De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. But now I will unfold
  2. At last how yonder suddenly angered flame
  3. Out-blows abroad from vasty furnaces
  4. Aetnaean. First, the mountain's nature is
  5. All under-hollow, propped about, about
  6. With caverns of basaltic piers. And, lo,
  7. In all its grottos be there wind and air-
  8. For wind is made when air hath been uproused
  9. By violent agitation. When this air
  10. Is heated through and through, and, raging round,
  11. Hath made the earth and all the rocks it touches
  12. Horribly hot, and hath struck off from them
  13. Fierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself
  14. And hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat
  15. Into high heav'n, and thus bears on afar
  16. Its burning blasts and scattereth afar
  17. Its ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk
  18. And heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight-
  19. Leaving no doubt in thee that 'tis the air's
  20. Tumultuous power. Besides, in mighty part,
  21. The sea there at the roots of that same mount
  22. Breaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.
  23. And grottos from the sea pass in below
  24. Even to the bottom of the mountain's throat.
  25. Herethrough thou must admit there go...
  26. . . . . . .
  27. And the conditions force [the water and air]
  28. Deeply to penetrate from the open sea,
  29. And to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear
  30. Thereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps
  31. The boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.
  32. For at the top be "bowls," as people there
  33. Are wont to name what we at Rome do call
  34. The throats and mouths.