De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
  2. Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
  3. Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
  4. And fruitful lands- for all of living things
  5. Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
  6. Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
  7. Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
  8. Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
  9. For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
  10. For thee waters of the unvexed deep
  11. Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
  12. Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
  13. For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
  14. And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
  15. First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
  16. Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
  17. And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
  18. Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
  19. Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
  20. Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
  21. And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
  22. Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
  23. Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
  24. Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
  25. Kind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone
  26. Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
  27. Is risen to reach the shining shores of light,
  28. Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
  29. Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
  30. Which I presume on Nature to compose
  31. For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
  32. Peerless in every grace at every hour-
  33. Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words
  34. Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
  35. O'er sea and land the savage works of war,
  36. For thou alone hast power with public peace
  37. To aid mortality; since he who rules
  38. The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
  39. How often to thy bosom flings his strength
  40. O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love-
  41. And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
  42. Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
  43. Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
  44. Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined
  45. Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
  46. Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
  47. Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!
  48. For in a season troublous to the state
  49. Neither may I attend this task of mine
  50. With thought untroubled, nor mid such events
  51. The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
  52. Neglect the civic cause.
  1. And for the rest, summon to judgments true,
  2. Unbusied ears and singleness of mind
  3. Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged
  4. For thee with eager service, thou disdain
  5. Before thou comprehendest: since for thee
  6. I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky,
  7. And the primordial germs of things unfold,
  8. Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies
  9. And fosters all, and whither she resolves
  10. Each in the end when each is overthrown.
  11. This ultimate stock we have devised to name
  12. Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,
  13. Or primal bodies, as primal to the world.
  1. Whilst human kind
  2. Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
  3. Before all eyes beneath Religion- who
  4. Would show her head along the region skies,
  5. Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-
  6. A Greek it was who first opposing dared
  7. Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
  8. Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
  9. Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
  10. Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
  11. His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
  12. The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
  13. And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
  14. And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
  15. The flaming ramparts of the world, until
  16. He wandered the unmeasurable All.
  17. Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
  18. What things can rise to being, what cannot,
  19. And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
  20. Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
  21. Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
  22. And us his victory now exalts to heaven.
  1. I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fare
  2. An impious road to realms of thought profane;
  3. But 'tis that same religion oftener far
  4. Hath bred the foul impieties of men:
  5. As once at Aulis, the elected chiefs,
  6. Foremost of heroes, Danaan counsellors,
  7. Defiled Diana's altar, virgin queen,
  8. With Agamemnon's daughter, foully slain.
  9. She felt the chaplet round her maiden locks
  10. And fillets, fluttering down on either cheek,
  11. And at the altar marked her grieving sire,
  12. The priests beside him who concealed the knife,
  13. And all the folk in tears at sight of her.
  14. With a dumb terror and a sinking knee
  15. She dropped; nor might avail her now that first
  16. 'Twas she who gave the king a father's name.
  17. They raised her up, they bore the trembling girl
  18. On to the altar- hither led not now
  19. With solemn rites and hymeneal choir,
  20. But sinless woman, sinfully foredone,
  21. A parent felled her on her bridal day,
  22. Making his child a sacrificial beast
  23. To give the ships auspicious winds for Troy:
  24. Such are the crimes to which Religion leads.
  1. And there shall come the time when even thou,
  2. Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek
  3. To break from us. Ah, many a dream even now
  4. Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life,
  5. And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears.
  6. I own with reason: for, if men but knew
  7. Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong
  8. By some device unconquered to withstand
  9. Religions and the menacings of seers.
  10. But now nor skill nor instrument is theirs,
  11. Since men must dread eternal pains in death.
  12. For what the soul may be they do not know,
  13. Whether 'tis born, or enter in at birth,
  14. And whether, snatched by death, it die with us,
  15. Or visit the shadows and the vasty caves
  16. Of Orcus, or by some divine decree
  17. Enter the brute herds, as our Ennius sang,
  18. Who first from lovely Helicon brought down
  19. A laurel wreath of bright perennial leaves,
  20. Renowned forever among the Italian clans.
  21. Yet Ennius too in everlasting verse
  22. Proclaims those vaults of Acheron to be,
  23. Though thence, he said, nor souls nor bodies fare,
  24. But only phantom figures, strangely wan,
  25. And tells how once from out those regions rose
  26. Old Homer's ghost to him and shed salt tears
  27. And with his words unfolded Nature's source.
  28. Then be it ours with steady mind to clasp
  29. The purport of the skies- the law behind
  30. The wandering courses of the sun and moon;
  31. To scan the powers that speed all life below;
  32. But most to see with reasonable eyes
  33. Of what the mind, of what the soul is made,
  34. And what it is so terrible that breaks
  35. On us asleep, or waking in disease,
  36. Until we seem to mark and hear at hand
  37. Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.
  1. I know how hard it is in Latian verse
  2. To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
  3. Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find
  4. Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;
  5. Yet worth of thine and the expected joy
  6. Of thy sweet friendship do persuade me on
  7. To bear all toil and wake the clear nights through,
  8. Seeking with what of words and what of song
  9. I may at last most gloriously uncloud
  10. For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view
  11. The core of being at the centre hid.