De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk
  2. Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,
  3. Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,
  4. With their foul flavour set the lips awry;
  5. Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever
  6. Can touch the senses pleasingly are made
  7. Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those
  8. Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held
  9. Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so
  10. Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,
  11. And rend our body as they enter in.
  12. In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,
  13. Being up-built of figures so unlike,
  14. Are mutually at strife- lest thou suppose
  15. That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw
  16. Consists of elements as smooth as song
  17. Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings
  18. The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose
  19. That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce
  20. When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage
  21. Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,
  22. And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;
  23. Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues
  24. Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting
  25. Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,
  26. Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.
  27. For never a shape which charms our sense was made
  28. Without some elemental smoothness; whilst
  29. Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed
  30. Still with some roughness in its elements.
  31. Some, too, there are which justly are supposed
  32. To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,
  33. With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,
  34. To tickle rather than to wound the sense-
  35. And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine
  36. And flavours of the gummed elecampane.
  37. Again, that glowing fire and icy rime
  38. Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting
  39. Our body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.
  40. For touch- by sacred majesties of Gods!-
  41. Touch is indeed the body's only sense-
  42. Be't that something in-from-outward works,
  43. Be't that something in the body born
  44. Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out
  45. Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;
  46. Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl
  47. Disordered in the body and confound
  48. By tumult and confusion all the sense-
  49. As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand
  50. Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.
  51. On which account, the elemental forms
  52. Must differ widely, as enabled thus
  53. To cause diverse sensations.
  54. And, again,
  55. What seems to us the hardened and condensed
  56. Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked,
  57. Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere
  58. By branch-like atoms- of which sort the chief
  59. Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows,
  60. And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,
  61. And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,
  62. Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formed
  63. Of fluid body, they indeed must be
  64. Of elements more smooth and round- because
  65. Their globules severally will not cohere:
  66. To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand
  67. Is quite as easy as drinking water down,
  68. And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.
  69. But that thou seest among the things that flow
  70. Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is,
  71. Is not the least a marvel...
  72. For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are
  73. And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;
  74. Yet need not these be held together hooked:
  75. In fact, though rough, they're globular besides,
  76. Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.
  77. And that the more thou mayst believe me here,
  78. That with smooth elements are mixed the rough
  79. (Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes),
  80. There is a means to separate the twain,
  81. And thereupon dividedly to see
  82. How the sweet water, after filtering through
  83. So often underground, flows freshened forth
  84. Into some hollow; for it leaves above
  85. The primal germs of nauseating brine,
  86. Since cling the rough more readily in earth.
  87. Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse
  88. Upon the instant- smoke, and cloud, and flame-
  89. Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)
  90. Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,
  91. That thus they can, without together cleaving,
  92. So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.
  93. Whatever we see...
  94. Given to senses, that thou must perceive
  95. They're not from linked but pointed elements.
  1. The which now having taught, I will go on
  2. To bind thereto a fact to this allied
  3. And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs
  4. Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.
  5. For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds
  6. Would have a body of infinite increase.
  7. For in one seed, in one small frame of any,
  8. The shapes can't vary from one another much.
  9. Assume, we'll say, that of three minim parts
  10. Consist the primal bodies, or add a few:
  11. When, now, by placing all these parts of one
  12. At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,
  13. Thou hast with every kind of shift found out
  14. What the aspect of shape of its whole body
  15. Each new arrangement gives, for what remains,
  16. If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,
  17. New parts must then be added; follows next,
  18. If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,
  19. That by like logic each arrangement still
  20. Requires its increment of other parts.
  21. Ergo, an augmentation of its frame
  22. Follows upon each novelty of forms.
  23. Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake
  24. That seeds have infinite differences in form,
  25. Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be
  26. Of an immeasurable immensity-
  27. Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
  28. . . . . . .
  29. And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam
  30. Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye
  31. Of the Thessalian shell...
  32. The peacock's golden generations, stained
  33. With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown
  34. By some new colour of new things more bright;
  35. The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;
  36. The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,
  37. Once modulated on the many chords,
  38. Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:
  39. For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,
  40. Would be arising evermore. So, too,
  41. Into some baser part might all retire,
  42. Even as we said to better might they come:
  43. For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest
  44. To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,
  45. Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.
  46. Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given
  47. Their fixed limitations which do bound
  48. Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed
  49. That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes
  50. Does differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats
  51. Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year
  52. The forward path is fixed, and by like law
  53. O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.
  54. For each degree of hot, and each of cold,
  55. And the half-warm, all filling up the sum
  56. In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there
  57. Betwixt the two extremes: the things create
  58. Must differ, therefore, by a finite change,
  59. Since at each end marked off they ever are
  60. By fixed point- on one side plagued by flames
  61. And on the other by congealing frosts.
  1. The which now having taught, I will go on
  2. To bind thereto a fact to this allied
  3. And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs
  4. Which have been fashioned all of one like shape
  5. Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms
  6. Themselves are finite in divergences,
  7. Then those which are alike will have to be
  8. Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains
  9. A finite- what I've proved is not the fact,
  10. Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,
  11. From everlasting and to-day the same,
  12. Uphold the sum of things, all sides around
  13. By old succession of unending blows.
  14. For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare,
  15. And mark'st in them a less prolific stock,
  16. Yet in another region, in lands remote,
  17. That kind abounding may make up the count;
  18. Even as we mark among the four-foot kind
  19. Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall
  20. With ivory ramparts India about,
  21. That her interiors cannot entered be-
  22. So big her count of brutes of which we see
  23. Such few examples. Or suppose, besides,
  24. We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole
  25. With body born, to which is nothing like
  26. In all the lands: yet now unless shall be
  27. An infinite count of matter out of which
  28. Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life,
  29. It cannot be created and- what's more-
  30. It cannot take its food and get increase.
  31. Yea, if through all the world in finite tale
  32. Be tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,
  33. Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,
  34. Shall they to meeting come together there,
  35. In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-
  36. No means they have of joining into one.
  37. But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,
  38. The mighty main is wont to scatter wide
  39. The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,
  40. The masts and swimming oars, so that afar
  41. Along all shores of lands are seen afloat
  42. The carven fragments of the rended poop,
  43. Giving a lesson to mortality
  44. To shun the ambush of the faithless main,
  45. The violence and the guile, and trust it not
  46. At any hour, however much may smile
  47. The crafty enticements of the placid deep:
  48. Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true
  49. That certain seeds are finite in their tale,
  50. The various tides of matter, then, must needs
  51. Scatter them flung throughout the ages all,
  52. So that not ever can they join, as driven
  53. Together into union, nor remain
  54. In union, nor with increment can grow-
  55. But facts in proof are manifest for each:
  56. Things can be both begotten and increase.
  57. 'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,
  58. Are infinite in any class thou wilt-
  59. From whence is furnished matter for all things.
  60. Nor can those motions that bring death prevail
  61. Forever, nor eternally entomb
  62. The welfare of the world; nor, further, can
  63. Those motions that give birth to things and growth
  64. Keep them forever when created there.
  65. Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,
  66. With equal strife among the elements
  67. Goes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail
  68. The vital forces of the world- or fall.
  69. Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail
  70. Of infants coming to the shores of light:
  71. No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed
  72. That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,
  73. The wild laments, companions old of death
  74. And the black rites.
  1. This, too, in these affairs
  2. 'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned
  3. With no forgetting brain: nothing there is
  4. Whose nature is apparent out of hand
  5. That of one kind of elements consists-
  6. Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.
  7. And whatsoe'er possesses in itself
  8. More largely many powers and properties
  9. Shows thus that here within itself there are
  10. The largest number of kinds and differing shapes
  11. Of elements. And, chief of all, the earth
  12. Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs,
  13. Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore
  14. The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-
  15. For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,
  16. Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed
  17. From more profounder fires- and she, again,
  18. Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise
  19. The shining grains and gladsome trees for men;
  20. Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures
  21. Can she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.
  22. Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,
  23. And parent of man hath she alone been named.
  24. Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece
  25. . . . . . .
  26. Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air
  27. To drive her team of lions, teaching thus
  28. That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie
  29. Resting on other earth. Unto her car
  30. They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,
  31. However savage, must be tamed and chid
  32. By care of parents. They have girt about
  33. With turret-crown the summit of her head,
  34. Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,
  35. 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned
  36. With that same token, to-day is carried forth,
  37. With solemn awe through many a mighty land,
  38. The image of that mother, the divine.
  39. Her the wide nations, after antique rite,
  40. Do name Idaean Mother, giving her
  41. Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,
  42. From out those regions 'twas that grain began
  43. Through all the world. To her do they assign
  44. The Galli, the emasculate, since thus
  45. They wish to show that men who violate
  46. The majesty of the mother and have proved
  47. Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged
  48. Unfit to give unto the shores of light
  49. A living progeny. The Galli come:
  50. And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines
  51. Resound around to bangings of their hands;
  52. The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;
  53. The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds
  54. In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,
  55. Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power
  56. The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts
  57. To panic with terror of the goddess' might.
  58. And so, when through the mighty cities borne,
  59. She blesses man with salutations mute,
  60. They strew the highway of her journeyings
  61. With coin of brass and silver, gifting her
  62. With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade
  63. With flowers of roses falling like the snow
  64. Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.
  65. Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks
  66. Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since
  67. Haply among themselves they use to play
  68. In games of arms and leap in measure round
  69. With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake
  70. The terrorizing crests upon their heads,
  71. This is the armed troop that represents
  72. The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,
  73. As runs the story, whilom did out-drown
  74. That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,
  75. Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,
  76. To measured step beat with the brass on brass,
  77. That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,
  78. And give its mother an eternal wound
  79. Along her heart. And 'tis on this account
  80. That armed they escort the mighty Mother,
  81. Or else because they signify by this
  82. That she, the goddess, teaches men to be
  83. Eager with armed valour to defend
  84. Their motherland, and ready to stand forth,
  85. The guard and glory of their parents' years.
  86. A tale, however beautifully wrought,
  87. That's wide of reason by a long remove:
  88. For all the gods must of themselves enjoy
  89. Immortal aeons and supreme repose,
  90. Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:
  91. Immune from peril and immune from pain,
  92. Themselves abounding in riches of their own,
  93. Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath
  94. They are not taken by service or by gift.
  95. Truly is earth insensate for all time;
  96. But, by obtaining germs of many things,
  97. In many a way she brings the many forth
  98. Into the light of sun. And here, whoso
  99. Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or
  100. The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse
  101. The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce
  102. The liquor's proper designation, him
  103. Let us permit to go on calling earth
  104. Mother of Gods, if only he will spare
  105. To taint his soul with foul religion.
  1. So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,
  2. And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing
  3. Often together along one grassy plain,
  4. Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking
  5. From out one stream of water each its thirst,
  6. All live their lives with face and form unlike,
  7. Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits,
  8. Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.
  9. So great in any sort of herb thou wilt,
  10. So great again in any river of earth
  11. Are the distinct diversities of matter.
  12. Hence, further, every creature- any one
  13. From out them all- compounded is the same
  14. Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews-
  15. All differing vastly in their forms, and built
  16. Of elements dissimilar in shape.
  17. Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze,
  18. Within their frame lay up, if naught besides,
  19. At least those atoms whence derives their power
  20. To throw forth fire and send out light from under,
  21. To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.
  22. If, with like reasoning of mind, all else
  23. Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus
  24. That in their frame the seeds of many things
  25. They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.
  26. Further, thou markest much, to which are given
  27. Along together colour and flavour and smell,
  28. Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.
  29. . . . . . .
  30. Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.
  31. A smell of scorching enters in our frame
  32. Where the bright colour from the dye goes not;
  33. And colour in one way, flavour in quite another
  34. Works inward to our senses- so mayst see
  35. They differ too in elemental shapes.
  36. Thus unlike forms into one mass combine,
  37. And things exist by intermixed seed.
  38. But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways
  39. All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view
  40. Portents begot about thee every side:
  41. Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up,
  42. At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk,
  43. Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,
  44. And nature along the all-producing earth
  45. Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame
  46. From hideous jaws- Of which 'tis simple fact
  47. That none have been begot; because we see
  48. All are from fixed seed and fixed dam
  49. Engendered and so function as to keep
  50. Throughout their growth their own ancestral type.
  51. This happens surely by a fixed law:
  52. For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,
  53. Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature,
  54. Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,
  55. Produce the proper motions; but we see
  56. How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground
  57. Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many
  58. With viewless bodies from their bodies fly,
  59. By blows impelled- those impotent to join
  60. To any part, or, when inside, to accord
  61. And to take on the vital motions there.
  62. But think not, haply, living forms alone
  63. Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.
  64. . . . . . .
  65. For just as all things of creation are,
  66. In their whole nature, each to each unlike,
  67. So must their atoms be in shape unlike-
  68. Not since few only are fashioned of like form,
  69. But since they all, as general rule, are not
  70. The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,
  71. Elements many, common to many words,
  72. Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess
  73. The words and verses differ, each from each,
  74. Compounded out of different elements-
  75. Not since few only, as common letters, run
  76. Through all the words, or no two words are made,
  77. One and the other, from all like elements,
  78. But since they all, as general rule, are not
  79. The same as all. Thus, too, in other things,
  80. Whilst many germs common to many things
  81. There are, yet they, combined among themselves,
  82. Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.
  83. Thus fairly one may say that humankind,
  84. The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up
  85. Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds
  86. Are different, difference must there also be
  87. In intervening spaces, thoroughfares,
  88. Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all
  89. Which not alone distinguish living forms,
  90. But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands,
  91. And hold all heaven from the lands away.
  1. Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought
  2. Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess
  3. That the white objects shining to thine eyes
  4. Are gendered of white atoms, or the black
  5. Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught
  6. That's steeped in any hue should take its dye
  7. From bits of matter tinct with hue the same.
  8. For matter's bodies own no hue the least-
  9. Or like to objects or, again, unlike.
  10. But, if percase it seem to thee that mind
  11. Itself can dart no influence of its own
  12. Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.
  13. For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed
  14. The light of sun, yet recognise by touch
  15. Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,
  16. 'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought
  17. No less unto the ken of our minds too,
  18. Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.
  19. Again, ourselves whatever in the dark
  20. We touch, the same we do not find to be
  21. Tinctured with any colour.
  22. Now that here
  23. I win the argument, I next will teach
  24. . . . . . .
  25. Now, every colour changes, none except,
  26. And every...
  27. Which the primordials ought nowise to do.
  28. Since an immutable somewhat must remain,
  29. Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.
  30. For change of anything from out its bounds
  31. Means instant death of that which was before.
  32. Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour
  33. The seeds of things, lest things return for thee
  34. All utterly to naught.
  35. But now, if seeds
  36. Receive no property of colour, and yet
  37. Be still endowed with variable forms
  38. From which all kinds of colours they beget
  39. And vary (by reason that ever it matters much
  40. With what seeds, and in what positions joined,
  41. And what the motions that they give and get),
  42. Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise
  43. Why what was black of hue an hour ago
  44. Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,-
  45. As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved
  46. Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves
  47. Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,
  48. That, when the thing we often see as black
  49. Is in its matter then commixed anew,
  50. Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,
  51. And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn
  52. Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds
  53. Consist the level waters of the deep,
  54. They could in nowise whiten: for however
  55. Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never
  56. Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds-
  57. Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen-
  58. Be now with one hue, now another dyed,
  59. As oft from alien forms and divers shapes
  60. A cube's produced all uniform in shape,
  61. 'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube
  62. We see the forms to be dissimilar,
  63. That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep
  64. (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)
  65. Colours diverse and all dissimilar.
  66. Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least
  67. The whole in being externally a cube;
  68. But differing hues of things do block and keep
  69. The whole from being of one resultant hue.
  70. Then, too, the reason which entices us
  71. At times to attribute colours to the seeds
  72. Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not
  73. Create from white things, nor are black from black,
  74. But evermore they are create from things
  75. Of divers colours. Verily, the white
  76. Will rise more readily, is sooner born
  77. Out of no colour, than of black or aught
  78. Which stands in hostile opposition thus.
  1. Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,
  2. And the primordials come not forth to light,
  3. 'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour-
  4. Truly, what kind of colour could there be
  5. In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself
  6. A colour changes, gleaming variedly,
  7. When smote by vertical or slanting ray.
  8. Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves
  9. That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:
  10. Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,
  11. Now, by a strange sensation it becomes
  12. Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.
  13. The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,
  14. Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.
  15. Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,
  16. Without such blow these colours can't become.
  17. And since the pupil of the eye receives
  18. Within itself one kind of blow, when said
  19. To feel a white hue, then another kind,
  20. When feeling a black or any other hue,
  21. And since it matters nothing with what hue
  22. The things thou touchest be perchance endowed,
  23. But rather with what sort of shape equipped,
  24. 'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,
  25. But render forth sensations, as of touch,
  26. That vary with their varied forms.
  1. Besides,
  2. Since special shapes have not a special colour,
  3. And all formations of the primal germs
  4. Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,
  5. Are not those objects which are of them made
  6. Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?
  7. For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly,
  8. Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen,
  9. Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be
  10. Of any single varied dye thou wilt.
  11. Again, the more an object's rent to bits,
  12. The more thou see its colour fade away
  13. Little by little till 'tis quite extinct;
  14. As happens when the gaudy linen's picked
  15. Shred after shred away: the purple there,
  16. Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,
  17. Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;
  18. Hence canst perceive the fragments die away
  19. From out their colour, long ere they depart
  20. Back to the old primordials of things.
  21. And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies
  22. Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus
  23. That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.
  24. So, too, since we behold not all with eyes,
  25. 'Tis thine to know some things there are as much
  26. Orphaned of colour, as others without smell,
  27. And reft of sound; and those the mind alert
  28. No less can apprehend than it can mark
  29. The things that lack some other qualities.
  1. But think not haply that the primal bodies
  2. Remain despoiled alone of colour: so,
  3. Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold
  4. And from hot exhalations; and they move,
  5. Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw
  6. Not any odour from their proper bodies.
  7. Just as, when undertaking to prepare
  8. A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,
  9. And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes
  10. Odour of nectar, first of all behooves
  11. Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can,
  12. The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends
  13. One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may
  14. The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang
  15. The odorous essence with its body mixed
  16. And in it seethed. And on the same account
  17. The primal germs of things must not be thought
  18. To furnish colour in begetting things,
  19. Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught
  20. From out themselves, nor any flavour, too,
  21. Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.
  22. . . . . . .
  23. The rest; yet since these things are mortal all-
  24. The pliant mortal, with a body soft;
  25. The brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame;
  26. The hollow with a porous-all must be
  27. Disjoined from the primal elements,
  28. If still we wish under the world to lay
  29. Immortal ground-works, whereupon may rest
  30. The sum of weal and safety, lest for thee
  31. All things return to nothing utterly.
  32. Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense
  33. Must yet confessedly be stablished all
  34. From elements insensate. And those signs,
  35. So clear to all and witnessed out of hand,
  36. Do not refute this dictum nor oppose;
  37. But rather themselves do lead us by the hand,
  38. Compelling belief that living things are born
  39. Of elements insensate, as I say.
  40. Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung
  41. Live worms spring up, when, after soaking rains,
  42. The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same:
  43. Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures
  44. Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change
  45. Into our bodies, and from our body, oft
  46. Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts
  47. And mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changes
  48. All foods to living frames, and procreates
  49. From them the senses of live creatures all,
  50. In manner about as she uncoils in flames
  51. Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.
  52. And seest not, therefore, how it matters much
  53. After what order are set the primal germs,
  54. And with what other germs they all are mixed,
  55. And what the motions that they give and get?