De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Now then, learn
  2. How tenuous is the nature of an image.
  3. And in the first place, since primordials be
  4. So far beneath our senses, and much less
  5. E'en than those objects which begin to grow
  6. Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few
  7. How nice are the beginnings of all things-
  8. That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:
  9. First, living creatures are sometimes so small
  10. That even their third part can nowise be seen;
  11. Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-
  12. What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,
  13. The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!
  14. And what besides of those first particles
  15. Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not
  16. How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever
  17. Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-
  18. The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,
  19. Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-
  20. If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain
  21. Perchance [thou touch] a one of them
  22. . . . . . .
  23. Then why not rather know that images
  24. Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,
  25. Bodiless and invisible?
  26. But lest
  27. Haply thou holdest that those images
  28. Which come from objects are the sole that flit,
  29. Others indeed there be of own accord
  30. Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,
  31. Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,
  32. Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,
  33. Cease not to change appearance and to turn
  34. Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;
  35. As we behold the clouds grow thick on high
  36. And smirch the serene vision of the world,
  37. Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen
  38. The giants' faces flying far along
  39. And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times
  40. The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks
  41. Going before and crossing on the sun,
  42. Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain
  43. And leading in the other thunderheads.
  1. Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be
  2. Engendered, and perpetually flow off
  3. From things and gliding pass away....
  4. . . . . . .
  5. For ever every outside streams away
  6. From off all objects, since discharge they may;
  7. And when this outside reaches other things,
  8. As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where
  9. It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,
  10. There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back
  11. An image. But when gleaming objects dense,
  12. As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,
  13. Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't
  14. Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent- its safety,
  15. By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.
  16. 'Tis therefore that from them the images
  17. Stream back to us; and howso suddenly
  18. Thou place, at any instant, anything
  19. Before a mirror, there an image shows;
  20. Proving that ever from a body's surface
  21. Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.
  22. Thus many images in little time
  23. Are gendered; so their origin is named
  24. Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun
  25. Must send below, in little time, to earth
  26. So many beams to keep all things so full
  27. Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,
  28. From things there must be borne, in many modes,
  29. To every quarter round, upon the moment,
  30. The many images of things; because
  31. Unto whatever face of things we turn
  32. The mirror, things of form and hue the same
  33. Respond. Besides, though but a moment since
  34. Serenest was the weather of the sky,
  35. So fiercely sudden is it foully thick
  36. That ye might think that round about all murk
  37. Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
  38. The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,
  39. As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night,
  40. Do faces of black horror hang on high-
  41. Of which how small a part an image is
  42. There's none to tell or reckon out in words.