De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  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?