De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
  2. Now by what motions the begetting bodies
  3. Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
  4. And then forever resolve it when begot,
  5. And by what force they are constrained to this,
  6. And what the speed appointed unto them
  7. Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:
  8. Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.
  9. For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,
  10. Since we behold each thing to wane away,
  11. And we observe how all flows on and off,
  12. As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes
  13. How eld withdraws each object at the end,
  14. Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,
  15. Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing
  16. Diminish what they part from, but endow
  17. With increase those to which in turn they come,
  18. Constraining these to wither in old age,
  19. And those to flower at the prime (and yet
  20. Biding not long among them). Thus the sum
  21. Forever is replenished, and we live
  22. As mortals by eternal give and take.
  23. The nations wax, the nations wane away;
  24. In a brief space the generations pass,
  25. And like to runners hand the lamp of life
  26. One unto other.
  1. But if thou believe
  2. That the primordial germs of things can stop,
  3. And in their stopping give new motions birth,
  4. Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.
  5. For since they wander through the void inane,
  6. All the primordial germs of things must needs
  7. Be borne along, either by weight their own,
  8. Or haply by another's blow without.
  9. For, when, in their incessancy so oft
  10. They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain
  11. They leap asunder, face to face: not strange-
  12. Being most hard, and solid in their weights,
  13. And naught opposing motion, from behind.
  14. And that more clearly thou perceive how all
  15. These mites of matter are darted round about,
  16. Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum
  17. Of All exists a bottom,- nowhere is
  18. A realm of rest for primal bodies; since
  19. (As amply shown and proved by reason sure)
  20. Space has no bound nor measure, and extends
  21. Unmetered forth in all directions round.
  22. Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt
  23. No rest is rendered to the primal bodies
  24. Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,
  25. Inveterately plied by motions mixed,
  26. Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave
  27. Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow
  28. Are hurried about with spaces small between.
  29. And all which, brought together with slight gaps,
  30. In more condensed union bound aback,
  31. Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-
  32. These form the irrefragable roots of rocks
  33. And the brute bulks of iron, and what else
  34. Is of their kind...
  35. The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,
  36. Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply
  37. For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.
  38. And many besides wander the mighty void-
  39. Cast back from unions of existing things,
  40. Nowhere accepted in the universe,
  41. And nowise linked in motions to the rest.
  42. And of this fact (as I record it here)
  43. An image, a type goes on before our eyes
  44. Present each moment; for behold whenever
  45. The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down
  46. Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see
  47. The many mites in many a manner mixed
  48. Amid a void in the very light of the rays,
  49. And battling on, as in eternal strife,
  50. And in battalions contending without halt,
  51. In meetings, partings, harried up and down.
  52. From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort
  53. The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds
  54. Amid the mightier void- at least so far
  55. As small affair can for a vaster serve,
  56. And by example put thee on the spoor
  57. Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit
  58. Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies
  59. Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:
  60. Namely, because such tumblings are a sign
  61. That motions also of the primal stuff
  62. Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.
  63. For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled
  64. By viewless blows, to change its little course,
  65. And beaten backwards to return again,
  66. Hither and thither in all directions round.
  67. Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,
  68. From the primeval atoms; for the same
  69. Primordial seeds of things first move of self,
  70. And then those bodies built of unions small
  71. And nearest, as it were, unto the powers
  72. Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up
  73. By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,
  74. And these thereafter goad the next in size:
  75. Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,
  76. And stage by stage emerges to our sense,
  77. Until those objects also move which we
  78. Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears
  79. What blows do urge them.