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Original / primary: Perseus Eng1
2.1
'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
2.1
Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
2.1
To watch another's labouring anguish far,
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Not that we joyously delight that man
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Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
2.1
To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;
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'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife
2.1
Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,
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Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught
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There is more goodly than to hold the high
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Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,
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Whence thou may'st look below on other men
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And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed
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In their lone seeking for the road of life;
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Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
2.1
Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil
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For summits of power and mastery of the world.
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O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!
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In how great perils, in what darks of life
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Are spent the human years, however brief!-
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O not to see that nature for herself
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Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,
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Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy
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Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!
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Therefore we see that our corporeal life
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Needs little, altogether, and only such
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As takes the pain away, and can besides
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Strew underneath some number of delights.
2.1
More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves
2.1
No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
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There be no golden images of boys
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Along the halls, with right hands holding out
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The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,
2.1
And if the house doth glitter not with gold
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Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound
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No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
2.1
Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
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Beside a river of water, underneath
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A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh
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Our frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
2.1
If the weather is laughing and the times of the year
2.1
Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.
2.1
Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,
2.1
If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,
2.1
Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie
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Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since
2.1
Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign
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Avail us naught for this our body, thus
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Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:
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Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth
2.1
Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,
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Rousing a mimic warfare- either side
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Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,
2.1
Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;
2.1
Or save when also thou beholdest forth
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Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:
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For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,
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Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then
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The fears of death leave heart so free of care.
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But if we note how all this pomp at last
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Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,
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And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,
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Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords
2.1
But among kings and lords of all the world
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Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed
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By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright
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Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this
2.1
Is aught, but power of thinking?- when, besides
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The whole of life but labours in the dark.
2.1
For just as children tremble and fear all
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In the viewless dark, so even we at times
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Dread in the light so many things that be
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No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
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Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
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This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
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Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
2.1
Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
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But only nature's aspect and her law.
2.62
Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
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Now by what motions the begetting bodies
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Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
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And then forever resolve it when begot,
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And by what force they are constrained to this,
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And what the speed appointed unto them
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Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:
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Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.
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For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,
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Since we behold each thing to wane away,
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And we observe how all flows on and off,
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As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes
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How eld withdraws each object at the end,
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Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,
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Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing
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Diminish what they part from, but endow
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With increase those to which in turn they come,
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Constraining these to wither in old age,
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And those to flower at the prime (and yet
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Biding not long among them). Thus the sum
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Forever is replenished, and we live
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As mortals by eternal give and take.
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The nations wax, the nations wane away;
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In a brief space the generations pass,
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And like to runners hand the lamp of life
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One unto other.
2.80
But if thou believe
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That the primordial germs of things can stop,
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And in their stopping give new motions birth,
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Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.
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For since they wander through the void inane,
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All the primordial germs of things must needs
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Be borne along, either by weight their own,
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Or haply by another's blow without.
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For, when, in their incessancy so oft
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They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain
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They leap asunder, face to face: not strange-
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Being most hard, and solid in their weights,
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And naught opposing motion, from behind.
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And that more clearly thou perceive how all
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These mites of matter are darted round about,
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Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum
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Of All exists a bottom,- nowhere is
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A realm of rest for primal bodies; since
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(As amply shown and proved by reason sure)
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Space has no bound nor measure, and extends
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Unmetered forth in all directions round.
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Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt
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No rest is rendered to the primal bodies
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Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,
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Inveterately plied by motions mixed,
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Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave
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Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow
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Are hurried about with spaces small between.
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And all which, brought together with slight gaps,
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In more condensed union bound aback,
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Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-
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These form the irrefragable roots of rocks
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And the brute bulks of iron, and what else
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Is of their kind...
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The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,
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Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply
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For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.
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And many besides wander the mighty void-
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Cast back from unions of existing things,
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Nowhere accepted in the universe,
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And nowise linked in motions to the rest.
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And of this fact (as I record it here)
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An image, a type goes on before our eyes
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Present each moment; for behold whenever
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The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down
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Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see
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The many mites in many a manner mixed
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Amid a void in the very light of the rays,
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And battling on, as in eternal strife,
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And in battalions contending without halt,
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In meetings, partings, harried up and down.
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From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort
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The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds
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Amid the mightier void- at least so far
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As small affair can for a vaster serve,
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And by example put thee on the spoor
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Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit
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Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies
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Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:
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Namely, because such tumblings are a sign
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That motions also of the primal stuff
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Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.
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For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled
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By viewless blows, to change its little course,
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And beaten backwards to return again,
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Hither and thither in all directions round.
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Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,
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From the primeval atoms; for the same
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Primordial seeds of things first move of self,
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And then those bodies built of unions small
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And nearest, as it were, unto the powers
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Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up
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By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,
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And these thereafter goad the next in size:
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Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,
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And stage by stage emerges to our sense,
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Until those objects also move which we
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Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears
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What blows do urge them.
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Now what the speed to matter's atoms given
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Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:
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When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light
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The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad
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Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes
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Filling the regions along the mellow air,
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We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man
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How suddenly the risen sun is wont
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At such an hour to overspread and clothe
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The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's
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Warm exhalations and this serene light
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Travel not down an empty void; and thus
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They are compelled more slowly to advance,
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Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;
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Nor one by one travel these particles
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Of the warm exhalations, but are all
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Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once
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Each is restrained by each, and from without
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Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.
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But the primordial atoms with their old
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Simple solidity, when forth they travel
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Along the empty void, all undelayed
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By aught outside them there, and they, each one
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Being one unit from nature of its parts,
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Are borne to that one place on which they strive
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Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,
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Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne
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Than light of sun, and over regions rush,
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Of space much vaster, in the self-same time
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The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.
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. . . . . .
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Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,
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To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
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But some men, ignorant of matter, think,
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Opposing this, that not without the gods,
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In such adjustment to our human ways,
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Can nature change the seasons of the years,
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And bring to birth the grains and all of else
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To which divine Delight, the guide of life,
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Persuades mortality and leads it on,
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That, through her artful blandishments of love,
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It propagate the generations still,
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Lest humankind should perish. When they feign
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That gods have stablished all things but for man,
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They seem in all ways mightily to lapse
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From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew
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What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare
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This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based
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Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-
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This to maintain by many a fact besides-
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That in no wise the nature of the world
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For us was builded by a power divine-
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So great the faults it stands encumbered with:
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The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee
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We will clear up. Now as to what remains
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Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.
2.184
Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs
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To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal
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Of its own force can e'er be upward borne,
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Or upward go- nor let the bodies of flames
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Deceive thee here: for they engendered are
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With urge to upwards, taking thus increase,
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Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,
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Though all the weight within them downward bears.
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Nor, when the fires will leap from under round
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The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up
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Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed
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They act of own accord, no force beneath
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To urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged
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From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft
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And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked
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With what a force the water will disgorge
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Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,
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We push them in, and, many though we be,
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The more we press with main and toil, the more
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The water vomits up and flings them back,
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That, more than half their length, they there emerge,
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Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,
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That all the weight within them downward bears
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Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames
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Ought also to be able, when pressed out,
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Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though
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The weight within them strive to draw them down.
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Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,
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The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,
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How after them they draw long trails of flame
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Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?
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How stars and constellations drop to earth,
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Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven
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Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,
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And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:
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Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.
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Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;
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Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,
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The fires dash zig-zag- and that flaming power
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Falls likewise down to earth.
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In these affairs
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We wish thee also well aware of this:
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The atoms, as their own weight bears them down
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Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,
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In scarce determined places, from their course
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Decline a little- call it, so to speak,
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Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont
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Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,
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Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;
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And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows
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Among the primal elements; and thus
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Nature would never have created aught.
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But, if perchance be any that believe
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The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne
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Plumb down the void, are able from above
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To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows
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Able to cause those procreant motions, far
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From highways of true reason they retire.
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For whatsoever through the waters fall,
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Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,
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Each after its weight- on this account, because
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Both bulk of water and the subtle air
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By no means can retard each thing alike,
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But give more quick before the heavier weight;
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But contrariwise the empty void cannot,
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On any side, at any time, to aught
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Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,
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True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,
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With equal speed, though equal not in weight,
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Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.
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Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above
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Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes
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Which cause those divers motions, by whose means
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Nature transacts her work. And so I say,
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The atoms must a little swerve at times-
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But only the least, lest we should seem to feign
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Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.
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For this we see forthwith is manifest:
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Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,
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Down on its headlong journey from above,
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At least so far as thou canst mark; but who
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Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve
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At all aside from off its road's straight line?
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Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,
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And from the old ever arise the new
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In fixed order, and primordial seeds
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Produce not by their swerving some new start
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Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,
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That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,
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Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,
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Whence is it wrested from the fates,- this will
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Whereby we step right forward where desire
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Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve
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In motions, not as at some fixed time,
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Nor at some fixed line of space, but where
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The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt
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In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself
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That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs
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Incipient motions are diffused. Again,
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Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,
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The bars are opened, how the eager strength
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Of horses cannot forward break as soon
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As pants their mind to do? For it behooves
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That all the stock of matter, through the frame,
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Be roused, in order that, through every joint,
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Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;
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So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered
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From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds
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First from the spirit's will, whence at the last
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'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.
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Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,
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Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers
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And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough
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All matter of our total body goes,
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Hurried along, against our own desire-
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Until the will has pulled upon the reins
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And checked it back, throughout our members all;
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At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes
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The stock of matter's forced to change its path,
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Throughout our members and throughout our joints,
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And, after being forward cast, to be
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Reined up, whereat it settles back again.
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So seest thou not, how, though external force
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Drive men before, and often make them move,
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Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,
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Yet is there something in these breasts of ours
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Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?-
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Wherefore no less within the primal seeds
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Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,
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Some other cause of motion, whence derives
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This power in us inborn, of some free act.-
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Since naught from nothing can become, we see.
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For weight prevents all things should come to pass
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Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;
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But that man's mind itself in all it does
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Hath not a fixed necessity within,
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Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled
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To bear and suffer,- this state comes to man
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From that slight swervement of the elements
2.216
In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.
2.294
Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,
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Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:
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For naught gives increase and naught takes away;
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On which account, just as they move to-day,
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The elemental bodies moved of old
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And shall the same hereafter evermore.
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And what was wont to be begot of old
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Shall be begotten under selfsame terms
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And grow and thrive in power, so far as given
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To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.
2.294
The sum of things there is no power can change,
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For naught exists outside, to which can flee
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Out of the world matter of any kind,
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Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,
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Break in upon the founded world, and change
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Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.
2.308
Herein wonder not
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How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all
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Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand
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Supremely still, except in cases where
2.308
A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.
2.308
For far beneath the ken of senses lies
2.308
The nature of those ultimates of the world;
2.308
And so, since those themselves thou canst not see,
2.308
Their motion also must they veil from men-
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For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft
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Yet hide their motions, when afar from us
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Along the distant landscape. Often thus,
2.308
Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks
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Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about
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Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed
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With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,
2.308
Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:
2.308
Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-
2.308
A glint of white at rest on a green hill.
2.308
Again, when mighty legions, marching round,
2.308
Fill all the quarters of the plains below,
2.308
Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen
2.308
Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about
2.308
Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound
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Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,
2.308
And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send
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The voices onward to the stars of heaven,
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And hither and thither darts the cavalry,
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And of a sudden down the midmost fields
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Charges with onset stout enough to rock
2.308
The solid earth: and yet some post there is
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Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem
2.308
To stand- a gleam at rest along the plains.
2.333
Now come, and next hereafter apprehend
2.333
What sorts, how vastly different in form,
2.333
How varied in multitudinous shapes they are-
2.333
These old beginnings of the universe;
2.333
Not in the sense that only few are furnished
2.333
With one like form, but rather not at all
2.333
In general have they likeness each with each,
2.333
No marvel: since the stock of them's so great
2.333
That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,
2.333
They must indeed not one and all be marked
2.333
By equal outline and by shape the same.
2.333
. . . . . .
2.333
Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks
2.333
Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,
2.333
And joyous herds around, and all the wild,
2.333
And all the breeds of birds- both those that teem
2.333
In gladsome regions of the water-haunts,
2.333
About the river-banks and springs and pools,
2.333
And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,
2.333
Through trackless woods- Go, take which one thou wilt,
2.333
In any kind: thou wilt discover still
2.333
Each from the other still unlike in shape.
2.333
Nor in no other wise could offspring know
2.333
Mother, nor mother offspring- which we see
2.333
They yet can do, distinguished one from other,
2.333
No less than human beings, by clear signs.
2.333
Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,
2.333
Beside the incense-burning altars slain,
2.333
Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast
2.333
Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,
2.333
Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,
2.333
Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,
2.333
With eyes regarding every spot about,
2.333
For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;
2.333
And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes
2.333
With her complaints; and oft she seeks again
2.333
Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.
2.333
Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,
2.333
Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,
2.333
Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;
2.333
Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby
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Distract her mind or lighten pain the least-
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So keen her search for something known and hers.
2.333
Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats
2.333
Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs
2.333
The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,
2.333
Unfailingly each to its proper teat,
2.333
As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,
2.333
Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind
2.333
Is so far like another, that there still
2.333
Is not in shapes some difference running through.
2.333
By a like law we see how earth is pied
2.333
With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea
2.333
Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.
2.333
Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things
2.333
Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands
2.333
After a fixed pattern of one other,
2.333
They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes
2.333
In types dissimilar to one another.
2.381
. . . . . .
2.381
Easy enough by thought of mind to solve
2.381
Why fires of lightning more can penetrate
2.381
Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.
2.381
For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,
2.381
So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,
2.381
And passes thus through holes which this our fire,
2.381
Born from the wood, created from the pine,
2.381
Cannot. Again, light passes through the horn
2.381
On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.
2.381
And why?- unless those bodies of light should be
2.381
Finer than those of water's genial showers.
2.381
We see how quickly through a colander
2.381
The wines will flow; how, on the other hand,
2.381
The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,
2.381
Because 'tis wrought of elements more large,
2.381
Or else more crook'd and intertangled. Thus
2.381
It comes that the primordials cannot be
2.381
So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,
2.381
One through each several hole of anything.
2.398
And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk
2.398
Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,
2.398
Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,
2.398
With their foul flavour set the lips awry;
2.398
Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever
2.398
Can touch the senses pleasingly are made
2.398
Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those
2.398
Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held
2.398
Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so
2.398
Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,
2.398
And rend our body as they enter in.
2.398
In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,
2.398
Being up-built of figures so unlike,
2.398
Are mutually at strife- lest thou suppose
2.398
That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw
2.398
Consists of elements as smooth as song
2.398
Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings
2.398
The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose
2.398
That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce
2.398
When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage
2.398
Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,
2.398
And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;
2.398
Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues
2.398
Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting
2.398
Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,
2.398
Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.
2.398
For never a shape which charms our sense was made
2.398
Without some elemental smoothness; whilst
2.398
Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed
2.398
Still with some roughness in its elements.
2.398
Some, too, there are which justly are supposed
2.398
To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,
2.398
With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,
2.398
To tickle rather than to wound the sense-
2.398
And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine
2.398
And flavours of the gummed elecampane.
2.398
Again, that glowing fire and icy rime
2.398
Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting
2.398
Our body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.
2.398
For touch- by sacred majesties of Gods!-
2.398
Touch is indeed the body's only sense-
2.398
Be't that something in-from-outward works,
2.398
Be't that something in the body born
2.398
Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out
2.398
Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;
2.398
Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl
2.398
Disordered in the body and confound
2.398
By tumult and confusion all the sense-
2.398
As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand
2.398
Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.
2.398
On which account, the elemental forms
2.398
Must differ widely, as enabled thus
2.398
To cause diverse sensations.
2.398
And, again,
2.398
What seems to us the hardened and condensed
2.398
Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked,
2.398
Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere
2.398
By branch-like atoms- of which sort the chief
2.398
Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows,
2.398
And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,
2.398
And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,
2.398
Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formed
2.398
Of fluid body, they indeed must be
2.398
Of elements more smooth and round- because
2.398
Their globules severally will not cohere:
2.398
To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand
2.398
Is quite as easy as drinking water down,
2.398
And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.
2.398
But that thou seest among the things that flow
2.398
Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is,
2.398
Is not the least a marvel...
2.398
For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are
2.398
And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;
2.398
Yet need not these be held together hooked:
2.398
In fact, though rough, they're globular besides,
2.398
Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.
2.398
And that the more thou mayst believe me here,
2.398
That with smooth elements are mixed the rough
2.398
(Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes),
2.398
There is a means to separate the twain,
2.398
And thereupon dividedly to see
2.398
How the sweet water, after filtering through
2.398
So often underground, flows freshened forth
2.398
Into some hollow; for it leaves above
2.398
The primal germs of nauseating brine,
2.398
Since cling the rough more readily in earth.
2.398
Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse
2.398
Upon the instant- smoke, and cloud, and flame-
2.398
Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)
2.398
Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,
2.398
That thus they can, without together cleaving,
2.398
So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.
2.398
Whatever we see...
2.398
Given to senses, that thou must perceive
2.398
They're not from linked but pointed elements.
2.478
The which now having taught, I will go on
2.478
To bind thereto a fact to this allied
2.478
And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs
2.478
Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.
2.478
For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds
2.478
Would have a body of infinite increase.
2.478
For in one seed, in one small frame of any,
2.478
The shapes can't vary from one another much.
2.478
Assume, we'll say, that of three minim parts
2.478
Consist the primal bodies, or add a few:
2.478
When, now, by placing all these parts of one
2.478
At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,
2.478
Thou hast with every kind of shift found out
2.478
What the aspect of shape of its whole body
2.478
Each new arrangement gives, for what remains,
2.478
If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,
2.478
New parts must then be added; follows next,
2.478
If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,
2.478
That by like logic each arrangement still
2.478
Requires its increment of other parts.
2.478
Ergo, an augmentation of its frame
2.478
Follows upon each novelty of forms.
2.478
Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake
2.478
That seeds have infinite differences in form,
2.478
Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be
2.478
Of an immeasurable immensity-
2.478
Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
2.478
. . . . . .
2.478
And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam
2.478
Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye
2.478
Of the Thessalian shell...
2.478
The peacock's golden generations, stained
2.478
With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown
2.478
By some new colour of new things more bright;
2.478
The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;
2.478
The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,
2.478
Once modulated on the many chords,
2.478
Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:
2.478
For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,
2.478
Would be arising evermore. So, too,
2.478
Into some baser part might all retire,
2.478
Even as we said to better might they come:
2.478
For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest
2.478
To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,
2.478
Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.
2.478
Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given
2.478
Their fixed limitations which do bound
2.478
Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed
2.478
That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes
2.478
Does differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats
2.478
Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year
2.478
The forward path is fixed, and by like law
2.478
O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.
2.478
For each degree of hot, and each of cold,
2.478
And the half-warm, all filling up the sum
2.478
In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there
2.478
Betwixt the two extremes: the things create
2.478
Must differ, therefore, by a finite change,
2.478
Since at each end marked off they ever are
2.478
By fixed point- on one side plagued by flames
2.478
And on the other by congealing frosts.
2.522
The which now having taught, I will go on
2.522
To bind thereto a fact to this allied
2.522
And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs
2.522
Which have been fashioned all of one like shape
2.522
Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms
2.522
Themselves are finite in divergences,
2.522
Then those which are alike will have to be
2.522
Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains
2.522
A finite- what I've proved is not the fact,
2.522
Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,
2.522
From everlasting and to-day the same,
2.522
Uphold the sum of things, all sides around
2.522
By old succession of unending blows.
2.522
For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare,
2.522
And mark'st in them a less prolific stock,
2.522
Yet in another region, in lands remote,
2.522
That kind abounding may make up the count;
2.522
Even as we mark among the four-foot kind
2.522
Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall
2.522
With ivory ramparts India about,
2.522
That her interiors cannot entered be-
2.522
So big her count of brutes of which we see
2.522
Such few examples. Or suppose, besides,
2.522
We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole
2.522
With body born, to which is nothing like
2.522
In all the lands: yet now unless shall be
2.522
An infinite count of matter out of which
2.522
Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life,
2.522
It cannot be created and- what's more-
2.522
It cannot take its food and get increase.
2.522
Yea, if through all the world in finite tale
2.522
Be tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,
2.522
Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,
2.522
Shall they to meeting come together there,
2.522
In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-
2.522
No means they have of joining into one.
2.522
But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,
2.522
The mighty main is wont to scatter wide
2.522
The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,
2.522
The masts and swimming oars, so that afar
2.522
Along all shores of lands are seen afloat
2.522
The carven fragments of the rended poop,
2.522
Giving a lesson to mortality
2.522
To shun the ambush of the faithless main,
2.522
The violence and the guile, and trust it not
2.522
At any hour, however much may smile
2.522
The crafty enticements of the placid deep:
2.522
Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true
2.522
That certain seeds are finite in their tale,
2.522
The various tides of matter, then, must needs
2.522
Scatter them flung throughout the ages all,
2.522
So that not ever can they join, as driven
2.522
Together into union, nor remain
2.522
In union, nor with increment can grow-
2.522
But facts in proof are manifest for each:
2.522
Things can be both begotten and increase.
2.522
'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,
2.522
Are infinite in any class thou wilt-
2.522
From whence is furnished matter for all things.
2.522
Nor can those motions that bring death prevail
2.522
Forever, nor eternally entomb
2.522
The welfare of the world; nor, further, can
2.522
Those motions that give birth to things and growth
2.522
Keep them forever when created there.
2.522
Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,
2.522
With equal strife among the elements
2.522
Goes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail
2.522
The vital forces of the world- or fall.
2.522
Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail
2.522
Of infants coming to the shores of light:
2.522
No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed
2.522
That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,
2.522
The wild laments, companions old of death
2.522
And the black rites.
2.581
This, too, in these affairs
2.581
'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned
2.581
With no forgetting brain: nothing there is
2.581
Whose nature is apparent out of hand
2.581
That of one kind of elements consists-
2.581
Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.
2.581
And whatsoe'er possesses in itself
2.581
More largely many powers and properties
2.581
Shows thus that here within itself there are
2.581
The largest number of kinds and differing shapes
2.581
Of elements. And, chief of all, the earth
2.581
Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs,
2.581
Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore
2.581
The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-
2.581
For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,
2.581
Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed
2.581
From more profounder fires- and she, again,
2.581
Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise
2.581
The shining grains and gladsome trees for men;
2.581
Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures
2.581
Can she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.
2.581
Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,
2.581
And parent of man hath she alone been named.
2.581
Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece
2.581
. . . . . .
2.581
Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air
2.581
To drive her team of lions, teaching thus
2.581
That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie
2.581
Resting on other earth. Unto her car
2.581
They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,
2.581
However savage, must be tamed and chid
2.581
By care of parents. They have girt about
2.581
With turret-crown the summit of her head,
2.581
Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,
2.581
'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned
2.581
With that same token, to-day is carried forth,
2.581
With solemn awe through many a mighty land,
2.581
The image of that mother, the divine.
2.581
Her the wide nations, after antique rite,
2.581
Do name Idaean Mother, giving her
2.581
Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,
2.581
From out those regions 'twas that grain began
2.581
Through all the world. To her do they assign
2.581
The Galli, the emasculate, since thus
2.581
They wish to show that men who violate
2.581
The majesty of the mother and have proved
2.581
Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged
2.581
Unfit to give unto the shores of light
2.581
A living progeny. The Galli come:
2.581
And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines
2.581
Resound around to bangings of their hands;
2.581
The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;
2.581
The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds
2.581
In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,
2.581
Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power
2.581
The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts
2.581
To panic with terror of the goddess' might.
2.581
And so, when through the mighty cities borne,
2.581
She blesses man with salutations mute,
2.581
They strew the highway of her journeyings
2.581
With coin of brass and silver, gifting her
2.581
With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade
2.581
With flowers of roses falling like the snow
2.581
Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.
2.581
Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks
2.581
Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since
2.581
Haply among themselves they use to play
2.581
In games of arms and leap in measure round
2.581
With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake
2.581
The terrorizing crests upon their heads,
2.581
This is the armed troop that represents
2.581
The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,
2.581
As runs the story, whilom did out-drown
2.581
That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,
2.581
Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,
2.581
To measured step beat with the brass on brass,
2.581
That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,
2.581
And give its mother an eternal wound
2.581
Along her heart. And 'tis on this account
2.581
That armed they escort the mighty Mother,
2.581
Or else because they signify by this
2.581
That she, the goddess, teaches men to be
2.581
Eager with armed valour to defend
2.581
Their motherland, and ready to stand forth,
2.581
The guard and glory of their parents' years.
2.581
A tale, however beautifully wrought,
2.581
That's wide of reason by a long remove:
2.581
For all the gods must of themselves enjoy
2.581
Immortal aeons and supreme repose,
2.581
Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:
2.581
Immune from peril and immune from pain,
2.581
Themselves abounding in riches of their own,
2.581
Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath
2.581
They are not taken by service or by gift.
2.581
Truly is earth insensate for all time;
2.581
But, by obtaining germs of many things,
2.581
In many a way she brings the many forth
2.581
Into the light of sun. And here, whoso
2.581
Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or
2.581
The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse
2.581
The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce
2.581
The liquor's proper designation, him
2.581
Let us permit to go on calling earth
2.581
Mother of Gods, if only he will spare
2.581
To taint his soul with foul religion.
2.660
So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,
2.660
And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing
2.660
Often together along one grassy plain,
2.660
Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking
2.660
From out one stream of water each its thirst,
2.660
All live their lives with face and form unlike,
2.660
Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits,
2.660
Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.
2.660
So great in any sort of herb thou wilt,
2.660
So great again in any river of earth
2.660
Are the distinct diversities of matter.
2.660
Hence, further, every creature- any one
2.660
From out them all- compounded is the same
2.660
Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews-
2.660
All differing vastly in their forms, and built
2.660
Of elements dissimilar in shape.
2.660
Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze,
2.660
Within their frame lay up, if naught besides,
2.660
At least those atoms whence derives their power
2.660
To throw forth fire and send out light from under,
2.660
To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.
2.660
If, with like reasoning of mind, all else
2.660
Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus
2.660
That in their frame the seeds of many things
2.660
They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.
2.660
Further, thou markest much, to which are given
2.660
Along together colour and flavour and smell,
2.660
Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.
2.660
. . . . . .
2.660
Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.
2.660
A smell of scorching enters in our frame
2.660
Where the bright colour from the dye goes not;
2.660
And colour in one way, flavour in quite another
2.660
Works inward to our senses- so mayst see
2.660
They differ too in elemental shapes.
2.660
Thus unlike forms into one mass combine,
2.660
And things exist by intermixed seed.
2.660
But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways
2.660
All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view
2.660
Portents begot about thee every side:
2.660
Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up,
2.660
At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk,
2.660
Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,
2.660
And nature along the all-producing earth
2.660
Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame
2.660
From hideous jaws- Of which 'tis simple fact
2.660
That none have been begot; because we see
2.660
All are from fixed seed and fixed dam
2.660
Engendered and so function as to keep
2.660
Throughout their growth their own ancestral type.
2.660
This happens surely by a fixed law:
2.660
For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,
2.660
Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature,
2.660
Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,
2.660
Produce the proper motions; but we see
2.660
How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground
2.660
Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many
2.660
With viewless bodies from their bodies fly,
2.660
By blows impelled- those impotent to join
2.660
To any part, or, when inside, to accord
2.660
And to take on the vital motions there.
2.660
But think not, haply, living forms alone
2.660
Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.
2.660
. . . . . .
2.660
For just as all things of creation are,
2.660
In their whole nature, each to each unlike,
2.660
So must their atoms be in shape unlike-
2.660
Not since few only are fashioned of like form,
2.660
But since they all, as general rule, are not
2.660
The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,
2.660
Elements many, common to many words,
2.660
Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess
2.660
The words and verses differ, each from each,
2.660
Compounded out of different elements-
2.660
Not since few only, as common letters, run
2.660
Through all the words, or no two words are made,
2.660
One and the other, from all like elements,
2.660
But since they all, as general rule, are not
2.660
The same as all. Thus, too, in other things,
2.660
Whilst many germs common to many things
2.660
There are, yet they, combined among themselves,
2.660
Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.
2.660
Thus fairly one may say that humankind,
2.660
The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up
2.660
Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds
2.660
Are different, difference must there also be
2.660
In intervening spaces, thoroughfares,
2.660
Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all
2.660
Which not alone distinguish living forms,
2.660
But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands,
2.660
And hold all heaven from the lands away.
2.730
Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought
2.730
Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess
2.730
That the white objects shining to thine eyes
2.730
Are gendered of white atoms, or the black
2.730
Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught
2.730
That's steeped in any hue should take its dye
2.730
From bits of matter tinct with hue the same.
2.730
For matter's bodies own no hue the least-
2.730
Or like to objects or, again, unlike.
2.730
But, if percase it seem to thee that mind
2.730
Itself can dart no influence of its own
2.730
Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.
2.730
For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed
2.730
The light of sun, yet recognise by touch
2.730
Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,
2.730
'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought
2.730
No less unto the ken of our minds too,
2.730
Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.
2.730
Again, ourselves whatever in the dark
2.730
We touch, the same we do not find to be
2.730
Tinctured with any colour.
2.730
Now that here
2.730
I win the argument, I next will teach
2.730
. . . . . .
2.730
Now, every colour changes, none except,
2.730
And every...
2.730
Which the primordials ought nowise to do.
2.730
Since an immutable somewhat must remain,
2.730
Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.
2.730
For change of anything from out its bounds
2.730
Means instant death of that which was before.
2.730
Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour
2.730
The seeds of things, lest things return for thee
2.730
All utterly to naught.
2.730
But now, if seeds
2.730
Receive no property of colour, and yet
2.730
Be still endowed with variable forms
2.730
From which all kinds of colours they beget
2.730
And vary (by reason that ever it matters much
2.730
With what seeds, and in what positions joined,
2.730
And what the motions that they give and get),
2.730
Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise
2.730
Why what was black of hue an hour ago
2.730
Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,-
2.730
As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved
2.730
Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves
2.730
Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,
2.730
That, when the thing we often see as black
2.730
Is in its matter then commixed anew,
2.730
Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,
2.730
And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn
2.730
Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds
2.730
Consist the level waters of the deep,
2.730
They could in nowise whiten: for however
2.730
Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never
2.730
Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds-
2.730
Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen-
2.730
Be now with one hue, now another dyed,
2.730
As oft from alien forms and divers shapes
2.730
A cube's produced all uniform in shape,
2.730
'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube
2.730
We see the forms to be dissimilar,
2.730
That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep
2.730
(Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)
2.730
Colours diverse and all dissimilar.
2.730
Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least
2.730
The whole in being externally a cube;
2.730
But differing hues of things do block and keep
2.730
The whole from being of one resultant hue.
2.730
Then, too, the reason which entices us
2.730
At times to attribute colours to the seeds
2.730
Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not
2.730
Create from white things, nor are black from black,
2.730
But evermore they are create from things
2.730
Of divers colours. Verily, the white
2.730
Will rise more readily, is sooner born
2.730
Out of no colour, than of black or aught
2.730
Which stands in hostile opposition thus.
2.795
Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,
2.795
And the primordials come not forth to light,
2.795
'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour-
2.795
Truly, what kind of colour could there be
2.795
In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself
2.795
A colour changes, gleaming variedly,
2.795
When smote by vertical or slanting ray.
2.795
Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves
2.795
That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:
2.795
Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,
2.795
Now, by a strange sensation it becomes
2.795
Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.
2.795
The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,
2.795
Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.
2.795
Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,
2.795
Without such blow these colours can't become.
2.795
And since the pupil of the eye receives
2.795
Within itself one kind of blow, when said
2.795
To feel a white hue, then another kind,
2.795
When feeling a black or any other hue,
2.795
And since it matters nothing with what hue
2.795
The things thou touchest be perchance endowed,
2.795
But rather with what sort of shape equipped,
2.795
'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,
2.795
But render forth sensations, as of touch,
2.795
That vary with their varied forms.
2.817
Besides,
2.817
Since special shapes have not a special colour,
2.817
And all formations of the primal germs
2.817
Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,
2.817
Are not those objects which are of them made
2.817
Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?
2.817
For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly,
2.817
Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen,
2.817
Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be
2.817
Of any single varied dye thou wilt.
2.817
Again, the more an object's rent to bits,
2.817
The more thou see its colour fade away
2.817
Little by little till 'tis quite extinct;
2.817
As happens when the gaudy linen's picked
2.817
Shred after shred away: the purple there,
2.817
Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,
2.817
Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;
2.817
Hence canst perceive the fragments die away
2.817
From out their colour, long ere they depart
2.817
Back to the old primordials of things.
2.817
And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies
2.817
Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus
2.817
That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.
2.817
So, too, since we behold not all with eyes,
2.817
'Tis thine to know some things there are as much
2.817
Orphaned of colour, as others without smell,
2.817
And reft of sound; and those the mind alert
2.817
No less can apprehend than it can mark
2.817
The things that lack some other qualities.
2.842
But think not haply that the primal bodies
2.842
Remain despoiled alone of colour: so,
2.842
Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold
2.842
And from hot exhalations; and they move,
2.842
Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw
2.842
Not any odour from their proper bodies.
2.842
Just as, when undertaking to prepare
2.842
A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,
2.842
And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes
2.842
Odour of nectar, first of all behooves
2.842
Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can,
2.842
The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends
2.842
One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may
2.842
The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang
2.842
The odorous essence with its body mixed
2.842
And in it seethed. And on the same account
2.842
The primal germs of things must not be thought
2.842
To furnish colour in begetting things,
2.842
Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught
2.842
From out themselves, nor any flavour, too,
2.842
Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.
2.842
. . . . . .
2.842
The rest; yet since these things are mortal all-
2.842
The pliant mortal, with a body soft;
2.842
The brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame;
2.842
The hollow with a porous-all must be
2.842
Disjoined from the primal elements,
2.842
If still we wish under the world to lay
2.842
Immortal ground-works, whereupon may rest
2.842
The sum of weal and safety, lest for thee
2.842
All things return to nothing utterly.
2.842
Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense
2.842
Must yet confessedly be stablished all
2.842
From elements insensate. And those signs,
2.842
So clear to all and witnessed out of hand,
2.842
Do not refute this dictum nor oppose;
2.842
But rather themselves do lead us by the hand,
2.842
Compelling belief that living things are born
2.842
Of elements insensate, as I say.
2.842
Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung
2.842
Live worms spring up, when, after soaking rains,
2.842
The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same:
2.842
Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures
2.842
Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change
2.842
Into our bodies, and from our body, oft
2.842
Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts
2.842
And mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changes
2.842
All foods to living frames, and procreates
2.842
From them the senses of live creatures all,
2.842
In manner about as she uncoils in flames
2.842
Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.
2.842
And seest not, therefore, how it matters much
2.842
After what order are set the primal germs,
2.842
And with what other germs they all are mixed,
2.842
And what the motions that they give and get?
2.886
But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind,
2.886
Constraining thee to sundry arguments
2.886
Against belief that from insensate germs
2.886
The sensible is gendered?- Verily,
2.886
'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed,
2.886
Are yet unable to gender vital sense.
2.886
And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs
2.886
This to remember: that I have not said
2.886
Senses are born, under conditions all,
2.886
From all things absolutely which create
2.886
Objects that feel; but much it matters here
2.886
Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose
2.886
The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed,
2.886
And lastly what they in positions be,
2.886
In motions, in arrangements. Of which facts
2.886
Naught we perceive in logs of wood and clods;
2.886
And yet even these, when sodden by the rains,
2.886
Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies
2.886
Of matter, from their old arrangements stirred
2.886
By the new factor, then combine anew
2.886
In such a way as genders living things.
2.886
Next, they who deem that feeling objects can
2.886
From feeling objects be create, and these,
2.886
In turn, from others that are wont to feel
2.886
. . . . . .
2.886
When soft they make them; for all sense is linked
2.886
With flesh, and thews, and veins- and such, we see,
2.886
Are fashioned soft and of a mortal frame.
2.886
Yet be't that these can last forever on:
2.886
They'll have the sense that's proper to a part,
2.886
Or else be judged to have a sense the same
2.886
As that within live creatures as a whole.
2.886
But of themselves those parts can never feel,
2.886
For all the sense in every member back
2.886
To something else refers- a severed hand,
2.886
Or any other member of our frame,
2.886
Itself alone cannot support sensation.
2.886
It thus remains they must resemble, then,
2.886
Live creatures as a whole, to have the power
2.886
Of feeling sensation concordant in each part
2.886
With the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel
2.886
The things we feel exactly as do we.
2.886
If such the case, how, then, can they be named
2.886
The primal germs of things, and how avoid
2.886
The highways of destruction?- since they be
2.886
Mere living things and living things be all
2.886
One and the same with mortal. Grant they could,
2.886
Yet by their meetings and their unions all,
2.886
Naught would result, indeed, besides a throng
2.886
And hurly-burly all of living things-
2.886
Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts,
2.886
By mere conglomeration each with each
2.886
Can still beget not anything of new.
2.886
But if by chance they lose, inside a body,
2.886
Their own sense and another sense take on,
2.886
What, then, avails it to assign them that
2.886
Which is withdrawn thereafter? And besides,
2.886
To touch on proof that we pronounced before,
2.886
Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls
2.886
To change to living chicks, and swarming worms
2.886
To bubble forth when from the soaking rains
2.886
The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all
2.886
Can out of non-sensations be begot.
2.931
But if one say that sense can so far rise
2.931
From non-sense by mutation, or because
2.931
Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth,
2.931
'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove
2.931
There is no birth, unless there be before
2.931
Some formed union of the elements,
2.931
Nor any change, unless they be unite.
2.931
In first place, senses can't in body be
2.931
Before its living nature's been begot,-
2.931
Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed
2.931
About through rivers, air, and earth, and all
2.931
That is from earth created, nor has met
2.931
In combination, and, in proper mode,
2.931
Conjoined into those vital motions which
2.931
Kindle the all-perceiving senses- they
2.931
That keep and guard each living thing soever.
2.931
Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength
2.931
Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,
2.931
And on it goes confounding all the sense
2.931
Of body and mind. For of the primal germs
2.931
Are loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout,
2.931
The vital motions blocked,- until the stuff,
2.931
Shaken profoundly through the frame entire,
2.931
Undoes the vital knots of soul from body
2.931
And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,
2.931
Through all the pores. For what may we surmise
2.931
A blow inflicted can achieve besides
2.931
Shaking asunder and loosening all apart?
2.931
It happens also, when less sharp the blow,
2.931
The vital motions which are left are wont
2.931
Oft to win out- win out, and stop and still
2.931
The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,
2.931
And call each part to its own courses back,
2.931
And shake away the motion of death which now
2.931
Begins its own dominion in the body,
2.931
And kindle anew the senses almost gone.
2.931
For by what other means could they the more
2.931
Collect their powers of thought and turn again
2.931
From very doorways of destruction
2.931
Back unto life, rather than pass whereto
2.931
They be already well-nigh sped and so
2.931
Pass quite away?
2.931
Again, since pain is there
2.931
Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,
2.931
Through vitals and through joints, within their seats
2.931
Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight,
2.931
When they remove unto their place again:
2.931
'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be
2.931
Assaulted by no pain, nor from themselves
2.931
Take no delight; because indeed they are
2.931
Not made of any bodies of first things,
2.931
Under whose strange new motions they might ache
2.931
Or pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.
2.931
And so they must be furnished with no sense.
2.973
Once more, if thus, that every living thing
2.973
May have sensation, needful 'tis to assign
2.973
Sense also to its elements, what then
2.973
Of those fixed elements from which mankind
2.973
Hath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed?
2.973
Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men,
2.973
Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
2.973
Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins,
2.973
And have the cunning hardihood to say
2.973
Much on the composition of the world,
2.973
And in their turn inquire what elements
2.973
They have themselves,- since, thus the same in kind
2.973
As a whole mortal creature, even they
2.973
Must also be from other elements,
2.973
And then those others from others evermore-
2.973
So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.
2.973
Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant
2.973
The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and thinks)
2.973
Is yet derived out of other seeds
2.973
Which in their turn are doing just the same.
2.973
But if we see what raving nonsense this,
2.973
And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,
2.973
Compounded out of laughing elements,
2.973
And think and utter reason with learn'd speech,
2.973
Though not himself compounded, for a fact,
2.973
Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then,
2.973
Cannot those things which we perceive to have
2.973
Their own sensation be composed as well
2.973
Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?
2.991
Once more, we all from seed celestial spring,
2.991
To all is that same father, from whom earth,
2.991
The fostering mother, as she takes the drops
2.991
Of liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods-
2.991
The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees,
2.991
And bears the human race and of the wild
2.991
The generations all, the while she yields
2.991
The foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead
2.991
The genial life and propagate their kind;
2.991
Wherefore she owneth that maternal name,
2.991
By old desert. What was before from earth,
2.991
The same in earth sinks back, and what was sent
2.991
From shores of ether, that, returning home,
2.991
The vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth death
2.991
So far annihilate things that she destroys
2.991
The bodies of matter; but she dissipates
2.991
Their combinations, and conjoins anew
2.991
One element with others; and contrives
2.991
That all things vary forms and change their colours
2.991
And get sensations and straight give them o'er.
2.991
And thus may'st know it matters with what others
2.991
And in what structure the primordial germs
2.991
Are held together, and what motions they
2.991
Among themselves do give and get; nor think
2.991
That aught we see hither and thither afloat
2.991
Upon the crest of things, and now a birth
2.991
And straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest
2.991
Deep in the eternal atoms of the world.
2.991
Why, even in these our very verses here
2.991
It matters much with what and in what order
2.991
Each element is set: the same denote
2.991
Sky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun;
2.991
The same, the grains, and trees, and living things.
2.991
And if not all alike, at least the most-
2.991
But what distinctions by positions wrought!
2.991
And thus no less in things themselves, when once
2.991
Around are changed the intervals between,
2.991
The paths of matter, its connections, weights,
2.991
Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes,
2.991
The things themselves must likewise changed be.
2.991
Now to true reason give thy mind for us.
2.991
Since here strange truth is putting forth its might
2.991
To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect
2.991
Of things to show its front. Yet naught there is
2.991
So easy that it standeth not at first
2.991
More hard to credit than it after is;
2.991
And naught soe'er that's great to such degree,
2.991
Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind
2.991
Little by little abandon their surprise.
2.991
Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky
2.991
And what it holds- the stars that wander o'er,
2.991
The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:
2.991
Yet all, if now they first for mortals were,
2.991
If unforeseen now first asudden shown,
2.991
What might there be more wonderful to tell,
2.991
What that the nations would before have dared
2.991
Less to believe might be?- I fancy, naught-
2.991
So strange had been the marvel of that sight.
2.991
The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day
2.991
None deigns look upward to those lucent realms.
2.991
Then, spew not reason from thy mind away,
2.991
Beside thyself because the matter's new,
2.991
But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;
2.991
And if to thee it then appeareth true,
2.991
Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last,
2.991
Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man
2.991
Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond
2.991
There on the other side, that boundless sum
2.991
Which lies without the ramparts of the world,
2.991
Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar,
2.991
Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought
2.991
Flies unencumbered forth.
2.1048
Firstly, we find,
2.1048
Off to all regions round, on either side,
2.1048
Above, beneath, throughout the universe
2.1048
End is there none- as I have taught, as too
2.1048
The very thing of itself declares aloud,
2.1048
And as from nature of the unbottomed deep
2.1048
Shines clearly forth. Nor can we once suppose
2.1048
In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space
2.1048
To all sides stretches infinite and free,
2.1048
And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum
2.1048
Bottomless, there in many a manner fly,
2.1048
Bestirred in everlasting motion there),
2.1048
That only this one earth and sky of ours
2.1048
Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff,
2.1048
So many, perform no work outside the same;
2.1048
Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been
2.1048
By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things
2.1048
By innate motion chanced to clash and cling-
2.1048
After they'd been in many a manner driven
2.1048
Together at random, without design, in vain-
2.1048
And as at last those seeds together dwelt,
2.1048
Which, when together of a sudden thrown,
2.1048
Should alway furnish the commencements fit
2.1048
Of mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky,
2.1048
And race of living creatures. Thus, I say,
2.1048
Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are
2.1048
Such congregations of matter otherwhere,
2.1048
Like this our world which vasty ether holds
2.1048
In huge embrace.
2.1048
Besides, when matter abundant
2.1048
Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object
2.1048
Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis
2.1048
That things are carried on and made complete,
2.1048
Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is
2.1048
So great that not whole life-times of the living
2.1048
Can count the tale...
2.1048
And if their force and nature abide the same,
2.1048
Able to throw the seeds of things together
2.1048
Into their places, even as here are thrown
2.1048
The seeds together in this world of ours,
2.1048
'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are
2.1048
Still other worlds, still other breeds of men,
2.1048
And other generations of the wild.
2.1048
Hence too it happens in the sum there is
2.1048
No one thing single of its kind in birth,
2.1048
And single and sole in growth, but rather it is
2.1048
One member of some generated race,
2.1048
Among full many others of like kind.
2.1048
First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:
2.1048
Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild
2.1048
Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men
2.1048
To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks
2.1048
Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.
2.1048
Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same
2.1048
That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,
2.1048
Exist not sole and single- rather in number
2.1048
Exceeding number. Since that deeply set
2.1048
Old boundary stone of life remains for them
2.1048
No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth
2.1048
No less, than every kind which here on earth
2.1048
Is so abundant in its members found.
2.1048
Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,
2.1048
Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,
2.1048
And forthwith free, is seen to do all things
2.1048
Herself and through herself of own accord,
2.1048
Rid of all gods. For- by their holy hearts
2.1048
Which pass in long tranquillity of peace
2.1048
Untroubled ages and a serene life!-
2.1048
Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power
2.1048
To rule the sum of the immeasurable,
2.1048
To hold with steady hand the giant reins
2.1048
Of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power
2.1048
At once to roll a multitude of skies,
2.1048
At once to heat with fires ethereal all
2.1048
The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,
2.1048
To be at all times in all places near,
2.1048
To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake
2.1048
The serene spaces of the sky with sound,
2.1048
And hurl his lightnings,- ha, and whelm how oft
2.1048
In ruins his own temples, and to rave,
2.1048
Retiring to the wildernesses, there
2.1048
At practice with that thunderbolt of his,
2.1048
Which yet how often shoots the guilty by,
2.1048
And slays the honourable blameless ones!
2.1105
Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since
2.1105
The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,
2.1105
Have many germs been added from outside,
2.1105
Have many seeds been added round about,
2.1105
Which the great All, the while it flung them on,
2.1105
Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands
2.1105
Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven
2.1105
Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs
2.1105
Far over earth, and air arise around.
2.1105
For bodies all, from out all regions, are
2.1105
Divided by blows, each to its proper thing,
2.1105
And all retire to their own proper kinds:
2.1105
The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase
2.1105
From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,
2.1105
Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether;
2.1105
Till nature, author and ender of the world,
2.1105
Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth:
2.1105
As haps when that which hath been poured inside
2.1105
The vital veins of life is now no more
2.1105
Than that which ebbs within them and runs off.
2.1105
This is the point where life for each thing ends;
2.1105
This is the point where nature with her powers
2.1105
Curbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest
2.1105
Grow big with glad increase, and step by step
2.1105
Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves
2.1105
Take in more bodies than they send from selves,
2.1105
Whilst still the food is easily infused
2.1105
Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not
2.1105
So far expanded that they cast away
2.1105
Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste
2.1105
Greater than nutriment whereby they wax.
2.1105
For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things
2.1105
Many a body ebbeth and runs off;
2.1105
But yet still more must come, until the things
2.1105
Have touched development's top pinnacle;
2.1105
Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength
2.1105
And falls away into a worser part.
2.1105
For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,
2.1105
As soon as ever its augmentation ends,
2.1105
It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round
2.1105
More bodies, sending them from out itself.
2.1105
Nor easily now is food disseminate
2.1105
Through all its veins; nor is that food enough
2.1105
To equal with a new supply on hand
2.1105
Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.
2.1105
Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing
2.1105
They're made less dense and when from blows without
2.1105
They are laid low; since food at last will fail
2.1105
Extremest eld, and bodies from outside
2.1105
Cease not with thumping to undo a thing
2.1105
And overmaster by infesting blows.
2.1144
Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world
2.1144
On all sides round shall taken be by storm,
2.1144
And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.
2.1144
For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;
2.1144
'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-
2.1144
But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice
2.1144
To hold enough, nor nature ministers
2.1144
As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:
2.1144
Its age is broken and the earth, outworn
2.1144
With many parturitions, scarce creates
2.1144
The little lives- she who created erst
2.1144
All generations and gave forth at birth
2.1144
Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.
2.1144
For never, I fancy, did a golden cord
2.1144
From off the firmament above let down
2.1144
The mortal generations to the fields;
2.1144
Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks
2.1144
Created them; but earth it was who bore-
2.1144
The same to-day who feeds them from herself.
2.1144
Besides, herself of own accord, she first
2.1144
The shining grains and vineyards of all joy
2.1144
Created for mortality; herself
2.1144
Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,
2.1144
Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,
2.1144
Even when aided by our toiling arms.
2.1144
We break the ox, and wear away the strength
2.1144
Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day
2.1144
Barely avail for tilling of the fields,
2.1144
So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,
2.1144
So much increase our labour. Now to-day
2.1144
The aged ploughman, shaking of his head,
2.1144
Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands
2.1144
Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks
2.1144
How present times are not as times of old,
2.1144
Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,
2.1144
And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,
2.1144
Fulfilled with piety, supported life
2.1144
With simple comfort in a narrow plot,
2.1144
Since, man for man, the measure of each field
2.1144
Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again,
2.1144
The gloomy planter of the withered vine
2.1144
Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven,
2.1144
Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees
2.1144
Are wasting away and going to the tomb,
2.1144
Outworn by venerable length of life.