TRANSLATIONS FROM
LUCRETIUS
_By the same Author._
THE FOOLISHNESS OF SOLOMON 3s. 6d.
LUCRETIUS ON DEATH 2s. 6d.
THE PTERODAMOZELS 2s.
THE NEW PARSIFAL 3s. 6d.
THE BRIDE OF DIONYSUS 3s. 6d.
SISYPHUS 5s.
POLYPHEMUS 7s. 6d.
THE BIRTH OF PARSIVAL 3s. 6d.
CECILIA GONZAGA 2s. 6d.
MALLOW AND ASPHODEL 2s. 6d.
THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES 2s.
TRANSLATIONS FROM
LUCRETIUS
BY
R. C. TREVELYAN
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
_First published in 1920._
_All rights reserved._
TO
G. LOWES DICKINSON
TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCRETIUS
BOOK I, lines 1-328
Thou mother of the Aenead race, delight
Of men and deities, bountiful Venus, thou
Who under the sky’s gliding constellations
Fillest ship-carrying ocean with thy presence
And the corn-bearing lands, since through thy power
Each kind of living creature is conceived
Then riseth and beholdeth the sun’s light:
Before thee and thine advent the winds and clouds
Of heaven take flight, O goddess: daedal earth
Puts forth sweet-scented flowers beneath thy feet:
Beholding thee the smooth deep laughs, the sky
Grows calm and shines with wide-outspreading light.
For soon as the day’s vernal countenance
Has been revealed, and fresh from wintry bonds
Blows the birth-giving breeze of the West wind,
First do the birds of air give sign of thee,
Goddess, and thine approach, as through their hearts
Thine influence smites. Next the wild herds of beasts
Bound over the rich pastures and swim through
The rapid streams, as captured by thy charm
Each one with eager longing follows thee
Whithersoever thou wouldst lure them on.
And thus through seas, mountains and rushing rivers,
Through the birds’ leafy homes and the green plains,
Striking bland love into the hearts of all,
Thou art the cause that following his lust
Each should renew his race after his kind.
Therefore since thou alone art nature’s mistress,
And since without thine aid naught can rise forth
Into the glorious regions of the light,
Nor aught grow to be gladsome and delectable,
Thee would I win to help me while I write
These verses, wherein I labour to describe
The nature of things in honour of my friend
This scion of the Memmian house, whom thou
Hast willed to be found peerless all his days
In every grace. Therefore the more, great deity,
Grant to my words eternal loveliness:
Cause meanwhile that the savage works of warfare
Over all seas and lands sink hushed to rest.
For thou alone hast power to bless mankind
With tranquil peace; since of war’s savage works
Mavors mighty in battle hath control,
Who oft flings himself back upon thy lap,
Quite vanquished by love’s never-healing wound;
And so with upturned face and shapely neck
Thrown backward, feeds with love his hungry looks,
Gazing on thee, goddess, while thus he lies
Supine, and on thy lips his spirit hangs.
O’er him thus couched upon thy holy body
Do thou bend down to enfold him, and from thy lips
Pour tender speech, petitioning calm peace,
O glorious divinity, for thy Romans.
For nor can we in our country’s hour of trouble
Toil with a mind untroubled at our task,
Nor yet may the famed child of Memmius
Be spared from public service in such times.
For the rest,[A] leisured ears and a keen mind
Withdrawn from cares, lend to true reasoning,
Lest my gifts, which with loving diligence
I set out for you, ere they be understood
You should reject disdainfully. For now
About the most high theory of the heavens
And of the deities, I will undertake
To tell you in my discourse, and will reveal
The first beginnings of existing things,
Out of which nature gives birth and increase
And nourishment to all things; into which
Nature likewise, when they have been destroyed,
Resolves them back in turn. These we are wont,
In setting forth our argument, to call
Matter, or else begetting particles,
Or to name them the seeds of things: again
As primal atoms we shall speak of them,
Because from them first everything is formed.
When prostrate upon earth lay human life
Visibly trampled down and foully crushed
Beneath religion’s cruelty, who meanwhile
Forth from the regions of the heavens above
Showed forth her face, lowering down on men
With horrible aspect, first did a man of Greece[B]
Dare to lift up his mortal eyes against her;
The first was he to stand up and defy her.
Him neither stories of the gods, nor lightnings,
Nor heaven with muttering menaces could quell,
But all the more did they arouse his soul’s
Keen valour, till he longed to be the first
To break through the fast-bolted doors of nature.
Therefore his fervent energy of mind
Prevailed, and he passed onward, voyaging far
Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world,
Ranging in mind and spirit far and wide
Throughout the unmeasured universe; and thence
A conqueror he returns to us, bringing back
Knowledge both of what can and what cannot
Rise into being, teaching us in fine
Upon what principle each thing has its powers
Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone.
Therefore now has religion been cast down
Beneath men’s feet, and trampled on in turn:
Ourselves heaven-high his victory exalts.
Herein this fear assails me, lest perchance
You should suppose I would initiate you
Into a school of reasoning unholy,
And set your feet upon a path of sin:
Whereas in truth often has this religion
Given birth to sinful and unholy deeds.
So once at Aulis did those chosen chiefs
Of Hellas, those most eminent among heros,
Foully defile the Trivian Virgin’s altar
With Iphianassa’s lifeblood. For so soon
As the fillet wreathed around her maiden locks
Streamed down in equal lengths from either cheek,
And soon as she was aware of her father standing
Sorrowful by the altar, and at his side
The priestly ministers hiding the knife,
And the folk shedding tears at sight of her,
Speechless in terror, dropping on her knees
To the earth she sank down. Nor in that hour
Of anguish might it avail her that she first
Had given the name of father to the king;
For by the hands of men lifted on high
Shuddering to the altar she was borne,
Not that, when the due ceremonial rites
Had been accomplished, she might be escorted
By the clear-sounding hymenaeal song,
But that a stainless maiden foully stained,
In the very season of marriage she might fall
A sorrowful victim by a father’s stroke,
That so there might be granted to the fleet
A happy and hallowed sailing. Such the crimes
Whereto religion has had power to prompt.
Yet there may come a time when you yourself,
Surrendering to the terror-breathing tales
Of seers and bards, will seek to abandon us.
Ay verily, how many dreams even now
May they be forging for you, which might well
Overturn your philosophy of life,
And trouble all your happiness with fear!
And with good cause: for if men could perceive
That there was a fixed limit to their sorrows,
By some means they would find strength to withstand
The hallowed lies and threatenings of these seers.
But as it is, men have no means, no power
To make a stand, since everlasting seem
The penalties that they must fear in death.
For none knows what is the nature of the soul,
Whether ’tis born, or on the contrary
Enters into our bodies at their birth:
Whether, when torn from us by death, it perishes
Together with us, or thereafter goes
To visit Orcus’ glooms and the vast chasms;
Or penetrates by ordinance divine
Into brutes in man’s stead, as sang our own
Ennius, who first from pleasant Helicon
Brought down a garland of unfading leaf,
Destined among Italian tribes of men
To win bright glory. And yet in spite of this
Ennius sets forth in immortal verse
That none the less there does exist a realm
Of Acheron, though neither do our souls
Nor bodies penetrate thither, but a kind
Of phantom images, pale in wondrous wise:
And thence it was, so he relates, that once
The ghost of ever-living Homer rose
Before him, shedding salt tears, and began
To unfold in discourse the nature of things.
Therefore not only must we grasp the truth
Concerning things on high, what principle
Controls the courses of the sun and moon,
And by what force all that takes place on earth
Is governed, but above all by keen thought
We must investigate whereof consists
The soul and the mind’s nature, and what it is
That comes before us when we wake, if then
We are preyed on by disease, or when we lie
Buried in sleep, and terrifies our minds,
So that we seem face to face to behold
And hear those speaking to us who are dead,
Whose bones the earth now holds in its embrace.
Nor am I unaware how hard my task
In Latin verses to set clearly forth
The obscure truths discovered by the Greeks,
Chiefly because so much will need new terms
To deal with it, owing to our poverty
Of language, and the novelty of the themes.
Nevertheless your worth and the delight
Of your sweet friendship, which I hope to win,
Prompt me to bear the burden of any toil,
And lead me on to watch the calm nights through,
Seeking by means of what words and what measures
I may attain my end, and shed so clear
A light upon your spirit, that thereby
Your gaze may search the depths of hidden things.
This terror, then, and darkness of the mind
Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams
And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation
Of nature’s aspect and her inward law.
And this first principle of her design
Shall be our starting point: nothing is ever
By divine will begotten out of nothing.
In truth the reason fear so dominates
All mortals, is that they behold on earth
And in the sky many things happening,
Yet of these operations by no means
Can they perceive the causes, and so fancy
That they must come to pass by power divine.
Therefore when we have understood that nothing
Can be born out of nothing, we shall then
Win juster knowledge of the truth we seek,
Both from what elements each thing can be formed,
And in what way all things can come to pass
Without the intervention of the gods.
For if things came from nothing, any kind
Might be born out of anything; naught then
Would require seed. Thus men might rise from ocean
The scaly race out of the land, while birds
Might suddenly be hatched forth from the sky:
Cattle and other herds and every kind
Of wild beast, bred by no fixed law of birth,
Would roam o’er tilth and wilderness alike.
No fruit would remain constant to its tree,
But would change; every tree would bear all kinds.
For if there were not for each thing its own
Begetting particles, how could they have
A fixed unvarying mother? But in fact
Since all are formed from fixed seeds, each is born
And issues into the borders of the light
From that alone wherein resides its substance
And its first bodies. And for this cause all things
Cannot be generated out of all,
Since in each dwells its own particular power.
Again why do we see in spring the rose,
Corn in the summer’s heat, vines bursting forth
When autumn summons them, if not because
When in their own time the fixed seeds of things
Have flowed together, there is then revealed
Whatever has been born, while the due seasons
Are present, and the quickened earth brings forth
Safely into the borders of the light
Its tender nurslings? But if they were formed
From nothing, they would suddenly spring up
At unfixed periods and hostile times,
Since there would then be no fixed particles
To be kept from a begetting union
By the unpropitious season of the year.
Nor yet after the meeting of the seed
Would lapse of time be needed for their increase,
If they could grow from nothing. Suddenly
Small babes would become youths; trees would arise
Shooting up in a moment from the ground.
But nothing of the kind, ’tis plain, takes place,
Seeing that all things grow little by little,
As befits, from determined seed, and growing
Preserve their kind: so that you may perceive
That all things become greater and are nourished
Out of their own material. Furthermore
Without fixed annual seasons for the rain
Earth could not put her gladdening produce forth,
Nor yet, if kept apart from nourishment,
Could living creatures propagate their kind
Or sustain life: so that with greater reason
You may think many things have many atoms
In common, as we see that different words
Have common letters, than that anything
Can come to being without first elements.
Again, why could not nature have produced
Men of such mighty bulk, that they could wade
Through the deep places of the sea, or rend
Huge mountains with their hands, or in one life
Overpass many living generations,
If not because there has been set apart
A changeless substance for begetting things,
And what can thence arise is predetermined?
Therefore we must confess this truth, that nothing
Can come from nothing, since seed is required
For each thing, out of which it may be born
And lift itself into the air’s soft breezes.
Lastly, since it is evident that tilled lands
Excel the untilled, and yield to labouring hands
A richer harvest, we may thence infer
That in the earth there must be primal atoms,
And these, labouring its soil, we stimulate
To rise, when with the coulter we turn up
The fertile clods. But if none such existed,
We should see all things without toil of ours
Spring forth far richer of their own accord.
Furthermore nature dissolves each form back
Into its own first particles, nor ever
Annihilates things. For if aught could be mortal
In all its parts, then it might from our eyes
Be snatched away to perish suddenly.
For there would be no need of any force
To cause disruption of its parts, and loosen
Their fastenings. But in fact each is composed
Of everlasting seeds; so till some force
Arrives that with a blow can shatter things
To pieces, or can penetrate within
Their empty spaces, and so break them up,
Nature will not permit the dissolution
Of anything to be seen. Again, if time
Utterly destroys, consuming all the substance
Of whatsoever it removes from sight
Through lapse of ages, out of what does Venus
Bring back into the light of life the race
Of living creatures each after its kind?
Or, once brought back, whence does the daedal earth
Feed and increase them, giving nourishment
To each after its kind? Whence do its own
Fountains and far-drawn rivers from without
Keep full the sea? Whence does the ether feed
The stars? For infinite time and lapse of days
Surely must long since have devoured all things
Formed of a body that must die. But if
Throughout that period of time long past
Those atoms have existed out of which
This universe of things has been composed
And recomposed, ’tis plain they are possessed
Of an immortal nature: none of them
Therefore can turn to nothing. Then again
The same force and the same cause would destroy
All things without distinction, were it not
That an eternal substance held them fast,
A substance interwoven part with part
By bonds more or less close. For without doubt
A mere touch would be cause enough for death,
Seeing that any least amount of force
Must needs dissolve the texture of such things,
No one of which had an eternal body.
But in fact since the mutual fastenings
Between first elements are dissimilar,
And their substance eternal, things endure
With body uninjured, till some force arrives
Strong enough to dissolve the texture of each.
Therefore no single thing ever returns
To nothing, but at their disruption all
Pass back into the elements of matter.
Lastly the rain showers perish, when the sky father
Has flung them into the lap of mother earth.
But then bright crops spring up luxuriantly;
Boughs on the trees are green; the trees themselves
Grow, and with fruits are laden: from this source
Moreover both our own race and the race
Of beasts are nourished; for this cause we see
Glad towns teeming with children, leafy woods
With young birds’ voices singing on all sides;
For this cause cattle about the fertile meadows
Wearied with fatness lay their bodies down,
And from their swollen udders oozing falls
The white milk stream; for this cause a new brood
Bounds on weak limbs over the soft grass, frisking
And gamboling, their young hearts with pure milk thrilled.
None therefore of those things that seem to perish
Utterly perishes, since nature forms
One thing out of another, and permits
Nothing to be begotten, unless first
She has been recruited by another’s death.
Now listen: since I have proved to you that things
Cannot be formed from nothing, lest you yet
Should tend in any way to doubt my words,
Because the primal particles of things
Can never be distinguished by the eyes,
I will proceed to give you instances
Of bodies which yourself you must admit
Are real things, yet cannot be perceived.
First the wind’s wakened force scourges the sea,
Whelming huge ships and scattering the clouds;
And sometimes with impetuous hurricane
Scouring the plains, it strews them with great trees,
And ravages with forest-rending blasts
The mountain-tops: with such rude savagery
Does the wind howl and bluster and wreak its rage
With menacing uproar. Therefore past all doubt
Winds must be formed of unseen particles
That sweep the seas, the lands, the clouds of heaven,
Ravaging and dishevelling them all
With fitful hurricane gusts. Onward they stream
Multiplying destruction, just as when
The soft nature of water suddenly
Swoops forward in one overwhelming flood
Swelled with abundant rains by a mighty spate
Of water rushing down from the high hills,
Hurtling together broken forest boughs
And entire trees: nor can the sturdy bridges
Sustain the oncoming water’s sudden force:
In such wise turbulent with much rain the river
Flings its whole mighty strength against the piles.
With a loud crashing roar it then deals havoc,
And rolls the huge stones on beneath its waves,
Sweeping before it all that stems its flood.
In this way then wind-blasts must likewise move;
And when like a strong stream they have hurled themselves
Towards any quarter, they thrust things along
And with repeated onslaughts overwhelm them,
Often in writhing eddy seizing them
To bear them away in swiftly circling swirl.
Therefore beyond all doubt winds are composed
Of unseen atoms, since in their works and ways
We find that they resemble mighty rivers
Which are of visible substance. Then again
We can perceive the various scents of things,
Yet never see them coming to our nostrils:
Heat too we see not, nor can we observe
Cold with our eyes, nor ever behold words:
Yet must all these be of a bodily nature,
Since they are able to act upon our senses.
For naught can touch or be touched except body.
Clothes also, hung up on a shore where waves
Are breaking, become moist, and then grow dry
If spread out in the sun. Yet in what way
The water’s moisture has soaked into them,
Has not been seen, nor again in what way
The heat has driven it out. The moisture therefore
Is dispersed into tiny particles,
Which our eyes have no power to see at all.
Furthermore after many revolutions
Of the sun’s year, a finger-ring is thinned
On the under side by being worn: the fall
Of dripping eave-drops hollows out a stone:
The bent ploughshare of iron insensibly
Grows smaller in the fields; and we behold
The paving stones of roads worn down at length
By the footsteps of the people. Then again
The brazen statues at the city gates
Show right hands wearing thinner by the touch
Of those who greet them ever as they pass by.
Thus we perceive that all such things grow less
Because they have been worn down: and yet what atoms
Are leaving them each moment, that the jealous
Nature of vision has quite shut us out
From seeing. Finally whatever time
And nature gradually add to things,
Obliging them to grow in due proportion,
No effort of our eyesight can behold.
So too whenever things grow old by age
Or through corruption, and wherever rocks
That overhang the sea are gnawed away
By the corroding brine, you cannot discern
What they are losing at any single moment.
Thus nature operates by unseen atoms.
BOOK II, lines 991-1174
Moreover we are sprung, all we that live,
From heavenly seed: there is, for all, that same
One father[C]; from whom when the bounteous Earth,
Our mother, has drunk in the liquid drops
Of moisture, then by him impregnated
She bears bright crops and glad trees and the race
Of men, bears every species of wild beast,
Furnishing food with which all feed their bodies,
And lead a pleasant life, and propagate
Their offspring. Wherefore justly she has won
The name of mother. Also that which once
Came from the earth, sinks back into the earth,
And what was sent down from the coasts of aether,
Returning thither, is received once more
Into the mansions of the sky. So death
Does not demolish things in such a way
As to destroy the particles of matter,
But only dissipates their union,
Then recombines one element with another,
And so brings it to pass that all things change
Their shapes, alter their colours, and receive
Sensations, then in a moment yield them up.
Thus you may learn how greatly it signifies
Both with what others and in what positions
The same primordial atoms are held bound;
Also what motions they are mutually
Imparting and receiving: and thus too
You need no more suppose that what we see
Hovering upon the surfaces of things,
Or now being born, then suddenly perishing,[D]
Can be inherent qualities in atoms
That are eternal. Nay, in my verses even
It is of moment with what other letters
And in what order each one has been placed.
If not all, yet by far the greater part
Are similar letters: but as their position
Varies, so do the words sound different.
Thus too with actual things, whenever change
Takes place in the collisions motions order
Shape and position of their material atoms,
Then also must the things themselves be changed.
Now to true reasoning turn your mind, I pray;
For a new theme is struggling urgently
To reach your ears, a new aspect of things
Would now reveal itself. But there is naught
So easy, that at first it will not seem
Difficult of belief, and likewise naught
So mighty, naught so wondrous, but that all
Little by little abate their wonder at it.
Consider first the colour of the heavens,
So bright and pure, and all that they contain,
The stars wandering everywhere, the moon
And the surpassing radiance of the sun;
If all these sights were now for the first time
To be revealed to mortals suddenly
And without warning, what could have been described
That would have seemed more marvellous than such things,
Or that humanity could less have dared
Beforehand to believe might come to pass?
Nothing, I think: so wonderful had been
This spectacle. Yet think how no one now,
Wearied to satiety at the sight,
Deigns to look up at the sky’s shining quarters.
Cease therefore to cast reason from your mind
Terrified by mere novelty, but rather
Weigh facts with eager judgment; and if then
They appear true, surrender; if they seem
A falsehood, gird yourself to prove them so.
For since the sum of space outside, beyond
This world’s walls, must be infinite, the mind seeks
To reason as to what may else exist
Yonder in regions whither the intellect
Is constantly desiring to prospect,
And whither the projection of our thought
Reaches in free flight of its own accord.
Now first of all we find that everywhere
In all directions, horizontally,
Below and above throughout the universe
There is no limit, as I have demonstrated.
Indeed the facts themselves proclaim the truth,
And the deep void reveals its nature clearly.
Since then on all sides vacant space extends
Illimitably, and seeds in countless number
And sum immeasurable flit to and fro
Eternally driven on in manifold modes
Of motion, we must deem it in no wise
Probable that this single globe of earth
And this one heaven alone have been created,
While outside all those particles of matter
Are doing nothing: the more so that this world
Was formed by nature, as the seeds of things,
Casually colliding of their own
Spontaneous motion, flocked in manifold ways
Together, vainly, without aim or result,
Until at last such particles combined
As, suddenly thrown together, might become
From time to time the rudiments of great things,
Earth, sea, sky, and the race of living creatures.
Therefore beyond all question we are bound
To admit that elsewhere other aggregates
Of matter must exist, resembling this
Which in its greedy embrace our aether holds.
Moreover, when much matter is at hand,
And space is there, nor any obstacle
Nor cause of hindrance, then you may be sure
Things must be forming and dissolving there.
Now if there be so vast a store of seeds
That the whole lifetime of all conscious beings
Would fail to count them, and if likewise nature
Abides the same, and so can throw together
The seeds of things each into its own place,
In the same manner as they were thrown together
Into our world, then you must needs admit
That in other regions there are other earths,
And diverse stocks of men and kinds of beasts.
Besides in the whole universe there exists
No one thing that is born unique, and grows
Unique and sole; but it must needs belong
To one class, and there must be many others
Of the same kind. Consider first of all
Live creatures: you will find that thus are born
The mountain-ranging breeds of savage beasts,
Thus the human race, thus also the dumb shoals
Of scaly fish and every flying fowl.
Therefore by a like reasoning you must grant
That sky and earth and sun, moon, sea and all
That else exists, are not unique, but rather
Of number innumerable; since life’s deep-fixed
Boundary stone as surely awaits these,
And they are of a body that has birth
As much as any species here on earth
Abounding in examples of its kind.
If you learn well and keep these truths in mind,
Nature, forthwith enfranchised and released
From her proud lords, is seen then to be acting
In all things of herself spontaneously
Without the interference of the gods.
For by the holy breasts of those divinities,
Who in calm peace are passing tranquil days
Of life untroubled, who, I ask, has power
To rule the sum of space immeasurable?
Or who to hold in his controlling hand
The strong reins of the deep? Who can at once
Make all those various firmaments revolve
And with the fires of aether warm each one
Of all those fruitful earths, or at all times
Be present in all places, so to cause
Darkness by clouds, and shake the calms of heaven
With thunder, to hurl lightnings, and ofttimes
Shatter down his own temples, or withdraw
To desert regions, there to spend his fury
And exercise his bolt, which often indeed
Passes the guilty by, and strikes with death
The unoffending who deserve it least.
Now since the birth-time of the world, since sea
And earth’s first natal day and the sun’s origin,
Many atoms have been added from without,
Many seeds from all round, which, shooting them
Hither and thither, the great universe
Has brought together: and by means of these
Sea and land have been able to increase;
Thus too the mansion of the sky has gained
New spaciousness, and lifted its high roof
Far above earth, and the air has risen with it.
For to each thing its own appropriate atoms
Are all distributed by blows from all
Regions of space, so that they separate
Into their proper elements. Moisture joins
With moisture: earth from earthy substance grows;
Fires generate fire, and ether ether,
Till Nature, the creatress, consummating
Her labour, has brought all things to their last
Limit of growth; as happens, when at length
That which is entering the veins of life
Is now no more than what is flowing away
And ebbing thence. In all things at this point
The age of growth must halt: at this point nature
Curbs increase by her powers. For all such things
As you may see waxing with joyous growth,
And climbing step by step to matured age
Receive into themselves more particles
Than they discharge, so long as food is passing
Easily into all their veins, and while
They are not so widely spread as to throw off
Too many atoms and to cause more waste
Than what their life requires for nourishment.
For we must surely grant that many atoms
Are flowing away from things and leaving them:
But still more must be added, till at length
They have attained the highest pitch of growth.
Then age little by little breaks their powers
And their mature strength, as it wastes away
On the worse side of life. And out of doubt
The bulkier and the wider a thing is,
Once its growth ceases, the more particles
Does it now shed around it and discharge
On all sides: nor is food distributed
Easily into all its veins, nor yet
In quantity sufficient that therefrom
A supply may continually rise up
To compensate the copious emanations
Which it exhales. For there is need of food
To preserve all things by renewing them:
Food must uphold, food sustain everything:
Yet all is to no purpose, since the veins
Fail to convey what should suffice, nor yet
Does nature furnish all that is required.
There is good reason therefore why all forms
Should perish, when they are rarefied by flux
Of atoms, and succumb to external blows,
Since food must fail advanced age in the end,
And atoms cease not ever from outside
To buffet each thing till they wear it out
And overpower it by beleaguering blows.
In this way then it is that the walls too
Of the great world from all sides shall be stormed
And so collapsing crumble away to ruins.
And even now already this world’s age
Is broken, and the worn-out earth can scarce
Create the tiniest animals, she who once
Created every kind, and brought to birth
The huge shapes of wild beasts. For, as I think,
Neither did any golden rope let down
The tribes of mortal creatures from the heights
Of heaven on to the fields, nor did the sea
Nor its waves beating on the rocks create them,
But the same earth gave birth to them, which now
Feeds them from her own breast. At first moreover
Herself spontaneously did she create
Flourishing crops and rich vines for mankind,
Herself gave them sweet fruits and joyous pastures;
Which now, though aided by our toil, scarce grow
To any size. Thus we wear out our oxen
And the strength of our peasants: we use up
Our iron tools; yet hardly do we win
A sustenance from the fields, so niggardly
They grudge their produce and increase our toil.
And now shaking his head the aged ploughman
Sighs ever and anon, when he beholds
The labours of his hands all spent in vain;
And when with times past he compares the present,
He praises often the fortune of his sire,
Harping upon that ancient race of men
Who rich in piety supported life
Upon their narrow plots contentedly,
Seeing the land allotted to each man
Was far less in those days than now. So too
The planter of the worn-out shrivelled vine
Disconsolately inveighs against the march
Of time, wearying heaven with complaints,
And understands not how all things are wasting
Little by little, and passing to the grave
Tired out by lengthening age and lapse of days.
BOOK III, lines 1-160
Thou, who from out such darkness first could’st lift
A torch so bright, illumining thereby
The benefits of life, thee do I follow,
O thou bright glory of the Grecian race,
And in thy deepset footprints firmly now
I plant my steps, not so much through desire
To rival thee, rather because I love
And therefore long to imitate thee: for how
Should a mere swallow strive with swans; or what
Might kids with tottering limbs, matched in a race,
Achieve against a horse’s stalwart strength?
Thou, father, art discoverer of truth;
Thou dost enrich us with a father’s precepts;
And from thy pages, glorious sage, as bees
In flowery glades sip from all plants, so we
Feed likewise upon all thy golden words,
Golden words, ever worthy of endless life.
For soon as, issuing from thy godlike mind,
Thy doctrine has begun to voice abroad
The nature of things, straightway the soul’s terrors
Take flight; the world’s walls open; I behold
Things being formed and changed throughout all space.
Revealed is the divinity of the gods,
And their serene abodes, which neither winds
Buffet, nor clouds drench them with showers, nor snow
Congealed by sharp frost, falling in white flakes,
Violates, but an ever-cloudless sky
Invests them, laughing with wide-spreading light.
Moreover all their wants nature provides,
And there is nothing that at any time
Can minish their tranquillity of soul.
But on the other hand nowhere are visible
The Acherusian quarters; and yet earth
In no wise can obstruct our contemplation
Of all those operations that take place
Beneath our feet throughout the nether void.
At such thoughts there comes over me a kind
Of godlike pleasure mixed with thrilling awe,
That nature by thy power should be thus clearly
Made manifest and unveiled on every side.
Now since I have demonstrated of what kind
Are the beginnings of all things, and how
Varying are the divers shapes wherein
They are flying onward of their own free will,
Driven in eternal motion, and in what way
Out of these can be formed each several thing,
After these themes it would seem best that now
The nature of the mind and of the soul
Should be elucidated in my verses,
And fear of Acheron driven headlong forth,
That dread which troubles from its lowest depths
The life of man, and brooding over all
With the blackness of death, will not allow
Any pleasure to be unalloyed and pure.
For though men often tell us that diseases
And a life of public shame are to be feared
Far more than Tartarus, the house of death,
And that they know the nature of the soul
To be of blood, or even perhaps of wind,
If such should be their fancy, and that so
They have no need of our philosophy,
Yet from the following proof you may perceive
That all these boasts are uttered to win praise
Rather than from conviction of the truth.
These same men, exiled from their fatherland,
And banished far from human sight, disgraced
By foul crime, and beset by every kind
Of wretchedness, none the less still live on,
And to whatever place they bear their misery,
In spite of all make offerings to the dead,
Slaughter black sheep, and to the nether powers
Do sacrifice, and in their bitter plight
Turn their thoughts to religion far more zealously.
Thus you can better judge a man in stress
Of peril, and amidst adversities
Discover what he is; for then at last
The language of sincerity and truth
Is wrung forth from the bottom of his heart;
The mask is torn off; what is real remains.
Moreover avarice and blinding lust
For honours, which compel unhappy men
To overpass the bounds of right, and sometimes,
As partners and accomplices of crime,
To struggle with vast effort night and day
Till they emerge upon the heights of power--
These sores of life are in no small degree
Fostered by fear of death. For foul contempt
And biting penury are mostly thought
To be quite different from a pleasurable
And secure life: rather they seem to be
Already but a kind of lingering
Before the gates of death. And so while men,
Urged by an unreal terror, long to escape
Far from these ills and drive them far away,
They pile up wealth by shedding civil blood,
Doubling their riches greedily, while they heap
Massacre upon massacre, rejoice
Ruthlessly in the sad death of a brother,
And shun their kinsmen’s board in hate and dread.
Often likewise owing to this same fear
They pine with envy because some other man
In the world’s eyes is powerful, some other
Is gazed at, as he walks robed in bright honours,
While they complain that they themselves are wallowing
In darkness and in filth. Some sink their lives
In ruin to win statues and a name,
And often with such force, through dread of death,
Does hatred of life and of the sight of day
Seize upon mortals, that with anguished heart
They will destroy themselves, forgetting quite
How this fear is the well-spring of their cares,
This it is that enfeebles honour, this
That bursts the bonds of friendship, and in fine
Prompts them to cast all duty to the ground.
Since often ere now men have betrayed their country
And beloved parents, seeking so to shun
The realms of Acheron. For just as children
In the blind darkness tremble and are afraid
Of all things, so we sometimes in the light
Fear things that are no whit more to be dreaded
Than those which children shudder at in the dark
Imagining that they will come to pass.
This terror, then, and darkness of the mind
Must needs be scattered not by the sun’s beams
And day’s bright arrows, but by contemplation
Of nature’s aspect and her inward law.
First then the mind, which we shall often call
The intellect, wherein is placed the council
And government of life, I assert to be
No less a part of man than feet and hands
And eyes are part of the whole living creature.
Yet some would have it that the sense of the mind
Resides in no fixed part, but deem it rather
A kind of vital habit of the body,
Which by the Greeks is called a harmony,
Something that causes us to live with sense,
Although the intellect is in no one part.
Just as good health is often spoken of
As though belonging to the body, and yet
It is no one part of a healthy man.
Thus they refuse to place the sense of the mind
In one fixed part: and here to me they seem
To wander far indeed astray from truth.
For often the body, which is visible,
Is sick, while in some other hidden part
We experience pleasure; and ofttimes again
The contrary will happen, when a man
Who is distressed in mind, through his whole body
Feels pleasure: in the same way as the foot
Of a sick man may suffer pain, and yet
His head meanwhile is in no pain at all.
Moreover when the limbs are given up
To soft sleep, and the wearied body lies
Diffused without sensation, there is yet
Something else in us which at that same time
Is stirred in many ways, and into itself
Receives all the emotions of delight,
And all the empty troubles of the heart.
Now, that the soul too dwells within the limbs,
And that it is no harmony whereby
The body is wont to feel, this main proof shows.
When from the body much has been removed,
Yet often life still lingers in our limbs:
Whereas, when a few particles of heat
Have been dispersed, and through the mouth some air
Has been forced out, suddenly that same life
Deserts the arteries and quits the bones:
Whence you may learn that not all particles
Have functions of like moment, nor alike
Support existence; but that rather those
Which are the seeds of wind and warming heat
Are the cause that life stays within the limbs.
Therefore this vital heat and wind, residing
Within the body itself, is that which quits
Our dying frame. So now that we have found
The nature of the mind and of the soul
To be a part in some sense of the man,
Let us give up the name of harmony,
Which was brought down from lofty Helicon
To the musicians, or else they themselves,
Taking it from some other source, transferred it
To what was then without a name of its own.
However that may be, why, let them keep it.
Do you give heed to the rest of my discourse.
Now I maintain that mind and soul are bound
In union with each other, forming so
A single substance, but that the lord that rules
Throughout the body is the reasoning power
Which we call mind and intellect. Its seat
Is fixed in the middle region of the breast.
For here it is that fear and panic throb:
Around these parts dwell joys that soothe. Here then
Is the intellect or mind. The rest of the soul
Dispersed through the whole body, obeys and moves
At the will and propulsion of the mind,
Which for itself and by itself alone
Has knowledge and rejoices for itself,
When nothing at that time moves soul or body.
And just as, when we are attacked by pain
In head or eye, we do not feel distress
Through our whole body too, so often the mind
Suffers pain by itself, or is envigoured
By happiness, when all the rest of the soul
Throughout the limbs and frame remains unstirred
By any new sensation. But when the mind
Has been perturbed by some more vehement fear,
We see the whole soul feel with it in unison
Through all the limbs; sweating and paleness then
Spread over the whole body; the tongue halts,
Speech dies away, the eyes grow dark with mist,
The ears ring and the limbs sink under us.
And indeed often we see men drop down
From terror of mind. Hence easily we may learn
That the soul is united with the mind;
For when it has been struck by the mind’s force,
Straightway it pushes and propels the body.
BOOK III, lines 830-1094
Death then is nothing to us, nor one jot
Does it concern us, since the nature of mind
Is thus proved mortal. And as in times long past
We felt no unhappiness when from every side
Gathering for conflict came the Punic hosts,
And all that was beneath the height of heaven,
Shaken by the tumult and dismay of war,
Shuddered and quaked, and mortals were in doubt
To whose empire all human things would fall
By land and sea, so when we are no more,
When body and soul, whereof we were composed
Into one being shall have been divorced,
’Tis plain nothing whatever shall have power
To trouble us, who then shall be no more,
Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea
In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky.
And even though the powers of mind and soul
After they have been severed from the body
Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing,
Who by the binding marriage tie between
Body and soul are formed into one being.
Nor if Time should collect our scattered atoms
After our death, and should restore them back
To where they now are placed, and if once more
The light of light were given us, not even that
Would in the least concern us, once the chain
Of self-awareness had been snapped asunder.
So too now what we may have been before
Concerns us not, nor causes us distress.
For when you look back on the whole past course
Of infinite time, and think how manifold
Must be the modes of matter’s flux, then easily
May you believe this too, that these same atoms
Of which we now are formed, have often before
Been placed in the same order as they are now.
Yet this can no remembrance bring us back.
For a break in life has since been interposed,
And all our atoms wandering dispersed
Have strayed far from that former consciousness.
For if a man be destined to endure
Misery and suffering, he must first exist
In his own person at that very time
When evil should befall him. But since death
Precludes this, and forbids him to exist
Who was to endure distress, we may be sure
That in death there is nothing we need dread,
That he who exists not cannot become miserable,
And that it makes no difference at all
Whether he shall already have been born
In some past time, when once he has been robbed
By death that dies not of his life that dies.
Therefore if you should chance to hear some man
Pitying his own lot, that after death
Either his body must decay in the earth,
Or be consumed by flames or jaws of beasts,
Then may you know that his words ring not true,
That in his heart there lurks some secret sting,
Though he himself deny that he believes
Any sense will remain with him in death.
For in fact he grants not all that he professes,
Nor by the roots does he expel and thrust
Self forth from life, but all unwittingly
Assumes that of self something will survive.
For when a living man forbodes that birds
And beasts may rend his body after death,
Then does he pity himself, nor can he quite
Separate and withdraw from the outcast body,
But fancying that that other is himself,
With his own sense imagines it endued.
So he complains because he was born mortal,
Nor sees that there will be in real death
No other self which living can lament
That he has perished, none that will stand by
And grieve over his burnt and mangled corpse.
For if it be an evil after death
To be mauled by teeth of beasts, why should it seem
Less cruel to be laid out on a pyre
And scorched with hot flames, or to be embalmed
In stifling honey, or to lie stiff and cold
Couched on the cool slab of a chilly stone,
Or to be crushed down under a weight of earth?
“Now no more shall thy home, nor thy chaste wife
Receive thee in gladness, nor shall thy sweet children
Run forth to meet thee and snatch kisses from thee,
And touch thee to the heart with silent joy.
No more canst thou be prosperous in thy doings,
A bulwark to thy friends. Poor wretch!” men cry,
“How wretchedly has one disastrous day
Stript thee of all life’s many benefits!”
Yet this withal they add not: “Nor henceforth
Does craving for these things beset thee more.”
This truth, could men but grasp it once in thought
And follow thought with words, would forthwith set
Their spirits free from a huge ache and dread.
“Thou, as thou art, sunk in the sleep of death,
Shalt so continue through all time to come,
Delivered from all feverish miseries:
But we who watched thee on thy dreadful pyre
Change into ashes, we insatiably
Bewept thee; nor shall any lapse of days
Remove that lifelong sorrow from our hearts.”
Of him who spoke thus, well might we inquire,
What grief so exceeding bitter is there here,
If in the end all comes to sleep and rest,
That one should therefore pine with lifelong misery.
This too is oft men’s wont, when they lie feasting
Wine-cup in hand with garland-shaded brows:
Thus from the heart they speak: “Brief is life’s joy
For poor frail men. Soon will it be no more,
Nor ever afterwards may it be called back.”
As though a foremost evil to be feared
After their death were this, that parching thirst
Would burn and scorch them in their misery,
Or craving for aught else would then beset them.
No, for none feels the want of self and life,
When mind and body are sunk in sleep together.
For all we care, such sleep might be eternal:
No craving for ourselves moves us at all.
And yet, when starting up from sleep a man
Collects himself, then the atoms of his soul
Throughout his frame cannot be wandering far
From their sense-stirring motions. Therefore death
Must needs be thought far less to us than sleep,
If less can be than what we see is nothing.
For the dispersion of the crowded atoms,
That comes with death, is greater; nor has ever
Anyone yet awakened, upon whom
Has once fallen the chill arrest of death.
Furthermore, if Nature suddenly found voice,
And thus in person upbraided one of us:
“What is it, mortal, can afflict thee so,
That thou to such exceeding bitter grief
Shouldst yield? Why thus bemoan and bewail death?
For if the life thou hast lived hitherto
Was pleasant to thee, and not all thy blessings,
As though poured into a perforated jar,
Have flowed through and gone thanklessly to waste,
Why not then, like a guest replete with life,
Take thy departure, and resignedly
Enter, thou fool, upon secure repose?
But if all that thou hast enjoyed has perished
Squandered away, and life is a mere grievance,
Why seek to add thereto, what in its turn
Must all come to destruction and be lost
Unprofitably? Why both of life and travail
Dost thou not rather make an end at once?
For there is nothing more I can contrive
Or find to please thee. All things are the same
At all times. Though thy body be not yet
Decayed with years, nor have thy worn-out limbs
Grown feeble, yet all things remain the same;
Though thou shouldst overlive all generations,
Nay, even more if thou shouldst never die.”
What could we answer, save that Nature’s claim
Was just, and her indictment a true plea?
But if some other more advanced in years
Should miserably complain and lament death
Beyond all reason, would she not yet more justly
Lift up her voice and chide him with sharp speech?
“Hence with thy tears, buffoon. Cease thy complaints.
After thou hast enjoyed all life’s best gifts
Thou now decayest. But because thou hast yearned
Always for what was absent, and despised
That which was present, life has glided from thee
Incomplete and unprofitable. So now
Ere thou didst look for it, at thy pillow Death
Has taken his stand, before thou canst depart
Satisfied with existence and replete.
But now resign all vanities that so ill
Befit thine age: come then, with a good grace
Rise and make room for others; for thou must.”
Justly, I think, would she so plead with him,
Justly reproach and chide: for things grown old
Yield place and are supplanted evermore
By new, and each thing out of something else
Must be replenished; nor to the black pit
Of Tartarus was yet any man consigned.
Matter is needed, that therefrom may grow
Succeeding generations: which yet all,
When they have lived their life, shall follow thee.
Thus it is all have perished in past times
No less than thou, and shall hereafter perish.
So one thing out of another shall not cease
For ever to arise; and life is given
To none in fee, to all in usufruct.
Consider likewise how eternal Time’s
Bygone antiquity before our birth
Was nothing to us. In such wise does Nature
Show us the time to come after our death
As in a mirror. Is aught visible
Therein so appalling? aught that seems like gloom?
Is it not more secure than any sleep?
Moreover all those things which people say
Are found in Acheron’s gulf, assuredly
Exist for us in life. No wretched Tantalus,
Numbed by vain terror, quakes, as the tale tells,
Beneath a huge rock hanging in the air;
But in life rather an empty fear of gods
Oppresses mortals; and the fall they dread
Is fortune’s fall, which chance may bring to each.
Nor verily entering the large breast of Tityos,
As he lies stretched in Acheron, do vultures
Find food there for their beaks perpetually.
How vast soever his body’s bulk extends,
Though not nine acres merely with outspread limbs
He cover, but the round of the whole earth,
Yet would he not be able to endure
Eternal pain, nor out of his whole body
For ever provide food. But here for us
He is a Tityos, whom, while he lies
In bonds of love, fretful anxieties
Devour like rending birds of prey, or cares,
Sprung from some other craving, lacerate.
A living Sisyphus also we behold
In him who from the people fain would beg
The rods and cruel axes, and each time
Defeated and disconsolate must retire.
For to beg power, which, empty as it is,
Is never given, and in pursuit thereof
To endure grievous toil continually,
Is but to thrust uphill mightily straining
A stone, which from the summit after all
Rolls bounding back down to the level plain.
Moreover to be feeding evermore
The thankless nature of the mind, yet never
To fill it full and sate it with good things,
As do the seasons for us, when each year
They return bringing fruits and varied charms,
Yet never are we filled with life’s delights,
This surely is what is told of those young brides,
Who must pour water into a punctured vessel,
Though they can have no hope to fill it full.
Cerberus and the Furies in like manner
Are fables, and that world deprived of day
Where from its throat Tartarus belches forth
Horrible flames: which things in truth are not,
Nor can be anywhere. But there is in life
A dread of punishment for things ill done,
Terrible as the deeds are terrible;
And to expiate men’s guilt there is the dungeon,
The awful hurling downward from the rock,
Scourgings, mutilations and impalings,
The pitch, the torches and the metal plate.
And even if these be wanting, yet the mind
Conscious of guilt torments itself with goads
And scorching whips, nor in its boding fear
Perceives what end of misery there can be,
Nor what limit at length to punishment,
Nay fears lest these same evils after death
Should prove more grievous. Thus does the life of fools
Become at last an Acheron here on earth.
This too thou may’st say sometimes to thyself:
“Even the good king Ancus closed his eyes
To the light of day, who was so many times
Worthier than thou, unconscionable man.
And since then many others who bore rule
O’er mighty nations, princes and potentates,
Have perished: and he too, even he, who once
Across the great sea paved a path whereby
His legions might pass over, bidding them
Cross dry-shod the salt deeps, and to show scorn
Trampled upon the roarings of the waves
With horses, even he, bereft of light,
Forth from his dying body gasped his soul.
The Scipios’ offspring, thunderbolt of war,
Terror of Carthage, gave his bones to the earth,
As though he were the meanest household slave.
Consider too the inventors of wise thoughts
And arts that charm, consider the companions
Of the Heliconian Maidens, among whom
Homer still bears the sceptre without peer;
Yet he now sleeps the same sleep as they all.
Likewise Democritus, when a ripe old age
Had warned him that the memory-stirring motions
Were waning in his mind, by his own act
Willingly offered up his head to death.
Even Epicurus died, when his life’s light
Had run its course, he who in intellect
Surpassed the race of men, quenching the glory
Of all else, as the sun in heaven arising
Quenches the stars. Then wilt thou hesitate
And feel aggrieved to die? thou for whom life
Is well nigh dead, whilst yet thou art alive
And lookest on the light; thou who dost waste
Most of thy time in sleep, and waking snorest,
Nor ceasest to see dreams; who hast a mind
Troubled with empty terror, and ofttimes
Canst not discover what it is that ails thee,
When, poor besotted wretch, from every side
Cares crowd upon thee, and thou goest astray
Drifting in blind perplexity of soul.”
If men not only were to feel this load
That weighs upon their mind and wears them out,
But might have knowledge also of its cause
And whence comes this great pile of misery
Crushing their breasts, they would not spend their lives,
As now so oft we see them, ignorant
Each of his life’s true ends, and seeking ever
By change of place to lay his burden down.
Often, issuing forth from his great mansion, he
Who is weary of home will suddenly return
Perceiving that abroad he is none the happier.
He posts to his villa galloping his ponies,
As though hurrying with help to a house on fire,
Yawns on the very threshold, nay sinks down
Heavily into sleep to seek oblivion,
Or even perhaps starts headlong back to town.
In this way each man flies from his own self,
Yet from that self in fact he has no power
To escape. He clings to it in his own despite,
Although he loathes it, seeing that he is sick,
Yet perceives not the cause of his disease:
Which if he could but comprehend aright,
Relinquishing all else, each man would study
To learn the Nature of Reality,
Since ’tis our state during eternal time,
Not for one hour merely, that is in doubt,
That state wherein mortals must pass the whole
Of what may still await them after death.
And in conclusion, what base lust of life
Is this, that can so potently compel us
In dubious perils to feel such dismay?
For indeed certain is the end of life
That awaits mortals, nor can death be shunned.
Meet it we must. Furthermore in the same
Pursuits and actions do we pass our days
For ever, nor may we by living on
Forge for ourselves any new form of pleasure.
But what we crave, while it is absent, seems
To excel all things else; then, when ’tis ours,
We crave some other thing, gaping wide-mouthed,
Always possessed by the same thirst of life.
What fortune future time may bring, we know not,
Nor what chance has in store for us, nor yet
What end awaits us. By prolonging life
No least jot may we take from death’s duration;
Nought may we steal away therefrom, that so
Haply a less long while we may be dead.
Therefore as many ages as you please
Add to your life’s account, yet none the less
Will that eternal death be waiting for you.
And not less long will that man be no more,
Who from to-day has ceased to live, than he
Who has died many months and years ago.