De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  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.