De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. The nature of room, the space of the abyss
  2. Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts
  3. Can neither speed upon their courses through,
  4. Gliding across eternal tracts of time,
  5. Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,
  6. That they may bate their journeying one whit:
  7. Such huge abundance spreads for things around-
  8. Room off to every quarter, without end.
  9. Lastly, before our very eyes is seen
  10. Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,
  11. And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,
  12. And sea in turn all lands; but for the All
  13. Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
  14. That, too, the sum of things itself may not
  15. Have power to fix a measure of its own,
  16. Great nature guards, she who compels the void
  17. To bound all body, as body all the void,
  18. Thus rendering by these alternates the whole
  19. An infinite; or else the one or other,
  20. Being unbounded by the other, spreads,
  21. Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless
  22. Immeasurably forth....
  23. Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,
  24. Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods
  25. Could keep their place least portion of an hour:
  26. For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,
  27. The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne
  28. Along the illimitable inane afar,
  29. Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined
  30. And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,
  31. It could not be united. For of truth
  32. Neither by counsel did the primal germs
  33. 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,
  34. Each in its proper place; nor did they make,
  35. Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;
  36. But since, being many and changed in many modes
  37. Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed
  38. By blow on blow, even from all time of old,
  39. They thus at last, after attempting all
  40. The kinds of motion and conjoining, come
  41. Into those great arrangements out of which
  42. This sum of things established is create,
  43. By which, moreover, through the mighty years,
  44. It is preserved, when once it has been thrown
  45. Into the proper motions, bringing to pass
  46. That ever the streams refresh the greedy main
  47. With river-waves abounding, and that earth,
  48. Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,
  49. Renews her broods, and that the lusty race
  50. Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that
  51. The gliding fires of ether are alive-
  52. What still the primal germs nowise could do,
  53. Unless from out the infinite of space
  54. Could come supply of matter, whence in season
  55. They're wont whatever losses to repair.
  56. For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,
  57. Losing its body, when deprived of food:
  58. So all things have to be dissolved as soon
  59. As matter, diverted by what means soever
  60. From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.
  61. Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,
  62. On every side, whatever sum of a world
  63. Has been united in a whole. They can
  64. Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,
  65. Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;
  66. But meanwhile often are they forced to spring
  67. Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,
  68. Unto those elements whence a world derives,
  69. Room and a time for flight, permitting them
  70. To be from off the massy union borne
  71. Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:
  72. Needs must there come a many for supply;
  73. And also, that the blows themselves shall be
  74. Unfailing ever, must there ever be
  75. An infinite force of matter all sides round.
  1. And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
  2. From yielding faith to that notorious talk:
  3. That all things inward to the centre press;
  4. And thus the nature of the world stands firm
  5. With never blows from outward, nor can be
  6. Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth
  7. Have always inward to the centre pressed
  8. (If thou art ready to believe that aught
  9. Itself can rest upon itself ); or that
  10. The ponderous bodies which be under earth
  11. Do all press upwards and do come to rest
  12. Upon the earth, in some way upside down,
  13. Like to those images of things we see
  14. At present through the waters. They contend,
  15. With like procedure, that all breathing things
  16. Head downward roam about, and yet cannot
  17. Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,
  18. No more than these our bodies wing away
  19. Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
  20. That, when those creatures look upon the sun,
  21. We view the constellations of the night;
  22. And that with us the seasons of the sky
  23. They thus alternately divide, and thus
  24. Do pass the night coequal to our days,
  25. But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,
  26. Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse
  27. For centre none can be where world is still
  28. Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,
  29. Could aught take there a fixed position more
  30. Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
  31. For all of room and space we call the void
  32. Must both through centre and non-centre yield
  33. Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
  34. Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,
  35. Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
  36. Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
  37. Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,
  38. True to its bent of nature, still give way.
  39. Thus in such manner not at all can things
  40. Be held in union, as if overcome
  41. By craving for a centre.