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

Works inward to our senses—so mayst see

They differ too in elemental shapes.

Thus unlike forms into one mass combine,

And things exist by intermixed seed.

But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways

All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view

Portents begot about thee every side:

Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up,

At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk,

Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,

And nature along the all-producing earth

Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame

From hideous jaws—Of which 'tis simple fact

That none have been begot; because we see

All are from fixed seed and fixed dam

Engendered and so function as to keep

Throughout their growth their own ancestral type.

This happens surely by a fixed law:

For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,

Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature,

Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,

Produce the proper motions; but we see

How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground

Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many

With viewless bodies from their bodies fly,

By blows impelled—those impotent to join

To any part, or, when inside, to accord

And to take on the vital motions there.

But think not, haply, living forms alone

Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.

For just as all things of creation are,

In their whole nature, each to each unlike,

So must their atoms be in shape unlike—

Not since few only are fashioned of like form,

But since they all, as general rule, are not

The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,

Elements many, common to many words,

Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess

The words and verses differ, each from each,

Compounded out of different elements—

Not since few only, as common letters, run

Through all the words, or no two words are made,

One and the other, from all like elements,

But since they all, as general rule, are not

The same as all. Thus, too, in other things,

Whilst many germs common to many things

There are, yet they, combined among themselves,

Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.

Thus fairly one may say that humankind,

The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up

Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds

Are different, difference must there also be

In intervening spaces, thoroughfares,

Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all

Which not alone distinguish living forms,

But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands,

And hold all heaven from the lands away.

Table of Contents

Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought

Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess

That the white objects shining to thine eyes

Are gendered of white atoms, or the black

Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught

That's steeped in any hue should take its dye

From bits of matter tinct with hue the same.

For matter's bodies own no hue the least—

Or like to objects or, again, unlike.

But, if percase it seem to thee that mind

Itself can dart no influence of its own

Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.

For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed

The light of sun, yet recognise by touch

Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,

'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought

No less unto the ken of our minds too,

Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.

Again, ourselves whatever in the dark

We touch, the same we do not find to be

Tinctured with any colour.

Now that here

I win the argument, I next will teach

Now, every colour changes, none except,

And every...

Which the primordials ought nowise to do.

Since an immutable somewhat must remain,

Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.

For change of anything from out its bounds

Means instant death of that which was before.

Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour

The seeds of things, lest things return for thee

All utterly to naught.

But now, if seeds

Receive no property of colour, and yet

Be still endowed with variable forms

From which all kinds of colours they beget

And vary (by reason that ever it matters much

With what seeds, and in what positions joined,

And what the motions that they give and get),

Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise

Why what was black of hue an hour ago

Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,—

As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved

Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves

Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,

That, when the thing we often see as black

Is in its matter then commixed anew,

Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,

And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn

Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds

Consist the level waters of the deep,

They could in nowise whiten: for however

Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never

Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds—

Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen—

Be now with one hue, now another dyed,

As oft from alien forms and divers shapes

A cube's produced all uniform in shape,

'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube

We see the forms to be dissimilar,

That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep

(Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)

Colours diverse and all dissimilar.

Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least

The whole in being externally a cube;

But differing hues of things do block and keep

The whole from being of one resultant hue.

Then, too, the reason which entices us

At times to attribute colours to the seeds

Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not

Create from white things, nor are black from black,

But evermore they are create from things

Of divers colours. Verily, the white

Will rise more readily, is sooner born

Out of no colour, than of black or aught

Which stands in hostile opposition thus.

Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,

And the primordials come not forth to light,

'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour—

Truly, what kind of colour could there be

In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself

A colour changes, gleaming variedly,

When smote by vertical or slanting ray.

Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves

That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:

Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,

Now, by a strange sensation it becomes

Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.

The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,

Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.

Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,

Without such blow these colours can't become.

And since the pupil of the eye receives

Within itself one kind of blow, when said

To feel a white hue, then another kind,

When feeling a black or any other hue,

And since it matters nothing with what hue

The things thou touchest be perchance endowed,

But rather with what sort of shape equipped,

'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,

But render forth sensations, as of touch,

That vary with their varied forms.

Besides,

Since special shapes have not a special colour,

And all formations of the primal germs

Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,