083
. . . . . .
1.1083
Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,
1.1083
The ramparts of the world should flee away,
1.1083
Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,
1.1083
And lest all else should likewise follow after,
1.1083
Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst
1.1083
And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith
1.1083
Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,
1.1083
Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,
1.1083
With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,
1.1083
Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,
1.1083
Away forever, and, that instant, naught
1.1083
Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside
1.1083
The desolate space, and germs invisible.
1.1083
For on whatever side thou deemest first
1.1083
The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side
1.1083
Will be for things the very door of death:
1.1083
Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,
1.1083
Out and abroad.
1.1083
These points, if thou wilt ponder,
1.1083
Then, with but paltry trouble led along...
1.1083
. . . . . .
1.1083
For one thing after other will grow clear,
1.1083
Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,
1.1083
To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.
1.1083
Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.