Lucretius - Of the Nature of Things

Nor is there any place, where, when they’ve come,

Bodies can be at standstill in the void,

Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void

Furnish support to any — nay, it must,

True to its bent of nature, still give way.

Thus in such manner not at all can things

Be held in union, as if overcome

By craving for a centre.

But besides,

Seeing they feign that not all bodies press

To centre inward, rather only those

Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,

And the big billows from the mountain slopes,

And whatsoever are encased, as ’twere,

In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach

How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,

Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,

For this all ether quivers with bright stars,

And the sun’s flame along the blue is fed

(Because the heat, from out the centre flying,

All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs

Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,

Unless, little by little, from out the earth

For each were nutriment . . .

. . . . . .

Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,

The ramparts of the world should flee away,

Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,

And lest all else should likewise follow after,

Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst

And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith

Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,

Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,

With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,

Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,

Away forever, and, that instant, naught

Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside

The desolate space, and germs invisible.

For on whatever side thou deemest first

The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side

Will be for things the very door of death:

Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,

Out and abroad.

These points, if thou wilt ponder,

Then, with but paltry trouble led along . . .

. . . . . .

For one thing after other will grow clear,

Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,

To hinder thy gaze on nature’s Farthest-forth.

Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.

’Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds

Roll up its waste of waters, from the land

To watch another’s labouring anguish far,

Not that we joyously delight that man

Should thus be smitten, but because ’tis sweet

To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;

’Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife

Of armies embattled yonder o’er the plains,

Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught

There is more goodly than to hold the high

Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,

Whence thou may’st look below on other men

And see them ev’rywhere wand’ring, all dispersed

In their lone seeking for the road of life;

Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,

Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil

For summits of power and mastery of the world.

O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!

In how great perils, in what darks of life

Are spent the human years, however brief! —

O not to see that nature for herself

Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,

Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy

Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!

Therefore we see that our corporeal life

Needs little, altogether, and only such

As takes the pain away, and can besides

Strew underneath some number of delights.

More grateful ’tis at times (for nature craves

No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth

There be no golden images of boys

Along the halls, with right hands holding out

The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,

And if the house doth glitter not with gold

Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound

No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,

Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass

Beside a river of water, underneath

A big tree’s boughs, and merrily to refresh

Our frames, with no vast outlay — most of all

If the weather is laughing and the times of the year

Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.

Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,

If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,

Or purple robe, than if ’tis thine to lie

Upon the poor man’s bedding. Wherefore, since

Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign

Avail us naught for this our body, thus

Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:

Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth

Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,

Rousing a mimic warfare — either side

Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,

Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;

Or save when also thou beholdest forth

Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:

For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,

Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then

The fears of death leave heart so free of care.

But if we note how all this pomp at last

Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,

And of a truth man’s dread, with cares at heels,

Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords

But among kings and lords of all the world

Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed

By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright

Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this

Is aught, but power of thinking? — when, besides

The whole of life but labours in the dark.

For just as children tremble and fear all

In the viewless dark, so even we at times

Dread in the light so many things that be

No whit more fearsome than what children feign,

Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.

This terror then, this darkness of the mind,

Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,

Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,

But only nature’s aspect and her law.

Now come: I will untangle for thy steps

Now by what motions the begetting bodies

Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,

And then forever resolve it when begot,

And by what force they are constrained to this,

And what the speed appointed unto them

Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:

Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.

For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,

Since we behold each thing to wane away,

And we observe how all flows on and off,

As ’twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes

How eld withdraws each object at the end,

Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,

Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing

Diminish what they part from, but endow

With increase those to which in turn they come,

Constraining these to wither in old age,

And those to flower at the prime (and yet

Biding not long among them). Thus the sum

Forever is replenished, and we live

As mortals by eternal give and take.

The nations wax, the nations wane away;

In a brief space the generations pass,

And like to runners hand the lamp of life

One unto other.

But if thou believe

That the primordial germs of things can stop,

And in their stopping give new motions birth,

Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.

For since they wander through the void inane,

All the primordial germs of things must needs

Be borne along, either by weight their own,

Or haply by another’s blow without.

For, when, in their incessancy so oft