On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Every person is a philosopher by nature; however, we are quickly dissuaded from this delightful activity by those who call philosophy impractical. But there is nothing more practical than knowing who you are and what you think. Try it sometime.

Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:27 pm

PART 2 OF 2

2. Taste is produced when the savour squeezed from the food enters the pores of the palate.

Nor do the tongue and palate,n whereby we perceive taste, need longer account or give more trouble. First of all we perceive taste in our mouth, when we press it out in chewing our food, just as if one by chance begins to squeeze with the hand and dry a sponge full of water. Then what we press out is all spread abroad through the pores of the palate, and through the winding passages of the loose-meshed tongue.

Smooth elements will produce pleasant taste, rough unpleasant.

Therefore, when the bodies of the oozing savour are smooth, they touch pleasantly, and pleasantly stroke all around the moist sweating vault above the tongue. But, on the other hand, the more each several thing is filled with roughness, the more does it prick the sense and tear it in its onslaught.

Taste is confined to the palate and does not accompany digestion.

Next pleasure comes from the savour within the limit of the palate; but when it has passed headlong down through the jaws, there is no pleasure while it is all being spread abroad into the limbs. Nor does it matter a whit with what diet the body is nourished, provided only you can digest what you take, and spread it abroad in the limbs, and keep an even moistness in the stomach.

Different foods suit different creatures, and what is sweet to one is bitter to another.

Now how for different creatures there is different food and poison I will unfold, or for what cause, what to some is noisome and bitter, can yet seem to others most sweet [165] to eat. And there is herein a difference and disagreement so great that what is food to one, is to others biting poison; even as there is a certain serpent,1 which, when touched by a man’s spittle, dies and puts an end to itself by gnawing its own body. Moreover, to us hellebore is biting poison, but it makes goats and quails grow fat. That you may be able to learn by what means this comes to be,

This is caused (a) because many different seeds are mingled in things; (b) because the formation of the palate and its pores differs in different animals.

first of all it is right that you remember what we have said ere now, that the seeds contained in things are mingled in many ways. Besides all living creatures which take food, just as they are unlike to outer view and a diverse outward contour of the limbs encloses them each after their kind, so also are they fashioned of seeds of varying shape. And further, since the seeds are unlike, so must the spaces and passages, which we call the openings, be different in all their limbs, and in the mouth and palate too. Some of these then must needs be smaller, some greater, they must be three-cornered for some creatures, square for others, many again round, and some of many angles in many ways. For according as the arrangement of shapes and the motions demand, so the shapes of the openings must needs differ, and the passages vary according to the texture which shuts them in. Therefore, when what is sweet to some becomes bitter to others, for the man to whom it is sweet, the smoothest bodies must needs enter the pores of the palate caressingly, but, on the other hand, for those to whom the same thing is sour within, we can be sure it is the rough and hooked bodies which penetrate the passages.

For similar causes a man’s taste may change when he is ill.

Now from these facts it is easy to learn of each case: thus when fever has attacked a man, and [166] his bile rises high, or the violence of disease is aroused in some other way, then his whole body is disordered, and then all the positions of the first-beginnings are changed about; it comes to pass that the bodies which before suited his taste, suit it no longer, and others are better fitted, which can win their way in and beget a sour taste. For both kinds are mingled in the savour of honey; as I have often shown you above ere now.

3. Similarly smell streams off things to the nostrils,

Come now, I will telln in what manner the impact of smell touches the nostrils. First there must needs be many things whence the varying stream of scents flows and rolls on, and we must think that it is always streaming off and being cast and scattered everywhere abroad;

and different scents attract or repel different creatures.

but one smell is better fitted to some living things, another to others, on account of the unlike shapes of the elements. And so through the breezes bees are drawn on however far by the scent of honey, and vultures by corpses. Then the strength of dogs sent on before leads on the hunters whithersoever the cloven hoof of the wild beasts has turned its steps, and the white goose, saviour of the citadel of Romulus’s sons, scents far ahead the smell of man. So diverse scents assigned to diverse creatures lead on each to its own food, and constrain them to recoil from noisome poison, and in that way are preserved the races of wild beasts.

Smell never travels as far as sound,

This very smell then, whenever it stirs the nostrils, may in one case be thrown further than in another. But yet no smell at all is carried as far as sound, as voice, I forebear to say as the bodies which strike the pupil of the eyes and stir the sight. For it strays abroad and comes but slowly, and dies away too soon, its frail nature scattered little by little among the breezes of air. Firstly, because [167] coming from deep withinn it is not readily set loose from the thing:

(a) because it starts from deep within things;

for that smells stream off and depart from things far beneath the surface is shown because all things seem to smell more when broken, when crushed, when melted in the fire.

(b) because it is made of larger atoms.

Again, one may see that it is fashioned of larger first-beginnings than voice, since it does not find a path through stone walls, where voice and sound commonly pass. Wherefore too you will see that it is not so easy to trace in what spot that which smells has its place.

Consequently it is less easy to trace to its source.

For the blow grows cool as it dallies through the air, nor do tidings of things rush hot to the sense. And so dogs often go astray, and have to look for the footprints.

The same thing occurs with sight: certain things hurt the eyes of certain creatures: e.g. lions cannot look at cocks;

1 Yet this does not happen only among smells and in the class of savours, but likewise the forms and colours of things are not all so well fitted to the senses of all, but that certain of them are too pungent to the sight of some creatures. Nay, indeed, ravening lionsn can by no means face and gaze upon the cock, whose wont it is with clapping wings to drive out the night, and with shrill cry to summon dawn; so surely do they at once bethink themselves of flight, because, we may be sure, there are in the body of cocks certain seeds, which, when they are cast into the eyes of lions, stab into the pupils,

because there are certain seeds in cocks which hurt their eyes, but not ours.

and cause sharp pain, so that they cannot bear up against them in fierce confidence; and yet these things cannot in any way hurt our eyes, either because they do not pierce them or because, although they do, a free outlet from the eyes is afforded them, so that they cannot by staying there hurt the eyes in any part.

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The cause of thought.

Come now, let me tell youn what things stir the mind, and learn in a few words whence come the things which come into the understanding. First of all I say this, that many idols of things wander about in many ways in all directions on every side, fine idols,

Idols, wandering everywhere, may unite,

which easily become linked with one another in the air, when they come across one another’s path, like spider’s web and gold leaf. For indeed these idols are far finer in their texture than those which fill the eyes and arouse sight,

and piercing through to the mind, make us think of monstrous forms.

since these pierce through the pores of the body and awake the fine nature of the mind within, and arouse its sensation. And so we see Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, and the dog-faces of Cerberus and idols of those who have met death, and whose bones are held in the embrace of earth; since idols of every kind are borne everywhere, some which are created of their own accord even in the air, some which depart in each case from diverse things, and those again which are made and put together from the shapes of these. For in truth the image of the Centaur comes not from a living thing, since there never was the nature of such a living creature, but when by chance the images of man and horse have met, they cling together readily at once, as we have said ere now, because of their subtle nature and fine fabric. All other things of this kind are fashioned in the same way. And when they move nimbly with exceeding lightness, as I have shown ere now, any one such subtle image stirs their mind; for the mind is fine and of itself wondrous nimble.

The mind sees as the eyes do: therefore the process is the same.

That these things come to pass as I tell, you may easily learn from this. Inasmuch as the one is like the other, what we see with the mind, and what we see with the [169] eyes, they must needs be created in like manner. Now, therefore, since I have shown that I see a lion maybe, by means of idols, which severally stir the eyes, we may know that the mind is moved in like manner, in that it sees a lion and all else neither more nor less than the eyes, except that it sees finer idols.

So too the visions of sleep are caused by images visiting the mind,

And when sleep has relaxed the limbs, the understanding of the mind is for no other cause awake, but that these same idols stir our minds then, as when we are awake, insomuch that we seem surely to behold even one who has quitted life, and is holden by death and the earth. This nature constrains to come to pass just because all the senses of the body are checked and at rest throughout the limbs, nor can they refute the falsehood by true facts.

and memory is not awake to check their veracity. The movement of the dreamvisions is due to the constant flux of ever-different images.

Moreover, the memory lies at rest, and is torpid in slumber, nor does it argue against us that he, whom the understanding believes that it beholds alive, has long ago won to death and doom. For the rest, it is not wonderful that the idols should move and toss their arms and their other limbs in rhythmic time. For it comes to pass that the image in sleep seems to do this; inasmuch as when the first image passes away and then another comes to birth in a different posture, the former seems then to have changed its gesture. And indeed we must suppose that this comes to pass in quick process: so great is the speed, so great the store of things, so great, in any one instant that we can perceive, the abundance of the little parts of images, whereby the supply may be continued.

Problems of thought and dreams.

And in these mattersn many questions are asked, and there are many things we must make clear, if we wish to set forth the truth plainly. First of all it is asked why, whatever the whim may come to each of us to think of, [170] straightway his mind thinks of that very thing.

1. How can we think at once of anything we want?

Do the idols keep watch on our will, and does the image rise up before us, as soon as we desire, whether it pleases us to think of sea or land or sky either? Gatherings of men, a procession, banquets, battles, does nature create all things at a word, and make them ready for us? And that when in the same place and spot the mind of others is thinking of things all far different.

2. How in sleep do we see moving images?

What, again, when in sleep we behold idols dancing forward in rhythmic measure, and moving their supple limbs, when alternately they shoot out swiftly their supple arms, and repeat to the eyes a gesture made by the feet in harmony? Idols in sooth are steeped in art and wander about trained to be able to tread their dance in the nighttime.

Because at every instant there is an infinite succession of images;

Or will this be nearer truth? Because within a single time, which we perceive, that is, when a single word is uttered, many times lie unnoted, which reasoning discovers, therefore it comes to pass that in any time however small the several idols are there ready at hand in all the several spots. So great is the speed, so great the store of things. Therefore when the first image passes away and then another comes to birth in a different posture, the former seems then to have changed its gesture.

and the mind only sees sharply those to which it attends.

Again, because they are fine, the mind cannot discern them sharply, save those which it strains to see; therefore all that there are besides these pass away, save those for which it has made itself ready. Moreover, the mind makes itself ready, and hopes it will come to pass that it will see what follows upon each several thing;

The same is really the case with waking sight.

therefore it comes to be. Do you not see the eyes too, when they begin to perceive things which are fine, strain themselves and make themselves ready, and that without that it cannot come to pass that we see things sharply? And yet even in things plain to see you [171] might notice that, if you do not turn your mind to them, it is just as if the thing were sundered from you all the time, and very far away. How then is it strange, if the mind loses all else, save only the things to which it is itself given up? Then too on small signs we base wide opinions, and involve ourselves in the snare of self-deceit.

The incoherence of dreams is not noticed in sleep.

It happens too that from time to time an image of different kind rises before us, and what was before a woman, seems now to have become a man before our very eyes, or else one face or age follows after another. But that we should not think this strange, sleep and its forgetfulness secure.

C.: Some Functions of the Body

C. The limbs and senses were not created for the purpose of their use,

Herein you must eagerlyn desire to shun this fault, and with foresighted fear to avoid this error; do not think that the bright light of the eyes was created in order that we may be able to look before us, or that, in order that we may have power to plant long paces, therefore the tops of shanks and thighs, based upon the feet, are able to bend; or again, that the forearms are jointed to the strong upper arms and hands given us to serve us on either side, in order that we might be able to do what was needful for life. All other ideas of this sort, which men proclaim, by distorted reasoning set effect for cause, since nothing at all was born in the body that we might be able to use it, but what is born creates its own use.

but being created evolved their use.

Nor did sight exist before the light of the eyes was born, nor pleading in words before the tongue was created, but rather the birth of the tongue came long before discourse, and the ears were created much before sound was heard, and in short all the limbs, I trow, existed before their use came about: they cannot then have grown for the purpose [172] of using them.

Art may create things for a purpose,

But, on the other side, to join hands in the strife of battle, to mangle limbs and befoul the body with gore; these things were known long before gleaming darts flew abroad, and nature constrained men to avoid a wounding blow, before the left arm, trained by art, held up the defence of a shield. And of a surety to trust the tired body to rest was a habit far older than the soft-spread bed, and the slaking of the thirst was born before cups. These things, then, which are invented to suit the needs of life, might well be thought to have been discovered for the purpose of using them.

but nature has no design.

But all those other things lie apart, which were first born themselves, and thereafter revealed the concept of their usefulness. In this class first of all we see the senses and the limbs; wherefore, again and again, it cannot be that you should believe that they could have been created for the purpose of useful service.

The desire for food is caused by the waste of the body’s tissue, which food in turn repairs.

This, likewise, is no cause for wonder, that the nature of the body of every living thing of itself seeks food. For verily I have shownn that many bodies ebb and pass away from things in many ways, but most are bound to pass from living creatures. For because they are sorely tried by motion and many bodies by sweating are squeezed and pass out from deep beneath, many are breathed out through their mouths, when they pant in weariness; by these means then the body grows rare, and all the nature is undermined; and on this follows pain. Therefore food is taken to support the limbs and renew strength when it passes within, and to muzzle the gaping desire for eating through all the limbs and veins.

Drink quenches the excessive dryness and heat in the body.

Likewise, moisture spreads into all the spots which demand moisture; [173] and the many gathered bodies of heat, which furnish the fires to our stomach, are scattered by the incoming moisture, and quenched like a flame, that the dry heat may no longer be able to burn our body. Thus then the panting thirst is washed away from our body, thus the hungry yearning is satisfied.

Causes of our movements.

Next, how it comes to pass that we are able to plant our steps forward, when we wish, how it is granted us to move our limbs in diverse ways, and what force is wont to thrust forward this great bulk of our body, I will tell: do you hearken to my words.

1. The image of ourselves moving is presented to the mind: then follows an act of will. The mind then stirs the soul-atoms.

I say that first of all idols of walking fall upon our mind, and strike the mind, as we have said before. Then comes the will;n for indeed no one begins to do anything, ere the mind has seen beforehand what it will do, and inasmuch as it sees this beforehand, an image of the thing is formed. And so, when the mind stirs itself so that it wishes to start and step forward, it straightway strikes the force of soul which is spread abroad in the whole body throughout limbs and frame. And that is easy to do, since it is held in union with it. Then the soul goes on and strikes the body,

and the soul-atoms those of body. 2. Exercise rarefies the body, and its spaces are filled with air, which helps in motion.

and so little by little the whole mass is thrust forward and set in movement. Moreover, at such times the body too becomes rarefied, and air (as indeed it needs must do, since it is always quick to move), comes through the opened spaces, and pierces through the passages in abundance, and so it is scattered to all the tiny parts of the body. Here then it is brought about by two causes acting severally, that the body, like a ship,1 is borne on by sails and wind.n Nor yet herein is this cause for wonder,

There are parallels for the moving of a great mass by tiny causes: e. g. a ship in a wind or a crane.

that such tiny bodies can twist about a body so great, and turn [174] round the whole mass of us. For in very truth the wind that is finely wrought of a subtle body drives and pushes on a great ship of great bulk, and a single hand steers it, with whatever speed it be moving, and twists a single helm whithersoever it will; and by means of pulleys and tread-wheels a crane can move many things of great weight, and lift them up with light poise.

The cause of sleep.

Now in what ways this sleep floods repose over the limbs, and lets loose the cares of the mind from the breast, I will proclaim in verses of sweet discourse, rather than in many; even as the brief song of the swan is better than the clamour of cranes, which spreads abroad among the clouds of the south high in heaven. Do you lend me a fine ear and an eager mind, lest you should deny that what I say can be, and with a breast that utterly rejects the words of truth part company with me, when you are yourself in error and cannot discern.

It comes when the soul is scattered in the limbs, or driven out, or hidden deep within. For sense is due to the soul: and its cessation shows that the soul has gone: but not utterly, for that would mean death.

First of all sleep comes to passn when the strength of the soul is scattered about among the limbs, and in part has been cast out abroad and gone its way, and in part has been pushed back and passed inward deeper within the body. For then indeed the limbs are loosened and droop. For there is no doubt that this sense exists in us, thanks to the soul; and when sleep hinders it from being, then we must suppose that the soul is disturbed and cast out abroad: yet not all of it; for then the body would lie bathed in the eternal chill of death. For indeed, when no part of the soul stayed behind hidden in the limbs, as fire is hidden when choked beneath much ashes, whence could sense on a sudden be kindled again throughout the limbs, as flame can rise again from a secret fire?

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This is brought about because the body is constantly buffeted by air outside

But by what means this new state of things is brought about, and whence the soul can be disturbed and the body grow slack, I will unfold: be it your care that I do not scatter my words to the winds. First of all it must needs be that the body on the outer side, since it is touched close at hand by the breezes of air, is thumped and buffeted by its oft-repeated blows, and for this cause it is that wellnigh all things are covered either by a hide,

and inside, as we breathe.

or else by shells, or by a hard skin, or by bark. Further, as creatures breathe, the air at the same time smites on the inner side, when it is drawn in and breathed out again. Wherefore,

The blows spread and cause disruption;

since the body is buffeted on both sides alike, and since the blows pass on through the tiny pores to the first parts and first particles of our body, little by little there comes to be, as it were, a falling asunder throughout our limbs. For the positions of the first-beginnings of body and mind are disordered.

and so the soul is driven out or sinks within or is distracted,

Then it comes to pass that a portion of the soul is cast out abroad, and part retreats and hides within; part too, torn asunder through the limbs, cannot be united in itself, nor by motion act and react; for nature bars its meetings and chokes the ways; and so, when the motions are changed, sense withdraws deep within.

and the unsupported body sinks in slackness.

And since there is nothing which can, as it were, support the limbs, the body grows feeble, and all the limbs are slackened; arms and eyelids droop, and the hams, even as you lie down, often give way, and relax their strength. Again,

Food acts in just the same way as air.

sleep follows after food, because food brings about just what air does, while it is being spread into all the veins, and the slumber which you take when full or weary, is much heavier because then more bodies than ever are disordered, bruised with the great effort. In the same manner the soul comes to [176] be in part thrust deeper within; it is also more abundantly driven out abroad, and is more divided and torn asunder in itself within.

Dreams repeat the actions which we pursue in waking life.

And for the most part to whatever pursuit each man clings and cleaves, or on whatever things we have before spent much time, so that the mind was more strained in the task than is its wont, in our sleep we seem mostly to traffic in the same things; lawyers think that they plead their cases and confront law with law, generals that they fight and engage in battles, sailors that they pass a life of conflict waged with winds, and we that we pursue our task and seek for the nature of things for ever, and set it forth, when it is found, in writings in our country’s tongue. Thus for the most part all other pursuits and arts seem to hold the minds of men in delusion during their sleep.

For instance, the games.

And if ever men have for many days in succession given interest unflagging to the games, we see for the most part, that even when they have ceased to apprehend them with their senses, yet there remain open passages in their minds, whereby the same images of things may enter in. And so for many days the same sights pass before their eyes, so that even wide awake they think they see men dancing and moving their supple limbs, and drink in with their ears the clear-toned chant of the lyre, and its speaking strings,

This is true even of animals:

and behold the same assembly and at the same time the diverse glories of the stage all bright before them. So exceeding great is the import of zeal and pleasure, and the tasks wherein not only men are wont to spend their efforts, but even every living animal. In truth you will see strong horses,

horses,

when their limbs are lain to rest, yet sweat in their sleep, and pant for ever, and strain every nerve as though for victory, or else as [177] though the barriers were opened <struggle to start>.1

hunting-dogs,

And hunters’ dogs often in their soft sleep yet suddenly toss their legs, and all at once give tongue, and again and again snuff the air with their nostrils, as if they had found and were following the tracks of wild beasts; yea, roused from slumber they often pursue empty images of stags, as though they saw them in eager flight, until they shake off the delusion and return to themselves.

house-dogs,

But the fawning brood of pups brought up in the house, in a moment shake their body and lift it from the ground, just as if they beheld unknown forms and faces. And the wilder any breed may be, the more must it needs rage in its sleep. But the diverse tribes of birds fly off,

birds,

and on a sudden in the night time trouble the peace of the groves of the gods, if in their gentle sleep they have seen hawks, flying in pursuit, offer fight and battle.

and so of men in diverse ways.

Moreover, the minds of men, which with mighty movement perform mighty tasks, often in sleep do and dare just the same; kings storm towns, are captured, join battle, raise a loud cry, as though being murdered—all without moving. Many men fight hard, and utter groans through their pain, and, as though they were bitten by the teeth of a panther or savage lion, fill all around them with their loud cries. Many in their sleep discourse of high affairs, and very often have been witness to their own guilt. Many meet death; many,

They may dream even of their death,

as though they were falling headlong with all their body from high mountains to the earth, are beside themselves with fear, and, as though bereft of reason, scarcely recover themselves from sleep, quivering with the turmoil of their body. [178] Likewise a man sits down thirsty beside a stream or a pleasant spring,

or of trivial needs.

and gulps almost the whole river down his throat. Innocent children often, if bound fast in slumber they think they are lifting their dress at a latrine or a roadside vessel, pour forth the filtered liquid from their whole body, and the Babylonian coverlets of rich beauty are soaked. Later on to those, into the seething waters of whose life the vital seed is passing for the first time, when the ripeness of time has created it in their limbs, there come from without idols from every body, heralding a glorious face or beautiful colouring, which stir and rouse their passion to bursting.

The nature of love and desire.

There is stirred in us that seed, whereof we spoke before, when first the age of manhood strengthens our limbs. For one cause moves and rouses one thing, a different cause another; from man only the influence of man stirs human seed. And as soon as it has been aroused, bursting forth it makes its way from out the whole body through the limbs and frame, coming together into fixed places, and straightway rouses at last the natural parts of the body;

It makes us seek union with the object by which we are smitten.

and there arises the desire to seek that body, by which the mind is smitten with love. For as a rule all men fall towards the wound, and the blood spirts out in that direction, whence we are struck by the blow, and, if it is near at hand, the red stream reaches our foe. Thus, then, he who receives a blow from the darts of Venus, whoso’er it be who wounds him, inclines to that whereby he is smitten; for an unspoken desire foretells the pleasure to come.

D.: Attack on the passion of Love

D. Shun Venus and her cares and desires.

This pleasure is Venus for us; from it comes Cupid, our name for love, from it first of all that drop of Venus’s sweetness has trickled into our heart and chilly care has [179] followed after. For if the object of your love is away, yet images of her are at hand, her loved name is present to your ears. But it is best to flee those images,n and scare away from you what feeds your love, and to turn your mind some other way, and vent your passion on other objects, and not to keep it, set once for all on the love of one, and thereby store up for yourself care and certain pain.

For the pain only grows with indulgence.

For the sore gains strength and festers by feeding, and day by day the madness grows, and the misery becomes heavier, unless you dissipate the first wounds by new blows, and heal them while still fresh, wandering after some wanton, or else can turn the movements of the mind elsewhere.

The lover’s pleasure involves pain,

Nor is he who shuns love bereft of the fruits of Venus, but rather he chooses those joys which bring no pain. For surely the pleasure from these things is more untainted for the heart-whole than for the love-sick; for in the very moment of possession the passion of lovers ebbs and flows with undetermined current, nor are they sure what first to enjoy with eyes or hands. What they have grasped, they closely press and cause pain to the body, and often fasten their teeth in the lips, and dash mouth against mouth in kissing, because their pleasure is not unalloyed, and there are secret stings which spur them to hurt even the very thing, be it what it may, whence arise those germs of madness. But Venus lightly breaks the force of these pains in love, and fond pleasure mingled with them sets a curb upon their teeth. For therein there is hope that from the same body, whence comes the source of their flame, the fire may in turn be quenched.

and satiety never comes.

Yet nature protests that all this happens just the other way; and this is the one thing, whereof the more and more we [180] have, the more does our heart burn with the cursed desire. For meat and drink are taken within the limbs; and since they are able to take up their abode in certain parts, thereby the desire for water and bread is easily sated. But from the face and beauteous bloom of man nothing passes into the body to be enjoyed save delicate images; and often this love-sick hope is scattered to the winds. Just as when in a dream a thirsty man seeks to drink and no liquid is granted him, which could allay the fire in his limbs, but he seeks after images of water, and struggles in vain, and is still thirsty, though he drinks amid the torrent stream, even so in love Venus mocks the lovers with images, nor can the body sate them, though they gaze on it with all their eyes, nor can they with their hands tear off aught from the tender limbs, as they wander aimless over all the body.

Satisfaction only begets new desire.

Even at last when the lovers embrace and taste the flower of their years, eagerly they clasp and kiss, and pressing lip on lip breathe deeply; yet all for naught, since they cannot tear off aught thence, nor enter in and pass away, merging the whole body in the other’s frame; for at times they seem to strive and struggle to do it. And at length when the gathering desire is sated, then for a while comes a little respite in their furious passion. Then the same madness returns, the old frenzy is back upon them, when they yearn to find out what in truth they desire to attain, nor can they discover what device may conquer their disease; in such deep doubt they waste beneath their secret wound.

Love saps strength and independence, and duty and honour.

Remember too that they waste their strength and are worn away with effort, remember that their life is passed [181] beneath another’s sway. Meanwhile their substance slips away, and is turned to Babylonian coverlets, their duties grow slack, and their fair name totters and sickens: while on the mistress’s feet laugh 1 and lovely Sicyonian slippers; yes, and huge emeralds with their green flash are set in gold,

Patrimony is squandered in lavish present and entertainment,

and the sea-dark dress is for ever being frayed, and roughly used it drinks in sweat. The well-gotten wealth of their fathers becomes hair-ribbons and diadems; sometimes it is turned to Greek robes and stuffs of Elis and Ceos. With gorgeous napery and viands feasts are set out, and games and countless cups, perfumes, and wreaths and garlands; all in vain,

and all is ruined by some bitter thought of remorse or jealousy.

since from the heart of this fountain of delights wells up some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers—either when the conscience-stricken mind feels the bite of remorse that life is being spent in sloth, and is passing to ruin in wantonness, or because she has thrown out some idle word and left its sense in doubt, and it is planted deep in the passionate heart, and becomes alive like a flame, or because he thinks she casts her eyes around too freely, and looks upon some other, or sees in her face some trace of laughter.

Crossed love is still worse.

And these ills are found in love that is true and fully prosperous; but when love is crossed and hopeless there are ills, which you might detect even with closed eyes, ills without number; so that it is better to be on the watch beforehand, even as I have taught you,

Avoid love then, before you are caught,

and to beware that you be not entrapped. For to avoid being drawn into the meshes of love, is not so hard a task as when caught amid the toils to issue out and break through the strong bonds of Venus. And yet even when trammelled [182] and fettered you might escape the snare,

or if caught do not shut your eyes to defects,

unless you still stand in your own way, and at the first o’erlook all the blemishes of mind and body in her, whom you seek and woo. For for the most part men act blinded by passion, and assign to women excellencies which are not truly theirs.

and cover them with endearing glosses.

And so we see those in many ways deformed and ugly dearly loved, yea, prospering in high favour. And one man laughs at another, and urges him to appease Venus, since he is wallowing in a base passion, yet often, poor wretch, he cannot see his own ills, far greater than the rest. A black love is called ‘honey-dark’, the foul and filthy ‘unadorned’, the green-eyed ‘Athena’s image’, the wiry and wooden ‘a gazelle’, the squat and dwarfish ‘one of the graces’, ‘all pure delight’, the lumpy and ungainly ‘a wonder’, and ‘full of majesty’. She stammers and cannot speak, ‘she has a lisp’; the dumb is ‘modest’; the fiery, spiteful gossip is ‘a burning torch’. One becomes a ‘slender darling’, when she can scarce live from decline; another half dead with cough is ‘frail’. Then the fat and full-bosomed is ‘Ceres’ self with Bacchus at breast’; the snub-nosed is ‘sister to Silenus, or a Satyr’; the thick-lipped is ‘a living kiss’. More of this sort it were tedious for me to try to tell.

Even the fairest is not indispensable, and is not really different from others.

But yet let her be fair of face as you will, and from her every limb let the power of Venus issue forth: yet surely there are others too: surely we have lived without her before, surely she does just the same in all things, and we know it, as the ugly, and of herself, poor wretch, reeks of noisome smells, and her maids flee far from her and giggle in secret.

A lover, when he finds this out, is often offended.

But the tearful lover, denied entry, often smothers the thresh-hold with flowers and garlands, and anoints the haughty door-posts with marjoram, and plants his kisses, poor [183] wretch, upon the doors; yet if, admitted at last, one single breath should meet him as he comes, he would seek some honest pretext to be gone, and the deep-drawn lament long-planned would fall idle, and then and there he would curse his folly, because he sees that he has assigned more to her than it is right to grant to any mortal. Nor is this unknown to our queens of love; nay the more are they at pains to hide all behind the scenes from those whom they wish to keep fettered in love; all for naught,

It is better to realize it and make allowance.

since you can even so by thought bring it all to light and seek the cause of all this laughter, and if she is of a fair mind, and not spiteful, o’erlook faults in your turn, and pardon human weaknesses.

The female feels pleasure as well as the male.

Nor does the woman sigh always with feigned love, when clasping her lover she holds him fast, showering her kisses. For often she does it from the heart, and yearning for mutual joys she woos him to reach the goal of love. And in no other way would birds, cattle, wild beasts, the flocks, and mares be able to submit to the males, except because their nature too is afire, and is burning to overflow. Do you not see too how those whom mutual pleasure has bound, are often tortured in their common chains? Wherefore, again and again, as I say, the pleasure is common.

The causes of likeness to either parent,

And often when in the mingling of sex the woman by sudden force has mastered the man’s might and seized on it with her own, then children are borne like the mother, thanks to the mother’s seed, just as the father’s seed may make them like the father. But those whom you see with the form of both, mingling side by side the features of both parents, spring alike from the father’s body and the mother’s blood. It comes to pass too sometimes [184] that they can be created like their grandparents,

or to ancestors,

and often recall the form of their grandparents’ parents, for the reason that many first-beginnings in many ways are often mingled and concealed in the body of their parents, which, starting from the stock of the race, father hands on to father; therefrom Venus unfolds forms with varying chance, and recalls the look, the voice, the hair of ancestors; since indeed these things are none the more created from a seed determined than are our faces and bodies and limbs.

and its connexion with the child’s sex.

Again the female sex may spring from the father’s seed, and males come forth formed from the mother’s body. For every offspring is fashioned of the two seeds, and whichever of the two that which is created more resembles, of that parent it has more than an equal share; as you can yourself discern, whether it be a male offspring or a female birth.

Causes of sterility.

Nor do powers divine deny to any man a fruitful sowing of seed, that he may never be called father by sweet children, but must live out his years in barren wedlock; as men believe for the most part, and sorrowing sprinkle the altars with streams of blood and fire the high places with their gifts, that they may make their wives pregnant with bounteous seed. Yet all in vain they weary the majesty of the gods and their sacred lots. For the couplings in wedlock are seen to be very diverse. And many women have been barren in several wedlocks before, yet at length have found a mate from whom they might conceive children, and grow rich with sweet offspring. And often even for those, for whom wives fruitful ere now in the house had been unable to bear, a well-matched nature has been found, so that they might fortify their old age with children.[185]

A woman without beauty may win love by character, or dress, or mere habit.

Sometimes ’tis by no divine act or through the shafts of Venus that a woman of form less fair is loved. For at times a woman may bring it about by her own doing, by her unselfish ways, and the neat adornment of her body, that she accustoms you easily to live your life with her. Nay more, habit alone can win love; for that which is struck ever and again by a blow, however light, is yet mastered in long lapse of time, and gives way. Do you not see too how drops of water falling upon rocks in long lapse of time drill through the rocks?
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:28 pm

PART 1 OF 2

Book V: Deals with out World and its Formation, Astronomy, the beginnings of Life and Civilization

Introduction

Introduction. Epicurus, who discovered our philosophy, is a god.


Who can avail by might of mind to build a poem worthy to match the majesty of truth and these discoveries? Or who has such skill in speech, that he can fashion praises to match his deserts, who has left us such prizes, conceived and sought out by his own mind? There will be no one, I trow, born of mortal body. For if we must speak as befits the majesty of the truth now known to us, then he was a god, yea a god, noble Memmius, who first found out that principle of life, which now is called wisdom, and who by his skill saved our life from high seas and thick darkness, and enclosed it in calm waters and bright light.

His services to men are far greater than those of the gods and heroes of old:

For set against this the heaven-sent discoveries of others in the days of old. Ceres is fabled to have taught to men the growing of corn, and Liber the liquid of the vine-born juice; and yet life could have gone on without these things, as tales tell us that some races live even now. But a good life could not be without a clean heart; wherefore more rightly is he counted a god by us, thanks to whom now sweet solaces for life soothe the mind, spread even far and wide among great peoples.

even of Hercules.

But if you think that the deeds of Herculesn excel this, you will be carried still further adrift from true reasoning. For what harm to us now were the great gaping jaws of the old Nemean lion and the bristling boar of Arcadia? Or what could the bull of Crete do, or the curse of Lerna, the hydra with its pallisade of poisonous snakes? what the triple-breasted might of threefold Geryon? [187] <How could those birds> have done us such great hurt, who dwelt in the Stymphalian <fen>,1 or the horses of Diomede the Thracian, breathing fire from their nostrils near the coasts of the Bistones and Ismara? Or the guardian of the glowing golden apples of Hesperus’s daughters, the dragon, fierce, with fiery glance, with his vast body twined around the tree-trunk, yea, what harm could he have done beside the Atlantic shore and the grim tracts of ocean, where none of us draws near nor barbarian dares to venture? And all other monsters of this sort which were destroyed, had they not been vanquished, what hurt, pray, could they have done alive? Not a jot, I trow: the earth even now teems in such abundance with wild beasts, and is filled with trembling terrors throughout forests and mighty mountains and deep woods; but for the most part we have power to shun those spots. But unless the heart is cleansed,

For he gave us a clean heart,

what battles and perils must we then enter into despite our will? What sharp pangs of passion then rend the troubled man, yea and what fears besides? what of pride, filthiness and wantonness? what havoc they work? what of luxury and sloth? He then who has subdued all these and driven them from the mind by speech, not arms, shall this man not rightly be found worthy to rank among the gods? Above all,

and taught us about the gods and nature.

since ’twas his wont to speak many sayings in good and godlike words about the immortal gods themselves, and in his discourse to reveal the whole nature of things.

Now that I have shown the laws of nature, and the mortality of the soul,

In his footsteps I tread, and while I follow his reasonings and set out in my discourse, by what law all things are created, and how they must needs abide by it, nor [188] can they break through the firm ordinances of their being, even as first of all the nature of the mind has been found to be formed and created above other things with a body that has birth, and to be unable to endure unharmed through the long ages, but it is images that are wont in sleep to deceive the mind, when we seem to behold one whom life has left;

I must prove that the world is mortal, and how it came to be made.

for what remains, the train of my reasoning has now brought me to this point, that I must give account how the world is made of mortal body and also came to birth; and in what ways that gathering of matter established earth, sky, sea, stars, sun, and the ball of the moon; then what living creatures sprang from the earth, and which have never been born at any time;

I must treat of the creation of animals, of the growth of speech, of the origin of the fear of the gods, and of the courses of the heavenly bodies.

and in what manner the race of men began to use evervarying speech one to another by naming things; and in what ways that fear of the gods found its way into their breasts, which throughout the circle of the world keeps revered shrines, lakes, groves, altars, and images of the gods. Moreover, I will unfold by what power nature, the helmsman, steers the courses of the sun and the wanderings of the moon; lest by chance we should think that they of their own will ’twixt earth and sky fulfil their courses from year to year, with kindly favour to the increase of earth’s fruits and living creatures, or should suppose that they roll on by any forethought of the gods.

All these things come to pass without the interference of the gods.

For those who have learnt aright that the gods lead a life free from care, yet if from time to time they wonder by what means all things can be carried on, above all among those things which are descried above our heads in the coasts of heaven, are borne back again into the old beliefs of religion, and adopt stern overlords, whom in their misery they believe have all power, knowing not what [189] can be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deep-set boundary-stone.

The world will be destroyed.

For the rest, that I may delay you no more with promises, first of all look upon seas, and lands, and sky; their threefold nature, their three bodies, Memmius, their three forms so diverse, their three textures so vast, one single day shall hurl to ruin; and the massive form and fabric of the world, held up for many years, shall fall headlong. Nor does it escape me in my mind,

This sounds strange, and is hard to prove.

how strangely and wonderfully this strikes upon the understanding, the destruction of heaven and earth that is to be, and how hard it is for me to prove it surely in my discourse; even as it always happens, when you bring to men’s ears something unknown before, and yet you cannot place it before the sight of their eyes, nor lay hands upon it; for by this way the paved path of belief leads straightest into the heart of man and the quarters of his mind.

Perhaps events will give sensible proof:

Yet still I will speak out. Maybe that the very fact will give credence to my words, that earthquakes will arise and within a little while you will behold all things shaken in mighty shock.

but reasoning must be tried.

But may fortune at the helm steer this far away from us, and may reasoning rather than the very fact make us believe that all things can fall in with a hideous rending crash.

It is no sacrilege to deny that the world and the heavenly bodies are divine.

Yet before I essay on this point to declare destiny in more holy wise, and with reasoning far more sure than the Pythian priestess, who speaks out from the tripod and laurel of Phoebus, I will unfold many a solace for you in my learned discourse; lest by chance restrained by religion you should think that earth and sun, and sky, sea, stars, and moon must needs abide for everlasting, because of their divine body, and therefore should suppose it right [190] that after the manner of the giantsn all should pay penalty for their monstrous crime, who by their reasoning shake the walls of the world, and would fain quench the glorious sun in heaven, branding things immortal with mortal names; yet these are things so far sundered from divine power, and are so unworthy to be reckoned among gods,

They are not even sentient.

that they are thought rather to be able to afford us the concept of what is far removed from vital motion and sense. For verily it cannot be that we should suppose that the nature of mind and understanding can be linked with every body:

Soul and mind, like all other things, have their appointed place, apart from which they cannot exist.

even as a tree cannot exist in the sky, nor clouds in the salt waters, nor can fishes live in the fields, nor blood be present in wood nor sap in stones. It is determined and ordained where each thing can grow and have its place. So the nature of mind cannot come to birth alone without body, nor exist far apart from sinews and blood. But if this could be, far sooner might the force of mind itself exist in head or shoulders, or right down in the heels, and be wont to be born in any part you will, but at least remain in the same man or the same vessel. But since even within our body it is determined and seen to be ordained where soul and mind can dwell apart and grow, all the more must we deny that outside the whole body and the living creature’s form,

They cannot be in earth or the heavenly bodies.

it could last on in the crumbling sods of earth or in the fire of the sun or in water or in the high coasts of heaven. They are not then created endowed with divine feeling, inasmuch as they cannot be quickened with the sense of life.

The gods have no dwellings in the world:

This, too, it cannot be that you should believe, that there are holy abodes of the gods in any parts of the world. For the fine nature of the gods, far sundered [191] from our senses, is scarcely seen by the understanding of the mind; and since it lies far beneath all touch or blow from our hands, it cannot indeed touch anything which can be touched by us. For nothing can touch which may not itself be touched. Therefore even their abodes too must needs be unlike our abodes, fine even as are their bodies; all which I will hereafter prove to youn with plenteous argument. Further,

nor did they make the world for the sake of man.

to say that for man’s sake they were willing to fashion the glorious nature of the world, and for that cause ’tis fitting to praise the work of the gods, which is worthy to be praised, and to believe that it will be everlasting and immortal, and that it is sin ever to stir from its seats by any force what was established for the races of men for all time by the ancient wisdom of the gods, or to assail it with argument, and to overthrow it from top to bottom; to imagine and to add all else of this sort, Memmius, is but foolishness.

Our thanks could not benefit them,

For what profit could our thanks bestow on the immortal and blessed ones, that they should essay to do anything for our sakes? Or what new thing could have enticed them so long after, when they were aforetime at rest,

nor could they have had a desire for novelty:

to desire to change their former life? For it is clear that he must take joy in new things, to whom the old are painful; but for him, whom no sorrow has befallen in the time gone by, when he led a life of happiness, for such an one what could have kindled a passion for new things?

nor would it have hurt us if we had never been created.

Or what ill had it been to us never to have been made? Did our life, forsooth, lie wallowing in darkness and grief, until the first creation of things dawned upon us? For whosoever has been born must needs wish to abide in life, so long as enticing pleasure shall hold him. But for him, who has never tasted the love of life, and was never [192] in the ranks of the living, what harm is it never to have been made?

How, again, could the gods have had a pattern or an idea to work on?

Further, how was there first implanted in the gods a pattern for the begetting of things, yea, and the concept of man,n so that they might know and see in their mind what they wished to do, or in what way was the power of the first-beginnings ever learnt, or what they could do when they shifted their order one with the other, if nature did not herself give a model of creation?

No; the world was made by the chance arrangement of atoms.

For so many first-beginnings of things in many ways, driven on by blows from time everlasting until now, and moved by their own weight, have been wont to be borne on, and to unite in every way, and essay everything that they might create, meeting one with another, that it is no wonder if they have fallen also into such arrangements, and have passed into such movements, as those whereby this present sum of things is carried on, ever and again replenished.

That the world is not divinely made for man, may be proved by its imperfections.

But even if I knew notn what are the first-beginnings of things, yet this I would dare to affirm from the very workings of heaven, and to prove from many other things as well, that by no means has the nature of things been fashioned for us by divine grace: so great are the flaws with which it stands beset. First, of all that the huge expanse of heaven covers, half thereof mountains and forests of wild beasts have greedily seized;

1. Vast tracts of the earth are useless for man, and only his toil can turn them to profit.

rocks possess it, and waste pools and the sea, which holds far apart the shores of the lands. Besides, two thirds almost burning heat and the ceaseless fall of frost steal from mortals. Of all the field-land that remains, yet nature would by her force cover it up with thorns, were it not that the force of man resisted her, ever wont for his livelihood to groan over the strong mattock and to furrow the earth with the [193] deep-pressed plough. But that by turning the fertile clods with the share, and subduing the soil of the earth we summon them to birth, of their own accord the crops could not spring up into the liquid air; and even now sometimes, when won by great toil things grow leafy throughout the land, and are all in flower, either the sun in heaven burns them with too much heat, or sudden rains destroy them and chill frosts, and the blasts of the winds harry them with headstrong hurricane. Moreover,

2. He is harassed by wild beasts, disease, and death.

why does nature foster and increase the awesome tribe of wild beasts to do harm to the race of man by land and sea? Why do the seasons of the year bring maladies? Why does death stalk abroad before her time?

3. The human baby is helpless and defenceless.

Then again, the child, like a sailor tossed ashore by the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, dumb, lacking all help for life, when first nature has cast him forth by travail from his mother’s womb into the coasts of light, and he fills the place with woful wailing, as is but right for one for whom it remains in life to pass through so much trouble. But the diverse flocks and herds grow up and the wild beasts, nor have they need of rattles, nor must there be spoken to any of them the fond and broken prattle of the fostering nurse, nor do they seek diverse garments to suit the season of heaven, nay, and they have no need of weapons or lofty walls, whereby to protect their own, since for all of them the earth itself brings forth all things bounteously, and nature, the quaint artificer of things.

A.: The World Bad a beginning and is Mortal

A. The world is mortal (a) because its component parts are mortal.

First of all,n since the body of earth and moisture, and the light breath of the winds and burning heat, of which this sum of things is seen to be made up, are all created of a body that has birth and death, of such, too, must we [194] think that the whole nature of the world is fashioned. For verily things whose parts and limbs we see to be of a body that has birth and of mortal shapes, themselves too we perceive always to have death and birth likewise. Wherefore, when we see the mighty members and parts of the world consumed away and brought to birth again, we may know that sky too likewise and earth had some time of first-beginning, and will suffer destruction.

To prove this of the separate elements: 1. Earth is mortal. It flies away in clouds of dust,

Herein, lest you should think that I have snatched at this proof for myself, because I have assumed that earth and fire are mortal things, nor have hesitated to say that moisture and breezes perish, and have maintained that they too are born again and increase, first of all, some part of earth, when baked by ceaseless suns, trodden by the force of many feet, gives off a mist and flying clouds of dust, which stormy winds scatter through all the air.or is destroyed by moisture. Earth is the universal mother and the universal tomb. Part too of its sods is summoned back to swamp by the rains, and streams graze and gnaw their banks. Moreover, whatever the earth nourishes and increases, is, in its own proportion, restored; and since without doubt the parent of all is seen herself to be the universal tomb of things, therefore you may see that the earth is eaten away, and again increases and grows.

2. Water is mortal:

For the rest, that sea, streams, and springs are ever filling with new moisture, and that waters are ceaselessly oozing forth, there is no need of words to prove: the great downrush of waters on every side shows this forth.

it is drawn up from the sea by wind and sun,

But the water which is foremost is ever taken away, and so it comes to pass that there is never overmuch moisture in the sum, partly because the strong winds as they sweep the seas, diminish them, and so does the sun in heaven, as he unravels their fabric with his rays, partly because [195] it is sent hither and thither under every land.

and passes beneath the earth to reappear in springs.

For the brine is strained through, and the substance of the moisture oozes back, and all streams together at the fountain-head of rivers, and thence comes back over the lands with freshened current, where the channel once cleft has brought down the waters in their liquid march.

3. Air is mortal: it is constantly being created by the efflux from things, and renewing them by its restoration.

Next then I will speak of air, which changes in its whole body in countless ways each single hour. For always, whatever flows off from things, is all carried into the great sea of air; and unless in turn it were to give back bodies to things, and replenish them as they flow away, all things would by now have been dissolved and turned into air. Air then ceases not to be created from things, and to pass back into things, since it is sure that all things are constantly flowing away.

4. Fire is mortal the sun is always sending out new supplies, and his rays perish as they fall. Witness the beams cut off by clouds.

Likewise that bounteous sourcen of liquid light, the sun in heaven, ceaselessly floods the sky with fresh brightness, and at once supplies the place of light with new light. For that which is foremost of its brightness, ever perishes, on whatever spot it falls. That you may learn from this: that as soon as clouds have begun for an instant to pass beneath the sun, and, as it were, to break off the rays of light, straightway all the part of the rays beneath perishes, and the earth is overshadowed, wherever the clouds are carried; so that you may learn that things ever have need of fresh brilliance, and that the foremost shaft of light ever perishes, nor in any other way can things be seen in the sunlight, except that the very fountain-head of light gives supply for ever. Nay more,

So even lights on earth have to keep up a constant supply of flame.

lights at night, which are on the earth, hanging lamps and oily torches, bright with their flashing fires and thick smoke, in like manner hasten by aid of their heat [196] to supply new light; they are quick to flicker with their fires, yea quick, nor is the light, as it were, broken off, nor does it quit the spot. In such eager haste is its destruction hidden by the quick birth of flame from all the fires. So then we must think that sun, moon, and stars throw out their light from new supplies, rising again and again, and lose ever what is foremost of their flames; lest you should by chance believe that they are strong with a strength inviolable.

We constantly see examples of the mortality of the strongest things.

Again, do you not behold stones too vanquished by time, high towers falling in ruins, and rocks crumbling away, shrines and images of the gods growing weary and worn, while the sacred presence cannot prolong the boundaries of fate nor struggle against the laws of nature? Again, do we not see the monuments of men fallen to bits, and inquiring moreover whether you believe that they grow old?1 And stones torn up from high mountains rushing headlong, unable to brook or bear the stern strength of a limited time? For indeed they would not be suddenly torn up and fall headlong, if from time everlasting they had held out against all the siege of age without breaking.

If the sky is the universal parent, it is mortal: for it is constantly diminished and increased.

Now once again gaze on this sky, which above and all around holds the whole earth in its embrace: if it begets all things out of itself, as some tell,n and receives them again when they perish, it is made altogether of a body that has birth and death. For whatsoever increases and nourishes other things out of itself, must needs be lessened, and replenished when it receives things back.

(b) There are many proofs that the world is still in its youth.

Moreover, if there was no birth and beginning of the earth and sky, and they were always from everlasting, [197] why beyond the Theban war and the doom of Troy have not other poets sung of other happenings as well? whither have so many deeds of men so often passed away? why are they nowhere enshrined in glory in the everlasting memorials of fame? But indeed, I trow, our whole world is in its youth, and quite new is the nature of the firmament, nor long ago did it receive its first-beginnings. Wherefore even now certain arts are being perfected, even now are growing; much now has been added to ships, but a while ago musicians gave birth to tuneful harmonies. Again, this nature of things, this philosophy, is but lately discovered, and I myself was found the very first of all who could turn it into the speech of my country.

If you think former civilizations have passed away in some world-calamity, that would prove that the world is mortal.

But if by chance you think that all these same things were aforetime, but that the generations of men perished in burning heat, or that cities have fallen in some great upheaval of the world, or that from ceaseless rains ravening rivers have issued over the lands and swallowed up cities, all the more must you be vanquished and confess that there will come to pass a perishing of earth and sky as well. For when things were assailed by such great maladies and dangers, then if a more fatal cause had pressed upon them, far and wide would they have spread their destruction and mighty ruin. Nor in any other way do we see one another to be mortal; except that we fall sick of the same diseases as those whom nature has sundered from life.

(c) The world does not fulfil any of the conditions of immortality.

Moreover, if ever things abiden for everlasting, it must needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within them, which might unloose the close-locked parts within, such as are the bodies of matter, whose nature we have [198] declared before; or that they are able to continue through all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the void, which abides untouched nor suffers a whit from assault; or else because there is no supply of room all around, into which things might part asunder and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—nor is there any room without into which they may leap apart, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and break them up with stout blow. But neither, as I have shown, is the nature of the world endowed with solid body, since there is void mingled in things; nor yet is it as the void, nor indeed are bodies lacking, which might by chance gather together out of infinite space and overwhelm this sum of things with headstrong hurricane, or bear down on it some other form of dangerous destruction; nor again is there nature of room or space in the deep wanting, into which the walls of the world might be scattered forth; or else they may be pounded and perish by any other force you will.

It must then be subject to death, and have had a birth.

The gate of death then is not shut on sky or sun or earth or the deep waters of the sea, but it stands open facing them with huge vast gaping maw. Wherefore, again, you must needs confess that these same things have a birth; for indeed, things that are of mortal body could not from limitless time up till now have been able to set at defiance the stern strength of immeasurable age.

(d) The great contest of the elements may one day be brought to an end by the victory of one or the other.

Again, since the mighty members of the world so furiously fight one against the other, stirred up in most unhallowed warfare, do you not see that some end may be set to their long contest? Either when the sun and every kind of heat have drunk up all the moisture and [199] won the day: which they are struggling to do, but as yet they have not accomplished their effort: so great a supply do the rivers bring and threaten to go beyond their bounds, and deluge all things from out the deep abyss of ocean; all in vain, since the winds as they sweep the seas, diminish them, and so does the sun in heaven, as he unravels their fabric with his rays, and they boast that they can dry up all things, ere moisture can reach the end of its task.

Story tells that both fire and water have for a time held the upper hand.

So vast a war do they breathe out in equal contest, as they struggle and strive one with another for mighty issues; yet once in this fight fire gained the upper hand, and once, as the story goes, moisture reigned supreme on the plains. For fire won its way and burnt up many things, all-devouring, when the resistless might of the horses of the sun went astray and carried Phaethon amain through the whole heavens and over all lands. But, thereupon,

The myth of Phaethon

the almighty father, thrilled with keen anger, with sudden stroke of his thunder dashed high-souled Phaethon from his chariot to earth, and the sun, meeting him as he fell, caught the everlasting lamp of the world, and tamed the scattered steeds, and yoked them trembling, and so guiding them along their own path, replenished all things; so forsooth sang the old poets of the Greeks: but it is exceeding far removed from true reasoning.

represents the excess of fire-atoms.

For fire can only prevail when more bodies of its substance have risen up out of infinite space; and then its strength fails, vanquished in some way, or else things perish, burnt up by its fiery breath. Moisture likewise,n once gathered together and began to prevail,

The story of the Deluge.

as the story goes, when it overwhelmed living men with its waves. Thereafter, when its force [200] was by some means turned aside and went its way, even all that had gathered together from infinite space, the rains ceased, and the strength of the rivers was brought low.

B.: Formation of the World

B. The Birth of the World. It was not made by design, but by the chance concourse of atoms after ages.

But by what means that gathering together of matter established earth and sky and the depths of ocean, and the courses of sun and moon, I will set forth in order. For in very truth not by design did the first-beginnings of things place themselves each in their order with foreseeing mind, nor indeed did they make compact what movements each should start; but because many first-beginnings of things in many ways, driven on by blows from time everlasting until now, and moved by their own weight, have been wont to be borne on, and to unite in every way and essay everything that they might create, meeting one with another, therefore it comes to pass that scattered abroad through a great age, as they try meetings and motions of every kind, at last those come together, which, suddenly cast together, become often the beginnings of great things, of earth, sea and sky, and the race of living things.

First atoms gathered together in a wild discordant storm.

Then, when things were so, neither could the sun’s orb be seen, flying on high with its bounteous light, nor the stars of the great world, nor sea nor sky, nay nor earth nor air, nor anything at all like to the things we know, but only a sort of fresh-formed storm, a mass gathered together of first-beginnings of every kind, whose discord was waging war and confounding interspaces, paths, interlacings, weights, blows, meetings, and motions, because owing to their unlike forms and diverse shapes, all things were unable to remain in union, as they do now, and to give and receive harmonious motions.Then the various parts of the world were separated off. From this massn parts began to fly off hither and thither, and like things [201] to unite with like, and so to unfold a world, and to sunder its members and dispose its great parts, that is, to mark off the high heaven from the earth, and the sea by itself, so that it might spread out with its moisture kept apart, and likewise the fires of the sky by themselves, unmixed and kept apart.

The earth particles gathered together at the bottom, and squeezed out those which were to form sea and heavenly bodies. The light particles of ether rose up

Yea, verily, first of all the several bodies of earth, because they were heavy and interlaced, met together in the middle, and all took up the lowest places; and the more they met and interlaced, the more did they squeeze out those which were to make sea, stars, sun, and moon, and the walls of the great world. For all these are of smoother and rounder seeds, and of much smaller particles than earth. And so, bursting out from the quarter of the earth through its loose-knit openings, first of all the fiery ether rose up and, being so light, carried off with it many fires, in not far different wise than often we see now, when first the golden morning light of the radiant sun reddens over the grass bejewelled with dew, and the pools and ever-running streams give off a mist, yea, even as the earth from time to time is seen to steam: and when all these are gathered together as they move upwards, clouds with body now formed weave a web beneath the sky on high.

and formed the firmament.

Thus then at that time the light and spreading ether, with body now formed, was set all around and curved on every side, and spreading wide towards every part on all sides, thus fenced in all else in its greedy embrace.

Sun and moon were created.

There followed then the beginnings of sun and moon, whose spheres turn in air midway betwixt earth and ether; for neither earth nor the great ether claimed them for itself, because they were neither heavy enough to sink and settle down, nor light enough to be able to [202] glide along the topmost coasts, yet they are so set between the two that they can move along their living bodies, and are parts of the whole world; even as in our bodies some limbs may abide in their place, while yet there are others moving.

Then earth sank in the middle and formed the sea,

So when these things were withdrawn, at once the earth sank down, where now the vast blue belt of ocean stretches, and flooded the furrows with salt surge. And day by day, the more the tide of ether and the rays of the sun with constant blows along its outer edges constrained the earth into closer texture, so that thus smitten it condensed and drew together round its centre, the more did the salt sweat, squeezed out from its body, go to increase the sea and the swimming plains, as it trickled forth; yea, and the more did those many bodies of heat and air slip forth and fly abroad, and far away from earth condense the high glowing quarters of the sky. Plains sank down,

while mountains were left standing.

lofty mountains grew in height; for indeed the rocks could not settle down, nor could all parts subside equally in the same degree.

Summary: earth sank with sea, air, and ether unmixed above it.

So then the weight of earth, with body now formed, sank to its place, and, as it were, all the slime of the world slid heavily to the bottom, and sank right down like dregs; then the sea and then the air and then the fiery ether itself were all left unmixed with their liquid bodies; they are lighter each than the next beneath, and ether, most liquid and lightest of all, floats above the breezes of air, nor does it mingle its liquid body with the boisterous breezes of air;

Highest of all the ether moves on in its constant untroubled course.

it suffers all our air below to be churned by headstrong hurricanes, it suffers it to brawl with shifting storms, but itself bears on its fires as it glides in changeless advance. For that the ether can follow on quietly and with one constant effort, the Pontos proves, the sea [203] which flows on with changeless tide, preserving ever the one constant rhythm of its gliding.

C.: Astronomy

C. The motions of the stars.


1Now let us sing what is the cause of the motions of the stars. First of all, if the great globe of the sky turns round,n we must say that the air presses on the pole at either end, and holds it outside and closes it in at both ends; and that then another current of air flows above,

1. If the whole sky moves round, it must be driven either by a current above or by a current below.

straining on to the same goal, towards which the twinkling stars of the everlasting world roll on; or else that there is another current beneath, to drive up the sphere reversely, as we see streams moving round wheels with their scoops. It may be also that the whole sky can abide in its place, while yet the shining signs are carried on; either because swift currents of ether are shut within them, and seeking a way out are turned round and round,

2. If the sky remains firm, the stars are moved either (a) by fireinside them or (b) by exterior currents, or (c) by desire to reach their proper fuel. All these causes act somewhere in the universe.

and so roll on the fires this way and that through the nightly quarters of the sky; or else an air streaming from some other quarter without turns and drives the fires; or else they can themselves creep on, whither its own food invites and summons each as they move on, feeding their flaming bodies everywhere throughout the sky. For it is hard to declare for certain which of these causes it is in this world; but what can happen and does happen through the universe in the diverse worlds, fashioned on diverse plans, that is what I teach, and go on to set forth many causes for the motions of the stars, which may exist throughout the universe; and of these it must needs be one which in our world too [204] gives strength to the motions of the heavenly signs; but to affirm which of them it is, is in no wise the task of one treading forward step by step.

The earth is supported by a ‘second nature’ beneath it, which is closely connected with the air.

Now that the earth may rest quiet in the mid region of the world, it is natural that its mass shouldn gradually thin out and grow less, and that it should have another nature underneath from the beginning of its being, linked and closely bound in one with those airy parts of the world amid which it had its place and life. For this cause it is no burden, nor does it weigh down the air; even as for every man his own limbs are no weight, nor is the head a burden to the neck, nay nor do we feel that the whole weight of the body is resting on the feet;

Similarly 1. our limbs are no weight to us because of their close connexion;

but all weights which come from without and are laid upon us, hurt us, though often they are many times smaller. Of such great matter is it, what is the power of each thing. So then the earth is not suddenly brought in as some alien body, nor cast from elsewhere on alien air, but it has been begotten along with it from the first beginning of the world, a determined part of it, as our limbs are seen to be of us.

2. the earth shows its connexion with air above by communicating to it its own shocks;

Moreover, the earth, when shaken suddenly by violent thunder, shakes with its motion all that is above it; which it could not by any means do, were it not bound up with the airy parts of the world and with the sky. For they cling one to the other with common roots, linked and closely bound in one from the beginning of their being. Do you not see too how great is the weight of our body, which the force of the soul, though exceeding fine, supports, just because it is so nearly linked and closely bound in one with it?

3. the soul, thanks to its close connexion, can lift the body.

And again, what can lift the body in a nimble leap save the force of the soul, which steers the limbs? Do you not see now [205] how great can be the power of a fine nature, when it is linked with a heavy body, even as the air is linked with earth, and the force of the mind with us?

The sun is not much larger or smaller than we see it. For fires, so long as seen and felt, do not look smaller.

Nor can the sun’s blazing wheeln be much greater or less, than it is seen to be by our senses. For from whatsoever distances fires can throw us their light and breathe their warm heat upon our limbs, they lose nothing of the body of their flames because of the interspaces, their fire is no whit shrunken to the sight. Even so, since the heat of the sun and the light he sheds, arrive at our senses and cheer the spots on which they fall, the form and bulk of the sun as well must needs be seen truly from earth, so that you could alter it almost nothing to greater or less. The moon, too,

The moon is just the size we see it.

whether she illumines places with a borrowed light as she moves along, or throws out her own rays from her own body, however that may be, moves on with a shape no whit greater than seems that shape, with which we perceive her with our eyes.

For as long as things are clear in outline, they do not look smaller.

For all things which we behold far sundered from us through much air, are seen to grow confused in shape, ere their outline is lessened. Wherefore it must needs be that the moon, inasmuch as she shows a clear-marked shape and an outline well defined, is seen by us from earth in the heights, just as she is, clear-cut all along her outer edges, and just the size she is. Lastly,

The stars may be slightly smaller or larger than we see them.

all the fires of heaven that you see from earth; inasmuch as all fires that we see on earth, so long as their twinkling light is clear, so long as their blaze is perceived, are seen to change their size only in some very small degree from time to time to greater or less, the further they are away: so we may know that the heavenly fires can only be a very minute degree smaller or larger by a little tiny piece.

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The great light and heat of this small sun may be caused (a) because it is the one fountain-head of all the world’s light;

This, too, is not wonderful,n how the sun, small as it is, can send out so great light, to fill seas and all lands and sky with its flood, and to bathe all things in its warm heat. For it may be that from this spotn the one well of light for the whole world is opened up and teems with bounteous stream, and shoots out its rays, because the particles of heat from all the world gather together on every side, and their meeting mass flows together in such wise, that here from a single fountain-head their blazing light streams forth. Do you not see too how widely a tiny spring of water sometimes moistens the fields, and floods out over the plains?

(b) because it kindles the surrounding air;

Or again, it may be that from the sun’s fire, though it be not great, blazing light seizes on the air with its burning heat, if by chance there is air ready to hand and rightly suited to be kindled when smitten by tiny rays of heat; even as sometimes we see crops or straw caught in widespread fire from one single spark.

(c) because it has hidden heat all around it.

Perhaps, too, the sun, shining on high with its rosy torch, has at his command much fire with hidden heat all around him, fire which is never marked by any radiance, so that it is only laden with heat and increases the stroke of the sun’s rays.

The orbits of sun, moon, and stars may be caused

Nor is there any single and straightforward accountn of the sun, to show how from the summer regions he draws near the winter turning-point of Capricorn, and how turning back thence, he betakes himself to the solstice-goal of Cancer; and how the moon is seen in single months to traverse that course, on which the sun spends the period of a year as he runs.

(a) because the nearer a heavenly body is to earth, the more slowly is it moved by the whirl of heaven. The sun then moves less swiftly than the stars, the moon than the sun, Therefore the moon seems to move quickest in the opposite direction: (b) because there are transverse currents which blow the sun from one tropic to the other: and so with moon and stars.

There is not, I say, any single cause assigned for these things. For, first and foremost, it is clear that it may come to pass, as the judgement of the holy man, Democritus, sets before us, that the nearer the [207] several stars are to earth, the less can they be borne on with the whirl of heaven. For its swift keen strength passes away and is lessened beneath, and so little by little the sun is left behind with the hindmost signs, because it is much lower than the burning signs. And even more the moon: the lower her course, the further it is from the sky and nearer to earth, the less can she strain on her course level with the signs. Moreover the weaker the whirl with which she is borne along, being lower than the sun, the more do all the signs catch her up all around and pass her. Therefore, it comes to pass that she seems to turn back more speedily to each several sign, because the signs come back to her. It may be too that from quarters of the world athwart his path two airs may stream alternately, each at a fixed season, one such as to push the sun away from the summer signs right to the winter turning-places and their icy frost, and the other to hurl him back from the icy shades of cold right to the heat-laden quarters and the burning signs. And in like manner must we think that the moon and those stars which roll throughn the great years in great orbits, can be moved by airs from the opposite quarters in turn. Do you not see how by contrary winds the lower clouds too are moved in directions contrary to those above? Why should those stars be less able to be borne on by currents contrary one to the other through the great orbits in the heaven?

Night is caused either (a) because the sun’s light is extinguished or (b) because he travels under the earth. Dawn is caused either (a) because the returning sun sends his rays in advance or (b) because the fires which compose the new sun gradually collect. Such regular recurrence is not wonderful. It has many parallels in nature.

But night shrouds the earth in thick darkness, either when after his long journeyn the sun has trodden the farthest parts of heaven, and fainting has breathed out his fires shaken by the journey and made weak by much air, or because the same force, which carried on his orb [208] above the earth, constrains him to turn his course back beneath the earth.

Likewise at a fixed time Matutan sends abroad the rosy dawn through the coasts of heaven, and spreads the light, either because the same sun, returning again beneath the earth, seizes the sky in advance with his rays, fain to kindle it, or because the fires come together and many seeds of heat are wont to stream together at a fixed time, which each day cause the light of a new sun to come to birth. Even so story tells that from the high mountains of Ida scattered fires are seen as the light rises, and then they gather as if into a single ball, and make up the orb. Nor again ought this to be cause of wonder herein, that these seeds of fire can stream together at so fixed a time and renew the brightness of the sun. For we see many events, which come to pass at a fixed time in all things. Trees blossom at a fixed time, and at a fixed time lose their flower. Even so at a fixed time age bids the teeth fall, and the hairless youth grow hairy with soft down and let a soft beard flow alike from either cheek. Lastly, thunder, snow, rains, clouds, winds come to pass at seasons of the year more or less fixed.

Where causes are original, effects come in due sequence. The disproportion of night and day, except at the equinox, may be caused either (a) because at that time the arcs of day and night into which the sun divides his daily revolution are necessarily equalized;

For since the first-beginnings of causes were ever thus and things have so fallen out from the first outset of the world, one after the other they come round even now in fixed order.

And likewise it may be that days grow longer and nights wane, and again daylight grows less, when nights take increase; either because the same sun,n as he fulfils his course in unequal arcs below the earth and above, parts the coasts of heaven, and divides his circuit into unequal portions; and whatever he has taken away from the one part, so much the more he replaces, as he goes round, in [209] the part opposite it, until he arrives at that sign in the sky, where the node of the year makes the shades of night equal to the daylight. For in the mid-course of the blast of the north wind and of the south wind, the sky holds his turning-points apart at a distance then made equal, on account of the position of the whole starry orbit, in which the sun covers the space of a year in his winding course, as he lights earth and heaven with his slanting rays: as is shown by the plans of those who have marked out all the quarters of the sky, adorned with their signs in due order. Or else,

or (b) because, at some seasons, the sun is delayed by dense air; or (c) because his fires gather together more slowly.

becausen the air is thicker in certain regions, and therefore the trembling ray of his fire is delayed beneath the earth, nor can it easily pierce through and burst out to its rising. Therefore in winter time the long nights lag on, until the radiant ensign of day comes forth. Or else again, because in the same way in alternate parts of the year the fires, which cause the sun to rise from a fixed quarter, are wont to stream together now more slowly, now more quickly, therefore it is that those seem to speak the truth <who say that a new sun is born every day>.1
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:28 pm

PART 2 OF 2

The phases of the moon may be caused, (a) if the moon shines by reflected light, by her gradual movement to and from a position opposite the sun.

The moon may shinen when struck by the sun’s rays, and day by day turn that light more straightly to our sight, the more she retires from the sun’s orb, until opposite him she has glowed with quite full light and, as she rises, towering on high, has seen his setting; then little by little she must needs retire back again, and, as it were, hide her light, the nearer she glides now to the sun’s fire from the opposite quarter through the orbit of the signs; as those have it, who picture that the moon is like a ball, and keeps to the path of her course below the [210] sun. There is also a way by which she can roll on with her own light, and yet show changing phases of brightness.

(b) If she shines by her own light:

For there may be another body, which is borne on and glides together with her, in every way obstructing and obscuring her; yet it cannot be seen, because it is borne on without light.

1. by another opaque body which accompanies and hides her;

Or she may turn round, just like, if it so chance, the sphere of a ball, tinged over half its surface with gleaming light, and so by turning round the sphere produce changing phases, until she turns to our sight and open eyes that side, whichever it be, that is endowed with fires; and then little by little she twists back again and carries away from us the light-giving part of the round mass of the ball;

2. because she has one light side, which she turns towards us and away again.

as the Babylonian teaching of the Chaldaeans,n denying the science of the astronomers, essays to prove in opposition; just as if what each of them fights for may not be the truth, or there were any cause why you should venture to adopt the one less than the other. Or again, why a fresh moon could not be created every day with fixed succession of phases and fixed shapes, so that each several day the moon created would pass away,

(c) If a fresh moon is created daily, by a regular succession of forms, like the succession of the seasons.

and another be supplied in its room and place, it is difficult to teach by reasoning or prove by words, since so many things can be created in fixed order. Spring goes on her wayn and Venus, and before them treads Venus’s winged harbinger; and following close on the steps of Zephyrus, mother Flora strews and fills all the way before them with glorious colours and scents. Next after follows parching heat, and as companion at her side dusty Ceres and the etesian blasts of the north winds. Then autumn advances, and step by step with her Euhius Euan. Then follow the other seasons and their winds, Volturnus, thundering on high, [211] and the south wind, whose strength is the lightning. Last of all the year’s end brings snow, and winter renews numbing frost; it is followed by cold, with chattering teeth. Wherefore it is less wonderful if the moon is born at a fixed time, and again at a fixed time is blotted out, since so many things can come to pass at fixed times.

Eclipses of the sun may be caused (a) by the moon; (b) by some other opaque body; (c) when he passes through regions which choke his light. Eclipses of the moon may be caused (a) when earth gets between sun and moon; (b) and (c) as in the case of the sun.

Likewise also the eclipses of the sunn and the hidings of the moon, you must think may be brought about by several causes. For why should the moon be able to shut out the earth from the sun’s light, and thrust her head high before him in the line of earth, throwing her dark orb before his glorious rays; and at the same time it should not be thought that another body could do this, which glides on ever without light. And besides, why should not the sun be able at a fixed time to faint and lose his fires, and again renew his light, when, in his journey through the air, he has passed by places hostile to his flames, which cause his fires to be put out and perish? And why should the earth be able in turn to rob the moon of light, and herself on high to keep the sun hidden beneath, while the moon in her monthly journey glides through the sharp-drawn shadows of the cone; and at the same time another body be unable to run beneath the moon or glide above the sun’s orb, to break off his rays and streaming light? And indeed, if the moon shines with her own light, why should she not be able to grow faint in a certain region of the world, while she passes out through spots unfriendly to her own light?

D.: The Youth of the World

D. We must return to the early days of the earth.

For the rest, since I have unfolded in what manner each thing could take place throughout the blue vault of the great world, so that we might learn what force and what cause started the diverse courses of the sun, and the [212] journeyings of the moon, and in what way they might go hiding with their light obscured, and shroud the unexpecting earth in darkness, when, as it were, they wink and once again open their eye and look upon all places shining with their clear rays; now I return to the youth of the world, and the soft fields of earth, and what first with new power of creation they resolved to raise into the coasts of light and entrust to the gusty winds.

The earth brought forth first vegetable life,

First of all the earth gave birth to the tribes of herbage and bright verdure all around the hills and over all the plains, the flowering fields gleamed in their green hue, and thereafter the diverse trees were started with loose rein on their great race of growing through the air. Even as down and hair and bristles are first formed on the limbs of four-footed beasts and the body of fowls strong of wing, so then the newborn earth raised up herbage and shrubs first,

then living creatures:

and thereafter produced the races of mortal things, many races born in many ways by diverse means. For neither can living animals have fallen from the sky nor the beasts of earth have issued forth from the salt pools. It remains that rightly has the earth won the name of mother, since out of earth all things are produced. And even now many animals spring forth from the earth, formed by the rains and the warm heat of the sun; wherefore we may wonder the less, if then more animals and greater were born, reaching their full growth when earth and air were fresh.

first birds, springing from eggs;

First of all the tribe of winged fowls and the diverse birds left their eggs, hatched out in the spring season, as now in the summer the grasshoppers of their own will leave their smooth shells, seeking life and livelihood.

then animals, springing from wombs rooted in the earth.

Then it was that the earth first gave birth to the race of mortal things. For much heat and moisture [213] abounded then in the fields; thereby, wherever a suitable spot or place was afforded, there grew up wombs,n clinging to the earth by their roots; and when in the fullness of time the age of the little ones, fleeing moisture and eager for air, had opened them,

Nature fed and clothed them:

nature would turn to that place the pores in the earth and constrain them to give forth from their opened veins a sap, most like to milk; even as now every woman, when she has brought forth, is filled with sweet milk, because all the current of her nourishment is turned towards her paps. The earth furnished food for the young, the warmth raiment, the grass a couch rich in much soft down.

nor was there excessive cold, heat, or wind.

But the youth of the world called not into being hard frosts nor exceeding heat nor winds of mighty violence: for all things grow and come to their strength in like degrees.

Earth was thus the mother of all things;

Wherefore, again and again, rightly has the earth won, rightly does she keep the name of mother, since she herself formed the race of men, and almost at a fixed time brought forth every animal which ranges madly everywhere on the mighty mountains, and with them the fowls of the air with their diverse forms.

but in time she ceased to bear

But because she must needs come to some end of child-bearing, she ceased, like a woman worn with the lapse of age. For time changes the nature of the whole world, and one state after another must needs overtake all things,

in accordance with the universal law of change and succession.

nor does anything abide like itself: all things change their abode, nature alters all things and constrains them to turn. For one thing rots away and grows faint and feeble with age, thereon another grows up and issues from its place of scorn. So then time changes the nature of the whole world, and one state after another overtakes the earth, so that it cannot bear what it did, but can bear what it did not of old.

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Nature first created many deformities,

And many monsters too earthn then essayed to create, born with strange faces and strange limbs, the man-woman, between the two, yet not either, sundered from both sexes, some things bereft of feet, or in turn robbed of hands, things too found dumb without mouths, or blind without eyes, or locked through the whole body by the clinging of the limbs, so that they could not do anything or move towards any side or avoid calamity or take what they needed. All other monsters and prodigies of this sort she would create;

but they could not survive or propagate their kind.

all in vain, since nature forbade their increase, nor could they reach the coveted bloom of age nor find food nor join in the work of Venus. For we see that many happenings must be united for things, that they may be able to beget and propagate their races; first that they may have food, and then a way whereby birth-giving seeds may pass through their frames, and issue from their slackened limbs; and that woman may be joined with man, they must needs each have means whereby they can interchange mutual joys.

Many races perished which could not protect themselves

And it must needs be that many races of living things then perished and could not beget and propagate their offspring. For whatever animals you see feeding on the breath of life, either their craft or bravery, aye or their swiftness has protected and preserved their kind from the beginning of their being.

or claim man’s protection as a return for their services.

And many there are, which by their usefulness are commended to us, and so abide, trusted to our tutelage. First of all the fierce race of lions, that savage stock, their bravery has protected, foxes their cunning, and deer their fleet foot. But the lightly-sleeping minds of dogs with their loyal heart, and all the race which is born of the seed of beasts of burden, and withal the fleecy flocks and the horned herds, are all trusted [215] to the tutelage of men, Memmius. For eagerly did they flee the wild beasts and ensue peace and bounteous fodder gained without toil of theirs, which we grant them as a reward because of their usefulness. But those to whom nature granted none of these things, neither that they might live on by themselves of their own might, nor do us any useful service, for which we might suffer their kind to feed and be kept safe under our defence, you may know that these fell a prey and spoil to others, all entangled in the fateful trammels of their own being, until nature brought their kind to destruction.

Monsters compounded of animals of different species never could have existed, for the growths of the various animals are not parallel,

But neither were there Centaurs,n nor at any time can there be animals of twofold nature and double body, put together of limbs of alien birth, so that the power and strength of each,1 derived from this parent and that, could be equal. That we may learn, however dull be our understanding, from this. First of all, when three years have come round, the horse is in the prime of vigour, but the child by no means so; for often even now in his sleep he will clutch for the milky paps of his mother’s breasts. Afterwards, when the stout strength and limbs of horses fail through old age and droop, as life flees from them, then at last youth sets in in the prime of boyish years, and clothes the cheeks with soft down; that you may not by chance believe that Centaurs can be created or exist, formed of a man and the load-laden breed of horses, or Scyllas either, with bodies half of sea-monsters, girt about with ravening dogs, or any other beasts of their kind, whose limbs we see cannot agree one with another; for they neither reach their prime together nor gain the full strength of their bodies nor let it fall [216] away in old age,

nor their tastes and habits alike.

nor are they fired with a like love, nor do they agree in a single character, nor are the same things pleasant to them throughout their frame. Indeed, we may see the bearded goats often grow fat on hemlock, which to man is rank poison. Since moreover flame is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies of lions just as much as every kind of flesh and blood that exists on the earth, how could it have come to pass that the Chimaera, one in her threefold body, in front a lion, in the rear a dragon, in the middle, as her name shows, a goat, should breathe out at her mouth fierce flame from her body?

The notion of the youth of the world has led to many similar absurdities.

Wherefore again, he who feigns that when the earth was young and the sky new-born, such animals could have been begotten, trusting only in this one empty plea of the world’s youth, may blurt out many things in like manner from his lips; he may say that then streams of gold flowed everywhere over the lands, and that trees were wont to blossom with jewels, or that a man was born with such expanse of limbs, that he could plant his footsteps right across the deep seas, and with his hands twist the whole sky about him.

Such combinations were no more possible then than now.

For because there were in the earth many seeds of things at the time when first the land brought forth animals, yet that is no proof that beasts of mingled breed could have been born, or the limbs of living creatures put together in one; because the races of herbage and the crops and fruitful trees, which even now spring forth abundantly from the earth, yet cannot be created intertwined one with another, but each of these things comes forth after its own manner, and all preserve their separate marks by a fixed law of nature.

But the race of mann was much hardier then in the [217] fields,

Primitive man: he was hardy

as was seemly for a race born of the hard earth: it was built up on larger and more solid bones within, fastened with strong sinews traversing the flesh; not easily to be harmed by heat or cold or strange food or any taint of the body. And during many lustres of the sun rolling through the sky they prolonged their lives after the roving manner of wild beasts.

and long-lived. He did not till,

Nor was there any sturdy steerer of the bent plough, nor knew any one how to work the fields with iron, or to plant young shoots in the earth, or cut down the old branches off high trees with knives.

but lived on the fruits of the trees,

What sun and rains had brought to birth, what earth had created unasked, such gift was enough to appease their hearts. Among oaks laden with acorns they would refresh their bodies for the most part; and the arbute-berries, which now you see ripening in winter-time with scarlet hue, the earth bore then in abundance, yea and larger. And besides these the flowering youth of the world then bare much other rough sustenance, enough and to spare for miserable mortals.

and drank from streams.

But to slake their thirst streams and springs summoned them, even as now the downrush of water from the great mountains calls clear far and wide to the thirsting tribes of wild beasts. Or again they dwelt in the woodland haunts of the nymphs, which they had learnt in their wanderings, from which they knew that gliding streams of water washed the wet rocks with bounteous flood, yea washed the wet rocks, as they dripped down over the green moss, and here and there welled up and burst forth over the level plain.

He had no clothing or house, but lived in caves and forests.

Nor as yet did they know how to serve their purposes with fire, nor to use skins and clothe their body in the spoils of wild beasts, but dwelt in woods and the [218] caves on mountains and forests, and amid brushwood would hide their rough limbs, when constrained to shun the shock of winds and the rain-showers.

There was no common life, and love was promiscuous.

Nor could they look to the common weal, nor had they knowledge to make mutual use of any customs or laws. Whatever booty chance had offered to each, he bore it off; for each was taught at his own will to live and thrive for himself alone. And Venus would unite lovers in the woods; for each woman was wooed either by mutual passion, or by the man’s fierce force and reckless lust, or by a price, acorns and arbute-berries or choice pears.

Some beasts he hunted, some he avoided.

And trusting in their strange strength of hand and foot they would hunt the woodland tribes of wild beasts with stones to hurl or clubs of huge weight; many they would vanquish, a few they would avoid in hiding;

At night he lay on the ground,

and like bristly boars these woodland men would lay their limbs naked on the ground, when overtaken by night time, wrapping themselves up around with leaves and foliage.

and did not fear the darkness

Nor did they look for daylight and the sun with loud wailing, wandering fearful through the fields in the darkness of night, but silent and buried in sleep waited mindful, until the sun with rosy torch should bring the light into the sky. For, because they had been wont ever from childhood to behold darkness and light begotten, turn by turn, it could not come to pass that they should ever wonder, or feel mistrust lest the light of the sun should be withdrawn for ever, and never-ending night possess the earth.

so much as the attacks of wild beasts.

But much greater was another care, inasmuch as the tribes of wild beasts often made rest dangerous for wretched men. Driven from their home they would flee from their rocky roof at the coming of a foaming boar or a mighty lion, and in the dead of night in [219] terror they would yield their couches spread with leaves to their cruel guests.

Nor then much more than now would the races of men leave the sweet light of life with lamentation.

Then more men fell a prey to wild beasts than now,

For then more often would some one of them be caught and furnish living food to the wild beasts, devoured by their teeth, and would fill woods and mountains and forests with his groaning, as he looked on his living flesh being buried in a living tomb. And those whom flight had saved with mangled body, thereafter, holding trembling hands over their noisome sores, would summon Orcus with terrible cries, until savage griping pains had robbed them of life, all helpless and knowing not what wounds wanted.

but thousands were not killed in battle, nor drowned at sea.

Yet never were many thousands of men led beneath the standards and done to death in a single day, nor did the stormy waters of ocean dash ships and men upon the rocks. Then rashly, idly, in vain would the sea often arise and rage, and lightly lay aside its empty threatenings, nor could the treacherous wiles of the windless waves lure any man to destruction with smiling waters; then the wanton art of sailing lay as yet unknown. Then, too,

They died of hunger, not surfeit; they poisoned themselves, not others.

want of food would give over their drooping limbs to death, now on the other hand ’tis surfeit of good things brings them low. They all unwitting would often pour out poison for themselves, now with more skill they give it to others.

E.: The Beginnings of the Civilization

E. Beginning of civilization. Fire, clothing and shelter led to home life,


Then after they got themselves huts and skins and fire, and woman yoked with man retired to a single <home, and the laws of marriage>1 were learnt, and they saw children sprung from them, then first the race of man began to soften. For fire brought it about that their [220] chilly limbs could not now so well bear cold under the roof of heaven, and Venus lessened their strength, and children, by their winning ways, easily broke down the haughty will of their parents.

and friendship with neighbours.

Then, too, neighbours began eagerly to form friendship one with another, not to hurt or be harmed,n and they commended to mercy children and the race of women, when with cries and gestures they taught by broken words that ’tis right for all men to have pity on the weak.

Compacts were for the most part observed.

Yet not in all ways could unity be begotten, but a good part, the larger part, would keep their compacts loyally; or else the human race would even then have been all destroyed, nor could breeding have prolonged the generations until now.

Origin of language. Words grew up naturally by experiment, just as children and animals try their various powers.

But the diverse sounds of the tonguen nature constrained men to utter, and use shaped the names of things, in a manner not far other than the very speechlessness of their tongue is seen to lead children on to gesture, when it makes them point out with the finger the things that are before their eyes. For every one feels to what purpose he can use his own powers. Before the horns of a calf appear and sprout from his forehead, he butts with them when angry, and pushes passionately. But the whelps of panthers and lion-cubs already fight with claws and feet and biting, when their teeth and claws are scarce yet formed. Further, we see all the tribe of winged fowls trusting to their wings, and seeking an unsteady aid from their pinions.

Language cannot have been deliberately invented by any man. Why should one man be able to do it and not others? How could he have the conception of language? or make others accept it?

Again, to think that any one then parcelled out names to things, and that from him men learnt their first words, is mere folly. For why should he be able to mark off all things by words, and to utter the diverse sounds of the tongue, and at the same time others be thought unable to do this? Moreover, if [221] others too had not used words to one another, whence was implanted in him the concept of their use;n whence was he given the first power to know and see in his mind what he wanted to do? Likewise one man could not avail to constrain many, and vanquish them to his will, that they should be willing to learn all his names for things; nor indeed is it easy in any way to teach and persuade the deaf what it is needful to do; for they would not endure it, nor in any way suffer the sounds of words unheard before to batter on their ears any more to no purpose. Lastly, what is there so marvellous in this,

It is not wonderful that man evolved language, for even animals express different feelings by different sounds. e. g. the dog,

if the human race, with strong voice and tongue, should mark off things with diverse sounds for diverse feelings? When the dumb cattle, yea and the races of wild beasts are wont to give forth diverse unlike sounds, when they are in fear or pain, or again when their joys grow strong. Yea verily, this we may learn from things clear to see. When the large loose lips of Molossian dogs start to snarl in anger, baring their hard teeth, thus drawn back in rage, they threaten with a noise far other than when they bark and fill all around with their clamour. Yet when they essay fondly to lick their cubs with their tongue, or when they toss them with their feet, and making for them with open mouth, feign gently to swallow them, checking their closing teeth, they fondle them with growling voice in a way far other than when left alone in the house they bay, or when whining they shrink from a beating with cringing body. Again,

the horse,

is not neighing seen to differ likewise, when a young stallion in the flower of his years rages among the mares, pricked by the spur of winged love, and from spreading nostrils snorts for the fray, and when, it may be, at other times he whinnies with [222] trembling limbs?

and even birds.

Lastly, the tribe of winged fowls and the diverse birds, hawks and ospreys and gulls amid the sea-waves, seeking in the salt waters for life and livelihood, utter at other times cries far other than when they are struggling for their food and fighting for their prey. And some of them change their harsh notes with the weather, as the long-lived tribes of crows and flocks of rooks, when they are said to cry for water and rains, and anon to summon the winds and breezes. And so, if diverse feelings constrain animals, though they are dumb, to utter diverse sounds, how much more likely is it that mortals should then have been able to mark off things unlike with one sound and another.

Lightning brought men fire;

1 Herein, lest by chance you should ask a silent question, it was the lightning that first of all brought fire to earth for mortals, and from it all the heat of flames is spread abroad. For we see many things flare up, kindled with flames from heaven, when a stroke from the sky has brought the gift of heat.

or else the ignition of trees by friction.

Yet again, when a branching tree is lashed by the winds and sways to and fro, reeling and pressing on the branches of another tree, fire is struck out by the strong force of the rubbing, anon the fiery heat of flame sparkles out, while branches and trunks rub each against the other. Either of these happenings may have given fire to mortals.

The action of the sun’s rays taught them cooking.

And then the sun taught them to cook food and soften it by the heat of flame, since they saw many things among the fields grow mellow, vanquished by the lashing of his rays and by the heat.

And day by day those who excelled in understanding [223] and were strong in mind showed them more and more how to change their former life and livelihood for new habits and for fire.

Then came a change.

Kings began to build cities and to found a citadel,

Kings built cities, and assigned lands, at first for personal merit. Then came the discovery of gold, which altered everything.

to be for themselves a stronghold and a refuge; and they parcelled out and gave flocks and fields to each man for his beauty or his strength or understanding; for beauty was then of much avail, and strength stood high. Thereafter property was invented and gold found, which easily robbed the strong and beautiful of honour; for, for the most part, however strong men are born, however beautiful their body, they follow the lead of the richer man. Yet if a man would steer his life by true reasoning, it is great riches to a man to live thriftily with calm mind; for never can he lack for a little.

It prompts ambition,

But men wished to be famous and powerful, that their fortune might rest on a sure foundation, and they might in wealth lead a peaceful life; all in vain, since struggling to rise to the heights of honour,

which goes before a fall.

they made the path of their journey beset with danger, and yet from the top, like lightning, envy smites them and casts them down anon in scorn to a noisome Hell; since by envy, as by lightning, the topmost heights are most often set ablaze, and all places that rise high above others; so that it is far better to obey in peace than to long to rule the world with kingly power and to sway kingdoms.

Such a life is but built on hearsay.

Wherefore let them sweat out their life-blood, worn away to no purpose, battling their way along the narrow path of ambition; inasmuch as their wisdom is but from the lips of others, and they seek things rather through hearsay than from their own feelings, and that is of no more avail now nor shall be hereafter than it was of old.

[224]

Monarchy was overthrown,

And so the kings were put to death and the ancient majesty of thrones and proud sceptres was overthrown and lay in ruins, and the glorious emblem on the head of kings was stained with blood, and beneath the feet of the mob mourned the loss of its high honour; for once dreaded overmuch,

and anarchy prevailed: then magistrates and laws were made,

eagerly now it is trampled. And so things would pass to the utmost dregs of disorder, when every man sought for himself the power and the headship. Then some of them taught men to appoint magistrates and establish laws that they might consent to obey ordinances. For the race of men, worn out with leading a life of violence, lay faint from its feuds; wherefore the more easily of its own will it gave in to ordinances and the close mesh of laws.

and crime restrained by punishment.

For since each man set out to avenge himself more fiercely in his passion than is now suffered by equal laws, for this cause men were weary of leading a life of violence. Thence fear of punishment taints the prizes of life.

Thence arose the fear of punishment,

For violence and hurt tangle every man in their toils, and for the most part fall on the head of him, from whom they had their rise, nor is it easy for one who by his act breaks the common pact of peace to lead a calm and quiet life.

which makes a quiet life impossible.

For though he be unnoticed of the race of gods and men, yet he must needs mistrust that his secret will be kept for ever; nay indeed, many by speaking in their sleep or raving in fever have often, so ’tis said, betrayed themselves, and brought to light misdeeds long hidden.

Origin of the belief in the gods.

Next, what cause spread abroad the divine powers of the gods among great nations, and filled cities with altars, and taught men to undertake sacred rites at yearly festivals, rites which are honoured to-day in great empires and at great places; whence even now there is implanted [225] in mortals a shuddering dread, which raises new shrines of the gods over all the world, and constrains men to throng them on the holy days; of all this it is not hard to give account in words.

1. Men were visited by great and beautiful images: they believed them to have sense, to be immortal.

For indeed already the races of mortalsn used to perceive the glorious shapes of the gods with waking mind, and all the more in sleep with wondrous bulk of body. To these then they would assign sense because they were seen to move their limbs, and to utter haughty sounds befitting their noble mien and ample strength. And they gave them everlasting life because their images came in constant stream and the form remained unchanged, and indeed above all because they thought that those endowed with such strength could not readily be vanquished by any force.

and to be happy.

They thought that they far excelled in happiness, because the fear of death never harassed any of them, and at the same time because in sleep they saw them accomplish many marvels, yet themselves not undergo any toil.

2. They could not understand celestial phenomena, and attributed them to divine beings, whom they believed to dwell in the sky.

Moreover, they beheld the workings of the sky in due order, and the diverse seasons of the year come round, nor could they learn by what causes that was brought about. And so they made it their refuge to lay all to the charge of the gods, and to suppose that all was guided by their will. And they placed the abodes and quarters of the gods in the sky, because through the sky night and the moon are seen to roll on their way, moon, day and night, and the stern signs of night, and the torches of heaven that rove through the night, and the flying flames, clouds, sunlight, rain, snow, winds, lightning, hail, and the rapid roar and mighty murmurings of heaven’s threats.

What misery this belief causes. True piety consists not in worship, but the peaceful mind.

Ah! unhappy race of men, when it has assigned such acts to the gods and joined therewith bitter anger! what [226] groaning did they then beget for themselves, what sores for us, what tears for our children to come! Nor is it piety at all to be seen often with veiled head turning towards a stone,n and to draw near to every altar, no, nor to lie prostrate on the ground with outstretched palms before the shrines of the gods, nor to sprinkle the altars with the streaming blood of beasts, nor to link vow to vow, but rather to be able to contemplate all things with a mind at rest.

Yet the wonders of heaven may well wake a belief in divine power.

For indeed when we look up at the heavenly quarters of the great world, and the firm-set ether above the twinkling stars, and it comes to our mind to think of the journeyings of sun and moon, then into our hearts weighed down with other ills, this misgiving too begins to raise up its wakened head, that there may be perchance some immeasurable power of the gods over us, which whirls on the bright stars in their diverse motions. For lack of reasoning assails our mind with doubt, whether there was any creation and beginning of the world, and again whether there is an end, until which the walls of the world may be able to endure this weariness of restless motion, or whether gifted by the gods’ will with an everlasting being they may be able to glide on down the everlasting groove of time, and set at naught the mighty strength of measureless time.

So too may a thunderstorm,

Moreover, whose heart does not shrink with terror of the gods, whose limbs do not crouch in fear, when the parched earth trembles beneath the awful stroke of lightning and rumblings run across the great sky? Do not the peoples and nations tremble, and proud kings shrink in every limb, thrilled with the fear of the gods, lest for some foul crime or haughty word the heavy time of retribution be ripe?

or a storm at sea,

Or again, when the fiercest force of furious wind at sea sweeps [227] the commander of a fleet over the waters with his strong legions and his elephants, all in like case, does he not seek with vows the peace of the gods, and fearfully crave in prayer a calm from wind and favouring breezes; all in vain, since often when caught in the headstrong hurricane he is borne for all his prayers to the shallow waters of death? So greatly does some secret force grind beneath its heel the greatness of men, and it is seen to tread down and make sport for itself of the glorious rods and relentless axes.n Again,

or an earthquake.

when the whole earth rocks beneath men’s feet, and cities are shaken to their fall or threaten doubtful of their doom, what wonder if the races of mortal men despise themselves and leave room in the world for the mighty power and marvellous strength of the gods, to guide all things?

Metals were revealed by a great forest fire, however caused.

For the rest, copper and gold and iron were discovered, and with them the weight of silver and the usefulness of lead, when a fire had burnt down vast forests with its heat on mighty mountains, either when heaven’s lightning was hurled upon it, or because waging a forest-war with one another men had carried fire among the foe to rouse panic, or else because allured by the richness of the land they desired to clear the fat fields, and make the countryside into pasture, or else to put the wild beasts to death, and enrich themselves with prey. For hunting with pit and fire arose first before fencing the grove with nets and scaring the beasts with dogs. However that may be, for whatever cause the flaming heat had eaten up the forests from their deep roots with terrible crackling, and had baked the earth with fire, the streams of silver and gold, and likewise of copper and lead,

The chance masses cooled on the ground suggested the working of metals with fire,

gathered together and trickled from the boiling veins into hollow places in [228] the ground. And when they saw them afterwards hardened and shining on the ground with brilliant hue, they picked them up, charmed by their smooth bright beauty, and saw that they were shaped with outline like that of the several prints of the hollows. Then it came home to them that these metals might be melted by heat, and would run into the form and figure of anything, and indeed might be hammered out and shaped into points and tips,

and the forging of weapons and instruments.

however sharp and fine, so that they might fashion weapons for themselves, and be able to cut down forests and hew timber and plane beams smooth, yea, and to bore and punch and drill holes. And, first of all, they set forth to do this no less with silver and gold than with the resistless strength of stout copper; all in vain, since their power was vanquished and yielded, nor could they like the others endure the cruel strain.

Gold was then despised and copper valuable: now this is reversed.

For copper was of more value, and gold was despised for its uselessness, so soon blunted with its dull edge. Now copper is despised, gold has risen to the height of honour. So rolling time changes the seasons of things. What was of value, becomes in turn of no worth; and then another thing rises up and leaves its place of scorn, and is sought more and more each day, and when found blossoms into fame, and is of wondrous honour among men.

The uses of iron and bronze were then discovered.

Now, in what manner the nature of iron was found, it is easy for you to learn of yourself, Memmius. Their arms of old were hands, nails, and teeth, and stones, and likewise branches torn from the forests, and flame and fires, when once they were known.

Bronze was used first,

Thereafter the strength of iron and bronze was discovered. And the use of bronze was learnt before that of iron, inasmuch as its nature is more tractable, and it is found in greater stores. With [229] bronze they would work the soil of the earth, and with bronze mingle in billowy warfare, and deal wasting wounds and seize upon flocks and fields. For all things naked and unarmed would readily give in to them equipped with arms. Then, little by little,

and then discarded for iron.

the iron sword made its way, and the form of the bronze sicklen was made a thing of scorn, and with iron they began to plough up the soil of earth; and the contests of war, now hovering in doubt, were made equal.

Horses were ridden in war before chariots were invented.

It was their way to climb armed on to the flanks of a horse, to guide it with reins, and do doughty deeds with the right hand, before they learnt to essay the dangers of war in a two-horsed chariot. And the yoking of two horses came before yoking four, and climbing up armed into chariots set with scythes. Then it was the Poeni who taught the Lucanian kine,n

The Carthaginians introduced elephants to battle.

with towered body, grim beasts with snaky hands, to bear the wounds of warfare, and work havoc among the hosts of Mars. So did gloomy discord beget one thing after another, to bring panic into the races of men in warfare, and day by day gave increase to the terrors of war.

Other animals were tried too in warfare, but all did more harm to their own side Lions;

They tried bulls, too, in the service of war, and essayed to send savage boars against the foe. And some sent on before them mighty lions with armed trainers and cruel masters, who might be able to control them, and hold them in chains; all in vain, since in the heat of the mellay of slaughter they grew savage, and made havoc of the hosts, both sides alike, tossing everywhere the fearful manes upon their heads, nor could the horsemen soothe the hearts of their horses, alarmed at the roaring, and turn them with their bridles against the foe. The lionesses launched their furious bodies in a leap on every side, and made for the faces of those that came against them, or [230] tore them down in the rear when off their guard, and twining round them hurled them to the ground foredone with the wound, fastening on them with their strong bite and crooked claws.

bulls;

The bulls tossed their own friends and trampled them with their feet, and with their horns gashed the flanks and bellies of the horses underneath, and ploughed up the ground with threatening purpose. And the boars gored their masters with their strong tusks,

boars.

savagely splashing with their own blood the weapons broken in them, and threw to the ground horsemen and footmen in one heap. For the horses would swerve aside to avoid the fierce onset of a tusk, or rear and beat the air with their feet; all in vain, since you would see them tumble with tendons severed, and strew the ground in their heavy fall. If ever they thought they had been tamed enough at home before the fight, they saw them burst into fury, when it came to conflict, maddened by the wounds, shouting, flying, panic, and confusion, nor could they rally any part of them; for all the diverse kinds of wild beasts would scatter hither and thither; even as now often the Lucanian kine cruelly mangled by the steel, scatter abroad, when they have dealt many deadly deeds to their own friends. <If indeed they ever acted thus. But scarce can I be brought to believe that, before this dire disaster befell both sides alike, they could not foresee and perceive in mind what would come to pass. And you could more readily maintainn that this was done somewhere in the universe, in the diverse worlds fashioned in diverse fashion, than on any one determined earth.>1 But indeed they wished to do it not so much in [231] the hope of victory, as to give the foemen cause to moan,

It was only a desperate expedient.

resolved to perish themselves, since they mistrusted their numbers and lacked arms.

After iron came woven clothes.

A garment tied together came before woven raiment. Woven fabric comes after iron, for by iron the loom is fashioned, nor in any other way can such smooth treadles be made, or spindles or shuttles and ringing rods. And nature constrained men to work wool before the race of women;

Men first worked the loom, but afterwards left it to women and worked in the fields.

for all the race of men far excels in skill and is much more cunning; until the sturdy husbandman made scorn of it, so that they were glad to leave it to women’s hands, and themselves share in enduring hard toil, and in hard work to harden limbs and hands.

Nature taught men sowing and grafting.

But nature herself, creatress of things, was first a pattern for sowing and the beginning of grafting, since berries and acorns fallen from the trees in due time put forth swarms of shoots beneath; from nature, too, they learnt to insert grafts into branches, and to plant young saplings in the ground over the fields.

New kinds of cultivation were tried and the woods driven further up the hills. The plain was bright with every sort of cultivation.

Then one after another they essayed ways of tilling their smiling plot, and saw the earth tame wild fruits with tender care and fond tilling. And day by day they would constrain the woods more and more to retire up the mountains, and to give up the land beneath to tilth, that on hills and plains they might have meadows, pools, streams, crops, and glad vineyards, and the grey belt of olives might run between with its clear line, spreading over hillocks and hollows and plains; even as now you see all the land clear marked with diverse beauties, where men make it bright by planting it here and there with sweet fruit-trees, and fence it by planting it all round with fruitful shrubs.

But imitating with the mouth the liquid notes of birds [232] came long before men were able to sing in melody right through smooth songs and please the ear.

Music arose by the imitation of the notes of birds and wind in the reeds.

And the whistling of the zephyr through the hollows of reeds first taught the men of the countryside to breathe into hollowed hemlock-stalks. Then little by little they learned the sweet lament, which the pipe pours forth, stopped by the players’ fingers, the pipe invented amid the pathless woods and forests and glades, among the desolate haunts of shepherds, and the divine places of their rest. These tunes would soothe their minds and please them when sated with food;

Their rough songs delighted them after meals in the open air,

for then all things win the heart. And so often, lying in friendly groups on the soft grass near some stream of water under the branches of a tall tree, at no great cost they would give pleasure to their bodies, above all when the weather smiled and the season of the year painted the green grass with flowers. Then were there wont to be jests, and talk, and merry laughter. For then the rustic muse was at its best; then glad mirth would prompt to wreathe head and shoulders with garlands twined of flowers and foliage, and to dance all out of step,

with rough dances to match.

moving their limbs heavily, and with heavy foot to strike mother earth; whence arose smiles and merry laughter, for all these things then were strong in freshness and wonder. And hence came to the wakeful a solace for lost sleep, to guide their voices through many notes, and follow the windings of a song, and to run over the reeds with curling lip; whence even now the watchmen preserve these traditions,

Modern improvements have not increased the pleasure.


and have learnt to keep to the rhythm of the song, nor yet for all that do they gain a whit greater enjoyment from the pleasure, than the woodland race of earthborn men of old. For what is [233] here at hand, unless we have learnt anything sweeter before, pleases us above all, and is thought to excel, but for the most part the better thing found later on destroys or changes our feeling for all the old things.

The old food and dress were despised,

So hatred for their acorns set in, and the old couches strewn with grass and piled with leaves were deserted. Likewise the garment of wild beasts’ skin fell into contempt; yet I suppose that of old it was so envied when found, that he who first wore it was waylaid and put to death, though after all it was torn to pieces among them, and was spoiled with much blood, and could be turned to no profit.

but now we fight for gold and purple, as they fought for skins.

It was skins then in those days, and now gold and purple that vex men’s life with cares and weary them out with war; and for this, I think, the greater fault lies with us. For cold used to torture the earth-born, as they lay naked without skins; but it does us no hurt to go without our purple robes, set with gold and massy figures, if only there be some common garment to protect us. And so the race of men toils fruitlessly and in vain for ever, and wastes its life in idle cares, because, we may be sure, it has not learned what are the limits of possession, nor at all how far true pleasure can increase. And this, little by little,

This brings civilization and warfare.

has advanced life to its high plane, and has stirred up from the lowest depths the great seething tide of war.

From sun and moon men learnt the regularity of the seasons.

But sun and moon, like watchmen, traversing with their light all round the great turning vault of the world, taught men that the seasons of the year come round, and that the work goes on after a sure plan and a sure order.

Then came walled towns, seafaring, and treaties, and poets told of great events.

Now fenced in with strong towers they would live their life, and the land was parcelled out and marked off: then [234] the sea was gay with the flying sails of ships:1 now treaties were drawn up, and they had auxiliaries and allies, when poets first began to hand down men’s deeds in songs; yet not much before that were letters discovered. Therefore our age cannot look back to see what was done before, unless in any way reason points out traces.

Gradually all the sciences and fine arts developed.

Ships and the tilling of the land, walls, laws, weapons, roads, dress, and all things of this kind, all the prizes, and the luxuries of life, one and all, songs and pictures, and the polishing of quaintly-wrought statues, practice and therewith the experience of the eager mind taught them little by little, as they went forward step by step. So, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the coasts of light. For they saw one thing after another grow clear in their mind, until by their arts they reached the topmost pinnacle.
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:29 pm

PART 1 OF 2

Book VI: Explains from the Atomic Point of View a Variety of Occurrences, Partly Meteorological Phenomena, Partly Terrestrial Curiosities

Introduction

Introduction. It is the glory of Athens to have produced Epicurus.


In time gone by Athens, of glorious name, first spread among struggling mortals the fruits that bear corn, and fashioned life afresh, and enacted laws; she, too, first gave sweet solace for life, when she gave birth to the man gifted with the great mind, who once poured forth all wisdom from his truthful lips; yea, even when his light was quenched, thanks to his divine discoveries his glory, noised abroad of old, is now lifted to the sky.

He saw that men, in spite of all outward advantages, were miserable,

For when he saw that mortals had by now attained wellnigh all things which their needs crave for subsistence, and that, as far as they could, their life was established in safety, that men abounded in power through wealth and honours and renown, and were haughty in the good name of their children, and yet not one of them for all that had at home a heart less anguished, but with torture of mind lived a fretful life without any respite, and was constrained to rage with savage complaining,

and realized that the fault lay in the heart.

he then did understand that it was the vessel itself which wrought the disease, and that by its disease all things were corrupted within, whatsoever came into it gathered from without, yea even blessings; in part because he saw that it was leakingn and full of holes, so that by no means could it ever be filled; in part because he perceived that it tainted as with a foul savour all things within it, which it had taken in. And so with his discourse of truthful words he purged the heart and set a limit to its desire and fear,

He purged the heart and taught it the path to the highest good, and the means of meeting the ills of life.

and set forth what is the highest good, towards which we [236] all strive, and pointed out the path, whereby along a narrow track we may strain on towards it in a straight course; he showed what there is of ill in the affairs of mortals everywhere, coming to being and flying abroad in diverse forms, be it by the chance or the force of nature,n because nature had so brought it to pass; he showed from what gates it is meet to sally out against each ill, and he proved that ’tis in vain for the most part that the race of men set tossing in their hearts the gloomy billows of care.

The darkness of the mind must be dispelled by knowledge.

For even as children tremble and fear everything in blinding darkness, so we sometimes dread in the light things that are no whit more to be feared than what children shudder at in the dark and imagine will come to pass. This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature. Wherefore I will hasten the more to weave the thread of my task in my discourse.

I must now speak of the phenomena of the sky;

And now that I have shown that the quarters of the firmament are mortal, and that the heaven is fashioned of a body that has birth, and have unravelled wellnigh all that happens therein, and must needs happen, listen still to what remains; forasmuch as once <I have made bold> to climb the glorious car 1 <I will tell how the tempests> of the winds arise,2 and are appeased,

which men falsely believe to be the work of gods,

and all that once was raging is changed again, when its fury is appeased; and all else which mortals see coming to pass on earth and in the sky, when often they are in suspense with panic-stricken mind—things which bring their hearts low through dread [237] of the gods, and bow them down grovelling to earth, because their ignorance of true causes constrains them to assign things to the ordinance of the gods, and to admit their domination. For those who have learnt aright that the gods lead a life free from care, yet if from time to time they wonder by what means all things can be carried on, above all among those things which are descried above our heads in the coasts of heaven, are borne back again into the old beliefs of religion, and adopt stern overlords, whom in their misery they believe have all power, knowing not what can be and what cannot, yea,

through ignorance of nature’s laws.

and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deepset boundary-stone: wherefore all the more they stray, borne on by a blind reasoning. And unless you spew out all this from your mind and banish far away thoughts unworthy of the gods and alien to their peace,

Such belief is a degradation to the gods and will destroy your own peace in religious worship.

the holy powers of the gods, degraded by thy thought, will often do thee harm; not that the high majesty of the godsn can be polluted by thee, so that in wrath they should yearn to seek sharp retribution, but because you yourself will imagine that those tranquil beings in their placid peace set tossing the great billows of wrath, nor with quiet breast will you approach the shrines of the gods, nor have strength to drink in with tranquil peace of mind the images which are borne from their holy body to herald their divine form to the minds of men. And therefore what manner of life will follow, you may perceive. And in order that truest reasoning may drive this far from us, although much has already gone forth from me, yet much remains to be adorned with polished verse;

We must find out the laws of storms and lightnings.

we must grasp the outer view and inner law of the sky, we must sing of storms and flashing lightnings, of [238] how they act and by what cause they are severally carried along; that you may not mark out the quarters of the sky, and ask in frenzied anxiety, whence came this winged flash, or to what quarter it departed hence, in what manner it won its way through walled places, and how after tyrant deeds it brought itself forth again: the causes of these workings they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Do thou, as I speed towards the white line of the final goal, mark out the track before me, Calliope, muse of knowledge, thou who art rest to men and pleasure to the gods, that with thee to guide I may win the wreath with praise conspicuous.

A.: Celestial Phenomena

A. Celestial phenomena. 1. Thunder may be caused (a) when clouds clash together face to face; (being of a texture neither close nor rare);


First of all the blue of the sky is shaken by thunder because the clouds in high heaven, scudding aloft, clash together when the winds are fighting in combat. For the sound comes not from a clear quarter of the sky, but wherever the clouds are massed in denser host, from there more often comes the roar and its loud rumbling. Moreover, the clouds cannot be of so dense a body as are stocks and stones, nor yet so thin as are mists and flying smoke. For either they were bound to fall dragged down by their dead weight, as do stones, or like smoke they could not hold together or keep within them chill snow and showers of hail.

(b) when they scrape along one another’s sides, and make a noise like wind in a flapping awning or paper;

Again, they give forth a sound over the levels of the spreading firmament, as often an awning stretched over a great theatre gives a crack, as it tosses among the posts and beams; sometimes, too, it rages madly, rent by the boisterous breezes, and imitates the rending noise of sheets of paper—for that kind of sound too you may recognize in the thunder—or else a sound as when the winds buffet with their blows and beat through the air a hanging garment or flying papers. For [239] indeed it also comes to pass at times that the clouds cannot so much clash together face to face, but rather pass along the flank, moving from diverse quarters, and slowly grazing body against body; and then the dry sound brushes upon the ears, and is drawn out long, until they have issued from their close quarters.

(c) when wind is caught in a cloud and suddenly bursts it;

In this way, too, all things seem often to tremble with heavy thunder, and the great walls of the containing world to be torn apart suddenly and leap asunder, when all at once a gathered storm of mighty wind has twisted its way into the clouds, and, shut up there with its whirling eddy, constrains the cloud more and more on all sides to hollow itself out with body thickening all around; and then, when the force and fierce onslaught of the wind have weakened it, it splits and makes a rending crash with a frightful cracking sound. Nor is that strange, when a little bladder full of air often likewise gives forth a little noise, if suddenly burst.

(d) when wind blows through the clouds, like a forest;

There is also another way, when winds blow through clouds, whereby they may make a noise. For often we see clouds borne along, branching in many ways, and rough-edged; even as, we may be sure, when the blasts of the north-west blow through a dense forest, the leaves give out a noise and the branches a rending crash.

(e) when the wind bursts a cloud open;

It comes to pass, too, sometimes, that the force of a mighty wind rushing on tears through the cloud and breaks it asunder with a front attack. For what the blast can do there is shown by things clear to see here on earth, where the wind is gentler and yet it tears out and sucks up tall trees from their lowest roots. There are, too,

(f) when the rainwaves in the clouds break; (g) when lightning, falling from one cloud into another, hisses or

waves moving through the clouds, which as it were make a heavy roar in breaking; just as it comes to pass in deep [240] rivers and the great sea, when the tide breaks. This happens too, when the fiery force of the thunderbolt falls from cloud to cloud; if by chance the cloud has received the flame in deep moisture, it straightway slays it with a great noise; just as often iron white-hot from the fiery furnaces hisses, when we have plunged it quickly into cold water.

(h) burns the cloud up;

Or again, if a drier cloud receives the flame, it is at once fired, and burns with a vast noise; just as if among the laurel-leafed mountains flame were to roam abroad beneath the eddying of the winds, burning them up in its mighty onset; nor is there any other thing which is burnt up by the crackling flame with sound so terrible as the Delphic laurel of Phoebus.

(i) when the ice and hail in the clouds crash.

Again, often the great cracking of ice and the falling of hail makes a noise in the mighty clouds on high. For when the wind packs them tight, the mountains of storm-clouds, frozen close and mingled with hail, break up.

2. Lightning may be caused (a) when two clouds colliding strike fire. (We see it before we hear the thunder, because light travels faster than sound.)

It lightens likewise, when the clouds at their clashing have struck out many seeds of fire; just as if stone should strike on stone or on iron; for then, too, a flash leaps out and scatters abroad bright sparks of fire. But it comes to pass that we receive the thunder in our ears after our eyes perceive the lightning, because things always move more slowlyn to the ears than things which stir the eyes. That you may learn from this too; if you see some one far off cutting down a giant tree with double-edged axe, it comes to pass that you see the stroke before the blow resounds in your ear; even so we see the lightning too before we hear the thunder, which is sent abroad at the same moment with the flash, from a like cause, yea, born indeed from the same collision.

In this manner, too, the clouds colour places with leaping [241] light, and the storm lightens with quivering dart.

(b) when wind shut in a cloud whirls itself round till it ignites.

When wind has come within a cloud, and moving there has, as I have shown before, made the hollow cloud grow thick, it grows hot with its own swift movement; even as you see all things become hot and catch fire through motion, yea, even a ball of lead too, whirling in a long course, will melt. And so when this heated wind has torn through the black cloud, it scatters abroad seeds of fire, as though struck out all at once by force, and they make the pulsing flashes of flame; thereafter follows the sound, which reaches our ears more slowly than things which come to the light of our eyes. This, we must know,

This happens in high-piled masses of clouds:

comes to pass in thick clouds, which are also piled up high one on the other in wondrous slope; lest you be deceived because we below see how broad they are rather than to what a height they stand piled up. For do but look, when next the winds carry athwart the air clouds in the semblance of mountains, or when you see them heaped along a mighty mountain-range one above the other, pressing down from above, at rest in their appointed place, when the winds on all sides are in their graves. Then you will be able to mark their mighty mass, and to see their caverns built up, as it were, of hanging rocks: and when the storm has risen and the winds have filled them,

the wind collects all the seeds of fire in one and then bursts through the cloud;

with loud roar they chafe prisoned in the clouds, and threaten like wild beasts in cages; now from this side, now from that they send forth their roaring through the clouds, and seeking an outlet they move round and round, and roll together the seeds of fire from out the clouds, and so drive many into a mass and set the flame whirling within the hollow furnaces, until they have rent asunder the cloud and flashed blazing out.

[242]

(c) when the fire in the clouds themselves is driven out as they collide,

For this cause, too, it comes to pass that this swift golden tinge of liquid fire flies down to earth, because it must needs be that the clouds have in themselves very many seeds of fire; for indeed when they are without any moisture, they have for the most part a bright and flaming colour. For verily it must needs be that they catch many such from the sun’s light, so that with reason they are red, and pour forth their fires. When then the wind as it drives them has pushed and packed and compelled them into one spot, they squeeze out and pour forth the seeds which make the colours of flame to flash. It lightens likewise,

(d) or falls naturally as they break: this causes sheet lightning.

also when the clouds of heaven grow thin. For when the wind lightly draws them asunder as they move, and breaks them up, it must needs be that those seeds, which make the flash, fall out unbidden. Then it lightens without hideous alarm, without noise, and with no uproar.

3. Thunderbolts are of fiery nature,

For the rest, with what kind of nature the thunderbolts are endowed, is shown by the blows and the burned markings of their heat and the brands which breathe out noisome vapours of sulphur. For these are marks of fire, not of wind nor rain. Moreover, often too they set the roofs of dwellings on fire, and with swiftly-moving flame play the tyrant even within the houses.

and formed of exceedingly subtle fire, as we may see from their effects.

This fire, you must know, nature has fashioned most subtle of all subtle fires, of tiny swift-moving bodies—a flame to which nothing at all can be a barrier. For the strong thunderbolt can pass through the walls of houses, even as shouts and cries, can pass through rocks, through things of bronze, and in a moment of time can melt bronze and gold; likewise it causes wine in an instant to flee away, though the vessels be untouched, because, we may be sure, its heat as it comes easily loosens [243] all around and makes rarefied the porcelain of the vessel, and finding its way right into the wine, with quick motion dissolves and scatters the first-beginnings of the wine. Yet this the heat of the sun is seen to be unable to bring about in a long age, though it has such exceeding strength in its flashing blaze. So much swifter and more masterful is this force of the thunderbolt.

We must explain their power and action.

Now in what manner they are fashioned and made with such force that they can with their blow burst open towers, overthrow houses, pluck up beams and joists, and upset and <destroy>1 the monuments of men, take the life from men, lay low the flocks on every side; by what force they are able to do all other things of this sort, I will set forth, nor keep thee longer waiting on my promise.

They are created only when clouds are densely piled on high,

We must suppose that thunderbolts are produced from thick clouds, piled up on high; for none are ever hurled abroad from the clear sky or from clouds of slight thickness. For without doubt clear-seen facts show that this comes to pass; at such times clouds grow into a mass throughout all the air, so that on all sides we might think that all darkness has left Acheron and filled the great vault of the sky; so terribly, when the noisome night of clouds has gathered together, do the shapes of black fear hang over us on high, when the storm begins to forge its thunderbolts. Moreover,

as we see them sometimes over the sea.

very often a black storm-cloud too, over the sea, like a stream of pitch shot from the sky, falls upon the waters, laden with darkness afar off, and draws on a black storm big with thunderbolts and hurricanes, itself more than all filled full with fires and winds in such wise that even on land men shudder and seek for shelter. Thus then above our head must we suppose the [244] storm is raised high. For indeed they would not shroud the earth in such thick gloom, unless there were many clouds built up aloft on many others, shutting out all sunlight; nor when they come could they drown it in such heavy rain, as to make the rivers overflow and the fields swim, unless the ether were filled with clouds piled up on high.

Such clouds are full of wind and fire.

Here, then, all is full of winds and fires; for this cause all around come crashings and lightnings. For verily I have shown ere now that the hollow clouds possess very many seeds of heat, and many they must needs catch from the sun’s rays and their blaze.

The wind with the fire forms an eddy,

Therefore, when the same wind, which drives them together, as it chances, into some one place, has squeezed out many seeds of heat, and at the same time has mingled itself with this fire, an eddy finds its way in there and whirls round in a narrow space and sharpens the thunderbolt in the hot furnaces within. For it is kindled in two ways, both when it grows hot with its own swift motion, and from contact with the fire.

which bursts the cloud and comes out as a thunderbolt, bringing with it thunder, lightning, storm, and rain.

Next, when the force of the wind has grown exceeding hot, and the fierce onset of the fire has entered in, then the thunderbolt, full-forged, as it were, suddenly rends through the cloud, and shot out is borne on flooding all places with its blazing light. In its train follows a heavy crash, so that the quarters of the sky above seem to be burst asunder on a sudden and crush us. Then a trembling thrills violently through the earth, and rumblings race over the high heaven; for then all the storm is shaken into trembling and roarings move abroad. And from this shock follows rain, heavy and abundant, so that all the air seems to be turned into rain, and thus falling headlong to summon earth back to [245] deluge: so great a shower is shot forth with the rending of the cloud and the hurricane of wind, when the thunderclap flies forth with its burning blow. At times,

Sometimes the cloud is burst by an external wind.

too, the rushing force of wind falls from without upon the cloud hot with its new-forged thunderbolt; and when it has rent the cloud, straightway there falls out that fiery eddy which we call by the name our fathers gave it, the thunderbolt. The same thing happens in other directions, wherever its force has carried it. It comes to pass, too,

Sometimes the wind itself ignites in its course,

sometimes that the force of the wind, starting without fire, yet catches fire on its course and its long wandering, as it loses in its journey, while it is approaching, certain large bodies, which cannot like the others make their way through the air; and gathering other small bodies from the air itself it carries them along, and they mingling with it make fire in their flight;

like a flying ball of lead.

in no other way than often a ball of lead grows hot in its course, when dropping many bodies of stiff cold it has taken in fire in the air.

Or the blow of wind on cloud may create fire,

It comes to pass, too, that the force of the very blow rouses fire, when the force of the wind, starting cold without fire, has struck its stroke; because, we may be sure, when it has hit with violent blow, particles of heat can stream together out of the wind itself, and at the same time from the thing which then receives the blow; just as,

like iron striking on stone;

when we strike a stone with iron, fire flies out, nor do the seeds of blazing heat rush together any more slowly at its blow, because the force of the iron is cold. Thus then a thing is bound to be kindled by the thunderbolt too, if by chance it is made fit and suitable for flame.

for the wind itself is not wholly cold.

Nor must we rashly think that the force of the wind can be wholly and utterly cold, when it has been discharged with such force [246] on high; rather, if it is not beforehand on its journey kindled with fire, yet it arrives warmed and mingled with heat.

The velocity of the thunderbolt is caused (a) by the impulse with which it is shot from the cloud;

But the great speed of the thunderbolt and its heavy blow comes to pass, yea, the thunderbolts always run their course with swift descent, because their force unaided is first of all set in motion in each case, and gathers itself within the clouds, and conceives a great effort for starting; and then, when the cloud has not been able to contain the growing strength of its onset, its force is squeezed out, and so flies with wondrous impulse even as the missiles which are borne on, when shot from engines of war. Remember,

(b) because it is made of small smooth particles;

too, that it is made of small and smooth particles, nor is it easy for anything to withstand such a nature: for it flies in between and pierces through the hollow passages, and so it is not clogged and delayed by many obstacles, and therefore it flies on falling with swift impulse.

(c) because gravitation is augmented by a blow;

Again, because all weights by nature always press downwards, but when a blow is given as well, their swiftness is doubled and the impulse grows stronger, so that the more violently and quickly does it scatter with its blows all that impedes it, and continues on its journey. Once again,

(d) because in its long course it overcomes internal vibration.

because it comes with long-lasting impulse,n it is bound to gather speed ever more and more, which grows as it moves, and increases its strong might and strengthens its stroke. For it brings it about that the seeds of the thunderbolt are one and all carried in a straight line, as it were towards one spot, driving them all as they fly into the same course.

(e) perhaps because it is helped by particles gathered from the air. It can penetrate and dissolve things, because it impinges on them just where their atoms are joined.

It may chance too that as it goes it picks up certain bodies even from the air, which kindle its swiftness by their blows. And it passes through things without harming them, and goes [247] right through many things, and leaves them whole, because the liquid fire flies through the pores. And it pierces through many things, since the very bodies of the thunderbolt have fallen on the bodies of things just where they are interlaced and held together. Moreover, it easily melts bronze and in an instant makes gold to boil, because its force is fashioned delicately of tiny bodies and of smooth particles, which easily force a way within, and being there at once loose all the knots and slacken the bonds.

Thunderbolts occur mostly in spring and autumn, because then the various elements needful for their composition most coincide.

And most in autumn is the house of heaven, set with shining stars, shaken on all sides and all the earth, and again when the flowery season of spring spreads itself abroad. For in the cold fires are lacking, and in the heat winds fail, nor are clouds of so dense a body. And so when the seasons of heaven stand midway between the two, then all the diverse causes of the thunderbolt meet together. For the narrow channeln of the year of itself mingles cold and heat—of both of which the cloud has need for the forging of thunderbolts—so that there is a wrangling among things, and with great uproar the air rages and tosses with fires and winds. For the first part of the heat is the last of the stiff cold, that is the spring season: wherefore it must needs be that different elements, mingled with one another, make battle and turmoil. And again, when the last heat rolls on mingled with the first cold—the season which is called by the name of autumn—then, too, keen winters do battle with summers. For this cause these seasons must be called the narrow channels of the year, nor is it strange, if at that time thunderbolts come most often, and a turbulent tempest is gathered in the sky, since from either side is [248] roused the turmoil of doubtful battle, on the one side with flames, on the other with mingled wind and wet.

The thunderbolt is no sign of divine wrath.

This is the way to see into the true nature of the thunderbolt, and to perceive by what force it does each thing, and not by unrolling vainly the Tyrrhenian propheciesn and seeking out tokens of the hidden purpose of the gods, marking whence came the winged flash, or to what quarter it departed hence, in what manner it won its way through walled places, and how after tyrant deeds it brought itself forth again, or what harm the stroke of the thunderbolt from heaven can do.

If so, why do the gods hit the innocent and leave the guilty?

But if Jupitern and the other gods shake the shining quarters of heaven with awe-inspiring crash and hurl the fire to whatever point each may will, why do they not bring it about that those who have not guarded against some sin from which men hide their face, are struck and reek of the flames of lightning, with their breast pierced through, a sharp lesson to mortals? why rather is one conscious of no foul guilt wrapt and entangled, all innocent, in the flames, caught up in a moment in the fiery whirlwind of heaven?

Why waste their strokes on deserts?

why again do they aim at waste places and spend their strength for naught? are they then practising their arms and strengthening their muscles? and why do they suffer the father’s weapon to be blunted on the earth? why does he himself endure it and not spare it for his foes? Again,

Why not hurl them from the clear sky?

why does Jupiter never hurl his thunderbolt to earth and pour forth his thunders when the heaven is clear on all sides? Or, as soon as the clouds have come up, does he himself then come down into them, so that from them he may direct the blow of his weapon from close at hand?

Why at the sea? Does Jupiter wish us to beware or not?

Again, with what purpose does he throw into the sea? what charge has he against the waves, the [249] mass of water and the floating fields? Moreover, if he wishes us to beware of the thunderbolt’s stroke, why is he reluctant to let us be able to see its cast? but if he wishes to overwhelm us with the fire when off our guard, why does he thunder from that quarter, so that we can shun it? why does he gather darkness beforehand and rumblings and roarings?

How can he hurl many bolts at once?

And how can you believe that he hurls his bolts at once to many sides? or would you dare to argue that this has never come to pass, that several strokes were made at one time? Nay, but very often has it happened and must needs happen, that as it rains and showers fall in many regions, so many thunderbolts are fashioned at one time. Lastly,

Why destroy his own temples and images?

why does he smite asunder the sacred shrines of the gods and his own glorious dwelling-places with hostile bolt? why does he destroy the fair-fashioned idols of the gods and take away their beauty from his images with his furious wound?

or scar mountain peaks?

And why does he aim mostly at lofty spots, so that we see most traces of his fire on mountain-tops?

4. Waterspouts are caused

Next after this, it is easy to learn from these things in what way there come into the sea, shot from on high, what the Greeks from their nature have named fiery presters.n For it comes to pass sometimes that as it were a column let down descends from the sky into the sea, around which the surges boil, violently stirred by breathing blasts, and all ships that are then caught in that turmoil, are harried and come into great danger.

when wind cannot break through a cloud but forces it down to meet the sea;

This comes to pass sometimes when the force of the wind set in motion cannot burst the cloud it starts to burst, but presses it down, so that it is weighed down like a column from sky to sea, little by little, as though something were being thrust down and stretched out into the waves by [250] a fist and the pushing of an arm above; and when it has rent this cloud asunder, the force of the wind bursts forth thence into the sea and brings to pass a wondrous seething in the waters. For a whirling eddy descends and brings down along with it that cloud of pliant body; and as soon as it has forced it down pregnant on to the levels of ocean, the eddy on a sudden plunges its whole self into the water, and stirs up all the sea with a great roar, constraining it to seethe.

or else an eddy gathers clouds about it and drops to the earth.

It comes to pass also that an eddy of wind by itself wraps itself in clouds, gathering together seeds of cloud from the air and, as it were, imitates the prester let down from the sky. When this eddy has let itself down to earth and broken up, it vomits forth a furious force of whirlwind and storm. But because this happens but rarely at all, and mountains must needs bar it on land, it is seen more often on a wide prospect of sea, and in an open stretch of sky.

5. Clouds are formed (a) as particles gather in the air in masses gradually growing larger;

Clouds gather up, when many bodies as they fly in this upper expanse of heaven have all at once come together—bodies of rougher kind, such as can, though they be but intertwined with slight links, yet grasp and cling to one another. These first of all cause little clouds to form; then these grip hold of one another and flock together, and uniting they grow and are borne on by the winds, until at last a furious tempest has gathered together. It comes to pass,

especially round mountain tops, whither they are driven by wind;

too, that mountain-tops, the closer they are to the sky, the more at that height do they smoke continually with the thick darkness of a murky cloud, because, when first the clouds form, still thin, before the eyes can see them, the winds carry them and drive them together to the topmost peaks of the mountain. There it comes to pass at last that, gathered now in a greater [251] throng and thickened, they can be seen, and at once they seem to rise into the open sky from the very summit of the mountain. For clear fact and our sense, when we climb high mountains, proclaim that windy regions stretch above. Moreover,

(b) as particles of moisture rise from the sea

that nature lifts up many such bodies all over the sea is shown by clothes hung out on the shore, when they take in a clinging moisture. Wherefore it is all the more seen that many bodies too can rise to swell the clouds from the salt tossing ocean; for in all their nature these two moistures are akin. Moreover,

or from rivers, or even lands;

we see clouds and vapour rising from all rivers, and likewise from the very earth which, like a breath, are forced out hence and carried upwards, and curtain the heaven with their darkness, and little by little, as they meet, build up the clouds on high. For the vapour of the starry ether above presses down on them too, and, as it were by thickening, weaves a web of storm-cloud beneath the blue. It happens, too,

(c) as particles fly in from outside the world

that there come into our sky those bodies from without which make clouds and flying storms. For I have shown that their number is innumerable, and the sum of the deep measureless, and I have set forth with what speed the bodies fly, and how in a moment they are wont to traverse through space that none can tell. So it is not strange if often in a short time storm and darkness cover up sea and land with such great storm-clouds,1 brooding above, inasmuch as on all sides through all the pores of the ether, and, as it were, through the breathing-holes of the great world all around there is furnished for the particles exit and entrance.

6. Rain is caused (a) because the clouds contain much moisture;

Come now, in what manner the rainy moisture gathers together in the high clouds, and how the shower falls shot down upon the earth, I will unfold. First of all it will [252] be granted me that already many seeds of water rise up with the clouds themselves from out of all things, and that both alike grow in this manner, both clouds and all water that is in the clouds, just as our body grows along with its blood, and likewise sweat and all the moisture too that is within the limbs.

(b) because it rises into them from the sea and the rivers;

Besides, they often take in also much moisture from the sea, just like hanging fleeces of wool, when the winds carry the clouds over the great sea. In like manner moisture from all streams is raised to the clouds.

and is then squeezed out by the force of the wind and the mass of the clouds;

And when many seeds of waters in many ways have duly come together there, increased from all quarters, the packed clouds are eager to shoot out the moisture for a double cause; for the force of the wind pushes it on and the very mass of the clouds, driven together in greater throng, presses on it and weighs it down from above, and makes the showers stream out.

or again, when the clouds are thin, by the sun’s heat.

Moreover, when the clouds, too, are thinned by the winds or broken up, smitten by the sun’s heat above, they send out the rainy moisture and drip, even as wax over a hot fire melts and flows in a thick stream.

Rain is heavy when the pressure is violent, and long when there is much moisture.

But a violent downpour comes to pass, when the clouds are violently pressed by either force, their own mass and the impulse of the wind. Yea, and the rains are wont to hold on long and make a great stay, when many seeds of water are gathered, and clouds piled upon clouds and streaming storms above them are borne on from every quarter, and when the whole earth smoking,

The rainbow is caused by the sun shining on the rain. Similarly all meteorological phenomena may be explained.

breathes out its moisture. When at such time the sun amid the dark tempest has shone out with its rays full against the spray of the storm-clouds, then among the black clouds stand out the hues of the rainbow.

All other things which grow above and are brought to being above, and which gather together in the clouds, [253] all, yea all of them, snow, winds, hail, chill hoar-frosts, and the great force of ice, that great hardener of waters, the curb which everywhere reins in the eager streams, it is yet right easy to find these out, and to see in the mind in what manner they all come to be and in what way they are brought to being, when you have duly learned the powers that are vouchsafed to the elements.

B.: Terrestrial Phenomena

B. Phenomena of earth.


Come now and learn what is the law of earthquakes. And first of all let yourself suppose that the earth is below, just as above, full on all sides of windy caverns; and you must think it bears in its bosom many lakes and many pools and cliffs and sheer rocks;

1. Earthquakes. The earth underneath has caverns and streams and rocks.

and that many rivers hidden beneath the back of the earth roll on amain their waves and submerged stones. For clear fact demandsn that it should be in all parts like itself. When these things then are placed and linked together beneath it, the earth above trembles, shaken by great falling masses, when beneath time has caused huge caverns to fall in; nay, indeed, whole mountains fall,

(a) When some cavern falls in, an earthquake is caused,

and at the great sudden shock tremblings creep abroad thence far and wide. And with good reason, since whole houses by the roadside tremble when shaken by a wagon of no great weight, and rock none the less, whenever a stone in the road jolts on the iron circles of the wheels on either side.1 It comes to pass too,

just as houses are rocked by passing wagons, or the land by an avalanche falling into a lake, like water rocking in a vessel.

when a vast mass of soil, loosened by age from the earth, rolls down into huge wide pools of water, that the earth too tosses and sways beneath the wave of water; even as a vessel sometimes cannot stand still, unless the liquid within has ceased to toss with unsteady wave.

(b) An earthquake may be caused by a great subterranean wind blowing violently in one direction. And yet men will not believe in the ultimate destruction of the earth, when it is only the alteration of the wind which restores equilibrium.

Moreover, when the wind gathering throughout the cavernous places of the earth blows strong from one point, [254] and with all its weight presses on the lofty caves with mighty strength, the earth leans over to where the swooping force of the wind presses it. Then the houses that are built up upon the earth, yea, the more they are severally raised towards the sky, bend over in suspense, tottering towards the same quarter, and the timbers driven forward hang out ready to fall. And yet men fear to believe that a time of destruction and ruin awaits the nature of the great world, even when they see so great a mass of earth bowing to its fall. Why, unless the winds breathed in again, no force could put a curb on things or avail to pull them back from destruction as they fell. As it is, because turn by turn they breathe in and then grow violent, because, as it were, they rally and charge again and then are driven back and give ground, for this reason the earth more often threatens a fall than brings it to pass; for it leans over and then sways back again, and after falling forward recovers its position to a steady poise. In this way, then, the whole building rocks, the top more than the middle, the middle more than the bottom, the bottom but a very little.

(c) Sometimes the imprisoned air bursts forth, making a great chasm:

There is this cause, too, of that same great shaking, when suddenly wind and some exceeding great force of air, gathering either from without or within the earth itself, have hurled themselves into the hollow places of the earth, and there first rage among the great caves in turmoil, and rise, carried on in a whirl; and when afterwards the moving force driven forth bursts out and at the same time cleaves the earth and causes a huge chasm. Even as it came to pass at Sidon in Syria, and as was the case at Aegium in Peloponnese, cities overthrown by this [255] issue of air and the quaking of the earth which arose. And besides many walled towns have fallen through great movements on land, and many cities have sunk down deep into the sea, inhabitants and all.

or remaining imprisoned, causes the earth to shudder.

And even if it does not burst forth, yet the very impulse of the air and the fierce force of the wind are spread, like a fit of shivering, throughout the riddling passages of the earth, and thereby induce a trembling: even as cold, when it comes deep into our members, shakes them against their will and constrains them to tremble and to move. So men quiver with anxious terror throughout the cities, they fear the houses above, they dread the hollow places beneath, lest the nature of the earth should break them open all at once, and lest torn asunder she should open wide her maw, and, tumbled all together, desire to fill it with her own falling ruins.

It is a lesson that the whole world may thus be destroyed.

Let them then believe as they will that heaven and earth will be indestructible, entrusted to some everlasting protection; and yet from time to time the very present force of danger applies on some side or other this goad of fear, lest the earth, snatched away suddenly from beneath their feet be carried into the abyss, and the sum of things, left utterly without foundation, follow on, and there be a tumbling wreck of the whole world.

2. Why does not the sea increase?

1 First of all they wonder that nature does not make the sea bigger, since there comes into it so great a downpour of water, yea, all the streams from every quarter. Add, if you will, the shifting showers and the scudding storms, which bespatter and drench all seas and lands; add too its own springs; yet compared to the sum of the sea all [256] these things will scarce be equal to the increase of a single drop;

(a) Because all that is added to it is but a drop in the ocean; (b) because much water is drawn off by sun,

therefore it is the less strange that the great sea does not increase. Moreover, the sun draws off a great part by his heat. For verily we see the sun with its blazing rays dry clothes wringing with moisture; and yet we see many oceans spread wide beneath earth’s level. Therefore, although from each single place the sun sucks up but a small part of moisture from the level sea; yet in so great a space it will draw largely from the waves. Then again,

by wind,

the winds too can lift a great part of moisture as they sweep the level seas, since very often we see roads dried by the wind in a single night, and the soft mud harden into crusts.

and by clouds;

Moreover, I have shown that the clouds too lift up much moisture taken in from the great level of ocean, and scatter it broadcast over all the circle of lands, when it rains on the earth and the winds carry on the clouds.

or (c) oozes into the earth.

Lastly, since the earth is formed of porous body, and is continuous, surrounding on all sides the shores of the sea, it must needs be that, just as the moisture of water passes into the sea from the lands, it likewise filters through into the land from the salt sea levels; for the brine is strained through, and the substance of moisture oozes back and all streams together at the fountain-head of rivers, and thence comes back over the lands with freshened current, where the channel once cleft has brought down the waters in their liquid march.

3. The eruption of Etna.

Now what is the reason that through the jaws of Mount Etna flames sometimes breathe forth in so great a hurricane, I will unfold. For indeed the flaming storm gathered with no moderate force of destruction and ruled tyrant through the fields of the Sicilians and turned to itself the gaze of neighbouring nations, when they saw all the [257] quarters of the heavens smoke and sparkle, and filled their breasts with shuddering anxiety for what new change nature might be planning.

Remember the vastness of the universe.

Herein you must look far and deep and take a wide view to every quarter, that you may remember that the sum of things is unfathomable, and see how small, how infinitely small a part of the whole sum is one single heaven—not so large a part, as is a single man of the whole earth. And if you have this duly before you and look clearly at it and see it clearly, you would cease to wonder at many things. For does any of us wonder,

Just as many diseases may come to the body,

if a man has caught in his limbs a fever gathering with burning heat, or any other painful disease in his members? For a foot will swell suddenly, often a sharp pain seizes on the teeth or makes its way right into the eyes; the holy firen breaks out and creeping about in the body burns any part which it has seized, and crawls through the limbs, because, as we may be sure, there are seeds of many things, and this earth and heaven has enough disease and malady, from which the force of measureless disease might avail to spread abroad.

so the infinite can supply innumerable seeds of malady to heaven and earth.

So then we must suppose that out of the infinite all things are supplied to the whole heaven and earth in number enough that on a sudden the earth might be shaken and moved, and a tearing hurricane course over sea and land, the fire of Etna well forth, and the heaven be aflame. For that too comes to pass, and the quarters of heaven blaze, and there are rainstorms gathering in heavier mass, when by chance the seeds of the waters have so arranged themselves.

The eruption seems ‘gigantic’, but so always does the greatest thing of its kind which we have seen.

‘Nay, but the stormy blaze of this fire is exceeding gigantic.’ So, too, be sure, is the river which is the greatest seen [258] by a man, who has never before seen any greater: so a tree or a man may seem gigantic, and in every kind of thing, the greatest that each man has seen, he always imagines gigantic, and yet all of them together, yea, with heaven and earth and sea besides, are nothing to the whole sum of the universal sum.
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:29 pm

PART 2 OF 2

The eruption is caused because wind gathers in subterranean caverns,

But now in what ways that flame is suddenly excited and breathes abroad from out the vast furnaces of Etna, I will unfold. First of all the nature of the whole mountain is hollow beneath, resting everywhere on caverns of basalt. Moreover, in all the caves there is wind and air. For air becomes wind, whenn it is set in motion and aroused. When it has grown hot,

heats itself and all around it, and then bursts out.

and as it rages has heated all the rocks and the earth around wherever it touches them, and has struck out from them a fire hot with swift flames, it rises up and so drives itself forth on high straight through the mountain’s jaws. And so it carries its heat far, and afar it scatters the ash and rolls on a smoke with thick murky darkness, and all the while hurls out rocks of marvellous weight; for you must not doubt that this is the stormy force of air.

There are also passages from the neighbouring sea, by which blasts of wind enter in.

Moreover, in great part the sea makes its waves break and sucks in its tide at the roots of that mountain. From this sea caves stretch underneath right to the deep jaws of the mountain. By this path we must admit that <water> passes in, and the fact compels us <to believe that wind is mingled with it>1 and pierces deep in from the open sea, and then breathes out, and so lifts up the flame and casts up rocks and raises clouds of dust. For on the topmost peak are craters, as the inhabitants name them; what we call jaws or mouths.

[259]

For some things we must mention several possible causes, one of which will be true in the given case.

Some things there are, too, not a few, for which to tell one cause is not enough; we must give more, one of which is yet the actual cause; just as if you yourself were to see the lifeless body of a man lying before you, it would be right that you should name all causes of death, in order that the one cause of that man’s death might be told. For you could not prove that he had perished by the sword or of cold, or by disease or perchance by poison, but we know that it was something of this sort which was his fate. Likewise, we can say the same in many cases.

4. The rise of the Nile may be caused (a) by the north winds opposing its stream;

The Nile, the river of all Egypt, alone in the world rises, as summer comes, and overflows the plains. It waters Egypt often amid the hot season, either because in summer the north winds, which at that time are said to be the etesian winds, are dead against its mouths; blowing against its stream they check it, and driving the waters upwards fill the channel and make it stop. For without doubt these blasts, which are started from the chill constellations of the pole are driven full against the stream. The river comes from the south out of the quarter where heat is born, rising among the black races of men of sunburnt colour far inland in the region of mid-day.

(b) by a sand-barrier choking the stream;

It may be too that a great heaping up of sand may choke up the mouths as a bar against the opposing waves, when the sea, troubled by the winds, drives the sand within; and in this manner it comes to pass that the river has less free issue, and the waves likewise a less easy downward flow. It may be, too,

(c) by excessive rain in the interior;

perhaps that rains occur more at its source at that season, because the etesian blasts of the north winds then drive all the clouds together into those quarters. And, we may suppose, when they have come together driven towards the region of mid-day, [260] there at last the clouds, thrust together upon the high mountains,

(d) by the melting of snow on the mountains.

are massed and violently pressed. Perchance it swells from deep among the high mountains of the Ethiopians, where the sun, traversing all with his melting rays, forces the white snows to run down into the plains.

5. Avernian spots; so-called as they are fatal to birds.

Come now, I will unfold to you with what nature are endowed all Avernian places and lakes. First of all, in that they are called by the name Avernian,n that is given them from the fact, because they are harmful to all birds, in that, when they have come right over those spots in their flight, forgetting the oarage of their wings, they slack their sails, and fall headlong, drooping with languid neck to earth, if by chance the nature of the spots so determines it, or into the water, if by chance the lake of Avernus spreads beneath them.

Such as lake Avernus,

That spot is by Cumae, where mountains smoke, choked with biting sulphur and enriched with hot springs. There is too a spot within the walls of Athens, on the very summit of the citadel, by the temple of Pallas Tritonis,

a spot by the Parthenon,

the life-giver, whither croaking crows never steer their bodies on the wing, not even when the altars smoke with offerings. So surely do they fly, not in truth from the fierce wrath of Pallas, because of their vigil,n as the poets of the Greeks have sung, but the nature of the spot of its own force accomplishes the task.

and a place in Syria.

In Syria, too, it is said that there is likewise a spot to be seen, where, as soon as even fourfooted beasts have set foot, its natural force constrains them to fall heavily, as though they were on a sudden slaughtered to the gods of the dead.

All owe their power to natural causes, and are not gates of hell.

Yet all these things are brought about by a natural law, and it is clearly seen [261] from what causes to begin with they come to be; lest by chance1 the gateway of Orcus should be thought to be in these regions; and thereafter we should by chance believe that the gods of the dead lead the souls below from this spot to the shores of Acheron; even as stags of winged feet are often thought by their scent to drag from their lairs the races of crawling serpents. And how far removed this is from true reason, now learn; for now I will try to tell of the true fact.

Earth contains the elements of all things, both good and bad.

First of all I say, what I have often said before as well, that in the earth there are shapes of things of every kind; many which are good for food, helpful to life, and many which can induce diseases and hasten death. And that for different animals different things are suited for the purpose of life, I have shown before, because their nature and texture and the shapes of their first-beginnings are unlike, the one to the other.

And among them many things noxious to each of the senses.

Many things which are harmful pass through the ears, many which are dangerous and rough to draw in2 find their way even through the nostrils, nor are there a few which should be avoided by the touch, yea, and shunned by the sight, or else are bitter to the taste.

Many such exhalations are poisonous to man. Trees.

Next we may see how many things are for man of a sensation keenly harmful, and are nauseous and noxious; first, certain trees are endowed with a shade so exceeding noxious, that often they cause an aching of the head, if one has lain beneath them, stretched upon the grass. There is, too, a tree on the great mountains of Helicon, which is wont to kill a man with the noisome scent of its flower. We may be sure that these things all grow in this way from the earth, because the earth contains in [262] itself many seeds of many things, mingled in many ways, and gives them forth singled out.

An extinguished candle to an epileptic.

Again, a light but newly extinguished at night, when it meets the nostrils with its pungent smell, at once puts to sleep a man who is wont through disease to fall down and foam at the mouth. And a woman will fall back asleep with the heavy scent of castor,

Castor to a woman.

and her gay-coloured work slips from her delicate hands, if she has smelt it at the time when she has her monthly discharge. And many other things too slacken the drooping members throughout the frame,

A hot bath after a meal.

and make the soul totter within its abode. Once again, if you dally in the hot bath when you are too full, how easily it comes to pass often that you fall down, as you sit on the stool in the middle of the boiling water.

Charcoal.

And how easily the noxious force and smell of charcoal finds its way into the brain, unless we have taken water beforehand.

Wine to the feverish.

And when the burning fever has seized and subdued the limbs,1 then the smell of wine is like a slaughtering blow. Do you not see, too, sulphur produced in the very earth and pitch harden into crusts of a noisome scent?

Mines to those who work in them.

and again, when men are following up the veins of gold and silver, probing with the pick deep into the hidden parts of earth, what stenches Scaptensulan breathes out underground? And what poison gold mines may exhale! how strange they make men’s faces, how they change their colour! Have you not seen or heard how they are wont to die in a short time and how the powers of life fail those, whom the strong force of necessity imprisons in such work? All these effluences then [263] earth sends steaming forth, and breathes them out into the open and the clear spaces of heaven.

So these Avernian spots too must needs send up some fume deadly to the birds,

Similarly these spots give out an exhalation, which first stops the birds, and then kills them when they fall.

which rises from the earth into the air, so that it poisons the expanse of heaven in a certain quarter; and at the very moment when the bird is carried thither on its wings, it is checked there, seized by the secret poison, so that it tumbles straight down on the spot, where the effluence has its course. And when it has fallen into it, there the same force of the effluence takes away the remnant of life out of all its limbs. For verily first of all it causes a kind of dizzy seething in the birds: afterwards it comes to pass that, when they have fallen right into the sources of the poison, there they must needs vomit forth their life as well, because there is great store of poison all around them.

It may be that the effluence dispels the air, and so the birds fall in a vacuum.

It may happen, too, sometimes that this force and effluence of Avernus dispels all the air that is situate between the birds and the ground, so that there is left here an almost empty space. And when the birds in their flight have come straight over this place, on a sudden the lifting force of their pinions is crippled and useless, and all the effort of their wings fails on either side. And then, when they cannot support themselves or rest upon their wings, of course nature constrains them to sink by their weight to the ground, and lying in death in what is now almost empty void, they scatter abroad their soul through all the pores of their body 1 moreover,

6. Wells are cold in summer, because earth gives out its heat into the air, and warm in winter, because it sends its heat into the wells. The fountain of Ammon grows cold in the day and warm at night for exactly similar reasons,

the water in wells becomes colder in summer, [264] because the earth grows porous with the heat, and if by chance it has any seeds of heat of its own, it sends them abroad into the air. The more then earth is exhausted of its heat, the colder too becomes the moisture which is hidden in the earth. Moreover, when all the earth is hard pressed with cold, and contracts and, as it were, congeals, of course it comes to pass that, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells any heat it bears in itself.

There is said to be near the shrine of Ammonn a fountain, cold in the daylight and warm in the night time. At this fountain men marvel overmuch, and think that it is made to boil in haste by the fierceness of the sun beneath the earth, when night has shrouded earth in dreadful darkness. But this is exceeding far removed from true reasoning. For verily, when the sun, touching the uncovered body of the water, could not make it warm on the upper side, though its light in the upper air enjoys heat so great, how could it beneath the earth with its body so dense boil the water and fill it with warm heat? and that when it can scarcely with its blazing rays make its hot effluence pierce through the walls of houses. What then is the reason? We may be sure, because the ground is rarer and warmer around the fountain than the rest of the earth, and there are many seeds of fire near the body of the water. Therefore, when night covers the earth with the shadows that bring the dew, straightway the earth grows cold deep within and contracts. By this means it comes to pass that, as though it were pressed by the hand, it squeezes out into the fountain all the seeds of fire it has, which make warm the touch and vapour of the water. Then when the rising sun has parted [265] asunder the ground with his rays, and has made it rarer, as his warm heat grows stronger, the first-beginnings of fire pass back again into their old abode, and all the heat of the water retires into the earth. For this cause the fountain becomes cold in the light of day.

also because the sun’s heat breaks up the waters and releases the heat in them.

Moreover, the moisture of the water is buffeted by the sun’s rays, and in the light grows rarer through the throbbing heat; therefore it comes to pass that it loses all the seeds of fire that it has; just as often it gives out the frost that it contains in itself, and melts the ice and loosens its bindings.

The cold spring, over which torches catch fire, owes its power to seeds of fire, which shoot up separately through the water and unite in flame on the torch.

There is also a cold spring, over which if tow be held, it often straightway catches fire and casts out a flame, and a torch in like manner is kindled and shines over the waters, wherever, as it floats, it is driven by the breezes. Because, we may be sure, there are in the water very many seeds of heat, and it must needs be that from the very earth at the bottom bodies of fire rise up through the whole spring, and at the same time are breathed forth and issue into the air, yet not so many of them that the spring can be made hot. Moreover, a force constrains them suddenly to burst forth through the water scattered singly, and then to enter into union up above.

It is like springs of fresh water in the sea.

Even as there is a spring within the sea at Aradus,n which bubbles up with fresh water and parts the salt waters asunder all around it; and in many other spots too the level sea affords a welcome help to thirsty sailors, because amid the salt it vomits forth fresh water. So then those seeds are able to burst out through that spring, and to bubble out into the tow; and when they gather together or cling to the body of the torch readily they blaze out all [266] at once, because the tow and torches too have many seeds of hidden fire in themselves.

Observe how the wick catches before it touches the flame.

Do you not see too, when you move a wick just extinguished near a night-lamp, that it is kindled before it has touched the flame, and a torch in like manner? And many other things as well are touched first by the mere heat and blaze out at a distance, before the fire soaks them close at hand. This then we must suppose comes to pass in that spring too.

7. The magnet, and how it holds its chain of rings suspended.

For what follows, I will essay to tell by what law of nature it comes to pass that iron can be attracted by the stone which the Greeks call the magnet, from the name of its native place, because it has its origin within the boundaries of its native country, the land of the Magnetes. At this stone men marvel; indeed, it often makes a chain of rings all hanging to itself. For sometimes you may see five or more in a hanging chain, and swaying in the light breezes, when one hangs on to the other, clinging to it beneath, and each from the next comes to feel the binding force of the stone: in such penetrating fashion does its force prevail.

Much must be premised.

In things of this kind much must be made certain before you can give account of the thing itself, and you must approach by a circuit exceeding long: therefore all the more I ask for attentive ears and mind.

(a) From all things bodies are always streaming off, which arouse our senses.

First of all from all things, whatsoever we can see, it must needs be that there stream off, shot out and scattered abroad, bodies such as to strike the eyes and awake our vision. And from certain things scents stream off unceasingly; even as cold streams from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, which gnaws away the walls by the seashore. Nor do diverse sounds cease to ooze through the air. Again, moisture of [267] a salt savour often comes into our mouth, when we walk by the sea, and on the other hand, when we behold wormwood being diluted and mixed, a bitter taste touches it. So surely from all things each several thing is carried off in a stream, and is sent abroad to every quarter on all sides, nor is any delay or respite granted in this flux, since we perceive unceasingly, and we are suffered always to descry and smell all things, and to hear them sound.

(b) The bodies of all things are porous;

Now I will tell over again of how rarefied a body all things are; which is clearly shown in the beginning of my poem too.n For verily, although it is of great matter to learn this for many things, it is above all necessary for this very thing, about which I am essaying to discourse, to make it sure that there is nothing perceptible except body mingled with void.

e. g. rocks,

First of all it comes to pass that in caves the upper rocks sweat with moisture and drip with trickling drops.

the human body.

Likewise sweat oozes out from all our body, the beard grows and hairs over all our limbs and members, food is spread abroad into all the veins, yea, it increases and nourishes even the extreme parts of the body, and the tiny nails.

metals,

We feel cold likewise pass through bronze and warm heat, we feel it likewise pass through gold and through silver, when we hold full cups in our hands.

walls,

Again voices fly through stone partitions in houses, smell penetrates and cold and the heat of fire, which is wont to pierce too through the strength of iron. Again, where the breastplate of the sky1n closes in the world all around <the bodies of clouds and the seeds of storms enter in>, and with them the force of disease,

even the circumference of the world.

when it finds its way in from without; and tempests, gathering [268] from earth and heaven, hasten naturally to remote parts of heaven and earth; since there is nothing but has a rare texture of body.

(c) These effluences affect different things differently: e. g. sunlight may melt or harden.

There is this besides, that not all bodies, which are thrown off severally from things, are endowed with the same effect of sense, nor suited in the same way to all things. First of all the sun bakes the ground and parches it, but ice it thaws and causes the snows piled high on the high mountains to melt beneath its rays. Again, wax becomes liquid when placed in the sun’s heat. Fire likewise makes bronze liquid and fuses gold, but skins and flesh it shrivels and draws all together. Moreover, the moisture of water hardens iron fresh from the fire, but skins and flesh it softens, when hardened in the heat. The wild olive as much delights the bearded she-goats,

The wild olive is good to goats, loathsome to us. Pigs hate marjoram, and we loathe mud.

as though it breathed out a flavour steeped in ambrosia and real nectar; and yet for a man there is no leafy plant more bitter than this for food. Again, the pig shuns marjoram, and fears every kind of ointment; for to bristling pigs it is deadly poison, though to us it sometimes seems almost to give new life. But on the other hand, though to us mud is the foulest filth, this very thing is seen to be pleasant to pigs, so that they wallow all over in it and never have enough.

(d) The pores and passages in things differ, and let different things pass through them.

This too remains, which it is clear should be said, before I start to speak of the thing itself. Since many pores are assigned to diverse things, they must needs be endowed with a nature differing from one another, and have each their own nature and passages. For verily there are diverse senses in living creatures, each of which in its own way takes in its own object within itself. For we see that [269] sounds pass into one place and the taste from savours into another, and to another the scent of smells. Moreover, one thing is seen to pierce through rocks, another through wood, and another to pass through gold, and yet another to make its way out from silver and glass. For through the one vision is seen to stream, though the other heat to travel, and one thing is seen to force its way along the same path quicker than others. We may know that the nature of the passages causes this to come to pass, since it varies in many ways, as we have shown a little before on account of the unlike nature and texture of things.

We can now turn to the magnet.

Wherefore, when all these things have been surely established and settled for us, laid down in advance and ready for use, for what remains, from them we shall easily give account, and the whole cause will be laid bare, which attracts the force of iron.

It sends off particles which beat aside the air in front and make a vacuum; into this the atoms of the iron rush, and because they are very closely linked together, they draw the whole ring with them.

First of all it must needs ben that there stream off this stone very many seeds or an effluence, which, with its blows, parts asunder all the air which has its place between the stone and the iron. When this space is emptied and much room in the middle becomes void, straightway first-beginnings of the iron start forward and fall into the void, all joined together; it comes to pass that the ring itself follows and advances in this way, with its whole body. Nor is anything so closely interlaced in its first particles, all clinging linked together, as the nature of strong iron and its cold roughness. Therefore it is the less strange, since it is led on by its particles, that it is impossible for many bodies, springing together from the iron, to pass into the void, but that the ring itself follows; and this it does, and follows on, until it has now reached the very stone and clung to it with hidden fastenings. This same thing takes place in every [270] direction;1

This may happen in any direction.

on whichever side room becomes void, whether athwart or above, the neighbouring bodies are carried at once into the void. For indeed they are set in motion by blows from the other side, nor can they themselves of their own accord rise upwards into the air.

Further, the air behind the ring pushes it towards the vacuum, where there is no air to beat it back.

To this there is added, that it may the more be able to come to pass, this further thing as an aid, yea, the motion is helped, because, as soon as the air in front of the ring is made rarer, and the place becomes more empty and void, it straightway comes to pass that all the air which has its place behind, drives, as it were, and pushes the ring forward. For the air which is set all around is for ever buffeting things; but it comes to pass that at times like this it pushes the iron forward, because on one side there is empty space, which receives the ring into itself. This air, of which I am telling you, finds its way in subtly through the countless pores of the iron right to its tiny parts, and thrusts and drives it on, as wind drives ship and sails.

The air inside the iron also pushes in the same direction.

Again, all things must have air in their body seeing that they are of rare body, and the air is placed round and set close against all things. This air then, which is hidden away deep within the iron, is ever tossed about with restless motion, and therefore without doubt it buffets the ring and stirs it within; the ring, we may be sure, is carried towards the same side to which it has once moved headlong, struggling hard towards the empty spot.

When brass is interposed, the magnet repels iron, because the effluence from the brass has already filled up the pores in the iron.

It comes to pass, too, that the nature of iron retreats from this stone at times, and is wont to flee and follow turn by turn. Further, I have seen Samothracian iron rings even leap up, and at the same time iron filings move [271] in a frenzy inside brass bowls, when this Magnesian stone was placed beneath: so eagerly is the iron seen to desire to flee from the stone. When the brass is placed between, so great a disturbance is brought about because, we may be sure, when the effluence of the brass has seized before-hand and occupied the open passages in the iron, afterwards comes the effluence of the stone, and finds all full in the iron, nor has it a path by which it may stream through as before. And so it is constrained to dash against it and beat with its wave upon the iron texture; and in this way it repels it from itself, and through the brass drives away that which without it it often sucks in.

The magnet cannot move other things because they are either too heavy or too rare in texture.

Herein refrain from wondering that the effluence from this stone has not the power to drive other things in the same way. For in part they stand still by the force of their own weight, as for instance, gold; and partly, because they are of such rare body, that the effluence flies through untouched, they cannot be driven anywhere; among this kind is seen to be the substance of wood. The nature of iron then has its place between the two, and when it has taken in certain tiny bodies of brass, then it comes to pass that the Magnesian stones drive it on with their stream.

There are other cases of things with a peculiar affinity and binding power: stones and mortar, wood and glue, wine and water, dye and wool,

And yet these powers are not so alien to other things that I have only a scanty store of things of this kind, of which I can tell—things fitted just for each other and for naught besides. First you see that stones are stuck together only by mortar. Wood is united only by bulls’ glue, so that the veins of boards more often gape than the bindings of the glue will loosen their hold. The juice born of the grape is willing to mingle with streams of water, though heavy pitch and light olive-oil refuse. [272] And the purple tint of the shellfish is united only with the body of wool, yet so that it cannot be separated at all, no, not if you were to be at pains to restore it with Neptune’s wave, no, nor if the whole sea should strive to wash it out with all its waves. Again, is not there one thing only that binds gold to gold? is it not true that brass is joined to brass only by white lead?

brass and white lead.

How many other cases might we find! What then? You have no need at all of long rambling roads, nor is it fitting that I should spend so much pains on this, but ’tis best shortly in a few words to include many cases.

Whenever shapes fit mutually, a strong joining results.

Those things, whose textures fall so aptly one upon the other that hollows fit solids, each in the one and the other, make the best joining. Sometimes, too, they may be held linked with one another, as it were, fastened by rings and hooks; as is seen to be more the case with this stone and the iron.

8. Plague and disease.

Now what is the law of plagues, and from what cause on a sudden the force of disease can arise and gather deadly destruction for the race of men and the herds of cattle, I will unfold. First I have shown before that there are seeds of many things which are helpful to our life,

When the seeds of harmful things gather in the sky, they pollute it. They may come from outside the world or from the earth.

and on the other hand it must needs be that many fly about which cause disease and death. And when by chance they have happened to gather and distemper the sky, then the air becomes full of disease. And all that force of disease and pestilence either comes from without the world through the sky above, as do clouds and mists, or else often it gathers and rises up from the earth itself, when, full of moisture, it has contracted foulness, smitten by unseasonable rains or suns.

So travellers are affected by a strange climate,

Do you not see, too, that those who journey far from their home and [273] country are assailed by the strangeness of the climate and the water, just because things are far different? For what a difference may we suppose there is between the climate the Britons know and that which is in Egypt, where the axis of the world slants crippled;n what difference between the climate in Pontus and at Gades, and so right on to the black races of men with their sunburnt colour?

and differences of climate cause differences of appearance in races, and produce special diseases.

And as we see these four climates at the four winds and quarters of the sky thus diverse one from the other, so the colour and face of the men are seen to vary greatly, and diseases too to attack the diverse races each after their kind. There is the elephant disease, which arises along the streams of the Nile in mid Egypt, and in no other place. In Attica the feet are assailed, and the eyes in the Achaean country. And so each place is harmful to different parts and limbs: the varying air is the cause. Wherefore, when an atmosphere,

If then a noxious atmosphere moves and comes to us.

which chances to be noxious to us, sets itself in motion, and harmful air begins to creep forward, just as cloud and mist crawls on little by little and distempers all, wherever it advances, and brings about change, it comes to pass also, that when at last it comes to our sky, it corrupts it and makes it like itself, and noxious to us.

pestilence results for man and beast.

And so this strange destruction and pestilence suddenly falls upon the waters or settles even on the crops or on other food of men or fodder of the flocks; or else this force remains poised in the air itself, and, when we draw in these mingled airs as we breathe, it must needs be that we suck in these plagues with them into our body. In like manner the pestilence falls too often on the cattle, and sickness also on the lazy bleating sheep. Nor does it matter whether we pass into spots hostile to us and change the vesture [274] of the sky, or whether nature attacking us brings a corrupt sky1 upon us, or something which we are not accustomed to feel, which can assail us by its first coming.

C.: The Plague at Athens

Such was the plague at Athens, which came from Egypt.


Such a cause of plague,n such a deadly influence, once in the country of Cecrops filled the fields with dead and emptied the streets, draining the city of its citizens. For it arose deep within the country of Egypt, and came, traversing much sky and floating fields, and brooded at last over all the people of Pandion.

Symptoms and causes of the disease.

Then troop by troop they were given over to disease and death. First of all they felt the head burning with heat, and both eyes red with a glare shot over them. The throat, too, blackened inside, would sweat with blood, and the path of the voice was blocked and choked with ulcers, and the tongue, the mind’s spokesman, would ooze with gore, weakened with pain, heavy in movement, rough to touch. Then, when through the throat the force of disease had filled the breast and had streamed on right into the pained heart of the sick, then indeed all the fastnesses of life were loosened. Their breath rolled out a noisome smell from the mouth, like the stench of rotting carcasses thrown out of doors. And straightway all the strength of the mind and the whole body grew faint, as though now on the very threshold of death. And aching anguish went ever in the train of their unbearable suffering, and lamentation, mingled with sobbing. And a constant retching, ever and again, by night and day, would constrain them continually to spasms in sinews and limbs, and would utterly [275] break them down, wearing them out, full weary before. And yet in none could you see the topmost skin on the surface of the body burning with exceeding heat, but rather the body offered a lukewarm touch to the hands and at the same time all was red as though with the scar of ulcers, as it is when the holy fire spreads through the limbs. But the inward parts of the men were burning to the bones, a flame was burning within the stomach as in a furnace. There was nothing light or thin that you could apply to the limbs of any to do him good, but ever only wind and cold. Some would cast their limbs,

Attempted remedies.

burning with disease, into the icy streams, hurling their naked body into the waters. Many leapt headlong deep into the waters of wells, reaching the water with their very mouth agape: a parching thirst, that knew no slaking, soaking their bodies, made a great draught no better than a few drops. Nor was there any respite from suffering; their bodies lay there foredone. The healers’ art muttered low in silent fear, when indeed again and again they would turn on them their eyes burning with disease and reft of sleep.

Accompanying symptoms of the mind, &c.

And many more signs of death were afforded then: the understanding of the mind distraught with pain and panic, the gloomy brow, the fierce frenzied face, and the ears too plagued and beset with noises, the breath quickened or drawn rarely and very deep, and the wet sweat glistening dank over the neck, the spittle thin and tiny, tainted with a tinge of yellow and salt, scarcely brought up through the throat with a hoarse cough. Then in the hands the sinews ceased not to contract and the limbs to tremble, and cold to come up little by little from the feet. Likewise, even till the last moment, the nostrils were pinched, and the tip of [276] the nose sharp and thin, the eyes hollowed, the temples sunk, the skin cold and hard, a grin on the set face, the forehead tense and swollen. And not long afterwards the limbs would lie stretched stiff in death.

Length of disease.

And usually on the eighth day of the shining sunlight, or else beneath his ninth torch,

Subsequent fate of those who escaped.

they would yield up their life. And if any of them even so had avoided the doom of death, yet afterwards wasting and death would await him with noisome ulcers, and a black flux from the bowels, or else often with aching head a flow of tainted blood would pour from his choked nostrils: into this would stream all the strength and the body of the man. Or again, when a man had escaped this fierce outpouring of corrupt blood, yet the disease would make its way into his sinews and limbs, and even into the very organs of his body. And some in heavy fear of the threshold of death would live on, bereft of these parts by the knife, and not a few lingered in life without hands or feet and some lost their eyes. So firmly had the sharp fear of death got hold on them. On some, too, forgetfulness of all things seized, so that they could not even know themselves.

Unburied bodies avoided by bird and beast.

And though bodies piled on bodies lay in numbers unburied on the ground, yet the race of birds and wild beasts either would range far away, to escape the bitter stench, or, when they had tasted, would fall drooping in quickcoming death. And indeed in those days hardly would any bird appear at all, nor would the gloomy race of wild beasts issue from the woods. Full many would droop in disease and die. More than all the faithful strength of dogs, fighting hard, would lay down their lives, strewn about every street; for the power of disease would wrest [277] the life from their limbs. Funerals deserted, unattended, were hurried on almost in rivalry.

Lack of remedies.

Nor was any sure kind of remedy afforded for all alike; for that which had granted to one strength to breathe in his mouth the lifegiving breezes of air, and to gaze upon the quarters of the sky, was destruction to others, and made death ready for them.

Despair.

And herein was one thing pitiful and exceeding full of anguish, that as each man saw himself caught in the toils of the plague, so that he was condemned to death, losing courage he would lie with grieving heart; looking for death to come he would breathe out his spirit straightway. For indeed, at no time would the contagion of the greedy plague cease to lay hold on one after the other, as though they were woolly flocks or horned herds. And this above all heaped death on death.

Fate of those who avoided the sick,

For all who shunned to visit their own sick, over-greedy of life and fearful of death, were punished a while afterwards by slaughtering neglect with a death hard and shameful, abandoned and reft of help.

and of those who tended them.

But those who had stayed near at hand would die by contagion and the toil, which shame would then constrain them to undergo, and the appealing voice of the weary, mingled with the voice of complaining. And so all the nobler among them suffered this manner of death 1 and one upon others,

Burials.

as they vied in burying the crowd of their dead: worn out with weeping and wailing they would return; and the greater part would take to their bed from grief. Nor could one man be found, whom at this awful season neither disease touched nor death nor mourning.

Moreover, by now the shepherd and every herdsman, [278] and likewise the sturdy steersman of the curving plough,

The plague in the country.

would fall drooping, and their bodies would lie thrust together into the recess of a hut, given over to death by poverty and disease. On lifeless children you might often have seen the lifeless bodies of parents, and again, children breathing out their life upon mothers and fathers.

The countrymen flock into the town and increase the disease.

And in no small degree that affliction streamed from the fields into the city, brought by the drooping crowd of countrymen coming together diseased from every quarter. They would fill all places, all houses; and so all the more, packed in stifling heat, death piled them up in heaps. Many bodies, laid low by thirst and rolled forward through the streets, lay strewn at the fountains of water,

Dead in the streets and public places,

the breath of life shut off from them by the exceeding delight of the water, and many in full view throughout the public places and the streets you might have seen, their limbs drooping on their half-dead body, filthy with stench and covered with rags, dying through the foulness of their body, only skin on bones, wellnigh buried already in noisome ulcers and dirt.

and temples.

Again, death had filled all the sacred shrines of the gods with lifeless bodies, and all the temples of the heavenly ones remained everywhere cumbered with carcasses; for these places the guardians had filled with guests. For indeed by now the religion of the gods and their godhead was not counted for much: the grief of the moment overwhelmed it all. Nor did the old rites of burial continue in the city,

Horrors of burial.

with which aforetime this people had ever been wont to be buried; for the whole people was disordered and in panic, and every man sorrowing buried his dead, laid out as best he could. And to many things the sudden [279] calamity and filthy poverty prompted men. For with great clamouring they would place their own kin on the high-piled pyres of others, and set the torches to them, often wrangling with much bloodshed, rather than abandon the bodies.
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:30 pm

PART 1 OF 2

NOTES

BOOK I [283][286]
BOOK II [288][291]
BOOK III
BOOK IV [299]
BOOK V [300][302][309]
BOOK VI [312]

printed in great britain at the university press, oxford by charles batey, printer to the university

1 In our own country Dr. Masson (Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet) has recently written a very suggestive, though not always accurate, sketch of Lucretius’s relations to his predecessors and to modern scientific ideas, and has most successfully represented the spirit of the poem.

1 St. Augustine, de Civ. Dei, iv. 27.

2 De Divinatione.

1 Chron. Euseb.

2 Reifferscheid, Sueton. reliq., p. 55.

3 Jerome, l. c.

1 See Masson, Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet, vol. i. pp. 38 ff. and vol. ii. pp. 1-13.

2 Cic. Ep. ad Q. Fr. ii. 11.

3 lumina ingenii, Cic. l. c.

1 iv. 823, v. 110, &c.

2 iv. 1058 ff.

3 v. 104 ff.

4 i. 82 ff., iii. 59 ff.

5 iii. 322.

6 i. 62 ff.

7 v. 8.

8 i. 931.

1 There is, as a matter of fact, considerable doubt whether Democritus attributed weight to the atoms, but I am inclined to believe that he did.

1 Galen, de med. emp. 1259, 8; Diels B. 125. Democritus’s exact position is very difficult to make out, but it seems that he accepted the evidence of the senses for the primary properties, size, shape, and weight, but regarded it with suspicion for all other qualities: in other words he held that touch alone among the senses could be trusted.

2 Diogenes Laertius, x. 50, &c.

3 iv. 469 ff.

4 v. 564 ff.

1 v. 650 ff.

2 v. 614 ff.

3 v. 751 ff.

4 Sextus Emp. adv. math. i. 213; cf. Lucr. i. 329 ff.

5 i. 635-920.

6 i. 655, 742, 843.

7 i. 746, 844.

8 i. 665, 763.

1 i. 753, 847.

2 i. 1008.

3 i. 988.

4 ii. 184.

5 ii. 216.

1 i. 1021 ff.

2 ‘Be it by the chance or the force of nature,’ vi. 31.

3 v. 1175.

4 v. 146 ff.

5 Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 8. 18.

6 iii. 19.

7 iii. 161.

8 ii. 894.

9 iii. 323.

10 iii. 417-829.

11 iii. 838.

1 Diog. Laert. x. 134.

2 ii. 261.

3 ii. 216 ff.

1 This point is much disputed, but see Guyau, La Morale d’Épicure, pp. 70 ff.

1 ii. 29 ff.

2 Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii. 17, 15.

3 Proclus in Eucl. elem. 322.

4 Plut. contr. Ep. beat. 13. 1095*.

5 ii. 16 ff.

1 v. 1019.

2 v. 1129.

3 i. 140.

4 iv. 1058 ff.

1 Several interesting and suggestive chapters on this subject will be found in Masson’s Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet.

2 v. 837-77.

3 v. 925-1104.

4 v. 1010.

1 ad Q. Fr. ii. 11.

2 ii. 352 ff.

3 ii. 317 ff.

4 i. 900.

5 i. 493.

6 ii. 375.

1 Some lines are lost here, in which he passed from addressing Venus to Memmius.

1 Read ruitque et quidquid.

1 Two lines are probably lost here, the sense of which has been admirably restored by Munro:

corporibus, quod iam nobis minimum esse videtur,
debet item ratione pari minimum esse cacumen

1 Read mussant and place semicolon after purum, 1. 658.

1 Lambinus supplied the sense of a missing verse:
et nervos alienigenis ex partibus esse.

1 Two lines seem to be lost here, of which Munro has supplied the sense:

ex alienigenis, quae terris exoriuntur.
sic itidem quae ligna emittunt corpora, aluntur


1 unro again has well supplied the sense of two lost lines:

sed spatium supra docui sine fine patere.
si finita igitur summa esset materiai,

1 The next eight lines are omitted or mutilated in the MSS., but once more Munro’s restoration must give the sense, and probably something very near the actual words.

1 The best MS. marks eight lines lost here, corresponding to the mutilation above: the words in brackets would give the general sense, as suggested by Munro.

1 Read with Munro, et ecum vi.

2 Read with Munro, ornatasque armis statuas.

1 A considerable number of lines seems to be lost here, in which Lucretius probably first gave other reasons for the atoms’ velocity, and then fulfilled the promise of line 62 to explain how the atoms by their motion created and dissolved things: the next two lines read like a conclusion of such a section.

2 A line is probably lost here, of which Hoerschelmann has restored the sense: corpora sponte sua volitare invicta per aevum.

1 Read sensus for sese with Bernays.

1 This should be the sense, but the reading is uncertain: possibly quaerit.

1 The text is corrupt and a line is probably lost: the translation follows Brieger’s restoration:

ventis differri rapidis, nostrisque veneno
sensibus esse datum,

2 It is likely that a paragraph is here lost in which Lucretius showed that the size of the atoms was limited: otherwise some would be perceptible. To this he probably refers in lines 479, 481 and 499.

1 Again it is likely that some lines are lost in which Lucretius stated the general argument that if variety of shapes in the atoms were infinite, all extremes in our experience would be far surpassed: he then proceeds to illustration.

1 This is the sense, though the text is uncertain.

2 Reading ostendens with Munro.

1 A line is lost, of which this must have been the general sense.

1 A line is lost here, of which this was the probable sense.

1 A line is lost, of which this must have been the sense.

1 It is impossible to make sense of the passage as it stands, and Giussani is probably right in supposing several verses lost, in which the poet said that only such things could give anything off as contained void, and then gave a list of examples, ending up with the cetera of line 859.

1 Giussani may be right in thinking that we should read latices (water) instead of lapides (stones), as it suits better with what follows.

1 A line is lost, which might have been of the form hi proprii sensus mortalia semina reddunt.

1 Read capulum with Vossius.

1 The reading is uncertain, but may have been e summa … sede.

1 A line is lost, of which this must have been the general sense.

1 The MSS. are corrupt, but this must have been the sense.

1 i. e. forces us to conclude that it is they which see.

1 The text is uncertain, but this was probably the meaning.

1 The text is uncertain, but the sense probably this.

1 There may be a verse lost here, or else the construction is slightly careless.

1 Reading truncum for utrumque, but the text is uncertain.

1 A line is lost, of which this was probably the sense.

1 Bernays’ suggestion gnatis seems the best of many proposals.

1 Some lines are lost here.

1 Translating Munro’s suggestion patrum coetumque decorum.

1 We may fill in the sense of the immediately succeeding lines with certainty, but a long passage has been lost, probably of about 50 lines.

1 At least one line is lost here.

1 A line has probably been lost, such as hoc illis fieri, quae transpiciuntur, idemque.

1 Read, with I. Vossius, et reboat raucum Berecyntia

2 Read, with Bernays, et gelidis cycni nocte oris

1 The text is uncertain, but this must be the general sense.

1 This section seems misplaced, and should possibly come before the preceding paragraph.

1 This must be the sense, though the text is uncertain.

1 The end of the line has been ousted by an intrusion from the next: the sense was probably this, as Munro suggests.

1 It is impossible to replace with certainty the mutilated word.

1 A line is lost, of which the words in brackets give the general sense.

1 The line is corrupt, and I have translated Munro’s correction: quaerere proporro sibi sene senescere credas.

1 This paragraph seems misplaced: but it is not clear where it should come in (possibly after the next paragraph), and it may be a subsequent addition, which the poet did not properly work into its context.

1 A line is lost, of which this was possibly the sense.

1 The text is uncertain, but this must have been the general sense.

1 A line is lost, of which this was probably the sense.

1 This and the next two paragraphs seem rather out of place here: possibly they should be placed before the preceding paragraph, or else they may be a later addition by the poet.

1 These six lines were probably written by the poet as a later addition.

1 Two words at the end of the line are corrupt: puppibus or navibus must have been the first.

1 Two or more lines must here be lost.

2 Read exsistant, placentur et omnia rursum quae furerent.

1 The last word of the line is uncertain.

1 Translating Lachmann’s nimbis for montis.

1 The text is uncertain, but this seems to be the sense.

1 Either this paragraph is a disconnected fragment, or more probably something has been lost before it, introducing a new section of the paradoxes of nature on earth.

1 A line is lost, of which the words in brackets give the probable sense.

1 Reading forte his for poteis with Munro.

2 Reading tractu with Polle.

1 The reading is extremely uncertain: Heinrichsen’s suggestion membra domans percepit fervida fabris may be right.

1 A considerable passage is lost, in which the poet passed to a quite new subject.

1 The MS. reading caeli lorica is probably quite right, and a line is lost, of which this, as Giussani suggests, was probably the sense.

1 Place; after partes and, after superne.

1 The MS. text involves an impossible false quantity, but this must be the sense: possibly, as Housman suggests, the order of the words is wrong.

1 Some lines of connexion seem to be lost here.

1 ff. The introductory invocation to Venus has caused great trouble to the commentators, as it appears to be inconsistent with Lucretius’s belief (e. g. II. 646) that the gods live a blessed life apart, and have no concern with the government of the world or the affairs of men. But, though to some extent, no doubt, such an invocation is to be accepted as a poetical tradition, it is much more truly explained as having for Lucretius an esoteric meaning. Venus is to him the creative power of nature, the life-giving force, Lucretius’s reverence for which may fairly be regarded as his true religion. (See Martha, Le poème de Lucrèce, pp. 61 ff.)

41. in our country’s time of trouble. The poem was published after Lucretius’s death in 55 bc, and its unfinished state shows that he must have been working at it in the immediately preceding period. During that time Caesar was fighting in Gaul, but Lucretius is more probably thinking of the gathering storm of civil war.

42. Memmius’s noble son. C. Memmius, to whom the poem is addressed, was an aristocratic contemporary of Lucretius. He had taken some part in public life, and seen foreign service, but was better known as a prominent and somewhat dissolute figure in society, and a patron of letters. He was probably a professed Epicurean, whom Lucretius wished to arouse to a more real faith and a better understanding of Epicurus’s doctrines.

66. a man of Greece: of course Epicurus, whom Lucretius only once mentions by name (III. 1042). See Introduction, pp. 10 ff.

73. the fiery walls of the world. Lucretius conceived of our [281] world as a sphere, of which the outer coat was a circling stream of fiery ether (V. 457-70). The expression here is then to be taken quite literally.

84. Even as at Aulis, &c.: for the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia at Aulis in order to procure favourable winds for the fleet starting against Troy, see Euripides’ play, from which Lucretius has borrowed several details, and even translated phrases in this passage.

86. the Virgin of the Cross-roads, i. e. Artemis.

95. seized by men’s hands, &c. Iphigeneia was brought to Aulis on the understanding that she was to be married to Achilles. Lucretius, therefore, here carefully selects phrases which would remind a Roman reader of the ceremonials of marriage.

117. our own Ennius. C. Ennius (died 169 bc), the first great genius in Latin poetry, who introduced the hexameter, and laid the foundation of nearly all the later branches of Roman poetry. He believed in Pythagoras’s theory of metempsychosis, and thought that he himself was possessed by the soul of Homer, whose appearance to him in a vision he described in one of his Saturae.

150. nothing is ever begotten of nothing. This first principle shows that the ultimate basis of the universe is a store of matter, to which no addition is ever made. Lucretius’s ‘proof’ has been much criticized on the ground that he argues against ‘spontaneous’ creation by a denial of ‘sporadic’ creation. But to his mind they were really the same: if things came into being without a ‘seed’ or cause, the effect would be that they would appear to spring from alien sources, man from the sea, &c. As this does not occur, we may be sure that things are never created without a ‘seed’, i. e. are never uncaused additions to matter. Notice that his proof also establishes the law of cause and effect, which was his strongest weapon of attack on religion.

216. nor does she destroy ought into nothing. The second principle is complementary to the first. As matter never [282] receives any addition, so it never suffers any loss: the two together constitute the modern notion of the permanence of matter, and show its existence in the form of particles. Note again the proof: if nature could destroy anything, the whole universe would perish, because (as he explains more clearly in lines 556 ff.) the process of destruction is quicker than that of creation.

330. there is void in things. Having established the existence of matter in the form of particles, he proceeds to show that there must also be empty space. To Epicurus’s argument that without it motion is impossible, he adds two others derived from the nature of compound things.

370. which some vainly imagine, i. e. the Stoics. When Lucretius alludes to opponents vaguely, without mentioning their names, he nearly always has in view his natural rivals, the Stoics (e. g. I. 465, 1053). They held that void did not exist, but that motion was due to the mutual interchange of places between things—a view not unlike that which is now held in conjunction with the conception of ether. Lucretius replies that such interchange of place necessarily implies empty space.

391. But if by chance any one thinks. The argument here is rather obscure: ‘this comes to be’ is the filling up of the interval between the two bodies with air. Lucretius imagines a view of air as a kind of elastic fluid, which condenses, as the bodies meet, and then expands again when they separate. To it he objects that such condensation and expansion itself implies an admixture of empty space: a thing can only expand because there is more vacuum in it, or contract because there is less.

459. Even so time exists not by itself … Once more the argument is difficult. The Stoics, against whom Lucretius is, as usual, disputing, held that time was an existence in itself, and even went so far as to call it a ‘body’. Lucretius replies that it is only a sensation that we get from things, an ‘accident’ of things, just as much as their colour or scent or sound, or wealth or poverty.

464. Then again, when men say. . . The Stoics had apparently raised a special difficulty with regard to Epicurus’s theory of ‘accidents’ in the case of events in the past: the Trojan War, they said, is something of which we are conscious now, but all the persons, of whom you say it was ‘an accident’, are long since dead, and we are not conscious of them, much less could we be of their ‘accidents’. Lucretius’s reply is twofold: he says first, in a rather frivolous spirit: ‘Well, we can say that it is an “accident” of the place, or if you object that that too has changed, of that part of space.’ Secondly, he replies seriously: ‘of course it was an “accident” of the persons, for, if they had not existed, neither could the Trojan War and its events.’

551. Again, if nature had ordained … an argument which is more obscure than it looks at first sight. Let us suppose that the rate of destruction is twice as quick as that of creation, and that it takes, e. g. ten years for a horse to be conceived, born, and come to maturity, starting from particles the size of the Lucretian atom: it will then require five for him to grow old and die, and dissolve again into the particles. If at the end of the twentieth year, nature requires to make another horse, the Lucretian atom would, so to speak, be there ready, having lain dormant for five years. But if there is no limit to destruction, during those five years the process of destruction will have been going on at an equal rate, and it will now require not ten but twenty years to put the particles together into a horse: and the next generation would require forty, and so on, creation never keeping pace with destruction. But, as it is, we see that there are fixed periods in which things can be created and come to maturity: there must then be a limit to destruction; in other words, there are ‘atoms’ (ἄ-τομοι, indivisible things). (This explanation and illustration come from Giussani’s edition of Lucretius.)

599. since there are extreme points … Another difficult proof of the complete solidity (and therefore indestructibility) of the atom. Lucretius is arguing, as Epicurus had taught [284] him to do, from the analogy of perceptible things. If we try, e. g. to fix our attention on the extreme point of a needle, we can see a point so small that, though it is perceptible itself, it is the minimum for sight: if we tried to see half of it, it would pass out of the range of vision altogether. The needle itself is composed of a countless number of such tiny points. In the same way then the atom is composed of a few minute parts, which can only exist as parts of the atom, and could not be separated from it; they are the minimum of material existence, and can have no existence apart from the atom which they compose. The atom then has extension, but not separable parts: in other words, is perfectly solid.

638. Heraclitus of Ephesus (about 510 bc) held that the primary substance of which the world was created was fire, which gave rise to other things by a perpetual flux; everything was either streaming upwards to form fuel for the fire, or downwards to the moisture which lay at the other end of the ‘path’. Lucretius takes him as typical of the class of early philosophers who believed that the world was made of one element, and introduces ideas which were not actually in Heraclitus’s theory: e. g. the notion of rarefaction and condensation really comes from Anaximenes, who believed air to be the primary material. Lucretius’s argument holds well enough for any such theory; if you select one element as the basis, then, if it changes into other things, it ceases to exist as itself; or if it continues to exist, then other things do not.

716. Empedocles of Agrigentum (about 440 bc) is selected as the type of the philosophers who held that the world was composed of more than one element; he himself believed that it was made of all four, earth, air, fire, and water, all eternal and indestructible, but capable by combination and separation of forming the perceptible world. Lucretius again embraces in his criticism two schools of thought, those who held that the elements retained their nature in combination (770 ff.), and those who held that they ‘changed’ into other [285] things (763 ff.). But his general criticism is just: on the one hand, Empedocles is too much of a pluralist, for by his four, always heterogeneous, elements he destroys the fundamental unity of the world; on the other, he is not enough of a pluralist, for the four elements are not sufficient to account for the infinite variety of phenomena.
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Re: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus

Postby admin » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:30 pm

PART 2 OF 2

717. that island, i. e. Sicily.

733. scarce born of human stock. Empedocles, who practised magic, seems to have laid claim to divine powers.

830. the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (about 440 bc), who held a theory which was an advance on that of the earlier philosophers, whom Lucretius criticizes, and really paved the way for atomism, but Lucretius has not understood him. He held, in the first place, that things were composed of ‘seeds’, small particles like in substance to the whole. But, as Lucretius points out, this will not account for the phenomena of change, which it was, in fact, Anaxagoras’s chief aim to explain. For this purpose he said indeed that ‘there is a portion of everything in everything’, but explained that these ‘portions’ were not merely extremely minute, but ‘only perceptible by reason’, i. e. we know that they are there, but never could see them. He came, in fact, near to the modern conception of chemical change, and the crude criticism of Lucretius from line 875 onwards is therefore beside the mark.

968. Moreover, suppose now, &c. This proof by imaginary experiment of the infinity of the universe is a famous one. It is used in much the same form by Locke, Essays II. 13.

1052. Herein shrink far from believing, &c. This theory, held again by the Stoics, that all things tend to the centre of the world, came, as will be seen, very near the truth, and was an approach to the modern idea of gravitation. Lucretius could not, of course, adopt it, as it was a direct contradiction of the fundamental Epicurean theory that the natural motion of things was always downwards (II. 184 ff.).

40. the spaces of the Campus, i. e. the Campus Martius, just outside the walls of Rome, on which military reviews were held, and sometimes an army would be encamped. Munro notes that in 58 bc Caesar had his army there for three months before starting for Gaul, and this occasion may well be in Lucretius’s mind. Indeed, above, in lines 12 and 13, he seems to be thinking of the rivalry of Caesar and Pompey.

83. For since they wander through the void, &c. The account of the movement of the free atoms in the void is a little confused in this and the following passages. Lucretius really conceives of three causes of their movement: (1) the natural fall downwards due to their weight; (2) the occasional slight swerve sideways (216 ff.); (3) the movement due to the collisions originally brought about by this swerve. Here, rather illogically, he only mentions (1) and (3), as he is reserving his account of (2) owing to its special importance.

124. traces of a concept. See note on line 744.

127. such jostlings hint, &c. A very important passage for Lucretius’s theory of motion. All atoms are always moving at the full atomic speed (142 ff.), even in compound bodies, inside which, as they collide with one another, they accomplish tiny trajectories, each moving in the direction which the last blow gave it, until it collides with another atom, and is started in a new direction. This internal vibration in all directions will of course retard the motion of the whole, and we must imagine the atoms forming tiny molecules, and then slightly larger bodies, with ever lessening motion, until, when the bodies are large enough for us to perceive, such as the motes in the sunbeam, the motion is also sufficiently retarded to be visible to us. All this, though not clearly stated, is implied in these few lines.

153. Nor again do the several particles, &c. Here the idea of internal vibration and consequent retardation comes out [287] very clearly; even the sun’s light is so impeded, as well as by the opposition of the air, through which it passes.

185. no bodily thing can of its own force, &c. This is again an important point: upward motion is always the result of external force. Even among the atoms it can only happen as the result of collisions, when e.g. one atom is squeezed between two others and thus shot up.

219. push a little from their path. The notion of the slight swerve of the atoms and its tremendous result in the free will of man is a supremely important point in the Epicurean philosophy, for it combats Democritus’s belief in complete determinism, which Epicurus regarded as a more dangerous enemy to morality than even religion. See Introduction, p. 17.

225. But if perchance any one believes. This paragraph contains one of Lucretius’s most acute pieces of reasoning, that in a vacuum all things fall at the same pace.

269. so that you see a start of movement, &c. The relation between the swerve of the atoms and man’s free-will is, of course, to Lucretius’s mind not a mere analogy: the former is the cause of the latter. The mind is composed of a subtle texture of fine atoms (III. 161 ff.), and it is the swerving of these atoms which gives rise to an act of will.

410. the barsh shuddering sound, &c. Sound, in Lucretius’s notion, is caused, just like sight or smell, by a body of particles given off by the object, and penetrating the ear (IV. 523 ff.).

485. For suppose the first bodies, &c. For this idea of the inseparable ‘least parts’ in the atom see I. 599 ff.

532. For because you see, &c. Here we meet a curious principle of Epicurus, which Lucretius nowhere states, but often acts on, of the ‘equal distribution’ (ἰσονομία) of things. If a certain class is rare in some parts of the world, or even in our world altogether, it will be found in plenty in other parts of the world or the universe: there is, on the whole, an equal number of things of the same kind. Compare 569 ff. for a similar idea.

598. the Great Mother of the gods. This was the title of the earth-goddess, Cybele, whose worship had been brought to Rome from Phrygia in 204 bc Lucretius in the next paragraph explains the ceremonial of the cult allegorically.

629. Then comes an armed band, &c. There was always in antiquity some confusion between the worship of Cybele in Phrygia and that of the Mother in Crete, which was heightened by the fact that in each place the scene of the worship was on Mount Ida. Modern investigation seems to show that the Phrygian worship was actually derived from the Cretan.

701. for you would see monsters, &c. Lucretius returns to this idea of the impossibility of the formation of monsters with parts derived from different races of animals, and supports it with rather different arguments in V. 878 ff.

740. that the mind cannot project itself into these bodies. A reference to a rather obscure idea in the psychology of Epicurus. The mind being an aggregation of soul-atoms, its thoughts are caused when these atoms are stirred by images coming from things outside or from its own stores (IV. 722 ff.). But the mind has a power of spontaneously ‘projecting itself upon’ the images (ἐπιβολὴ τη̑ς διανοίας), which results in attention, observation, selection, &c., or sometimes, when it so combines more than one image in its grasp, in the creation of a new conception. Here Lucretius imagines his reader as doubting whether it was possible for the mind by such an act of ‘projection’ to grasp the idea, i. e. to ‘visualize’, colourless atoms. He replies by the analogy of the blind, suggesting that we must think of the atoms as something which could be touched but not seen. Compare lines 1047 and 1080 of this book.

744. may become a clear concept. Another technical notion of Epicurus. The mind had ready in itself general notions or concepts of classes of things, to which it could refer, when any new instance of the class occurred; thus, we know, e. g. that ‘this is a horse’, because we have the general idea of ‘horse’ to which to refer (for this reason Epicurus gave the concepts the rather curious name of προλήψεις, ‘anticipations’). [289] These general concepts were formed, in the case of perceptible objects, by the storing up in the mind of a series of single impressions, which formed a sort of ‘composite photograph’. But in the case of imperceptible things, such as the atoms, he probably conceived of their being formed by a combination of existing concepts by a ‘projection of the mind’. So here, by combining the concept of an atom with that of touch without sight, we get the ‘clear concept’ of a colourless atom. Easier cases of the application of the idea of ‘concepts’ will be found in II. 124, IV. 476, V. 124, 182, 1047.

865. It must needs be, &c. This proof, that things which themselves have sensation, are yet created of atoms that have not, is of course of immense importance for the next Book, in which Lucretius is going to prove that the soul is mortal.

902. Next, those who think, &c., a difficult and very tersely expressed argument. If there are sensible atoms, they must be like in substance to such sensible things as we know, veins, sinews, &c. If so, they are soft, and therefore not mortal, which is the very reverse of what Lucretius’s imaginary opponents would wish to prove.

908. still doubtless they must either have, &c. Again the argument is put very briefly and obscurely. He appeals once more to our experience. We only know two kinds of sensation, (1) the sensation of a complete sentient being, as when ‘I feel well’ or ‘happy’, (2) the sensation of a part of such a being, as when ‘my tooth aches’. If then the atoms, which compose sentient beings, have themselves sensation, it must be of one of these two kinds. But firstly, parts only have sensation as parts of a sentient whole: my tooth only feels as a part of me, and would not feel if it were taken out. In this case the individual atoms, apart from the whole compound, would have no sensation. Secondly, they may be each of them complete sentient beings; but then (a) like other sentient beings they must be mortal (see note on 902), (b) they could not by coming together produce one sentient being, [290] but only a jumble of independent sentient beings, unless (c) in uniting they lose their own sense and combine to form the new sense of the compound being; in this case why attribute sense to them as individuals?

931. But if by chance any one shall say, &c. A slightly different position to that just dealt with. It may be admitted that the atoms are not sentient when separate, but they become sentient in the compound. No, replies Lucretius; by their union they form a sentient body, but the individual atoms always remain insentient.

975. whereof the race of men has its peculiar increment, i. e. the sensible atoms, which, according to the theory Lucretius is opposing, man has in addition to the non-sensible atoms which compose his body. This argument is of course not to be taken quite seriously: Lucretius is fond of finishing a series of serious proofs with a reductio ad absurdum. Compare III. 367, 776, and especially I. 918.

1011. what we see floating on the surface of things is the ‘secondary qualities’, and especially colour, as he has explained at great length: what we see at times coming to birth and … passing away is similarly sensation. This paragraph is a summing up of all he has said from line 730 onwards.

1047. the unfettered projection of our mind: see note on line 740. This is clearly a case where the mind, by its own free effort, puts concepts together to form a new conclusion.

1077. in the universe there is nothing single: for this argument see note on line 532.

1154. For it was no golden rope, &c. A reference to the famous passage in Homer, Iliad, 8. 19, where Zeus challenges the other gods to attach a golden rope to him and pull him down from heaven to earth. The Stoics had apparently interpreted the passage allegorically as referring to the creation of life on earth.

19. which neither the winds shake, &c. Again an allusion to a famous passage in Homer, Od. VI. 42 ff., which has passed on into English in Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur.

43. that the soul’s nature is of blood, or else of wind. The theory that the soul was made of blood was that of Empedocles, of wind that of Critias.

94. First I say that the mind … All through this book we must distinguish carefully, as Lucretius does, between the mind (animus), which is an aggregate of pure ‘soul-atoms’ situated in the breast, and is the seat of thought and volition, and the soul or vital principle (anima), which is made of similar atoms, but scattered throughout the body and mixed with the body atoms, and is the cause of sensation in the body. Sometimes, however, when he is making statements which apply to both, he uses one or other of the terms in an inclusive sense.

100. which the Greeks call a harmony. Lucretius is thinking particularly of Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, who was a great theoretical musician, and applied his musical theory to the explanation of the human soul.

241. some fourth nature. This idea of the mysterious fourth nature, which is infinitely subtle, and is the ultimate cause of sensation and thought, has often been claimed as a practical admission by Lucretius of something supra-material or spiritual in the mind. But of course he conceives it as purely corporeal, just like any of the other component elements.

262. with the motions of first-beginnings. See II. 127 and the note on that passage; the idea of the internal vibrations of the atoms there illustrated is what Lucretius has in his mind here.

323. This nature then of the soul, &c. This notion of the very intimate union of soul and body, so that while the body protects the soul, the soul in return lends the body sensation [292] is not very clearly expressed, but is of course of great importance for the subsequent discussion; neither soul nor body can continue to exist without the presence and help of the other.

367. if our eyes are as doors, &c. Another example of the reductio ad absurdum as the conclusion of a serious argument.

371. Democritus of Abdera (about 430bc), was, with Leucippus, the earliest exponent of the atomic theory. He is always regarded with great respect by Lucretius, who carefully notes this point, on which Epicurus differed from him (compare V. 621). See Introduction, p. 12.

417. the minds and the light souls … This is, of course, the main purpose of the book, to prove that the soul is mortal, and that therefore there is no reason to fear its punishment after death. There follows a rather bewildering series of twenty-eight proofs, which are not well classified or arranged by Lucretius, but we can distinguish three main lines of argument: (1) proofs from the previously described structure of soul and body; (2) proofs from death, disease, and cure, showing the close parallelism between soul and body; (3) arguments from the absurdity of the conception of the soul existing alone apart from body.

421. Be it yours, &c.: a warning that in this section he means to speak comprehensively of the mind and the soul, and that what is said of the one is applicable to the other. See note on line 94.

430. by images of smoke and cloud. A reference to the theory of ‘images’, or ‘idols’, as the cause of vision and thought which is expounded in Book IV.

548. And since the mind is one part of man. The mind, whose peculiar sensation, thought, is aroused, just like all other sensations, by touch, is here treated as practically another organ of sense.

597. the heart has had a shock, or the heart has failed: these are meant to be phrases of quite common parlance, and to translate them we must, I think, use ‘the heart’, though [293] Lucretius uses his ordinary words for ‘mind’ and ‘soul’. Seeing that he placed the mind in the breast, the change is not so far wrong.

627. Nor in any other way can we picture to ourselves, &c.: notice that the test of truth is the possibility of ‘visualization’, as it must be for the Epicurean, to whom it was the only mode of thought.

679. Moreover, if when our body, &c. The argument of this paragraph is not so clear as it might be; it is really a dilemma. If an already formed soul enters our body at the moment of birth, (a) if it keeps its independent existence, it could never become so closely linked and connected with our body, as we see it is; (b) (line 698) if it is dispersed among the limbs, it does not maintain its existence, it perishes, and the soul in the body is a different soul to that which existed before.

741. Again, why does fiery passion, &c. An interesting argument in support of heredity as against the notion of the transmigration of souls.

772. Or why does it desire, &c. In this and the next paragraph we notice again the reductio ad absurdum towards the conclusion; it has already obtruded itself in lines 725 ff.

784. Again, a tree cannot exist in the sky, &c. A new line of argument, that everything in nature has its fixed place, and that of the soul is in the body. Lucretius applies the same argument again in almost the same words in V. 128 ff.

806. Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting, &c. Another general principle, that there are certain fixed conditions for immortality, none of which the soul fulfils. Again Lucretius repeats the argument in Book V. 351 ff. to prove that our world is not immortal.

830. Death, then, is naught to us, &c. From here to the end of the book follows a kind of triumph-song over the mortality of the soul. ‘We need not fear death, for after it there is no part of us surviving to feel anything.’ It is really the climax of the poem.

876. he does not, I trow, grant, &c.: perhaps a little obscure. [294] Such a man professes to grant that his soul does not survive his death on the grounds which Lucretius has just been discussing. But he does not in practice admit either the one or the other, as he half-consciously assumes that some part of him will survive to feel what happens to his body.

891. and to grow stiff with cold: this is not an alternative mode of burial, but goes closely with what has just preceded. After embalming, the Romans often left the corpse lying on a rock slab in the vault, or on the bier on which it was brought.

936. as though heaped in a vessel full of holes. Lucretius is thinking of the legend of the Danaids, to which he specially refers in lines 1008 ff.

971. to none for freehold, to all on lease. Lucretius is here using two technical terms of Roman law: mancipium was a full legal process of acquiring a possession, which gave the owner the most complete title to it, usus, the mere right of possession by custom, or ‘usufruct’. It seems best to accept parallel expressions in English, rather than to introduce their exact equivalents, which would have a very prosy effect, into the text.

1025. Ancus the good. Of course Ancus Martius, the legendary fourth king of Rome. Lucretius takes this line from the Annals of Ennius.

1029. he himself, who once … Xerxes.

1. I traverse the distant haunts, &c. These verses are repeated with a few slight changes, from I. 921 ff.

34. idols: it seems best to translate Lucretius’s word simulacra in this way, as it is itself a translation of Epicurus’s word εἴδωλον. The famous theory of vision is clearly explained here by Lucretius himself.

67. above all, since on the surface of things, &c.: a passage with more meaning than is at first apparent. When in the [295] compound body all the atoms are moving at great speed in their tiny trajectories (see note on II. 527), it is obvious that those in the inner part are well hemmed in. But those on the surface have none outside to beat them back, and so are much more liable to break away from the object; it is these then that form the films, which produce vision.

193. first, because it is a tiny cause, &c. This is a very esoteric piece of Epicurean physics. We saw (see note on II. 127) that the speed of the unimpeded atom was much greater than that of any compound of atoms, however small, as the latter is checked by internal vibration. For the same reason the impact of the unimpeded atom is greatest, and it can therefore impart greater speed to any object which it hits. The films are sent on their way by the blows of other single atoms inside the compound, and the ‘tiny cause’ is therefore able to impart great speed to them.

199. Moreover, when particles of things, &c. Another rather abstruse piece of theory. Particles coming from deep within things are obstructed and jostled by the atoms, through which they have to make their way, and therefore have their speed diminished. But those which start from the surface, start, so to speak, without this initial handicap, and therefore attain a much greater rate of motion.

241. But because we can see them only … A very confused statement. Lucretius seems to be combining two points that he wished to state: (1) that these images are constantly hitting us in all parts of our body, but we can only see them with our eyes; (2) as the images are constantly streaming off bodies on all sides, wherever we turn our eyes, we see them.

246. For when it is given off, &c. Not a very satisfactory account. For (a) how can our eyes measure the length of this ‘draught’ from objects which passes through them; (b) even if they could, how can they know at what moment the ‘draught’ from any particular object, which they are going to see, begins?

256. Herein by no means must we deem, &c. An important [296] point. We do not see the individual ‘idols’ of things, but their constant succession gives us a ‘cinematographic’ impression of the whole object.

311. flank-curved mirrors: probably a special name for concave horizontal mirrors.

315. or else because the image, &c.: a very ingenious but not very clear explanation. The idea is that with a flat mirror the whole surface of the image meets the mirror at once and is returned as it is, but with the curved mirror one corner of the image would touch it before the rest, and the result would be that the image would be given a twist and turned round so that it reached us again ‘right-handed’.

322. inasmuch as nature, &c.: as we say in modern scientific language, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. These two lines ought possibly to be placed, as Giussani suggests, after line 307, where they would be more immediately in place. Here they give a general principle, which is the real cause of all the last four phenomena.

353. And when we see from afar off, &c. The problem of the square tower, which seems round at a distance, was one of the traditional difficulties of the Epicurean school. This explanation, however, tends to destroy our trust in the ‘idols’ as true evidence of things, and it is doubtful whether it was Epicurus’s own.

387. The ship, in which we journey, &c. There follows an interesting list of ‘optical illusions’, in all of which Lucretius holds that the mistake lies not in the sense-perception, but in the inferences made by the mind.

469. Again, if any one thinks, &c. This protest against scepticism and vindication of the veracity of the senses is the keystone of the whole Epicurean philosophy: every other part of it really depends on this.

476. the concept of the true and the false. The concept, as we have seen (see note on II. 744), must be produced by a series of individual experiences. If a man has never perceived anything [297] true with the senses, how can he have the concept of truth?

483. Will reason, sprung from false sensation, &c. Reason is based on the senses, for its function is to distinguish and correlate the impressions given by the senses. If then the senses are false, much more must reason be: it cannot act as a criterion of the truth of sense-perceptions. The same idea is found in a famous passage of Democritus, quoted in the Introduction, p. 13.

493. all that goes along with colour is form in its various aspects of surface-outline, bulk, size, &c.

524. First of all, every kind of sound, &c. Sound is in Lucretius’s idea a corporeal emission, much like the ‘idols’ of vision, which strikes upon the ear.

615. Nor do the tongue and palate, &c. The case of taste is easy, because it can be accounted for directly by touch, and it is not necessary to assume the intervention of emissions.

673. Come now, I will tell, &c. In the case of smell Lucretius has again to assume the effluence or emission to act as a link between the nose and the object.

694. Firstly, because coming from deep within, &c. Compare the argument in lines 199 ff., and the note there.

710. Nay, indeed, ravening lions, &c. This curious fact is vouched for by Pliny and Plutarch.

722. Come now, let me tell you, &c. The mind being an aggregation of corporeal atoms, just like eye or ear, thought must be produced just like sight or hearing, by the stirring of the atoms of the mind by ‘idols’.

777. And in these matters, &c. Another obscurely expressed passage. The main idea is simple, if we bear in mind always the Lucretian conception of thought as ‘visualization’. The mind can think of whatever it will, because there are at all times present to it ‘idols’ of every sort, and it can turn its attention to any one of these it likes by a ‘projection’ (see note on II. 740).

823. Herein you must eagerly, &c. An argument against [298] the teleological view of nature, which Lucretius of course dislikes because it might seem to support the theological idea that the gods made the world with a purpose. The eye, says Lucretius, was not made in order that we might see, but because it has been created we do see.

860. For verily I have shown, &c. Compare especially II. 1128 ff.

883. Then comes the will, &c.: this passage should be read in connexion with the theory of free-will, and its origin in the slight swerving of the atoms in II. 216 ff.

897. that the body, like a ship, is borne on by sails and wind. This is almost certainly the sense of this corrupt line, but the parallel does not work out very well. The sails should correspond to the act of will in the body, the wind to the external force, the air entering the pores. But the sails are of no use without the wind. It is possible, as has been suggested, that the ‘two things’ are the entering air and the parts of the body which it reaches. This would make the parallel more satisfactory, but does not seem likely to be what Lucretius meant, as the distinction would not be important enough.

916. First of all sleep comes to pass. Notice again the purely material explanation. Sleep is the absence of sensation, which is due to the soul. It must be then that the soul-atoms in sleep are either scattered about in the body, or driven out of it, or retreat far within below the surface. Even more strictly physical is the account in the next paragraph of how this comes to be.

1063. it is best to flee those images, &c. The attack on love was part of the traditional philosophy of Epicurus, who thought it destructive to a man’s peace of mind to be too dependent on others, but we cannot help remembering all through this passage the story that Lucretius himself was maddened by a love-philtre, and ultimately driven to commit suicide.

22. of Hercules: Lucretius deals at such special length with Hercules because he was adopted as their particular hero by the Stoics.

117. the giants, who attempted to assail heaven by piling Pelion on Ossa, and were punished by imprisonment beneath the earth, Enceladus being shut beneath Etna.

155. all which I will hereafter prove to you: but he never does. It has been thought, with much probability, that Lucretius’s intention was to close the whole poem, after the description of the plague of Athens, with a discussion and picture of the nature and life of the gods, clinching the whole argument of the poem with the proof that they could take no part in the government of the world. He does indeed return to the question of the origin of religion in this book (lines 1161 ff.), but that passage cannot be what he refers to here.

182. the concept of man. This is a very good instance of the technical idea of the ‘anticipation’ (see note on II. 744). If the gods had not in their minds a ‘concept’ of man, resulting from previous sense-perceptions, how could they have set about to make a man? One is tempted to reply ‘after their own image’.

195. But even if I knew not, &c. Lucretius’s rather crude contribution to the problem of the existence of evil.

235. First of all, &c.: the poet now returns, after the long digression about the gods and the theory of the divine creation of the world, to the point which he left at line 110, that the world had a birth and will be destroyed.

281. Likewise that bounteous source, &c. A rather subtle notion: that what appears to us as a continuous stream of light from the sun, or even from torches, &c., on earth, is really a constant succession of small particles of light, the foremost ever perishing, and their place being taken by fresh particles from behind.

320. as some tell: of course the Stoics as usual. This passage is interesting, as it is an adaptation by Lucretius of verses in which the tragic poet Pacuvius had expressed the Stoic doctrine.

351. Moreover, if ever things abide, &c. Compare III. 806 ff. and the note on that passage.

411. Moisture likewise, &c. The story of the flood of Deucalion and Pyrrha was of course familiar in antiquity. Compare e. g. Horace, Odes i. 2. 5 ff.

443. From this mass, &c. This idea of an original chaos, out of which a world was formed by the union of the like and the separation of the unlike, was, in its main outlines, traditional among the Greek physical philosophers, but Epicurus explained how it might be brought about without the gratuitous assumption of an unaccountable ‘whirl’ or an arbitrary ‘necessity’, such as previous thinkers had assumed.

510. if the great globe of the sky turns round, &c. The ideas of Lucretius’s astronomy are often curious and complicated, but we must always bear in mind that he conceives the world as a sphere, in the centre of the interior of which is suspended [301] the earth; moon, sun, and stars move round it in orbits at ever-increasing distance, and above them, forming the ‘walls of the world’, comes the ether. The axis of the world he conceived to be inclined. In this passage he first considers the theory that the world as a whole moves round; we must then conceive it as held firm at each end of its axis by the pressure of air at each of the poles (P), and then caused to rotate by a current either flowing above (a, a) in the direction in which the heavenly bodies are seen to move, or below (b, b) in the opposite direction, as a water-mill is moved by the stream flowing beneath it. He then considers other ideas which may be advanced on the supposition that the world does not move round as a whole. He puts them forward as all worthy of consideration on Epicurus’s principle, that where our senses do not give us direct information, we ought to consider as possible all explanations which do not conflict with the evidence of the senses.

Image
Fig. 1.

535. it is natural that its mass should, &c. A very curious idea: that the earth on the underside gradually ‘thins out’ and so forms a light ‘second nature’ beneath it, which makes a link to connect it with the air beneath it, and so acts as a kind of ‘spring-mattress’, by which it is continually supported, and does not press heavily on the air.

564. Nor can the sun’s blazing wheel, &c. This paragraph illustrates a principle of Epicurus complementary to that found in 510 ff.: that, where the senses do give us evidence, we must trust it absolutely. Our sight tells us that sun and moon are of a certain size: they must, then, be of that size. He supports the theory with the curious statements that even on earth fires and lights do not appear to diminish in bulk, so long as they send out light and heat, nor so long as their outline is clear and not blurred.

592. This, too, is not wonderful, &c. In this paragraph again, as in many others that follow, we see the principle that all explanations, not contradicted by the senses, are to be considered as possible.

596. For it may be that from this spot, &c.: the idea is that the sun is an opening, or breach in the ‘walls of the world’, through which myriads of particles of light from outside the world stream into it.

614. Nor is there any single account of the sun, &c. An obscure section, because Lucretius is guilty of confusion. The apparent path of the sun in the heavens has two notable features: (1) he appears to make a complete circuit of the heavens in the year, from west to east, just as the moon does in a month, and the planets in longer periods than the sun; (2) this circuit is not in the same plane as the equator: wherefore it seems that the sun goes up and down as well as round. Of the two explanations given by Lucretius, the first (621-36) would explain the former phenomenon, the second (637-45) the latter, but Lucretius has unfortunately represented them not as concurrent explanations of a complex phenomenon, but as alternative explanations of the whole.

Image
Fig. 2.

(1) Democritus’s theory of the relative orbits of sun, moon, and planets may be explained by the accompanying diagram (Fig. 2). Suppose that in a given time the stars have actually [303] moved on the outer rim of the world from a to α: the planets moving more slowly, as they are nearer the earth and thus less influenced by the ‘whirl’ of the heavens, will in the same time have moved from b to b1, the sun from c to c1, and the moon, slower still, from d to d1. But with reference to the stars, which seem fixed, the planets seem to have moved from β to b1, the sun from γ to c1, and the moon from δ to d1.

(2) But this orbit being set in a different plane to that of the equator, the effect is of the sun passing down towards the south in the autumn until in winter he reaches the tropic, or turning-point of Capricorn, and northwards in the spring until in summer he reaches the tropic of Cancer. This, it is suggested (637-49), was brought about by winds blowing ‘athwart his course’.

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Fig. 3.

643. those stars which roll through … i. e. the planets.

651. either when after his long journey, &c.: this theory, that the sun was extinguished each night, and a new sun lit in the morning, was that of Heraclitus: the other is the normal idea of ancient astronomy.

656. Likewise at a fixed time, &c. The two following theories of the dawn correspond exactly to the two immediately preceding theories of the sun’s light; if he completes a circle under the earth, dawn is the advance light of his return; if [304] a new sun is created each day, dawn is caused by the light gathering to form the sun.

Matuta was an ancient Roman deity of the dawn.

682. either because the same sun, &c. Another difficult section, though its general meaning is comparatively clear. The sun performs apparently both an annual orbit round the heavens, with which Lucretius has already dealt (614-49), and also a daily revolution. At most times of the year he divides the circle of the daily revolution unequally: in the winter he is for the greater part below the horizon, so that night is longer Fig. 4 (1); in the summer he is for the greater part above the horizon, so that day is longer (3); but at the equinoxes he divides his circle exactly into semi-circles, so that day and night are equal (2). This occurs twice in the year, at the equinoxes or ‘nodes’, the points at which the sun’s orbit cuts the equator (Fig. 5). The exact interpretation of lines 689-93 has been very much disputed, especially with regard to the precise meaning of the ‘turning-points’: are they a point in the annual orbit or in the daily revolution? I take the whole passage to depend on what Lucretius has already said about the annual orbit in lines 614-49: ‘the blast of the north wind and of the south’ refers to the theory that the sun was blown out of his natural course to the tropics: the ‘turning-points’ are, just as they were in line 617, the tropics. The passage means then, that mid-way in the sun’s course from north to south and south to north the sun holds [305] his ‘turning-points’ at equal distances apart; i. e. he is on the equator. The effect of this, Lucretius implies but does not state, is that day is then exactly equal to night, for when the sun is on the equator he rises due east and sets due west—in other words, his daily revolution is exactly along the line of the equator, and is therefore performed, as may be seen from the figure, exactly half above and half below the horizon.

Image
Fig. 4.

Image
Fig. 5. T=the Earth; PP=the Poles; NESW=the Horizon; EQWR=the Equator; ΩCΓL=the Eliptic; ΩΓ=the Equinoxes or Nodes.

(A fuller description and explanation of Lucretius’s idea of the ‘heavenly globe’ may be found in the introduction to Mr. J. D. Duff’s edition of Book v, to which I am much indebted.)

696. Or else, because, &c.: this second explanation still rests on the assumption of ‘the same sun’ performing a daily journey under the earth, whereas the third (line 701) depends on the Heraclitean notion of a new sun being kindled every day (compare lines 651 ff. and 660 ff.).

705. The moon may shine, &c. Similarly in this paragraph [306] the first three explanations regard the moon as passing below the earth and re-appearing, the fourth (line 731 ff.) assumes the creation of a new moon every day. Lines 729-730 are a very emphatic expression of the principle that we must accept all explanations equally, if they do not contradict phenomena.

727. the Babylonian teaching of the Chaldaeans, especially the theory of Berosus.

737. Spring goes on her way and Venus, &c. This description is probably based on some pantomimic representation of the Seasons, or on a picture. Modern readers naturally think of Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’, and indeed it is not at all unlikely that that picture was actually founded on this passage, as his ‘Mars and Venus’ almost certainly was on a passage of Politian in the Giostra, which was based on Lucretius’s description in Book I. 31-40.

751. Likewise also the eclipses of the sun, &c. None of these explanations present any difficulty with the exception of the first theory of the eclipse of the moon (762-4). This is, of course, the correct explanation: the earth, obstructing the rays of the sun, forms a shadow in the shape of a cone, and when the moon passes into it, it is eclipsed (Fig. 6). But it is, of course, quite inconsistent with the Epicurean theory that the sun and moon are the size we see them, i. e. both very greatly smaller than the earth, for in that case the shadow thrown will not take the form of a cone at all, and the eclipses of the moon would be of much more frequent occurrence and [307] longer duration than they are (Fig. 7). This is the most important of several indications that Lucretius did not really understand his astronomy, and took much of it from the ordinary astronomical hand-books, without considering carefully how far it could be reconciled with Epicurean principles.

Image
Fig. 6.

Image
Fig. 7.

808. there grew up wombs: a curiously naïve device, by which Lucretius tries to account for the transition from vegetable to animal life. He seems to be a little conscious of its improbability, and is careful just afterwards (813) to supply an analogy for this apparently gratuitous act of kindness on the part of the earth.

837. And many monsters too earth, &c. In this idea of the early experiments of nature we get a glimmering of the modern notions of Evolution and Natural Selection, which become more prominent in the next paragraph. It is one of [308] Lucretius’s most remarkable anticipations of modern scientific belief.

878. But neither were there Centaurs, &c. The impossibility of the formation of monsters of this sort, combined of parts belonging to different races of animals, has been dealt with already in II. 700 ff.

925. But the race of man, &c. Lucretius’s study of primitive man, again, has always been admired for its insight, and is all the more remarkable when one remembers the strong prevalence in antiquity of the notion of a Golden Age.

1020. not to burt or be barmed. Here we have the germs of the theory of the Social Compact as the origin of Society.

1028. But the diverse sounds of the tongue, &c. There was always a controversy in antiquity as to whether language was made by convention (θέσει) or grew up naturally (ϕύσει). Lucretius, consistently with the attitude taken up all through this book, decides for the latter view.

1047. the concept of their use. See note on II. 744.

1169. For indeed already the races of mortals, &c. It is a matter of great difficulty to decide exactly how Epicurus and Lucretius conceived the immortal nature of the gods, and the evidence is very insufficient. But it is certain that they supposed them to dwell in the ‘interspaces between the worlds’ (intermundia), and to become known to men by a constant succession of ‘idols’, which streamed off their bodies, preserving the ‘form unchanged’, and, being too subtle to be perceived by the senses, passed through the pores of the body into the mind, and there stirred the soul-atoms.

1198. with veiled head turning towards a stone, &c. Lucretius is here carefully recalling the ceremonial of Roman worship. The Roman always veiled his head (as opposed to the Greek), approached with the image of the god on his right hand, and in this position made his prayer. He then turned towards the image and prostrated himself on the ground.

1234. the glorious rods and relentless axes, the insignia of the Roman magistrates.

1294. the form of the bronze sickle, &c. Lucretius is probably thinking of its use for purposes of magic.

1302. the Lucanian kine, i. e. elephants, which were said to have been so called because they were first seen by the Romans in Lucania in the army of Pyrrhus.

1344. And you could more readily maintain, &c. For this curious argument that if this practice did not obtain on our earth, it probably did somewhere in the universe, compare what Lucretius says in 526 ff. about the motions of the stars.

20. in part because he saw that it was leaking, &c.: for this description of the human mind compare the explanation of the legend of the Danaids in III. 1003 ff.

31. be it by the chance or the force of nature. One of the few places where Lucretius in so many words implies that nature does act by chance, as well as by law. That there is the element of chance is probably due to the original swerving of the atoms; see Introduction, p. 18.

71. not that the high majesty of the gods, &c. A particularly interesting passage for the Epicurean conception of the relation of man and the gods. The superstitious beliefs of the old religion are an offence against the majesty of the gods, living their placid life untroubled by the world. Yet they will not lead to direct punishment at the hands of the gods, for that is impossible. But they will prevent those who hold them from approaching the gods with the proper tranquillity of spirit, and so deriving the greatest benefit from their worship. The passage shows clearly that the gods were to men a perfect example of the ideal life, and that their worship should be one of contemplation; it also explains how, when, as we are told, Epicurus himself and his immediate followers scrupulously attended the ceremonies of religious worship, they may have done so without inconsistency.

165. because things always move more slowly, &c.: another [310] notable piece of Epicurean observation, that light travels more quickly than sound.

340. Once again, because it comes with long-lasting impulse, &c. This conception of the thunderbolt gathering speed as it goes, and the accompanying explanation, are based on the fundamental Epicurean notions of the movement of bodies (see note on II. 127.) In any compound body, even of so rare a texture as the thunderbolt, there is, of course, internal vibration, and though the whole body is moving in one direction the atoms which compose it will be moving in all directions and colliding with one another, and so retarding it. But there is always a tendency that the sideways and upward movement of the atoms resulting from blows should in time yield to their own natural tendency to fall owing to weight. In the case of a falling body this means that more and more atoms are always coming to move in the direction of the whole, and that therefore the speed of the whole body tends continually to increase. Lucretius has not expressed this very clearly, but considering the passage in the light of the general theory of motion, this must be its meaning.

364. the narrow channel is not to be thought of as something which separates lands, but rather as something which connects seas and mixes their waters (e. g. the Straits of the Bosphorus). So here, spring and autumn join the cold of winter with the warmth of summer.

381. the Tyrrhenian prophecies: it was generally supposed that the Romans obtained their system of auguries and omens from the Etruscans.

387. But if Jupiter, &c. Lucretius, in concluding this long section on the phenomena of thunder and lightning, comes back to his main purpose of attacking the traditional religion and its superstitious beliefs.

424. presters, i. e. fiery whirlwinds (πίμπρημι).

542. clear fact demands, &c. It is not obvious at first sight why this should be so. It may be that here we have another, and rather arbitrary, application of the curious principle of [311] equilibrium (ἰσονομία). Compare II. 532 and the note there. But more probably he is thinking of his description in V. 492 ff. of the formation of the irregular surface of the upper earth, and argues on grounds of general probability that the same sort of process had taken place on the lower side.

660. the holy fire was the name given in antiquity to erysipelas; compare Virgil, Georg. iii. 566.

685. For air becomes wind, when, &c. This is not such a puerile comment as it looks at first sight, for to Lucretius ‘air’ and ‘wind’ were two distinct, though kindred, substances. (Compare the account of the composition of the soul, III. 231 ff.) The air, then, by being ‘set in motion’, would lose some of its own characteristic atoms, and acquire others, which would convert it into wind.

740. the name Avernian. Avernus in its Greek form Ἄορνος means ‘Birdless’.

754. because of their vigil. The story (told by Ovid, Metam. II. 542-565) was that the daughters of Cecrops, against the orders of Pallas, opened the chest containing the infant Erichthonius. The crow, who was on the watch, flew off and told Pallas, but she, in furious anger at what had been done, banished him for ever from the Acropolis.

810. Scaptensula: the Latin name for the famous mines of Σκαπτὴ Ὕλη in Thrace.

848. the shrine of Ammon: of course of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert. As Giussani remarks, the possession of a thermometer in antiquity would have made considerable difference to these observations.

890. at Aradus: an island off the coast of Phoenicia, whose fresh-water spring was famous. The point of the comparison is of course simply that the seeds of fire well up through the water, just as the fresh water does through the salt at Aradus.

937. in the beginning of my poem too: he is thinking primarily, no doubt, of I. 329, &c., where he showed that ‘there is void in things’, but also of II. 95 ff., where he explained in what manner this occurred.

954. Again, where the breastplate of the sky, &c. This passage has been much discussed and very variously corrected and explained, but Giussani’s view seems much the most probable. As a crowning instance of the porosity of things, the poet takes the world itself: though it is surrounded with a breastplate (compare ‘the walls of the world’, I. 73, &c.), yet even through this there penetrate, as he has described in lines 483 ff., storms, tempest, and pestilence.

1002. First of all it must needs be, &c. Lucretius’s exposition in this paragraph is not quite so orderly or lucid as usual, but it all follows quite directly from his main principles. Ordinarily things are surrounded on all sides by countless moving atoms, which batter against them and are in part the cause of their holding together. The effluence streaming off from the magnet knocks away these particles and creates a void between itself and the iron ring. The atoms on that side of the ring are therefore impelled by the internal air and vibration, and the external air and battering particles on the other sides, to move towards that part, where there is now no opposition. This they proceed to do, but because the atoms of iron are so closely interlaced, they cannot disentangle themselves, but of necessity drag the whole ring along with them towards the magnet.



1107. where the axis of the world slants crippled. The ancients conceived that the axis of the earth (and consequently also of the world) was on a slant, rising towards Scythia and sinking towards Egypt. Just the same idea is found in Virgil, Georgic I. 240. The idea is characteristic of the atomic school, and is found in Leucippus (Aet. 12. 1, Diels, Leucippus, 27).

1138. Such a cause of plague, &c. Lucretius here describes the famous plague of Athens in 430 bc, and very closely follows the account given by Thucydides ii. 47-54.
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