Lucretius - Humphries Translation

By Titus Lucretius Carus Translated by Rolfe Humphries

Outline

I. Book I

 [62] Humanity has long been oppressed under the grim weight of religion, but Epicurus was the first man with the force of mind to discover the truth of the way things really are, showing us the limits, boundaries, and benchmarks set by nature; in so doing he broke religion’s oppressive hold over the minds of men, raising us equal to the heavens.

[80] It is religion that is the true mother of wickedness in the world.
Religion oppresses men by causing them to fear punishment by the gods both in this life and in eternal hell hereafter.
The remedy to the terrors of the spirit manufactured by religion is to study and uncover the true nature of the universe, which will allow us to see that those threats are not real.
The true nature of the soul is not obvious to us, so if we are to free ourselves from religious fears we must study nature and determine whether religion is correct when it alleges that we have eternal souls that are subject to the dictates of god here on earth and to eternal damnation after death.
Our starting point in this study of nature is this primary observation: nothing ever comes from nothing — neither gods nor any other forces are observed to create anything from nothing.
Once we see that nothing comes from nothing, but that all things come into being in accord with their basic nature, we will see that all things occur without any intervention from the gods.
Our method for proving that nothing comes from nothing (the same method we will use to address all questions), is to look at the evidence around us and, using our reason, draw deductive conclusions based on the evidence nature provides to us.
As we reason deductively to determine what is true, we will also test our conclusions by showing that the opposite position is NOT supported by the evidence nature provides.
We observe that Nature determines qualities of all things, and the limits and boundaries of what is possible to them, including how all things come into being, grow, and pass away.
We observe that Nature also contains life-giving particles which, under certain conditions, are capable of springing to life.
Our second primary observation is this: all things pass away and change back into the essential material from which they are made, but nothing is ever absolutely destroyed to nothing.
Another reason we know that nothing passes away to nothing is that otherwise in the eternity of time past all things would have passed away and nothing would be left in the universe.
We conclude that the basic material of the universe is therefore indestructible.
Do not doubt that matter is indestructible simply because the atoms are too small to see – you cannot see the air or odors either and yet you know they exist.
We therefore conclude that Nature’s work is done by particles so small that they are unseen, but in addition, within the things you see there is also not just particles of matter, but “void”.
We know that void exists because otherwise movement would be impossible; but we see that things do move, so we know void exists.
We conclude that the nature of everything is dual – everything is made up of matter and void – nothing exists in the universe except matter and void.
We also conclude that the basic material of the universe is immortal, meaning that the universe is itself eternal. (This does not mean that the current form of the universe is eternal, because the material is constantly changing form, but the material from which the universe is made is itself eternal.)
We also conclude that there is a limit to divisibility; those smallest particles are indivisible and eternal
We must also observe that all things are not made from a single substance, but from many distinct elements. Fools often admire the things their blindness sees in hidden meanings, and an example is Heraclitus, who argued that all things are made from a single substance - fire.
Errors about the nature of things arise from doubting the senses, but all arguments against the reliability of the senses are madness because they are self-contradictory – they amount to arguing against the senses by using the senses, and to use the senses is to accept that they are trustworthy.
The basic elements of the universe combine in different ways form all things, in the same way that the same letters form different words when the letters are arranged differently.
There is a limit to divisibility (part 2) – There is an absolute smallest
As we proceed, remember that our goal is to free the mind from the restrictions imposed by religion. Although the lesson may seem grim, our goal here is to rim the cup with honey so that you can take what may seem like bitter medicine, and then be healed by it (part 1)
The universe is infinite in extent, and has no boundaries no matter how far you travel in any direction.
Matter and space are equally infinite.
The universe has no center.
These basic lessons lead to all the rest that follows. Applying our method to all questions will lead to successive answers, and each answer will in turn illuminate the next as we proceed. II. Book II
Wisdom brings great pleasure, including that of appreciating the dangers from which wisdom protects you
Nature has established that our highest goal is that the mind enjoy delight, and that the body be free of pain.
Nature has established that neither our bodies nor our minds require great wealth or power over others
Wealth, power, and the like are no guarantee of happiness - only reason has power over the fear of death and other irrational fears
Ultimately only applying reason to the study of Nature can cure our childish fears
Our next lesson is that the basic material of the universe is in constant motion
The atoms do not move to please us, nor do they move “perfectly” as if their motions were established by a god
The movement of the atoms is in accord with their nature, but in addition to the movement caused by their interaction with each other, it is also in the nature of certain atoms to swerve unpredictably, and from this atomic swerve comes our free will
There is a force resident within certain atoms that leads them to swerve
The atoms have a finite number of shapes
The atoms are finite in number of shapes, but the atoms are infinite in number
There is an eternal deadlock between destruction and rebirth
Let a man call upon the gods in jest if he like, but let him not be polluted by religion to think that the gods control the universe
Atoms cannot combine in all possible ways, but only according to their nature.
Atoms have no color.
Sentient life is made of non-sentient particles.
The key aspect of sentient life is the arrangement of the particles.
But while the arrangement of the material makes the key difference, consciousness does not derive from RANDOM combinations of matter
Men can laugh without being made of laughing particles; men can be wise without being made of wise particles.
Sentient things are made of particles which do not themselves have sensation.
The universe is wonderful but do not be shocked by it; in all things welcome the truth; strike down the false.
[1048] Ours is not the only world; there are many others in the universe, and other races of men, as there has been infinite time and space for all natural combinations of things.
[1077] And there is never in nature only one single thing of a kind.
Nature has no tyrants (gods) over her.

III. Book III

Epicurus discovered and has shown to us immortal truths, which we should apply to our own lives as he did to his.
Most importantly, the fear of hell must be shown to be groundless, as it pollutes life and makes happiness impossible.
The fear of hell is dispelled by the study of nature.
Mind is a part of man’s makeup just like hands, feet, and eyes.
Mind and spirit are, like everything else, material in nature.
Mind is made up of diminutive particles.
Mind is made up of small particles but also of a fourth, unnamed element.
This fourth element is lord of all, and rules body and mind.
Reason can dispel our primitive elements and allow us to live lives worthy of the gods.
This fourth element of spirit is inseparable from the body.
Mind is more powerful than spirit.
Mind and body are born and age together.
Mind can be diseased just as the body can.
The truth meets falsehood head-on and cuts off its retreat as well, so it is doubly victor.
Mind perishes with the body.
Even if spirit possesses an immortal quality, it keeps no memory of a prior life, so we are essentially new creations.
The spirit, once infused throughout the body, dies with it.
Spirits do not make bodies for themselves and crawl into them
If spirit were immortal and kept its identify we would see beasts perform like scholars.
It is comical to think that spirits might stand in lines holding tickets to enter the bodies of living things.
Trees cannot root in the sky; there is an everlasting fixed assignment set for being and growth.
It is nonsense to think that mortal and immortal can unite in an immortal pact.
Death is nothing to us, and has no more relevance to us than did the time before we were born
Just as we have no concern about the eternity of time before our birth, we should have no concern about the eternity of time after our death.
Even if the mind or spirit has sensation after death, that is nothing to us, as our essence derives from our union with out body, and any such existence has no meaning to us.
If tough luck lies ahead for any man, he must be there to experience it, but since death removes our consciousness we have no need to fear it.
Death is no worse than eternal sleep.
Take leave of life as if you are leaving a banquet.
Think of the eternity of time before our birth as a mirror of the eternity of time after death and you will realize that this is not grim, and is a rest more free from care than any sleep.
The terrors that supposedly exist in Hell really exist here – in the minds of fools.
Remember that the greatest men in the history of the world have also died, just as you will.
Half their time men spend in sleep; the other half wandering around aimslessly, sleeping with their eyes wide open
Men seem to feel a burden on their souls, and they waste their lives away, not realizing that the issue for them to understand is not how they spend an hour, but how they will spend eternity.
All men must die, and none can escape; you must reconcile yourself to this law of nature.

IV. Book IV

Epicurus’ teachings bring release from religious fear, and though the limitations of life may seem bitter, it is the best medicine for the soul to realize the natural limits of life.
We now turn to discussing “images” (visions), to show that they do not result from seeing ghosts of those who are dead.
Illusions do not show that eyesight is fallible; it is the task of reason to process the information they provide.
There are many examples of visual illusions, but we fool ourselves; misjudgments are not the fault of the senses but of our processing the information the senses provide
The man who argues that nothing can be known confesses that he himself is ignorant.
The ultimate validity of the senses cannot be refuted, because any attempted refutation depends for its proof on the senses.
If you cannot explain a seeming contradiction, it is better to accept an incorrect theory than to give up those conclusions that you have already had sufficient facts to verify to be true.
Do not reason based on erroneous observations of the facts of reality, or else your conclusions will be erroneous also.
Reason is dormant while we sleep, so things seen in dreams cannot be trusted.
Eyes were not made to see; nor ankle-bones for walking.
Nature did not make eyes for seeing; what is born creates the use.
Sleep annuls sensation.
Avoid the danger inherent in allowing passionate love to overcome your common sense
Delight comes in a purer form to those who are reasonable in the way they indulge their senses
It is easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are entangled.
Romantic love is strongest when based not on passion but on habit, growing stronger over time, like rain wearing away stone

V. Book V

Epicurus appears to us now as god-like, given the immortal wisdom he left to us.
If the reason is unpurified, we wage an internal war against ourselves.
All the world is mortal too, and just as it once came together into its present form, it will one day pass away.
Wonderment at the stars in heaven breeds confusion, as fools think that the stars are moved by the gods, and this leads them to invoke a bitter lordship of religion over themselves.
Everything that has a body does not have a mind – the element of mind and spirit exists only in connection with living animals.
The gods did not change their immortal ways to create the world for men.
The gods did not live in darkness and grief before they created the world.
It would be of no harm to us if we had never been born.
Nature had to provide the model for creation – how could the gods themselves have created the universe without a model?
Too much is wrong with the world for it to have been created by an all-powerful god.
Our world is very young, or else we would have a much longer knowledge of human history.
Our world was formed by the natural actions of the basic material of the universe.
Speculations as to the stars are necessarily only theories, since we lack ability to verify the true facts by direct closeup evaluation.
The size of the sun is an example of the limits of our ability to determine the truth of things in heaven – certain facts observable here on earth (primarily that all things except light appear to grow less distinct when further away) lead us to conclude that the sun is not significantly larger than it appears to us in the sky.
Another point we lack the ability to verify is whether the Moon shines with its own light, or reflects light from sun.
Centaurs and such things as half-men, half-animals never existed, and never can exist, because seeds combine only according to their nature.
Language developed naturally over time as men learned to communicate with each other.
Men fell under religion because they had visions of gods in dreams and saw things in the world and sky that they did not understand, so they assumed the gods must be responsible.
Populations die if they disarm.
Men developed music by imitating the birds
We toil in vain because we fail to remember the limits of possessiveness and the brevity of our time to enjoy pleasure. VI. Book VI
Civilization first flowered in Athens, and Athens brought to us a man – Epicurus - who discovered and brought to us the complete truth, and as a result his glory makes him seem to us almost divine
Epicurus diagnosed the problem that corrupts men’s lives, and cleansed our hearts by words of truth, showing us (1) the error of greeds and fears, (2) the highest good that Nature has ordained for men, (3) the natural evils that confront the lives of men, and that they can be defeated once we learn the proper way to deal with them, and (4) that most of the anxieties we face are imaginary, no worse than the imaginings of children.
Even those who otherwise understand the laws of Nature may wonder how certain things can happen, especially in the sky, and this wonder leads to confusion and to regress to superstitious religious awe
Stop having thoughts unworthy of the gods, because this will harm you – not because the gods will care, but because you will fear that you are at the mercy of the gods and this will cause you great anxiety.
We see that lightning is not caused by the gods because it does not occur with any consistency to punish the enemies of the gods or to accomplish anything.
Snow, wind, hail and the light are understandable if you keep in mind the basic properties of the elements involved.
Many natural phenomena cannot be isolated to a single cause due to lack of information, so consider all reasonable possibilities that are not eliminated by the evidence.
Disease is caused by noxious particles.
The plague of Athens.

Book I

1.01 Creatress, mother of the Roman line, Dear Venus, joy of earth and joy of heaven, All things that live below that heraldry Of star and planet, whose processional Moves ever slow and solemn over us, All things conceived, all things that face the light In their bright visit, the grain-bearing fields, The marinered oceans, where the wind and cloud Are quiet in your presence - all proclaim Your gift, without which they are nothingness. For you that sweet artificer, the earth, Submits her flowers, and for you the deep Of ocean smiles, and the calm heaven shines With shoreless light.

1.02 Ah, goddess, when the spring Makes clear its daytime, and a warmer wind Stirs from the west, a procreative air, High in the sky the happy-hearted birds, Responsive to your coming, call and cry, The cattle, tame no longer, swim across The rush of river-torrents, or skip and bound In joyous meadows; where your brightness leads, They follow, gladly taken in the drive, The urge, of love to come. So, on you move Over the seas and mountains, over streams Whose ways are fierce, over the greening leas, Over the leafy tenements of birds, So moving that in all the ardor burns For generation and their kind’s increase,

1.03 Since you alone control the way things are. Since without you no thing has ever come Into the radiant boundaries of light, Since without you nothing is ever glad, And nothing ever lovable, I need, I need you with me, goddess, in the poem I try to write here, on The Way Things Are. This book will be for Memmius, a man Your blessing has endowed with excellence All ways, and always. Therefore, all the more, Give to our book a radiance, a grace, Brightness and candor; over land and sea, Meanwhile, to soldiery’s fierce duty bring A slumber, an implacable repose- Since you alone can help with tranquil peace The human race, and Mars, the governor Of war’s fierce duty, more than once has come, Gentled by love’s eternal wound, to you, Forgetful of his office, head bent back, No more the roughneck, gazing up at you, Gazing and gaping, all agog for love, His every breath dependent on your lips. Ah, goddess, pour yourself around him, bend With all your body’s holiness, above His supine meekness, drown him in persuasion, Imploring, for the Romans, blessed peace. For this is something that I cannot do With mind untroubled, in this troubled time, Nor can a son of Memmius’ noble house Falter at such a crisis, or betray The common weal.

1.04 For what ensues, my friend Listen with ears attentive and a mind Cleared of anxiety; hear the reasoned truth And do not without understanding treat My gifts with scorn, my gifts, disposed for you With loyal industry. I shall begin With a discussion of the scheme of things As it regards the heaven and powers above, Then I shall state the origin of things, The seeds from which nature creates all things, Bids them increase and multiply; in turn, How she resolves them to their elements After their course is run. These things we call Matter, the life-motes, or the seeds of things, (If we must find, in schools, a name for them), Firstlings, we well might say, since every thing Follows from these beginnings.

1.05 When human life, all too conspicuous, Lay foully groveling on earth, weighed down By grim Religion looming from the skies, Horribly threatening mortal men, a man, A Greek, first raised his mortal eyes Bravely against this menace. No report Of gods, no lightning-flash, no thunder-peal Made this man cower, but drove him all the more With passionate manliness of mind and will To be the first to spring the tight-barred gates Of Nature’s hold asunder. So his force, His vital force of mind, a conqueror Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world Explored the vast immensities of space With wit and wisdom, and came back to us Triumphant, bringing news of what can be And what cannot, limits and boundaries, The borderline, the bench mark, set forever. Religion, so, is trampled underfoot, And by his victory we reach the stars.

1.06 I fear that, in these matters, you may think You’re entering upon a path of crime, The A B C’s of godlessness. Not so. The opposite is true. Too many times Religion mothers crime and wickedness. Recall how once at Aulis, when the Greeks, Those chosen peers, the very first of men, Defiled, with a girl’s blood, the altar-stone Sacred to Artemis. The princess stood Wearing the sacred fillets or a veil, And sensed but could not see the king her father, Agamemnon, standing sorrowful Beside the altar, and the priests near-by Hiding the knife-blade, and the folk in tears At what they saw. She knelt, she spoke no word, She was afraid, poor thing. Much good it did her At such a time to have been the very first To give the king that other title, Father! Raised by men’s hands and trembling she was led Toward the altar, not to join in song After the ritual of sacrifice To the bright god of marriage. No; she fell A victim by the sacrificing stroke Her father gave, to shed her virgin blood- Not the way virgins shed it - but in death, To bring the fleet a happy exodus! A mighty counselor, Religion stood With all that power for wickedness.

1.07 You may, Yourself, some time or other, feel like turning Away from my instruction, terrified By priestly rant. How many fantasies They can invent to overturn your sense Of logic, muddle your estates by fear! And rightly so, for if we ever saw A limit to our troubles, we’d be strong, Resisters of religion, rant and cant, But as things are, we have no chance at all With all their everlasting punishments Waiting us after death.

1.08 We do not know The nature of the soul: is it something born By, of, and for itself? Does it find its way Into our selves when we are being born, To die when we do? Or does it, after our death, Tour Hell’s tremendous emptiness and shadow? Or does it, by divine commandment, find Abode in lower beasts, as we are told By Roman Ennius, the first of us Chapleted with the green of Helicon, Bright-shining through the realms of Italy? But still, he also tells us, in his verse, Immortal as it is, that Acheron Has reaches where no souls or bodies dwell, But only phantoms, pale in wondrous wise, And that from there immortal Homer’s image (So Ennius says) transferred itself to him, And wept, and talked about all kinds of things. So, we had better have some principle In our discussion of celestial ways, Under what system both the sun and moon Wheel in their courses, and what impulse moves Events on earth; and, more than that, we must See that our principle is shrewd and sound When we consider what the spirit is, Wherein the nature of the mind consists, What fantasy it is that strikes our wits With terror in our waking hours or sickness Or in sleep’s sepulcher, so that we see, Or think we do, and hear, most audible, Those whose dead bones earth holds in her enfolding.

1.09 I am well aware how very hard it is To bring to light by means of Latin verse The dark discoveries of the Greeks. I know New terms must be invented, since our tongue Is poor, and this material is new. But I’m persuaded by your excellence And by our friendship’s dear expectancy To suffer any toil, to keep my watch Through the still nights, seeking the words, the song Whereby to bring your mind that splendid light By which you can see darkly hidden things. Our terrors and our darknesses of mind Must be dispelled, not by the sunshine’s rays, Not by those shining arrows of the light, But by insight into nature, and a scheme Of systematic contemplation. So Our starting-point shall be this principle: Nothing at all is ever born from nothing By the gods’ will. Ah, but men’s minds are frightened Because they see, on earth and in the heaven, Many events whose causes are to them Impossible to fix; so, they suppose, The gods’ will is the reason. As for us, Once we have seen that Nothing comes from nothing, We shall perceive with greater clarity What we are looking for, whence each thing comes, How things are caused, and no “gods’ will” about it.

1.10 Now, if things come from nothing, all things could Produce all kinds of things; nothing would need Seed of its own. Men would burst out of the sea, And fish and birds from earth, and, wild or tame, All kinds of beasts, of dubious origin, Inhabit deserts and the greener fields, Nor would the same trees bear, in constancy, The same fruit always, but, as like as not, Oranges would appear on apple-boughs. If things were not produced after their kind, Each from its own determined particles, How could we trace the substance to the source? But now, since all created things have come From their own definite kinds of seed, they move From their beginnings toward the shores of light Out of their primal motes. Impossible That all things issue everywhence; each kind Of substance has its own inherent power, Its own capacity. Does not the rose Blossom in spring, the wheat come ripe in summer, The grape burst forth at autumn’s urge? There must be A proper meeting of their seeds in time For us to see them at maturity Grown by their season’s favor, living earth Bringing them safely to the shores of light. But if they came from nothing, they might spring To birth at any unpropitious time, - Who could predict? - since there would be no seeds Whose character rules out untimely union. Thirdly, if things could come from nothing, time Would not be of the essence, for their growth, Their ripening to full maturity. Babies would be young men, in the blink of an eye, And full-grown forests come leaping out from the ground. Ridiculous! We know that all things grow Little by little, as indeed they must From their essential nature.

1.11 A further point - At certain times of year earth needs the rain For happy harvest, and both beasts and men Need nature’s bounty for their lives’ increase, A mutual dependence, of the sort That words need letters for. Do not believe In any world without its A B C’s. Moreover, why could nature not bring forth Men huge enough to wade the deepest oceans, Split mountains with their hands, and outlive time? The answer is, that limits have been set Fixing the bounds of all material, Its character, its growth. And, finally, Since we observe that cultivated soil Excels untended land, gives better yield, It must be obvious that earth contain Life-giving particles we bring to birth In breaking clods, in turning surface under, If there were no such particles, our toil Would be ridiculous, for things would grow Better and better of their own accord, But - nothing comes from nothing. This we must Acknowledge, all things have to have the seed Which gives them impulse toward the gentle air.

1.12 Our second axiom is this, that nature Resolves each object to its basic atoms But does not ever utterly destroy it. If anything could perish absolutely, It might be suddenly taken from our sight, There would be no need of any force to smash it, Disrupt and shatter all its fastenings, But as it is, since everything coheres Because of its eternal seed, its essence, Until some force is strong enough to break it By violent impact, or to penetrate Its void interstices, and so dissolve it, Nature permits no visible destruction Of anything.

1.13 Besides, if time destroys Completely what it banishes from sight With the procession of the passing years, Out of what source does Venus bring again The race of animals, each after its kind, To the light of life? And how, being restored, each thing fed, sustained and given increase Is our miraculous contriving earth? And what supplies the seas, the native springs, The far-off rivers? And what feeds the stars? By rights, if things can perish, infinite time And ages past should have consumed them all, But if, throughout this history, there have been Renewals, and the sum of things can stay, Beyond all doubt, there must be things possessed Of an immortal essence. Nothing can Disintegrate entirely into nothing.

1.14 An indiscriminate common violence Would finish everything, except for this- Matter is indestructible; it holds All things together, though the fastenings Vary in tightness. Otherwise, a touch, The merest touch, would be a cause of death, A force sufficient to dissolve in air Textures of mortal substance. But here’s the fact- The elements are held, are bound together In different degrees, but the basic stuff Is indestructible, so things remain Intact, unharmed, until a force is found Proportionate to their texture, to effect Reversion to their primal elements, But never to complete annihilation.

1.15 Finally, when the faltering air has poured His rainfall into mother earth, the drops Seem to have gone, but look! - bright harvests rise, Boughs on the trees bring greenery and growth And are weighed down by fruit, by which, in turn, Our race is fed, and so are animals, And we see happy cities, flowering With children, and we hear the music rise As new birds sing all through the leafy woods. Fat cows lie down to rest their weary sides In welcome pastures, and the milk drops white Out of distended udders; and the calves Romp over the tender grass, or wobble, drunk On that pure vintage, more than strong enough For any such experience as theirs. To sum it up: no visible object dies; Nature from one thing brings another forth, And out of death new life is born.

1.16 Now then - I have shown that things can never be created From nothing, and that no created thing Can ever be called back to nothingness. You may, perhaps, begin to doubt my lessons Since atoms are too small to see, but listen,- You must admit that there are other bodies Existing but invisible.

1.17 The wind Beats ocean with its violence, overwhelms Great ships, sends the clouds flying, or at times Sweeps over land with a tornado’s fury, Strewing the plains with trees, and beating mountains With forest-shattering blasts; its roaring howls Aloud and wild, and even its mutter threatens. Surely, most surely, the winds are unseen bodies, Sweepers of earth and sea and sky, and whirlers Of sudden hurricane. They flow, they flood, They breed destruction just the way a river Of gentle nature swells to a great deluge By the increase of rainfall from the mountains, Commingling in ruin broken brush and trees. Strong bridges cannot hold the sudden fury Of water coming on; the river, darkened By the great rain, dashes against the piles With mighty force, and with a mighty sound Roars on, destroying; under its current it rolls Tremendous rocks; it sweeps away whatever Resists its surge. So the wind’s blast must also Be a strong river, a fall of devastation Wherever it goes, shoving some things before it, At tacking over and over, in eddy and whirl, Having its way, seizing and carrying things. I tell you again and again, the winds are bodies Invisible, they are rivals of great rivers In what they do and are, though rivers, of course, Are something we can see.

1.18 And what of odors? We sense them, but we never see them coming Toward our nostrils; we do not look at heat, Apprehend cold with our eyes, we are not accustomed To witness voices. Yet all these things, by nature, Must be material, since they strike our senses. Nothing can touch or be touched, excepting matter.

1.19 Then, too — if you spread your clothes along a shore Where waves are breaking, they’ll get wet, but they’ll dry If you hang them in the sun. Have we ever watched The moisture settle in, or the way it flees In warmth? It must disperse, must be fragmented In particles too fine for our eyes to see.

1.20 Also, as years go through their revolutions A ring wears thin under the finger’s touch, The drip of water hollows the stone, the plough With its curving iron slowly wastes away In the field it works; the footsteps of the people We see wear out the paving-stones of rock In the city streets, and at the city gates Bronze statues show their right hands, thinner and thinner From the touch of passers-by, through years of greeting. We see these things worn down, diminished, only After long lapse of time; nature denies us The sight we need for any given moment.

1.21 And finally: what nature adds to things, Little by little, forcing them to growth, No marshaled tenseness of our gaze can see. When things corrode with leanness and old age, When tiny salt eats into great sea cliffs, You cannot see the process of the loss At any given moment. Nature’s work Is done by means of particles unseen. But not all bodily matter is tight-packed By nature’s law, for there’s a void in things.

1.22 This knowledge will be useful to you often, Will keep you from the path of doubt, from asking Too many questions on the sum of things, From losing confidence in what I tell you. By void I mean vacant and empty space, Something you cannot touch. Were this not so, Things could not move. The property of matter, Its most outstanding trait, is to stand firm, Its office to oppose; and everything Would always be immovable, since matter Never gives way. But with our eyes we see Many things moving, in their wondrous ways, Their marvelous means, through sea and land and sky. Were there no void, they would not only lack This restlessness of motion altogether, But more than that - they never could have been Quickened to life from that tight-packed quiescence.

1.23 Besides, however solid things appear, Let me show you proof that even these are porous: In a cave of rocks the seep of moisture trickles And the whole place weeps its fat blobs of tears. Food is dispersed all through a creature’s body; Young trees grow tall and yield their fruit in season, Drawing their sustenance from the lowest roots Through trunks and branches; voices penetrate Walls and closed doors, the seep of stiffening cold Permeates bone. Phenomena like these Would be impossible but for empty spaces Where particles can pass. And finally, Why do we see that some things outweigh others Which are every bit as large? If a ball of wool The same substance as a ball of lead, (Assuming the dimensions are the same) They both should weigh as much, since matter tends To exercise a constant downward pressure. But void lacks weight. So, when two objects bulk The same, but one is obviously lighter, It clearly states its greater share of void, And, on the other hand, the heavier thing Proclaims it has less void and greater substance. Certainly, therefore, what we’re looking for By logical deduction, does exist, Is mixed with solid, and we call it void.

1.24 I must anticipate a little here Lest you succumb to some folks’ foolishness. They claim that water opens a clear path To the nosing fish, because the latter leave Spaces behind them into which the waves Can flow together again, and others things, Likewise, can move, in reciprocity Exchanging places, though every place is taken. What nonsense! What direction can the fish Find for their progress, unless the water yields, And to what place will the water be enabled To find its way again, if fish can’t move? All bodies, then, must lack the power of movement, Or you must grant that there’s a void in things From which each one derives its motive impulse. Finally, if you see two good-sized bodies Bounce off each other quickly, after contact, Then surely air must occupy the space Which they have left, and though it rushes in With utmost speed, it cannot all at once Fill the whole area, but “First things first!” “One at a time!”, till all the space is filled. Someone may think that bodies leap apart Because the air that lies between them thickens. That’s a mistake: for that there’d have to be A void, not there before, and a filled-up space That formerly was void. In no such way Can atmosphere condense; it must have void. For all your “Yes, but-” dragging of the heels, You’ll have to come at last to this admission, - Void does exist. I could mention many things, Pile up a heap of argument-building proof, But why? You have some sense, and these few hints Ought to suffice. You can find out for yourself. As mountain-ranging hounds smell out a lair, And animals covert, hidden under brush, Once they are certain of its track, so you, All by yourself, in matters such as these, Can see one thing from another, find your way To the dark burrows and bring truth to light. But if you lag or shrink, even a little, Memmius, this I promise you for sure: My honeyed tongue from my rich heart will pour Such inexhaustible potions from its sources That slow old age, I fear, will penetrate Our limbs, loosen our life-bonds, and the deluge Of my argument in verse still flood your ears Over one item only.

1.25 Now to repeat: The nature of everything is dual - matter And void; or particles and space, wherein The former rest or move. We have our senses To tell us matter exists. Denying this, We cannot, searching after hidden things, Find any base of reason whatsoever. Next, if there is no place, or space, our so-called void, Bodies could nowhere be, and nowhere move. I proved this not so long ago, remember. Also, there’s nothing else which you can call Distinct alike from matter and from void, Some kind of, maybe, third alternative. No. What exists is something in itself, Susceptible to touch, however frail, However tiny, and capable of growth, Of increase after its fashion. But a something Touch cannot reach, a thing that cannot keep Another thing from simply passing through it, This kind of thing must be our so-called void. Besides, if something has its own existence, It will either act itself, or, being passive, Will suffer other things to act upon it, Or yield a space where things can be, or happen, But nothing without substance has the power to act, or to be acted on, and nothing Can proffer space except the void and empty. Therefore, except for void and substance, nothing, No third alternative, no other nature Can possibly exist in the sum of things, Perceptible to any of our senses Or apprehended by the reasoning mind.

1.26 Whatever exists you will always find connected To these two things, or as by-products of them; Connected meaning that the quality Can never be subtracted from its object No more than weight from stone, or heat from fire, Wetness from water. On the other hand, Slavery, riches, freedom, poverty, War, peace, and so on, transitory things Whose comings and goings do not alter substance - These, and quite properly, we call by-products. Time also has no separate existence, But present, past, and future reach our senses From what occurs, by-products of by-products. We must admit that no man’s sense of time Exists apart from things at rest or moving, So when people talk about the rape of Helen, Of Troy subdued in war, beware, don’t let them Convince us that such things were entities, Since ages past recall have taken away The human generations, whose by-products The wars and Helen were. The term applies Alike to human beings and to places, And, finally, - if things had had no substance Nor space where acts occur, the passionate fire Burning in Paris’ heart would not have kindled The savage war’s bright battles; the Greek horse Would never have loosed the night-born soldiery To set the town on fire. So you can see That actions never exist all by themselves As matter does, or void, but rather are By-products, both of matter and of space.

1.27 Bodies are partly basic elements Of things, and partly compounds of the same. The basic elements no force can shatter Since, being solid, they resist destruction. Yet it seems difficult to believe that objects Are ever found to be completely solid. A thunderbolt goes through the walls of houses, As noise and voices do, and iron whitens In fire, and steam at boiling point splits rocks, Gold’s hardnesses are pliant under heat, The ice of bronze melts in the flame, and silver Succumbs to warmth or chill, as our senses tell us With the cup in our hands, and water, hot or cold, Poured into the wine. No, there is nothing solid In things, or so it seems; reason, however, And science are compelling forces - therefore Stay with me; it will not take many verses For me to explain that there are things with bodies Solid and everlasting; these we call Seeds of things, firstlings, atoms, and in them lies The sum of all created things.

1.28 To start with, Since it has been established that the nature Of things is different, dual, one being substance, The other void, it follows that each one Must, in its essence, be itself completely. Where space exists, or what we call the void, Matter cannot be found; what substance holds Void cannot occupy. So atoms are Solid and therefore voidless. Furthermore, If there is void in things, there has to be Solid material surrounding this. Nothing, by logic, can be proved to hold A void within its mass, unless you grant It must itself be solid. There can be Nothing except an organized composure Of matter, which can hold a void within it. And matter, therefore, being of solid substance, Can last forever, while all else is shattered. Then, were there nothing which we label void, All would be solid substance; and again, Were there no substance to fill up the spaces, All would be void and emptiness. These, then, Must alternate, substance and void, since neither Exists to the exclusion of the other. So there is substance, which marks off the limits Between the full and the empty, and this substance Cannot be broken if blows are struck against it From anywhere outside it, not exploded By dissolution from within, nor weakened In any other way, as I have shown you. It must be obvious that, lacking void, Nothing can possibly be crushed or broken Or split in two by cutting, or allow Invasion by water, cold, or fire, those forces Of dissolution. The more an object holds Void space within it, the more easily It weakens under stress and strain; and therefore, As I have pointed out, when stuff is solid, Without that void, it must be everlasting. Were this not true of matter, long ago Everything would have crumbled into nothing And things we see today have been restored From nothing; but remember, I have proved Nothing can be created out of nothing. Also, that nothing can be brought to nothing. So basic elements must be immortal, Impossible to dissolve in some last moment Else there would be no matter for renewal. They must be, then, completely singly solid, For otherwise they could not through the ages Be kept intact for restoration’s work

1.29 Moreover, if nature had not set a limit To fragmentation, by this time all matter Would have been so reduced by time’s attrition That not one thing could move from a beginning To full, completed growth. We see that objects Can be broken up more quickly than put together, So the long day, the everlasting process Of all past time, disturbing and dissolving, Could not, by now, nor even in the future, Have ever repaired its damage. But we see Each thing restored, each with its time and season For flowering, so, we conclude, there must be A sure and certain limit to its breaking.

1.30 Another thing: material particles Are solid, absolutely, yet we can Account for softnesses in things like air, Water, and earth, and fire; they are what they are Since void is part of them. On the other hand, If basic stuff were soft, no explanation Accounts for hard material like flint Or iron, since all nature, so, would lack A solid point to start with. Therefore, things Are strong by single solid unity, But all things can, by denser combination, Be packed more tightly, and display more strength. Moreover, if no end is ever set To break-up, still things must and do remain After the long eternity of time, Assailed by never a danger. How? It seems ridiculous to argue that they could Resist forever, if their nature were Acknowledged to be fragile. Finally, Since it is now agreed that creatures have A limit to their times of growth and life, Their laws of nature telling what they can And cannot do, immutable laws, so fixed That all the varicolored birds have markings Like others of their kind; therefore, they must have Identical basic bodies. Otherwise, If first-beginnings could be changed at whim, There would be no assurance what can be And what cannot, limits and boundaries, Systems determined and immutable, Nor could the generations reproduce Parental nature, habits, diets, movements.

1.31 Now, every single substance has some point Which seems to us the smallest, so there must By the same logic be some smallest point In particles our senses cannot see. This has no parts, it cannot be divided, It is an ultimate, has no existence Entirely of its own, and never will have, Being in its essential nature part Of something else primordial and basic Whence, more and more, other such parts fill out The basic structure by their thickened mass. These particles, incapable themselves Of separate status, are held together, Are indissoluble by any force. So, any atom has a singleness Solid, coherent, not compound, but strong In its eternal singleness and nature Which keeps it as a seed of things, allows No diminution nor subtraction from it.

1.32 Something must be the smallest that there is. Otherwise, every possible tiny object Will be composed of infinite particles, A half can always be in halves divided, No limit to all this. So how would they differ, The universe from the littlest things? They wouldn’t For if the total is divisible Ad infinitum, then the smallest objects Would likewise be so. But since reason tells us That this makes no sense, we therefore must acknowledge That there are things which have no parts at all The smallest natural objects. This being so It follows that they are solid and eternal. Lastly, if the creative force of nature Had always caused all objects to be broken Into the smallest particles, nature would not Have power to restore them, since they’d lack Such parts as have the power of generation, Connections, weight and impact, clash and motion Through which all things establish their behavior.

1.33 Now, those who think the essence of all things Is fire, and fire alone, are worse than foolish. For example, Heraclitus, that great captain Whose fame is bright because of his dark speech, More so, of course, among the empty-headed Than earnest Greek researchers after truth. Fools have more love and admiration, always For things their blindness sees in hidden meanings; They base their truths on what can sometimes tickle Their ears, or what is soaked in sweetish sound.

1.34 I ask you: why can objects vary so If they are all created out of fire, Fire pure and simple? And you cannot argue That fire, being hot, is ever thickened or thinned If the parts, by nature, are the same as the whole. Heat should increase if the parts are brought together, Diminish with separation; nothing else Is possible to suppose under such conditions, Nor could such great variety of things Be in proportion as fire is think or thin. Another thing: if your Stoics grant that void Is mixed with things, then fire of course can thicken Or thin; the trouble with holding to this notion Is that they see too many things in conflict, Shun recognition of a void in things, Fear the steep road, and therefore lose the true one. Nor do they see, that if a void is lacking In things, then all must be condensed together, All form one mass, unable to throw out Anything from itself in quick discharge, As a hot fire throws out both light and steam. But if they think that in some other way Fires can be doused, change character and being, They are also bound to argue that this process Keeps happening all the time, and fire will vanish Someday complete, and all created things Come back to birth from nothing. But a substance So changed that it forsakes its former nature Becomes the death of what it was before. They will have to leave these substances a something Residual, intact, or else acknowledge That all things utterly return to nothing And out of nothing comes rebirth. What nonsense! In fact, however, nothing is more certain Than that some bodies do preserve their nature In the same way forever, and their goings, Their comings, and their changed arrangements fashion Whatever change there is. We may be sure These elements are not composed of fire. It would make no sense if some things were subtracted And others added, or positions changed If every thing were of a fiery nature, For everything this made would still be fiery. The truth, I think, is this: there are certain bodies Whose meeting, motion, order, shape, position Do produce fire; when this relation changes Their nature changes. They are not like fire Nor any other object with the power To send forth particles, and by their impact Affect our sense of touch.

1.35 To go beyond this, To say that all things are fire, that there’s nothing, really, In all the world but fire - (as this same fellow Insists) - why, this is absolutely mad. He draws his argument against the senses From these same senses, shatters the foundations From which beliefs arise, the very source Whence he himself perceives this thing called fire. The senses, he concedes, do recognize Fire, no mistake about it, but they fail In their regard (says he) of other things Never a bit less bright and clear. This seems Not only silly, but mad. Where shall we turn? What can there be more certain than our senses To mark true things and false? So why remove All things but fire, and say that fire alone Exists? Why not argue the other way, Say fire does not exist, but everything else does? Such logic would be no more idiotic.

1.36 Others have erred: the ones who think that air Is the prime element of all creation, Or those who think that water is, or earth, Source of creation and change. Mistaken also Are those who say two elements must pair, The air and fire, water and earth; or double The doubling, and insist that all things come Out of four elements, earth, air, fire, water. One of their greatest is Empedocles, A man from Agrigentum; he was born On that three-cornered island, where the surge Of the grey-green Ionian sprays and spatters Along a jagged coast-line, and the strait Races with rushing water that divides Italy from the island. Vast Charybdis Roars here below Mt. Etna’s rumble and threat Of flame belched up to the sky, and flash and thunder. Oh, a great wonder, in more ways than one, And men should come to see it, as they do, A land rich in good things, and fortified By a great store of heroes, none renowned More than Empedocles, and nothing there, More holy, more remarkable, more dear. His poems are godlike, and they cry aloud, Announce such glorious findings that he seems Scarcely a mortal being.

1.37 But he was wrong, He and his followers (much lesser men). In spite of all their findings, spoken well, With holier wisdom and sense than oracles From Pythian tripod and Apollo’s laurel, Down they came crashing, for their false ideas Of origin brought them low; great men they were, And greatly fallen. They insist that motion Is an inherent attribute of things, But that void is lacking; things are soft, or open In texture, they allow, for example, air, Mist, fire, and earth, its creatures and its harvests, But they deny any void within these bodies. Their next mistake ensues because they set No limit to the process of division, No end to break-up; they deny to fractions An ultimately least. You know our senses Can recognize what seems to be the height Of littleness in anything; from this It ought to follow that beyond the range Of sense there lies an ultimate end, a point Which actually is the smallest. Furthermore They say that the first beginnings of things are soft, Whereas soft things, we know, are born, and die, So that, were these men right, the sum of things Would long ago have gone to nothingness, And out of nothingness come back to life, Flourishing, vigorous. How wrong this is You have been taught already. Furthermore, These elements of theirs are enemies, In many ways they are hostile to each other So that their clash should either be their death, Or their collision diffuse them, as a storm Makes winds, rain, lightning fly in all directions.

1.38 If, out of four things, all things are created, If, into four things, all things are resolved, How can these four be called the source? Why not The other way around? They take their turn In being born, it seems, they change complexion, Change their whole nature all the time. Now, really, Can you believe that fire, earth, air, and water So fuse that nothing changes in their fusion? If so, how could they make you some new creature, Animate, or inanimate like a tree? Each element in this conglomerate pile-up Will show its nature, air be seen to mingle With earth, and fire be visible with water. But first-beginnings, in producing things, Should keep their own peculiar nature hidden, Secret, out of sight, lest some appearance Of their own quality war and fight against New substance being born in its own image.

1.39 The Stoics are even worse. They start with heaven, And heaven’s fires, and say that fire first changes Into the winds of air; this causes water, And water produces earth, then back again, Air into fire, the same way up and down. But basic elements should not act like this, Something must stand immovable, it must, Lest all things be reduced to absolute nothing. If anything is changed, leaving its limits, That is the death of what it was before. So, since the things we mentioned earlier come Into a change, they must, beyond a doubt, Consist of other things which never change, Else all would be reduced to absolute nothing. It would be better, would it not, to reason Some bodies are endowed with such a nature They can make fire, or, with some giving and taking, — Add this, subtract a little of that — can form The winds of air, and all the variations?

1.40 “But,” you are saying, “it’s a patent fact that into the winds of the air, out of the earth, things are given increase and nourishment, And unless weather is kindly with its rainfall At the right time, so that the trees will sway Backward and forward under the waste of cloud, And unless the sun, at the right time, fondly gives them His warmth again, nothing could grow, no grain, No trees, no animals.” Perfectly true, And were we men not helped by food and water, The moist and the dry, our bodies soon would perish, All life depart from all our bones and sinews. Of course we are helped, of course, of course, we are nourished By certain definite things; all creatures are, In different ways, of course. The reason is That many things have elements in common, But differently combined; and therefore nurture Must also differ. It is most important Both with what other elements they are joined, In what positions they are held together, And their reciprocal movement. The same atoms Constitute ocean, sky, lands, rivers, sun, Crops, bushes, animals; these atoms mingle And move in different ways and combinations. Look — in my lines here you can see the letters Common to many of the words, but you know Perfectly well that resonance and meaning, Sense, sound, are changed by changing the arrangement. How much more true of atoms than of letters!

1.41 Now for a look at Anaxagoras, Whose theory, to coin a word, we’ll call Likepartedness, an awkward-sounding term, But clear enough in illustration: bones Are made of very tiny little bonelets, And flesh of infinitesimal bits of flesh, And blood of many many wee drops of blood, Gold from gold grains, and earth from earthen motes, Fire out of fire, and moisture out of moisture, Well, everything from its likepartedness. What he does not allow is void in things; He puts no limit to their subdivision. In both these points he seems to me in error As well as in his general argument. His elements, atoms, first-beginnings, are By far too frail; you can’t apply such terms To things which pass away like their creations, Are equally destructible. Which of them Endures between the upper and lower millstones, Lives in the jaws of death? Fire? Water? Earth? Blood? Bone? Not one, not one whose particles Are of the same doomed stuff that we can see Annihilated while we watch. But matter, As I have proved before, can never be Reduced to nothing, so, nor things created From nothing.

1.42 Furthermore, since food Nourishes bodies, makes them grow, it follows That veins and blood and bones and nerves and sinews Are made by things unlike themselves. Perhaps They’ll try to get around this fact by saying That food is made of elements in mixture, Contains small particles of blood, bone, sinew- If so, then food, both moist and dry, is composed Of things unlike itself, bone, lymph, and nerves. Besides, whatever bodies grow from earth, If they are in the earth, let’s say, to start with, Why, then, earth must consist of things unearthly Which rise from earth. Or change the metaphor: If flame lies hidden in wood, with smoke and ashes, Then wood consists of things un-wooden, surely, Exactly as with earth.

1.43 There’s a way out, And Anaxagoras is quick to take it, Thinking all things lie hidden in all things, But only one appears, that being the one Whose particles are most numerous, or perhaps The most conspicuous, most near the surface. This does not make much sense; it ought to follow That corn when ground between the turning millstones Should give some sign of blood, or at least something Whereby our bodies are nourished. Grind stone on stone, Blood ought to trickle out. In the same way Crushed grass should give sweet drops of milk, in flavor Like that from woolly sheep, and crumbled clods Ought to show grass or twigs in miniature, And smoke and ash emerge from broken faggots. The simple facts say “No!” to all such error. This cannot be the way; it is, but still There must be basic elements in common In many things, unseen, but surely there. “But,” you object, “often in mighty mountains High boughs of neighboring trees by the strong winds Are caused to rub their surfaces together Till they break out in flame.” Yes, certainly; But fire’s not actually hidden in the wood, Though there are fire-producing particles Whose friction lights whole forests. If the flame Were actually there, in its pure state, but hidden, Those fires could not for long be kept a secret, They would break out, they would put an end to forests, Set every bush ablaze. So now you see What I have said before, it is most important Both with what other elements they are joined, In what position they are held together And their reciprocal movement. Just as in spelling A little change makes all the difference: Subtract an “e”, and fire is changed to fir. To end this argument — if you suppose Whatever you see contains, in microcosm, Likepartedness of little parts, if men Are made up of homunculi, farewell To any sensible theory of atoms. The little men inside you will be roaring With mirth till tears run down their cheeks.

1.44 Come, come, Listen to what is left, and hear more clearly: I know how dark and difficult things are, But the high hope of praise has moved my heart As if by the wave of a wand, and deep within Filled me with sweet devotion to the Muses. Almost by instinct now, with mind alert, I range those pathless groves, where no one ever Has gone before me, and I come to fountains Completely undefiled, I drink their waters, Delight myself by gathering new flowers, Fashioning out of them a kind of garland No Muse, before this time, has ever given To crown a human being. I teach great things, I try to loose men’s spirit from the ties, Tight-knotted, which religion binds around them. The Muses’ grace is on me, as I write Clear verse about dark matters. This is not A senseless affectation; there’s reason to it. Just as when doctors try to give to children A bitter medicine, they rim the cup With honey’s sweetness, honey’s golden flavor, To fool the silly little things, as far As the lips at least, so that they’ll take the bitter Dosage, and swallow it down, fooled, but not swindled, But brought to health again through double-dealing, So now do I, because this doctrine seems Too grim for those who never yet have tried it, So grim that people shrink from it, I’ve meant To explain the system in a sweeter music, To rim the lesson, as it were, with honey, Hoping, this way, to hold your mind with verses While you are learning all that form, that pattern Of the way things are.

1.45 I have already taught you That matter’s basic elements are solid, Completely so, and that they fly through time Invincible, indestructible forever. Now let’s work out whether there’s any limit To their sum total; study, likewise, void, Space, emptiness, area where all things move. Does this have finite limits or does it reach Unmeasurable in deep wide boundlessness? The universe is limitless, unbounded In any of its areas; otherwise It would have to have an end somewhere, but no- Nothing, it seems, can possibly have an end Without there being something out beyond it, Beyond perception’s range. We must admit There can be nothing beyond the sum of things, Therefore that sum is infinite, limitless. It makes no difference where you stand, your center Permits of no circumference around it. Assume, though, for a moment, that all space Is definitely limited, what happens If somebody runs to its furthest rim, and rifles A javelin outward? Will it keep on going, Full force, or do you think something can stop it? Here’s a dilemma that you can’t escape! You have to grant an infinite universe For either there’s matter there, to stop our spear, Or space through which it keeps on flying. Right? So it wasn’t flung from any boundary line. I will keep after you with this argument, ask you, No matter where you set the outermost limit, What happens to the javelin after that? The answer is that a final boundary line Is nowhere in existence, there will always Be plenty of room beyond for the spear’s flight. Before our eyes, thing seems to limit thing, Air bounds the hills, and forests border air, Earth sea, sea earth, but add them up, and nothing Limits the sum.

1.46 Besides, if all the space Of all the universe were fixed, enclosed By definite bounds, by this time all the mass, The weight, of matter would have run together From all sides to the bottom, tending downward From the sheer force of weight, so there could be No room for action under heaven’s roof, No heaven, for that matter, and no sun, Since all material would be heaped so high From its long subsidence through endless time. But as it is, no rest is ever given To the atoms’ rainfall; there’s no pit, far down, To be their pool, their ultimate resting-place. All things keep on, in everlasting motion, Out of the infinite come the particles Speeding above, below, in endless dance. By nature space is deep and space is boundless, So that bright shafts of lightning could not cross it, Given eternal time, nor could they lessen The area before their onward course. There is too much space, all here and there, around them, No limit to that infinite domain.

1.47 And nature will not have it that the sum Of things set any limits for themselves, Forcing matter to be limited By void, and void be limited by matter. This alternation, this recurrence, makes The total limitless. One or the other, Were it not for this, would singly spread itself Out of all moderation. Matter and space, I say again, are equally infinite, Else neither sea nor land nor shining sky, Neither human beings nor high gods incarnate Could stay beyond the passing of a moment, For matter, driven from its normal fusion, Loosed beyond all abundance, would come sweeping Through the great emptiness, or, far more likely, Would never have created any thing, Never have been compacted from disorder. Surely the atoms never began by forming A conscious pact, a treaty with each other, Where they should stay apart, where come together. More likely, being so many, in many ways Harassed and driven through the universe From an infinity of time, by trying All kinds of motion, every combination, They came at last into such disposition As now establishes the sum of things. And this arrangement, kept through cosmic cycles, Each one ten thousand years, would make the rivers Flood, glut with waves insatiable ocean deeps, Earth, fondled by sun’s warmness, bring to birth New generations, and the wheeling fires Of heaven endure. Now this could not be done If there were not an infinite supply Of matter, whence lost things could be restored, Each in its proper season. Any beast Deprived of food will die; so all things must Succumb to dissolution, once the source Dries up replenishment. Blows from without Cannot, by pressure, save the sum of things. They’ll batter away, they’ll keep on battering, Keep parts intact till new replacements come, But, even so, at times they must rebound, Yield time and space for atoms to fly free Out of their old composure. Over and over, Even for blows like these to keep on coming, We need an infinite quantity of matter.

1.48 One thing they’ll tell you, Memmius; don’t believe it, And that’s the argument that all things tend Toward a center; hence the world stands firm Without external pressure; high things or low Can’t be turned loose, go flying every which way, since matter is compelled to seek the center- (Well, maybe so, at least if you believe That anything can stand on top of itself) — Things weighty, below earth, will rise again And rest on earth, but upside down, like trees We see reflected in a glassy river. Likewise, of course, earth’s animals all walk Head down-can’t fall into the sky below Any more than we can rise to tracts of heaven. When they see sun, we see the stars of night. Their nights, our days, go by in alternation. How stupid! How ridiculous! How can There be a center in the infinite? And even if there were, how could things stay there? If space and void exist, they must yield passage Wherever they are, through center or non-center, To moving substance, nowhere, never, a place Where bodies come to weightlessness and stop In everlasting standstill. By its nature Void cannot offer rest, but only passage. Impossible, therefore, that things combine In a compulsive frenzy toward a center.

1.49 Besides, they do not claim that all things press Centerward so, but only earth and water, Things, so to speak, of earthly frame - our bodies - Or watery - like seas weight, or mountain cascades. It differs with thin air and with hot fire: They claim that these are driven from the center, And therefore heaven blinks with constellations, And fire goes grazing over the blue sky-pastures, Because heat flees the center, gathers there. Otherwise tops of trees could hardly live, Being so far from earth, unless some food Could come to them a little at a time Supplied from earth below. … This must be wrong. The ramparts of the world Would otherwise vanish, suddenly dissolved, As flames disperse in utter emptiness, And all things in like manner come to ruin, The thundering areas of sky collapse, Earth crumble underfoot, and in the wrack Of sky and all things, loosened and confounded, All perish, all, and in one flick of time Nothing be left but desert, chaos, darkness. For in whatever part you predicate An absence of atomic stuff, be sure That part will be the gate of death, that way The portal for destruction, mass and matter Rushing headlong to doom.

1.50 If you know this, It only takes a very little trouble To learn the rest: the lessons, one by one, Brighten each other, no dark night will keep you, Pathless, astray, from ultimate vision and light, All things illumined in each other’s radiance.

Book II

2.01 How sweet it is, when whirlwinds roil great ocean, To watch, from land, the danger of another, Not that to see some other person suffer Brings great enjoyment, but the sweetness lies In watching evils you yourself are free from. How sweet, again, to see the clash of battle Across the plains, yourself immune to danger. But nothing is more sweet than full possession Of those calm heights, well built, well fortified By wise men’s teaching, to look down from here At others wandering below, men lost, Confused, in hectic search for the right road, The strife of wits, the wars for precedence, The everlasting struggle, night and day, To win towards heights of wealth and power. O wretched, O wretched minds of men! O hearts in darkness! Under what shadows and among what dangers Your lives are spent, such as they are. But look - Your nature snarls, yaps, barks for nothing, really, Except that pain be absent from the body And mind enjoy delight, with fear dispelled, Anxiety gone. We do not need so much For bodily comfort, only loss of pain. I grant you, luxuries are very pleasant, But nature does not really care if houses Lack golden statues in the halls, young men Holding out fiery torches in their hands To light the all-night revels. Let the house Gleam silver and gold, the music waken echoes In gilded panel and crossbeam — never mind.

2.02 Much poorer men are every bit as happy, Are quite well-off, stretched out in groups together On the soft grass beside a running brook, Under a tall tree’s shade, in lovely weather, Where flowers star green meadows. Fever’s heat Departs no sooner if your bodies toss On crimson sheets, or under figured covers, Than if you have to lie on a poor blanket. So, since our bodies find in wealth no profit, And none in rank or power, it must be mind Is no more profited. You may see your hosts Make mimic wars, surging across the drill-ground, Flanked by their cavalry and well-supported By strong reserves, high in morale. You may Behold your fleet churn wide across great seas - And does all this frighten religious terror In panic from your heart? Does the great fear Of death depart, and leave you comforted? What vanity, what nonsense! If men’s fears, Anxieties, pursuing horrors, move, Indifferent to any clash of arms, Untroubled among lords and monarchs, bow Before no gleam of gold, no crimson robe, Why do you hesitate, why doubt that reason Alone has absolute power? Our life is spent In shadows, and it suffers in the dark. As children tremble and fear everything In their dark shadows, we, in the full light, Fear things that really are not one bit more awful Than what poor babies shudder at in darkness, The horrors they imagine to be coming. Our terrors and our darknesses of mind Must be dispelled, then, not by sunshine’s rays, Not by those shining arrows of the light, But by insight into nature, and a scheme Of systematic contemplation. Come, Let me explain what kind of movement causes The life-producing elements to beget All kinds of things, and, when they are begotten, To loosen them from life, what force impels them To act this way, to give them power to move Through the great void: remember, pay attention! Matter surely does not cohere, tight-packed, Since we can see that everything is lessened, Can see all things flowing away with time, Whose slow attrition takes them from our sight, While still the sum of things remains intact. Whatever is subtracted from one thing Is added to another. In their course The seeds of things cause fading, or cause bloom, And never linger; so the sum of things Is constantly renewed, all creatures live In symbiosis, or, in homelier terms, On a see-saw up and down, or an infinite relay, Each generation, like a runner, handing The torch on to another.

2.03 If you think Atoms can stop their course, refrain from movement, And by cessation cause new kinds of motion, You are far astray indeed. Since there is void Through which they move, all fundamental motes Must be impelled, either by their own weight Or by some force outside them. When they strike Each other, they bounce off; no wonder, either, Since they are absolute solid, all compact, With nothing back of them to block their path. To help you see more clearly that all atoms Are always moving, just remember this: There is no bottom to the universe, No place for basic particles to rest, Since space is infinite, unlimited, Reaching beyond all bounds, in all directions, As time and time again I have shown you proof. Therefore, of course, no atom ever rests Coming through void, but always drives, is driven In various ways, and their collisions cause, As the case may be, greater or less rebound. When they are held in thickest combination, At closer intervals, with the space between More hindered by their interlock of figure, These give us rock, or adamant, or iron, Things of that nature. (Not very many kinds Go wandering little and lonely through the void.) There are some whose alternate meetings, partings, are At greater intervals; from these we are given Thin air, the shining sunlight. Many more Have been kept out of any combination, Nowhere conjoin. Before our eyes we have An illustration. If you look sometimes, You see the motes all dancing, as the sun Streams through the shutters into a dark room. Look! - there they go, like armies in maneuver Whose little squadrons charge, retreat, join, part, From this you can deduce that on a scale Oh, infinitely smaller, beyond your sight, Similar turbulence whirls. A little thing Can often show us what a great one’s like, And that’s not all the story, either. Watch!- Those motes in the sunlight, by their restlessness, Tell you there’s motion, hidden and unseen, In what seems solid matter. As they bounce, Change course, come back, here, there, and every which way, You may be sure this restlessness is given By their essential core, atomic essence, From just these first-beginnings. They are moved By their own inner impulse first, and then Such groups as form with just a few together, Only a little bigger than their units, Are moved by unseen blows from these: in turn They shove along the somewhat larger masses. So, motion comes from first-beginnings, grows By slow degrees till we can see the process, Just as we see the dancing motes in the sunlight, But cannot see what urge compels the dancing.

2.04 Now then - what kind of speed does matter have? The answer, Memmius, won’t take very long. When dawn bathes earth with morning light, and birds, All kinds of them, flying through pathless woods, Fill all the delicate air with liquid song, How suddenly at such a time the sun Clothes everything with light! This we can see, And so can all men, plain before their eyes. But the sun’s warmth and that calm light come on Not through an empty void; their course is set More slowly, as if they parted waves of air The way a swimmer does. Not one by one Do the tiny particles of heat proceed, But rather en masse, get in each other’s way, At times, and are also blocked by outside force. All this combines to make them go more slowly. It does not work this way with single atoms Which go along through empty void, unchecked By opposition. They have their parts, of course, But they are single units; they drive on, Resistless, toward their first direction’s impulse, And they must be of marvelous speed, beyond The speed of light, surpassing far the sweep Of lightning in split seconds through the sky- Impossible to follow every atom, To see complete their order, action, system.

2.05 Some people do not know how matter works. They think that nature needs the will of the gods To fit the seasons of the year so nicely To human needs, to bring to birth the crops And other blessings, which our guide to life, The radiance of pleasure, makes us crave Through Venus’ agency. To be sure, we breed To keep the race alive, but to think that gods Have organized all things for the sake of men Is nothing but a lot of foolishness. I might not know a thing about the atoms, But this much I can say, from what I see Of heaven’s ways and many other features: The nature of the world just could not be A product of the gods’ devising; no, There are too many things the matter with it. I’ll give you further details, Memmius, later. Now to get on with further explanation Concerning motion.

2.06 The first point to make Is, no internal Force can make things rise Or force them upward. Don’t be fooled by sparks: I know they rise, increase, grow upward; crops Act the same way, and trees, although their weight Exerts a downward pull. We must not think, When fires go leaping toward the roofs of houses, And the swift flames lick out at beams and timbers, That they do this of their own will entirely, Without the urge of pressure from below. Blood acts the same way, spurting from our bodies, Arterial jets, a scarlet-colored fountain, And don’t you see how violently water Geysers beams and timbers? The deeper we shove them, The harder we push them down, all might and main- With just that energy water shoots them back, Heaving them up till they leap clear into air. Yet, I suppose, we have no doubt all things, So far as in them lies, are carried down Through empty space. So flames, through wafts of air, Must rise, impelled, although their weight fights back To bring them downward. Don’t you see the torches Of the night sky draw their long fiery trails Wherever nature gives them passageway? Don’t you see stars and meteors fall to earth? Even the sun from heaven’s height rains heat, Sows fields with light. From heaven to earth descends Downward the course of heat. Watch lightning flash Across the countering winds; now here, now there, Dart the cloud-riving fires; most often, though, The bolts drive down to earth.

2.07 I’d have you know That while these particles come mostly down, Straight down of their own weight through void, at times- No one knows when or where - they swerve a little, Not much, but just enough for us to say They change direction. Were this not the case, All things would fall straight down, like drops of rain, Through utter void, no birth-shock would emerge Out of collision, nothing be created. If anyone thinks heavier bodies fall More swiftly in their downward plunge, and thus Fall on the lighter ones, and by this impact Cause generation, he is very wrong. To be sure, whatever falls through air or water Goes faster in proportion to its weight, For air’s a frailer element than water. Neither imposes quite the same delay On all things passing through them, though both yield More quickly to the heavier. But void Can never hold up anything at all, Never; its very essence is to yield. So all things, though their weights may differ, drive Through unresisting void at the same rate, With the same speed. No heavier ones can catch The lighter from above, nor downward strike Such blows as might effect the variance In motion nature gives to things. There must, I emphasize, there has to be, a swerve No more than minimal, for otherwise We’d seem to predicate a slanting motion, But this the facts refute. It’s obvious, It’s clear to see, that substances don’t sidle, Fall sidewise, hurtling downward; but whose eyes Are quick enough to see they never veer With almost infinitesimal deviation?

2.08 If cause forever follows after cause In infinite, undeviating sequence And a new motion always has to come Out of an old one, by fixed law; if atoms Do not, by swerving, cause new moves which break The laws of fate; if cause forever follows, In infinite sequence, cause - where would we get This free will that we have, wrested from fate, By which we go ahead, each one of us, Wherever our pleasures urge? Don’t we also swerve At no fixed time or place, but as our purpose Directs us? There’s no doubt each man’s will Initiates action, and this prompting stirs Our limbs to movement. When the gates fly open, No racehorse breaks as quickly as he wants to, For the whole body of matter must be aroused, Inspired to follow what the mind desires; So, you can see, motion begins with will Of heart or mind, and from that will moves on Through all the framework. This is not the same As our advance when we are prodded on Or shoved along by someone else’s force. Under those circumstances, it is clear That all our substance moves against our will, Violence-driven, till our purpose checks it. A foreign force often propels men on, Makes them go forward, hurries them pell-mell. Yet you see, don’t you, something in ourselves Can offer this force resistance, fight against it, And this resistance has sufficient power To permeate the body, to check the course, To bring it to a halt? In atoms also There has to be some other cause for motion Beyond extrinsic thrust or native weight, And this third force is resident in us Since we know nothing can be born of nothing. It is weight that stops all things from being caused By blows, by outer force. Well then (you ask) What keeps the mind from having inside itself Some such compulsiveness in all its doings, What keeps it from being matter’s absolute slave? The answer is, that our free will derives From just that ever-so-slight atomic swerve At no fixed time, at no fixed place whatever. Matter has never thickened or thinned; it cannot, Since it has neither increase nor diminution. Atoms are moving in the same way now As they have done forever, and will do Forever, and all things will come to birth Just as they always have, will grow, will thrive According to their nature’s law; there lies No place for matter of any kind whatever To make escape to from its absolute sum, And no place, either, whence new quantity Could possibly come rushing in, to change All nature, alter motion.

2.09 It’s no wonder That while the atoms are in constant motion, Their total seems to be at total rest, Save here and there some individual stir. Their nature lies beyond our range of sense, Far, far beyond. Since you can’t get to see The things themselves, they’re bound to hide their moves, Especially since things we can see, often Conceal their movements, too, when at a distance. Take grazing sheep on a hill, you know they move, The woolly creatures, to crop the lovely grass Wherever it may call each one, with dew Still sparkling it with jewels, and the lambs, Fed full, play little games, flash in the sunlight, Yet all this, far away, is just a blur, A whiteness resting on a hill of green. Or when great armies sweep across great plains In mimic warfare, and their shining goes Up to the sky, and all the world around Is brilliant with their bronze, and trampled earth Trembles under the cadence of their tread, While mountains echo the uproar to the stars, The horsemen gallop and shake the very ground, And yet high in the hills there is a place From which the watcher sees a host at rest, And only a brightness resting on the plain.

2.10 Now learn what kinds of matter constitute These first-beginnings, and how different They are in shape, how varied in their forms. Many, indeed, are very much alike, But, as a general rule, they tend to differ. No wonder, either, for, as I have taught, Their numbers are so great they have no end, No possible sum; in such a multitude They could not possibly be spun alike, The same in warp and woof. Parade before you The human race, the silent swimming creatures, Wild beasts, tame cattle, all the varying birds Flocking to river banks or lakes or springs Or flying through the pathlessness of woods - Go on from there, look close at every kind, And you will find no two identical. Otherwise, mothers would not know their young, Nor young their mothers; but we see they do And recognize each other, every bit As well as human beings do. A calf, Struck down before some god’s august demesne, Lies fallen near the incense-bearing altar, The warm blood flowing from his breast. His mother, Bereft, wanders in search through upland green, Distinguishes this cloven print from that one, Surveys all regions, hoping for a glimpse Of her lost young one, fills the leafy groves With plaintive lowing, comes to the stall again, At a standstill in her heartbreak. Osiers, grass Dew-fresh, streams running level with their banks, Can hold no charm for her, nor turn her mood Away from sorrow. It’s no help at all For her to look at others of her kind, Young ones in happy romping over meadows. She seeks her own, the one best known to her. It’s the same way with little bleating goats Who know their long-horned mothers, or with lambs, Those frisky little rascals, in the herds Of sheep; each one, as nature tells him to, Comes skippity-hop to his own proper milk-tap. Or take an ear of corn; you will find no kernel Exactly like another. No two shells That decorate the margin of the shore Where sea comes curving over thirsty sand Are quite the same in whorl and convolution. This has to be the way it is, this has to- I say it over and over - be the way With the most infinitesimal first-beginnings, Turned out by nature, not by handiwork, Not machine-tooled, always in one set mold, But different from each other in their flying.

2.11 This makes it easy for us to explain Why lightning’s fire can penetrate more deeply Than any torch-flame we on earth can manage. You can say that lightning, heaven’s fire, consists Of smaller particles, more fine, and so Can pass through pores which torch-fire, born of wood, Could never enter. Light comes through a pane, Water does not. Why so? It must be, light Has smaller particles than those of water. Wine flows more quickly through a colander Than olive oil; the latter’s elements Are either coarser, or so hooked, so meshed They can’t so easily be pulled apart And one by one ooze through in proper course.

2.12 Honey and milk are pleasant to the tongue, But wormwood and red gentian both are bitter, With a nasty taste that puckers up the mouth. From smooth round atoms come those things which touch Our senses pleasantly; what feels harsh, or rough, Is held together by particles more barbed And therefore seems to slash across our senses Or by its entrance shatter and break.

2.13 All things We feel to be agreeable clash with those We deem unpleasant; they are unlike in shape. Don’t ever think the rasping of a saw That sets your teeth on edge has elements As smooth as those of a music, which the bards Draw from the harpstrings where their fingers move. Don’t think that atoms of like form assail Our nostrils when rotten carcasses are burning As when the air is filled with eastern saffron Or when the altars breathe Panchaian scent. Don’t think that lovely hues are ever born From the same atoms as those that smart the eyes, Force tears, and seem in general foul and ugly. No sense-delighting object has been made Without some elemental smoothness in it, And, on the other hand, whatever seems Noxious, disgusting, has, as its deep core, The presence of rough matter. In between Are things by no means absolutely smooth, Yet not all barbs and hooks, but little spurs Projecting just a bit, to tease our senses, To tickle rather than sting, wine-lees, for instance, Or elecampane. Warm fire, cold frost, are toothed With differed cogs; our human sense of touch Gives evidence of that; by all that’s holy I swear, by touch alone men come to know Sensations of the body, whether things From outside enter it, or from within Hurt issues, or the sweet release of love. Sometimes within the body the atoms riot, Reacting from some blow; their turbulence Causes internal pain. See for yourself - Strike part of your body with your hand; what happens? So, first-beginnings must have different forms, Each with a different effect.

2.14 Hard things, Tight-knit, must have more barbs and hooks to hold them, Must be more interwoven, like thorny branches In a close hedgerow; in this class of things We find, say, adamant, flint, iron, bronze That shrieks in protest if you try to force The stout oak door against the holding bars. Fluid substance, though, must be composed Of smooth and rounded particles. Poppy seeds Might serve as an example, being round And small and smooth, mercurial as drops Of water, almost never held together - And finally all elusive things that vanish In moments from our sight, like smoke, flame, cloud, If not made up of quite smooth, Completely round, are still not too entangled, Too interwoven, too close-meshed. They can Pierce flesh, for instance, even penetrate rock. This kind of object has to be composed Of elements that are sharp, but not close-linked, More like a flying dart than a roll of barbed wire. Don’t be surprised that fluid can be bitter Like salt sea-brine, where smooth and round combine, Yet mixed with them is something pitted, pocked, Not necessarily hooked together, just rough Enough to cause some trouble. There’s a way Of testing this: you can make saltwater fresh By filtering it through earth, and not just once, But over and over again; what happens then Is that the rougher parts are caught and held, Catch on the earth, whereas the smoother ones Come through all gentled, mild and sweet; they leave Above them the foul brackish elements Whose rougher surface helps them stick in earth.

2.15 This much explained, let me go on to state A corollary truth that follows from it, Namely, that atoms have a finite number Of differing shapes. Were this not so, some seeds Would have to be of infinite magnitude. If you take one body, reasonably small, There cannot be too many different forms Inside it; let’s suppose one chunk of matter Consists of three much smaller parts, or maybe Add a few more; when you take all these parts Placing them high and low, or left and right, When you have learned, by shifting them around, Each possible arrangement, pattern, shape, Then, if you seek still further variation, You will have to add new parts, repeat the process As long as you want the shapes to vary more. It follows that out of increase of substance Ensues variety of form. You must not, Because of this, conclude that atoms are Infinite in their possible number of shapes, For this would force you to admit they were Of infinite size! Impossible; I’ve proved it. Ridiculous to assume a lack of limit, Of mete and bound. Your foreign cloaks, Your Meliboaen crimsons, deeply dyed With color from the shells of Thessaly, And all the peacock hues of all the world, Whose graces, in gold sunlight, make us smile, All these would fade to nothing, overcome By new triumphant colors. Odors, too, The scents of honey, of myrrh, would fade and die And silence fall on the sweet sounds of music, Swan-song, the harmony of voice and lyre, With excellence forever giving way To super-excellence. Things might also change Not only for the better, but for worse, Bad smells turn into stenches, ugly sights Be veritable eyesores, and the taste Gag at what’s on the palate. But we know This does not happen, proper bonds are set To all things, so, perforce, we must admit There must be limits to the range of forms Matter can ever take. From fire to ice, From ice to fire, the course is strictly set Whichever way we go, though in between Lie many stations intermediate, Warm, luke-warm, tepid, chilly, cooler, cold, But at each terminal the blaze of a sword-point Confronts us, flaming hot, or glaring cold.

2.16 This much explained, let me go on again To state a further corollary: atoms Of similar shape are infinite in number. The count of shapes, of forms, is limited, Specimens, therefore, of any single form, Must either be unlimited in number Or matter’s total sum have to be finite,- But this I have proved is quite impossible. My verse has shown how particles cohere, How, from the infinite, the sum of things Endures, impelled, in its eternal harness By the ox-goad of forever.

2.17 It is true Some animals appear to be more scarce, Nature less fertile in them than in others, But in some far-off land, some realm remote, Thousands on thousands may fill out the tally. Just as, of quadrupeds, we see the breed Of elephants, those snaky-handed beasts Whose native India a solid wall Of ivory protects. This must have taken The tusks of more than millions, yet we see Only a very few of these huge creatures. Still, for the sake of argument, let me grant That there is one thing, single and unique, With nothing like it in the whole wide world. But how could this be given birth, or growth, Or sustenance, without an infinite Available supply of primal source? Suppose the first-beginnings of this object Were finite, countable, yet forever tossed Through all the universe, what force, what pact Could bring them so together in that sea, That maelstrom of confusing otherness? They’d have, I think, no possible scheme for union, Are more like what you’d see on a vast ocean After a terrible storm, and wrack and ruin Where wind and wave break, toss beams, ribs, thwarts, yards, Prows, masts, smashed oars, hurl figure-heads and stern-posts Along the shores of every coast, in warning To mortals: Never trust the sea, whose might Is endless as her treachery; avoid her, Do not believe her false seducing smile. This illustration shows that once you make The count of atoms limited, what follows Is just this kind of tossing, being tossed, Flotsam and jetsam through the seas of time, Never allowed to join in peace, to dwell In peace, estranged from amity and growth. The lesson is plain as day, that things are born, That things increase, and therefore there must be An infinite supply of matter for them.

2.18 The ways of death can not prevail forever, Entombing healthiness, nor can birth and growth Forever keep created things alive. There is always this great elemental deadlock, This warfare through all time. The keen for the dead Blends with the cry that new-born babies raise At their first shock by the light. Night follows day, Dawn follows eventide, and never a one That has not heard these feeble pulings sound Through the more dark and somber threnodies.

2.19 It is well to nail this down, to keep in mind This principle as well: that nature has Nothing consisting of one element And one alone, but everything is made Of many elements combined together. Whatever thing possesses many powers, Many capacities, it thereby shows It must contain so many kinds of atoms, All sorts of different elements and shapes. Earth, for example, holds those primal forms From which her cooling sources roll, renew Unbounded ocean; the same earth contains The origins of fire, the burning deserts, Volcanic Etnas; and again, she holds The shining harvests, orchard loveliness, Not only gifts for mortals, but the streams, The leaves, the berries, for the animals Roaming the mountains. Therefore she is called The gods’ Great Mother, Dam of all the Beasts, Only Creatress of the race of men.

2.20 The old and learned poets of the Greeks Have sung her praise - how, from her shrine, she comes Riding in state, driving her lion-team, Wherefrom we learn the great world hangs in air, Land being unable to rest on land. The lions In harness prove parental gentleness Can tame the wildest creatures. On her head She wears the mural crown; thus fortified, Her heights sustain great cities. Borne aloft, Her image, thus adorned, awes mighty lands In her divine processional. Her name Is, The Idaean Mother; many tribes Have called her so from ancient times. They gave her A Phrygian retinue because, they say, Out of that realm, spreading across the world, Came wheat and corn. They give her eunuch priests To demonstrate that men are sometimes found Unworthy of their fathers, ravishers Of the maternal godhead, and such men Must not send offspring to the shores of light. Their open palms slap the taut bongo-drums To terrible thunder, the hollow cymbals clash, The horns blare raucous, and the flutes pipe shrill With sharp insistence; there are spears and swords In violence brandished, so that wicked hearts, Ungrateful spirits of the mob, are cowed Before her great divinity. And so, When she is borne, all silent, through great towns, Bestowing her unspoken blessing there, Men strew her way with silver and with bronze, Lavish in giving, and rose-petals fall Like snow, to form a canopy of shade Over The Mother, and her retinue. Next an armed band, whom the Greeks call Curetes, Leap bloodstained in a war dance. The stamp, the beat, Make the crests nod with the terrible jerking heads. They remind us of the storied ones in Crete Who hid the crying of the infant Jove Under their uproar, boys around a boy Swift dancing, clashing arms in shock and beat So father Saturn could not catch and eat him Wounding his mother’s heart. So armed men now Give the Great Mother escort, and these arms May signify that the goddess orders men To have an active will for the defense Of their own country with the arms of valor, To be the pride and glory of their fathers. All this, all this is wonderfully told, A marvel of tradition, and yet far From the real truth. Reject it - for the gods Must, by their nature, take delight in peace, Forever calm, serene, forever far From our affairs, beyond all pain, beyond All danger, in their own resources strong, Having no need of us at all, above Wrath or propitiation.

2.21 Let a man Call upon Neptune, if he likes, say Ceres When he means corn or wheat, miscall his wine By an apostrophe to Father Bacchus, Let him keep on repeating that our globe Is the gods’ mother - but let him, all this while, Be careful, really, not to let religion Infect, pollute, corrupt him. Earth indeed Is quite insentient, has always been, And as possessor of all particles Sends many forth in many ways to light, No consciousness about it.

2.22 A single field Often has in it wooly grazing sheep, The warlike breed of horses, the horned cattle, All under the same canopy of heaven, All drinking from one river. So they live, Each in its fashion; each perpetuates Ancestral archetypes, ways of behavior. In every kind of grass and grain and stream Diverse abundance must exist, to feed Each different demand. And every beast Consists of bones, blood, veins, warmth, fluid, flesh, Sinews, and so on - very different things Composed of atoms differently shaped. And things burnt in a fire - whatever else They have, or lack, in common - share, at least, Variety in their issue, embers, sparks, Light, flying ash. Range wide and far, you’ll find The scheme consistent; everything conceals Within its single substance many a mote, Many a particle, all different. Some visible objects have not only hue But color and taste. Our gifts are great in number And manifold in form. Odors can reach Where hues are barred, colors can penetrate Where taste cannot, and so on. We conclude From this that in their basic elements There must be difference of shape. One mass Is formed from many differing particles.

2.23 In what I write here, common elements And different ones run through the words and lines. This is not to say that the same letter’s found In every word; it might be possible For the same letters to fashion different words, Like verse and sever, say. This principle Applies in other areas as well. Some elements are common to many things But they can differ in the whole effect, As happens with the human race and trees, With animals and crops.

2.24 You must not think That all things can combine in every way, Every conceivable pattern, for, if so, You’d see such freaks as men-half-beasts, and boughs, Instead of arms and legs, coming from torsos. You’d see marine-terrestrial animals, Chimaeras, for example, breathing fire Out of their ugly faces, browsing over All-mothering earth; but it is plain as day This does not happen, since we see all things Maintain the proper order of their kind, Same kind of parenthood, same kind of seed, Definite causes, definite effects, A fixed, assured procedure. In all things The sustenance they take pervades the limbs, The particles of nourishment combine To set those limbs in motion. We can see The opposite of this process also, — nature Often casts out improper elements, Rejects them; many elements are driven Outward as if by blows, they cannot join Within this frame, or that, can neither feel Nor even feign the attributes of life. Not only animals obey these laws, The code applies to everything. As all Are different, so, in their origin They must derive from different shapes. Of course I do not say that nothing ever looks Like anything else, but that in general Species are different, from different seed, With different intervals, junctions, ways — weight, force, Motion, and so on. Not animals alone Are separate and distinct, one from the other, But also land and sea, heaven and earth.

2.25 There is more to learn; for me it’s pleasant work. Do listen - I don’t want you to suppose White atoms form those white things that you see Before your eyes, or that black objects come From particles of black. Never believe That any visible color is derived From motes that color. Basic elements Simply do not have color, none at all, In that respect being neither like nor unlike The larger forms they fashion. You’d be wrong To think imagination can’t conceive Of objects lacking color. Those born blind, Who never have seen the sunlight, learn by touch The sense of bodies, though ideas of color Mean nothing to them, and the color-concept Is by no means an absolute. You and I Know this from our experience; have we not In utter darkness put our hands on things Without the least idea what color they were? Well, then: if anything can be colorless, Atoms must be such things. Here is the proof: Each color can be changed to any other, But basic elements should not act like this. Something must stand immutable, it must, Lest all things be reduced to absolute nothing. If anything is changed, leaving its bounds, That is the death of what it was before. So don’t go dyeing atoms any color, Or you’ll have everything annihilated.

2.26 All right, then: first-beginnings have no color, But they do differ in shape, and from this cause Arise effects of color variation. It makes a world of difference in what order They form their combinations, how they are held, How give, take, interact. For an example, Things black a little while ago turn white, All shining white, as a dark sea can change From sullen black to the shine of dancing marble When the great winds go sweeping over the waves. You can say that what we often see as black, When its matter gets disturbed, or its order shifts With something added, something taken away, Looks, almost in a moment, white and shining. But if the ocean-surface were composed Of blue-green atoms, it could never whiten. Mix blue in as you like, stir it around, You won’t get white. But if these ocean-atoms That give the sea its single perfect luster Were every kind of color, the way a square Is formed, or can be, out of triangles Trapezoids, rhombs, and so on, which we see Within those four right angles, even so In the pure perfect luster, we should note All sorts of different colors. Furthermore, There is nothing in geometry to keep Forms of a different kind from adding up To squares, but a variety of hues Can’t possibly fuse to a single color.

2.27 It’s a delusion, but a tempting one To assign color to the primal motes, But this is error. White can’t come from white, Nor black from black, but both of them can come From different hues; white will arise, for instance, Much sooner out of never-a-color-at-all Than it ever will from black, or any hue That contradicts and fights it.

2.28 Furthermore, Since, without light, color cannot exist, And since the atoms never reach the light, They must be colorless. In the blind dark What color could they have? Even in bright day Hues change as light-fall comes direct or slanting. The plumage of a dove, at nape or throat, Seems in the sunlight sometimes ruby-red And sometimes emerald-green suffused with coral. A peacock’s tail, in the full blaze of light, Changes in color as he moves and turns. Since the light’s impact causes this, we know Color depends on light. Our eyes receive One kind of impulse when they look at white And quite another from black, but the sense of touch Cares nothing at all for colors, only for shapes, So first-beginnings have no need of color, But from their varied forms derive their force, Their identifying impact.

2.29 Now, if we say No single shape has one consistent hue, But any shape can come in any color, Why aren’t the things they form likewise imbued With every possible rainbow variation? Your flying crows might any minute shed White plumes, or swans come black out of black eggs, And everything be colored every which way. Reduce a thing, divide it, strip it down, And you can watch its color disappear. Pull a red cloth to pieces, thread by thread, And all its scarlet fades; from this we know Parts, in the process of becoming smaller, Have lost all color by the time they reach The level of the atom.

2.30 Finally, Since not all substances, as you admit, Produce either sound or smell, you are correct To argue these are attributes they lack. By the same token, things we cannot see Are just as sure to be devoid of color As they are free from having sound or smell, And a quick intellect can recognize Things can exist without these attributes, As without certain others.

2.31 Don’t suppose It is only color that the atoms lack. They are devoid of warmth, of heat, of cold; They are soundless, sapless; as they move along They leave no trail of scent. You know what happens When you prepare to compound some perfume Of marjoram and myrrh and fragrant nard. One of the first things that you have to take, With just as little odor as possible, Is olive-oil for a base, because its scent Won’t interfere or dominate the blend Concocted in its blandness. So the atoms Impart to things they bring to birth no smell, No sound-they’ve no such residues to spare- No taste, no sense of hot or cold; all these Ephemerals are mortal, pliant, soft, Brittle, or hollow; no such properties Ever inhere in atoms, or we’d lack The indestructible solid base we need Lest all things be reduced to utter nothing.

2.32 Things which we see are sentient, we must now Acknowledge, have their origin in things Quite without sentience. Many things we know Neither refute this nor give argument Of any force against it, but they tend Rather to give it credence and support. They lead us by the hand, almost, to show That animals are born from senseless stuff. Haven’t you seen live worms come crawling out From a manure pile, after heavy rain Has drenched earth rotten? The same thing occurs In the same way with all the other things: Rivers and leaves and forage are transformed To animals, and animals to men And our own bodies oftentimes sustain The strength of predatory beasts and birds. Nature turns all the foods to living flesh And out of this creates all sentient things; In the same way she makes dry tinder break In flame, thus turning everything to fire. The most important point - I hope you see this - Consists in the arrangement of the atoms, Their order, their reciprocal give and take.

2.33 Now what’s all this that shakes and moves your mind, Turns your perceptions hither and yon, forbids Acceptance of belief that sentient things Are born, or may be, out of things insentient? Stones, wood, earth, all of them combined, can never Produce a living sense, but bear in mind I do not say that consciousness derives All helter-skelter from all creative force, From all the elements that make up matter. I do insist that we must recognize How small the primal atoms are that make A sentient object, I insist again That we must know their order, shape, design. In wood, in clods, we see them not at all, Yet, when the rain rots wood and crumbles clod, The little worms are born. The reason is That a new cause, in this case rain, has broken The old arrangement, so disturbed the atoms, That new things have been brought to birth, and must be. Now, those who argue sentient things are formed From other sentient things, and these derive From others still, would have to claim that atoms Are somehow soft, and therefore must be mortal. Sensation, as we know, inheres in things Like sinews, bowels, veins, and all of these Consist of soft and perishable stuff. Well, even so, - suppose such particles Are everlasting, they would have to have The feelings proper to one part alone Or else be thought, each by itself, to be The likeness of a fully sentient creature. But parts can’t have sensation by themselves, They are dependent, rather, on each other. Does a hand feel hand-like, or have any feeling When severed from the body? Why, of course not! So that takes care of half of that dilemma, Leaving us to conclude that atoms must Be like ourselves, to feel the selfsame things That we do, share with us the sense of life. But then how can we call them first-beginnings Or primal motes, exempt from ways of death, If they are living creatures, and, as such, Mortal by definition? Resolve the paradox, Concede them immortality: what then? They’ll join, they’ll meet, they’ll reproduce themselves, Bring nothing forth except a beastly mob, A common herd, as men and cattle do, Or wilder animals. If, by chance, they lose One bodily sensation and gain another, What good the loss, the gain? We must resort To the old argument: as eggs become Chickens, as worms emerge from rotten earth After a heavy rain, so sentience must Be born out of insentience.

2.34 Somebody now Will argue that sensation can arise From non-sensation; all it takes is change, Something like birth, some such creative process. The way to answer this is to make clear, To prove, that birth and change of any kind Alike depend upon the prior force Of an - I’d almost say - deliberate union.

2.35 You just can’t have sensation in a body Before its creature’s born, while all its matter, The elements of its make-up, are dispersed All over the world, in river, air, and earth, As well as earth’s created growing things, And have not come together, in a way Suited to movement, brought to light and life The all-perceiving, all-protective sense.

2.36 Sometimes some heavier blow than natural Strikes down some living thing, confusing all Its senses, whether of body or of mind. Because of this, the arrangements of the atoms Are sundered, all the vital movements blocked, Until the shock, diffused through all the limbs, Loosens the bonds of spirit from body, sends That spirit, shattered and fragmented, forth From every portal. What else can a blow Succeed in doing, except shatter and break? Sometimes less violent blows are struck, and then The vital forces win, they win, they quell The riots, they recall to normal ways, Expel the dominance of the tyrant death From lording it over the body, light again The fires of sense, almost gone out. How else Can consciousness come back from the very door Of death, reverse its almost-finished journey?

2.37 Since pain exists when violence attacks Material particles within the body, Shaking them loose, troubling their residence In flesh and bone, but, once they settle down In peace again, a calm delight ensues - From this we know that atoms cannot ache With any pain or grief, cannot rejoice With pleasure, since they have no elements To be disturbed, upset, or be restored To profitable sweetness. They must be, It has to follow, quite sensationless.

2.38 All animals have feelings, that we know But still, it makes no sense that every mote, Every particular atom in their make-up Has, in its essence, the same kind of feeling. As for the human race, well, what about it? Do those peculiar atoms, out of which We are compounded, shake their sides with mirth, Bedew their cheeks with tears? Are they smart enough To talk about the way things mix together? Do they investigate their own beginnings? If they’re composed of other elements, And those of others still, and so on, and so on, There’s just no place where you can dare to stop. As long as you keep saying that a thing Is talking, laughing, being wise, I’ll hound you Until you stop insisting things are made Of particles like themselves. That’s foolishness, Sheer lunacy. Surely, a man can laugh And not be made of laughing particles; He can be wise, talk sense, and reason well Without one philosophical atom in him. It is only proper, then, to realize That every sentient creature which we see is made of particles with no sensation.

2.39 We all have come from heavenly seed; we all Have the same father, and our mother earth Receives from him the fertilizing showers. So pregnant, she brings forth the shining grain, The trees that make us glad, the race of men, The generations of wild beasts, the food By which they feed, increase and multiply. She is rightly called our mother, and the sons Of earth return to earth, but any part Sent down from heaven, must ascend again Recalled to the high temples of the sky And death does not destroy the elements Of matter, only breaks their combinations, Joins them again in other ways, to cause Changes of form and color, to bestow Consciousness, or withdraw it in a moment. It makes a world of difference in what order Atoms form combinations, how they are held, And how they move together. Do not think They hold forever in their keeping things Which in our sight float over surfaces, Are born, meet sudden death. In my own verse It makes a difference in what ways I set My words, my parts of speech. No two may be Alike exactly, but they share alike Many a letter common to them both. The order makes the difference. So it is With more material objects: change the order, Motion, position, combination, shape, And all will have to change.

2.40 Direct your mind To a true system. Here is something new For ear and eye. Nothing is ever so easy But what, at first, it is difficult to trust. Nothing is great and marvelous, but what All men, a little at a time, begin To mitigate their sense of awe. Look up, Look up at the pure bright color of the sky, The wheeling stars, the moon, the shining sun! If all these, all of a sudden, should arise For the first time before our mortal sight, What could be called more wonderful, more beyond The heights to which aspiring mind might dare? Nothing, I think. And yet, a sight like this, Marvelous as it is, now draws no man To lift his gaze to heaven’s bright areas. We are a jaded lot. But even so Don’t be too shocked by something new, too scared To use your reasoning sense, to weigh and balance, So that if in the end a thing seems true, You welcome it with open arms; if false, You do your very best to strike it down. The sum of space is infinite, reaching far Beyond the ramparts of the world; the mind Persists in questioning: what can be there? What is there so far off, toward which the urge Of the free spirit flies?

2.41 There is no end, No limit to the cosmos, above, below, Around, about, stretching on every side. This I have proven, but the fact itself Cries loud in proclamation, nature’s deep Is luminous with proof. The universe Is infinitely wide; its vastness holds Innumerable seeds, beyond all count, Beyond all possibility of number, Flying along their everlasting ways. So it must be unthinkable that our sky And our round world are precious and unique While all those other motes of matter flit In idleness, achieve, accomplish nothing, Especially since this world of ours was made By natural process, as the atoms came Together, willy-nilly, quite by chance, Quite casually and quite intentionless Knocking against each other, massed, or spaced So as to colander others through, and cause Such combinations and conglomerates As form the origin of mighty things, Earth, sea and sky, and animals and men. Face up to this, acknowledge it. I tell you Over and over - out beyond our world There are, elsewhere, other assemblages Of matter, making other worlds. Oh, ours Is not the only one in air’s embrace.

2.42 With infinite matter available, infinite space, And infinite lack of any interference, Things certainly ought to happen. If we have More seeds, right now, than any man can count, More than all men of all time past could reckon, And if we have, in nature, the same power To cast them anywhere at all, as once They were cast here together, let’s admit - We really have to - there are other worlds, More than one race of men, and many kinds Of animal generations.

2.43 Furthermore, Adding up all the sum, you’ll never find One single thing completely different From all the rest, alone, apart, unique, Sole product, single specimen of its kind.

2.44 Look at the animals: is this not true Of mountain-ranging species, and of men, Of the silent schools of fish, of flying things? Likewise you must admit that earth, sun, moon, Ocean, and all the rest, are not unique, But beyond reckoning or estimate. Their term of life is definitely set And so remains, their substance is of stuff No less ephemeral than what we see In the teeming multitudes of our own earth.

2.45 Holding this knowledge, you can’t help but see That nature has no tyrants over her, But always acts of her own will; she has No part of any godhead whatsoever. By all that’s holy in the tranquil calm Where the gods pass serene eternal days I ask you - which of them is strong enough To rule the sum of things, to hold the reins Of absolute profundity, or move the skies To turn together? Who can warm the lands To fruitfulness with fire sent down from heaven? Who can be immanent in every time, In every place - to cloud the world in dark, To shake the quiet areas of sky With terrible sound? Who sends the lightning’s blast Even at his own temples? Who departs To wilderness, but as he goes, in wrath, Lets fly the bolts that pass the guilty by And murder undeserving innocents?

2.46 Now since the origin of all the world, The birthday of the sea and earth and sky, Many additional particles have come From outwardness, and many, many seeds Combined by the tossing of the mighty all, All this, that lands and oceans might increase, The mansion of the heaven widen, lift Its high abodes above the earth, and air Go swirling upward, for all bodies are Distributed by impact, each assigned From everywhere to its own place; fire goes To fire, and earth to earth, and air to air, Moisture to moisture, till that final time When growth is no more possible, the end Which nature, maker of all things, has given. This happens when the vital tides have turned From flow to ebb; all things are bound to halt, To age, as nature checks her own increase. It works like this-whatever growing things You see rejoicing, swelling out, in pride Ascending, as it were, the stairs of life, These are attracting to themselves more stuff Than they let go of; food and sustenance Come easily to the veins, and pores are kept Tight-closed enough to stop the seep of age. There is always diminution, ebb, retreat, But for a while our gain exceeds our loss Until we reach that highest point of ripeness. From there we go, a little at a time, Downhill; age breaks our oak, dissolves our strength To watery feebleness. It’s the solemn truth That when their growth has ended, greater things, The larger, wider, more heroic, stand The more susceptible; their measure proves Too difficult for nourishment, they need More than they can receive of sustenance, Being such lavish givers. It is food That every creature needs, the food that mends, Supports, renews, replenishes, but now Nature can give no more, and income must Be less than outgo. So things wither, die, Made mean by loss, by blows, within, without, Assailed, beseiged, betrayed, till at long last Food fails, and the great walls are battered in. In just this way the ramparts of the world, For all their might, will some day face assault, Be stormed, collapse in ruin and in dust. It is happening already; our poor earth, Worn out, exhausted, brings to birth no more Great eons, Titans, huge majestic beasts, Only our own disgusting little days, Midges and gnats. I can’t believe that men Swung down from heaven on a golden chain, Sprang from the sea or the rock-pounding waves, But the same earth who nourishes them now Once brought them forth, and gave them, to their joy, Vineyards and shining harvests, pastures, arbors, And all this now our very utmost toil Can hardly care for, we wear down our strength Whether in oxen or in men, we dull The edges of our ploughshares, and in return Our fields turn mean and stingy, underfed, And so today the farmer shakes his head, More and more often sighing that his work, The labor of his hands, has come to naught. When he compares the present to the past, The past was better, infinitely so, His father’s lot was fortunate, his world So filled with dedication that it gave Great ease of life in narrow boundaries, When no man held a vast estate - but now The gloomy cultivator of the vine, Degenerate and wilted, wearies heaven With petulant complaining, fails to see That all things, little by little, waste away As time’s erosion crumbles them to doom.

Book III

3.01 O glory of the Greeks, the first to raise The shining light out of tremendous dark Illumining the blessings of our life, You are the one I follow; in your steps I tread, not as a rival, but for love Of your example. Does the swallow vie With swans? Do wobbly-legged little goats Compete in strength and speed with thoroughbreds? You, father, found the truth; you gave to us A Father’s wisdom, and from every page, O most illustrious in renown, we take, As bees do from the flowery banks of summer, The benefit of all your golden words, The gold most worthy of eternal life; For, once your reason, your divining sense, Begins its proclamation, telling us The way things are, all terrors of the mind Vanish, are gone; the barriers of the world Dissolve before me, and I see things happen All through the void of empty space. I see The gods majestic, and their calm abodes Winds do not shake, nor clouds befoul, nor snow Violate with the knives of sleet and cold; But there the sky is purest blue, the air Is almost laughter in that radiance, And nature satisfies their every need, And nothing, nothing, mars their calm of mind. No realms of Hell are ever visible, But earth affords a view of everything, Below and outward, all through space. I feel A more than mortal pleasure in all this, Almost a shudder, since your power has given This revelation of all nature’s ways.

3.02 Since I have taught how everything begins, The nature of those first particles, their shape, Their differences, their voluntary course, Their everlasting motion, and the ways Things are created from them, I must now Make use of poetry to clarify The nature of intelligence and spirit, Of mind and soul. The fear of Acheron Must, first and foremost, be dismissed; this fear Troubles the life of man from its lowest depths, Stains everything with death’s black darkness, leaves No pleasure pure and clear; it drives a man To violate honor, or to break the bonds Of friendship, and, in general, overthrow All of the decencies. Men have betrayed Their country or their parents, desperate To avoid the realms of Acheron. I know - Indeed I know - how people often say That lives diseased, or lives of infamy Are worse than any hell; they know the soul Is made of blood, or air; they do not need Our philosophical scheme. You recognize All this as nothing but rank swagger, spoken For self-assurance, not in true belief. If these same men are banished from their land, Exiled beyond the sight of men, defamed By most disgraceful accusation, cursed With every possible torment, still they live, Keep living on; and everywhere they go, Poor wretched outcasts, still they sacrifice: They slay black cattle, they send offerings Down to the shades below, direct their minds- O much more zealously! - in bitter times Religionward. If you would like to know What a man really is, the time to learn Comes when he stands in danger or in doubt.

3.03 That’s when the words of truth come from his heart, The mask is torn aside, reality Remains for all to see. But avarice And blind desire for honors urge men on To trespass on the areas which the law Forbids them, and they struggle night and day As criminal accomplices to win Toward heights of wealth - such vital wounds as these Are aggravated by the fear of death. Men seem to think that bitter poverty And the contempt a low position brings Are far from sweet and reassuring life, Are hangers-on around the doors of death. So a false panic harries them; they long Too late for flight, for far-off distances; Seek, through the blood of fellow-citizens, A way to prosper; they amass estates In avarice, pile one murder on another, Rejoice when a brother dies, and hate and fear The table of a kindly relative. In the same way compulsive envy, born Of the same fear, can make them waste away Seeing a man blest with renown or power Before their very eyes, while they are held, Or so they mutter, in darkness and in muck. Some die for lack of statues or a name; It goes so far, sometimes, that fear of death Induces hate of life and light, and men Are so depressed that they destroy themselves Having forgotten that this very fear Was the first source and cause of all their woe. As children tremble and fear everything In the dark shadows, we, in the full light, Fear things that really are not one bit more awful That what poor babies shudder at in darkness, The horrors they imagine to be coming. Our terrors and our darknesses of mind Must be dispelled then, not by sunshine’s rays, - Not by those shining arrows of the light, But by insight into nature, and a scheme of systematic contemplation.

3.04 First, The mind - the intellect, we sometimes call it - The force that gives direction to a life As well as understanding, is a part Of a man’s make-up, every bit as much As are his hands and feet and seeing eyes. Some say the sentient mind is not located In any one fixed area, but pervades The body as a vital force; the Greeks Called this a harmony, a relationship Which gives us intellect, though mind itself Lacks any fixed location. Just as health Inheres in bodily structure, but no man Has any part he can identify As being the organ where his health resides, So these philosophers give no fixed part As the abode of mind. In this, I think, They are very wrong indeed. Sometimes we see Part of a body sicken before our eyes, While what we do not see enjoys good health; And it can be the other way around: You can be sick in mind and well in body, Your foot can hurt while you are free of headache. When all our limbs relax in easy slumber And our body lies insensible, unconscious, There is something in us, wakeful even then, Susceptible to anxiety or joy. Look at what happens if some bodily parts, More than a few, are lost, life still keeps on Within the limbs; from this you can be sure Sensation, sentience, dwells within the limbs Without the need of common harmony To be their source of consciousness. Again, When a few particles of heat disperse And breath is forced out of the mouth, the spirit With that same breath leaves artery and bone. Not all the organs, you must realize, Are equally important nor does health Depend on all alike, but there are some — The seeds of breathing, warm vitality- Whereby we are kept alive; when these are gone Life leaves our dying members. So, since mind And spirit are by nature part of man, Let the musicians keep that term brought down To them from lofty Helicon - or maybe They found it somewhere else, made it apply To something thitherto nameless in their craft - I speak of harmony. Whatever it is, Give it back to the musicians.

3.05 Now pay heed, I have more to say. To start with, I maintain That mind and spirit are held close together, Compose one unity, but the lord and master Holding dominion over all the body Is purpose, understanding - in our terms Mind or intelligence, and this resides In the region of the heart. Hence we derive Terror and fear and panic and delight. Here therefore dwell intelligence and mind. The rest of spirit is dispersed all through The entire frame, and it obeys the mind, Moves, gains momentum, at its nod and beck, And mind alone is sensible or wise Or glad all by itself, when body and soul Are quite unmoved by anything; and as an eye Or head can hurt us, though we feel no pain In any other part, so now and then The mind can suffer or rejoice, while spirit Is nowhere stirred in any part by strangeness; But when the mind is deeply moved by fear We see the spirit share that panic sense All through the body: sweat breaks out, and pallor comes; The tongue grows thick, the voice is choked, the eyes Grow dark, ears ring, the limbs collapse. Men faint, We have often seen, from a terror in the mind; From this example all can recognize That spirit and mind are closely bound together, And spirit, struck by the impulse of the mind, Propels and thrusts the body.

3.06 This same doctrine Shows that the nature of both mind and spirit Must be corporeal. We are bound to admit That spirit and mind are properties of body When they propel the limbs, arouse from sleep, Change an expression, turn a man around, Control him utterly, but none of this Is possible without contact, nor is touch Possible without body. Furthermore, You see that mind can sympathize with body, Share its emotions. If a weapon drives Deep into bone and sinew, and yet fails To shatter life entirely, still it brings Weakness, collapse, and turbulence of mind Within the fallen victim, a desire, Half-hearted and confused, to rise again. So mind, which suffers under wounds and blows, Must have a bodily nature.

3.07 I’ll explain, At this point, what that body’s like, what forms it: First, it is very delicate indeed, Made of the most diminutive particles. That this is so requires no argument Beyond the fact that nothing seems to move With such velocity as mind intends Or mind anticipates; mind acts, we know, Quicker than anything natural we see. But anything so mobile must consist Of particles very round and smooth indeed, And very small indeed, to be so stirred, To set in motion by the slightest urge. Water is moved in just this way, and flows With almost no impulsion, being formed Of tiny little round motes, adaptable Most easily for rolling. Honey, though, Is more cohesive, less disposed to flow, More sluggish, for its whole supply of matter Is more condensed; its motes are not as smooth, As round, as delicate. The slightest stir Of air disturbs a cone of poppy seeds, Sends the top sliding downward; no such breath Is adequate to disturb a pile of pebbles Or even a heap of wheat-ears. Bodies move With speed proportionate to their size and weight, If small, then swift. The heavy or the rough Are the more stable, solid, hard to move. Now, since the nature of the mind appears Mobile, extremely so, it must consist Of particles which are small and smooth and round. This knowledge, my good scholar, you will find To your advantage in more ways than one. Another fact gives evidence how frail, How delicate spirit is, or soul, or mind, How almost infinitesimal its compass Even supposing it were massed together: When death’s calm reassurance takes a man, And mind and spirit have left him, you perceive Nothing at all subtracted from the body, Nothing of weight, of semblance, gone. Death shows All that was his except the vital sense, The warming breath. And so the spirit must Consist throughout of very tiny seeds, All sown minutely in sinew, flesh, and veins - So tenuous that when it leaves the body There seeks no difference, no diminution Of outward contour nor of inward weight. The same thing happens when the scent of wine, Or nard’s aroma, or any effluence, Vanishes into air, and still its source Appears no less substantial to our eyes, Especially since nothing of its weight Is lost - so many and such tiny seeds Imparting scent and flavor in all things. Let me repeat: infinitesimal motes Must form both mind and spirit, since we see No loss of weight when these depart the body.

3.08 But do not think theirs is a simple nature. A thin breath, mixed with heat, deserts the dying, And this heat draws air with it; heat includes, Because it is by nature rarefied, Always an element of air. So now we find The nature of the mind to be composite, Threefold at least. But these are not enough To cause sensation - reason would deny That any one, or all, could generate Sense-bringing movements or the stir of thought. There must be a fourth element, and this Lacks, so far, even a name; nothing exists More tenuous, more mobile; it is made Out of the smallest, lightest particles, And it is this which first imparts to limbs Sense-bringing movements. Being so minute, It is most easily responsive, stirs First into motion; heat is next, then wind With its blind power, then air, then all things move. The blood is roused, the vital organs feel Sensation, even the marrow of the bones Reacts to pleasure or its opposite. Pain cannot penetrate too far, or evil Seep its corrosive acid through the frame Without so much disturbance and distress That life has little room, and the motes of spirit Fly every which way through the body’s pores; But as a rule this panic rush subsides At the last moment, at the borderline, And we stay strong enough to keep on living.

3.09 The poverty of our speech, our native tongue, Makes it hard for me to say exactly how These basic elements mingle, how they thrive Once they have been arranged; but let me try As best I can. To start with, all these motes So move, so weave, so rush among each other They can’t be isolated, and no one Could act if separated from the rest, But the many, as it were, compose one mass, One single entity. As any creature Has scent, and heat, and taste, but from all these A single separate physical bulk is grown, So heat and air and wind’s blind power combine To form one nature, and that moving force Which stirs them into action, spreads through flesh The capability of sense. Deep down This quality lies hidden, very deep, So deep that nothing in us can be found Below the spirit’s spirit. In our limbs, In all our substance, mind and spirit join Their hidden forces, and are quite unseen, Being formed of small and none too many motes, So this fourth nameless element, though it hides In the minutest motes, is lord of all, Rules body and mind. Yet wind and heat and air Must also act in concert, or combine In rise and subsidence, reciprocal In such a way that they continue one In unity; otherwise the heat, the wind, The power of air might scatter, torn apart, To dissipate the principle of sense. The mind in wrath makes use of heat - we talk , Of boiling anger or of blazing eyes; And mind can know the icy chill of fear, The shivering convulsion of the limbs, While cattle seem by nature more inclined To live in airs of calm, are seldom roused By anger’s torch, the reek of smoky shade, Nor are they frozen by cold shafts of terror. They have their places between deer and lions. So with the race of man. Many are smoothed, Polished by culture, seem alike, almost, Yet the original character abides. Don’t ever think our evil ways can be Entirely rooted out, so that one man Will never tear at downhill speed to wrath, Another be too cowardly, a third Far too long-suffering, very much too calm In taking insult. What a platitude To say men differ in nature and behavior! I cannot, here and now, bring forth to light All the dark causes, or supply a list Of names to identify this catalogue. This much I think I can, and do, assert: That our perverse vestigial native ways Are small enough for reason to dispel So that it lies within our power to live Lives worthy of the gods.

3.10 This spirit, then, Inheres in every body. It is both The cause of health and guardian of the body. These cling together, body and health, they have Their roots in common, can’t be torn asunder Without annihilation. Can you take The scent from balsam? It is just as hard To sever mind and spirit from the body Without complete and utter dissolution. From the beginning all the elements Are ever so tightly meshed and interwoven Within their residence, and neither one Can feel without the other’s help. Their union, Their common motions, are our source of feeling. No body ever is born or ever grows Out of itself alone, nor after death Seems to endure. The body is not like water Which gives off steam when heated, but remains Intact itself; it is not this way with spirit Whose going the abandoned framework might Endure, survive - by no means. Body would die, Be shattered, rot, without the spirit. So, From life’s conception, body and soul possess, Even in the womb, a kind of inter-touch From which they come to learn the way life moves, And separation is evil, ruin, death. So, since their life depends upon their union, Their mutual bond, you must conclude their nature Is also, in its very essence, joined.

3.11 Someone may tell you the body cannot feel, Believing, so he says, that spirit mingled All through the body is the only force That knows sensation. All that’s wrong with this Is that it flies in the face of facts we know Are obvious and true. Can anyone Explain what bodily sensation is Unless he trusts his own experience of it? But with the spirit gone, body is left Devoid of all sensation: it has lost Something that was, in life, not all its own, No more its own possession than other things It loses with its death.

3.12 That eyes Lack the ability to see a thing And are really only outlooks for the spirit, Is hard to say, and harder to believe, Since their own feeling claims the opposite, And their own feeling is the motive force That pulls, or pushes, us to this point of view. Sometimes; you know, we can’t see dazzling objects Through an excess of light; who ever heard Of doorways, portals, outlooks, in such trouble? Besides, if eyes are doorways, might it not Be better to remove them, sash, jamb, lintel, And let the spirit have a wider field?

3.13 Democritus, a sage heroic man, Whose judgment we should honor and revere, Told us one thing we never can accept, Namely that motes of body and of spirit Are placed in alternate sequence, one by one, And in this way bind body and soul together. Untrue: not only are the motes of spirit Much smaller than those which form the body’s substance, But they are also fewer, here and there At wider intervals throughout the framework. To demonstrate how small and how close-knit You might, indeed, go far enough to say That the very least, the most diminutive Bodies that rouse our sensitive response Are much too gross, too large, to indicate The closeness of the intervals wherein The motes of spirit are held. We seldom feel A single speck of dust, a grain of chalk On thumb or finger-tip, the mist at night, A spider’s gossamer thread across our walk, Bird’s feathers, flying thistledown, all things So light they make hard work of a descent. We do not sense each footfall of the gnat, Each loop of the measuring-worm across a forearm. So it is true that there must be a stir In many parts commingled through our bodies Before the seeds of spirit are touched, can feel, Can bounce across these intervals, clash, collide, Rebound, unite, and once more leap apart. Mind, rather than spirit, is more powerful, More in control of life, for without mind, Without intelligence, no part of spirit Could dwell for even an instant in the limbs. If mind departs, its loyal comrade, spirit, Follows at once, vanishes into air, And leaves the cold limbs in the chill of death, But if a man has mind and intellect, Though he may be a mutilated trunk, A lopped and limbless torso, for all that He is alive, he breathes the vital air. The same holds true for a lacerated eye: However badly slashed, it still can see While the pupil stays intact; cut all around it, You do no mortal harm, but once you damage Its tiny central spot the light is gone, Shadows obscure all residues of brightness. In just this bond are mind and spirit joined.

3.14 You need to know that mind and spirit both Are born in living creatures, and are mortal. (I like this kind of teaching, though it takes time To make my verses fully worthy of you.) So, first of all, if I say mind, or spirit, Consider them as one; they truly are, Combined together, one mortal entity. I have already shown how this is formed Of the most tiny particles, smaller by far Than those of water, mist, or smoke - much quicker, More easily impelled, more apt to stir From even fantasies of mist or smoke — The kind of thing we look at in our dreams When altars seem to lift a swirl of incense (We are all, of course, the hosts of images.)

3.15 Now then: just as you see when jars are broken Their wine or water flow in all directions, As steam or smoke dissolve in the stir of air, Believe that spirit also is diffused, Is quick to perish, swift in dissolution Into its primal elements, once it leaves The limbs of man. The body, which we say Is, as it were, its vase, can never hold it Against exterior shock, can not withstand Disintegration, once our veins are bloodless. So how can you suppose an element Like air, more unsubstantial than our bodies, Could possibly have the power to hold the spirit?

3.16 We sense that body and mind are born together, Together mature, together age. As children Go purposeless, knock-kneed and wobbly creatures, So their intelligence tags along; but grown To sturdier years, their understanding broadens, Their muscular and mental powers increase. Later, when time’s dominion shakes the body, When limbs react with dull ungainliness, Then the mind limps, tongue is a babbler, mind Is palsied, all is failure, all is loss. So spirit’s quality must dissolve like smoke Into the air aloft; as I have shown, Its birth, its growth, its aging, and its death Are one with ours.

3.17 And in another way Its life is like our own: as body suffers Dreadful disease and racking pain, so mind Knows grief, anxiety, horror, partnership In death; when body is diseased, the mind Often goes wandering a witless way, Rages and rants, or in a torpor sinks Deep into nodding drowsiness, wherein It hears no voice, can recognize no face Of those who stand around, and, through their tears, Try to recall the dying soul to life. Yes, mind indeed is mortal, and disease Can enter it; disease and pain alike Are, as we know, the artisans of death. More tragi-comic is the case when wine Takes hold of a man and burns his veins with fire. His limbs grow heavy, his knees interfere Each with the other, or buckle under him, His tongue grows thick, his mind’s a sot, his eyes Go for a swim, he hiccups, slobbers, yells, All this because the violence of wine Has strength to stun the spirit in the body. But things confused as easily as this, As easily interfered with, clearly prove That a rougher and more penetrative force Might cause the shock of utter annihilation. We have seen epileptics, whose disease Is like a thunderbolt, which strikes them down. The patient, in convulsions, foams at the mouth, Groans, shudders, stiffens, twists, and gasps for breath, Exhausts himself, jerks wildly in contortions Because the terrible force of this disease, Driven through all the limbs, expels the spirit In the foam of the mouth, the way a great wind spews Salt-froth from wave-crests. Deeper down, the limbs Are on the rack of pain, and groans are heard Under that torture; elements of speech, Thickened or massed together, try to find Their panic way out of the mouth, as words And phrases do, in times more orderly. Delirium occurs when mind and spirit Are hopelessly confused, split, shattered, shocked By that invading poison. After a while The cause of the evil ebbs, the bitter taint Returns to its old darkness, and the victim Rises, still shaky, makes a little gain From day to day, and finally is well. Since a disease as great as this can strike, Can toss the motes of spirit in the body, Tear them apart in miserable ways, And make them suffer, why do you believe They can enjoy life in the empty air Where the great winds go coursing? Mind, we see, Like body, can be cured by medicine, A fact which proves the life of mind is mortal. Whoever tries to alter mind or soul, Or seeks to bend any of nature’s ways, Must either add new parts, or change around Their old arrangement, or take some away, But things immortal never suffer change, Nor can they, by their definition, vary. If anything is changed, leaving its bounds, That is the death of what it was before. It makes no difference whether mind is sick Or cured by medicine; as I have said, Either condition proves its mortal nature. The truth, it seems to me, not only meets Falsehood head-on, but cuts off its retreat, And so is doubly victor.

3.18 We often see Men die by inches; toes and nails succumb To lividness, next feet and legs, till soon The other limbs feel the chill tread of death. And since the same thing happens to the spirit, Which never seems to issue, all at once, Out of the body, it is also mortal. Don’t think it goes and hides itself, deep down Within the limbs, withdraws its All to one lair, leaving the body senseless. If so, that place where so much spirit gathers Ought to seem much more sensitive by far. The truth is, no such area exists - Spirit, if scattered to the air, expires. (I have said this many, many times already) - But even if I had a sort of notion To grant a little armistice to falsehood And let you say that spirit goes and hides Deep down in bodies of the slowly dying, You still will have to grant that spirit’s mortal. What difference does it make whether it dies Dispersed through air, or shrinks, contracts, and dulls Itself to nothing? Either way, its host, Its human being, is left devoid of life.

3.19 Since mind, in fact, is part of man, one part, Fixed in one definite place, like ears and eyes And other senses regulating life - Since hands, or eyes, or nostrils, have no feeling Apart from us, and no existence either Except a rapid wasting, so the mind Cannot exist without a human body To serve as urn, as vessel, for it. Make A better metaphor, if you can, to serve you!

3.20 Together, body and mind, with quickened power, Are joined, are strong, delight in life together. Spirit can not engender viable motion Without the body, nor, without the spirit, Can body endure, or utilize the senses. An eye, torn from the socket, can see nothing, And neither, by themselves, can mind and spirit Have any power. Their motes are held together Through flesh and bone, through nerve and sinew; they Cannot leap free: thus, being tension-fused, They impart those drives, those movements of sensation Which are impossible to them after death, When they are loosed to air, for air is not A body, cannot be, unless it holds Spirit in such tight compass it can move The way it did before, in flesh and sinews. Sometimes, even within the body’s bonds, Spirit seems tired, or weakened for some reason, And wants to get away; then faces pale, Assume that last-hour look, and all the limbs Collapse, in what we call a faint or swoon, And all of us, in mortal terror, try To keep the bonds of body and soul together. At such a time the power of mind or spirit Is frail as body, and a bit more pressure Would bring it all to ruin. Well, then, why claim That spirit, driven from the body, weak, Unsheltered, can exist in emptiness Not for all time, but even for a second? Let me repeat - this you must face, own up to: Without the body’s armor, without the breath Of life, both mind and spirit are bound to perish, Sharing one common cause.

3.21 Nor can the body Endure the loss of spirit, but decays Into foul stinkingness; this should suffice To prove that spirit seeps away like smoke And while it goes the body changes, rots, And its foundations crumble, even as spirit Seeks its way out through every pore. Here’s proof That spirit scatters when it leaves the limbs, Already broken in its bodily depths, Before it makes its final way to air. No dying man has ever felt his spirit Rise, like a single lump, up to his chest, His neck, his jaws; all he can sense is failure Somewhere, in some fixed part; he also feels His other senses lost in dissolution Wherever they may be. But if our minds Were of immortal stuff, they could not die, Plaintive about their break-up, but would rather Escape as from a prison, or slough off Their old integument, like a snake renewed.

3.22 Next: why are mind and intellect and purpose Never produced in heads or feet or hands, But always, and in every man, are found In the same fixed and definite areas? There must be fixed locations for the birth Of things, and fixed locations for their growth, For their continuation; who wants legs Emerging from his shoulders? Who wants fire To spring from fountains or to father ice?

3.23 And furthermore: if spirit were immortal, Sentient when separated from the body, It would have to manage, somehow, with five senses. Otherwise our imaginative powers Could never visualize their wanderings In Acheron below. Poets and painters, For generations now, have shown these ghosts With human attributes, but it seems to me No bodiless unsubstantial phantom ever Can possibly have eyes or hands or noses Or tongues or self-sufficient listening ears.

3.24 Since therefore we feel sure that mind and soul Pervade the entire body, that the whole Is animated by their force, perhaps a blow Is struck, so strong it cuts the body in two - Undoubtedly, spirit is also halved, Is shaken, split, from the bisected torso. But something split, divided into parts, Surely denies its nature is immortal. It is said scythe-bearing battle-chariots, Red-steaming from their killing course, can cut Limbs off so quickly you can see them tremble Or quiver on the ground, before their soldier Has any inkling what has happened to him. His fighting spirit pushes his attack With what equipment he still has; he’ll charge And never know his left arm and his shield Are swept off with marauding chariot-wheels And scythes and horses, while, near by, a comrade Lifts his right arm to scale a wall, and sees His right arm isn’t there, or attempts to rise While his leg is kicking at him from the ground. Even a severed head can lie in dust With an alert expression, open-eyed, Until the spirit is entirely lost. You know how anger at a threatening snake With darting tongue, long body, rattling tail, Will make you take your sword, or knife, and hack it To little bits, each one of which keeps writhing, Staining the earth with venom, turning around To strike itself, or heal the burn of its wound. Are we going to say each of these little segments Contains a complete spirit? That would seem To make it follow that a single being Has a whole host of spirits in his body. Let’s be more sensible: that which was split At the same time as body, and divided Into as many parts, we’d have to say Was every bit as mortal as the body.

3.25 Besides, if spirit, by its very nature, Possesses an immortal quality Wherewith it slides from somewhere into our bodies When we are being born, why can’t we ever Recall the time that went before, or keep Any remembrance of those former ways? But if the power of mind has changed so much That all its memory of the past is gone, It’s wandering, I’d say, not far from death. Give in, own up - that pre-existent spirit Has perished, gone-and the spirit we have now Is, we might say, a now (or new) creation.

3.26 A further point: if spirit’s quickening power Comes to us when gestation’s term is finished, When we are being born and crossing over The threshold of the light, it seems unfit For spirit to have seemed to grow with body, Together with the limbs and in the blood Through those dark months. Rather, it should have lived In its own cavern, somewhere by itself, While body was abundant with sensation! How obviously and utterly false! The proof Is manifest - through sinew, flesh, vein, bone, Spirit is intertwined - why, even teeth Are partners of its feeling; they can ache, Hurt from cold water, bite too hard on shell Or cherry-pit. I am almost tired of saying Spirits are subject, like ourselves, to laws Of birth and death. Their intimate connection With body is too close for argument That they were ever, so to speak, outsiders; And being as close as this, it also follows They never could go sauntering forth alone, All by themselves, away from nerves, bones, joints. Well, think so if you want to - that spirit comes Sneaking from somewhere outside into us, A percolation through our every limb! Really, now? All the more then, I should think, Having been fused with body it will die; What percolates is dissolved, and therefore dies. As food, dispersed through all the body’s channels, Distributed through the members, is absorbed, Supplies a nature different from its own, So mind and spirit, entering whole and new Into a body, in their permeance Become dissolved, dispersed through all those channels, In particles by which the nature of spirit Is generated, and, once born, is lord Over our bodies, offspring of the mind Which perished when distributed through our limbs. Therefore, the spirit does not seem to lack Its share of birthdays, and its share of death.

3.27 Are any seeds of spirit ever left In a lifeless body? If there ever are, They can’t be called immortal, having lost Part of themselves. But if the spirit goes, Leaving no particle at all in body, What makes worms issue from a rotting corpse? Whence comes that boneless, bloodless horde, to bloat The swollen limbs? Maybe you think that spirits Sneak into worms from somewhere farther off, Or you believe that, one by one, they troop Into dead bodies, but you never wonder Why spirits, by the tens of thousands, come Where only one has left, though this would seem To be a question well worth asking, one Worth putting on the agenda: are the spirits Hunters of worm-seed? Are they architects Designing habitations there? Or squatters Moving in on tenements already built? No answer tells us why they act like this, Going to all that trouble. Lacking body, They fly about with no disease, no chill, No hunger. It’s the property of body To suffer so, and mind shares many evils From that contagion. Never mind, assume Spirits make bodies for themselves to enter, You still will have to tell us how they do it, And there’s no answer to that one. Therefore, spirits Don’t make themselves bodies and limbs, and do not Creep into frames already formed, wherein They’d find themselves, oh, most uncomfortable, In quarters least commodious and convenient.

3.28 Why is the breed of lions violent, Sullen or furious? Why are foxes sly, Clever, astute? What makes the deer so swift, So timorous? Why are all such traits and others Consistent throughout all the generations? It must be that in every stock and seed The power of mind parallels growth of body, But if mind were immortal, could exchange One body for another, we would see Some lovely freaks, a mastiff, scared to death, Trying to flee a deer, or a fierce dove Chasing a hawk, men would be asses, beasts Perform like scholars. It is one big lie To say immortal spirits change with body. Change loosens things, makes them dissolve and die, Parts are transposed, can move from their positions, Submit to dissolution, and succumb. Some men will tell you that the human souls Transmigrate, always, into human bodies. If so, I’d like to know why no damn fool Ever becomes a sage, why schoolboys lack Even common sense, or why no weanling colt Has anything like a full-grown racer’s power? Well, one way out, of course, is to suggest That mind goes soft if body is soft. If so, You’ll have to say that spirit must be mortal Since, by its change among the body’s limbs, It loses much of its former life and feeling. But how can the power of mind ever attain The ripeness it desires, and grow with body Unless they have been co-eval from the first? Why should it want to escape from aged limbs, Why fear incarceration in a shell Rotted by time, like a collapsing house? But for immortal things there are no dangers.

3.29 It seems more than a trifle comical To think that spirits come around in throngs As stand-bys at the copulating rites Or births of animals, and all agog To be the first aboard; perhaps they have Some mutual agreement, or each holds A ticket for his place in line, to keep them From scuffles, squabbles, and unseemly jostling! Trees cannot root in sky, nor clouds exist In deep sea-water, fish can’t live in fields, Nor blood in cords of wood, nor sap in rocks. There is an everlasting fixed assignment, A station set for being and growth. So mind Can have no origin apart from body, No independent nature, no existence Out of the area of blood and sinew. If, by some pre-arrangement, mind could choose Its birthplace or its residence at will In head or shoulders, or in toes or heels, It still would be, and stay, in the same vessel, The same container, Man. But since the rule Seems to prevail, even within our bodies, That there’s a definite abiding-place Where mind and spirit have to live and grow, So much the less is it admissible They can be brought to birth, or can endure Outside the body. When the body dies, Spirit, you must agree, is just as dead, Just as disintegrate. How silly it is To think that mortal and immortal can be joined In everlasting covenant, can perform In mutual partnership! What in all the world Is more nonsensical, lunatic, insane Than this idea that mortal and immortal Unite in deathless and eternal pact To bear up under the storms of devastation? Is spirit kept immune from deadly things, Never assailed by them? Do they retire Driven back at their first onslaught, even before Our sentinels challenge? Can this be the reason We say that soul or spirit is immortal? Ah, we know better. Spirit often fails With bodily diseases; even more, Has troubles of its own, anxieties About its future, fears, a sense of guilt Over past sins, its own peculiar rage, Its own forgetful spells, its own dark plunge Into black waters of depression.

3.30 Death Is nothing to us, has no relevance To our condition, seeing that the mind Is mortal. Just as, long ago, we felt Not the least touch of trouble when the wars Were raging all around the shaken earth And from all sides the Carthaginian hordes Poured forth to battle, and no man ever knew Whose subject he would be in life or death, Which doom, by land or sea, would strike him down, So, when we cease to be, and body and soul, Which joined to make us one, have gone their ways, Their separate ways, nothing at all can shake Our feelings, not if earth were mixed with sea Or sea with sky. Perhaps the mind or spirit, After its separation from our body, Has some sensation; what is that to us? Nothing at all, for what we knew of being, Essence, identity, oneness, was derived From body’s union with spirit, so, if time, After our death, should some day reunite All of our present particles, bring them back To where they now reside, give us once more The light of life, this still would have no meaning For us, with our self-recollection gone. As we are now, we lack all memory Of what we were before, suffer no wound From those old days. Look back on all that space Of time’s immensity, consider well What infinite combinations there have been In matter’s ways and groupings. How easy, then, For human beings to believe we are Compounded of the very selfsame motes, Arranged exactly in the selfsame ways As once we were, our long-ago, our now Being identical. And yet we keep No memory of that once-upon-a-time, Nor can we call it back; somewhere between A break occurred, and all our atoms went Wandering here and there and far away From our sensations. If there lies ahead Tough luck for any man, he must be there, Himself, to feel its evil, but since death Removes this chance, and by injunction stops All rioting of woes against our state, We may be reassured that in our death We have no cause for fear, we cannot be Wretched in nonexistence. Death alone Has immortality, and takes away Our mortal life. It does not matter a bit If we once lived before.

3.31 So, seeing a man Feel sorry for himself, that after death He’ll be a rotting corpse, laid in a tomb, Succumb to fire, or predatory beasts, You’ll know he’s insincere, just making noise, With rancor in his heart, though he believes, Or tries to make us think so, that death ends all. And yet, I’d guess, he contradicts himself, He does not really see himself as gone, As utter nothingness, but does his best - Not really understanding what he’s doing - To have himself survive, for, in his life, He will project a future, a dark day When beast or bird will lacerate his corpse. So he feels sorry for himself; he fails To make the real distinction that exists Between his castoff body, and the man Who stands beside it grieving, and imputes Some of his sentimental feelings to it. Resenting mortal fate, he cannot see That in true death he’ll not survive himself To stand there as a mourner, stunned by grief That he is burned or mangled. If in death It’s certainly no pleasure to be mauled By beak of bird or fang of beast, I’d guess It’s no voluptuous revel to be laid Over the flames, or packed in honey and ice, Stiff on the surface of a marble slab, Or buried under a great mound of earth.

3.32 And men behave the same way at a banquet, Holding the cups or garlanding the brows, And sighing from the heart, “Ah, life is short For puny little men, and when it goes We cannot call it back,” as if they thought The main thing wrong, after their death, will be That they are very thirsty, or may have A passionate appetite for who knows what. “No longer will you happily come home To a devoted wife, or children dear Running for your first kisses, while your heart Is filled with sweet unspoken gratitude. You will no longer dwell in happy state, Their sword and shield. “Poor wretch,” men tell themselves, “One fatal day has stolen all your gains.” But they don’t add, “And all your covetings.” If they could see this clearly, follow it With proper reasoning, their minds would be Free of great agony and fear, “As now You lie asleep in death, forevermore You will be quit of any sickening pain, While we, who stood beside your funeral pyre, Have, with no consolation, mourned your death In sorrow time will never heal.” Well, then, Ask of your dead what bitterness he finds In sleep and quiet; why should anyone Wear himself out in everlasting grief? No man, when body and soul are lost in sleep, Finds himself missing, or conducts a search For his identity; for all we know, For all we care, that sleep might last forever And we would never list ourselves as missing. Yet, all this while, our motes, our atoms, wander Not far from sense-producing shift and stir, And suddenly we come to wakefulness. So we must think of death as being nothing, As less than sleep, or less than nothing, even, Since our array of matter never stirs To reassemble, once the chill of death Has taken over.

3.33 Hark! The voice of Nature Is scolding us: “What ails you, little man, Why this excess of self-indulgent grief, This sickliness? Why weep and groan at death? If you have any sense of gratitude For a good life, if you can’t claim her gifts Were dealt you in some kind of riddled jar So full of cracks and holes they leaked away Before you touched them, why not take your leave As men go from a banquet, fed to the full On life’s good feast, come home, and lie at ease, Free from anxiety? Alas, poor fool, If, on the other hand, all of your joys Are gone, and life is only wretchedness, Why try to add more to it? Why not make A decent end? There’s nothing, it would seem, My powers can contrive for your delight. The same old story, always. If the years Don’t wear your body, don’t corrode your limbs With lassitude, if you keep living on For centuries, if you never die at all, What’s in it for you but the same old story Always, and always?” How could we reply To this, except to say that Nature’s case Is argued to perfection? Now suppose Some older man, a senior citizen, Were plaintiff, wretcheder than he ought to be, Lamenting death, would Nature not be right To cry him down, with even sharper voice, “Why, you old scoundrel, take those tears of yours Somewhere away from here, cut out the whining. You have had everything from life, and now You find you’re going to pieces. You desire, Always, what isn’t there; what is, you scorn, So life has slipped away from you, incomplete, Unsatisfactory, and here comes death, An unexpected summoner, to stand Beside you, long before you want to leave, Long, long, before you think you’ve had enough. Let it all go, act as becomes your age, Be a great man, composed; give in; you must.” Such a rebuke from Nature would be right, For the old order yields before the new, All things require refashioning from others. No man goes down to Hell’s black pit; we need Matter for generations yet to come, Who, in their turn, will follow you, as men Have died before you and will die hereafter. So one thing never ceases to arise Out of another; life’s a gift to no man Only a loan to him. Look back at time - How meaningless, how unreal! - before our birth. In this way Nature holds before our eyes The mirror of our future after death. Is this so grim, so gloomy? Is it not A rest more free from care than any sleep?

3.34 Now all those things which people say exist In Hell, are really present in our lives. The story says that Tantalus, the wretch, Frozen in terror, fears the massive rock Balanced in air above him. It’s not true. What happens is that in our lives the fear, The silly, vain, ridiculous fear of gods, Causes our panic dread of accident. No vultures feed on Tityos, who lies Sprawled out for them in Hell; they could not find In infinite eternities of time What they are searching for in that great bulk, Nine acres wide, or ninety, or the spread Of all the globe. No man can ever bear Eternal pain, nor can his body give Food to the birds forever. We do have A Tityos in ourselves, and lie, in love, Torn and consumed by our anxieties, Our fickle passions. Sisyphus, too, is here In our own lives; we see him as the man Bent upon power and office, who comes back Gloomy and beaten after every vote. To seek for power, such an empty thing, And never gain it, suffering all the while, This is to shove uphill the stubborn rock Which over and over comes bouncing down again To the flat levels where it started from. Or take another instance: when we feed A mind whose nature seems unsatisfied, Never content, with all the blessings given Through season after season, with all the charms And graces of life’s harvest, this, I’d say, Is to be like those young and lovely girls, The Danaids, trying in vain to fill Their leaky jars with water. Cerberus, The Furies, and the dark, and the grim jaws Of Tartarus, belching blasts of heat - all these Do not exist at all, and never could. But here on earth we do fear punishment For wickedness, and in proportion dread Our dreadful deeds, imagining all too well Being cast down from the Tarpeian Rock, Jail, flogging, hangmen, brands, the rack, the knout; And even though these never touch us, still The guilty mind is its own torturer With lash and rowel, can see no end at all To suffering and punishment, and fears These will be more than doubled after death. Hell does exist on earth - in the life of fools.

3.35 You well might think of saying to yourself: “Even good Ancus closed his eyes on the light - A better man than you will ever be, You reprobate - and many lords and kings Rulers of mighty nations, all have died. Even that monarch, who once paved the way Making the sea a highway for his legions Where foot and horse alike could march dry-shod While the deep foamed and thundered at the outrage, Even he, great Xerxes, died and left the light, And Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, Terror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth As does the meanest lackey. Add to these Philosophers and artists, all the throng Blessed by the Muses; Homer’s majesty Lies low in the same sleep as all the rest. Democritus, warned by a ripe old age That, with his memory, his powers of mind Were also failing, gave himself to death; And Epicurus perished, that great man Whose genius towered over all the rest, Making their starry talents fade and die In his great sunlight. Who are you, forsooth, To hesitate, resent, protest your death? Your life is death already, though you live And though you see, except that half your time You waste in sleep, and the other half you snore With eyes wide open, forever seeing dreams, Forever in panic, forever lacking wit To find out what the trouble is, depressed, Or drunk, or drifting aimlessly around.”

3.36 Men seem to feel some burden on their souls, Some heavy weariness; could they but know Its origin, its cause, they’d never live The way we see most of them do, each one Ignorant of what he wants, except a change, Some other place to lay his burden down. One leaves his house to take a stroll outdoors Because the household’s such a deadly bore, And then comes back, in six or seven minutes- The street is every bit as bad. Now what? He has his horses hitched up for him, drives, Like a man going to a fire, full-speed, Off to his country-place, and when he gets there Is scarcely on the driveway, when he yawns, Falls heavily asleep, oblivious To everything, or promptly turns around, Whips back to town again. So each man flees Himself, or tries to, but of course that pest Clings to him all the more ungraciously. He hates himself because he does not know The reason for his sickness; if he did, He would leave all this foolishness behind, Devote his study to the way things are, The problem being his lot, not for an hour, But for all time, the state in which all men Must dwell forever and ever after death.

3.37 Finally, what’s this wanton lust for life To make us tremble in dangers and in doubt? All men must die, and no man can escape. We turn and turn in the same atmosphere In which no new delight is ever shaped To grace our living; what we do not have Seems better than everything else in all the world But should we get it, we want something else. Our gaping thirst for life is never quenched. We have to know what luck next year will bring, What accident, what end. But life, prolonged, Subtracts not even one second from the term Of death’s continuance. We lack the strength To abbreviate that eternity. Suppose You could contrive to live for centuries, As many as you will. Death, even so, Will still be waiting for you; he who died Early this morning has as many years Interminably before him, as the man, His predecessor, has, who perished months Or years, or even centuries ago.

Book IV

4.01 Exploring ways where none have gone before, Across the Muses’ realms I make my way, Happy to come to virgin springs, to drink Their freshness, to discover all the flowers No man has ever seen, and of them twine Myself a garland, which no poet yet Has had from any Muse. This I deserve Because I teach great things, because I strive To free the spirit, give the mind release From the constrictions of religious fear, Because I write clear verse about dark things, Enduing what I touch with grace and charm; And this makes sense, for, just as doctors do, When they give bitter wormwood to a child, But first take pains to smear the rim of the cup With the sweet golden honey, and to fool The unsuspecting patient, anyway As far as the lips, till he gulps down the dose Of bitter wormwood, fooled, but not betrayed, But rather given health and strength, so I, Harsh as my system may appear to those Who have not used it (and, in general, People shrink back, set lips and minds against it) Nevertheless, for your sake, Memmius, Have wanted to explain the way things are Turning the taste of honey into sound As musical, as golden, so that I May hold your mind with poetry, while you Are learning all about that form, that pattern, And see its usefulness.

4.02 Since I have taught What the mind’s nature is, and from what source Its strength derives, united with the body, And how, when severed from the body, it reverts To primal elements, I now begin To teach you about images, so-called, A subject of most relevant importance. These images are like a skin, or film, Peeled from the body’s surface, and they fly This way and that across the air; they cause A terror in our minds, whether we wake Or in our sleep see fearful presences. The replicas of those who have left the light Haunt us and startle us horribly in dreams. But let us never think, by any chance, That souls escape from Acheron, or shades Flutter and flit around with living men. Let us have no delusions of a life After our death, when body and mind have gone Their separate ways, each to its primal source.

4.03 Let me repeat: these images of things, These almost airy semblances, are drawn From surfaces; you might call them film, or bark, Something like skin, that keeps the look, the shape Of what it held before its wandering. This should be obvious to the dullest mind Since many things, as our own eyes can see, Throw off a substance, rather coarse at times- As burning wood produces smoke or steam- And sometimes thinner, more condensed, the way Cicadas cast their brittle summer jackets Or calves at birth throw off the caul, or snakes Slide out and leave their vesture under the brambles Where we have often seen them, crumpled or caught. This being so, some film of likeness, frail And thin, must be sent forth from every surface. It would make no sense for things as heavy as bark Or even snakeskin to be shed, and found Far from their origin, while other things Are so minute, so very many in number, So superficial, and can fly so fast There seems to be no change in the arrangement Of that from which they came; they keep that shape And move with great speed, being less hindered Because they are so few, so near the surface. And there are other things we see thrown out, Not only from some depth, as we have said, But also from an outermost surface-color, To take one instance: watch the yellow awnings, The reds, the purples, spread on poles and beams In some great theatre, where they flutter, billow, Stir, over the audience, and stain and dye Not only actors, but with wavering hues Transform the most distinguished senators Watching the show; and where the walls are hung Most thick with color, so much more the day Indoors appears to smile in all that light Of lovely radiance. If such hues as these Are cast from curtain draperies, it must follow All things project such likeness of themselves, However unsubstantial, from their surface. So there are, all around us, shapes and forms Of definite outline, always on the move, Delicate, small, woven of thread so rare Our sight cannot detect them. Other projections, odor, heat, and smoke, And all things like them, swirl in shapeless clouds Because their origin is deeper down, With greater obstacles to fight against And no wide sweep of highway for their concourse. But when a veil, a delicate film of color, Casts itself loose, there is no interference To rip or tear it; easily it moves From the advantage of its outerness. And, finally, those replicas we see In mirrors, water, and the brightnesses Of any shining substance - all must be Projections of originals, possessed Of the same outer semblances. So there are Most delicate forms, their semblances, whose motes, Whose particles, invisible to all, Still, in their sum, their total of recoil, Dense and continual, convey to us A vision, as from the surface of a mirror, And this must surely be the only way For duplication of such likenesses.

4.04 Now learn how very frail an image is, How delicate in its nature. First of all, Since atoms are beneath our power of sight, So infinitely smaller than our eyes Can ever begin to have the slightest glimpse of, Let me extend the argument. I’ll try To be as brief as possible, but listen. How small can anything be? We know of creatures So tiny they would seem to disappear If they were less than half their present size. How big do you suppose their livers are? Their hearts? The pupils of their eyes? Their toes? Pretty minute, you must admit. Well, then, What about things like those atomic motes That form the elements of mind and spirit? Diminutive, to say the least. Nor can we Find with our fingertips the cause of smell That clings there from the touch of marigold, Centaury, heal-all, wormwood, southernwood. So images move beyond our powers of sight.

4.05 They are not the only wanderers, these casts From substance like themselves; there are other things, Self-generated, in our atmosphere, Forming themselves in many ways, aloft, Changing incessantly, fluent, volatile, Such as the cumulation of the clouds Massing on high and darkening the earth While gentling air with motion. You might say Sometimes they look like shadows of the Giants Scowling in flight, or mountains on parade Before the sun, or monsters hauling rainstorms.

4.06 But I digress. Let us return again To images, their quickness and their ease, Their everlasting glide and flow, their smooth Streaming from every surface. There is nothing That does not set them stirring, and they move Sometimes most easily through other things, Glass, for example; but on rock or wood They are shattered, broken, lost. But if they find A shining solid object in their way, A mirror, for example: they react In different fashion, neither passing through As glass would let them pass, nor broken up By obdurate wood or rock, but, safe and sound By virtue of the brightness, bounding back Once more in our direction. Be as quick As ever you can, confront your looking glass With any object, there it is, at once Reflected, all the tiny likenesses In constancy of infinitesimal weave Ebbing forever from their surfaces. So many images in such little room! Such swiftness in their origin! The sun Is like them in the way he floods the world With never an intermission in the rain Of light-fall; so, from many other things, The instantaneous reflections move In all directions, bright and wonderful. No matter where the mirror turns, we find Response from similar form and hue.

4.07 Besides, After the clearest weather, when a storm Pollutes the nasty air, and makes you think All hell has puked its blackness up to fill The bowls and craters of the sky, so foul, So dark the night, so fearful, who can say How much is cloud, how much of it cloud’s image? We can’t make sense of this.

4.08 Some other problems: How swiftly is an image borne along? What speed is given its flight across the air? How long a space, how brief a time, is used As each with different aim pursues its course? In answering, I’ll try to have my verse Be sweetly-spoken, but not long; I’ll take Swans for my model, not the honking cranes Raucous in flight among the southern clouds. Frail objects, formed from tiny particles, Move swiftly: for example, light and heat Are in this category, and their motes Keep being shoved along through air by others, Light after light, and flash pursuing flash, In comet-like processional. Like these, The images must cross tremendous space In time almost dimensionless. This happens Because they need only the slightest push, The least ungentle impulse from behind To set them going; once they’re on their way They are so rare of texture, so refined, They meet no opposition anywhere, They are all-pervasive in air’s intervals. Even those motes which come from deeper down Within their sources, such as light and heat, All seem to move, in a split-second’s time, In flight across the land and sea, in flood Across the sky; how much more swiftly, then, Goes the procession of the images, All ready at their surfaces, prepared With nothing to delay their taking-off, No struggle, no long run before they rise, As light as birds, into all kinds of space In the same time that sunlight floods the sky. Ah, look about you! Watch a glimmering pool In the first shine of starlight, see the stars Respond that very instant, radiant In water’s universe. Does this not prove How marvelous the swift descent from heaven? Our other senses know of emanance In fragrances, in sunlight’s heat, in surge Of surf destroying sea-walls, in the sound Of voices calling always through the air, In salt-spray tasted as we walk the shore, In bitterness imagined, when our eyes Watch someone pouring wormwood into water, So from all things there is this constant flow, This all-pervasive issue, no delay, No interruption, and our sense responds In recognition.

4.09 In the dark a form, Something we touch or handle, seems to be The same as what we look at in the light Of full bright day; accordingly, we must Infer a similar cause for sight and touch. Suppose, in the dark, we touch a square, and find Our sense responsive to it; given light, Confronted by a square, what would we see Except its image? For the cause of sight Inheres in images; nothing can be seen Without them; they are carried everywhere, They go in all directions. But because We apprehend them only with our eyes, Wherever we look, all objects strike our gaze With shape and color. Furthermore, we learn From images what distance is, how far One thing is from another or ourselves. The way it works is this: the image drives The air that lies before it through our eyes, Brushing our pupils as it passes through, And so we see how far away things are - The greater the amount of air, the longer The brushing process occupies, why, then, The farther off the object of our sight Will have to be. Oh, beyond any doubt This happens with a most surprising speed So that we recognize in the same moment The kind of object and its distance from us. We cannot see each detail, yet the sum Is clear enough, and this is not so strange If we remember how the wind and cold Assail us, and we feel, not every twinge, Not every single stab, but as it were A constant pressure, as if an outside force Were swarming all about us. If we stub A toe against a stone, the thing we touch Is, actually, only the outer shell, The surface hue — but that’s not what we feel- Nothing that superficial - but instead The inner hardness central to the rock.

4.10 Why does the image seem beyond the glass As certainly it does? This corresponds To the way things are visible through doors When they are open, and we have a view Of much that is outside. This view appears Through twin or double air, which first we see On our side of the doorposts, then of course We see the doorposts, right and left, and next The light beyond will brush our eyes, the air Be different, and at last we catch a glimpse Of the real things outdoors. In just this way The image of the glass projects itself Until it strikes our eyes, and, as it comes, Pushes before it all the air between. All this we see before we see the mirror, But once we sense the glass, an image flies Backward to it from us, rebounds, once more Pushing the air before it, so we have This sense of depth, of space beyond the glass. All very simple, if we keep in mind , The concept of the double flow of air.

4.11 What about right and left? How does it happen Your right arm lifts, in a kind of pass, And a southpaw waves at you out of the glass? Let’s see. An image, when it strikes the mirror Is not completely turned around, the way That you or I, confronted by a wall, Would turn, but, rather, is pushed directly back, Turned inside out by the pressure, as the nose Or chin of a false-face would reverse itself And point the other way, if gale-force wind Or some explosion blew its features in. You know, like an umbrella. There are times When images may, in succession, move From one glass to another, three, four, five, Six times or more - most useful in a search Since things, however hidden, cached away In the recesses of a house, are found, If you have mirrors enough, and brought to light Around all turns and winding passages. Also, by doubling mirrors, you can get Your lefts and rights the way they really are, And certain glasses, rounded like our sides, Return a proper image, left for left And right for right. I’m not entirely sure Just why this happens - maybe, in some way, They are really double, or perhaps their smooth Sleek roundedness will let an image turn With greater ease and in its natural way. As for the fact that images, it seems, Keep step with us, or imitate our gestures, Why not? It’s most unlikely they’d return To some place we’ve just left; they cannot do it, Nature compels them always to respond Directly, from their coign of incidence.

4.12 The eyes avoid bright objects, try to shield Themselves against them. If you stare too long The sun will blind you by its mighty power - And also since its images are borne With violent downward impetus - to strike And discompose the structure of the eyes. Any sharp brightness often stings the eyes Because it holds the seeds of fire, which pain By penetration. Jaundiced people see Everything tinged a bilious yellow color Because their eyes emit a constant stream Of particles thus hued which clash and fuse With images they meet, confounding sense And painting all things with their sallowness. How is it we can stand in dark and see Bright things beyond? Because the murkiness, Being closer to us, fills our open eyes To start with, but the bright and shining air Follows in less than seconds, and this clears Our vision, washes all the dark away, For light is much more mobile, is composed Of finer particles, yet has more power, And once it clears the roadways of the eyes, Removing the dark barriers and blocks, At once the images of things begin To move in our direction, driving on Out of the light to help us see. From light We can’t see into darkness, for that air Is slower-moving, thicker, bound to fill All openings, so no images can move Across the solid massiveness of dark. Another thing: sometimes we see, far off, The towers of a city, and our gaze Makes them look rounded, though of course we know They are foursquare and angular. But space Tends to blunt angles, dull the images In their long rushing toward us, wear them down, Or maybe even never let us see them, Rubbing them out by the continual sweep Of air against them, so an angle seems An arc, and masonry looks columnar - Not with true roundness like things close at hand, But vague and shadowy. This might suggest How our own shadow seems to us to move In sunlight following our course, our gesture - If you believe that air, deprived of light, Can move in such a way; what we call shadow Is lightless air and nothing else. The ground, In certain places, finds the sun blocked off While we walk by, and fills with light again As we move on, and so our shadow seems To follow at our heels; new rays of light Are always pouring out and vanishing As quick as fluff in candle flame. The ground, Easily robbed of light, as easily Is filled again as the black shades dissolve.

4.13 We don’t admit the eyes are fallible, Not even an iota, in this case. Their only function is to recognize Where light and shadow are; they have no power To recognize the way things really are, To judge if light remains the same, or shade Succeeds a predecessor: that, I’ve said, Is something reason has to figure out. So don’t blame flaws of judgment on your eyes. The ship we sail on does not seem to move, The anchored one we pass seems flying by, And with our sails or oars we make the hills, The beaches, fly astern. Look at the stars All of them steadfast in the vaulted air, Or so it seems - and yet we know they move From rising to descent, far off, far down, After their bright parade across the sky, And sun and moon to our illusion seem Halted, unmoving, not the wayfarers Which our experience knows they really are. And mountains, far across a reach of sea, Look like one island, though we know that fleets Could sail the roads between them. Children, dizzy After they stop spinning themselves around, Think that the rooms revolve, the pillars whirl, And even ceilings threaten to fall down. When nature starts to raise that ruddy disk With wavering fires across the mountain-tops, Those very summits which the sun appears To touch, no farther off from where we stand Than twice a thousand bowshots, or perhaps Even less than that, make it five hundred times As far as record-holders toss a javelin, Hold in those areas below that sun Infinite plains of air, unbounded shores, Continents, populations, wilderness. But a little puddle, half a knuckle deep, Between a couple of cobbles after rain, Reflects a panorama that appears To go deep underground, descending down As far as heaven is high, with clouds and sun And marvelous strange subterranean stars. Suppose your horse stops in a rushing stream Halfway across, and you look down to see The current sweeping past you, it appears You still are riding on against the flow; The run of the water and all things ashore On either bank are keeping pace beside you. Or take the pillars of a portico, All the same height, all the same width apart, And yet they seem with distance to contract, Diminish, come together, roof to floor And right to left, till the last thing you see Is no more than a cone’s tip. Mariners At watch on voyage see the sun both rise And set in water. Well, why not? Don’t think Their senses must be wrecked or derelict - What else is there to see but sky and ocean? . And harbor folk, who do not know the sea, But look at vessels riding at their moorings Think they are all disabled underneath The waterline, though oars and rudders seem Like all the superstructure straight and firm, While everything below is bent, concave, Distorted by refraction. When the winds Sweep scattered clouds across the sky at night, The stars appear to swim against that drift, Gliding above them, almost opposite To their true course. The pressure of a hand Beneath an eye makes everything you see Come double to your gaze: the lighted lamps, The chairs, the tables; guests and servants seem To have, each one, two heads apiece, two bodies. And, finally, in sleep, when all our limbs Lie utterly relaxed, in dreams we find Ourselves awake, moving about, aware Of sun and daylight in the darkest murk, Exchange our narrow mattress for the sky, Sea, rivers, mountains, hike across the fields, Hear sounds in night’s relentless silences, Converse while saying nothing.

4.14 Oh, there are Many examples of illusion’s craft Whereby we are beguiled to doubt our senses. A vain endeavor, really; on the whole, We are fooled, or fool ourselves, because we bring Such predilections with us that we see Imagined things, not real ones. Humankind Finds nothing harder than to separate The patent facts from those dubieties Mind loves to introduce.

4.15 But if a man Argues that, therefore, nothing can be known, He does not really even know that much Since he’s confessing total ignorance. I’d best not argue with this kind of man Who sticks his head in the ground, his feet in the air. Still, let me grant he knows this much, I’ll ask How, since he’s never caught one glimpse of truth In anything whatever, how does he know What knowing and non-knowing are, what fact Gave him the notion of the true and false, Assured him of a difference between The doubtful and the certain? You will find All knowledge of the truth originates Out of the senses, and the senses are Quite irrefutable. Find, if you can, A standard more acceptable than sense To sort out truth from falsehood. What can be More credible than sense? Shall reasoning, Born of some error, some delusionment, Argue the senses down? Ridiculous! If sense is false, reason will have to be. Can ears refute the eyes, the sense of touch Negate the sense of hearing? Do our noses Appeal against our eyes, our sense of taste File counterclaim against our ears’ report? I’d hardly think so. To each sense belongs Its jurisdiction, so that soft, hot, cold, Color, sound, shape, and odor are assigned To different areas. Therefore, no sense Can contradict another or itself, Since their report must be dependable The same way always. If at any time A thing seems true to them, it must be so.

4.16 And if your reasoning faculties can find No explanation why a thing looks square When seen close up, and round when farther off, Even so, it might be better for a man Who lacks the power of reason, to give out Some idiotic theory, than to drop All hold of basic principles, break down Every foundation, tear apart the frame That holds our lives, our welfare. All is lost, Not only reason, but our very life, Unless we have the courage and the nerve To trust the senses, to avoid those sheer Downfalls into the pits and tarns of nonsense. All that verbose harangue against the senses Is utter absolute nothing.

4.17 If a building Were planned by someone with a crooked ruler Or an inaccurate square, or spirit-level A little out of true, the edifice, In consequence, would be a frightful mess, Warped, wobbly, wish-wash, weak and wavering, Waiting a welter of complete collapse - So let your rule of reason never be Distorted by the fallacies of sense Lest all your logic prove a road to ruin.

4.18 As for the other senses, it’s no task To demonstrate how each enacts its part. Take sound, to start with. Noise is audible Because its body penetrates the ears, Impinging on the sense; voices and sounds Are bodily in nature, since they strike With impact on the senses. Furthermore, A cry can scrape the throat, or a harsh voice Abrade the windpipe, as the sound proceeds Out of the body. This is natural Because the primal particles of voice, As speech is formed, are massed in such array, Such overplus, they jam the portals, rasp Against the frames of egress. Words and tones, Since they can hurt, are, beyond any doubt, Made of material stuff. You know, of course, How a man suffers loss of weight and strength If he keeps roaring all the livelong day From dawn-glow to the shadow of black night. Voice, therefore, must be bodily, since loss Of body follows from its overuse. Rough voices have rough motes, and smoother ones Have smoother elements. The ear is struck By different sorts of atoms when a horn Is muted, crooning low, or blares away Full blast, or when the swans in plaintive cry Raise their clear dirges over Helicon. So, when our utterance sends voices forth From deep within our bodies, turns them loose Directly through our opened mouths, the tongue, That quick and deft artificer of words, Makes them articulate, and his designs Are aided by the lips. When voices move Not too far from their point of origin, Each syllable is clearly heard, each sound Easily recognized, each vocal shape Keeps its identity; but if the space Extends too far and words must find their way Through multitudinous air, they blur to noise, To sound still audible but meaningless.

4.19 Another thing: one word, one crier’s call Will often stir the ears of many men In a large audience; one voice become Multiplied into many through the ears Of many listeners; yet now and then Phrases or words escape or murmurs die, Or sounds confronted by some barrier Are beaten back, rebound almost, like words In some loud foreign language no one knows. Once you have witnessed this phenomenon You can explain how in some lonely place The rocks repeat our voices word for word, When we are calling for our comrades, lost, Scattered, astray in mountain darknesses, While we keep shouting. I have sometimes heard As many as six or seven echoes cry In answer to one voice. So hills to hills Redound and bounce reiteration back Each to the other till the nearby folk Invent the presences of goatfoot gods, Satyrs and nymphs and fauns, night-wandering, Whose rumpuses and rowdy pranks, they swear To the last man, disturb the peace at night; And they go on to talk about the sound Of music, sweet and sad, the twang of strings The pipes, the singing voices. Far away, If you believe their stories, farmer-folk Listen while Pan, nodding his shaggy head With the pine needles hanging over his ears, Keeps time, lips up and down the open reeds So that the woodland melodies pour out With never a silence. No man likes to think His home is some forgotten wilderness Abandoned even by gods, and this is why They toss around these marvels in their talk, These stories of the weird and wonderful. Or it may be some other reason works To lead them on, for all the human race Is overeager in its greed to fill The listening ear.

4.20 But let’s go on to say There’s nothing wonderful about the fact That voices pass through spaces where the eyes Can see no object plain. Behind closed doors Talk is perceptible, because the voice Can fare intact along those winding ways Where images would balk, or shatter themselves, As happens when they are given no straight aisles, No sheets of glass to swim through. And one voice Divides itself or multiplies (no matter) In all directions, many born of one, The way a spark can kindle many fires. So places where no sight intrudes may teem With resonant voices. Images must move, Once they are set in motion, straight ahead, So nobody can see beyond a wall Though he can hear the words pass through, but these, Even so, all run together, dull and blurred, Blunt inarticulate sounds, not truly words.

4.21 It is every bit as easy to explain Our sense of taste; the palate and the tongue Supply the apparatus. In our mouths We crush the flavor from the food we chew, Something like squeezing water from a sponge, So that the product, all of it, seeps through The palate’s pores, the tongue’s interstices. If this diffused material is made Out of smooth particles, we find it sweet Around the tongue, but if the motes are rough, We have the sense of acid, sour and sharp. This pain or pleasure never goes beyond The limits of the palate. Down the throat Is out of mind; the subsequent procedure Offers no gourmet exquisite delights. It makes no difference at all what food, Soggy or crisp, tasteless or seasoned well, Gives nutriment to the body; all that counts Is whether it’s digestible, and keeps The gastric juices flowing.

4.22 One man’s meat, The proverb says, only too often proves Another’s poison. Different creatures find The same food sweet or sour, delicious, nasty. I’ve heard about a curious kind of snake That you can kill simply by spitting on it, Which makes it bite itself to suicide; And quails and goats wax fat on hellebore, To man a deadly poison. Don’t forget What I have said before, but bear in mind That all the first beginnings of all things Are held and mixed in many different ways, And as all food-consuming animals Differ in looks, in contour, size and shape, According to their breed, we must suppose Their basic elements are different, Not only from our own, but also even Among themselves, with wider intervals Or narrower ones, in all their limbs, as well As in their tongues and palates. Some are large And some are small, and some triangular; And some are square, and some are round, and some Irregular polygons; for as their scheme Of shape and movement indicates, they must Adapt themselves to different passageways, Proceed by channels varying with their forms, So, when to some a food is sweet, but others Make faces at its bitterness, the cause Must be that in the former case the motes Are very smooth, enter the palate’s pores Most tractably, most gently gliding by, While those who find the same thing in their mouths Harsh and distasteful must have felt the barbs, Hooks, jags of roughness as they gulped them down. Apply this general principle - you’ll find The problems easy. If a fever mounts From an excess of bile, or a disease Is stirred up in some other way, the body Becomes a hotbed of confusion, all Its basic elements seem to insist On changing their positions, those that once Produced a pleasant sense reaction now Lose force; and others, penetrating, cause The different response of bitterness. Honey is an example; it contains Both elements, a sweet and bitter blend, (As I have told you - all too many times.)

4.23 As for the sense of smell, there must be, first, More than one source from which all odors flow Like rivers, or are sprinkled like the rain. And odors differ in the ways they please Different creatures, for their varied forms Are different, so bees, from far away, Swarm to the scent of honey, but the reek Of carrion draws buzzards. The split hoof Of deer or boar will set the coursing hounds Nosing along the trail; and the white goose, Once saviour of our Roman citadel, Detects far off the scent of human beings. Thus different creatures, led by different scents, Are led to their own food, or are warned off From ugly poisons. So the races of wild beasts Are kept alive.

4.24 Of all the smells there are Some carry farther than others, but not one Reaches as far as voice or sound or sight (That last, I think, I hardly need to mention). For odors come on wandering courses, slow In their approach, are easily dispersed, Fade in the air; one reason is, they start From inner depths, and even seem to have Some trouble in emerging; possibly They even tend back to their source again. We know that stronger odors emanate From things when crushed, or ground, or burnt in fire, And odors must be made of larger motes Than voices, since they do not pass through stone Where sound can penetrate, and it’s not easy, At times, to find the whereabouts of a smell Since odors are no hot-foot messengers, But dawdlers, and their trails grow cold in air, Too vague, too wavering for the nosing hounds Unless they pause and check and cast about. I should have pointed out, a short while back, That taste and smell are not the only senses Which vary or conflict in their effect, Please some and rankle in others. It’s the same With light and color. Lions, for example, Those wild and ravening creatures, cannot bear To see a rooster, watch him flap his wings, Sound his bright clarion summons to the dawn. They’ll panic at the sight, they’ll run away Dusting the veldt with terror. Roosters cast, (At least the lions think so) little darts Or quills from every atom of their bodies And these get in a lion’s eyes, and sting, And smart and burn so much-the hardiest beast Cannot endure the agony. But men Have no such trouble; no such particles Can hurt us in the least; our irises May be too strong for them to penetrate Of if they do they come right out again Too soon for any irritating stay.

4.25 Next, learn (this can be brief) what moves the mind, How things that come there do so. Let me say To start with that the images of things Are, many of them, vagrant, and they move In all directions and in many ways From every side - are, some of them, so frail They fuse on meeting, easily, in the air Like gossamer or spun gold, more frail by far Than things which catch the eye or stir the vision. The kind of images I mean can pass Through even the finest bodily pores, can rouse The delicate nature of the mind within And stimulate sensation. In this way We look at Centaurs, Scyllas, hounds of Hell, The images of dead men underground. All kinds of images forever float About us everywhere, and some are born Of their own generation in the air And some have more substantial origin And some are compounds of two things or more, For certainly no Centaur-image comes From any single living beast; how could it? There never was such a creature. But some chance Might bring the images of horse and man Together in a blend, and that would be Easy enough to do, no great surprise, Since images are spun so very thin. All other things like these are fashioned so, Supremely light, so swiftly borne along Any one image, by one impact, moves The mind, whose nature, as I’ve said before, Is very delicate and sensitive.

4.26 I need not press the point that what we see, Whether the eyes behold it, or the mind, Works the same way. Suppose I see a lion: Its image, or its sum of images, Is making an impression on my eyes, And if I see the idea of a lion Or anything whatever, it’s the same - Except the mind, perhaps, has subtler power, Perceives more tenuous images. The mind, Wakeful, attentive, while the body sleeps, Senses in dark those images our eyes Derive through daylight only. So we see Or think we see as if he were alive Some absent prisoner of death and dust. This is a consequence of natural law, Because the wits are dormant when our limbs Relax in slumber, and cannot confute Falsehood with truth, and even memory lies Adrowsing, with no argument to prove Our vision error and our living man The absent prisoner of death and dust. And it’s no marvel that these phantoms move, Gesture, and walk, as images in dreams Appear to do, one following another Before the first has time to strike a pose. They are very swift, they are very numerous, As they would have to be, to shift and change So quickly in such brevity of time.

4.27 There are many questions still to answer, much To clarify, if we are serious. We might begin by asking first of all Why mind as soon as it takes a notion thinks Whatever it wants to right away. Is this Because the images regard our will, Walt for our beck and call, and come to us At our sweet leisure, bringing us a sea, An earth, a heaven? Does one word suffice For nature to prepare, create for us Assemblages, processions, banquets, brawls? (Other men, to be sure, in the same place, Have quite a different set of schemes in mind.) What about this - that in our dreams we see Images moving, almost keeping time, As softly, softly, so the left foot follows Shadow and gesture of the right hand’s lift? Do we infer that phantoms are imbued, Deep-dyed in art, and even though vagrant prove Their learned discipline, abroad at night, Indulging in their pastimes? Or is this More probable? - that in a single time, No longer than it takes an eye to blink Or mouth to utter half a syllable, Below this instant, this split-second, lie Times almost infinite, which reason knows As presences, and in each presence dwells Its own peculiar image, all of them So tenuous no mind is sharp enough To see them all, must focus, concentrate On only one, so all the rest are lost Except the one mind has determined on. Mind does prepare itself, and hopes to see, Anticipates the next successive image, And therefore finds it, as it must. Don’t eyes, Looking for things almost invisible, Prepare themselves, strain, squint, and concentrate, And only so discover what they seek? And even in things quite obvious, your mind Must be attentive, otherwise they’ll seem Far off in time, in space. Is it so strange That mind keeps overlooking many things Save those to which it pays immediate heed? Another thing we do is fool ourselves, Become the dupes of logic which derives Giant conclusions out of pygmy clues.

4.28 Images may be inconsistent things. A woman, so it seems, becomes a man While we are watching, or an ugly one Grows beautiful, a young one old, and so on, While slumber and forgetfulness preserve Our lack of challenge or of wonderment.

4.29 Another fallacy comes creeping in Whose errors you should be meticulous In trying to avoid - don’t think our eyes, Our bright and shining eyes, were made for us To look ahead with; don’t suppose our thigh-bones Fitted our shin-bones, and our shins our ankles, So that we might take steps; don’t think that arms Dangled from shoulders and branched out in hands With fingers at their ends, both right and left, For us to do whatever need required For our survival. All such argument, All such interpretation, is perverse, Fallacious, puts the cart before the horse. No bodily thing was born for us to use, Nature had no such aim, but what was born Creates the use. There could be no such thing As sight before the eyes were formed, no speech Before the tongue was made, but tongues began Long before speech was uttered, and the ears Were fashioned long before a sound was heard, And all the organs, I feel sure, were there Before their use developed; they could not Evolve for the sake of use, be so designed. But battling hand to hand, and slashing limbs, Fouling the foe in blood - these antedate The flight of shining javelins; nature taught Men how to dodge a wound before they learned The fit of shield to arm. Rest, certainly, Is older in the history of man Than coverlets or mattresses, and thirst Was quenched before the days of cups or goblets. Need has created use, as man contrives Devices for his comfort, but all these Cunning inventions are far different From all those things, much older, which supplied Their function from their form. The limbs, the sense, Came first, their usage afterward. Never think They could have been created for the sake Of being used.

4.30 It’s natural enough That every living body looks for food, Requires replenishment. As I have shown, There is a constant floating-off, an ebb From many substances in many ways, But most of all from living animals Since these are always moving, losing weight, Sweating away excess, exhaling air In sheer exhaustion, so the body thins And all its natural strength is undermined, Whence pain ensues, and for this reason food Is taken, to restore the weakened limbs, Re-create vital forces, satisfy The appetite through muscle, vein and nerve. And fluid sustenance also finds its way To where there’s need of fluid; fever’s fires Are quenched, the hunger and thirst are washed away, The framework of the house is sound again.

4.31 Next we consider motion, how it is That we can walk at will, stride boldly forth, Propel our bulk along. Be attentive now. I say that the first step, before we take A step at all, is that into our mind An image comes of walking, strikes the mind, Creates volition; no man ever starts To act before the mind foresees its will. In other words, the foresight of the mind Produces the appropriate replica, The image; therefore, if the purpose tends Toward the desire of going for a walk This image or this vision strikes full force Through all the mass of spirit, through the limbs, The members of the body. This makes sense If we recall how closely flesh and mind Are linked, and so this impact on the spirit Propels the body forward. Here we go, Our whole mass shoved along, or moving on. The body in motion, furthermore, expands, Dilates, so that the air, whose property Is always that of motion, pours in flood Through all the openings, and is resolved, Distributed into body’s tiniest holds, And body, like a ship, is borne along By sails and wind. Is it so wonderful That bodies, gross and huge, are made to move By particles of breath, by spirit’s air? Not so, if you remember the wind’s way, How frail its substance, how invisible, And yet how its might has power to propel A battleship; a single steersman’s hand, Turning the wheel, can shift and swing the rush On a new course. In the same way machines- The winches, derricks, pulleys - lift and lower The cargo - tons from hold to deck, to dock, With very little strain and effort.

4.32 Sleep Is our next topic, how it floods the limbs With quietude, dispelling from the heart The mind’s anxieties. I’ll try to be Melodious at this point, and not too long, As the swans’ music pleases more than the cranes’ Squawking on their raucous course through southern clouds. This calls, on your part, for a listening ear And keen intelligence, lest you contradict My argument, call it impossible, And in your ignorance shrink in dismay From truths you lack ability to see. So, to begin with: sleep occurs at times When spirit’s force is somewhat discomposed Throughout the limbs, some of it vanishing To outer air, and some of it gone deep Inward to crowded quarters. Then the limbs Relax, almost dissolve. Beyond all doubt Sensation in us has its origin In spirit’s action, and when sleep annuls Sensation altogether, we conclude Spirit has been disturbed, or consciousness Driven outside the body - not, of course, Completely so, for in that case we’d lie Sprawled in the everlasting chill of death, Since, if no fraction of the spirit stayed Within our limbs, like fire beneath gray ash, Whence could sensation suddenly blaze up, Be blown to life, like flame from fire unseen?

4.33 Let me explain how this particular change Takes place, how spirit is disturbed, how body Drowses in languishment. Don’t go to sleep! Don’t let me cast my lessons to the winds! First, since the surface of the body lies Exposed to air, it must be buffeted, Thumped, pounded on by air’s continual beat, Against which almost everything evolves Its own protective covering, like skin, Or shells, or callouses, or rind, or bark. And this same air pervades the innerpart As we inhale, exhale; it strikes the body Both ways at once, and as these blows persist In penetration through the smallest pores To our most elemental particles, In time, and little by little, so to speak, The limbs, beneath this constant pressure, yield, Slump and collapse, the regular arrangement Of particles disordered, body and mind. So part of the spirit seems ejected, part Driven to refuge somewhat deeper down, Part pulled asunder from its complement, So that reciprocal function comes to a halt Since nature has blocked communication’s lines, And with sensation utterly out of reach, Gone deeper down: no force holds up the limbs, Body is weak, arms dangle at your sides, Your eyelids droop, and on your buckling knees You just about can stagger into bed. A heavy meal has much the same effect If scattered through the veins. The deepest sleep Is that which comes when we are very tired Or very stuffed with food; those are the times When physical elements are most disarranged From long exhaustion, and the spirit’s power Likewise most troubled, shattered, driven deep.

4.34 Now as for dreams: here, I suggest, we find, Each one of us whatever our desires Seize and hang onto in our waking hours. The lawyers plead in court or draw up briefs, The generals wage wars, the mariners Fight with their ancient enemy the wind, And I keep doing what I am doing here: I try to learn about the way things are And set my findings down in Latin verse. Oh, all the fascinations that possess The minds of men, their studies and their arts, Are with us in our dreaming, are, for once, Almost attainable. Men who spend their time Day after day at ballgames, concentrate, Watch every move, intense, intent, still see, In recollection, after the season ends, The athletes leap and run; they need not be Asleep to have such visions of the mind. Your opera-lovers hear bright eloquence Of song outpouring, and the orchestra Accompany that music; they can see The panoply of stage effect, the pause, The sweep, the swirl, of color. What we love, What we devote our ardor to, or seek In passionate earnest; even what we do In our most commonplace and daily round, Makes all the difference, and this applies Not only to men, but to all the animals. Some day, in fact, you’ll see a thoroughbred, Asleep in a stall, break out in a sudden sweat, His breath come faster and faster, and his sides Heave as he seems to pass the winning post Or break as the starting-gate flies open. Hounds Twitch in their sleep, or try their best to run, Give tongue, and sniff the air, as if they caught Scent of their quarry. If you wake them up, They’ll chase the phantom of the stag they view Bounding away from them, until at last They come to learn the error of their ways, Returning gloomy to their wiser selves Chopfallen in their disillusionment. Domestic dogs, or even pups, will start Out of a dream, and shake themselves, and snarl As if they saw a burglar in the house. The fiercer every breed, the more it tends To savage dreams, but the bright-colored birds Wing through the dark, disturb the sacred groves In panic if they dream of seeing hawks Come swooping down to kill. The minds of men Continue in their dreams the great pursuits Of daytime hours - kings are victorious Or taken prisoner, or, in torture, scream As if their throats were being cut. Men fight, Men groan in pain, men fill the air around With cries, as if a panther or a lion Were gnawing on their bones; some men discuss Important business matters in their dreams, Some give themselves away, and many die, And many, hurled from mountaintops or towers Headlong to earth, are frightened from their sleep But, even waked, do not at once regain Their bodily composure. A thirsty man Sits by a river or a pleasant spring And almost drinks it dry. Kids wet the bed Soaking not only sheets, but also spreads, Magnificent Babylonian counterpanes, Because it seemed that in their dreams they stood Before a urinal or chamber pot With lifted nightgowns. What a lake they make! And youngsters somewhat older, once the seed Of manhood starts to fill their genitals, Beholding in their dreams a lovely face, A beautiful complexion, or a form Desirable and fair, are so aroused, So stirred, excited, swollen, that the deed Becomes reality, and a tidal flow Pours out to stain their garments.

4.35 Now this seed - Have I mentioned this before? - once we are men Mature and strong, becomes an active force, Compulsive, driving. Various effects Derive from various causes, but we know Only a human being’s force can draw The human seed from any human being. This seed, diverse in origin, proceeds Through all the limbs and members of the body To its own area, where it excites The genitals alone. These parts, aroused, Swell with the seed, so that desire ensues For its ejection, outpour and release, In such direction as its craving tends. The body seeks the source of the mind’s wound. All things tend woundward: does not blood spurt out In the direction of the blow? is not An enemy, standing near enough, dyed red? So anyone, wounded by Venus’ dart, Whether it’s flung by some delightful boy With lovely girlish figure, or is cast By a real woman, radiant with desire, Responds in that direction, yearns and longs And strives for union with it, wants to fill That body with his own, pour out that seed Into the other, and his silent lust Anticipates that wonderful delight.

4.36 There’s Venus for you! And her name supplies Another term for love, if you must know, The word I have in mind is venery - One drop of sweetness in the heart, and then A cold anxiety. If what you love Is far away, no matter; images Are there before your eyes, and the dear name Rings in your ears. Better to run away, Escape from such illusions, frighten off Such things as nourish love, and turn the mind Anywhere else, disseminate the rank Accumulation, turn it loose, be bound To no one frenzied appetite, with care And pain your certain destiny. The sore Takes on new life, persists and thrives; the madness Worsens from day to day, its weight of pain More burdensome; the only thing to do Is to confuse the issue, cure the hurt By many more - what does the adage say, Safety in hordes? Ah, that’s the right prescription.

4.37 Avoiding passionate love, you need not miss All the rewards of Venus; you might gain Easing and comfort without penalty. Surely delight comes in a purer form To sensible men than to your love-struck wretches Who, on the very verge of consummation, Can’t make their minds up, thrash about, uncertain Which they should pleasure first-their hands? their eyes? So they bear down with all their weight, or squeeze, Tight as they can, the body they have sought, They make it hurt, take hold of lips with teeth, Kiss with insistent fierceness. Such delight Is never pure, for in its impulse lies The appetite for pain, the urge to hurt, The germinal seeds of madness. Even so, In the very midst of love, ever so lightly, Venus abates the punishment, and blends A sweetness with the sharpness of the bite. There’s the hope, always, that the fire may die Extinguished by the body which aroused Its ardor in the first place. What could be More contrary to nature? Nothing else Inflames us, once we have it, with desire Of more and more and more. We satisfy Our hunger and our thirst with bread and wine Whose have substance and can fill Our need, can take a place within our bodies; But pretty faces, fair complexions, bring Nothing to body’s emptiness but only Frail, vain, elusive images, which hope Grasps for in vain across the empty air. In dreams, a thirsting man attempts to drink, But finds no water which can cool the fire Within him; therefore, all unsatisfied, Seeks images of water, comes at last To a rushing river, where he seems to drink In vain, still thirsty. So it is in love. Venus plays tricks on lovers with her game Of images which never satisfy. Looking at bodies fills no vital need However nakedly the lovers gaze, However much their hands go wandering And still are empty - can they gather bloom From tender limbs? And then the time arrives When their embraces join, and they delight In the full flower of love, or almost do, Anticipating rapture soon to come, The moment of the sowing. Eagerly They press their bodies close, join lips and tongues, Their breath comes faster, faster. All in vain, For they can gather nothing, they cannot Effect real penetration, be absorbed Body in body, utterly. They seem To want to do just this. God knows they try, Cling to each other, lashed in Venus’ chains Till finally, all passion spent, they die, Relaxed completely from that violence, Melted, undone; so, for a little time, The furious fire subsides. But it will blaze, Break out again in madness, and they’ll seek Again whatever it is they want to reach, Find no prescription, no device to stop This rank infection, so they peak and pine, Confused and troubled by their secret wound.

4.38 For this they work themselves to death, worn out, Exhausted, spent. As if that weren’t enough, Each partner waits the other’s beck and call; Assets are spent on Eastern luxuries, Duty is shirked, and reputation reels, Palsied, blind-drunk. But aren’t those lovely things She’s wearing? - those cute sandals on her feet, Those great big flashing emeralds whose light Is set in gold, that sea-dark robe de nuit Worn all the time, its texture barely proof Against love’s stain and sweat. What father left Turns into coronets or necklaces Or an expensive lovely silken gown From Ceos or Alinda. And it all Adds up to nothing - banquets, rich attire, Food, entertainment, gambling, drinks, perfumes, Since from the fountains of delight one jet Spurts such a bitterness the flowers wilt All through the garden. It may be the mind Gnaws on itself in guilt, or conscience cries Against such indolent wanton suicide, Or it may be some double talk of hers, Tossed off at random, or perhaps let fly With serious intent, has hit the mark, Has pierced his heart and set infection there, Or he may think she bats her eyes too much In some one else’s presence, looks too fond, And that her subtle and beguiling smile Means she is laughing at him.

4.39 Griefs like these Are common enough when things are going well And happily, as we say. When things are rough, Griefs multiply to such infinities Your eyes, tight shut, can see them. Be on guard, As I have taught you, don’t be taken in. It’s easier to avoid the snares of love Than to escape once you are in that net Whose cords and knots are strong; but even so, Enmeshed, entangled, you can still get out Unless, poor fool, you stand in your own way, Forgetting, for example, all those faults Your little darling has in body or mind. Desire is blind, desire is ignorant, And men can never stop this foolishness But keep on praising an attractive charm Which simply isn’t there. We often see The crookedest and ugliest woman held In high esteem, somebody’s precious pet; And some men laugh at others, urging them To placate Venus, have her intervene, Ease the affliction of so foul a mess, And yet these wretches never understand Their own calamitous cases. A black wench Is a nut-brown maid, and some untidy slob Praised for a sweet disorder in the dress. Some idiot with a pallid washed-out stare Is called grey-eyed Minerva, olive-groved. The lumbering lummox is a wood nymph wild, The sawed-off runt a doll, the overgrown Hydrocephalic is divinely tall And walks the night in beauty - (a good thing, too; Keep her locked up by day.) That speech defect Turns out to be the thweetetht little lithp, The one too dumb to say a single word Is shy and modest, while the gabby gawk Who never stops talking, flings herself around All over the place - who can this Sylvia be Except the life of the party? Miss Flat Chest Is slender-slim as willow-wands or briony; The bulging blown-up over-bosomy babe Is the Earth-Mother; and the hairy snub-nose, Cute little monkey-face. The catalogue Is much too long for us to itemize. Concede her face all glory, laud, and honor, Concede that every muscle, every nerve In her entire anatomy, responds To Venus’ music - aren’t there other girls? Didn’t you get along for quite some time Without her? Her performances, we know, Are just the same as uglier women’s are, So she pours on perfumery so rank It almost suffocates her serving maids Who get away from her as far as they can, Or titter, behind her back, across the room. Meanwhile her dear devoted lover-man, Shut out of the house, is weeping bitter tears, Piling the threshold deep with flowers and wreaths, Making the doorposts sticky with his kisses. Suppose, though, he’s let in, and gets one whiff, Only one single whiff, of that bouquet. If he has any decency at all, He ought to find some reason, some excuse For an abrupt departure, sigh no more Those heartfelt and interminable blues, But recognize his own damn foolishness: This creature on her silly pedestal Is not a goddess! All our Venuses Are well aware of this; so, all the more, They try to hide their backstage scenery From those romantic swains they hope to keep Held tight and handcuffed in love’s manacles. A fatuous project. All you have to do Is use a little wit and bring to light All this ridiculous nonsense. If, in turn, She shows a decent spirit, holds no grudge, You might as well forget it. Aren’t we all Human and fallible?

4.40 When a woman joins Body to body in a tight embrace, Moist-kissing lip to lip, breathes deep, or sighs That long-drawn sigh, this is no act of fraud, No simulated passion; many times She means it absolutely, from the depths, Desires the satisfactions both can share, Urging him to his utmost. Animals Act the same way, the tame ones and the wild, Birds in the mating season, mares in heat, The female more than willing for the male To tread or mount; and in their bonds of love You see the partners thrash and struggle, bound In what - delight or torment? Look at dogs Caught back to back, about to cross a street, Where each tries hard to go a different way, Unable to separate. Why do things like this? There ought to be a two-way pleasure to it. I have said this over and over, many times.

4.41 When the male seed and female seed are fused, One partner may be dominant, overpower The other in a burst of violence. If this should be the woman, then the child Will have her features and her qualities. The same thing happens if the man assumes The role of dominance, the children then Will be more like the father. When you see Daughters and sons whose build and looks appear The heritage of both alike, be sure That in the act of procreative love A parity existed, neither one Being lord or slave, victim or conqueror. At times, again, resemblances can skip A generation or more, and reproduce A distant ancestor. The cause of this Lies in the fact that hidden in all bodies Are many first-beginnings, primal motes Passed on by the successive generations, And out of these the goddess fashions forms Whose lot is various, on a child bestows Ancestral traits of voice, complexion, hair. Sons may be like their mothers, and the girls More like their fathers; this is natural Since all things born are made from double seed, Although in mixed proportion; this is clear Whatever the sex of the new generation.

4.42 As for sterility, no gods inflict This curse on men who never get a child To call them father, who expend their days In barren intercourse, and in their gloom Think that the gods must be responsible - And so they sprinkle altar stones with blood And make them reek with incense or the smoke Of their burnt-offerings, and pray for wives Made pregnant by the rivers of their seed. How futile and how tiresome this must be To any god’s caprice or will! The fault Lies in the seed itself, too thick, too thin. The latter has no clinging force, dissolves, Declares itself abortive, while the thick, Being too clogged, too clotted, cannot spurt With any truly penetrative force; And even if it finally arrives At where it should, its power, completely spent, Cannot be mingled with the female seed.

4.43 Love’s concords may be very different, Some men more efficacious with some women, Some women more surely pregnant by some men, And many women, whose first marriages Were barren, later come to other husbands To whom they bear a goodly store of offspring, A sweet delight. And late in life, some husbands Whose wives, though far from barren, never bore Children in that particular house, have found A different partner, better suited for them, In old age blessed with sons. The seeds must be Compatible, adapted to each other, Thick compensating thin, and coarse with fine Effecting harmony. Diet also plays A most important role; some foods condense The seed, some thin it down to almost nothing. And posture, in the very act of love, Must not be disregarded; it is thought Women conceive more readily, if taken As animals are, breasts underneath, loins high, So that the seed reaches the proper parts More readily. Wives have no need at all For loose and limber motions, pelvic stunts, Abdominal gyrations. These, in fact, Are contraceptive; if she pulls away, Pretends reluctance, stirs him up again With strain and push and thrusting, she diverts The seed from its right furrow. This is why All whores are so gymnastic; they know well Such acts not only please their customers But also are a safeguard, good insurance Against a pregnant belly. But our wives, It seems, need no such nonsense. Finally, The little woman does not have to be A raving beauty; she can win your love, Without the help of any gods, without The darts of Cupids or of Venuses, Simply by being decent, neat and clean, A pleasant person to be living with. That’s about all it takes, and love depends On habit quite as much as the wild ways Of passion. Gently does it, as the rain In time wears through the very hardest stone.

Book V

5.01 Whose genius has the power to utter song Fit for the grandeur of the way things are, For these discoveries? Who has the strength In words to fashion any adequate praise For what that man deserves, whose intellect Found and bequeathed us such a store of wealth? No one of us, no son of mortal stock, Will ever, I’d guess, rise to the majesty Required to praise such greatness. Ah, my friend, Most noble Memmius, we must admit He was a god, a god indeed, who first Found a life-scheme, a system, a design Now known as Wisdom, or Philosophy. He was the one whose artistry brought life Out of the turbulence, the darknesses, Into serenity and shining light. Compare with his those other ancient gifts Attributed to gods: Ceres, we say, Gave grain to men, and Bacchus brought us wine, But life, without these gifts, is possible - Some races do without them even today And do not suffer. But there’s no good life, No blessedness, without a mind made clear, A spirit purged of error. So all the more He seems to us, by absolute right, a god From whom, distributed through all the world, Come those dear consolations of the mind, That precious balm of spirit. If you think The feats of Hercules compare with his, You’ll wander in error, almost out of your mind. How could that gap-mouth, the Nemean lion, Harm us today? What could the bristly boar From Arcady do, or the Cretan bull, or the freak Of Lerna, ruffed with poisonous snakes, accomplish? Of what avail Geryon’s triple menace, Bronze-plumed Stymphalian marsh birds, or the fire Blown out by Diomed’s horses? And that dragon, Glowering fierce and huge, coiled round a treetrunk, Guarding the golden apples of the west By the Atlantic’s merciless rage of rock And shore - how could he damage us? We never Go there, not one of us; neither do strangers, Barbarians, folk uncivilized. They dare not. As for the other dreadful presences Slaughtered by Hercules, let us suppose They never were brought low; what difference Would it have made, what harm accrue, if they Were living still? Not much, or none at all, I’d say - a drop in the bucket, hardly more. For the world even now is full to the brim With savage creatures; terror and panic haunt The mountains, forests, jungles, but at least We have an excellent chance of staying home, Of never touring any such demesnes.

But if the reason is unpurified, The conscious mind unpurged, what wars we wage Within ourselves, what dangers penetrate Against our will! How many fierce desires Slash into our anxiety! What fears Ensue, what nastiness, what arrogance, Pride, self-indulgence, lust, sloth, graspingness, Disaster-bringers all! And so the man Who conquered all of these and by his words Rather than by arms expelled them from the mind Must be, if decency has any force, Accorded rank and worth with any god, Especially, since like a god he spoke With lofty eloquence about the gods, About the way things are.

5.02 I tread the path Where he has led, I teach, I tell, what laws Hold all created things, how bound they are To an endurance of order, cannot break, Cannot rescind the legislation Time Has fixed forever. A first principle, By way of illustration: I have shown That mind, or soul, by nature, has been proved To be a property of mortal stuff, Unable to endure unharmed forever; And when we see, or think we see, in dreams A man whom death has taken, we are fooled By vain delusive images. I must Continue now, must show that all the world Is mortal also, I must show the ways Whereby, when elements of matter met, Their union founded earth, sky, sea, stars, sun, The lunar globe. And I must also tell What animals have existed on the earth, And what ones never lived at any time; How, by their varied utterance and tone, Men could communicate by naming things; How fear of the gods crept into human hearts, Imposing over all the world dread awe Of the holy lakes, groves, altars, images. Beyond this, I’ll explain the power whereby With nature at the helm, the sun and moon Are steered along their courses, lest we think They make their annual processionals At their own whim between the earth and sky Indulgently promoting the increase Of crops and animals, or perhaps are whirled By some caprice or purpose of the gods. Students, even those who have learned the lesson well That gods lead lives supremely free of care, May wonder now and then by what intent This thing or that can happen, most of all In areas overhead. This wonderment Leads to confusion, leads them to regress To obsolete religious awe, to invoke A bitter lordship for themselves (poor fools) Believers in almighty gods, and blind, Credulous, ignorant of what can be And what cannot, limits and boundaries - The deep-set marker that is fixed forever. I keep you waiting with my promises; We’d best be getting on. Now, Memmius, Look at the seas, the lands, the sky. All these, With their three-fold diversity of form, Of nature, fabric, mass, one day will bring To ruin utterly; and all that might, All that machinery of the universe, Upheld so proudly through so many years, Will tumble down, crumble to ruin, die. I have no doubt how strange and new the mind Finds the idea that heaven and earth are doomed. How hard for any words of mine to prove! It’s like this always, isn’t it, when you bring Something the ears have never heard before And eyes can’t visualize, or fingers grasp, Where only the paved highway of belief Is the short boulevard to heart and mind? But even so, I shall speak out. My words, Perhaps, will be confirmed by actual fact, And you will see, in just a little while, Tremendous earthquakes, universal shock. May Fortune, at the helm, steer far from us Any such wrack, and may we rather learn By reason, not experience, the truth That all the universe can be struck down, Disintegrate, in horrible rumble and crash.

5.03 Before I play Sir Oracle, and speak With sounder sense than any priestess ever Gave out from Phoebus’ tripod and his laurel, Let me first bring you more than a little comfort In learned words; for I’d not have you be So superstitious, snaffled, as to think The earth and sun and sky, sea, stars, and moon Are made of stuff divine, and live forever. Next thing you know, you’ll think it right and proper That what the Giants suffered for their crimes, For their monstrosities, applies as well To all those men whose powers of reason shatter The barriers of the universe, who would Darken the sunlight in their arrogance, Marking with mortal talk immortal things. But as a matter of fact, such things are far From any aura of divinity, From any semblance of godly character, And should be, rather, taken as good proof Of something lacking vital, sensitive movement. It simply isn’t so, that everything Which has a body also has a mind, An aim in life, a planned curriculum. Trees don’t live in the sky, and clouds don’t swim In the salt seas, and fish don’t leap in wheatfields, Blood isn’t found in wood, nor sap in rocks. By fixed arrangement, all that lives and grows Submits to limit and restriction. So Mind must derive from body, mind can never Be far from blood and sinew. But if mind (And this would be more likely) could exist In one location only, say the head, Or shoulders, or the bottom of the heels, Even so, its residence would have to be In the same man, that is to say, the same Containing vessel. It is obvious Our bodily arrangement and disposal Sets limits to the areas which mind Can occupy; so, all the more, we must Deny that somewhere, out beyond animal form Or animal substance, mind is ever found In crumbling clods of earth, in the sun’s fire, In water, in the lofty seas of air. Such things as these, therefore, are not endowed With any sentience, least of all divine. They are not even living.

5.04 One more thing You can’t believe: that the gods dwell somewhere In hallowed places in our universe. Not so: gods’ natures are impalpable, Far from our senses’ range, hardly perceptible By the mind’s eye; our hands cannot reach out To touch them, therefore, being intangible, They cannot touch us either - touch, of course, Being reciprocal. So their abodes Must be unlike our own, as tenuous As it may be their bodies are; the proof Of this, a rather lengthy argument, I’ll give you later. Meanwhile, let’s not be So foolish as to say that for men’s sake The gods were more than willing to prepare The gorgeous structure of the universe, Which therefore, as the work of gods, must be Considered laudable, and as their work Immortal also - what a sinful thing (We think) for such a world, established by The ancient planning of the gods for men, To be subverted, ever, from its base By any violence, subject to storms Of sacrilegious verbiage, overthrown, Brought low, brought down, destroyed, annihilated, And so forth, and so on. All nonsense, Memmius! What could the blessed, the immortal, gain From any such munificence as ours To tackle anything for our sweet sake? What novelty could so distract, so break Their eons-long serenity and rouse Their willingness to change their ancient ways?

5.05 Those whom the old things vex are right, of course, To find delight in new ones; but suppose You had no trouble in all your days, enjoyed A life of utter bliss, what in the world Could make you burn for novelty? The gods Lived, I suppose, in darkness and in grief Until illumined by their handiwork, The world’s creation? How would we be hurt If we were never born? Once given life, We want to keep on living, anyway As long as there is any in it, But if a man has never had a taste Of life, or never had his name put down In the catalogue of those who loved it, how, How could non-being do him any harm? Furthermore, where would the gods derive a scheme For making things, how would they understand What men were to be like, so gods could know, Or only imagine, how to fashion them? Or how would they comprehend the principles Of primal bodies, what was possible Through changed arrangements, unless nature gave A model for creation? Atoms move In many ways, since infinite time began, Are driven by collisions, are borne on By their own weight, in every kind of way Meet or combine, try every possible, Every conceivable pattern, so no wonder They fell into arrangements, into modes Like those whereby the sum of things preserves Its system by renewal.

5.06 But suppose That I were ignorant and did not know What atoms are, I’d still make bold a claim To state, from my observance of the ways Of heaven, and from many other things: This world of ours was not prepared for us By any god. Too much is wrong with it. For one thing, what the mighty swirl of sky Protects, the covetous mountains and the jungles Have seized a part of, and the cliffs and swamplands Appropriate their share; and then there’s ocean Keeping the shores as wide apart as may be. Two-thirds of what there is, that pair of thieves, Fierce heat, insistent cold, have robbed men of; And what is left, nature, as violent As either one, would occupy and homestead With fence of briar and bramble, but men resist For their dear lives, groan as they heave the mattock The way they know they must, or break the soil Shoving the plow along. Were this not done, This plowshare-turning of the fertile clod, This summoning to birth, nothing at all Could, of its own initiative, leap forth Into the flow of air. How many a time The produce of great agonies of toil Burgeons and flourishes, and then the sun Is much too hot and burns it to a crisp; Or sudden cloudbursts, zero frosts, or winds Of hurricane force are, all of them, destroyers. And why does nature feed and multiply The dreadful race of predatory beasts, Man’s enemies on sea and land? And why Must every season bring disease? And why Is early death so free to walk the world? When nature, after struggle, tears the child Out of its mother’s womb to the shores of light, He lies there naked, lacking everything, Like a sailor driven wave-battered to some coast, And the poor little thing fills all the air With lamentation - but that’s only right In view of all the griefs that lie ahead Along his way through life. The animals Are better off, the tame ones and the wild, They grow, they don’t need rattles, they don’t need , The babbling baby-talk of doting nurses, They don’t go seeking different kinds of dress According to the season, they don’t need Weapons or walls for their protection; earth And nature, generous artificer, Supply their every lack.

5.07 What a digression! Forgive my rambling, Memmius. My theme Is, still, mortality: since earth and water Air and fire, those elements which form The sum of things are, all of them, composed Of matter that is born and dies, we must Conclude that likewise all the universe Must be of mortal nature. Any time We see that parts are transient substances We know their total is as fugitive, And when the main components of the world Exhaust themselves or come to birth again Before our very eyes, we may be sure That heaven and earth will end, as certainly As ever they once began.

5.08 Do not suppose I take too much for granted when I claim That earth and fire are mortal, and that air And water perish and are born again. Take, to begin with, any part of the earth, Burnt by continual suns, trampled by hosts, Exhaling mist or dust, and flying clouds Dispersed by the great gales across the sky. Part of the soil the heavy rainstorms call To dissolution; riverbanks are shorn, Gnawed by the currents. For every benefit Requital must be given. Earth’s our mother, Also our common grave. And so you see Earth is receiving loss and gain forever.

5.09 No need for words to prove that ocean, streams, And springs brim over always with new floods; On every side downrushing mighty waters Proclaim the fact, but from the surfaces There’s always a subtraction, so excess Is nullified, wind and sun exert their powers Of diminution, there’s a seepage down Into the earth, the salt is filtered out, The substance of the water oozes back To a confluence at the fountainheads Of all the rivers, and then flows again Down the fresh channels of its earlier days.

5.10 And air is changed completely, hour by hour, Moment by moment, in more ways than men Can ever count; whatever streams from things Is always poured into that mighty sea, The ocean of the air; but in its turn This reassigns to things their particles Renews them as they flow away. All things Would otherwise by dissolved and changed to air. There is no end to the continual process, Air always rising out of things, and falling Back into things again. In other words, Recurring influence and effluence.

5.11 Likewise the generous giver of clear light, The ethereal sun, forever flooding heaven with new illumination, light on light, Changed every single moment - brightness falls From air, is lost, renewed. This you can tell By the way clouds begin to veil the sun, To break, as it were, the rays of light; at once The lower part of these is gone, the earth Is dark with shadow where the clouds ride over. And so, you realize, things forever need Renewal of shining, every flash of light Loses intensity, there would be nothing Visible in the day, did not the sun Forever stream replenishment. Look about you! By night we have in our own halls on earth Our suns, such as they are, the hanging lamps, The torches flaring bright, or thick with smoke. What eager servants, always on the go To keep the light renewed, the wavering flame Uninterrupted (or at least to seem so), With spark so quick to follow the extinction Of prior spark! So sun and moon and stars We know form the processional of light In infinite new succession, a mote, a flash, Another and another, on and on. But don’t believe none of them ever falters.

5.12 You see that stones are worn away by time, Rocks rot, and towers topple, even the shrines And images of the gods grow very tired, Develop cracks or wrinkles, their holy wills Unable to extend their fated term, To litigate against the Laws of Nature. And don’t we see the monuments of men Collapse, as if to ask us, “Are not we As frail as those whom we commemorate?” Boulders come plunging down from mountain heights, Poor weaklings, with no power to resist The thrust that says to them, Your time has come! But they would be rooted in steadfastness Had they endured from time beyond all time, As far back as infinity. Look about you! Whatever it is that holds in its embrace All earth, if it projects, as some men say, All things out of itself, and takes them back When they have perished, must itself consist Of mortal elements. The parts must add Up to the sum. Whatever gives away Must lose in the procedure, and gain again Whenever it takes back.

5.13 But let’s suppose There never was any primogeniture For earth and sky, but they were always there, Always existing - could not poets find In such potential annals ancient lays, Much earlier matter to be singing of, Before the Seven Against, or the Fall of Troy? How could so many deeds of so many heroes Fade into so much dark oblivion Without one blossom of memorial? No, no; our world, I think, is very young, Has hardly more than started; some of our arts Are in the polishing stage, and some are still In the early phases of their growth; we see Novel equipment on our ships, we hear New sounds in our music, new philosophies - How recent the discovery of the scheme, The system of the universe, which I Am actually the first one to express In our own mother tongue! But if you think That all these things were once the very same, Long generations past, that humankind Died out in tropic heat, or cities fell In some gigantic temblor of the world, Or that the rivers, deluge-swollen, surged Over the earth to swallow up the towns, Then, all the more, you must confess you lose The argument, you must admit that doom Some day will come upon our earth, our sky. For with such peril and pestilence abroad Assailing things, if there had only been The addition of a fiercer violence, Perhaps not even very much, the world Would have come down in utter wrack and ruin; And for sure proof that we ourselves are mortal, We see our kind fall sick of the same diseases That other men have died of.

5.14 Furthermore, For things to be eternal, they should have A nature absolutely firm and solid To bounce blows off, let nothing penetrate With power to shatter close-packed particles, As are those motes of matter we described A while ago. Or, things might last forever Because no blow can touch them, being void, Or else because they have no space around them Into which elements might pass, or be Dissoluble. The total quantity Of all the sums must be immutable And everlasting, with no space beyond Where fractions leap apart, no area Whence shattering impacts might originate. But I have shown the nature of the world Is dual, void and solid, emptiness Combined with matter, no such emptiness That bodily forms can never penetrate With almost whirlwind violence and impose Doom and destruction. There is never lack Of outer space, available to take The exploded rampart-rubble of the world. The doors of death are always open wide: For sky, for sun, for earth, for ocean’s deeps The vast and gaping emptiness lies in wait. So you must grant that once upon a time Such things as these were born; no mortal things Could have endured, from earlier than forever, The overwhelming dominance of time, Of time unbounded.

5.15 With the elements Fighting their fierce and fratricidal wars, Can’t you imagine there will be some day An ultimate truce? Either the heat of the sun Will dry up all the rivers - this indeed Is what even now that fiery force intends But has not yet been able to accomplish With all its trying, for the waters marshal Their armies of reserves, not for defense But for deliberate attack, a threat To overwhelm the universe with flood; But this is silly, for the sweeping winds Abate the water, and the sun in heaven, Their ally, makes it shrink; sun and wind Are confident they can dry up the world Before the water drowns it in a deluge. So the war-breathers seek supremacy In undecisive conflict; fire was once Victorious, or so the story goes, And water, at another time, was lord. Fire was triumphant over all the world When the sun’s horses whirled poor Phaethon All over the sky, and much too close to earth, Till the Almighty Father, in a rage, Struck our young hero with his thunderbolt And blasted him from chariot to earth, Where, as he fell, the sun-god caught the torch, Resumed the car of light, repaired the reins, Patted the steeds from panic into calm, Yoked them once more, drove the familiar course With everything in order once again. Such is the story old Greek poets sang, A myth, of course, quite senseless and untrue, For fire can win only when motes of fire Attain to almost infinite multitude, Beyond all normal count. But even so Their force is somehow spent; it has to be, Or the whole world would die in holocaust. Water once also had its day, or so Legend relates, and poured its floods across The cities of mankind, but that attack At last was beaten back, we know not how, And rainfall ceased, and rivers lost their rage.

5.16 Now I’ll describe how the chaotic motes, The turbulent atoms, met, somehow to form The basic order of the earth, the sky, The deep, the courses of the sun and moon. Never suppose the atoms had a plan, Nor with a wise intelligence imposed An order on themselves, nor in some pact Agreed what movements each should generate. No, it was all fortuitous; for years, For centuries, for eons, all those motes In infinite varieties of ways Have always moved, since infinite time began, Are driven by collisions, are borne on By their own weight, in every kind of way Meet and combine, try every possible, Every conceivable pattern, till at length Experiment culminates in that array Which makes great things begin: the earth, the sky, The ocean, and the race of living creatures. No sun with lavish light was visible then Wheeling aloft, no planets, ocean, sky, No earth, no air, no thing like things we know, But a strange kind of turbulence, a swarm Of first beginnings, whose discordances Confused their intervals, connections, ways And weights and impacts, motions and collisions; And so the battles raged, because these forms Were so dissimilar, so various They could not rest in harmony, nor combine In any reciprocal movements. But at last Some parts began to learn their separate ways - Like elements joined with like, in some such way As to effect disclosure - a visible universe With parts arranged in order, as the earth Was sundered from the lofty sky, as ocean Spread with its waters kept in proper bounds, As the pure fires of heaven knew their place.

5.17 At first, no doubt of it, the bodies of earth, Being heavy and thick-matted with each other, Met in the middle, took the lowest places, And as they came together and adhered More tightly, they squeezed out those particles, Which formed the sea, the stars, the sun, the moon, The walls of the world, for every one of these Was made of elements more smooth and round, Much tinier than motes of earth. So ether Wherever there might be openings in the mesh - Found its way upward, and its lightness trailed Fire as it rose. In just this way we see In morning’s ruddy sunlight over lawns Jewelled with dew the veils of mist arising From pool or river, and it seems to us The earth is almost smoking. All this air, Ascending frail, thickens aloft, and weaves A canopy of cloud across the sky. So, long ago, the light diffusible ether In compact circular denseness curved its way In all directions, spread abroad, and held All other things in its embracing fold. Then sun and moon were born, and went their rounds Between the earth and sky, with neither earth Nor sky appropriating either sphere. They were not heavy enough to sink and settle Into the earth, nor light enough to float Up to the ether, but their course was set Between the two; between the two they turn Like living bodies, their existence keeping A time, a place, as parts of the great world. Their motion and their fixity resemble Our own in this respect: that we can move Some of our bodily members while the rest Remain in quietude.

5.18 When sun and moon Departed, earth sank suddenly, where now The blue-green reach of sea extends; earth’s hollows Filled with salt water, and day after day The more the tidal force of air, the rays Of sun beat down on earth with frequent blows, Compressing it from width to narrowness, Its nature all compact, so much the more By the salt sweat exuded from its body Its ooze increased the sea, the swimming plains; And, likewise all the more, uncounted motes Of heat and air escaped, rose far from earth, Crowded the shining reaches of the sky, Valleys and plains subsided, mountains loomed To lofty heights, for the crags could not sink down Nor all the parts descend to equal depth.

5.19 So, then, the weight of earth solidified, And all the heavy sludge of all the world Settled like lees or wine-dregs in a cask. Then sea, then air, then all the fiery realm Of ether, with translucent particles, Was purified, lightnesses varying From lightnesses, till the most delicate Floated, most frail, above the highest breath Of the least air, above all whirlwind force, Unmingling with all turbulence of storm, Smoothly the calm direction of its fire Gliding along, like to the Pontic sea Keeping the even tenor of its way.

5.20 For earth to rest in the middle of that realm We call the universe, its weight must be Diminished little by little, must decrease, Must have some other substance underneath Joined with it from the start, must have, above, Some other, forming one organic whole. This neither hinders nor depresses air Any more than a man’s limbs weigh him down, or his head Is an overload to his neck, any more than we feel Our whole weight bearing down upon our insoles; Whereas any foreign matter, imposed from without, Is a vexatious nuisance, however small Its actual heft may be. The difference lies In the innate capacity of things. So earth is not some foreign body, thrust All of a sudden on resentful air, But from the outset of the universe An integral part thereof, as surely so As our own limbs and organs seem to us. When the earth shudders at some cataclysm, The atmosphere above is also shaken, And this could not ensue unless the earth Were somehow fastened and bound to air and sky. They are joined, they cling together by common roots, They have always been so joined and so united. You’ve seen the like in the way the spirit’s essence, Frail and invisible, sustains the weight Of our bodies, however heavy they may be. They have always been so joined and so united. What else but power of spirit lifts the body Of the high-jumper up and over the bar? By now you do see, don’t you, how a frail Nature can be most powerful, conjoined With a substantial body, as the air Combines with earth, as our own power of mind Joins with our physical natures?

5.21 Now we turn To sing of stellar motion. The great flow Of heaven, as air turning, possibly may press Each polar axis of our atmosphere Holding it close both ways, with another stream Of air in flow above it, setting course In one direction only, with the stars Revolving, shining, swept along that flood. Or there may be another air below To make the arc revolve the other way As rivers turn the wheels of water-scoops. It’s also possible that all the sky Is fixed in one position, while the stars Pursue their shining ways. The tides of ether May be shut in, over-compressed, revolve Seeking escape, and whirl the fiery stars To the Night-Thunderer’s areas of sky. Possibly, too, air currents from without Propel the stars along; or they may graze Of their own will, in search of nourishment Across their meadows. It is very hard To say what happens in this world of theirs. I do point out what may or can be done In all the universes of the world, Suggesting varied theories; one of these Must be the right one, and its force applies To our own earth as well as starry spheres; But no one, plodding forward step by step, As I do, dares to say which one is true.

5.22 The sun must be as large, as hot, as it Appears to us, no more, no less. When fire Casts light or heat, no matter how far away, No diminution of its mass ensues, The firelight seems no narrower to the gaze. So, since our senses feel the flooding heat Of sunlight’s comforting appearances, Our apprehensions of that form and size Must be correct; there’s nothing you can add, Nothing subtract. The same way with the moon - Whether its light is borrowed or derived From its own substance, makes no difference - The moon can be no larger than it seems To our watching eyes. Whatever we see, far off, Is blurred before it shrinks. And so the moon Affording us an outline sharp and clear Must have the same dimensions in the sky As we down here observe. No fire on earth As long as we can sense its burning, see The brightness of its wavering, seem to change Appreciably in size, so all those fires Of upper air, the stars, can hardly be Much less or greater than they seem to us, Or only a little, one way or the other.

5.23 And it’s not too surprising that the sun, So small a body, really, can pour out such copious light, enough to flood the lands, The seas, the heavens, to warm the whole wide world. One explanation is that through the sun Pours one great universal flow of light Because all cosmic particles of warmth Foregather here for confluence, emerge In one vast flow from one tremendous source In the same way you’ve seen some small spring’s issue Irrigate meadows with wide overflow. It’s also possible that the sun itself Is not so very hot, but aid may be - Under the right conditions - kindling, tinder, Like beds of thatch or straw, fired by one spark, Or the high-shining, ruddy-lanterned sun May have about him a great field of fire Whose particles we cannot see revealed By any gleam, but whose intensive powers Greatly increase the impact of his rays.

5.24 Nor can one single simple answer give The explanation of his annual round From summer regions south to Capricorn Then north again to Cancer; why does the moon Apparently traverse in a month of time An area that takes the sun a year? Let me repeat - there’s no one simple answer. Democritus, that hero of the mind, Whose judgment we revere, may well have come As close as any one, his argument Being that when the stars are nearer earth They are bound to move more slowly, cannot race With sky’s full whirlwind sweep, whose force dies down, Whose impetus slows, in lower atmosphere. And so the zodiac-signs behind the sun Catch up and overtake him, since his course Is so much lower. The same way with the moon Or even more so; farther from the sky, Nearer the earth, by that much less her speed, By that much less her power to match the pace Of the zodiac signs; she moves below the sun With weaker whirling, and it seems almost That she is going backward, as those signs Come sweeping by her.

5.25 Now here’s something else- The winds at times may flow across the path Of the sun’s journey, at right angles to it Alternately, to shove him winterward From Leo and the Virgin, or bring him back From the cold shadows to the summer blaze. And moon and stars, in the same fashion, wheeling For eons in great orbits, also move Driven by alternate currents of the air. Cloud-layers, over or under each other, drift In opposite directions, as the wind Moves on their level; so the planets ride Contrary currents through the arcs of ether. Why does night darken earth? Because the sun Has reached the farthest limits of the sky, Is tired, breathes out his last exhausted fires, Weakened by too much travel through the air, Or because that same force which drove him on Above the world now keeps him under it.

5.26 Likewise, at a fixed time, the rosy light Of the Dawn-goddess streams through earth and air Either because the sun comes back again From under earth, trying to reach ahead To light the sky with beams, or else because Fires come together, and the seeds of flame At a fixed time will always coalesce Forming new suns. People around Mt. Ida Say they have witnessed this phenomenon, Fire-fragments first, beheld in the rising light, Then massed together, forming a great ball. This should not seem too wonderful, that seeds Of fire can fuse at a fixed time, restoring The brightness of the sun. We have instances: At a fixed time the flowers bloom-the petals At a fixed time fall. At a fixed time, with age, Our teeth drop out, as earlier, with youth, Our beards and body-hair began to grow. Finally, lightning, snow, rain, clouds, and winds Occur predictably, or nearly so. When patterns are established more or less, Even from the beginning of the world, They tend to keep that order and recurrence.

5.27 Days lengthen, nights grow short; or the other way. This is because the sun, above the earth Or under it, parts the regions of the air With curves that are not equal, breaks his round Into uneven sectors, gives one part What he has taken from the other side Until he comes to a signpost in the sky Which marks the point where day and night are equal Exactly halfway between north and south As the astronomers have well established. Possibly air is denser in certain parts, So, under earth, the tremulous crest of fire Holds back, can’t easily penetrate nor rise, Hence the long nights of wintertime drag on Until day’s radiant banner streams again. Or maybe at alternate seasons of the year The fusion of the sun-producing flames Moves at a different rate, and it’s the truth That every day a brand-new sun is born.

5.28 The moon may shine by sun’s reflected light And day by day she turns more light on us As she draws farther and farther away from the sun. Directly opposite the sun her light Is fullest, as her rise beholds him set, Then little by little she must wane and darken As she draws nearer to him; so folk say Who think the moon is round, a satellite To the sun’s course. She might perhaps revolve With her own light, yet vary in her brightness Were there some other body gliding with her, An interfering presence, robed in darkness, Therefore invisible. But if the moon Is a revolving ball, one half may be Dyed with most dazzling light, and in the turning We have a great variety of phases Until that hemisphere flashes at its full Across our sight; then little by little we get The luminous globe’s slow-waning, slow-withdrawal. Astrologists, unlike astronomers, Insist this theory is correct, can both Be right, I wonder? Why should we believe One rather than another? For that matter, Might there not be with every single day A new moon following the one before With a succession of forms - a vanishing, A reappearance? This I doubt that words Or logic can refute, since many things Conform to a processional of order. Spring comes, and Venus comes; ahead of them Steps Venus’ winged herald-boy, and Zephyr Not far behind, as mother Flora strews The path with blooms of every scent and hue. Then comes dry Summer-heat, and at his side Ceres, all dusty, and the Winnowers, Northeasterlies, whom sunburnt Autumn follows, Bacchus in step beside him - in their train A following of other Storms and Winds: Deep-thundering Volturnus, Auster, lord Of lightning, till the Shortest-day brings snow, And Winter the rigidity of ice, While Chill, with teeth a-chatter, brings up the rear. So is it any wonder, if a moon Is born one certain day, and killed another, Whenever so many instances arise Based on a definite fixity of season?

5.29 As for eclipses of the sun and moon You’d best assume there may be various causes. Why should the moon shut sunlight from the earth Looming before the sun with interference, Her darkness blotting out his fiery beams? Why is it not at least as probable That some other body, with no light at all, Is doing the same thing at the same time? And who’s to say the sun cannot grow tired, Withhold his blaze at some fixed interval And then renew his light, when he has passed Through arcs inimical, which kill his fires? And why can earth, in turn, deprive the moon Of light, or in the darkness stifle sun While, on her monthly orbiting, the moon Rides through and over the long conic shadow? What keeps some other gliding body, low Under the moon or high above the sun, From interrupting the bright shower of light? Or, if her brightnesses are all her own, Why can’t she tire, at some fixed period, While passing through the airs that murder light?

5.30 To sum it up: I have, by now, made clear How through the azure areas of sky Things happen, so that we may come to know The various courses of the sun and moon, What force, what cause, impels them, how their light May darken unsuspecting areas, Flicker, and flash, and flood the world again With bright illumination. Now I turn To our own earth’s beginnings, to how the fields All gently made decision what new birth To send to the shores of light, or to commit To the whims of the wind.

5.31 In the beginning, earth Covered the hills and all the plains with green, And flowering meadows shone in that rich color; Then into air the various kinds of trees Luxuriant in rivalry arose, And just as feathers, hair and bristles grow First on the bodies of all beasts and birds So the new earth began with grass and brush, And then produced the mortal animals Many and various. Creatures such as these Could not have fallen from the sky, nor come Out of the salt lagoons. They are earthborn, And truly earth deserves her title Mother, Since all things are created out of earth. Even today creatures arisen from earth Are shaped by rain and by the warmth of sun; No wonder then that in the past when earth And air were younger, more and larger things Came into being, first the fowls of the air, The various birds that break their shells in the spring As locusts do in summer when they leave Their crinkled husks in search of livelihood. In that time past earth was indeed prolific, With fields profuse in teeming warmth and wet, And so, wherever a suitable place was given, Wombs multiplied, held to the earth by roots, And as each embryo matured and broke From fluid-sac to air, nature would turn In its direction pores or ducts of earth, Channels from which a kind of milk-like juice Would issue, as a woman’s breasts are filled With the sweet milk after her child is born. Earth gave her children food, the atmosphere Such clothing as they needed, and the grass A soft rich bed; that new and early world Held no harsh cold, no superfluity Of heat, no storm of wind, such forces also Were in their infancy.

5.32 I repeat, the earth Deserves the name of Mother; by herself She made the race of men, and in their season The breed of beasts, those mountain stravagers, The birds of the air in all their variousness, But since there has to be, at last, an end Of parturition, earth has given up Like a worn-out old woman; time does change The nature of the whole wide world; one state Develops from another; not one thing Is like itself forever; all things move, All things are nature’s wanderers, whom she gives No rest; ebb follows flow, disdain succeeds On admiration. Time indeed does change The nature of the whole wide world; one state Of generation follows on another, So earth no more has power to produce What once she bore, but can give birth to things Impossible before.

5.33 In those first days Earth tried to make all kinds of monstrous freaks, Men-women, creatures with no feet, no hands, Dumb ones without a mouth, blind ones who had No faces to look out of, some whose legs And arms were so tight-wound around their torsos They couldn’t do a thing, go anywhere, Dodge trouble, grab for anything they’d need - And all this weird assortment earth produced In vain, since nature would not let them grow. They could not reach to any flourishing, Find nourishment, be joined in acts of love. Prerequisite, we know, are many things Before a species can survive - it needs Food first of all, and reproductive parts Whereby the seeds of life can find their way From male to female, and their bodies join In mutual delight.

5.34 In those old days Many attempts were failures; many a kind Could not survive; whatever we see today Enjoying the breath of life must from the first Have found protection in its character, Its cunning, its courage, or its quickness, Like the fox, the lion, and the antelope. And there are many animals we guard With our protection, for their usefulness: The watchdog, beasts of burden, woolly sheep, Horned cattle, all those eager refugees Who left the wilderness in search of peace And provender they had not planned to earn But which we gave them for their services. But those to which nature made no such gift, Neither their own innate capacity For living nor their usefulness to us For which, in turn, we’d give them food and safety - Such creatures, in the shackles of their fate, Lay easy victims of their predators Till nature brought the species to extinction.

5.35 Centaurs there never were; nor could there be At any time such double-natured freaks, Twin-bodied, incompatibly combined, Their forces all uneven, thisway-thatway. Even thick wits should know this for a fact. In horses three-year-olds are near their prime, Does this apply to humans? Some of them Are hardly weaned by then. At twelve, a horse Is old, worn out, and dying, but a boy Just entering adolescence. Don’t believe That Centaurs are, or can be, constituted From seed of men and horses; don’t believe In Scyllas, either, semi-mermaids, rigged With sea-hound girdles. What monstrosities! Their parts, we see, are in conflict with each other, They do not flourish equally, grow old At the same time; they share no mutual fire For mating, keep no common usages, Don’t even enjoy the same delights. A goat Battens on hemlock; what killed Socrates? No tawny lion is immune to fire, Neither is anything else if flesh and blood Are in its make-up, so how could there be Chimaeras, three in one, lion in front, And snake behind, and in between the two This fire-exhaling entity? Any one Who figures animals like these were born When and because the earth and sky were new Depends too much on a pretty silly term - Newness, forsooth! You’ll find him pretty soon Babbling more stuff like this, how rivers of gold Ran over the earth, how emeralds hung from trees, How men were born with such dynamic limbs They’d prance through oceans, or, with a twist of the wrist, Make sky revolve. In those first days when earth Produced the animals, it is a fact That earth held many, many kinds of seeds, But that’s no sign that herds could be created In mixtures like cow-horses, or goat-pigs, Especially since now, all over earth, With all her great abundance, grains and grass And trees that make us happy cannot blend In complex fusion; each conforms in kind To its own ritual, and all observe The proper bounds decreed by nature’s law.

5.36 The human race was tougher then: why not? They were sons of a tough mother, and their bones Were bigger and more solid, suitable For stronger nerves and sinews, less distressed By heat and cold, strange victuals, or disease. For many centuries men led their lives Like roving animals; no hardy soul Steered the curved plowshare, no one understood Planting or pruning. What the rain and sun And earth supplied was gift enough for them. Acorns were staple diet, or they fed On arbute-berries, which we see today Scarlet in wintertime-but long ago There were more of them, much bigger, and the earth Out of her blooming newness offered much - No fancy fare, but adequate. The streams, The springs, called men to quench their thirst, as now Bright cataracts thundering over mountain-falls Summon the thirsty and far-ranging beasts. Then in their wanderings men came to know The sanctuary areas which the nymphs Considered home, where over the smooth stones Water would ripple, brim above green moss To even smoothness. People did not know, In those days, how to work with fire, to use The skins of animals for clothes; they lived In groves and woods, and mountain-caves; they hid Under the bushes when a sudden storm Of wind or rain assailed their shagginess. They had no vision of a common good, No common law nor custom. What each man Was given by Fortune, that he carried off, Or, it may be, endured. He taught himself To live and to be strong. And Venus joined The bodies of lovers in the woods; a girl Shared a man’s appetite, or perhaps succumbed To his insistent force, or took a bribe: Acorns, or arbute-berries, or choice pears.

5.37 Relying on their strength and speed, they’d hunt The forest animals by throwing rocks Or wielding clubs - there were many to bring down, A few to hide from. When the nighttime came, They’d lump their shaggy bodies on the ground, Much like wild boars, under a coverlet Of leaves or brush, and when the sun went down They did not try to trail him across the fields With loud lament and panic. They lay still, Buried in slumber, patient, till the sun Raised his red torch above the world again, For from their earliest childhood, they had seen Light alternate with darkness; this they took For granted, with no wondering, no dread Lest night hold earth in everlasting thrall With sunlight gone. What made them much more anxious Was that wild animals would often make Their sleep a fatal risk; if they caught sight Of a lion or wild boar, they’d leave their homes, Their rocky caves, and in the dead of night Concede their leafy beds to their savage guests. Mortality was not much greater then Than now in our time; individuals Were caught and eaten by wild animals, And moaned and groaned and filled the woods with woe Seeing themselves entombed in living flesh; And even those who managed to escape With bodies gnawed and chewed on, pressed their hands Over their pustulent sores, invoking Hell With dreadful cries, until their agony Ended in death - they had no way of aid, No knowledge of the treatment of a wound.

5.38 But no one day slew thousands on the field Of battle, nor did ocean surges sweep Shipping and men on rocks. In vain the sea Rose, raged and stormed, or put aside his threats Offering false deceptive calm. No man Was fooled, for no man was a mariner, Nobody knew the evil art of sailing. It was lack of food that killed men in the past; Today it’s over-indulgence and excess. They often, in their ignorance, killed themselves By accident with poison. We are wiser, We dose, or treat, our patients. Or our victims.

5.39 Next, with the use of fire and huts, and hides Or furs for clothing, when a woman stayed Joined to one man in something like a marriage, With offspring recognized, that was the time When first the human race began to soften. Fire kept their bodies from enduring cold, Lust sapped their energies, and children broke Their parents’ haughty spirit by their wheedling, And even neighbors started forming pacts Of nonaggression: Do not hurt me, please, And I’ll not hurt you, were the terms they stammered. Men asked protection for their little ones As well as for their wives; with voice and gesture They made it clear that there was nothing wrong In pitying the weak. They did not quite Establish universal harmony, But some of them came reasonably close - Enough, at least, to keep the race alive And propagating.

5.40 Nature drove them on To use their tongues for speech, and they contrived, For their convenience, names for things. Just so, Children, before they learn to manage talk, Point little fingers to distinguish objects. All creatures sense their own potential ways - An angry calf whose horns are not yet knobs Will try to butt and shove, and lion cubs Or panther kittens fight with teeth and claws Even when the teeth are milk teeth, and the talons Soft patty-paws; nestlings of every kind Trust their uncertain wings in skittery flight.

5.41 Now don’t suppose one single person gave The names to things, and then taught other men the words. That’s nonsense. Why should such a fellow have The power to distinguish things with names While all the rest, it seems, just could not do it? Besides, if others had not somehow managed To use their voices to communicate Where would foreknowledge of such useful art Have risen from? Where would one man alone Gain power to know, or anyway imagine, What he proposed to do? All by himself He could not force them, make them by the hundreds Willing to learn the names of things; the deaf Are hard to reach by knowledge or persuasion, They would not let this idiotic racket Be dinned into their inexperienced ears. It’s much more probable that the human race Collectively with active voice and tongue Gave names to things, with varying response To varied stimuli. Even the dumb beasts, The inarticulate animals, make sounds That indicate emotions, fear, or pain, Or even happiness. This is obvious. Bloodhounds, when you annoy them, start by growling Inside their jowls, or bare their teeth and snarl, Crescendo to the loud full-throated bark. Again, the sounds are different when they nuzzle Their puppies, paw them around in play, pretend To nip, or gobble them up, from when they howl In some deserted house, or slink away In terror of a whipping. Is there not A difference in the whinny of a stallion Loose with the mares, from when he snorts a challenge To other studs, or makes a nickering sound Just for the hell of it? Birds also wheel, The hawks, the gulls, the ospreys, calling loud, Skimming the waves in search of food, but giving A different cry when they must fight to keep Their prey from other birds. And weather, too, Can make a difference - ravens and crows Are not the same when prophesying rain As when they summon wind. If animals, Dumb beasts, can utter such dissimilar sounds For different feelings, mortal man must be At least as able by his voice to mark Distinctions between objects.

5.42 Silently You may be asking questions about fire. Lightning first brought it down to men on earth And every flame comes from that origin. We notice many things glow hot when struck With flames from heaven, but we’ve also seen Boughs rub each other on a windy day Till sparks, or even sheets of flame emerge Out of that friction. Mankind’s gift of fire May well have started either way. The sun Later showed people how to cook their food, To soften it by heat, since they observed Many a thing untoughened when his rays Were warm across the fields.

5.43 So day-by-day, They changed their former ways of living, taught By men of lively wit and kind intent. Kings started founding cities, building walls Around the heights for refuge and defense. They made division of the herds and lands According to men’s qualities, their strength, Their wit, their beauty - virtues highly prized In those old days; but later on, with wealth And the discovery of gold, the strong, The beautiful, all too easily forsook The path of honor, more than willingly Chasing along behind the rich man’s train. Whereas, if man would regulate his life With proper wisdom, he would know that wealth, The greatest wealth, is living modestly , Serene, content with little. There’s enough Of this possession always. But men craved Power and fame, that their fortunes might stand On firm foundations, so they might enjoy The rich man’s blessed life. What vanity! To struggle toward the top, toward honor’s height They made the way a foul and deadly road, And when they reached the summit, down they came Like thunderbolts, for Envy strikes men down Like thunderbolts, into most loathsome Hell, For Envy always blasts exalted things Above the level of the commonplace. So it would be a better thing by far To serve than rule; let others sweat themselves Into exhaustion, jamming that defile They call ambition, since their wisdom comes Always from other mouths, and all their trust Is put in hearsay; when do they believe Their own good sense and feelings? Never, never. As it was in the beginning, so it is Now, and forever shall be.

5.44 So the kings Got theirs, and majesty came tumbling down, Scepters and thrones in dust, and diadems Bloodstained, mob-trampled, wailing, honor lost. What was once-too-much-feared becomes in time The what-we-love-to-stomp-on. So it goes From heights of power to scum and dregs, from rule To anarchy, and every man for himself Till finally they grow sensible enough To establish courts of law, and even use them, Sick of their feuds and weary to exhaustion Of violence piled on violence, where each man, If he is judge, exacts in vengeance more Than any decent law would ever inflict. So men, being utterly tired of violence, Are willing enough to suffer and submit To legal codes. The fear of punishment Does moderate our quest of life’s rewards; Evil and force and fraud are snares around Their perpetrators; men who rise descend, Return to where they started from; it’s hard For a disturber of the common peace To live his life in calm serenity. Even though he fools the race of men and gods, He’d better not believe this state of things Will always be a secret; many men Talk in their sleep, or in delirium raving Inform against themselves, broadcast a list Of crimes too long concealed.

5.45 Now comes the task, By no means difficult, to say what cause Proclaimed, across great nations, the rule of gods And filled the towns with altars, and took care To establish solemn rites and festivals Which even in our great pomp and circumstance Flourish, are held in reverence, in awe - So much so that the whole wide world keeps on Rearing new shrines to throng on holy days. In that time long ago, men wide awake Saw the distinguished presences of gods With glorious appearance; and in sleep Beheld their beauty even more magnified; And so, to these, men granted sentience Because they seemed to move their limbs, to speak Proud language, consonant with their mighty power, Their shining beauty. They must be, men thought, Immortal, since they never seemed to change, And with such potency as theirs no force Could do them damage, and their fortunes were Supremely blessed, with no fear of death. In dreams men saw them working miracles Yet never tiring; and men’s wonderment Watched how the season’s variable rounds Followed an order they could not discern, So they evasively assumed the gods Must be responsible, and all things went At their caprice. They gave them homes in heaven Since that was where night and the moon and the sun, The moon and day and night and night’s austere Signals, night-wandering torches of the sky, Clouds, sun, rain, snow, winds, thunderbolts, and hail, The abrupt blast, the low long-drawn-out rumbling, All had their residence.

5.46 What sorry creatures! Unhappy race of men, to grant the gods Such feats, and add bitter vindictiveness. What sighs and groans they gave themselves, what wounds For us today, what tears for our descendants! Is this devotion - putting on a veil, Making yourself all too conspicuous Turning in the direction of a stone, Running to all the altars, falling flat, Prone on the ground, holding out hands to pray, Sprinkling the altars with the blood of beasts, Swine, sheep, and ox, entwining vow with vow? Ah, no. In true devotion lies the power To look at all things with a peaceful mind. Otherwise, contemplating that great world Of heavenly space bejeweled with the stars And pondering the ways of sun and moon, We find our hearts, obsessed by evils, take A new anxiety: must we face the power Of gods almighty, who can make the stars Revolve in all their brightness? Lack of sense, Reason impoverished, harry the mind with doubt Whether the world once had an origin And whether it may also have an end, A limit, when the ramparts of the world Break down from all the stresses and the strains, Or whether, by provision of the gods, They have eternal safety, and are borne Forever through the easy sweep of time Scorning the eons’ mighty violence. Whose mind does not contract in panic fear Of gods? Whose knees don’t shake and knock together When the earth shudders at a lightning blast And thunder’s rumble rolls along the sky? Don’t peoples tremble, haughty monarchs cower Supposing that the hour of doom has come For some base action, for some arrogant word? When a wild hurricane sweeps an admiral With his ships, his legions, and his elephants Across the seas, does he not turn to prayer, Approach the gods with vows, a trembling wretch Imploring peaceful breezes, favoring airs? And all in vain - the whirlwind bears him down To the rocky shoals of death. How true it is Some hidden force grinds down humanity, Tramples its power-symbols in the dust, Treats rod and axe with ridicule and scorn. So when the whole world trembles under us And shaken cities fall, and doubts assail, What wonder if our generations know Self-loathing, and most willingly concede All glory, laud and honor to the gods Who govern everything?

5.47 Our topic now Is the discovery of metal, bronze, Gold, iron, silver, lead-all this occurred From the great heat of mountain forest-fires Which lightning set, or savages at war Employed to terrify their enemies; Or possibly the opulence of the earth Led men to clear its wealth, convert the woods To open harvest-fields, kill the wild beasts, Enrich themselves with spoil, for pits and fires Were weapons of the hunt before the days Of nets and coursing hounds. Well, anyway, Wherever fire went crackling through the woods In devastating racket, and the crust Of earth was baked to a crisp, from underground Through the hot veins into dry basins oozed A flow of gold or silver, bronze or lead, And when men, later, saw this gleam and shine After its hardening, What lovely stuff! They thought, and took it in their hands, and found It kept the shape of the mold it once had filled. So, they concluded, nuggets such as these Were pliant, might be given any shape, Be honed to the finest edge, for arms of war Or tools of peace, the sword-blade, axe, or plane, The chisel, hammer, awl. They tried at first To make such instruments from gold or silver Rather than bronze or copper, but they learned The precious metals were too pliable, So bronze had greater value in those times Than gold, whose useless edge was blunt and dull. How different now! The whirligig of time Effects its changes - worth to worthlessness, Meanness to splendor, honor to disdain. You hardly need me, Memmius, at this point. Surely you have the wit to figure out, All by yourself, how men discovered iron. They fought at first with hands and nails and teeth, Stones, branches, and (a little later) fire, And then they learned the use of iron and bronze- Actually bronze came first, more flexible And there was much more of it. Men used bronze To plough the earth, to furrow waves of war, To plant the seeds of wounds, expropriate Cattle and pasture; every naked thing Surrenders easily to men in arms; So, little by little, iron’s tougher edge Took precedence, made the bronze sickle cheap When everybody has an iron sword, The odds again are even.

5.48 In their wars Men fought on horseback first, and plied the reins Keeping the right hand free to whirl the sword, Before they risked the chariot yoke and wheels. Two horses were enough at first, then four Were harnessed, and the car was big enough To carry drivers, scythes, and fighting men. Next thing we saw were those Lucanian herds With towers on their backs, the horrible Snake-snouts they used for hands; our enemies, The Carthaginians, taught them to endure The wounds of war, to trample Mars, his hosts Into confusion’s mob. The gloom of War Is a great breeder of the horrible, Heavier, day by day, the womb of dread. Men put their bulls to services of war, Turned wild boars loose against their enemies, Or used, for shock troops, lions, with a corps Of special trainers, armed and tough, to see They never went too far. What foolishness! The lions, hot with slaughter, took no heed Whose ranks they broke; they tossed their manes, ran wild, Stampeded cavalry; worse than the males, The females hurled their bodies in great leaps At any who dared face them, jumped on the backs Of those who ran or stood there unsuspecting. It was not enough to hurt men, knock them down, They wound themselves around their victims, dug With tooth and claws, in fierce embrace. The bulls Would toss and trample no matter whom, would gore And disembowel the horses, then paw the ground As if in further threat. The wild boars dyed Their white tusks red, they dyed with red the spears Left in their bodies; horse and foot alike Went down before them. Horses tried to swerve Or rear and paw the air, much good that did them - You could see them hamstrung, sprawling, heavily fallen- If you’d ever thought them tame domestic herds In the old days at home, you’d change your mind Seeing them now, all hot in action, fired By wounds, noise, flight, stampede, confusion, terror, Beyond recall; and every kind of beast Reverting to the wild, as elephants Cruelly hurt will do today - attack, Inflict on their own camp wounds like their own, Then scatter. Could all this be true? I wonder. It seems almost impossible for men Not to have had the least presentiment Of common doom let loose on all mankind. Still, you might argue that not only here On this our earth is folly such as this Peculiar to the nations, but routine With folk of whatsoever habitat. Creatures far out in space no doubt behave As we do, not desiring victory - Oh no, of course not! - but to give the foe A taste of sorrow. Populations die If they disarm (as everybody knows).

5.49 For clothes, men tied things on, any old way At first; the textile arts developed later After the age of iron and its use In fashioning treadles, heddles, spindles, looms And all such clattering apparatus. Men Are better at these arts than women are, Much more ingenious, cleverer, but somehow Farmers, who pride themselves on being tough, Got the idea that this was fancywork, So left it to the women.

5.50 Mother Nature First gave us demonstrations of the way Sowing might operate; the acorns fell Under the oaks, bushes (or birds) dropped berries Whose seeds in time became small shoots, a swarm New risen, and men learned the stranger craft Of grafting, or of planting slips in the earth, Tried cultivation of their little plots, Found methods of improving wilder growth By patience and by gentleness, the way Trainers succeed in taming other stock. They made the woods climb higher up the mountains Yielding the lowlands to be tilled and tended - With meadow, pool, and stream, with oats and wheat On the low plains - and higher on the hills Vineyards to make men glad, and olive trees Whose gray-green color marked the boundary Up hill, down dale, so you could see all things Charming, and all things different, all adorned- Sweet orchards, lovely hedgerows.

5.51 As for music Men started first by imitating birdsong. That came before they made up little tunes Through reedy hollows whispering conveyed Hints of the Pan-pipe. Pretty soon they tried The sweet but sadder melodies they could make With fingers on the flute, the native reed Found in the pathless woods or upland groves Where shepherds dwell, almost in idleness, Almost in solitude, with music’s charm After a good square meal (for that’s the time Music gives most delight) to ease the spirit. Often they sprawled on the soft meadow grass Beside a stream, under a lofty tree, And things went well at very little cost, Especially when the season smiled, and spring Stippled the greenery with colored flowers. Then there were jokes, good talk, and laughter; then The rustic Muse was at her liveliest And fun and foolishness bade people twine Wreaths around heads and shoulders, and step out Stiff-legged, hayfoot, strawfoot! in a march Or maybe it was a dance - it made them laugh, Titter and giggle at this brave new world So strange and wonderful. Who needed sleep When they could blend their voices in the song Or curve the lip around the reed-pipes’ tops? Even today men who must keep awake Continue this tradition; they have learned A stricter sense of time, but even so I doubt they have more joy in song and dance Than those old woodland aborigines. We make the most of what’s available And love it dearly at first (unless we’ve known Something much happier), then by-and-by, Discover some improvement, change our taste For old-time satisfactions. So men lost Their appetite for acorns, left their beds Of leaves and hay, despised the furry garb They used to wear, such finery of style That he who had first affected it aroused Envy enough to cost him death by ambush, His murderers tearing the prize apart, All bloody, and no use to anybody. Skins then, and cloth of gold and purple now To give men’s lives anxieties and wars; And we’re the worse, for in the ancient days Cold was a cruel torture if a man Had nothing he could wrap around himself. But we’re not hurt a bit by lack of gold And purple and brocade; a poor man’s cloak Will keep us just as warm. The human race Forever toils in vain, forever wastes Time over empty worries, never knows The limits of possessiveness, the brief Capacity of pleasure for increase. So, ever so slowly, we have brought our lives To the great tidal depths of storm and war.

5.52 The watchmen of the world, the sun and moon, Traversing heaven’s revolving areas Taught men about the season’s annual round, The fixity and order of the scheme. By now men spent their days hedged all about By battlements; they cultivated land Marked off by boundaries; seas were a bloom Of sailing vessels; friends and allies made Pacts of agreement; and the bards began To celebrate high deeds; but alphabets Had not been long in use, and so our time Cannot rely on letters for accounts Of earlier history, but must depend On reason’s searching industry and power. Ships, farms, walls, laws, arms, roads, and all the rest, Rewards and pleasures, all life’s luxuries, Painting, and song, and sculpture - these were taught Slowly, a very little at a time, By practice and by trial, as the mind Went forward searching. Time brings everything Little by little to the shores of light By grace of art and reason, till we see All things illuminate each other’s rise Up to the pinnacles of loftiness.

Book VI

6.01 Athens of bright renown was first to bring The gift of grain to troubled humankind, Gave new vitality, established laws, And first made life more than endurable; She blessed in the sweetness of her boon a man Who told the truth completely, so endowed That now beyond his death his glory seems Almost divine, exalted to the stars. For when he saw that mortals on this earth Had all or nearly all that need requires, Security almost complete, were rich, Were powerful, were honored, and were proud Of their sons’ recognition and renown, And yet at home each had an anxious heart - Life was one long vexation, never a pause, No let-up in the daily cries of rage, Of passionate complaining. So there must, He knew, be some corruption in the jar, The vase, the vessel of life - enough to spoil Whatever good came through it from without. Either it leaked, impossible to fill, Or stank and fouled its contents. So he cleansed Our hearts by words of truth; he put an end To greeds and fears; he showed the highest good Toward which we all are aiming, showed the way, A straight and narrow path; he taught, besides, What evils every here and there confront The lives of men; how this is natural As well as manifold, and may occur By chance or violent intent, in line With nature’s preparations; but her drives, Her onslaughts, can be baffled, once we learn The proper sally ports to counter from. He proved that it was mostly vain and wrong For human hearts to suffer tides of troubles, Inflict anxiety upon themselves; And just as children, fearing everything, Tremble in darkness, we, in the full light, Fear things that really are not one bit more awful Than what poor babies shudder at in darkness, The horrors they imagine to be coming. Our terrors and our darknesses of mind Must be dispelled, then, not by sunshine’s rays But by insight into nature and a scheme Of systematic study. Let me, then, Still weave the texture of my argument.

6.02 I have shown that all the reaches of the world Are mortal, that the heavens are born, and die; I have shown most things that happen there, and must: There is more to learn. Ride lofty with me now Into the gales; behold how the winds’ anger, Once they are gentled, turns all things to peace. Well, so it is with other things men see In heaven, on earth, and tremble in suspense, Debase their minds in terror of the gods, Grovel because compulsive ignorance Proclaims divine authority and sway. Students, even those who have learned the lesson well That gods lead lives supremely free of care, May wonder, now and then, by what intent This thing or that can happen, most of all In areas overhead. This wonderment Leads to confusion, leads them to regress To obsolete religious awe, to invoke A bitter lordship for themselves, poor fools- Believers in almighty gods, and blind, Credulous, ignorant of what can be And what cannot, limits and boundaries, Systems determined and immutable - And so they wander, borne along in blind Unreason. Spit out all such stuff, I tell you, Stop having thoughts unworthy of the gods, Alien to their serenity. Affront To their high holiness can do you harm - Not that their lofty power can be so hurt That it would thirst for vengeance in a rage For retribution - but that you yourself Will feel convinced that mighty tidal waves, Huge seas of anger, roll, and flood, and break Against your littleness, while all the while They have not even noticed, and their calm Is quite unbroken. But you cannot go Serenely toward their altars; you are blind To the benignant holy images They send as heralds of divinity; And what your life may be in consequence Perhaps you realize. I have tried, you know, To ward this off, to use true reasoning Against the danger, spoken many words, But have not finished, still must give my lines The ornament of polished verse. We must Consider the scheme and aspect of the sky, Must sing of storms and the bright lightning flash, Their acts, the reasons for them. Any fool Can chart the sky into sixteenths and scare himself To see fire flash from Area This-or-that, Zigzag through Somewhere-else, or penetrate The impregnable and issue out again. An ignoramus never understands What causes things like these, and so he thinks The gods must be responsible.

6.03 Ah, Muse, Subtle Calliope, repose of men, Delight of gods, lead me as on I run Toward the last white chalk-line, be my guide Till I am given the final crown of praise.

6.04 To start with: the blue skies are thunder-shaken Because high-flying clouds collide and clash When the winds fight each other. A calm sky Means quietude, but when cloud masses form Then all the more loud-rumbling sounds the thunder. Clouds cannot be like stones or baulks of wood, As thick as these in texture, nor as frail As mist or flying smoke; if they were so, They’d fall of their own heaviness like stones, Or be like smoke, unable to contain Chill snow and rain of sleet. The noise they make Sounds over the levels of the world outspread The way a theatre-awning snaps as it flaps Between the poles and uprights, or in gusts Rips with a crackle, like heavy paper torn, Like sheets on clotheslines when the wind is blowing; And sometimes, too, it happens that the clouds Do not collide head-on, but scrape each other Along their sides, and drag with grate and rasp Till they haul free. And there’s another way Whereby all things seem heavily thunder-shaken And the great ramparts of the universe Suddenly leap apart when the wind’s force Whirls into the core of cloud, and there shut in Bores out a hollow center with a crust Of cloud around it; later, when this wind Smashes the shell, then the torn cloud explodes With terrifying crash. A child’s balloon Or a bladder full of air pops the same way With sound all disproportionate to its size.

6.05 Then too the clouds make noises when the winds, Go blowing through them as a hurricane Sweeps through a forest; clouds resemble trees, As we have often noticed, in their branching, Their general rough-and-raggedness. They rustle, Rattle and creak, as leaves and branches do With the northwesters tearing them apart, And sometimes wind can take a cloud head-on And shatter it, as here on earth below, Though with less violence, we have seen its force Uproot tall trees. Also among the clouds Are combers whose low murmur as they break Swells to a louder roar, the sound of surf Along deep rivers or great seas. Sometimes The force of lightning rips from cloud to cloud So that its fire meets moisture; then it seethes, Hisses, as long as white-hot iron does When dipped in the vat. But the receiving cloud May be the drier of the two, and then We hear a long-continued crackling sound Like forest fire wind-driven through the growth Of laurel bushes. Nothing burns more loud Than does Apollo’s laurel. Finally, The rattle of ice, the fall of hail, can cause Sound, under the pressure of the winds that break These mountainous dark sacks of sleet and snow.

6.06 It lightens, also, when the clouds collide And send off particles or seeds of fire Like stone, or steel on stone. So leaps the light In the bright shower of sparks. The reason why We hear the thunder after we see the flash Is that sound travels with less speed than light. By way of illustration - if you see Far off a woodsman cutting down an oak You’ll see the axe-flash long before you hear The sound of the chop - and so we see the lightning Before we hear the thunder, though they both Were born in the same fashion.

6.07 In this way Clouds with swift light dye areas of air, And storm-gleams shimmer. Wind, invading cloud, Revolving (this I’ve said before), bores out The center, thickens the surrounding crust, Is heated by its own velocity To melting point, the way a lump of lead Sent from a sling dissolves across the air; So, when the hot wind cuts the dark cloud through, Its force, its pressure, sends out seeds of fire That blink and dazzle our eyes before the sound Of thunder strikes our ears. It’s safe to say This happens also when thick-massing clouds Are piled above each other. From below It is easier to see how wide they are Than estimate the heights to which they rise. But look - and you will see these mountain clouds Swept by the winds across opposing air, Or see them, over actual mountains piled Above each other, wedging each other down, Calm and at rest when the winds are buried deep. Then you can learn how great their massiveness, Their caverns under (so it seems) the jut Of overhanging rocks; and these the winds Fill when the storms arise, and roar in rage Against confinement in the hollow clouds Like animals in cages; back and forth They prowl, they howl with angry noise, they seek How to get out, they stir the seeds of fire To blasts within the furnaces of cloud Till they escape, all flashing.

6.08 This is why The color of that quick-descending stream Is gold - the clouds contain gold particles, The seeds of fire; they must - when they are free Of moisture we can see them flame and shine, Absorb the glints of sunlight, redden, glow, Condense, till the wind’s pressure shatters them Precipitate in fire-colored flash and flame. It lightens also in a different way When clouds are thinned by less ungentle airs To gradual dispersal; and the fire Comes down in easier fall, no nasty shock, No tumult and no terror, hardly a sound.

6.09 What is the nature of thunderbolts? We find Our answer in the marks they leave, the signs Of heat burnt in, the reek of sulphurous air. These are proofs of fire, not wind or rain. Besides, They set roofs blazing in no time at all, Lord it through all the rooms. Insidious This fire was made by nature, and refined More than all other fires, with particles Diminutive, quick, and irresistible, For lightning bolts go through the walls of houses As voices do, or noise; they go through rocks, Through bronze, they can fuse bronze and gold together In a split second; wine evaporates Under their force from bowls or jars which show Never a crack; and this occurs because The heat is so intense it opens up All of the pores, and, boiling through, it melts The motes of wine, dissolving them in ways The sun could not accomplish in a lifetime, So burning is this force, this flash, this fire, So much more mobile, more majestical.

6.10 How thunderbolts are made, with striking power Able to shatter towers, blow open walls, Wrench beams and rafters, wreck and topple over Heroic monuments, kill off beasts and men, I’ll now explain - why should I put you off With promises? Don’t be impatient. Listen! Thunderbolts must be sent from clouds piled high And very thick, for when the sky is clear Or lightly overcast they never strike. The evidence is obvious: when a storm Begins to link chain lightning, that’s the time Clouds thicken all through air, and we suppose All the dark gloom, forsaking Acheron, Has filled the mighty hollows of the sky To loom above us, black and terrible, In a foul night of cloud. Or out at sea A tower of black, a pillar of pitch, a flood Compacted all of dark, comes pouring down Heavy with whirlwind and with lightning bolt, Distended so with its own fire and wind That men on land in terror rush indoors. All we can see is the base of a column of storm Rising above us. Never would such black dark Drown earth, unless cloud, massed and piled on cloud, Rose high enough to take the sun away, And never could such rain come pouring down To swell the rivers and make ploughland swim Were not the sky packed with excess of cloud And every cloud so filled with wind and fire That flash and rumble are continual. Let me repeat - the hollow clouds contain Infinite motes of heat; they must acquire More from the rays of the sun; and when the wind Herds them together - but even so drives out A goodly number - it whirls among the pack In such a way it whets the thunderbolt By the hot friction in the double rage Of its own speed, or contact with the fire; So when violence of the wind grows hot And the fire’s impulse penetrates, the bolt Is ripe, rips through the cloud and rides the air, Lightens all places with its flash and flame, With loud crash following; and the sudden burst Shocks areas of sky, and tremors make Earth shudder and the rumbling echoes roll Skyward again, as storm and shock pervade All areas of sense. The rain pours down Heavy, profuse, the sky itself is flood, Is fall of fire, is cataract of sound. Sometimes, again, the violence of wind Hits from without on clouds already hot With a ripe thunderbolt, so fire erupts At once in any direction as the blast May make it go. And sometimes, also, wind Starts with no blaze at all, but catches fire As it speeds onward, losing in its course Large elements that cannot pass through air, Scrapes bodies infinitesimal in size From the same air, fire-particles - the way A leaden bullet in its flight will lose Its attributes of stiffness and of cold And melt or burn in air. The force of wind May even be cold, may be devoid of fire, And yet cause fire just from the violence Of impact, as we now and then observe When cold steel strikes cold stone. It all depends On timeliness; its own rush of energy Converts the coldest of material, Lukewarm to white-hot stuff, or chill to fire.

6.11 The speed and impact of the thunderbolt Ensue because the violence in the cloud Is concentrated, every bit of force Taut for momentum, loosening, escape. Then, when the cloud no longer can contain The increase of this force, it is expelled As missiles are from catapults. Being made Of smooth and tiny elements which move With little opposition, small enough To penetrate the narrowest openings, No wonder it flies swiftly. Furthermore, All objects having weight by nature tend Downward, but start them with a push or shove, Their speed is doubled, their momentum gains, Their impact is more shattering, their sweep Is more extensive, all their violence Increases in proportion as they move; Distance accelerates their drive, the motes Being urged from all directions on one course, And (possibly) from the air a bolt in flight Picks up some bodies which can spur it on. There are some things a bolt can penetrate And leave unharmed, intact, for fire can slide Through openings as water does. A bolt Can also smash and shatter if its motes Fall on the places where the particles Of objects meet and join, and bolts dissolve Both bronze and gold quite readily, being made Of elements diminutive and smooth, Insinuatory and insidious At severance, dispersal, liquidation.

6.12 Autumn is one season when the starry halls Of heaven are shaken, like our world below, And blossoming spring is such another time. Not winter, though, when the fires fail, and wind Blows cold, and clouds are meager and mean. Halfway Between the winter and the summertime We find, in combination, every cause Of lightning and of thunder. Heat and cold Mingle and clash, things are discordant, air Seethes in a turbulence of thermal winds, And all of this is needed for the clouds To manufacture thunderbolts. Heat’s head Devour’s cold’s tail; there’s spring for you, a time Of warfare and confusion, bound to brawls. The same in autumn, turned the other way, Winter’s raw vanguard chopping at the rear Of summer’s ragged veterans. Call such times The foul rifts of the year, and do not be Surprised if many and many a thunderbolt Is then hurled loose, if skies are dark with storm, If winds and rain are allies against fire In wars of which no augur knows the end.

6.13 This, then, is how to see the fiery bolt, Its nature, how it operates; no need To finger pages of Etruscan scrolls Seeking for evidence of what the gods May or may not intend; no need to chart The course it flies, or how it penetrates Defenses, dominates, escapes again, What power it has to damage. If the gods, Jupiter and the others, shake the skies With dreadful uproar, heaving fire around At each one’s whim, why don’t they ever make Persons of criminal impulse, not averse To evildoing, breathe out fire, exhale Sulphur from riddled chests? That ought to teach them! Why are the blameless and the innocent - With nothing on their consciences - involved, Wrapped in the fires of heaven, annihilated? Why aim at lonely places, waste their time Hurling at deserts? Are they practicing, Just warming up, just getting loose? And why Do they allow their father’s weapon, Jove’s, To blunt its point on the earth? Why, for that matter, Does he permit such nonsense, and not save The weapon for his enemies? One thing more- Why does he never, out of a clear sky, Let fly the roar and flash? Does he have to wait, Till clouds appear, and then sneak into them For better regulation of his aim? What sense is there in firing on the sea? Has he some quarrel with waves and swimming plains? And why, especially if he thinks we should Beware of lightning, why not let it fly Where we can watch? If, on the other hand, He wants to catch us off our guard, what sense Is there in making darkness, rumble, din In one location, giving us a chance To see and dodge? Does any one believe He shoots north, south, east, west, and all at once? Or doesn’t this ever happen? But of course It does - as raindrops fall on many lands Almost as many thunderbolts come down. To end this - why does Jupiter let fly His missiles at the holy shrines of gods, His own included, break their images Made with such artistry, and take away Their standing with his wounding violence? Why does he aim most often at the heights? Why do we see the traces of his fire Most often on the summits of the mountains? From the foregoing we can find a clue To what the Greeks call presters, how they fall Into the sea, a pillar or a column Let down, or hurled, around which water seethes And spirals under vast revolving winds - And ships caught in that whirling turbulence Are in great danger. This phenomenon Occurs because the violent force of wind Cannot break through the cloud, but weights it down Into the sea, a pillar or a column A little at a time, as if a fist Or forearm’s pressure shoved it under water And held it so, until at last it burst And the wind’s violence made the water seethe, For whirlwinds in descent revolve and bring The satellite cloud attached, but once they dump Its heaviness in the water, then the winds Work themselves loose, rush out, and churn the sea With a roar of sound. Sometimes the whirl of wind Is wrapped in cloud, or scrapes off particles Of cloud from air, and imitates on land These so-called presters. Then we get a squall Of terrible force; but this on land is rare Because of natural barriers like the hills And mountain ranges; it occurs more often Across the open ocean’s wide expanse.

6.14 Clouds mass together when in lofty air Numerous flying bodies meet and join, So shaggy-textured that they lock and cling Although their hooks and fasteners are most Diminutive indeed; still, they suffice, And so we got small cloudlets; these, in turn, Unite with others like themselves, increase In size, are borne by winds until the time When a wild storm arises. Mountain peaks Nearest the sky smoke oftenest with the swirl Of sulphur-colored clouds. These form, we know, Before our eyes can see them, frail and thin, As the winds herd them toward the mountaintops Where they appear, more closely packed, and rise Toward upper air. It’s obvious enough, As our own sense has taught us when we climb The mountain trails, that heights are windy places. We learn this also from a seaside stroll, See clothes hung up to dry, how they absorb A sticky dampness, as if many things Were lifting little increments for cloud Out of its kindred element, the salt Of ocean water. Out of every stream, And even out of land, we watch the mist, The murk of fog arising - hardly more Than breath blown upward, but it fills the sky With darkness, little by little builds the cloud - While from above the heat of star-bright air Bears down upon it, draws the mass of dark Below the clearer blue. And it can be That from beyond the universe we know Come particles to form the scudding clouds, For (as I’ve taught you) we can never count The number of atomic particles, Their sum being infinite; I have also shown With what superlative speed they move across Immeasurable space. No wonder then If, in a moment only, storms can mass With such great clouds, and darkness veil the seas, Since through all capillaries of the sky, Through all the world’s most infinitesimal pores The elemental bodies come and go.

6.15 Now I’ll explain how, in the lofty clouds, The moisture gathers and falls to the earth as rain. First let me say that out of everything Numerous motes of water rise to the clouds And there increase, as do the clouds themselves With all their contents, growing as our bodies Grow with their blood and plasma, sweat and lymph. Clouds also soak up liquid from the deep Like hanging woolly fleeces borne by the wind High over stream or ocean. When the clouds Are nearly running over, full to the brim With water-seeds, they labor to discharge Their moisture in two ways: the force of wind May push them in such masses, close together, That their compression and compactness cause The rain to fall, from the sheer weight of cloud, From dense adhesion. But then, also, winds May thin the clouds, dissolve them, as it were, And the sun’s heat precipitate the rain As fire melts wax. Rains are most violent Under the double pressure of their weight And wind’s commotion; for the rain pours down In more continual fall when cloud on cloud Piles high, and mist is borne along with mist, And many, many motes and water-seeds Are everywhere - even the steaming earth Discharging wetness. Finally the sun Through the storm-darkness sends the rays of light Shining against the cloud-spray, and we see The glory of the rainbow.

6.16 Other things, Cloud-born, cloud-grown, but different, such as snow, Wind, hail, frost, sleet, the rigid force of ice, That hardener of rivers, the great wall That stays them in their courses, all of these, All, all, are comprehensible enough If for the answers to your How? and Why? You keep in mind their basic properties.

6.17 What causes earthquakes? You should realize That earth below, like earth above, must have Plenty of windy caverns, plenty of lakes And pools and rocks and cliffs, and many streams Deep down, rolling with heavy violence Great rocks, drowned boulder-stones. No matter where, The law is: things are like themselves. And so With things like these below her surface, earth Trembles, by ruin shocked, when time brings down Her subterranean caves. Whole mountains fall And from that cataclysm trembling spreads Immediate, everywhere. Is it not true That carts, even light-loaded ones, can make The houses tremble as they clatter over The cobblestones? Or a loose chunk of rock Under the iron rims of the wheels can cause Buildings to seem to start and jump a bit? Also it sometimes happens that underground A mountainous landslide, loosened by a shove From time, comes roaring, rumbling, sliding down Into more lakes than one, and the earth shudders As any vessel does, when what it holds Slops at the sides, refusing to be still.

6.18 When through the hollows underground the wind, From one direction gathered, blasts full force At the deep caverns, earth, inclining, leans Obedient to that rushing violence, And houses in that same direction lean, Come tumbling down, or threaten to, and hang Their loosened timbers over emptiness; And men, although they see so great a mass Of earth collapse or slither toward its doom Still are afraid to trust their senses, doubt That ruin’s time will bring upon the world The sentence of destruction. But the wind May blow the other way, and so forestall The menace - save for this, no power could halt The march of things to doom and nothingness. But since they do reverse direction, turn, Increase momentum of their counterflow, Retreat across the plain of their attack, So earth more often seems about to fall Than truly falling; devastation’s threat Is worse than the reality - the world Leans over and springs back, the weight returns From the periphery to the proper core And this is why all buildings wobble most On the top levels, less in the middle, less, Very much less, at the base.

6.19 There’s another cause Of this vast kind of temblor, when the wind Or a tremendous quantity of air Comes from beyond the world, or may arise (No matter) from its own internal depth, Pours into hollow caverns, roaring through Those mighty vaults, until its violence Breaks out of bounds, splits the terrain, creates Chasm or canyon. This occurred, we know, In Syria at Sidon, and again At Aegium in Greece, where the air’s blast And the earth’s quaking shook the cities down. And there are other instances, of towns Collapsing into earth, or ocean-drowned With many of their citizens. The air Need not burst forth completely if its whirling Is violent enough below the ground, Dispersing through earth’s many openings - In an intensity of shuddering Making earth tremble, as the freezing cold Will make us shudder and shake, against our will; And so men tremble in a double fear Lest houses over their heads come tumbling down Or caverns, opening under the ground, devour The mass of ruin. People have the right To think whatever they please of earth and heaven, To tell themselves these rest forevermore On sure foundations, but sometimes it seems Beliefs like these are undermined more than once, From more than one direction, and men dread Lest earth be yanked from under their feet, drop down Into the bottomless abyss, and all The sum of things, betrayed, be taken over In the anarchic ruin of the world.

6.20 Men wonder that the sea does not increase In size, with so much water pouring down, Such confluence of all the streams and rivers; Then add the wandering rains, the sweep of storms, All sprinkling and all dowsing elements That moisten all the lands and seas; include Submarine springs - yet all of this adds up To hardly more than a drop in that vast deep Of ocean’s plenitude. No wonder, then, The sea does not increase; and anyway The sun’s evaporating force is strong Enough to shrink it somewhat; we have seen Clothes, not too well wrung out, hung up to dry In the sun’s rays. Now there are many seas Widespreading, and though the sun from every one Takes only a little at a time, it all Adds up to a tremendous diminution; And winds that sweep across these surfaces Can also dry the waters, as we’ve seen Roads harden over night, and mud become Dry-caked, with crossing cracks. And I have shown That clouds lift water from the ocean’s plain To sprinkle all the world, now here, now there, When the rain falls or winds bring darkening. Finally, since a porous quality Inheres in earth, wherever it meets the sea, Wherever the boundaries join, as water comes From earth to sea, as counterflow seeps back Out of salt ooze, it loses brackishness, Is filtered and distilled, and makes its way Once more, all sweet and fresh, in rivulets, Channels and streams, to its appointed course.

6.21 The next thing to explain is how the fires Burst with such violence through Etna’s gorge. That was no ordinary, commonplace, Or middling kind of ruin, when the fire Arose and fell on the Sicilian plain Lording it so that all the neighbor lands Turned their attention, seeing heaven bright With flash, or dark with smoke, as all men’s hearts Were anxious: what subversive cosmic wreck Could nature be contriving?

6.22 Things like this Require your closest scrutiny; keep in mind How vast, how infinite, the sum of things. Our heaven is only the minutest part Of the whole universe, a fractional speck - Less than one individual compared To the entirety of the earth. Remember- Never forget this — once you see it plain You will be rid of many puzzlements. Are we one bit surprised if, when we know We have a fever, the infection flames Painfully through our muscles and our bones? A foot swells gouty, or a toothache jumps, Eyes water and blear as erysipelas Seizes whatever it may and penetrates Deep in the limbs. And why not, when there are Seeds of sufficient evil in heaven and earth To propagate disease unlimited, With particles of pain unlimited, Infinitesimal seeds, yet infinite? In the same way, our heaven and our earth Draw from the store of the vast universe Enough of everything to shake our world, To sweep our seas with whirlwinds, set such fires Blazing from Etna that they seem to drown The empyrean with flame; there can be floods Of fire as well as water. “But this burning Is out of all proportion!” So it seems - The way some little creek he can jump across Is like the Father of waters to a man Who never saw a river in his life. The biggest man, the biggest tree in the world, The biggest we can imagine, barely tops The biggest we have seen. Yet everything, Sky, sea, and earth-oceans, and lands, and skies - Add up to nothing in the sum of things. Enough digression! Let me tell you now From what blast furnaces Mt. Etna’s fires Burst with such violence. That mountain mass Is honeycombed with hollows, and it rests On archways made of basalt. Air at rest Is here, and wind in motion, and the wind Involves the air in whirling, till they both Are fast and furious, and the rocks are hot Wherever they touch, and earth is hot, and fire Borne on the wind shoots high, so high it bursts Out of the mountain’s crater. With it pour Ashes and steam and darkness, smoke and rocks Of weight beyond belief. Oh, never doubt The force of this eruption! Furthermore, Around the mountain’s base the sea intrudes, Withdraws again, leaving some elements Like sand, or submarine rocks, or water-wind, All sucked up toward the top, material For those high mixingbowls (the word, in Greek, Is craters). We just call them throats or jaws.

6.23 There are many things for which it’s not enough To specify one cause, although the fact Is that there’s only one. But just suppose You saw a corpse somewhere, you’d better name Every contingency - how could you say Whether he died of cold, or of cold steel, Of poison, or disease? The one thing sure Is that he’s dead. It seems to work this way In many instances.

6.24 The summer Nile, The only river in Egypt, floods the fields In the warm season, possibly because The Etesian winds, so-called, blow steadily From northern areas, and retard the stream At every delta, force its currents back In all its channels. There is never a doubt That winds like these, from the cold northern stars Do blow against that river, which reverts Toward southern climates where the men are black, Where day is always noon. Or it may be That a great heap of sand, piled up, blocks off The rivermouths, when the sea, stirred by the wind, Rolls the sand inward, so the river’s course Is more obstructed, less of a down-hill gliding. Possibly, too, the rains are more profuse Inland in summer, when the Etesian winds Drive all the clouds southward and mass them there Where the high mountains block their way, or squeeze them Almost like sponges, or the melting snows From Ethiopian heights, in summer sun, Dissolve their whiteness over the plains below.

6.25 About Avernian regions and their lakes A word of explanation. First of all, The name comes from the Greek, a-ornos, birdless, Because when birds fly over, they forget The oarage of their wings, they slacken sail, Fall headlong, limp-necked victims, onto earth Or into water if a pool is there. There’s such a place near Cumae, with a reek Of sulphur and the mist of steaming springs. There’s one inside the great Acropolis In Athens, where Athena has her shrine. Here raucous crows never come gliding down Even when altars smoke with sacrifice. The reason is not that they dread the spite Of Pallas for their spying, as the bards Of Greece have sung. By no means. But the place Is pestilential, all by itself, its nature Needing no help from goddesses. I’ve heard Of such another spot in Syria Where quadrupeds no sooner turn their steps Than they come tumbling heavily down, like beasts Slain for an offering to the gods below. Effects like these derive from natural laws. No need to fancy that the Gate of Hell Yawns open here, or that the Gods Below Are drawing people down to Acheron, The Joyless Realm, the way that some folks think Deer, by their breath, can get the snakes to move Out of their holes. What rot! All I can do Is try to state the simple truth.

6.26 I say, As I have said before, there are on earth All kinds of things, and some of them sustain Our life, and some destroy it; furthermore, Some things are suitable for the scheme of life And others harmful; it would all depend On what the creatures are - their variance Is great, in essence, contour, texture, shape. The ears let many things inimical Pass through, and many noxious qualities Pervade the nostrils; and the sense of touch Must leave a lot alone, and eyes and tongue Refuse maleficence in sight and taste.

6.27 Mankind has learned that many things oppress Our nature, noisome things, or dangerous. The shadows of some trees, for instance, fall So heavily that headache seizes men Who lie on the grass beneath; and Helicon Produces, on its lofty heights, a tree Whose blossom kills men by its nasty stench. Such things as these come from the soil of earth Which holds all kinds of particles, confused, Then sorted out and passed along. A lamp Snuffed out at bedtime leaves an after-smell That stuns an epileptic; healthy men Dislike it for a moment only. Women Let fall their knitting and swoon if beaver-musk Assails their senses at that time of the moon. There are many other causes which effect A lack of consciousness, or weaken spirit Within the limbs. Take a hot bath too soon After a hearty dinner - it won’t be long Before you find yourself loll off your throne, Collapse into the water. Charcoal’s reek Can stupefy the brain unless you drink Plenty of water as preservative. The scent of wine can strike you like a blow If you are feverish. Deep in the earth Sulphur and pitch combine and stink, and miners Probing the mother lode for silver and gold Unearth aromas worse than any Skunktown. That yellow metal breathes its hues on men, It jaundices their faces, and they die Too soon of occupational disease, Compelled to spend their days in work like this, Oh, yes indeed, earth pours out streams of death Toward the vast readiness of atmosphere.

6.28 So as regards Avernus - there must be Some noxious vapor rising there; and birds As they encounter it unsensed, unseen, Come plunging down this maelstrom of rank air; And even after they fall they flutter and flop Until the frenzy ends, and life’s a vomit Into the whirlpool of evil all around them.

6.29 Or - it’s just possible - this towering force Arising from Avernus, drives all air So far away that there is only void Or vacuum between the birds and earth Where no wing possibly can ply its way, Where every effort meets resistlessness, So down they come through emptiness to doom.

6.30 Water is colder in wells in summertime Since earth dries out in the heat and sends the motes Of warmth more quickly upward, so, deep down, The more the surface heat evaporates, The colder is the moisture underground. The opposite is also true: when earth, Oppressed by cold, congeals and packs, it drives Its residue of heat to the pools below.

6.31 At Ammon’s shrine, or so men say, a spring Is cold by day and hot at night, and this Men marvel at too much and claim a sun Below the ground must be responsible, Making it boil when night has veiled the earth In terrible black murk. This, I must say, Is a long way from truth, for if the sun Trying with all his might from dawn to dusk, Could not so much as raise the temperature More than a few degrees, even at high noon, How could he, from beneath so thick a bulk Of earth, bring water to a boil, with steam Evaporating from it? But the sun Has trouble enough, with all his fiery rage, To make his heat pass through the walls of houses. The explanation must be that the earth Has more interstices around that spring Than elsewhere in the world, and seeds of fire Lie close to the water, so when earth rests dark Under night’s dewy shadow, it grows cold, Contracts, as if a hand were squeezing it, And squirts out all those orange-pips of fire To warm the water. When the sun returns To warm the world, to open its pores again, The seeds of fire flow backward to their source, The water’s heat returns to earth, the spring Is cold once more in the light of day. The sun, Moreover, has a vibrant power of water, Making it quiver, tremble, thin and part So that what motes of fire it had are lost In the same way that water itself can loosen Its own intrinsic qualities of cold And melt the bonds of ice.

6.32 There’s a chill spring Which kindles tow held over it: a torch So lit continues burning, though it falls Into the water, floats or swims with the wind. There must be in such water many seeds Of fire that rise through the whole pool, disperse Exhaled to the air above; too few perhaps To warm the water, but even so enough To meet and join just over the surface, form An unseen latent area of ignition. Something like this occurs near Aradus Where there’s an ocean spring whose flow provides Fresh water at its center, keeping back The threatening circumference of brine; And there are other springs where mariners Happily find sweet water in ocean deeps. In some such way the seeds of fire must break Through water to ignite the tow. A wick, If not too long extinguished, will break out In flame before it meets the actual fire Of the night-lamp you start to move it toward. There are many other instances where fire Can leap a gap, or seem to. That’s enough To explain that curious fountain at Dodona.

6.33 Next I’ll discuss what laws of nature cause Iron to be attracted by that stone The Greeks call magnet. (They derive the name From the Magnetes’ country, where it’s found.) The stone men think is marvelous; it forms A chain of downward links as many as five Or even more suspended from each other, Slightly swaying in the lightest breeze, Yet never loosening hold, as if each one Took from the medium of the one above The power transmitted from the potent stone.

6.34 Such things as this require a basic course In fundamentals, and a long approach By various devious ways, so, all the more, I need your full attention. Listen well.

6.35 In the first place, from everything we see There is bound to be an everlasting flow. Ah, look about you! Watch a glimmering pool In the first shine of starlight, see the stars Respond, that very instant, radiant In water’s universe. Does this not prove How marvelous the swift descent from heaven? Our other senses know of emanance In fragrances, in sunlight’s heat, in surge Of surf-destroying sea walls, in the sound Of voices calling always through the air, In salt spray tasted as we walk the shore, In bitterness imagined when our eyes Watch someone pouring wormwood into water - So from all things there is this constant flow, This all-pervasive issue, no delay, No interruption, and our sense responds In recognition.

6.36 Let me repeat a lesson from Book I - How porous all things are! This truth applies In many instances, but most of all In what I’m leading up to; once again I hammer home this axiom: everything Perceived by sense is matter mixed with void. Rocks drip with moisture in caves, and sweat breaks out All over our bodies. We grow beards, have hair- Not only on our faces. All our food, Distributed through the bloodstream, nourishes, Brings growth to even our toe-nails. We can feel Both cold and heat pass through a bowl of bronze Or cups of gold and silver at banquet time. And voices penetrate through walls of stone, As odors trickle through, and heat and cold And fire can force a passageway through iron. Even the chain mail armament of sky Is penetrable; through its chinks there come Diseases from a world beyond, and storms In earth or sky engendered make their way To sky or earth, reciprocal; wherefore We say once more, How porous all things are!

6.37 But not all bodies loosed from things possess Identical impacts or effects. The sun Bakes earth and dries it, but it melts the ice, Thaws the high mountain snows, liquefies wax, Makes molten streams of bronze or gold, but chars Flesh, and will shrivel leather. Following fire, Water will harden iron, but restore Softness to skins and flesh. Wild olives are (So bearded she-goats think) a treat as rare As nectar and ambrosia, but men find Nothing more bitter on any bush or tree. Pigs run like mad from oil of marjoram And fear all kinds of perfume; what we deem Refreshing is to them a deadly bane. But mud, which we consider worse than filth, Is their ecstatic absolute delight, They cannot get enough of wallowing in it.

6.38 Now one thing more, before I talk about The theme I know I must: though porousness Is an inherent quality of things, Its nature varies; every object has A nature of its own, its passageways Different from the others. Living things Have various kinds of sense perception; each Receives, by its own medium, what it should. Sound does not penetrate as odors do, Nor sights insinuate themselves like flavors. One thing, apparently, can trickle through rock, Another seep through wood, another gold, And still another emerge from glass or silver. And some things move more swiftly than the rest Along the selfsame ways. It follows, then, The nature of the differing passageways Brings this about with great variety As we have shown before, since things possess Great differences in the way their textures mesh.

6.39 So, with this preparation, what remains Is easy enough. The mass of iron is drawn Stoneward, because so many motes from stone Are always flying outward, or some tide, Some current, sweeps away the air that lies Between the stone and iron. When this space Is empty, then the motes of iron glide Into the vacuum, meet and join, and so The ring, complete, must follow. There is nothing More tightly meshed in its first elements Than iron is, that rough and chilly ore. No wonder then that bodies drawn from this Cannot, by very density, attain A passage into void, without the ring Following close behind - and this it does, This is exactly what it does, it follows Until it strikes the stone, and there it clings In fastenings unseen. No matter where, The process is the same; if we should have An empty space, above, along, below, Neighboring motes would rush in, all the time, To fill it up, propelled by impulses Beyond themselves. And there’s the added fact (To make things easier, another boost, Another shove) that when the air is thinned Before the ring, the space made emptier, The air behind propels it from the rear Such being its nature, circumambience Forever buffeting. It pushes iron When it can find a vacuum to enter On one side or another; it will slip Through many a crevice, most insinuous Into the smallest particles, drive and thrust As the wind drives a sailing vessel on. All things must have within their substance air Since things are never solid; and this air Also surrounds and borders everything. Therefore, since air is hidden deep in iron, It knows commotion there, and from within Assails the ring and moves it, to be sure, Further along the course where it flung itself In its initial impulse toward the void.

6.40 Sometimes the iron shrinks away from the stone, A fickle fugitive or follower, Now one thing, now another. I have seen Filings of Samothracian iron dance In frenzy in bronze bowls when magnet-stones Were held beneath them. It would almost seem As if they wanted nothing but escape From the stone’s presence. I suppose the bronze Caused this antipathy, because its force Entered the pores of iron first and left No room for other entrants; so the stone, Finding all channels in the iron blocked And nowhere, as there used to be, a place For motes of stone to swim, must beat and pound The iron with its own current, or through bronze Repel the element it would absorb Without that barrier. Don’t be surprised That magnet-stones lack power on every ore, For instance, gold, whose heavy weight resists All penetration. Others are so light, So widely meshed, the current flowing through Meets no resistance, cannot drive them on. Wood seems to be a substance of this kind, While iron’s nature lies between the two; But given added particles of bronze The magnet-stones repel it by their flow. Such properties inhere in other things As well. I could cite many instances Of singular fusion: stones are held together Only by mortar; wood needs glue - at times When planks are fastened so, the grain of the board Will crack and gape before the joints are loosed. Wine can be mixed with water; tar cannot, Nor olive oil - too heavy, or too light. Your Tyrian crimson dye will blend with wool So absolutely that no power on earth, I should say ocean, ever could wash out That stain incarnadine. Gold clings to gold If one material and only one Is used to effect the fusion. Tin alone Can fasten bronze to bronze - but why go on With instance after instance? Here’s the point - Some objects have reciprocal qualities, One’s fullness matching another’s emptiness Or vice versa; here it seems we get The most ideal of fusions. There may be Some combinations rather more loosely meshed, Held, as it were, by links or hooks or rings As with the iron and the magnet-stone.

6.41 Now I’ll explain the causes of disease, Whence plagues and pestilences rise to stun Both man and beast with deadly virulence. The seeds of many things, as I have shown, Are necessary to support our lives. By the same token, it is obvious That all around us noxious particles Are flying, motes of sickness and of death, And when these gather, thickening the air, The atmosphere is murderous with cloud And murk descending; or, it may be, mist Rises from earth, rotten with too much rain, Too great excess of sun. Have we not seen Travelers far from home who can’t endure The change of water or climate? Who believes Britain and Egypt are alike? Who finds Byzantium at Gibraltar? A re the Danes Identical with Ethiopians? In the four quarters of this varied world Human complexions, human aspects, take All sorts of different guise, and human ills, Distresses, and diseases, also change After their kind. Only in Africa Is elephantiasis known; and gout prevails In Attica more than elsewhere; the Achaeans Are subject to infections of the eyes. So different organs are susceptible In different places, and the atmosphere Is the controlling factor. When a sky Hostile to us begins to move, or crawl, Or glide, most serpent-wise, entwining all With coils of cloud or mist, confusion stirs Wherever it goes, and changes are enforced In our familiar quarters, now corrupt, Made kin to this new presence. So the plague Falls on the water or the grain fields, falls On other nourishment of beasts and men, Or hangs suspended in the very air From which our breath inhales it, draws it down All through our bodies; sheep and cattle both Succumb to such infections. Nor is there One bit of difference whether we have gone To places hostile to us, and have changed Our old protective covering of sky, Or whether nature, by some viciousness, Inflicts on us infected atmosphere Unusual, strange, and murderous.

6.42 Such a plague Once visited Athens, blighted fields, laid waste The highways, drained the town of citizens. It rose from somewhere deep in Egypt, spread Across long reaches of the skies and seas Till finally it seized on all the folk Of Pandion’s town. They sickened and they died In multitudes. At first they felt their heads Burning with fever, and their eyes inflamed. Throats blackened, sweating blood; and sores would block The vocal passageways; the tongue, that tries To be the mind’s interpreter, filled up Engorged with blood, became too hard to move, Seemed rough to the touch. From throat to chest and lungs The plague descended, thence assailed the heart, Battering all the bastions of life. The breath was horrible, reeking with a stench Of carrion, the powers of mind would fail With the weak body at the door of death. The unendurable suffering increased, Multiplied by the fret of anxiousness. Groans and laments were mingled. Night and day There was a constant retching, spasms clenched Muscle and sinew, an exhausting drain On the exhausted victims. You could not Diagnose fever by the sense of touch On bodily surfaces; they hardly seemed More warm than normal, but a rash broke out All over the body, pustulant and red As erysipelas’ fire. Men’s inner parts Were burning, burning to their very bones, Their guts were furnaces. No man could bear The lightest sort of coverlet; only air Or a chill wind could bring relief. On fire, They hurled their bodies, naked, into streams. Many, with mouths wide-craving-open, plunged Headfirst into deep wells, from any height. The only thing they had to drink was thirst Which drowned them utterly, made a deluge seem Less than a raindrop. Weary bodies knew No rest, no respite. Doctors shook their heads And muttered in a silent fear, while patients Stared blankly or kept rolling sleepless eyes. The signs of death were obvious: the mind Was crazed with grief and fear, the brow was knit; Expressions fierce and wild, the ears would ring, Breathing was labored or irregular, Cold sweat would bead the neck, the spittle seemed Stringy, pus-colored, salty, and a cough Could hardly bring it up from the hoarse throat. The hands would jerk, limbs tremble, and a chill Crept up from the feet, a little at a time. In the last stages, nostrils were compressed, The eyes and temples hollow, and the skin Both cold and hard, the forehead swollen tight, The grin of rictus on the mouth. Eight days Or nine would find the limbs grow stiff in death. Some might survive a little longer; these Found death still waiting, after stinking sores, After black diarrhoea, or excess Of hemorrhage from the nostrils. If a man Survived even this, still the disease went on Through joints and sinews, through the genitals, And some men, in their dread of death, became Self-surgeons, eunuchs, amputators - lost, Blind victims of amnesia, gone from all The selves they used to know. Cadavers lay Piled up on others, but the dogs and vultures Fled from the stench, or if they ever made The slightest touch or taste, they would collapse In sudden death. But under suns like those Hardly a bird was ever seen, no beasts Came from the forest; they were equally Stricken and dying. First those friends of man, The faithful dogs, succumbed on roads and streets. There seemed to be no certain remedy, No sound specific; what gave life to one Killed others. The most pitiful thing of all Was desperation, loss of nerve. A man Finding himself laid low by the disease Would lose all hope, would lie abject and stunned Resigned to the death-sentence, with no thought In mind save that, until he met his doom. This plague was most infectious; it could spread As pestilences do with animals, Cattle and sheep. So death was piled on death. Some people, when their kin were stricken, shunned All visitation with them, but they paid For their excessive appetite for life, Their coward fear of death - their unconcern Became a Nemesis, and laid them low, Deserted, helpless, in ignoble death. The loyal were no better off, worn out By labors of devotion, by their own Compelling sense of decency, by the voices In which affection mingled with reproach. So the most noble spirits perished. None Were left, sometimes, as mourners, when the dead Were hurried to their graves. Battles broke out As the survivors fought for funeral pyres With corpses heaped on corpses. Those who came Back to their homes again were spent with grief, Lying exhausted on their beds. Not one Could possibly be found whom neither death, Disease, nor mourning, at this frightful time, Had left untouched.

6.43 And out beyond the town Shepherds and drovers and strong farmers lay Huddled in their poor cabins. You could see Dead parents with dead children for their pallets Or children yielding up their little lives On the bodies of dead parents. Country folk Brought the disease to town, came streaming in From areas of infection, filling all The buildings and whatever open space Might be available. Death piled them high In crowded stacks. Beside the aqueducts Lay many who had crawled or rolled as close To the sweet water as their failing breath Would let them manage. All along the streets, In all the squares, you’d find the bodies, caked With their own filth, rag-covered, or with skin The only drapery across their bones And that almost invisible under the crust Of sores and ulcers. Even the shrines of the gods Were charnel houses, and cadavers lay Where guides had once conducted visitors. The gods were paid no worship - no one thought Their presence worth a straw - the state of grief Had altered all proportion. Funeral rites, Interments, which these pious people held In all traditional reverence, became Quite out of fashion; everyone in grief Buried his own whatever way he could Amid the general panic. Sudden need And poverty persuaded men to use Horrible makeshifts; howling, they would place Their dead on pyres prepared for other men, Apply the torches, maim and bleed and brawl To keep the corpses from abandonment.