De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Herein wonder not
  2. How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all
  3. Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand
  4. Supremely still, except in cases where
  5. A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.
  6. For far beneath the ken of senses lies
  7. The nature of those ultimates of the world;
  8. And so, since those themselves thou canst not see,
  9. Their motion also must they veil from men-
  10. For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft
  11. Yet hide their motions, when afar from us
  12. Along the distant landscape. Often thus,
  13. Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks
  14. Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about
  15. Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed
  16. With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,
  17. Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:
  18. Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-
  19. A glint of white at rest on a green hill.
  20. Again, when mighty legions, marching round,
  21. Fill all the quarters of the plains below,
  22. Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen
  23. Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about
  24. Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound
  25. Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,
  26. And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send
  27. The voices onward to the stars of heaven,
  28. And hither and thither darts the cavalry,
  29. And of a sudden down the midmost fields
  30. Charges with onset stout enough to rock
  31. The solid earth: and yet some post there is
  32. Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem
  33. To stand- a gleam at rest along the plains.
  1. Now come, and next hereafter apprehend
  2. What sorts, how vastly different in form,
  3. How varied in multitudinous shapes they are-
  4. These old beginnings of the universe;
  5. Not in the sense that only few are furnished
  6. With one like form, but rather not at all
  7. In general have they likeness each with each,
  8. No marvel: since the stock of them's so great
  9. That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,
  10. They must indeed not one and all be marked
  11. By equal outline and by shape the same.
  12. . . . . . .
  13. Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks
  14. Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,
  15. And joyous herds around, and all the wild,
  16. And all the breeds of birds- both those that teem
  17. In gladsome regions of the water-haunts,
  18. About the river-banks and springs and pools,
  19. And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,
  20. Through trackless woods- Go, take which one thou wilt,
  21. In any kind: thou wilt discover still
  22. Each from the other still unlike in shape.
  23. Nor in no other wise could offspring know
  24. Mother, nor mother offspring- which we see
  25. They yet can do, distinguished one from other,
  26. No less than human beings, by clear signs.
  27. Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,
  28. Beside the incense-burning altars slain,
  29. Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast
  30. Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,
  31. Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,
  32. Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,
  33. With eyes regarding every spot about,
  34. For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;
  35. And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes
  36. With her complaints; and oft she seeks again
  37. Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.
  38. Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,
  39. Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,
  40. Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;
  41. Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby
  42. Distract her mind or lighten pain the least-
  43. So keen her search for something known and hers.
  44. Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats
  45. Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs
  46. The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,
  47. Unfailingly each to its proper teat,
  48. As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,
  49. Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind
  50. Is so far like another, that there still
  51. Is not in shapes some difference running through.
  52. By a like law we see how earth is pied
  53. With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea
  54. Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.
  55. Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things
  56. Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands
  57. After a fixed pattern of one other,
  58. They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes
  59. In types dissimilar to one another.