Lucretius - Of the Nature of Things

Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,

Though all the weight within them downward bears.

Nor, when the fires will leap from under round

The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up

Timber and beam, ’tis then to be supposed

They act of own accord, no force beneath

To urge them up. ’Tis thus that blood, discharged

From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft

And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked

With what a force the water will disgorge

Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,

We push them in, and, many though we be,

The more we press with main and toil, the more

The water vomits up and flings them back,

That, more than half their length, they there emerge,

Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,

That all the weight within them downward bears

Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames

Ought also to be able, when pressed out,

Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though

The weight within them strive to draw them down.

Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,

The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,

How after them they draw long trails of flame

Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?

How stars and constellations drop to earth,

Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven

Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,

And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:

Thus also sun’s heat downward tends to earth.

Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;

Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,

The fires dash zig-zag — and that flaming power

Falls likewise down to earth.

In these affairs

We wish thee also well aware of this:

The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,

In scarce determined places, from their course

Decline a little — call it, so to speak,

Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,

Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;

And then collisions ne’er could be nor blows

Among the primal elements; and thus

Nature would never have created aught.

But, if perchance be any that believe

The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne

Plumb down the void, are able from above

To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows

Able to cause those procreant motions, far

From highways of true reason they retire.

For whatsoever through the waters fall,

Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,

Each after its weight — on this account, because

Both bulk of water and the subtle air

By no means can retard each thing alike,

But give more quick before the heavier weight;

But contrariwise the empty void cannot,

On any side, at any time, to aught

Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,

True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,

With equal speed, though equal not in weight,

Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.

Thus ne’er at all have heavier from above

Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes

Which cause those divers motions, by whose means

Nature transacts her work. And so I say,

The atoms must a little swerve at times —

But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.

For this we see forthwith is manifest:

Whatever the weight, it can’t obliquely go,

Down on its headlong journey from above,

At least so far as thou canst mark; but who

Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

At all aside from off its road’s straight line?

Again, if ev’r all motions are co-linked,

And from the old ever arise the new

In fixed order, and primordial seeds

Produce not by their swerving some new start

Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,

That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,

Whence this free will for creatures o’er the lands,

Whence is it wrested from the fates — this will

Whereby we step right forward where desire

Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

In motions, not as at some fixed time,

Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

In these affairs ’tis each man’s will itself

That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

Incipient motions are diffused. Again,

Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,

The bars are opened, how the eager strength

Of horses cannot forward break as soon

As pants their mind to do? For it behooves

That all the stock of matter, through the frame,

Be roused, in order that, through every joint,

Aroused, it press and follow mind’s desire;

So thus thou seest initial motion’s gendered

From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds

First from the spirit’s will, whence at the last

’Tis given forth through joints and body entire.

Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,

Impelled by a blow of another’s mighty powers

And mighty urge; for then ’tis clear enough

All matter of our total body goes,

Hurried along, against our own desire —

Until the will has pulled upon the reins

And checked it back, throughout our members all;

At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes

The stock of matter’s forced to change its path,

Throughout our members and throughout our joints,

And, after being forward cast, to be

Reined up, whereat it settles back again.

So seest thou not, how, though external force

Drive men before, and often make them move,

Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,

Yet is there something in these breasts of ours

Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same? —

Wherefore no less within the primal seeds

Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,

Some other cause of motion, whence derives

This power in us inborn, of some free act. —

Since naught from nothing can become, we see.

For weight prevents all things should come to pass

Through blows, as ’twere, by some external force;

But that man’s mind itself in all it does

Hath not a fixed necessity within,

Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled

To bear and suffer — this state comes to man

From that slight swervement of the elements

In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.

Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,

Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:

For naught gives increase and naught takes away;

On which account, just as they move to-day,

The elemental bodies moved of old

And shall the same hereafter evermore.

And what was wont to be begot of old

Shall be begotten under selfsame terms

And grow and thrive in power, so far as given

To each by Nature’s changeless, old decrees.

The sum of things there is no power can change,

For naught exists outside, to which can flee

Out of the world matter of any kind,

Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,

Break in upon the founded world, and change

Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.

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