De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. But nature herself,
  2. Mother of things, was the first seed-sower
  3. And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns,
  4. Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath
  5. Put forth in season swarms of little shoots;
  6. Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips
  7. Upon the boughs and setting out in holes
  8. The young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try
  9. Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts,
  10. And mark they would how earth improved the taste
  11. Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.
  12. And day by day they'd force the woods to move
  13. Still higher up the mountain, and to yield
  14. The place below for tilth, that there they might,
  15. On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats,
  16. Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain,
  17. And happy vineyards, and that all along
  18. O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run
  19. The silvery-green belt of olive-trees,
  20. Marking the plotted landscape; even as now
  21. Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness
  22. All the terrain which men adorn and plant
  23. With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round
  24. With thriving shrubberies sown.
  1. But by the mouth
  2. To imitate the liquid notes of birds
  3. Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make,
  4. By measured song, melodious verse and give
  5. Delight to ears. And whistlings of the wind
  6. Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught
  7. The peasantry to blow into the stalks
  8. Of hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit
  9. They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours,
  10. Beaten by finger-tips of singing men,
  11. When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps
  12. And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts
  13. Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.
  14. Thus time draws forward each and everything
  15. Little by little unto the midst of men,
  16. And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
  17. These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals
  18. When sated with food,- for songs are welcome then.
  19. And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass
  20. Beside a river of water, underneath
  21. A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh
  22. Their frames, with no vast outlay- most of all
  23. If the weather were smiling and the times of the year
  24. Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.
  25. Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity
  26. Would circle round; for then the rustic muse
  27. Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth
  28. Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about
  29. With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,
  30. And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs
  31. Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot
  32. To beat our mother earth- from whence arose
  33. Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,
  34. Such frolic acts were in their glory then,
  35. Being more new and strange. And wakeful men
  36. Found solaces for their unsleeping hours
  37. In drawing forth variety of notes,
  38. In modulating melodies, in running
  39. With puckered lips along the tuned reeds,
  40. Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard
  41. These old traditions, and have learned well
  42. To keep true measure. And yet they no whit
  43. Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness
  44. Than got the woodland aborigines
  45. In olden times. For what we have at hand-
  46. If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-
  47. That chiefly pleases and seems best of all;
  48. But then some later, likely better, find
  49. Destroys its worth and changes our desires
  50. Regarding good of yesterday.
  1. And thus
  2. Began the loathing of the acorn; thus
  3. Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn
  4. And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again,
  5. Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-
  6. Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess,
  7. Aroused in those days envy so malign
  8. That the first wearer went to woeful death
  9. By ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize,
  10. Rent into rags by greedy foemen there
  11. And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly
  12. Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old
  13. 'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold
  14. That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.
  15. Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame
  16. With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack,
  17. Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth;
  18. But us it nothing hurts to do without
  19. The purple vestment, broidered with gold
  20. And with imposing figures, if we still
  21. Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.
  22. So man in vain futilities toils on
  23. Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-
  24. Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt
  25. What the true end of getting is, nor yet
  26. At all how far true pleasure may increase.
  27. And 'tis desire for better and for more
  28. Hath carried by degrees mortality
  29. Out onward to the deep, and roused up
  30. From the far bottom mighty waves of war.