Of the Nature of Things. T. Lucretius Carus

Must be compound of alien substances.

       Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.

       Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use

       The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash

       Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood

       Must be compound of alien substances

       Which spring from out the wood.

       Right here remains

       A certain slender means to skulk from truth,

       Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,

       Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all

       While that one only comes to view, of which

       The bodies exceed in number all the rest,

       And lie more close to hand and at the fore--

       A notion banished from true reason far.

       For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains

       Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones,

       Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else

       Which in our human frame is fed; and that

       Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.

       Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops

       Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;

       Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up

       The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,

       All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;

       Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood

       Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.

       But since fact teaches this is not the case,

       'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things

       Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things,

       Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.

       "But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,

       "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed

       One against other, smote by the blustering south,

       Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."

       Good sooth--yet fire is not ingraft in wood,

       But many are the seeds of heat, and when

       Rubbing together they together flow,

       They start the conflagrations in the forests.

       Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay

       Stored up within the forests, then the fires

       Could not for any time be kept unseen,

       But would be laying all the wildwood waste

       And burning all the boscage. Now dost see

       (Even as we said a little space above)

       How mightily it matters with what others,

       In what positions these same primal germs

       Are bound together? And what motions, too,

       They give and get among themselves? how, hence,

       The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body

       Both igneous and ligneous objects forth--

       Precisely as these words themselves are made

       By somewhat altering their elements,

       Although we mark with name indeed distinct

       The igneous from the ligneous. Once again,

       If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,

       Among all visible objects, cannot be,

       Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed

       With a like nature,--by thy vain device

       For thee will perish all the germs of things:

       'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,

       Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,

       Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.

       THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE

       Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!

       And for myself, my mind is not deceived

       How dark it is: But the large hope of praise

       Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;

       On the same hour hath strook into my breast

       Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,

       I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,

       Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,

       Trodden by step of none before. I joy

       To come on undefiled fountains there,

       To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,

       To seek for this my head a signal crown

       From regions where the Muses never yet

       Have garlanded the temples of a man:

       First, since I teach concerning mighty things,

       And go right on to loose from round the mind

       The tightened coils of dread religion;

       Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame

       Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout

       Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem,

       Is not without a reasonable ground:

       But as physicians, when they seek to give

       Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch

       The brim around the cup with the sweet juice

       And yellow of the honey, in order that

       The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled

       As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down

       The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,

       Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus

       Grow strong again with recreated health:

       So now I too (since this my doctrine seems

       In general somewhat woeful unto those

       Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd

       Starts back from it in horror) have desired

       To expound our doctrine unto thee in song

       Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,

       To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse--

       If by such method haply I might hold

       The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,

       Till thou see through the nature of all things,

       And how exists the interwoven frame.

       But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made

       Completely solid, hither and thither fly

       Forevermore unconquered through all time,

       Now come, and whether to the sum of them

       There be a limit or be none, for thee

       Let us unfold; likewise what has been found

       To be the wide inane, or room, or space

       Wherein all things soever do go on,

       Let us examine if it finite be

       All and entire, or reach unmeasured round

       And downward an illimitable profound.