On the Nature of Things. Тит Лукреций Кар

However savage, must be tamed and chid

           By care of parents. They have girt about

           With turret-crown the summit of her head,

           Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,

           'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned

           With that same token, to-day is carried forth,

           With solemn awe through many a mighty land,

           The image of that mother, the divine.

           Her the wide nations, after antique rite,

           Do name Idaean Mother, giving her

           Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,

           From out those regions 'twas that grain began

           Through all the world. To her do they assign

           The Galli, the emasculate, since thus

           They wish to show that men who violate

           The majesty of the mother and have proved

           Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged

           Unfit to give unto the shores of light

           A living progeny. The Galli come:

           And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines

           Resound around to bangings of their hands;

           The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;

           The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds

           In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,

           Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power

           The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts

           To panic with terror of the goddess' might.

           And so, when through the mighty cities borne,

           She blesses man with salutations mute,

           They strew the highway of her journeyings

           With coin of brass and silver, gifting her

           With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade

           With flowers of roses falling like the snow

           Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.

           Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks

           Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since

           Haply among themselves they use to play

           In games of arms and leap in measure round

           With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake

           The terrorizing crests upon their heads,

           This is the armed troop that represents

           The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,

           As runs the story, whilom did out-drown

           That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,

           Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,

           To measured step beat with the brass on brass,

           That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,

           And give its mother an eternal wound

           Along her heart. And 'tis on this account

           That armed they escort the mighty Mother,

           Or else because they signify by this

           That she, the goddess, teaches men to be

           Eager with armed valour to defend

           Their motherland, and ready to stand forth,

           The guard and glory of their parents' years.

           A tale, however beautifully wrought,

           That's wide of reason by a long remove:

           For all the gods must of themselves enjoy

           Immortal aeons and supreme repose,

           Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:

           Immune from peril and immune from pain,

           Themselves abounding in riches of their own,

           Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath

           They are not taken by service or by gift.

           Truly is earth insensate for all time;

           But, by obtaining germs of many things,

           In many a way she brings the many forth

           Into the light of sun. And here, whoso

           Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or

           The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse

           The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce

           The liquor's proper designation, him

           Let us permit to go on calling earth

           Mother of Gods, if only he will spare

           To taint his soul with foul religion.

            So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,

            And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing

           Often together along one grassy plain,

           Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking

           From out one stream of water each its thirst,

           All live their lives with face and form unlike,

           Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits,

           Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.

           So great in any sort of herb thou wilt,

           So great again in any river of earth

           Are the distinct diversities of matter.

           Hence, further, every creature—any one

           From out them all—compounded is the same

           Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews—

           All differing vastly in their forms, and built

           Of elements dissimilar in shape.

           Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze,

           Within their frame lay up, if naught besides,

           At least those atoms whence derives their power

           To throw forth fire and send out light from under,

           To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.

           If, with like reasoning of mind, all else

           Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus

           That in their frame the seeds of many things

           They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.

           Further, thou markest much, to which are given

           Along together colour and flavour and smell,