De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  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 Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,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.