De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. But ere on this I take a step to utter
  2. Oracles holier and soundlier based
  3. Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men
  4. From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,
  5. I will unfold for thee with learned words
  6. Many a consolation, lest perchance,
  7. Still bridled by religion, thou suppose
  8. Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,
  9. Must dure forever, as of frame divine-
  10. And so conclude that it is just that those,
  11. (After the manner of the Giants), should all
  12. Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,
  13. Who by their reasonings do overshake
  14. The ramparts of the universe and wish
  15. There to put out the splendid sun of heaven,
  16. Branding with mortal talk immortal things-
  17. Though these same things are even so far removed
  18. From any touch of deity and seem
  19. So far unworthy of numbering with the gods,
  20. That well they may be thought to furnish rather
  21. A goodly instance of the sort of things
  22. That lack the living motion, living sense.
  23. For sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think
  24. That judgment and the nature of the mind
  25. In any kind of body can exist-
  26. Just as in ether can't exist a tree,
  27. Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields
  28. Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be,
  29. Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged
  30. Where everything may grow and have its place.
  31. Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone
  32. Without the body, nor have its being far
  33. From thews and blood. Yet if 'twere possible?-
  34. Much rather might this very power of mind
  35. Be in the head, the shoulders, or the heels,
  36. And, born in any part soever, yet
  37. In the same man, in the same vessel abide
  38. But since within this body even of ours
  39. Stands fixed and appears arranged sure
  40. Where soul and mind can each exist and grow,
  41. Deny we must the more that they can dure
  42. Outside the body and the breathing form
  43. In rotting clods of earth, in the sun's fire,
  44. In water, or in ether's skiey coasts.
  45. Therefore these things no whit are furnished
  46. With sense divine, since never can they be
  47. With life-force quickened.