De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. The moon she possibly doth shine because
  2. Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day
  3. May turn unto our gaze her light, the more
  4. She doth recede from orb of sun, until,
  5. Facing him opposite across the world,
  6. She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad,
  7. And, at her rising as she soars above,
  8. Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise
  9. She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind
  10. By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides,
  11. Along the circle of the Zodiac,
  12. From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-
  13. As those men hold who feign the moon to be
  14. Just like a ball and to pursue a course
  15. Betwixt the sun and earth. There is, again,
  16. Some reason to suppose that moon may roll
  17. With light her very own, and thus display
  18. The varied shapes of her resplendence there.
  19. For near her is, percase, another body,
  20. Invisible, because devoid of light,
  21. Borne on and gliding all along with her,
  22. Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.
  23. Again, she may revolve upon herself,
  24. Like to a ball's sphere- if perchance that be-
  25. One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light,
  26. And by the revolution of that sphere
  27. She may beget for us her varying shapes,
  28. Until she turns that fiery part of her
  29. Full to the sight and open eyes of men;
  30. Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls,
  31. Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part
  32. Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily,
  33. The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees,
  34. Refuting the art of Greek astrologers,
  35. Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-
  36. As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights,
  37. Might not alike be true,- or aught there were
  38. Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one
  39. More than the other notion. Then, again,
  40. Why a new moon might not forevermore
  41. Created be with fixed successions there
  42. Of shapes and with configurations fixed,
  43. And why each day that bright created moon
  44. Might not miscarry and another be,
  45. In its stead and place, engendered anew,
  46. 'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words
  47. To prove absurd- since, lo, so many things
  48. Can be create with fixed successions:
  49. Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy,
  50. The winged harbinger, steps on before,
  51. And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,
  52. Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all
  53. With colours and with odours excellent;
  54. Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he
  55. Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one,
  56. And by the Etesian Breezes of the north;
  57. Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps
  58. Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too
  59. And other Winds do follow- the high roar
  60. Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong
  61. With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day
  62. Bears on to men the snows and brings again
  63. The numbing cold. And Winter follows her,
  64. His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis
  65. The less a marvel, if at fixed time
  66. A moon is thus begotten and again
  67. At fixed time destroyed, since things so many
  68. Can come to being thus at fixed time.
  69. Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's
  70. Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem