On the Nature of Things. Тит Лукреций Кар

Is in its matter then commixed anew,

           Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,

           And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn

           Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds

           Consist the level waters of the deep,

           They could in nowise whiten: for however

           Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never

           Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds—

           Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen—

           Be now with one hue, now another dyed,

           As oft from alien forms and divers shapes

           A cube's produced all uniform in shape,

           'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube

           We see the forms to be dissimilar,

           That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep

           (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)

           Colours diverse and all dissimilar.

           Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least

           The whole in being externally a cube;

           But differing hues of things do block and keep

           The whole from being of one resultant hue.

           Then, too, the reason which entices us

           At times to attribute colours to the seeds

           Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not

           Create from white things, nor are black from black,

           But evermore they are create from things

           Of divers colours. Verily, the white

           Will rise more readily, is sooner born

           Out of no colour, than of black or aught

           Which stands in hostile opposition thus.

           Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,

           And the primordials come not forth to light,

           'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour—

           Truly, what kind of colour could there be

           In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself

           A colour changes, gleaming variedly,

           When smote by vertical or slanting ray.

           Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves

           That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:

           Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,

           Now, by a strange sensation it becomes

           Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.

           The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,

           Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.

           Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,

           Without such blow these colours can't become.

           And since the pupil of the eye receives

           Within itself one kind of blow, when said

           To feel a white hue, then another kind,

           When feeling a black or any other hue,

           And since it matters nothing with what hue

           The things thou touchest be perchance endowed,

           But rather with what sort of shape equipped,

           'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,

           But render forth sensations, as of touch,

           That vary with their varied forms.

                                            Besides,

           Since special shapes have not a special colour,

           And all formations of the primal germs

           Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,

           Are not those objects which are of them made

           Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?

           For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly,

           Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen,

           Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be

           Of any single varied dye thou wilt.

           Again, the more an object's rent to bits,

           The more thou see its colour fade away

           Little by little till 'tis quite extinct;

           As happens when the gaudy linen's picked

           Shred after shred away: the purple there,

           Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,

           Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;

           Hence canst perceive the fragments die away

           From out their colour, long ere they depart

           Back to the old primordials of things.

           And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies

           Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus

           That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.

           So, too, since we behold not all with eyes,

           'Tis thine to know some things there are as much

           Orphaned of colour, as others without smell,

           And reft of sound; and those the mind alert

           No less can apprehend than it can mark

           The things that lack some other qualities.

           But think not haply that the primal bodies

           Remain despoiled alone of colour: so,

           Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold

           And from hot exhalations; and they move,

           Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw

           Not any odour from their proper bodies.

           Just as, when undertaking to prepare

           A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,

           And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes

           Odour of nectar, first of all behooves

           Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can,

           The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends

           One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may

           The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang

           The odorous essence with its body mixed

           And in