De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. And walking now
  2. In his own footprints, I do follow through
  3. His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach
  4. The covenant whereby all things are framed,
  5. How under that covenant they must abide
  6. Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'
  7. Inexorable decrees,- how (as we've found),
  8. In class of mortal objects, o'er all else,
  9. The mind exists of earth-born frame create
  10. And impotent unscathed to abide
  11. Across the mighty aeons, and how come
  12. In sleep those idol-apparitions,
  13. That so befool intelligence when we
  14. Do seem to view a man whom life has left.
  15. Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan
  16. Hath brought me now unto the point where I
  17. Must make report how, too, the universe
  18. Consists of mortal body, born in time,
  19. And in what modes that congregated stuff
  20. Established itself as earth and sky,
  21. Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;
  22. And then what living creatures rose from out
  23. The old telluric places, and what ones
  24. Were never born at all; and in what mode
  25. The human race began to name its things
  26. And use the varied speech from man to man;
  27. And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts
  28. That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands
  29. Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.
  30. Also I shall untangle by what power
  31. The steersman nature guides the sun's courses,
  32. And the meanderings of the moon, lest we,
  33. Percase, should fancy that of own free will
  34. They circle their perennial courses round,
  35. Timing their motions for increase of crops
  36. And living creatures, or lest we should think
  37. They roll along by any plan of gods.
  38. For even those men who have learned full well
  39. That godheads lead a long life free of care,
  40. If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan
  41. Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things
  42. Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),
  43. Again are hurried back unto the fears
  44. Of old religion and adopt again
  45. Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,
  46. Unwitting what can be and what cannot,
  47. And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
  48. Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
  1. But for the rest,- lest we delay thee here
  2. Longer by empty promises- behold,
  3. Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:
  4. O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,
  5. Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,
  6. Three frames so vast, a single day shall give
  7. Unto annihilation! Then shall crash
  8. That massive form and fabric of the world
  9. Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I
  10. Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous
  11. This fact must strike the intellect of man,-
  12. Annihilation of the sky and earth
  13. That is to be,- and with what toil of words
  14. 'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft
  15. When once ye offer to man's listening ears
  16. Something before unheard of, but may not
  17. Subject it to the view of eyes for him
  18. Nor put it into hand- the sight and touch,
  19. Whereby the opened highways of belief
  20. Lead most directly into human breast
  21. And regions of intelligence. But yet
  22. I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,
  23. Will force belief in these my words, and thou
  24. Mayst see, in little time, tremendously
  25. With risen commotions of the lands all things
  26. Quaking to pieces- which afar from us
  27. May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may
  28. Reason, O rather than the fact itself,
  29. Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown
  30. And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!