De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. And if the reason be
  2. Unable to unravel us the cause
  3. Why objects, which at hand were square, afar
  4. Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,
  5. Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause
  6. For each configuration, than to let
  7. From out our hands escape the obvious things
  8. And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck
  9. All those foundations upon which do rest
  10. Our life and safety. For not only reason
  11. Would topple down; but even our very life
  12. Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared
  13. To trust our senses and to keep away
  14. From headlong heights and places to be shunned
  15. Of a like peril, and to seek with speed
  16. Their opposites! Again, as in a building,
  17. If the first plumb-line be askew, and if
  18. The square deceiving swerve from lines exact,
  19. And if the level waver but the least
  20. In any part, the whole construction then
  21. Must turn out faulty- shelving and askew,
  22. Leaning to back and front, incongruous,
  23. That now some portions seem about to fall,
  24. And falls the whole ere long- betrayed indeed
  25. By first deceiving estimates: so too
  26. Thy calculations in affairs of life
  27. Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee
  28. From senses false. So all that troop of words
  29. Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.
  1. And now remains to demonstrate with ease
  2. How other senses each their things perceive.
  3. Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,
  4. When, getting into ears, they strike the sense
  5. With their own body. For confess we must
  6. Even voice and sound to be corporeal,
  7. Because they're able on the sense to strike.
  8. Besides voice often scrapes against the throat,
  9. And screams in going out do make more rough
  10. The wind-pipe- naturally enough, methinks,
  11. When, through the narrow exit rising up
  12. In larger throng, these primal germs of voice
  13. Have thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,
  14. Also the door of the mouth is scraped against
  15. [By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].
  16. . . . . . .
  17. And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words
  18. Consist of elements corporeal,
  19. With power to pain. Nor art thou unaware
  20. Likewise how much of body's ta'en away,
  21. How much from very thews and powers of men
  22. May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged
  23. Even from the rising splendour of the morn
  24. To shadows of black evening,- above all
  25. If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.
  26. Therefore the voice must be corporeal,
  27. Since the long talker loses from his frame
  28. A part.
  29. Moreover, roughness in the sound
  30. Comes from the roughness in the primal germs,
  31. As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;
  32. Nor have these elements a form the same
  33. When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,
  34. As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe
  35. Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans
  36. By night from icy shores of Helicon
  37. With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.
  1. Thus, when from deep within our frame we force
  2. These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,
  3. The mobile tongue, artificer of words,
  4. Makes them articulate, and too the lips
  5. By their formations share in shaping them.
  6. Hence when the space is short from starting-point
  7. To where that voice arrives, the very words
  8. Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.
  9. For then the voice conserves its own formation,
  10. Conserves its shape. But if the space between
  11. Be longer than is fit, the words must be
  12. Through the much air confounded, and the voice
  13. Disordered in its flight across the winds-
  14. And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,
  15. Yet not determine what the words may mean;
  16. To such degree confounded and encumbered
  17. The voice approaches us. Again, one word,
  18. Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears
  19. Among the populace. And thus one voice
  20. Scatters asunder into many voices,
  21. Since it divides itself for separate ears,
  22. Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.
  23. But whatso part of voices fails to hit
  24. The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,
  25. Idly diffused among the winds. A part,
  26. Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back
  27. Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear
  28. With a mere phantom of a word.