Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

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.

Table of Contents

Now come, and next hereafter apprehend

What sorts, how vastly different in form,

How varied in multitudinous shapes they are—

These old beginnings of the universe;

Not in the sense that only few are furnished

With one like form, but rather not at all

In general have they likeness each with each,

No marvel: since the stock of them's so great

That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,

They must indeed not one and all be marked

By equal outline and by shape the same.

Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks

Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,

And joyous herds around, and all the wild,

And all the breeds of birds—both those that teem

In gladsome regions of the water-haunts,

About the river-banks and springs and pools,

And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,

Through trackless woods—Go, take which one thou wilt,

In any kind: thou wilt discover still

Each from the other still unlike in shape.

Nor in no other wise could offspring know

Mother, nor mother offspring—which we see

They yet can do, distinguished one from other,

No less than human beings, by clear signs.

Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,

Beside the incense-burning altars slain,

Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast

Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,

Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,

Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,

With eyes regarding every spot about,

For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;

And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes

With her complaints; and oft she seeks again

Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.

Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,

Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,

Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;

Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby

Distract her mind or lighten pain the least—

So keen her search for something known and hers.

Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats

Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs

The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,

Unfailingly each to its proper teat,

As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,

Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind

Is so far like another, that there still

Is not in shapes some difference running through.

By a like law we see how earth is pied

With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea

Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.

Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things

Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands

After a fixed pattern of one other,

They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes

In types dissimilar to one another.

Easy enough by thought of mind to solve

Why fires of lightning more can penetrate

Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.

For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,

So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,

And passes thus through holes which this our fire,

Born from the wood, created from the pine,

Cannot. Again, light passes through the horn

On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.

And why?—unless those bodies of light should be

Finer than those of water's genial showers.

We see how quickly through a colander

The wines will flow; how, on the other hand,

The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,

Because 'tis wrought of elements more large,

Or else more crook'd and intertangled. Thus

It comes that the primordials cannot be

So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,

One through each several hole of anything.

And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk

Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,

Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,

With their foul flavour set the lips awry;

Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever

Can touch the senses pleasingly are made

Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those

Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held

Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so

Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,

And rend our body as they enter in.

In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,

Being up-built of figures so unlike,

Are mutually at strife—lest thou suppose

That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw

Consists of elements as smooth as song

Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings

The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose

That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce

When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage

Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,

And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;

Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues

Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting

Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,

Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.

For never a shape which charms our sense was made

Without some elemental smoothness; whilst

Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed

Still with some roughness in its elements.

Some, too, there are which justly are supposed

To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,

With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,

To tickle rather than to wound the sense—

And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine