Now come, and next hereafter apprehendWhat sorts, how vastly different in form,How varied in multitudinous shapes they are—These old beginnings of the universe;Not in the sense that only few are furnishedWith one like form, but rather not at allIn general have they likeness each with each,No marvel: since the stock of them's so greatThat there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,They must indeed not one and all be markedBy equal outline and by shape the same.
Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocksOf scaly creatures swimming in the streams,And joyous herds around, and all the wild,And all the breeds of birds—both those that teemIn gladsome regions of the water-haunts,About the river-banks and springs and pools,And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,Through trackless woods—Go, take which one thou wilt,In any kind: thou wilt discover stillEach from the other still unlike in shape.Nor in no other wise could offspring knowMother, nor mother offspring—which we seeThey yet can do, distinguished one from other,No less than human beings, by clear signs.Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,Beside the incense-burning altars slain,Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breastBreathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,With eyes regarding every spot about,For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanesWith her complaints; and oft she seeks againWithin the stall, pierced by her yearning still.Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;Nor other shapes of calves that graze therebyDistract her mind or lighten pain the least—So keen her search for something known and hers.Moreover, tender kids with bleating throatsDo know their horned dams, and butting lambsThe flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,Unfailingly each to its proper teat,As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kindIs so far like another, that there stillIs not in shapes some difference running through.By a like law we see how earth is piedWith shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the seaBeats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.Wherefore again, again, since seeds of thingsExist by nature, nor were wrought with handsAfter a fixed pattern of one other,They needs must flitter to and fro with shapesIn types dissimilar to one another.
Easy enough by thought of mind to solveWhy fires of lightning more can penetrateThan these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,And passes thus through holes which this our fire,Born from the wood, created from the pine,Cannot. Again, light passes through the hornOn the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.And why?—unless those bodies of light should beFiner than those of water's genial showers.We see how quickly through a colanderThe wines will flow; how, on the other hand,The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,Because 'tis wrought of elements more large,Or else more crook'd and intertangled. ThusIt comes that the primordials cannot beSo suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,One through each several hole of anything.And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milkYields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,With their foul flavour set the lips awry;Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoeverCan touch the senses pleasingly are madeOf smooth and rounded elements, whilst thoseWhich seem the bitter and the sharp, are heldEntwined by elements more crook'd, and soAre wont to tear their ways into our senses,And rend our body as they enter in.In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,Being up-built of figures so unlike,Are mutually at strife—lest thou supposeThat the shrill rasping of a squeaking sawConsists of elements as smooth as songWhich, waked by nimble fingers, on the stringsThe sweet musicians fashion; or supposeThat same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierceWhen foul cadavers burn, as when the stageIs with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;Or hold as of like seed the goodly huesOf things which feast our eyes, as those which stingAgainst the smarting pupil and draw tears,Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.For never a shape which charms our sense was madeWithout some elemental smoothness; whilstWhate'er is harsh and irksome has been framedStill with some roughness in its elements.Some, too, there are which justly are supposedTo be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,To tickle rather than to wound the sense—And of which sort is the salt tartar of wineAnd flavours of the gummed elecampane.Again, that glowing fire and icy rimeAre fanged with teeth unlike whereby to stingOur body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.For touch—by sacred majesties of Gods!—Touch is indeed the body's only sense—Be't that something in-from-outward works,Be't that something in the body bornWounds, or delighteth as it passes outAlong the procreant paths of Aphrodite;Or be't the seeds by some collision whirlDisordered in the body and confoundBy tumult and confusion all the sense—As thou mayst find, if haply with the handThyself thou strike thy body's any part.On which account, the elemental formsMust differ widely, as enabled thusTo cause diverse sensations.And, again,What seems to us the hardened and condensedMust be of atoms among themselves more hooked,Be held compacted deep within, as 'twereBy branch-like atoms—of which sort the chiefAre diamond stones, despisers of all blows,And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formedOf fluid body, they indeed must beOf elements more smooth and round—becauseTheir globules severally will not cohere:To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of handIs quite as easy as drinking water down,And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.But that thou seest among the things that flowSome bitter, as the brine of ocean is,Is not the least a marvel...For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms areAnd round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;Yet need not these be held together hooked:In fact, though rough, they're globular besides,Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.And that the more thou mayst believe me here,That with smooth elements are mixed the rough(Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes),There is a means to separate the twain,And thereupon dividedly to seeHow the sweet water, after filtering throughSo often underground, flows freshened forthInto some hollow; for it leaves aboveThe primal germs of nauseating brine,Since cling the rough more readily in earth.Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperseUpon the instant—smoke, and cloud, and flame—Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,That thus they can, without together cleaving,So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.Whatever we see...Given to senses, that thou must perceiveThey're not from linked but pointed elements.The which now having taught, I will go onTo bind thereto a fact to this alliedAnd drawing from this its proof: these primal germsVary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.For were these shapes quite infinite, some seedsWould have a body of infinite increase.For in one seed, in one small frame of any,The shapes can't vary from one another much.Assume, we'll say, that of three minim partsConsist the primal bodies, or add a few:When, now, by placing all these parts of oneAt top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,Thou hast with every kind of shift found outWhat the aspect of shape of its whole bodyEach new arrangement gives, for what remains,If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,New parts must then be added; follows next,If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,That by like logic each arrangement stillRequires its increment of other parts.Ergo, an augmentation of its frameFollows upon each novelty of forms.Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertakeThat seeds have infinite differences in form,Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to beOf an immeasurable immensity—Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleamOf Meliboean purple, touched with dyeOf the Thessalian shell...The peacock's golden generations, stainedWith spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrownBy some new colour of new things more bright;The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,Once modulated on the many chords,Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,Would be arising evermore. So, too,Into some baser part might all retire,Even as we said to better might they come:For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the restTo nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.Since 'tis not so, but unto things are givenTheir fixed limitations which do boundTheir sum on either side, 'tmust be confessedThat matter, too, by finite tale of shapesDoes differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heatsUnto the icy hoar-frosts of the yearThe forward path is fixed, and by like lawO'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.For each degree of hot, and each of cold,And the half-warm, all filling up the sumIn due progression, lie, my Memmius, thereBetwixt the two extremes: the things createMust differ, therefore, by a finite change,Since at each end marked off they ever areBy fixed point—on one side plagued by flamesAnd on the other by congealing frosts.The which now having taught, I will go onTo bind thereto a fact to this alliedAnd drawing from this its proof: those primal germsWhich have been fashioned all of one like shapeAre infinite in tale; for, since the formsThemselves are finite in divergences,Then those which are alike will have to beInfinite, else the sum of stuff remainsA finite—what I've proved is not the fact,Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,From everlasting and to-day the same,Uphold the sum of things, all sides aroundBy old succession of unending blows.For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare,And mark'st in them a less prolific stock,Yet in another region, in lands remote,That kind abounding may make up the count;Even as we mark among the four-foot kindSnake-handed elephants, whose thousands wallWith ivory ramparts India about,That her interiors cannot entered be—So big her count of brutes of which we seeSuch few examples. Or suppose, besides,We feign some thing, one of its kind and soleWith body born, to which is nothing likeIn all the lands: yet now unless shall beAn infinite count of matter out of whichThus to conceive and bring it forth to life,It cannot be created and—what's more—It cannot take its food and get increase.Yea, if through all the world in finite taleBe tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,Shall they to meeting come together there,In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?—No means they have of joining into one.But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,The mighty main is wont to scatter wideThe rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,The masts and swimming oars, so that afarAlong all shores of lands are seen afloatThe carven fragments of the rended poop,Giving a lesson to mortalityTo shun the ambush of the faithless main,The violence and the guile, and trust it notAt any hour, however much may smileThe crafty enticements of the placid deep:Exactly thus, if once thou holdest trueThat certain seeds are finite in their tale,The various tides of matter, then, must needsScatter them flung throughout the ages all,So that not ever can they join, as drivenTogether into union, nor remainIn union, nor with increment can grow—But facts in proof are manifest for each:Things can be both begotten and increase.'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,Are infinite in any class thou wilt—From whence is furnished matter for all things.Nor can those motions that bring death prevailForever, nor eternally entombThe welfare of the world; nor, further, canThose motions that give birth to things and growthKeep them forever when created there.Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,With equal strife among the elementsGoes on and on. Now here, now there, prevailThe vital forces of the world—or fall.Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wailOf infants coming to the shores of light:No night a day, no dawn a night hath followedThat heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,The wild laments, companions old of deathAnd the black rites.This, too, in these affairs'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consignedWith no forgetting brain: nothing there isWhose nature is apparent out of handThat of one kind of elements consists—Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.And whatsoe'er possesses in itselfMore largely many powers and propertiesShows thus that here within itself there areThe largest number of kinds and differing shapesOf elements. And, chief of all, the earthHath in herself first bodies whence the springs,Rolling chill waters, renew forevermoreThe unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise—For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeedFrom more profounder fires—and she, again,Hath in herself the seed whence she can raiseThe shining grains and gladsome trees for men;Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pasturesCan she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,And parent of man hath she alone been named.Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece
Seated in chariot o'er the realms of airTo drive her team of lions, teaching thusThat the great earth hangs poised and cannot lieResting on other earth. Unto her carThey've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,However savage, must be tamed and chidBy care of parents. They have girt aboutWith turret-crown the summit of her head,Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adornedWith that same token, to-day is carried forth,With solemn awe through many a mighty land,The image of that mother, the divine.Her the wide nations, after antique rite,Do name Idaean Mother, giving herEscort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,From out those regions 'twas that grain beganThrough all the world. To her do they assignThe Galli, the emasculate, since thusThey wish to show that men who violateThe majesty of the mother and have provedIngrate to parents are to be adjudgedUnfit to give unto the shores of lightA living progeny. The Galli come:And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourinesResound around to bangings of their hands;The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;The tubed pipe excites their maddened mindsIn Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have powerThe rabble's ingrate heads and impious heartsTo panic with terror of the goddess' might.And so, when through the mighty cities borne,She blesses man with salutations mute,They strew the highway of her journeyingsWith coin of brass and silver, gifting herWith alms and largesse, and shower her and shadeWith flowers of roses falling like the snowUpon the Mother and her companion-bands.Here is an armed troop, the which by GreeksAre called the Phrygian Curetes. SinceHaply among themselves they use to playIn games of arms and leap in measure roundWith bloody mirth and by their nodding shakeThe terrorizing crests upon their heads,This is the armed troop that representsThe arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,As runs the story, whilom did out-drownThat infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,To measured step beat with the brass on brass,That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,And give its mother an eternal woundAlong her heart. And 'tis on this accountThat armed they escort the mighty Mother,Or else because they signify by thisThat she, the goddess, teaches men to beEager with armed valour to defendTheir motherland, and ready to stand forth,The guard and glory of their parents' years.A tale, however beautifully wrought,That's wide of reason by a long remove:For all the gods must of themselves enjoyImmortal aeons and supreme repose,Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:Immune from peril and immune from pain,Themselves abounding in riches of their own,Needing not us, they are not touched by wrathThey are not taken by service or by gift.Truly is earth insensate for all time;But, by obtaining germs of many things,In many a way she brings the many forthInto the light of sun. And here, whosoDecides to call the ocean Neptune, orThe grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuseThe name of Bacchus rather than pronounceThe liquor's proper designation, himLet us permit to go on calling earthMother of Gods, if only he will spareTo taint his soul with foul religion.So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,And brood of battle-eager horses, grazingOften together along one grassy plain,Under the cope of one blue sky, and slakingFrom out one stream of water each its thirst,All live their lives with face and form unlike,Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits,Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.So great in any sort of herb thou wilt,So great again in any river of earthAre the distinct diversities of matter.Hence, further, every creature—any oneFrom out them all—compounded is the sameOf bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews—All differing vastly in their forms, and builtOf elements dissimilar in shape.Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze,Within their frame lay up, if naught besides,At least those atoms whence derives their powerTo throw forth fire and send out light from under,To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.If, with like reasoning of mind, all elseThou traverse through, thou wilt discover thusThat in their frame the seeds of many thingsThey hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.Further, thou markest much, to which are givenAlong together colour and flavour and smell,Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.
Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.A smell of scorching enters in our frameWhere the bright colour from the dye goes not;And colour in one way, flavour in quite anotherWorks inward to our senses—so mayst seeThey differ too in elemental shapes.Thus unlike forms into one mass combine,And things exist by intermixed seed.But still 'tmust not be thought that in all waysAll things can be conjoined; for then wouldst viewPortents begot about thee every side:Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up,At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk,Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,And nature along the all-producing earthFeeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flameFrom hideous jaws—Of which 'tis simple factThat none have been begot; because we seeAll are from fixed seed and fixed damEngendered and so function as to keepThroughout their growth their own ancestral type.This happens surely by a fixed law:For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature,Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,Produce the proper motions; but we seeHow, contrariwise, nature upon the groundThrows off those foreign to their frame; and manyWith viewless bodies from their bodies fly,By blows impelled—those impotent to joinTo any part, or, when inside, to accordAnd to take on the vital motions there.But think not, haply, living forms aloneAre bound by these laws: they distinguished all.
For just as all things of creation are,In their whole nature, each to each unlike,So must their atoms be in shape unlike—Not since few only are fashioned of like form,But since they all, as general rule, are notThe same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,Elements many, common to many words,Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confessThe words and verses differ, each from each,Compounded out of different elements—Not since few only, as common letters, runThrough all the words, or no two words are made,One and the other, from all like elements,But since they all, as general rule, are notThe same as all. Thus, too, in other things,Whilst many germs common to many thingsThere are, yet they, combined among themselves,Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.Thus fairly one may say that humankind,The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made upOf different atoms. Further, since the seedsAre different, difference must there also beIn intervening spaces, thoroughfares,Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, allWhich not alone distinguish living forms,But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands,And hold all heaven from the lands away.
ABSENCE OF SECONDARY QUALITIES
Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil soughtLook thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guessThat the white objects shining to thine eyesAre gendered of white atoms, or the blackOf a black seed; or yet believe that aughtThat's steeped in any hue should take its dyeFrom bits of matter tinct with hue the same.For matter's bodies own no hue the least—Or like to objects or, again, unlike.But, if percase it seem to thee that mindItself can dart no influence of its ownInto these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyedThe light of sun, yet recognise by touchThings that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,'Tis thine to know that bodies can be broughtNo less unto the ken of our minds too,Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.Again, ourselves whatever in the darkWe touch, the same we do not find to beTinctured with any colour.Now that hereI win the argument, I next will teach
Now, every colour changes, none except,And every...Which the primordials ought nowise to do.Since an immutable somewhat must remain,Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.For change of anything from out its boundsMeans instant death of that which was before.Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colourThe seeds of things, lest things return for theeAll utterly to naught.But now, if seedsReceive no property of colour, and yetBe still endowed with variable formsFrom which all kinds of colours they begetAnd vary (by reason that ever it matters muchWith what seeds, and in what positions joined,And what the motions that they give and get),Forthwith most easily thou mayst deviseWhy what was black of hue an hour agoCan of a sudden like the marble gleam,—As ocean, when the high winds have upheavedIts level plains, is changed to hoary wavesOf marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,That, when the thing we often see as blackIs in its matter then commixed anew,Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turnGlowing and white. But if of azure seedsConsist the level waters of the deep,They could in nowise whiten: for howeverThou shakest azure seeds, the same can neverPass into marble hue. But, if the seeds—Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen—Be now with one hue, now another dyed,As oft from alien forms and divers shapesA cube's produced all uniform in shape,'Twould be but natural, even as in the cubeWe see the forms to be dissimilar,That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep(Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)Colours diverse and all dissimilar.Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the leastThe whole in being externally a cube;But differing hues of things do block and keepThe whole from being of one resultant hue.Then, too, the reason which entices usAt times to attribute colours to the seedsFalls quite to pieces, since white things are notCreate from white things, nor are black from black,But evermore they are create from thingsOf divers colours. Verily, the whiteWill rise more readily, is sooner bornOut of no colour, than of black or aughtWhich stands in hostile opposition thus.Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,And the primordials come not forth to light,'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour—Truly, what kind of colour could there beIn the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itselfA colour changes, gleaming variedly,When smote by vertical or slanting ray.Thus in the sunlight shows the down of dovesThat circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,Now, by a strange sensation it becomesGreen-emerald blended with the coral-red.The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light,Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,Without such blow these colours can't become.And since the pupil of the eye receivesWithin itself one kind of blow, when saidTo feel a white hue, then another kind,When feeling a black or any other hue,And since it matters nothing with what hueThe things thou touchest be perchance endowed,But rather with what sort of shape equipped,'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,But render forth sensations, as of touch,That vary with their varied forms.Besides,Since special shapes have not a special colour,And all formations of the primal germsCan be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then,Are not those objects which are of them madeSuffused, each kind with colours of every kind?For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly,Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen,Or swans turn black from seed of black, or beOf any single varied dye thou wilt.Again, the more an object's rent to bits,The more thou see its colour fade awayLittle by little till 'tis quite extinct;As happens when the gaudy linen's pickedShred after shred away: the purple there,Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;Hence canst perceive the fragments die awayFrom out their colour, long ere they departBack to the old primordials of things.And, last, since thou concedest not all bodiesSend out a voice or smell, it happens thusThat not to all thou givest sounds and smells.So, too, since we behold not all with eyes,'Tis thine to know some things there are as muchOrphaned of colour, as others without smell,And reft of sound; and those the mind alertNo less can apprehend than it can markThe things that lack some other qualities.But think not haply that the primal bodiesRemain despoiled alone of colour: so,Are they from warmth dissevered and from coldAnd from hot exhalations; and they move,Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throwNot any odour from their proper bodies.Just as, when undertaking to prepareA liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathesOdour of nectar, first of all behoovesThou seek, as far as find thou may and can,The inodorous olive-oil (which never sendsOne whiff of scent to nostrils), that it mayThe least debauch and ruin with sharp tangThe odorous essence with its body mixedAnd in it seethed. And on the same accountThe primal germs of things must not be thoughtTo furnish colour in begetting things,Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aughtFrom out themselves, nor any flavour, too,Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.
The rest; yet since these things are mortal all—The pliant mortal, with a body soft;The brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame;The hollow with a porous-all must beDisjoined from the primal elements,If still we wish under the world to layImmortal ground-works, whereupon may restThe sum of weal and safety, lest for theeAll things return to nothing utterly.Now, too: whate'er we see possessing senseMust yet confessedly be stablished allFrom elements insensate. And those signs,So clear to all and witnessed out of hand,Do not refute this dictum nor oppose;But rather themselves do lead us by the hand,Compelling belief that living things are bornOf elements insensate, as I say.Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dungLive worms spring up, when, after soaking rains,The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same:Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pasturesInto the cattle, the cattle their nature changeInto our bodies, and from our body, oftGrow strong the powers and bodies of wild beastsAnd mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changesAll foods to living frames, and procreatesFrom them the senses of live creatures all,In manner about as she uncoils in flamesDry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.And seest not, therefore, how it matters muchAfter what order are set the primal germs,And with what other germs they all are mixed,And what the motions that they give and get?But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind,Constraining thee to sundry argumentsAgainst belief that from insensate germsThe sensible is gendered?—Verily,'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed,Are yet unable to gender vital sense.And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairsThis to remember: that I have not saidSenses are born, under conditions all,From all things absolutely which createObjects that feel; but much it matters hereFirstly, how small the seeds which thus composeThe feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed,And lastly what they in positions be,In motions, in arrangements. Of which factsNaught we perceive in logs of wood and clods;And yet even these, when sodden by the rains,Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodiesOf matter, from their old arrangements stirredBy the new factor, then combine anewIn such a way as genders living things.Next, they who deem that feeling objects canFrom feeling objects be create, and these,In turn, from others that are wont to feel
When soft they make them; for all sense is linkedWith flesh, and thews, and veins—and such, we see,Are fashioned soft and of a mortal frame.Yet be't that these can last forever on:They'll have the sense that's proper to a part,Or else be judged to have a sense the sameAs that within live creatures as a whole.But of themselves those parts can never feel,For all the sense in every member backTo something else refers—a severed hand,Or any other member of our frame,Itself alone cannot support sensation.It thus remains they must resemble, then,Live creatures as a whole, to have the powerOf feeling sensation concordant in each partWith the vital sense; and so they're bound to feelThe things we feel exactly as do we.If such the case, how, then, can they be namedThe primal germs of things, and how avoidThe highways of destruction?—since they beMere living things and living things be allOne and the same with mortal. Grant they could,Yet by their meetings and their unions all,Naught would result, indeed, besides a throngAnd hurly-burly all of living things—Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts,By mere conglomeration each with eachCan still beget not anything of new.But if by chance they lose, inside a body,Their own sense and another sense take on,What, then, avails it to assign them thatWhich is withdrawn thereafter? And besides,To touch on proof that we pronounced before,Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowlsTo change to living chicks, and swarming wormsTo bubble forth when from the soaking rainsThe earth is sodden, sure, sensations allCan out of non-sensations be begot.But if one say that sense can so far riseFrom non-sense by mutation, or becauseBrought forth as by a certain sort of birth,'Twill serve to render plain to him and proveThere is no birth, unless there be beforeSome formed union of the elements,Nor any change, unless they be unite.In first place, senses can't in body beBefore its living nature's been begot,—Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersedAbout through rivers, air, and earth, and allThat is from earth created, nor has metIn combination, and, in proper mode,Conjoined into those vital motions whichKindle the all-perceiving senses—theyThat keep and guard each living thing soever.Again, a blow beyond its nature's strengthShatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,And on it goes confounding all the senseOf body and mind. For of the primal germsAre loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout,The vital motions blocked,—until the stuff,Shaken profoundly through the frame entire,Undoes the vital knots of soul from bodyAnd throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,Through all the pores. For what may we surmiseA blow inflicted can achieve besidesShaking asunder and loosening all apart?It happens also, when less sharp the blow,The vital motions which are left are wontOft to win out—win out, and stop and stillThe uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,And call each part to its own courses back,And shake away the motion of death which nowBegins its own dominion in the body,And kindle anew the senses almost gone.For by what other means could they the moreCollect their powers of thought and turn againFrom very doorways of destructionBack unto life, rather than pass wheretoThey be already well-nigh sped and soPass quite away?Again, since pain is thereWhere bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,Through vitals and through joints, within their seatsQuiver and quake inside, but soft delight,When they remove unto their place again:'Tis thine to know the primal germs can beAssaulted by no pain, nor from themselvesTake no delight; because indeed they areNot made of any bodies of first things,Under whose strange new motions they might acheOr pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.And so they must be furnished with no sense.Once more, if thus, that every living thingMay have sensation, needful 'tis to assignSense also to its elements, what thenOf those fixed elements from which mankindHath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed?Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men,Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins,And have the cunning hardihood to sayMuch on the composition of the world,And in their turn inquire what elementsThey have themselves,—since, thus the same in kindAs a whole mortal creature, even theyMust also be from other elements,And then those others from others evermore—So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grantThe seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and
thinks)Is yet derived out of other seedsWhich in their turn are doing just the same.But if we see what raving nonsense this,And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,Compounded out of laughing elements,And think and utter reason with learn'd speech,Though not himself compounded, for a fact,Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then,Cannot those things which we perceive to haveTheir own sensation be composed as wellOf intermixed seeds quite void of sense?
Once more, we all from seed celestial spring,To all is that same father, from whom earth,The fostering mother, as she takes the dropsOf liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods—The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees,And bears the human race and of the wildThe generations all, the while she yieldsThe foods wherewith all feed their frames and leadThe genial life and propagate their kind;Wherefore she owneth that maternal name,By old desert. What was before from earth,The same in earth sinks back, and what was sentFrom shores of ether, that, returning home,The vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth deathSo far annihilate things that she destroysThe bodies of matter; but she dissipatesTheir combinations, and conjoins anewOne element with others; and contrivesThat all things vary forms and change their coloursAnd get sensations and straight give them o'er.And thus may'st know it matters with what othersAnd in what structure the primordial germsAre held together, and what motions theyAmong themselves do give and get; nor thinkThat aught we see hither and thither afloatUpon the crest of things, and now a birthAnd straightway now a ruin, inheres at restDeep in the eternal atoms of the world.Why, even in these our very verses hereIt matters much with what and in what orderEach element is set: the same denoteSky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun;The same, the grains, and trees, and living things.And if not all alike, at least the most—But what distinctions by positions wrought!And thus no less in things themselves, when onceAround are changed the intervals between,The paths of matter, its connections, weights,Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes,The things themselves must likewise changed be.Now to true reason give thy mind for us.Since here strange truth is putting forth its mightTo hit thee in thine ears, a new aspectOf things to show its front. Yet naught there isSo easy that it standeth not at firstMore hard to credit than it after is;And naught soe'er that's great to such degree,Nor wonderful so far, but all mankindLittle by little abandon their surprise.Look upward yonder at the bright clear skyAnd what it holds—the stars that wander o'er,The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:Yet all, if now they first for mortals were,If unforeseen now first asudden shown,What might there be more wonderful to tell,What that the nations would before have daredLess to believe might be?—I fancy, naught—So strange had been the marvel of that sight.The which o'erwearied to behold, to-dayNone deigns look upward to those lucent realms.Then, spew not reason from thy mind away,Beside thyself because the matter's new,But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;And if to thee it then appeareth true,Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last,Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-manNow seeks the nature of the vast BeyondThere on the other side, that boundless sumWhich lies without the ramparts of the world,Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar,Toward which indeed the swift elan of thoughtFlies unencumbered forth.Firstly, we find,Off to all regions round, on either side,Above, beneath, throughout the universeEnd is there none—as I have taught, as tooThe very thing of itself declares aloud,And as from nature of the unbottomed deepShines clearly forth. Nor can we once supposeIn any way 'tis likely, (seeing that spaceTo all sides stretches infinite and free,And seeds, innumerable in number, in sumBottomless, there in many a manner fly,Bestirred in everlasting motion there),That only this one earth and sky of oursHath been create and that those bodies of stuff,So many, perform no work outside the same;Seeing, moreover, this world too hath beenBy nature fashioned, even as seeds of thingsBy innate motion chanced to clash and cling—After they'd been in many a manner drivenTogether at random, without design, in vain—And as at last those seeds together dwelt,Which, when together of a sudden thrown,Should alway furnish the commencements fitOf mighty things—the earth, the sea, the sky,And race of living creatures. Thus, I say,Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there areSuch congregations of matter otherwhere,Like this our world which vasty ether holdsIn huge embrace.Besides, when matter abundantIs ready there, when space on hand, nor objectNor any cause retards, no marvel 'tisThat things are carried on and made complete,Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there isSo great that not whole life-times of the livingCan count the tale...And if their force and nature abide the same,Able to throw the seeds of things togetherInto their places, even as here are thrownThe seeds together in this world of ours,'Tmust be confessed in other realms there areStill other worlds, still other breeds of men,And other generations of the wild.Hence too it happens in the sum there isNo one thing single of its kind in birth,And single and sole in growth, but rather it isOne member of some generated race,Among full many others of like kind.First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wildEven thus to be, and thus the scions of menTo be begot, and lastly the mute flocksOf scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.Wherefore confess we must on grounds the sameThat earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,Exist not sole and single—rather in numberExceeding number. Since that deeply setOld boundary stone of life remains for themNo less, and theirs a body of mortal birthNo less, than every kind which here on earthIs so abundant in its members found.Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,And forthwith free, is seen to do all thingsHerself and through herself of own accord,Rid of all gods. For—by their holy heartsWhich pass in long tranquillity of peaceUntroubled ages and a serene life!—Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the powerTo rule the sum of the immeasurable,To hold with steady hand the giant reinsOf the unfathomed deep? Who hath the powerAt once to roll a multitude of skies,At once to heat with fires ethereal allThe fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,To be at all times in all places near,To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shakeThe serene spaces of the sky with sound,And hurl his lightnings,—ha, and whelm how oftIn ruins his own temples, and to rave,Retiring to the wildernesses, thereAt practice with that thunderbolt of his,Which yet how often shoots the guilty by,And slays the honourable blameless ones!Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere sinceThe risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,Have many germs been added from outside,Have many seeds been added round about,Which the great All, the while it flung them on,Brought hither, that from them the sea and landsCould grow more big, and that the house of heavenMight get more room and raise its lofty roofsFar over earth, and air arise around.For bodies all, from out all regions, areDivided by blows, each to its proper thing,And all retire to their own proper kinds:The moist to moist retires; earth gets increaseFrom earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether;Till nature, author and ender of the world,Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth:As haps when that which hath been poured insideThe vital veins of life is now no moreThan that which ebbs within them and runs off.This is the point where life for each thing ends;This is the point where nature with her powersCurbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seestGrow big with glad increase, and step by stepClimb upward to ripe age, these to themselvesTake in more bodies than they send from selves,Whilst still the food is easily infusedThrough all the veins, and whilst the things are notSo far expanded that they cast awaySuch numerous atoms as to cause a wasteGreater than nutriment whereby they wax.For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from thingsMany a body ebbeth and runs off;But yet still more must come, until the thingsHave touched development's top pinnacle;Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strengthAnd falls away into a worser part.For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,As soon as ever its augmentation ends,It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides roundMore bodies, sending them from out itself.Nor easily now is food disseminateThrough all its veins; nor is that food enoughTo equal with a new supply on handThose plenteous exhalations it gives off.Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbingThey're made less dense and when from blows withoutThey are laid low; since food at last will failExtremest eld, and bodies from outsideCease not with thumping to undo a thingAnd overmaster by infesting blows.Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty worldOn all sides round shall taken be by storm,And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;'Tis food must prop and give support to all,—But to no purpose, since nor veins sufficeTo hold enough, nor nature ministersAs much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:Its age is broken and the earth, outwornWith many parturitions, scarce createsThe little lives—she who created erstAll generations and gave forth at birthEnormous bodies of wild beasts of old.For never, I fancy, did a golden cordFrom off the firmament above let downThe mortal generations to the fields;Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocksCreated them; but earth it was who bore—The same to-day who feeds them from herself.Besides, herself of own accord, she firstThe shining grains and vineyards of all joyCreated for mortality; herselfGave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,Even when aided by our toiling arms.We break the ox, and wear away the strengthOf sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-dayBarely avail for tilling of the fields,So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,So much increase our labour. Now to-dayThe aged ploughman, shaking of his head,Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his handsHave fallen out in vain, and, as he thinksHow present times are not as times of old,Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,Fulfilled with piety, supported lifeWith simple comfort in a narrow plot,Since, man for man, the measure of each fieldWas smaller far i' the old days. And, again,The gloomy planter of the withered vineRails at the season's change and wearies heaven,Nor grasps that all of things by sure degreesAre wasting away and going to the tomb,Outworn by venerable length of life.