De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Well learn from this: mainly, because we see
  2. Even 'mongst visible objects many be
  3. That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-
  4. Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-
  5. And some more interwoven and condensed-
  6. As when the locusts in the summertime
  7. Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves
  8. At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,
  9. Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs
  10. Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see
  11. The breres augmented with their flying spoils:
  12. Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too
  13. That tenuous images from things are sent,
  14. From off the utmost outside of the things.
  15. For why those kinds should drop and part from things,
  16. Rather than others tenuous and thin,
  17. No power has man to open mouth to tell;
  18. Especially, since on outsides of things
  19. Are bodies many and minute which could,
  20. In the same order which they had before,
  21. And with the figure of their form preserved,
  22. Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,
  23. Being less subject to impediments,
  24. As few in number and placed along the front.
  25. For truly many things we see discharge
  26. Their stuff at large, not only from their cores
  27. Deep-set within, as we have said above,
  28. But from their surfaces at times no less-
  29. Their very colours too. And commonly
  30. The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,
  31. Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,
  32. Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,
  33. Have such an action quite; for there they dye
  34. And make to undulate with their every hue
  35. The circled throng below, and all the stage,
  36. And rich attire in the patrician seats.
  37. And ever the more the theatre's dark walls
  38. Around them shut, the more all things within
  39. Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,
  40. The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since
  41. The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye
  42. From off their surface, things in general must
  43. Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,
  44. Because in either case they are off-thrown
  45. From off the surface. So there are indeed
  46. Such certain prints and vestiges of forms
  47. Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,
  48. Invisible, when separate, each and one.
  1. Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such
  2. Streams out of things diffusedly, because,
  3. Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth
  4. And rising out, along their bending path
  5. They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight
  6. Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.
  7. But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film
  8. Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught
  9. Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front
  10. Ready to hand. Lastly those images
  11. Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
  12. In water, or in any shining surface,
  13. Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
  14. Fashioned from images of things sent out.
  15. There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
  16. Like unto them, which no one can divine
  17. When taken singly, which do yet give back,
  18. When by continued and recurrent discharge
  19. Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
  20. Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
  21. So well conserved that thus be given back
  22. Figures so like each object.
  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.