On Rerumnat

Lucretius

On Rerumnat

Lucretius · On Rerumnat 5 · perseus-eng1 · More by Lucretius

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5.1

O who can build with puissant breast a song

5.1

Worthy the majesty of these great finds?

5.1

Or who in words so strong that he can frame

5.1

The fit laudations for deserts of him

5.1

Who left us heritors of such vast prizes,

5.1

By his own breast discovered and sought out?-

5.1

There shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock.

5.1

For if must needs be named for him the name

5.1

Demanded by the now known majesty

5.1

Of these high matters, then a god was he,-

5.1

Hear me, illustrious Memmius- a god;

5.1

Who first and chief found out that plan of life

5.1

Which now is called philosophy, and who

5.1

By cunning craft, out of such mighty waves,

5.1

Out of such mighty darkness, moored life

5.1

In havens so serene, in light so clear.

5.1

Compare those old discoveries divine

5.1

Of others: lo, according to the tale,

5.1

Ceres established for mortality

5.1

The grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape,

5.1

Though life might yet without these things abide,

5.1

Even as report saith now some peoples live.

5.1

But man's well-being was impossible

5.1

Without a breast all free. Wherefore the more

5.1

That man doth justly seem to us a god,

5.1

From whom sweet solaces of life, afar

5.1

Distributed o'er populous domains,

5.1

Now soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkest

5.1

Labours of Hercules excel the same,

5.1

Much farther from true reasoning thou farest.

5.1

For what could hurt us now that mighty maw

5.1

Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar

5.1

Who bristled in Arcadia? Or, again,

5.1

O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest

5.1

Of Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous?

5.1

Or what the triple-breasted power of her

5.1

The three-fold Geryon...

5.1

The sojourners in the Stymphalian fens

5.1

So dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds

5.1

Of Thracian Diomedes breathing fire

5.1

From out their nostrils off along the zones

5.1

Bistonian and Ismarian? And the Snake,

5.1

The dread fierce gazer, guardian of the golden

5.1

And gleaming apples of the Hesperides,

5.1

Coiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk,

5.1

O what, again, could he inflict on us

5.1

Along the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea?-

5.1

Where neither one of us approacheth nigh

5.1

Nor no barbarian ventures. And the rest

5.1

Of all those monsters slain, even if alive,

5.1

Unconquered still, what injury could they do?

5.1

None, as I guess. For so the glutted earth

5.1

Swarms even now with savage beasts, even now

5.1

Is filled with anxious terrors through the woods

5.1

And mighty mountains and the forest deeps-

5.1

Quarters 'tis ours in general to avoid.

5.1

But lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then,

5.1

What perils, must bosom, in our own despite!

5.1

O then how great and keen the cares of lust

5.1

That split the man distraught! How great the fears!

5.1

And lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness-

5.1

How great the slaughters in their train! and lo,

5.1

Debaucheries and every breed of sloth!

5.1

Therefore that man who subjugated these,

5.1

And from the mind expelled, by words indeed,

5.1

Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him

5.1

To dignify by ranking with the gods?-

5.1

And all the more since he was wont to give,

5.1

Concerning the immortal gods themselves,

5.1

Many pronouncements with a tongue divine,

5.1

And to unfold by his pronouncements all

5.1

The nature of the world.

5.55

And walking now

5.55

In his own footprints, I do follow through

5.55

His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach

5.55

The covenant whereby all things are framed,

5.55

How under that covenant they must abide

5.55

Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'

5.55

Inexorable decrees,- how (as we've found),

5.55

In class of mortal objects, o'er all else,

5.55

The mind exists of earth-born frame create

5.55

And impotent unscathed to abide

5.55

Across the mighty aeons, and how come

5.55

In sleep those idol-apparitions,

5.55

That so befool intelligence when we

5.55

Do seem to view a man whom life has left.

5.55

Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan

5.55

Hath brought me now unto the point where I

5.55

Must make report how, too, the universe

5.55

Consists of mortal body, born in time,

5.55

And in what modes that congregated stuff

5.55

Established itself as earth and sky,

5.55

Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;

5.55

And then what living creatures rose from out

5.55

The old telluric places, and what ones

5.55

Were never born at all; and in what mode

5.55

The human race began to name its things

5.55

And use the varied speech from man to man;

5.55

And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts

5.55

That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands

5.55

Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.

5.55

Also I shall untangle by what power

5.55

The steersman nature guides the sun's courses,

5.55

And the meanderings of the moon, lest we,

5.55

Percase, should fancy that of own free will

5.55

They circle their perennial courses round,

5.55

Timing their motions for increase of crops

5.55

And living creatures, or lest we should think

5.55

They roll along by any plan of gods.

5.55

For even those men who have learned full well

5.55

That godheads lead a long life free of care,

5.55

If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan

5.55

Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things

5.55

Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),

5.55

Again are hurried back unto the fears

5.55

Of old religion and adopt again

5.55

Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,

5.55

Unwitting what can be and what cannot,

5.55

And by what law to each its scope prescribed,

5.55

Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

5.91

But for the rest,- lest we delay thee here

5.91

Longer by empty promises- behold,

5.91

Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:

5.91

O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,

5.91

Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,

5.91

Three frames so vast, a single day shall give

5.91

Unto annihilation! Then shall crash

5.91

That massive form and fabric of the world

5.91

Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I

5.91

Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous

5.91

This fact must strike the intellect of man,-

5.91

Annihilation of the sky and earth

5.91

That is to be,- and with what toil of words

5.91

'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft

5.91

When once ye offer to man's listening ears

5.91

Something before unheard of, but may not

5.91

Subject it to the view of eyes for him

5.91

Nor put it into hand- the sight and touch,

5.91

Whereby the opened highways of belief

5.91

Lead most directly into human breast

5.91

And regions of intelligence. But yet

5.91

I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,

5.91

Will force belief in these my words, and thou

5.91

Mayst see, in little time, tremendously

5.91

With risen commotions of the lands all things

5.91

Quaking to pieces- which afar from us

5.91

May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may

5.91

Reason, O rather than the fact itself,

5.91

Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown

5.91

And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!

5.110

But ere on this I take a step to utter

5.110

Oracles holier and soundlier based

5.110

Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men

5.110

From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,

5.110

I will unfold for thee with learned words

5.110

Many a consolation, lest perchance,

5.110

Still bridled by religion, thou suppose

5.110

Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,

5.110

Must dure forever, as of frame divine-

5.110

And so conclude that it is just that those,

5.110

(After the manner of the Giants), should all

5.110

Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,

5.110

Who by their reasonings do overshake

5.110

The ramparts of the universe and wish

5.110

There to put out the splendid sun of heaven,

5.110

Branding with mortal talk immortal things-

5.110

Though these same things are even so far removed

5.110

From any touch of deity and seem

5.110

So far unworthy of numbering with the gods,

5.110

That well they may be thought to furnish rather

5.110

A goodly instance of the sort of things

5.110

That lack the living motion, living sense.

5.110

For sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think

5.110

That judgment and the nature of the mind

5.110

In any kind of body can exist-

5.110

Just as in ether can't exist a tree,

5.110

Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields

5.110

Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be,

5.110

Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged

5.110

Where everything may grow and have its place.

5.110

Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone

5.110

Without the body, nor have its being far

5.110

From thews and blood. Yet if 'twere possible?-

5.110

Much rather might this very power of mind

5.110

Be in the head, the shoulders, or the heels,

5.110

And, born in any part soever, yet

5.110

In the same man, in the same vessel abide

5.110

But since within this body even of ours

5.110

Stands fixed and appears arranged sure

5.110

Where soul and mind can each exist and grow,

5.110

Deny we must the more that they can dure

5.110

Outside the body and the breathing form

5.110

In rotting clods of earth, in the sun's fire,

5.110

In water, or in ether's skiey coasts.

5.110

Therefore these things no whit are furnished

5.110

With sense divine, since never can they be

5.110

With life-force quickened.

5.146

Likewise, thou canst ne'er

5.146

Believe the sacred seats of gods are here

5.146

In any regions of this mundane world;

5.146

Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle,

5.146

So far removed from these our senses, scarce

5.146

Is seen even by intelligence of mind.

5.146

And since they've ever eluded touch and thrust

5.146

Of human hands, they cannot reach to grasp

5.146

Aught tangible to us. For what may not

5.146

Itself be touched in turn can never touch.

5.146

Wherefore, besides, also their seats must be

5.146

Unlike these seats of ours,- even subtle too,

5.146

As meet for subtle essence- as I'll prove

5.146

Hereafter unto thee with large discourse.

5.146

Further, to say that for the sake of men

5.146

They willed to prepare this world's magnificence,

5.146

And that 'tis therefore duty and behoof

5.146

To praise the work of gods as worthy praise,

5.146

And that 'tis sacrilege for men to shake

5.146

Ever by any force from out their seats

5.146

What hath been stablished by the Forethought old

5.146

To everlasting for races of mankind,

5.146

And that 'tis sacrilege to assault by words

5.146

And overtopple all from base to beam,-

5.146

Memmius, such notions to concoct and pile,

5.146

Is verily- to dote. Our gratefulness,

5.146

O what emoluments could it confer

5.146

Upon Immortals and upon the Blessed

5.146

That they should take a step to manage aught

5.146

For sake of us? Or what new factor could,

5.146

After so long a time, inveigle them-

5.146

The hitherto reposeful- to desire

5.146

To change their former life? For rather he

5.146

Whom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice

5.146

At new; but one that in fore-passed time

5.146

Hath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years,

5.146

O what could ever enkindle in such an one

5.146

Passion for strange experiment? Or what

5.146

The evil for us, if we had ne'er been born?-

5.146

As though, forsooth, in darkling realms and woe

5.146

Our life were lying till should dawn at last

5.146

The day-spring of creation! Whosoever

5.146

Hath been begotten wills perforce to stay

5.146

In life, so long as fond delight detains;

5.146

But whoso ne'er hath tasted love of life,

5.146

And ne'er was in the count of living things,

5.146

What hurts it him that he was never born?

5.146

Whence, further, first was planted in the gods

5.146

The archetype for gendering the world

5.146

And the fore-notion of what man is like,

5.146

So that they knew and pre-conceived with mind

5.146

Just what they wished to make? Or how were known

5.146

Ever the energies of primal germs,

5.146

And what those germs, by interchange of place,

5.146

Could thus produce, if nature's self had not

5.146

Given example for creating all?

5.146

For in such wise primordials of things,

5.146

Many in many modes, astir by blows

5.146

From immemorial aeons, in motion too

5.146

By their own weights, have evermore been wont

5.146

To be so borne along and in all modes

5.146

To meet together and to try all sorts

5.146

Which, by combining one with other, they

5.146

Are powerful to create, that thus it is

5.146

No marvel now, if they have also fallen

5.146

Into arrangements such, and if they've passed

5.146

Into vibrations such, as those whereby

5.146

This sum of things is carried on to-day

5.146

By fixed renewal.

5.195

But knew I never what

5.195

The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare

5.195

This to affirm, even from deep judgments based

5.195

Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-

5.195

This to maintain by many a fact besides-

5.195

That in no wise the nature of all things

5.195

For us was fashioned by a power divine-

5.195

So great the faults it stands encumbered with.

5.195

First, mark all regions which are overarched

5.195

By the prodigious reaches of the sky:

5.195

One yawning part thereof the mountain-chains

5.195

And forests of the beasts do have and hold;

5.195

And cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea

5.195

(Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands)

5.195

Possess it merely; and, again, thereof

5.195

Well-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat

5.195

And a perpetual fall of frost doth rob

5.195

From mortal kind. And what is left to till,

5.195

Even that the force of nature would o'errun

5.195

With brambles, did not human force oppose,-

5.195

Long wont for livelihood to groan and sweat

5.195

Over the two-pronged mattock and to cleave

5.195

The soil in twain by pressing on the plough.

5.195

. . . . . .

5.195

Unless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods

5.195

And kneading the mould, we quicken into birth,

5.195

[The crops] spontaneously could not come up

5.195

Into the free bright air. Even then sometimes,

5.195

When things acquired by the sternest toil

5.195

Are now in leaf, are now in blossom all,

5.195

Either the skiey sun with baneful heats

5.195

Parches, or sudden rains or chilling rime

5.195

Destroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl

5.195

Torment and twist. Beside these matters, why

5.195

Doth nature feed and foster on land and sea

5.195

The dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes

5.195

Of the human clan? Why do the seasons bring

5.195

Distempers with them? Wherefore stalks at large

5.195

Death, so untimely? Then, again, the babe,

5.195

Like to the castaway of the raging surf,

5.195

Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want

5.195

Of every help for life, when nature first

5.195

Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light

5.195

With birth-pangs from within the mother's womb,

5.195

And with a plaintive wail he fills the place,-

5.195

As well befitting one for whom remains

5.195

In life a journey through so many ills.

5.195

But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts

5.195

Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles,

5.195

Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse's

5.195

Dear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes

5.195

To suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine,

5.195

Nor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal

5.195

Their own to guard- because the earth herself

5.195

And nature, artificer of the world, bring forth

5.195

Aboundingly all things for all.

5.235

And first,

5.235

Since body of earth and water, air's light breath,

5.235

And fiery exhalations (of which four

5.235

This sum of things is seen to be compact)

5.235

So all have birth and perishable frame,

5.235

Thus the whole nature of the world itself

5.235

Must be conceived as perishable too.

5.235

For, verily, those things of which we see

5.235

The parts and members to have birth in time

5.235

And perishable shapes, those same we mark

5.235

To be invariably born in time

5.235

And born to die. And therefore when I see

5.235

The mightiest members and the parts of this

5.235

Our world consumed and begot again,

5.235

'Tis mine to know that also sky above

5.235

And earth beneath began of old in time

5.235

And shall in time go under to disaster.

5.235

And lest in these affairs thou deemest me

5.235

To have seized upon this point by sleight to serve

5.235

My own caprice- because I have assumed

5.235

That earth and fire are mortal things indeed,

5.235

And have not doubted water and the air

5.235

Both perish too and have affirmed the same

5.235

To be again begotten and wax big-

5.235

Mark well the argument: in first place, lo,

5.235

Some certain parts of earth, grievously parched

5.235

By unremitting suns, and trampled on

5.235

By a vast throng of feet, exhale abroad

5.235

A powdery haze and flying clouds of dust,

5.235

Which the stout winds disperse in the whole air.

5.235

A part, moreover, of her sod and soil

5.235

Is summoned to inundation by the rains;

5.235

And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.

5.235

Besides, whatever takes a part its own

5.235

In fostering and increasing [aught]...

5.235

. . . . . .

5.235

Is rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt,

5.235

Earth, the all-mother, is beheld to be

5.235

Likewise the common sepulchre of things,

5.235

Therefore thou seest her minished of her plenty,

5.235

And then again augmented with new growth.

5.261

And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springs

5.261

Forever with new waters overflow,

5.261

And that perennially the fluids well,

5.261

Needeth no words- the mighty flux itself

5.261

Of multitudinous waters round about

5.261

Declareth this. But whatso water first

5.261

Streams up is ever straightway carried off,

5.261

And thus it comes to pass that all in all

5.261

There is no overflow; in part because

5.261

The burly winds (that over-sweep amain)

5.261

And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

5.261

Do minish the level seas; in part because

5.261

The water is diffused underground

5.261

Through all the lands. The brine is filtered off,

5.261

And then the liquid stuff seeps back again

5.261

And all regathers at the river-heads,

5.261

Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows

5.261

Over the lands, adown the channels which

5.261

Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along

5.261

The liquid-footed floods.

5.273

Now, then, of air

5.273

I'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body

5.273

Is changed innumerably. For whatso'er

5.273

Streams up in dust or vapour off of things,

5.273

The same is all and always borne along

5.273

Into the mighty ocean of the air;

5.273

And did not air in turn restore to things

5.273

Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,

5.273

All things by this time had resolved been

5.273

And changed into air. Therefore it never

5.273

Ceases to be engendered off of things

5.273

And to return to things, since verily

5.273

In constant flux do all things stream.

5.281

Likewise,

5.281

The abounding well-spring of the liquid light,

5.281

The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o'er

5.281

With constant flux of radiance ever new,

5.281

And with fresh light supplies the place of light,

5.281

Upon the instant. For whatever effulgence

5.281

Hath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,

5.281

Is lost unto the sun. And this 'tis thine

5.281

To know from these examples: soon as clouds

5.281

Have first begun to under-pass the sun,

5.281

And, as it were, to rend the rays of light

5.281

In twain, at once the lower part of them

5.281

Is lost entire, and earth is overcast

5.281

Where'er the thunderheads are rolled along-

5.281

So know thou mayst that things forever need

5.281

A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,

5.281

And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,

5.281

Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwise

5.281

Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway

5.281

The fountain-head of light supply new light.

5.281

Indeed your earthly beacons of the night,

5.281

The hanging lampions and the torches, bright

5.281

With darting gleams and dense with livid soot,

5.281

Do hurry in like manner to supply

5.281

With ministering heat new light amain;

5.281

Are all alive to quiver with their fires,-

5.281

Are so alive, that thus the light ne'er leaves

5.281

The spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:

5.281

So speedily is its destruction veiled

5.281

By the swift birth of flame from all the fires.

5.281

Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon

5.281

And stars dart forth their light from under-births

5.281

Ever and ever new, and whatso flames

5.281

First rise do perish always one by one-

5.281

Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure

5.281

Inviolable.

5.306

Again, perceivest not

5.306

How stones are also conquered by Time?-

5.306

Not how the lofty towers ruin down,

5.306

And boulders crumble?- Not how shrines of gods

5.306

And idols crack outworn?- Nor how indeed

5.306

The holy Influence hath yet no power

5.306

There to postpone the Terminals of Fate,

5.306

Or headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees?

5.306

Again, behold we not the monuments

5.306

Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us,

5.306

In their turn likewise, if we don't believe

5.306

They also age with eld? Behold we not

5.306

The rended basalt ruining amain

5.306

Down from the lofty mountains, powerless

5.306

To dure and dree the mighty forces there

5.306

Of finite time?- for they would never fall

5.306

Rended asudden, if from infinite Past

5.306

They had prevailed against all engin'ries

5.306

Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.

5.318

Again, now look at This, which round, above,

5.318

Contains the whole earth in its one embrace:

5.318

If from itself it procreates all things-

5.318

As some men tell- and takes them to itself

5.318

When once destroyed, entirely must it be

5.318

Of mortal birth and body; for whate'er

5.318

From out itself giveth to other things

5.318

Increase and food, the same perforce must be

5.318

Minished, and then recruited when it takes

5.318

Things back into itself.

5.324

Besides all this,

5.324

If there had been no origin-in-birth

5.324

Of lands and sky, and they had ever been

5.324

The everlasting, why, ere Theban war

5.324

And obsequies of Troy, have other bards

5.324

Not also chanted other high affairs?

5.324

Whither have sunk so oft so many deeds

5.324

Of heroes? Why do those deeds live no more,

5.324

Ingrafted in eternal monuments

5.324

Of glory? Verily, I guess, because

5.324

The Sum is new, and of a recent date

5.324

The nature of our universe, and had

5.324

Not long ago its own exordium.

5.324

Wherefore, even now some arts are being still

5.324

Refined, still increased: now unto ships

5.324

Is being added many a new device;

5.324

And but the other day musician-folk

5.324

Gave birth to melic sounds of organing;

5.324

And, then, this nature, this account of things

5.324

Hath been discovered latterly, and I

5.324

Myself have been discovered only now,

5.324

As first among the first, able to turn

5.324

The same into ancestral Roman speech.

5.324

Yet if, percase, thou deemest that ere this

5.324

Existed all things even the same, but that

5.324

Perished the cycles of the human race

5.324

In fiery exhalations, or cities fell

5.324

By some tremendous quaking of the world,

5.324

Or rivers in fury, after constant rains,

5.324

Had plunged forth across the lands of earth

5.324

And whelmed the towns- then, all the more must thou

5.324

Confess, defeated by the argument,

5.324

That there shall be annihilation too

5.324

Of lands and sky. For at a time when things

5.324

Were being taxed by maladies so great,

5.324

And so great perils, if some cause more fell

5.324

Had then assailed them, far and wide they would

5.324

Have gone to disaster and supreme collapse.

5.324

And by no other reasoning are we

5.324

Seen to be mortal, save that all of us

5.324

Sicken in turn with those same maladies

5.324

With which have sickened in the past those men

5.324

Whom nature hath removed from life.

5.351

Again,

5.351

Whatever abides eternal must indeed

5.351

Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made

5.351

Of solid body, and permit no entrance

5.351

Of aught with power to sunder from within

5.351

The parts compact- as are those seeds of stuff

5.351

Whose nature we've exhibited before;

5.351

Or else be able to endure through time

5.351

For this: because they are from blows exempt,

5.351

As is the void, the which abides untouched,

5.351

Unsmit by any stroke; or else because

5.351

There is no room around, whereto things can,

5.351

As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-

5.351

Even as the sum of sums eternal is,

5.351

Without or place beyond whereto things may

5.351

Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite,

5.351

And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.

5.351

But not of solid body, as I've shown,

5.351

Exists the nature of the world, because

5.351

In things is intermingled there a void;

5.351

Nor is the world yet as the void, nor are,

5.351

Moreover, bodies lacking which, percase,

5.351

Rising from out the infinite, can fell

5.351

With fury-whirlwinds all this sum of things,

5.351

Or bring upon them other cataclysm

5.351

Of peril strange; and yonder, too, abides

5.351

The infinite space and the profound abyss-

5.351

Whereinto, lo, the ramparts of the world

5.351

Can yet be shivered. Or some other power

5.351

Can pound upon them till they perish all.

5.351

Thus is the door of doom, O nowise barred

5.351

Against the sky, against the sun and earth

5.351

And deep-sea waters, but wide open stands

5.351

And gloats upon them, monstrous and agape.

5.351

Wherefore, again, 'tis needful to confess

5.351

That these same things are born in time; for things

5.351

Which are of mortal body could indeed

5.351

Never from infinite past until to-day

5.351

Have spurned the multitudinous assaults

5.351

Of the immeasurable aeons old.

5.380

Again, since battle so fiercely one with other

5.380

The four most mighty members the world,

5.380

Aroused in an all unholy war,

5.380

Seest not that there may be for them an end

5.380

Of the long strife?- Or when the skiey sun

5.380

And all the heat have won dominion o'er

5.380

The sucked-up waters all?- And this they try

5.380

Still to accomplish, though as yet they fail,-

5.380

For so aboundingly the streams supply

5.380

New store of waters that 'tis rather they

5.380

Who menace the world with inundations vast

5.380

From forth the unplumbed chasms of the sea.

5.380

But vain- since winds (that over-sweep amain)

5.380

And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

5.380

Do minish the level seas and trust their power

5.380

To dry up all, before the waters can

5.380

Arrive at the end of their endeavouring.

5.380

Breathing such vasty warfare, they contend

5.380

In balanced strife the one with other still

5.380

Concerning mighty issues,- though indeed

5.380

The fire was once the more victorious,

5.380

And once- as goes the tale- the water won

5.380

A kingdom in the fields. For fire o'ermastered

5.380

And licked up many things and burnt away,

5.380

What time the impetuous horses of the Sun

5.380

Snatched Phaethon headlong from his skiey road

5.380

Down the whole ether and over all the lands.

5.380

But the omnipotent Father in keen wrath

5.380

Then with the sudden smite of thunderbolt

5.380

Did hurl the mighty-minded hero off

5.380

Those horses to the earth. And Sol, his sire,

5.380

Meeting him as he fell, caught up in hand

5.380

The ever-blazing lampion of the world,

5.380

And drave together the pell-mell horses there

5.380

And yoked them all a-tremble, and amain,

5.380

Steering them over along their own old road,

5.380

Restored the cosmos,- as forsooth we hear

5.380

From songs of ancient poets of the Greeks-

5.380

A tale too far away from truth, meseems.

5.380

For fire can win when from the infinite

5.380

Has risen a larger throng of particles

5.380

Of fiery stuff; and then its powers succumb,

5.380

Somehow subdued again, or else at last

5.380

It shrivels in torrid atmospheres the world.

5.380

And whilom water too began to win-

5.380

As goes the story- when it overwhelmed

5.380

The lives of men with billows; and thereafter,

5.380

When all that force of water-stuff which forth

5.380

From out the infinite had risen up

5.380

Did now retire, as somehow turned aside,

5.380

The rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.

5.416

But in what modes that conflux of first-stuff

5.416

Did found the multitudinous universe

5.416

Of earth, and sky, and the unfathomed deeps

5.416

Of ocean, and courses of the sun and moon,

5.416

I'll now in order tell. For of a truth

5.416

Neither by counsel did the primal germs

5.416

'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,

5.416

Each in its proper place; nor did they make,

5.416

Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;

5.416

But, lo, because primordials of things,

5.416

Many in many modes, astir by blows

5.416

From immemorial aeons, in motion too

5.416

By their own weights, have evermore been wont

5.416

To be so borne along and in all modes

5.416

To meet together and to try all sorts

5.416

Which, by combining one with other, they

5.416

Are powerful to create: because of this

5.416

It comes to pass that those primordials,

5.416

Diffused far and wide through mighty aeons,

5.416

The while they unions try, and motions too,

5.416

Of every kind, meet at the last amain,

5.416

And so become oft the commencements fit

5.416

Of mighty things- earth, sea, and sky, and race

5.416

Of living creatures.

5.432

In that long-ago

5.432

The wheel of the sun could nowhere be discerned

5.432

Flying far up with its abounding blaze,

5.432

Nor constellations of the mighty world,

5.432

Nor ocean, nor heaven, nor even earth nor air.

5.432

Nor aught of things like unto things of ours

5.432

Could then be seen- but only some strange storm

5.432

And a prodigious hurly-burly mass

5.432

Compounded of all kinds of primal germs,

5.432

Whose battling discords in disorder kept

5.432

Interstices, and paths, coherencies,

5.432

And weights, and blows, encounterings, and motions,

5.432

Because, by reason of their forms unlike

5.432

And varied shapes, they could not all thuswise

5.432

Remain conjoined nor harmoniously

5.432

Have interplay of movements. But from there

5.432

Portions began to fly asunder, and like

5.432

With like to join, and to block out a world,

5.432

And to divide its members and dispose

5.432

Its mightier parts- that is, to set secure

5.432

The lofty heavens from the lands, and cause

5.432

The sea to spread with waters separate,

5.432

And fires of ether separate and pure

5.432

Likewise to congregate apart.

5.449

For, lo,

5.449

First came together the earthy particles

5.449

(As being heavy and intertangled) there

5.449

In the mid-region, and all began to take

5.449

The lowest abodes; and ever the more they got

5.449

One with another intertangled, the more

5.449

They pressed from out their mass those particles

5.449

Which were to form the sea, the stars, the sun,

5.449

And moon, and ramparts of the mighty world-

5.449

For these consist of seeds more smooth and round

5.449

And of much smaller elements than earth.

5.449

And thus it was that ether, fraught with fire,

5.449

First broke away from out the earthen parts,

5.449

Athrough the innumerable pores of earth,

5.449

And raised itself aloft, and with itself

5.449

Bore lightly off the many starry fires;

5.449

And not far otherwise we often see

5.449

. . . . . .

5.449

And the still lakes and the perennial streams

5.449

Exhale a mist, and even as earth herself

5.449

Is seen at times to smoke, when first at dawn

5.449

The light of the sun, the many-rayed, begins

5.449

To redden into gold, over the grass

5.449

Begemmed with dew. When all of these are brought

5.449

Together overhead, the clouds on high

5.449

With now concreted body weave a cover

5.449

Beneath the heavens. And thuswise ether too,

5.449

Light and diffusive, with concreted body

5.449

On all sides spread, on all sides bent itself

5.449

Into a dome, and, far and wide diffused

5.449

On unto every region on all sides,

5.449

Thus hedged all else within its greedy clasp.

5.449

Hard upon ether came the origins

5.449

Of sun and moon, whose globes revolve in air

5.449

Midway between the earth and mightiest ether,-

5.449

For neither took them, since they weighed too little

5.449

To sink and settle, but too much to glide

5.449

Along the upmost shores; and yet they are

5.449

In such a wise midway between the twain

5.449

As ever to whirl their living bodies round,

5.449

And ever to dure as parts of the wide Whole;

5.449

In the same fashion as certain members may

5.449

In us remain at rest, whilst others move.

5.449

When, then, these substances had been withdrawn,

5.449

Amain the earth, where now extend the vast

5.449

Cerulean zones of all the level seas,

5.449

Caved in, and down along the hollows poured

5.449

The whirlpools of her brine; and day by day

5.449

The more the tides of ether and rays of sun

5.449

On every side constrained into one mass

5.449

The earth by lashing it again, again,

5.449

Upon its outer edges (so that then,

5.449

Being thus beat upon, 'twas all condensed

5.449

About its proper centre), ever the more

5.449

The salty sweat, from out its body squeezed,

5.449

Augmented ocean and the fields of foam

5.449

By seeping through its frame, and all the more

5.449

Those many particles of heat and air

5.449

Escaping, began to fly aloft, and form,

5.449

By condensation there afar from earth,

5.449

The high refulgent circuits of the heavens.

5.449

The plains began to sink, and windy slopes

5.449

Of the high mountains to increase; for rocks

5.449

Could not subside, nor all the parts of ground

5.449

Settle alike to one same level there.

5.495

Thus, then, the massy weight of earth stood firm

5.495

With now concreted body, when (as 'twere)

5.495

All of the slime of the world, heavy and gross,

5.495

Had run together and settled at the bottom,

5.495

Like lees or bilge. Then ocean, then the air,

5.495

Then ether herself, the fraught-with-fire, were all

5.495

Left with their liquid bodies pure and free,

5.495

And each more lighter than the next below;

5.495

And ether, most light and liquid of the three,

5.495

Floats on above the long aerial winds,

5.495

Nor with the brawling of the winds of air

5.495

Mingles its liquid body. It doth leave

5.495

All there- those under-realms below her heights-

5.495

There to be overset in whirlwinds wild,-

5.495

Doth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts,

5.495

Whilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still,

5.495

Itself it bears its fires along. For, lo,

5.495

That ether can flow thus steadily on, on,

5.495

With one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves-

5.495

That sea which floweth forth with fixed tides,

5.495

Keeping one onward tenor as it glides.

5.509

Now let us sing what makes the stars to move.

5.509

In first place, if the mighty sphere of heaven

5.509

Revolveth round, then needs we must aver

5.509

That on the upper and the under pole

5.509

Presses a certain air, and from without

5.509

Confines them and encloseth at each end;

5.509

And that, moreover, another air above

5.509

Streams on athwart the top of the sphere and tends

5.509

In same direction as are rolled along

5.509

The glittering stars of the eternal world;

5.509

Or that another still streams on below

5.509

To whirl the sphere from under up and on

5.509

In opposite direction- as we see

5.509

The rivers turn the wheels and water-scoops.

5.509

It may be also that the heavens do all

5.509

Remain at rest, whilst yet are borne along

5.509

The lucid constellations; either because

5.509

Swift tides of ether are by sky enclosed,

5.509

And whirl around, seeking a passage out,

5.509

And everywhere make roll the starry fires

5.509

Through the Summanian regions of the sky;

5.509

Or else because some air, streaming along

5.509

From an eternal quarter off beyond,

5.509

Whileth the driven fires, or, then, because

5.509

The fires themselves have power to creep along,

5.509

Going wherever their food invites and calls,

5.509

And feeding their flaming bodies everywhere

5.509

Throughout the sky. Yet which of these is cause

5.509

In this our world 'tis hard to say for sure;

5.509

But what can be throughout the universe,

5.509

In divers worlds on divers plan create,

5.509

This only do I show, and follow on

5.509

To assign unto the motions of the stars

5.509

Even several causes which 'tis possible

5.509

Exist throughout the universal All;

5.509

Of which yet one must be the cause even here

5.509

Which maketh motion for our constellations.

5.509

Yet to decide which one of them it be

5.509

Is not the least the business of a man

5.509

Advancing step by cautious step, as I.

5.534

And that the earth may there abide at rest

5.534

In the mid-region of the world, it needs

5.534

Must vanish bit by bit in weight and lessen,

5.534

And have another substance underneath,

5.534

Conjoined to it from its earliest age

5.534

In linked unison with the vasty world's

5.534

Realms of the air in which it roots and lives.

5.534

On this account, the earth is not a load,

5.534

Nor presses down on winds of air beneath;

5.534

Even as unto a man his members be

5.534

Without all weight- the head is not a load

5.534

Unto the neck; nor do we feel the whole

5.534

Weight of the body to centre in the feet.

5.534

But whatso weights come on us from without,

5.534

Weights laid upon us, these harass and chafe,

5.534

Though often far lighter. For to such degree

5.534

It matters always what the innate powers

5.534

Of any given thing may be. The earth

5.534

Was, then, no alien substance fetched amain,

5.534

And from no alien firmament cast down

5.534

On alien air; but was conceived, like air,

5.534

In the first origin of this the world,

5.534

As a fixed portion of the same, as now

5.534

Our members are seen to be a part of us.

5.534

Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook

5.534

By the big thunder, doth with her motion shake

5.534

All that's above her- which she ne'er could do

5.534

By any means, were earth not bounden fast

5.534

Unto the great world's realms of air and sky:

5.534

For they cohere together with common roots,

5.534

Conjoined both, even from their earliest age,

5.534

In linked unison. Aye, seest thou not

5.534

That this most subtle energy of soul

5.534

Supports our body, though so heavy a weight,-

5.534

Because, indeed, 'tis with it so conjoined

5.534

In linked unison? What power, in sum,

5.534

Can raise with agile leap our body aloft,

5.534

Save energy of mind which steers the limbs?

5.534

Now seest thou not how powerful may be

5.534

A subtle nature, when conjoined it is

5.534

With heavy body, as air is with the earth

5.534

Conjoined, and energy of mind with us?

5.564

Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much

5.564

Nor its own blaze much less than either seems

5.564

Unto our senses. For from whatso spaces

5.564

Fires have the power on us to cast their beams

5.564

And blow their scorching exhalations forth

5.564

Against our members, those same distances

5.564

Take nothing by those intervals away

5.564

From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire

5.564

Is nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat

5.564

And the outpoured light of skiey sun

5.564

Arrive our senses and caress our limbs,

5.564

Form too and bigness of the sun must look

5.564

Even here from earth just as they really be,

5.564

So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.

5.564

And whether the journeying moon illuminate

5.564

The regions round with bastard beams, or throw

5.564

From off her proper body her own light,-

5.564

Whichever it be, she journeys with a form

5.564

Naught larger than the form doth seem to be

5.564

Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all

5.564

The far removed objects of our gaze

5.564

Seem through much air confused in their look

5.564

Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,

5.564

Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form,

5.564

May there on high by us on earth be seen

5.564

Just as she is with extreme bounds defined,

5.564

And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires

5.564

Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these

5.564

Thou mayst consider as possibly of size

5.564

The least bit less, or larger by a hair

5.564

Than they appear- since whatso fires we view

5.564

Here in the lands of earth are seen to change

5.564

From time to time their size to less or more

5.564

Only the least, when more or less away,

5.564

So long as still they bicker clear, and still

5.564

Their glow's perceived.

5.592

Nor need there be for men

5.592

Astonishment that yonder sun so small

5.592

Can yet send forth so great a light as fills

5.592

Oceans and all the lands and sky aflood,

5.592

And with its fiery exhalations steeps

5.592

The world at large. For it may be, indeed,

5.592

That one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole

5.592

Wide world from here hath opened and out-gushed,

5.592

And shot its light abroad; because thuswise

5.592

The elements of fiery exhalations

5.592

From all the world around together come,

5.592

And thuswise flow into a bulk so big

5.592

That from one single fountain-head may stream

5.592

This heat and light. And seest thou not, indeed,

5.592

How widely one small water-spring may wet

5.592

The meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?

5.592

'Tis even possible, besides, that heat

5.592

From forth the sun's own fire, albeit that fire

5.592

Be not a great, may permeate the air

5.592

With the fierce hot- if but, perchance, the air

5.592

Be of condition and so tempered then

5.592

As to be kindled, even when beat upon

5.592

Only by little particles of heat-

5.592

Just as we sometimes see the standing grain

5.592

Or stubble straw in conflagration all

5.592

From one lone spark. And possibly the sun,

5.592

Agleam on high with rosy lampion,

5.592

Possesses about him with invisible heats

5.592

A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,

5.592

So that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire,

5.592

Increase to such degree the force of rays.

5.614

Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men

5.614

How the sun journeys from his summer haunts

5.614

On to the mid-most winter turning-points

5.614

In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers

5.614

Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor

5.614

How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross

5.614

That very distance which in traversing

5.614

The sun consumes the measure of a year.

5.614

I say, no one clear reason hath been given

5.614

For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood

5.614

Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought

5.614

Of great Democritus lays down: that ever

5.614

The nearer the constellations be to earth

5.614

The less can they by whirling of the sky

5.614

Be borne along, because those skiey powers

5.614

Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease

5.614

In under-regions, and the sun is thus

5.614

Left by degrees behind amongst those signs

5.614

That follow after, since the sun he lies

5.614

Far down below the starry signs that blaze;

5.614

And the moon lags even tardier than the sun:

5.614

In just so far as is her course removed

5.614

From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,

5.614

In just so far she fails to keep the pace

5.614

With starry signs above; for just so far

5.614

As feebler is the whirl that bears her on,

5.614

(Being, indeed, still lower than the sun),

5.614

In just so far do all the starry signs,

5.614

Circling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.

5.614

Therefore it happens that the moon appears

5.614

More swiftly to return to any sign

5.614

Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun,

5.614

Because those signs do visit her again

5.614

More swiftly than they visit the great sun.

5.614

It can be also that two streams of air

5.614

Alternately at fixed periods

5.614

Blow out from transverse regions of the world,

5.614

Of which the one may thrust the sun away

5.614

From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals

5.614

And rigors of the cold, and the other then

5.614

May cast him back from icy shades of chill

5.614

Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs

5.614

That blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,

5.614

We must suppose the moon and all the stars,

5.614

Which through the mighty and sidereal years

5.614

Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped

5.614

By streams of air from regions alternate.

5.614

Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped

5.614

By contrary winds to regions contrary,

5.614

The lower clouds diversely from the upper?

5.614

Then, why may yonder stars in ether there

5.614

Along their mighty orbits not be borne

5.614

By currents opposite the one to other?

5.650

But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk

5.650

Either when sun, after his diurnal course,

5.650

Hath walked the ultimate regions of the sky

5.650

And wearily hath panted forth his fires,

5.650

Shivered by their long journeying and wasted

5.650

By traversing the multitudinous air,

5.650

Or else because the self-same force that drave

5.650

His orb along above the lands compels

5.650

Him then to turn his course beneath the lands.

5.650

Matuta also at a fixed hour

5.650

Spreadeth the roseate morning out along

5.650

The coasts of heaven and deploys the light,

5.650

Either because the self-same sun, returning

5.650

Under the lands, aspires to seize the sky,

5.650

Striving to set it blazing with his rays

5.650

Ere he himself appear, or else because

5.650

Fires then will congregate and many seeds

5.650

Of heat are wont, even at a fixed time,

5.650

To stream together- gendering evermore

5.650

New suns and light. Just so the story goes

5.650

That from the Idaean mountain-tops are seen

5.650

Dispersed fires upon the break of day

5.650

Which thence combine, as 'twere, into one ball

5.650

And form an orb. Nor yet in these affairs

5.650

Is aught for wonder that these seeds of fire

5.650

Can thus together stream at time so fixed

5.650

And shape anew the splendour of the sun.

5.650

For many facts we see which come to pass

5.650

At fixed time in all things: burgeon shrubs

5.650

At fixed time, and at a fixed time

5.650

They cast their flowers; and Eld commands the teeth,

5.650

At time as surely fixed, to drop away,

5.650

And Youth commands the growing boy to bloom

5.650

With the soft down and let from both his cheeks

5.650

The soft beard fall. And lastly, thunder-bolts,

5.650

Snow, rains, clouds, winds, at seasons of the year

5.650

Nowise unfixed, all do come to pass.

5.650

For where, even from their old primordial start

5.650

Causes have ever worked in such a way,

5.650

And where, even from the world's first origin,

5.650

Thuswise have things befallen, so even now

5.650

After a fixed order they come round

5.650

In sequence also.

5.680

Likewise, days may wax

5.680

Whilst the nights wane, and daylight minished be

5.680

Whilst nights do take their augmentations,

5.680

Either because the self-same sun, coursing

5.680

Under the lands and over in two arcs,

5.680

A longer and a briefer, doth dispart

5.680

The coasts of ether and divides in twain

5.680

His orbit all unequally, and adds,

5.680

As round he's borne, unto the one half there

5.680

As much as from the other half he's ta'en,

5.680

Until he then arrives that sign of heaven

5.680

Where the year's node renders the shades of night

5.680

Equal unto the periods of light.

5.680

For when the sun is midway on his course

5.680

Between the blasts of northwind and of south,

5.680

Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally,

5.680

By virtue of the fixed position old

5.680

Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which

5.680

That sun, in winding onward, takes a year,

5.680

Illumining the sky and all the lands

5.680

With oblique light- as men declare to us

5.680

Who by their diagrams have charted well

5.680

Those regions of the sky which be adorned

5.680

With the arranged signs of Zodiac.

5.680

Or else, because in certain parts the air

5.680

Under the lands is denser, the tremulous

5.680

Bright beams of fire do waver tardily,

5.680

Nor easily can penetrate that air

5.680

Nor yet emerge unto their rising-place:

5.680

For this it is that nights in winter time

5.680

Do linger long, ere comes the many-rayed

5.680

Round Badge of the day. Or else because, as said,

5.680

In alternating seasons of the year

5.680

Fires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont

5.680

To stream together,- the fires which make the sun

5.680

To rise in some one spot- therefore it is

5.680

That those men seem to speak the truth [who hold

5.680

A new sun is with each new daybreak born].

5.705

The moon she possibly doth shine because

5.705

Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day

5.705

May turn unto our gaze her light, the more

5.705

She doth recede from orb of sun, until,

5.705

Facing him opposite across the world,

5.705

She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad,

5.705

And, at her rising as she soars above,

5.705

Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise

5.705

She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind

5.705

By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides,

5.705

Along the circle of the Zodiac,

5.705

From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-

5.705

As those men hold who feign the moon to be

5.705

Just like a ball and to pursue a course

5.705

Betwixt the sun and earth. There is, again,

5.705

Some reason to suppose that moon may roll

5.705

With light her very own, and thus display

5.705

The varied shapes of her resplendence there.

5.705

For near her is, percase, another body,

5.705

Invisible, because devoid of light,

5.705

Borne on and gliding all along with her,

5.705

Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.

5.705

Again, she may revolve upon herself,

5.705

Like to a ball's sphere- if perchance that be-

5.705

One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light,

5.705

And by the revolution of that sphere

5.705

She may beget for us her varying shapes,

5.705

Until she turns that fiery part of her

5.705

Full to the sight and open eyes of men;

5.705

Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls,

5.705

Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part

5.705

Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily,

5.705

The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees,

5.705

Refuting the art of Greek astrologers,

5.705

Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-

5.705

As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights,

5.705

Might not alike be true,- or aught there were

5.705

Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one

5.705

More than the other notion. Then, again,

5.705

Why a new moon might not forevermore

5.705

Created be with fixed successions there

5.705

Of shapes and with configurations fixed,

5.705

And why each day that bright created moon

5.705

Might not miscarry and another be,

5.705

In its stead and place, engendered anew,

5.705

'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words

5.705

To prove absurd- since, lo, so many things

5.705

Can be create with fixed successions:

5.705

Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy,

5.705

The winged harbinger, steps on before,

5.705

And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,

5.705

Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all

5.705

With colours and with odours excellent;

5.705

Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he

5.705

Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one,

5.705

And by the Etesian Breezes of the north;

5.705

Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps

5.705

Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too

5.705

And other Winds do follow- the high roar

5.705

Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong

5.705

With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day

5.705

Bears on to men the snows and brings again

5.705

The numbing cold. And Winter follows her,

5.705

His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis

5.705

The less a marvel, if at fixed time

5.705

A moon is thus begotten and again

5.705

At fixed time destroyed, since things so many

5.705

Can come to being thus at fixed time.

5.705

Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's

5.705

Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem

5.751

As due to several causes. For, indeed,

5.751

Why should the moon be able to shut out

5.751

Earth from the light of sun, and on the side

5.751

To earthward thrust her high head under sun,

5.751

Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams-

5.751

And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect

5.751

Could not result from some one other body

5.751

Which glides devoid of light forevermore?

5.751

Again, why could not sun, in weakened state,

5.751

At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then,

5.751

When he has passed on along the air

5.751

Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames,

5.751

That quench and kill his fires, why could not he

5.751

Renew his light? And why should earth in turn

5.751

Have power to rob the moon of light, and there,

5.751

Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath,

5.751

Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course

5.751

Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-

5.751

And yet, at same time, some one other body

5.751

Not have the power to under-pass the moon,

5.751

Or glide along above the orb of sun,

5.751

Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?

5.751

And still, if moon herself refulgent be

5.751

With her own sheen, why could she not at times

5.751

In some one quarter of the mighty world

5.751

Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through

5.751

Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?

5.772

And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved

5.772

By what arrangements all things come to pass

5.772

Through the blue regions of the mighty world,-

5.772

How we can know what energy and cause

5.772

Started the various courses of the sun

5.772

And the moon's goings, and by what far means

5.772

They can succumb, the while with thwarted light,

5.772

And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,

5.772

When, as it were, they blink, and then again

5.772

With open eye survey all regions wide,

5.772

Resplendent with white radiance- I do now

5.772

Return unto the world's primeval age

5.772

And tell what first the soft young fields of earth

5.772

With earliest parturition had decreed

5.772

To raise in air unto the shores of light

5.772

And to entrust unto the wayward winds.

5.772

In the beginning, earth gave forth, around

5.772

The hills and over all the length of plains,

5.772

The race of grasses and the shining green;

5.772

The flowery meadows sparkled all aglow

5.772

With greening colour, and thereafter, lo,

5.772

Unto the divers kinds of trees was given

5.772

An emulous impulse mightily to shoot,

5.772

With a free rein, aloft into the air.

5.772

As feathers and hairs and bristles are begot

5.772

The first on members of the four-foot breeds

5.772

And on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,

5.772

Thus then the new Earth first of all put forth

5.772

Grasses and shrubs, and afterward begat

5.772

The mortal generations, there upsprung-

5.772

Innumerable in modes innumerable-

5.772

After diverging fashions. For from sky

5.772

These breathing-creatures never can have dropped,

5.772

Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up

5.772

Out of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,

5.772

How merited is that adopted name

5.772

Of earth- "The Mother!"- since from out the earth

5.772

Are all begotten. And even now arise

5.772

From out the loams how many living things-

5.772

Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.

5.772

Wherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang

5.772

In Long Ago more many, and more big,

5.772

Matured of those days in the fresh young years

5.772

Of earth and ether. First of all, the race

5.772

Of the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,

5.772

Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;

5.772

As now-a-days in summer tree-crickets

5.772

Do leave their shiny husks of own accord,

5.772

Seeking their food and living. Then it was

5.772

This earth of thine first gave unto the day

5.772

The mortal generations; for prevailed

5.772

Among the fields abounding hot and wet.

5.772

And hence, where any fitting spot was given,

5.772

There 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots

5.772

Affixed to earth. And when in ripened time

5.772

The age of the young within (that sought the air

5.772

And fled earth's damps) had burst these wombs, O then

5.772

Would Nature thither turn the pores of earth

5.772

And make her spurt from open veins a juice

5.772

Like unto milk; even as a woman now

5.772

Is filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk,

5.772

Because all that swift stream of aliment

5.772

Is thither turned unto the mother-breasts.

5.772

There earth would furnish to the children food;

5.772

Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed

5.772

Abounding in soft down. Earth's newness then

5.772

Would rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold,

5.772

Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers-

5.772

For all things grow and gather strength through time

5.772

In like proportions; and then earth was young.

5.821

Wherefore, again, again, how merited

5.821

Is that adopted name of Earth- The Mother!-

5.821

Since she herself begat the human race,

5.821

And at one well-nigh fixed time brought forth

5.821

Each breast that ranges raving round about

5.821

Upon the mighty mountains and all birds

5.821

Aerial with many a varied shape.

5.821

But, lo, because her bearing years must end,

5.821

She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.

5.821

For lapsing aeons change the nature of

5.821

The whole wide world, and all things needs must take

5.821

One status after other, nor aught persists

5.821

Forever like itself. All things depart;

5.821

Nature she changeth all, compelleth all

5.821

To transformation. Lo, this moulders down,

5.821

A-slack with weary eld, and that, again,

5.821

Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt.

5.821

In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change

5.821

The nature of the whole wide world, and earth

5.821

Taketh one status after other. And what

5.821

She bore of old, she now can bear no longer,

5.821

And what she never bore, she can to-day.

5.821

In those days also the telluric world

5.821

Strove to beget the monsters that upsprung

5.821

With their astounding visages and limbs-

5.821

The Man-woman- a thing betwixt the twain,

5.821

Yet neither, and from either sex remote-

5.821

Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet,

5.821

Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too

5.821

Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye,

5.821

Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms

5.821

Cleaving unto the body fore and aft,

5.821

Thuswise, that never could they do or go,

5.821

Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.

5.821

And other prodigies and monsters earth

5.821

Was then begetting of this sort- in vain,

5.821

Since Nature banned with horror their increase,

5.821

And powerless were they to reach unto

5.821

The coveted flower of fair maturity,

5.821

Or to find aliment, or to intertwine

5.821

In works of Venus. For we see there must

5.821

Concur in life conditions manifold,

5.821

If life is ever by begetting life

5.821

To forge the generations one by one:

5.821

First, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby

5.821

The seeds of impregnation in the frame

5.821

May ooze, released from the members all;

5.821

Last, the possession of those instruments

5.821

Whereby the male with female can unite,

5.821

The one with other in mutual ravishments.

5.855

And in the ages after monsters died,

5.855

Perforce there perished many a stock, unable

5.855

By propagation to forge a progeny.

5.855

For whatsoever creatures thou beholdest

5.855

Breathing the breath of life, the same have been

5.855

Even from their earliest age preserved alive

5.855

By cunning, or by valour, or at least

5.855

By speed of foot or wing. And many a stock

5.855

Remaineth yet, because of use to man,

5.855

And so committed to man's guardianship.

5.855

Valour hath saved alive fierce lion-breeds

5.855

And many another terrorizing race,

5.855

Cunning the foxes, flight the antlered stags.

5.855

Light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast,

5.855

However, and every kind begot from seed

5.855

Of beasts of draft, as, too, the woolly flocks

5.855

And horned cattle, all, my Memmius,

5.855

Have been committed to guardianship of men.

5.855

For anxiously they fled the savage beasts,

5.855

And peace they sought and their abundant foods,

5.855

Obtained with never labours of their own,

5.855

Which we secure to them as fit rewards

5.855

For their good service. But those beasts to whom

5.855

Nature has granted naught of these same things-

5.855

Beasts quite unfit by own free will to thrive

5.855

And vain for any service unto us

5.855

In thanks for which we should permit their kind

5.855

To feed and be in our protection safe-

5.855

Those, of a truth, were wont to be exposed,

5.855

Enshackled in the gruesome bonds of doom,

5.855

As prey and booty for the rest, until

5.855

Nature reduced that stock to utter death.

5.878

But Centaurs ne'er have been, nor can there be

5.878

Creatures of twofold stock and double frame,

5.878

Compact of members alien in kind,

5.878

Yet formed with equal function, equal force

5.878

In every bodily part- a fact thou mayst,

5.878

However dull thy wits, well learn from this:

5.878

The horse, when his three years have rolled away,

5.878

Flowers in his prime of vigour; but the boy

5.878

Not so, for oft even then he gropes in sleep

5.878

After the milky nipples of the breasts,

5.878

An infant still. And later, when at last

5.878

The lusty powers of horses and stout limbs,

5.878

Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age,

5.878

Lo, only then doth youth with flowering years

5.878

Begin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks

5.878

With the soft down. So never deem, percase,

5.878

That from a man and from the seed of horse,

5.878

The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed

5.878

Or e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-

5.878

The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-

5.878

Nor others of this sort, in whom we mark

5.878

Members discordant each with each; for ne'er

5.878

At one same time they reach their flower of age

5.878

Or gain and lose full vigour of their frame,

5.878

And never burn with one same lust of love,

5.878

And never in their habits they agree,

5.878

Nor find the same foods equally delightsome-

5.878

Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats

5.878

Batten upon the hemlock which to man

5.878

Is violent poison. Once again, since flame

5.878

Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks

5.878

Of the great lions as much as other kinds

5.878

Of flesh and blood existing in the lands,

5.878

How could it be that she, Chimaera lone,

5.878

With triple body- fore, a lion she;

5.878

And aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat-

5.878

Might at the mouth from out the body belch

5.878

Infuriate flame? Wherefore, the man who feigns

5.878

Such beings could have been engendered

5.878

When earth was new and the young sky was fresh

5.878

(Basing his empty argument on new)

5.878

May babble with like reason many whims

5.878

Into our ears: he'll say, perhaps, that then

5.878

Rivers of gold through every landscape flowed,

5.878

That trees were wont with precious stones to flower,

5.878

Or that in those far aeons man was born

5.878

With such gigantic length and lift of limbs

5.878

As to be able, based upon his feet,

5.878

Deep oceans to bestride or with his hands

5.878

To whirl the firmament around his head.

5.878

For though in earth were many seeds of things

5.878

In the old time when this telluric world

5.878

First poured the breeds of animals abroad,

5.878

Still that is nothing of a sign that then

5.878

Such hybrid creatures could have been begot

5.878

And limbs of all beasts heterogeneous

5.878

Have been together knit; because, indeed,

5.878

The divers kinds of grasses and the grains

5.878

And the delightsome trees- which even now

5.878

Spring up abounding from within the earth-

5.878

Can still ne'er be begotten with their stems

5.878

Begrafted into one; but each sole thing

5.878

Proceeds according to its proper wont

5.878

And all conserve their own distinctions based

5.878

In nature's fixed decree.

5.925

But mortal man

5.925

Was then far hardier in the old champaign,

5.925

As well he should be, since a hardier earth

5.925

Had him begotten; builded too was he

5.925

Of bigger and more solid bones within,

5.925

And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh,

5.925

Nor easily seized by either heat or cold,

5.925

Or alien food or any ail or irk.

5.925

And whilst so many lustrums of the sun

5.925

Rolled on across the sky, men led a life

5.925

After the roving habit of wild beasts.

5.925

Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,

5.925

And none knew then to work the fields with iron,

5.925

Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam,

5.925

Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees

5.925

The boughs of yester-year. What sun and rains

5.925

To them had given, what earth of own accord

5.925

Created then, was boon enough to glad

5.925

Their simple hearts. Mid acorn-laden oaks

5.925

Would they refresh their bodies for the nonce;

5.925

And the wild berries of the arbute-tree,

5.925

Which now thou seest to ripen purple-red

5.925

In winter time, the old telluric soil

5.925

Would bear then more abundant and more big.

5.925

And many coarse foods, too, in long ago

5.925

The blooming freshness of the rank young world

5.925

Produced, enough for those poor wretches there.

5.925

And rivers and springs would summon them of old

5.925

To slake the thirst, as now from the great hills

5.925

The water's down-rush calls aloud and far

5.925

The thirsty generations of the wild.

5.925

So, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs-

5.925

The woodland haunts discovered as they ranged-

5.925

From forth of which they knew that gliding rills

5.925

With gush and splash abounding laved the rocks,

5.925

The dripping rocks, and trickled from above

5.925

Over the verdant moss; and here and there

5.925

Welled up and burst across the open flats.

5.925

As yet they knew not to enkindle fire

5.925

Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use

5.925

And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts;

5.925

But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods,

5.925

And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs,

5.925

When driven to flee the lashings of the winds

5.925

And the big rains. Nor could they then regard

5.925

The general good, nor did they know to use

5.925

In common any customs, any laws:

5.925

Whatever of booty fortune unto each

5.925

Had proffered, each alone would bear away,

5.925

By instinct trained for self to thrive and live.

5.925

And Venus in the forests then would link

5.925

The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded

5.925

Either from mutual flame, or from the man's

5.925

Impetuous fury and insatiate lust,

5.925

Or from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears,

5.925

Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree.

5.925

And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs,

5.925

They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts;

5.925

And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled,

5.925

A-skulk into their hiding-places...

5.925

. . . . . .

5.925

With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft

5.925

Of gnarled branch. And by the time of night

5.925

O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars,

5.925

Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth,

5.925

Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.

5.925

Nor would they call with lamentations loud

5.925

Around the fields for daylight and the sun,

5.925

Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night;

5.925

But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait

5.925

Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought

5.925

The glory to the sky. From childhood wont

5.925

Ever to see the dark and day begot

5.925

In times alternate, never might they be

5.925

Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night

5.925

Eternal should possess the lands, with light

5.925

Of sun withdrawn forever. But their care

5.925

Was rather that the clans of savage beasts

5.925

Would often make their sleep-time horrible

5.925

For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven,

5.925

They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach

5.925

Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong,

5.925

And in the midnight yield with terror up

5.925

To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.

5.988

And yet in those days not much more than now

5.988

Would generations of mortality

5.988

Leave the sweet light of fading life behind.

5.988

Indeed, in those days here and there a man,

5.988

More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs,

5.988

Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive,

5.988

Echoing through groves and hills and forest-trees,

5.988

Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed

5.988

Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight

5.988

Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked,

5.988

Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores,

5.988

With horrible voices for eternal death-

5.988

Until, forlorn of help, and witless what

5.988

Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs

5.988

Took them from life. But not in those far times

5.988

Would one lone day give over unto doom

5.988

A soldiery in thousands marching on

5.988

Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then

5.988

The ramping breakers of the main seas dash

5.988

Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks.

5.988

But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain,

5.988

Without all end or outcome, and give up

5.988

Its empty menacings as lightly too;

5.988

Nor soft seductions of a serene sea

5.988

Could lure by laughing billows any man

5.988

Out to disaster: for the science bold

5.988

Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.

5.988

Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er

5.988

Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now

5.988

'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they

5.988

Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour

5.988

The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves

5.988

They give the drafts to others.

5.1011

Afterwards,

5.1011

When huts they had procured and pelts and fire,

5.1011

And when the woman, joined unto the man,

5.1011

Withdrew with him into one dwelling place,

5.1011

. . . . . .

5.1011

Were known; and when they saw an offspring born

5.1011

From out themselves, then first the human race

5.1011

Began to soften. For 'twas now that fire

5.1011

Rendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear,

5.1011

Under the canopy of the sky, the cold;

5.1011

And Love reduced their shaggy hardiness;

5.1011

And children, with the prattle and the kiss,

5.1011

Soon broke the parents' haughty temper down.

5.1011

Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends,

5.1011

Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,

5.1011

And urged for children and the womankind

5.1011

Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures

5.1011

They stammered hints how meet it was that all

5.1011

Should have compassion on the weak. And still,

5.1011

Though concord not in every wise could then

5.1011

Begotten be, a good, a goodly part

5.1011

Kept faith inviolate- or else mankind

5.1011

Long since had been unutterably cut off,

5.1011

And propagation never could have brought

5.1011

The species down the ages.

5.1028

But nature 'twas

5.1028

Urged men to utter various sounds of tongue

5.1028

And need and use did mould the names of things,

5.1028

About in same wise as the lack-speech years

5.1028

Compel young children unto gesturings,

5.1028

Making them point with finger here and there

5.1028

At what's before them. For each creature feels

5.1028

By instinct to what use to put his powers.

5.1028

Ere yet the bull-calf's scarce begotten horns

5.1028

Project above his brows, with them he 'gins

5.1028

Enraged to butt and savagely to thrust.

5.1028

But whelps of panthers and the lion's cubs

5.1028

With claws and paws and bites are at the fray

5.1028

Already, when their teeth and claws be scarce

5.1028

As yet engendered. So again, we see

5.1028

All breeds of winged creatures trust to wings

5.1028

And from their fledgling pinions seek to get

5.1028

A fluttering assistance. Thus, to think

5.1028

That in those days some man apportioned round

5.1028

To things their names, and that from him men learned

5.1028

Their first nomenclature, is foolery.

5.1028

For why could he mark everything by words

5.1028

And utter the various sounds of tongue, what time

5.1028

The rest may be supposed powerless

5.1028

To do the same? And, if the rest had not

5.1028

Already one with other used words,

5.1028

Whence was implanted in the teacher, then,

5.1028

Fore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given

5.1028

To him alone primordial faculty

5.1028

To know and see in mind what 'twas he willed?

5.1028

Besides, one only man could scarce subdue

5.1028

An overmastered multitude to choose

5.1028

To get by heart his names of things. A task

5.1028

Not easy 'tis in any wise to teach

5.1028

And to persuade the deaf concerning what

5.1028

'Tis needful for to do. For ne'er would they

5.1028

Allow, nor ne'er in anywise endure

5.1028

Perpetual vain dingdong in their ears

5.1028

Of spoken sounds unheard before. And what,

5.1028

At last, in this affair so wondrous is,

5.1028

That human race (in whom a voice and tongue

5.1028

Were now in vigour) should by divers words

5.1028

Denote its objects, as each divers sense

5.1028

Might prompt?- since even the speechless herds, aye, since

5.1028

The very generations of wild beasts

5.1028

Are wont dissimilar and divers sounds

5.1028

To rouse from in them, when there's fear or pain,

5.1028

And when they burst with joys. And this, forsooth,

5.1028

'Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first

5.1028

Huge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds,

5.1028

Baring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl,

5.1028

They threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back,

5.1028

In sounds far other than with which they bark

5.1028

And fill with voices all the regions round.

5.1028

And when with fondling tongue they start to lick

5.1028

Their puppies, or do toss them round with paws,

5.1028

Feigning with gentle bites to gape and snap,

5.1028

They fawn with yelps of voice far other then

5.1028

Than when, alone within the house, they bay,

5.1028

Or whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.

5.1028

Again the neighing of the horse, is that

5.1028

Not seen to differ likewise, when the stud

5.1028

In buoyant flower of his young years raves,

5.1028

Goaded by winged Love, amongst the mares,

5.1028

And when with widening nostrils out he snorts

5.1028

The call to battle, and when haply he

5.1028

Whinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?

5.1028

Lastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,

5.1028

Hawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life

5.1028

Amid the ocean billows in the brine,

5.1028

Utter at other times far other cries

5.1028

Than when they fight for food, or with their prey

5.1028

Struggle and strain. And birds there are which change

5.1028

With changing weather their own raucous songs-

5.1028

As long-lived generations of the crows

5.1028

Or flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry

5.1028

For rain and water and to call at times

5.1028

For winds and gales. Ergo, if divers moods

5.1028

Compel the brutes, though speechless evermore,

5.1028

To send forth divers sounds, O truly then

5.1028

How much more likely 'twere that mortal men

5.1028

In those days could with many a different sound

5.1028

Denote each separate thing.

5.1091

Lest, perchance,

5.1091

Concerning these affairs thou ponderest

5.1091

In silent meditation, let me say

5.1091

'Twas lightning brought primevally to earth

5.1091

The fire for mortals, and from thence hath spread

5.1091

O'er all the lands the flames of heat. For thus

5.1091

Even now we see so many objects, touched

5.1091

By the celestial flames, to flash aglow,

5.1091

When thunderbolt has dowered them with heat.

5.1091

Yet also when a many-branched tree,

5.1091

Beaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro,

5.1091

Pressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree,

5.1091

There by the power of mighty rub and rub

5.1091

Is fire engendered; and at times out-flares

5.1091

The scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe

5.1091

Against the trunks. And of these causes, either

5.1091

May well have given to mortal men the fire.

5.1091

Next, food to cook and soften in the flame

5.1091

The sun instructed, since so oft they saw

5.1091

How objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth

5.1091

And by the raining blows of fiery beams,

5.1091

Through all the fields.

5.1105

And more and more each day

5.1105

Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart,

5.1105

Teach them to change their earlier mode and life

5.1105

By fire and new devices. Kings began

5.1105

Cities to found and citadels to set,

5.1105

As strongholds and asylums for themselves,

5.1105

And flocks and fields to portion for each man

5.1105

After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-

5.1105

For beauty then imported much, and strength

5.1105

Had its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth

5.1105

Discovered was, and gold was brought to light,

5.1105

Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;

5.1105

For men, however beautiful in form

5.1105

Or valorous, will follow in the main

5.1105

The rich man's party. Yet were man to steer

5.1105

His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own

5.1105

Abounding riches, if with mind content

5.1105

He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,

5.1105

Is there a lack of little in the world.

5.1105

But men wished glory for themselves and power

5.1105

Even that their fortunes on foundations firm

5.1105

Might rest forever, and that they themselves,

5.1105

The opulent, might pass a quiet life-

5.1105

In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb

5.1105

On to the heights of honour, men do make

5.1105

Their pathway terrible; and even when once

5.1105

They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt

5.1105

At times will smite, O hurling headlong down

5.1105

To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo,

5.1105

All summits, all regions loftier than the rest,

5.1105

Smoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts;

5.1105

So better far in quiet to obey,

5.1105

Than to desire chief mastery of affairs

5.1105

And ownership of empires. Be it so;

5.1105

And let the weary sweat their life-blood out

5.1105

All to no end, battling in hate along

5.1105

The narrow path of man's ambition;

5.1105

Since all their wisdom is from others' lips,

5.1105

And all they seek is known from what they've heard

5.1105

And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly

5.1105

Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,

5.1105

Than' twas of old.

5.1136

And therefore kings were slain,

5.1136

And pristine majesty of golden thrones

5.1136

And haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust;

5.1136

And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,

5.1136

Soon bloody under the proletarian feet,

5.1136

Groaned for their glories gone- for erst o'er-much

5.1136

Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest

5.1136

Trampled beneath the rabble heel. Thus things

5.1136

Down to the vilest lees of brawling mobs

5.1136

Succumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself

5.1136

Dominion and supremacy. So next

5.1136

Some wiser heads instructed men to found

5.1136

The magisterial office, and did frame

5.1136

Codes that they might consent to follow laws.

5.1136

For humankind, o'er wearied with a life

5.1136

Fostered by force, was ailing from its feuds;

5.1136

And so the sooner of its own free will

5.1136

Yielded to laws and strictest codes. For since

5.1136

Each hand made ready in its wrath to take

5.1136

A vengeance fiercer than by man's fair laws

5.1136

Is now conceded, men on this account

5.1136

Loathed the old life fostered by force. 'Tis thence

5.1136

That fear of punishments defiles each prize

5.1136

Of wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare

5.1136

Each man around, and in the main recoil

5.1136

On him from whence they sprung. Not easy 'tis

5.1136

For one who violates by ugly deeds

5.1136

The bonds of common peace to pass a life

5.1136

Composed and tranquil. For albeit he 'scape

5.1136

The race of gods and men, he yet must dread

5.1136

'Twill not be hid forever- since, indeed,

5.1136

So many, oft babbling on amid their dreams

5.1136

Or raving in sickness, have betrayed themselves

5.1136

(As stories tell) and published at last

5.1136

Old secrets and the sins.

5.1161

And now what cause

5.1161

Hath spread divinities of gods abroad

5.1161

Through mighty nations, and filled the cities full

5.1161

Of the high altars, and led to practices

5.1161

Of solemn rites in season- rites which still

5.1161

Flourish in midst of great affairs of state

5.1161

And midst great centres of man's civic life,

5.1161

The rites whence still a poor mortality

5.1161

Is grafted that quaking awe which rears aloft

5.1161

Still the new temples of gods from land to land

5.1161

And drives mankind to visit them in throngs

5.1161

On holy days- 'tis not so hard to give

5.1161

Reason thereof in speech. Because, in sooth,

5.1161

Even in those days would the race of man

5.1161

Be seeing excelling visages of gods

5.1161

With mind awake; and in his sleeps, yet more-

5.1161

Bodies of wondrous growth. And, thus, to these

5.1161

Would men attribute sense, because they seemed

5.1161

To move their limbs and speak pronouncements high,

5.1161

Befitting glorious visage and vast powers.

5.1161

And men would give them an eternal life,

5.1161

Because their visages forevermore

5.1161

Were there before them, and their shapes remained,

5.1161

And chiefly, however, because men would not think

5.1161

Beings augmented with such mighty powers

5.1161

Could well by any force o'ermastered be.

5.1161

And men would think them in their happiness

5.1161

Excelling far, because the fear of death

5.1161

Vexed no one of them at all, and since

5.1161

At same time in men's sleeps men saw them do

5.1161

So many wonders, and yet feel therefrom

5.1161

Themselves no weariness. Besides, men marked

5.1161

How in a fixed order rolled around

5.1161

The systems of the sky, and changed times

5.1161

Of annual seasons, nor were able then

5.1161

To know thereof the causes. Therefore 'twas

5.1161

Men would take refuge in consigning all

5.1161

Unto divinities, and in feigning all

5.1161

Was guided by their nod. And in the sky

5.1161

They set the seats and vaults of gods, because

5.1161

Across the sky night and the moon are seen

5.1161

To roll along- moon, day, and night, and night's

5.1161

Old awesome constellations evermore,

5.1161

And the night-wandering fireballs of the sky,

5.1161

And flying flames, clouds, and the sun, the rains,

5.1161

Snow and the winds, the lightnings, and the hail,

5.1161

And the swift rumblings, and the hollow roar

5.1161

Of mighty menacings forevermore.

5.1194

O humankind unhappy!- when it ascribed

5.1194

Unto divinities such awesome deeds,

5.1194

And coupled thereto rigours of fierce wrath!

5.1194

What groans did men on that sad day beget

5.1194

Even for themselves, and O what wounds for us,

5.1194

What tears for our children's children! Nor, O man,

5.1194

Is thy true piety in this: with head

5.1194

Under the veil, still to be seen to turn

5.1194

Fronting a stone, and ever to approach

5.1194

Unto all altars; nor so prone on earth

5.1194

Forward to fall, to spread upturned palms

5.1194

Before the shrines of gods, nor yet to dew

5.1194

Altars with profuse blood of four-foot beasts,

5.1194

Nor vows with vows to link. But rather this:

5.1194

To look on all things with a master eye

5.1194

And mind at peace. For when we gaze aloft

5.1194

Upon the skiey vaults of yon great world

5.1194

And ether, fixed high o'er twinkling stars,

5.1194

And into our thought there come the journeyings

5.1194

Of sun and moon, O then into our breasts,

5.1194

O'erburdened already with their other ills,

5.1194

Begins forthwith to rear its sudden head

5.1194

One more misgiving: lest o'er us, percase,

5.1194

It be the gods' immeasurable power

5.1194

That rolls, with varied motion, round and round

5.1194

The far white constellations. For the lack

5.1194

Of aught of reasons tries the puzzled mind:

5.1194

Whether was ever a birth-time of the world,

5.1194

And whether, likewise, any end shall be

5.1194

How far the ramparts of the world can still

5.1194

Outstand this strain of ever-roused motion,

5.1194

Or whether, divinely with eternal weal

5.1194

Endowed, they can through endless tracts of age

5.1194

Glide on, defying the o'er-mighty powers

5.1194

Of the immeasurable ages. Lo,

5.1194

What man is there whose mind with dread of gods

5.1194

Cringes not close, whose limbs with terror-spell

5.1194

Crouch not together, when the parched earth

5.1194

Quakes with the horrible thunderbolt amain,

5.1194

And across the mighty sky the rumblings run?

5.1194

Do not the peoples and the nations shake,

5.1194

And haughty kings do they not hug their limbs,

5.1194

Strook through with fear of the divinities,

5.1194

Lest for aught foully done or madly said

5.1194

The heavy time be now at hand to pay?

5.1194

When, too, fierce force of fury-winds at sea

5.1194

Sweepeth a navy's admiral down the main

5.1194

With his stout legions and his elephants,

5.1194

Doth he not seek the peace of gods with vows,

5.1194

And beg in prayer, a-tremble, lulled winds

5.1194

And friendly gales?- in vain, since, often up-caught

5.1194

In fury-cyclones, is he borne along,

5.1194

For all his mouthings, to the shoals of doom.

5.1194

Ah, so irrevocably some hidden power

5.1194

Betramples forevermore affairs of men,

5.1194

And visibly grindeth with its heel in mire

5.1194

The lictors' glorious rods and axes dire,

5.1194

Having them in derision! Again, when earth

5.1194

From end to end is rocking under foot,

5.1194

And shaken cities ruin down, or threaten

5.1194

Upon the verge, what wonder is it then

5.1194

That mortal generations abase themselves,

5.1194

And unto gods in all affairs of earth

5.1194

Assign as last resort almighty powers

5.1194

And wondrous energies to govern all?

5.1241

Now for the rest: copper and gold and iron

5.1241

Discovered were, and with them silver's weight

5.1241

And power of lead, when with prodigious heat

5.1241

The conflagrations burned the forest trees

5.1241

Among the mighty mountains, by a bolt

5.1241

Of lightning from the sky, or else because

5.1241

Men, warring in the woodlands, on their foes

5.1241

Had hurled fire to frighten and dismay,

5.1241

Or yet because, by goodness of the soil

5.1241

Invited, men desired to clear rich fields

5.1241

And turn the countryside to pasture-lands,

5.1241

Or slay the wild and thrive upon the spoils.

5.1241

(For hunting by pit-fall and by fire arose

5.1241

Before the art of hedging the covert round

5.1241

With net or stirring it with dogs of chase.)

5.1241

Howso the fact, and from what cause soever

5.1241

The flamy heat with awful crack and roar

5.1241

Had there devoured to their deepest roots

5.1241

The forest trees and baked the earth with fire,

5.1241

Then from the boiling veins began to ooze

5.1241

O rivulets of silver and of gold,

5.1241

Of lead and copper too, collecting soon

5.1241

Into the hollow places of the ground.

5.1241

And when men saw the cooled lumps anon

5.1241

To shine with splendour-sheen upon the ground,

5.1241

Much taken with that lustrous smooth delight,

5.1241

They 'gan to pry them out, and saw how each

5.1241

Had got a shape like to its earthy mould.

5.1241

Then would it enter their heads how these same lumps,

5.1241

If melted by heat, could into any form

5.1241

Or figure of things be run, and how, again,

5.1241

If hammered out, they could be nicely drawn

5.1241

To sharpest points or finest edge, and thus

5.1241

Yield to the forgers tools and give them power

5.1241

To chop the forest down, to hew the logs,

5.1241

To shave the beams and planks, besides to bore

5.1241

And punch and drill. And men began such work

5.1241

At first as much with tools of silver and gold

5.1241

As with the impetuous strength of the stout copper;

5.1241

But vainly- since their over-mastered power

5.1241

Would soon give way, unable to endure,

5.1241

Like copper, such hard labour. In those days

5.1241

Copper it was that was the thing of price;

5.1241

And gold lay useless, blunted with dull edge.

5.1241

Now lies the copper low, and gold hath come

5.1241

Unto the loftiest honours. Thus it is

5.1241

That rolling ages change the times of things:

5.1241

What erst was of a price, becomes at last

5.1241

A discard of no honour; whilst another

5.1241

Succeeds to glory, issuing from contempt,

5.1241

And day by day is sought for more and more,

5.1241

And, when 'tis found, doth flower in men's praise,

5.1241

Objects of wondrous honour.

5.1281

Now, Memmius,

5.1281

How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst

5.1281

Of thine own self divine. Man's ancient arms

5.1281

Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-

5.1281

Breakage of forest trees- and flame and fire,

5.1281

As soon as known. Thereafter force of iron

5.1281

And copper discovered was; and copper's use

5.1281

Was known ere iron's, since more tractable

5.1281

Its nature is and its abundance more.

5.1281

With copper men to work the soil began,

5.1281

With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,

5.1281

To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away

5.1281

Another's flocks and fields. For unto them,

5.1281

Thus armed, all things naked of defence

5.1281

Readily yielded. Then by slow degrees

5.1281

The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape

5.1281

Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned:

5.1281

With iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan,

5.1281

And the contentions of uncertain war

5.1281

Were rendered equal.

5.1281

And, lo, man was wont

5.1281

Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse

5.1281

And guide him with the rein, and play about

5.1281

With right hand free, oft times before he tried

5.1281

Perils of war in yoked chariot;

5.1281

And yoked pairs abreast came earlier

5.1281

Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots

5.1281

Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next

5.1281

The Punic folk did train the elephants-

5.1281

Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous,

5.1281

The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-

5.1281

To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike

5.1281

The mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad

5.1281

Begat the one Thing after other, to be

5.1281

The terror of the nations under arms,

5.1281

And day by day to horrors of old war

5.1281

She added an increase.

5.1308

Bulls, too, they tried

5.1308

In war's grim business; and essayed to send

5.1308

Outrageous boars against the foes. And some

5.1308

Sent on before their ranks puissant lions

5.1308

With armed trainers and with masters fierce

5.1308

To guide and hold in chains- and yet in vain,

5.1308

Since fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew,

5.1308

And blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought,

5.1308

Shaking the frightful crests upon their heads,

5.1308

Now here, now there. Nor could the horsemen calm

5.1308

Their horses, panic-breasted at the roar,

5.1308

And rein them round to front the foe. With spring

5.1308

The infuriate she-lions would up-leap

5.1308

Now here, now there; and whoso came apace

5.1308

Against them, these they'd rend across the face;

5.1308

And others unwitting from behind they'd tear

5.1308

Down from their mounts, and twining round them, bring

5.1308

Tumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound,

5.1308

And with those powerful fangs and hooked claws

5.1308

Fasten upon them. Bulls would toss their friends,

5.1308

And trample under foot, and from beneath

5.1308

Rip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns,

5.1308

And with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod;

5.1308

And boars would gore with stout tusks their allies,

5.1308

Splashing in fury their own blood on spears

5.1308

Splintered in their own bodies, and would fell

5.1308

In rout and ruin infantry and horse.

5.1308

For there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape

5.1308

The savage thrusts of tusk by shying off,

5.1308

Or rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.

5.1308

In vain- since there thou mightest see them sink,

5.1308

Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall

5.1308

Bestrew the ground. And such of these as men

5.1308

Supposed well-trained long ago at home,

5.1308

Were in the thick of action seen to foam

5.1308

In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight,

5.1308

The panic, and the tumult; nor could men

5.1308

Aught of their numbers rally. For each breed

5.1308

And various of the wild beasts fled apart

5.1308

Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day

5.1308

Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel

5.1308

Grievously mangled, after they have wrought

5.1308

Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.

5.1308

(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all:

5.1308

But scarcely I'll believe that men could not

5.1308

With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come,

5.1308

Such foul and general disaster.- This

5.1308

We, then, may hold as true in the great All,

5.1308

In divers worlds on divers plan create,-

5.1308

Somewhere afar more likely than upon

5.1308

One certain earth.) But men chose this to do

5.1308

Less in the hope of conquering than to give

5.1308

Their enemies a goodly cause of woe,

5.1308

Even though thereby they perished themselves,

5.1308

Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.

5.1350

Now, clothes of roughly inter-plaited strands

5.1350

Were earlier than loom-wove coverings;

5.1350

The loom-wove later than man's iron is,

5.1350

Since iron is needful in the weaving art,

5.1350

Nor by no other means can there be wrought

5.1350

Such polished tools- the treadles, spindles, shuttles,

5.1350

And sounding yarn-beams. And nature forced the men,

5.1350

Before the woman kind, to work the wool:

5.1350

For all the male kind far excels in skill,

5.1350

And cleverer is by much- until at last

5.1350

The rugged farmer folk jeered at such tasks,

5.1350

And so were eager soon to give them o'er

5.1350

To women's hands, and in more hardy toil

5.1350

To harden arms and hands.

5.1361

But nature herself,

5.1361

Mother of things, was the first seed-sower

5.1361

And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns,

5.1361

Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath

5.1361

Put forth in season swarms of little shoots;

5.1361

Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips

5.1361

Upon the boughs and setting out in holes

5.1361

The young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try

5.1361

Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts,

5.1361

And mark they would how earth improved the taste

5.1361

Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.

5.1361

And day by day they'd force the woods to move

5.1361

Still higher up the mountain, and to yield

5.1361

The place below for tilth, that there they might,

5.1361

On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats,

5.1361

Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain,

5.1361

And happy vineyards, and that all along

5.1361

O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run

5.1361

The silvery-green belt of olive-trees,

5.1361

Marking the plotted landscape; even as now

5.1361

Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness

5.1361

All the terrain which men adorn and plant

5.1361

With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round

5.1361

With thriving shrubberies sown.

5.1379

But by the mouth

5.1379

To imitate the liquid notes of birds

5.1379

Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make,

5.1379

By measured song, melodious verse and give

5.1379

Delight to ears. And whistlings of the wind

5.1379

Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught

5.1379

The peasantry to blow into the stalks

5.1379

Of hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit

5.1379

They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours,

5.1379

Beaten by finger-tips of singing men,

5.1379

When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps

5.1379

And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts

5.1379

Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.

5.1379

Thus time draws forward each and everything

5.1379

Little by little unto the midst of men,

5.1379

And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.

5.1379

These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals

5.1379

When sated with food,- for songs are welcome then.

5.1379

And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass

5.1379

Beside a river of water, underneath

5.1379

A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh

5.1379

Their frames, with no vast outlay- most of all

5.1379

If the weather were smiling and the times of the year

5.1379

Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.

5.1379

Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity

5.1379

Would circle round; for then the rustic muse

5.1379

Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth

5.1379

Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about

5.1379

With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,

5.1379

And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs

5.1379

Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot

5.1379

To beat our mother earth- from whence arose

5.1379

Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,

5.1379

Such frolic acts were in their glory then,

5.1379

Being more new and strange. And wakeful men

5.1379

Found solaces for their unsleeping hours

5.1379

In drawing forth variety of notes,

5.1379

In modulating melodies, in running

5.1379

With puckered lips along the tuned reeds,

5.1379

Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard

5.1379

These old traditions, and have learned well

5.1379

To keep true measure. And yet they no whit

5.1379

Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness

5.1379

Than got the woodland aborigines

5.1379

In olden times. For what we have at hand-

5.1379

If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-

5.1379

That chiefly pleases and seems best of all;

5.1379

But then some later, likely better, find

5.1379

Destroys its worth and changes our desires

5.1379

Regarding good of yesterday.

5.1416

And thus

5.1416

Began the loathing of the acorn; thus

5.1416

Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn

5.1416

And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again,

5.1416

Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-

5.1416

Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess,

5.1416

Aroused in those days envy so malign

5.1416

That the first wearer went to woeful death

5.1416

By ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize,

5.1416

Rent into rags by greedy foemen there

5.1416

And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly

5.1416

Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old

5.1416

'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold

5.1416

That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.

5.1416

Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame

5.1416

With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack,

5.1416

Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth;

5.1416

But us it nothing hurts to do without

5.1416

The purple vestment, broidered with gold

5.1416

And with imposing figures, if we still

5.1416

Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.

5.1416

So man in vain futilities toils on

5.1416

Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-

5.1416

Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt

5.1416

What the true end of getting is, nor yet

5.1416

At all how far true pleasure may increase.

5.1416

And 'tis desire for better and for more

5.1416

Hath carried by degrees mortality

5.1416

Out onward to the deep, and roused up

5.1416

From the far bottom mighty waves of war.

5.1436

But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world,

5.1436

With their own lanterns traversing around

5.1436

The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught

5.1436

Unto mankind that seasons of the years

5.1436

Return again, and that the Thing takes place

5.1436

After a fixed plan and order fixed.

5.1436

Already would they pass their life, hedged round

5.1436

By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth

5.1436

All portioned out and boundaried; already

5.1436

Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships;

5.1436

Already men had, under treaty pacts,

5.1436

Confederates and allies, when poets began

5.1436

To hand heroic actions down in verse;

5.1436

Nor long ere this had letters been devised-

5.1436

Hence is our age unable to look back

5.1436

On what has gone before, except where reason

5.1436

Shows us a footprint.

5.1436

Sailings on the seas,

5.1436

Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads,

5.1436

Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights

5.1436

Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes

5.1436

Of polished sculptures- all these arts were learned

5.1436

By practice and the mind's experience,

5.1436

As men walked forward step by eager step.

5.1436

Thus time draws forward each and everything

5.1436

Little by little into the midst of men,

5.1436

And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.

5.1436

For one thing after other did men see

5.1436

Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts

5.1436

They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.

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