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

Save energy of mind which steers the limbs?

Now seest thou not how powerful may be

A subtle nature, when conjoined it is

With heavy body, as air is with the earth

Conjoined, and energy of mind with us?

Now let us sing what makes the stars to move.

In first place, if the mighty sphere of heaven

Revolveth round, then needs we must aver

That on the upper and the under pole

Presses a certain air, and from without

Confines them and encloseth at each end;

And that, moreover, another air above

Streams on athwart the top of the sphere and tends

In same direction as are rolled along

The glittering stars of the eternal world;

Or that another still streams on below

To whirl the sphere from under up and on

In opposite direction—as we see

The rivers turn the wheels and water-scoops.

It may be also that the heavens do all

Remain at rest, whilst yet are borne along

The lucid constellations; either because

Swift tides of ether are by sky enclosed,

And whirl around, seeking a passage out,

And everywhere make roll the starry fires

Through the Summanian regions of the sky;

Or else because some air, streaming along

From an eternal quarter off beyond,

Whileth the driven fires, or, then, because

The fires themselves have power to creep along,

Going wherever their food invites and calls,

And feeding their flaming bodies everywhere

Throughout the sky. Yet which of these is cause

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

But what can be throughout the universe,

In divers worlds on divers plan create,

This only do I show, and follow on

To assign unto the motions of the stars

Even several causes which 'tis possible

Exist throughout the universal All;

Of which yet one must be the cause even here

Which maketh motion for our constellations.

Yet to decide which one of them it be

Is not the least the business of a man

Advancing step by cautious step, as I.

Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much

Nor its own blaze much less than either seems

Unto our senses. For from whatso spaces

Fires have the power on us to cast their beams

And blow their scorching exhalations forth

Against our members, those same distances

Take nothing by those intervals away

From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire

Is nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat

And the outpoured light of skiey sun

Arrive our senses and caress our limbs,

Form too and bigness of the sun must look

Even here from earth just as they really be,

So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.

And whether the journeying moon illuminate

The regions round with bastard beams, or throw

From off her proper body her own light,—

Whichever it be, she journeys with a form

Naught larger than the form doth seem to be

Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all

The far removed objects of our gaze

Seem through much air confused in their look

Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,

Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form,

May there on high by us on earth be seen

Just as she is with extreme bounds defined,

And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires

Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these

Thou mayst consider as possibly of size

The least bit less, or larger by a hair

Than they appear—since whatso fires we view

Here in the lands of earth are seen to change

From time to time their size to less or more

Only the least, when more or less away,

So long as still they bicker clear, and still

Their glow's perceived.

Nor need there be for men

Astonishment that yonder sun so small

Can yet send forth so great a light as fills

Oceans and all the lands and sky aflood,

And with its fiery exhalations steeps

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

That one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole

Wide world from here hath opened and out-gushed,

And shot its light abroad; because thuswise

The elements of fiery exhalations

From all the world around together come,

And thuswise flow into a bulk so big

That from one single fountain-head may stream

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

How widely one small water-spring may wet

The meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?

'Tis even possible, besides, that heat

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

Be not a great, may permeate the air

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

Be of condition and so tempered then

As to be kindled, even when beat upon

Only by little particles of heat—

Just as we sometimes see the standing grain

Or stubble straw in conflagration all

From one lone spark. And possibly the sun,

Agleam on high with rosy lampion,

Possesses about him with invisible heats

A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,

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

Increase to such degree the force of rays.

Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men

How the sun journeys from his summer haunts

On to the mid-most winter turning-points

In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers

Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor

How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross

That very distance which in traversing

The sun consumes the measure of a year.

I say, no one clear reason hath been given

For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood

Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought

Of great Democritus lays down: that ever

The nearer the constellations be to earth

The less can they by whirling of the sky

Be borne along, because those skiey powers

Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease

In under-regions, and the sun is thus

Left by degrees behind amongst those signs

That follow after, since the sun he lies

Far down below the starry signs that blaze;

And the moon lags even tardier than the sun:

In just so far as is her course removed

From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,

In just so far she fails to keep the pace

With starry signs above; for just so far

As feebler is the whirl that bears her on,

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

In just so far do all the starry signs,

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

Therefore it happens that the moon appears

More swiftly to return to any sign

Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun,

Because those signs do visit her again

More swiftly than they visit the great sun.

It can be also that two streams of air

Alternately at fixed periods

Blow out from transverse regions of the world,

Of which the one may thrust the sun away

From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals

And rigors of the cold, and the other then

May cast him back from icy shades of chill

Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs

That blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,

We must suppose the moon and all the stars,

Which through the mighty and sidereal years

Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped

By streams of air from regions alternate.

Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped

By contrary winds to regions contrary,

The lower clouds diversely from the upper?

Then, why may yonder stars in ether there

Along their mighty orbits not be borne

By currents opposite the one to other?

But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk

Either when sun, after his diurnal course,

Hath walked the ultimate regions of the sky