And on such grounds it is that those who heldThe stuff of things is fire, and out of fireAlone the cosmic sum is formed, are seenMightily from true reason to have lapsed.Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comesThat Heraclitus, famous for dark speechAmong the silly, not the serious GreeksWho search for truth. For dolts are ever proneThat to bewonder and adore which hidesBeneath distorted words, holding that trueWhich sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.For how, I ask, can things so varied be,If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,If all the parts of fire did still preserveBut fire's own nature, seen before in gross.The heat were keener with the parts compressed,Milder, again, when severed or dispersed—And more than this thou canst conceive of naughtThat from such causes could become; much lessMight earth's variety of things be bornFrom any fires soever, dense or rare.This too: if they suppose a void in things,Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;But since they see such opposites of thoughtRising against them, and are loath to leaveAn unmixed void in things, they fear the steepAnd lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,That, if from things we take away the void,All things are then condensed, and out of allOne body made, which has no power to dartSwiftly from out itself not anything—As throws the fire its light and warmth around,Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.But if perhaps they think, in other wise,Fires through their combinations can be quenchedAnd change their substance, very well: behold,If fire shall spare to do so in no part,Then heat will perish utterly and all,And out of nothing would the world be formed.For change in anything from out its boundsMeans instant death of that which was before;And thus a somewhat must persist unharmedAmid the world, lest all return to naught,And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.Now since indeed there are those surest bodiesWhich keep their nature evermore the same,Upon whose going out and coming inAnd changed order things their nature change,And all corporeal substances transformed,'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then,Are not of fire. For 'twere of no availShould some depart and go away, and someBe added new, and some be changed in order,If still all kept their nature of old heat:For whatsoever they created thenWould still in any case be only fire.The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there areWhose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapesProduce the fire and which, by order changed,Do change the nature of the thing produced,And are thereafter nothing like to fireNor whatso else has power to send its bodiesWith impact touching on the senses' touch.Again, to say that all things are but fireAnd no true thing in number of all thingsExists but fire, as this same fellow says,Seems crazed folly. For the man himselfAgainst the senses by the senses fights,And hews at that through which is all belief,Through which indeed unto himself is knownThe thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinksThe senses truly can perceive the fire,He thinks they cannot as regards all else,Which still are palpably as clear to sense—To me a thought inept and crazy too.For whither shall we make appeal? for whatMore certain than our senses can there beWhereby to mark asunder error and truth?Besides, why rather do away with all,And wish to allow heat only, then denyThe fire and still allow all else to be?—Alike the madness either way it seems.Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of thingsTo be but fire, and out of fire the sum,And whosoever have constituted airAs first beginning of begotten things,And all whoever have held that of itselfWater alone contrives things, or that earthCreateth all and changes things anewTo divers natures, mightily they seemA long way to have wandered from the truth.Add, too, whoever make the primal stuffTwofold, by joining air to fire, and earthTo water; add who deem that things can growOut of the four—fire, earth, and breath, and rain;As first Empedocles of Acragas,Whom that three-cornered isle of all the landsBore on her coasts, around which flows and flowsIn mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas,Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits,Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shoresOf the Italic mainland. Here the wasteCharybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threatsTo gather anew such furies of its flamesAs with its force anew to vomit fires,Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anewIts lightnings' flash. And though for much she seemThe mighty and the wondrous isle to men,Most rich in all good things, and fortifiedWith generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'erPossessed within her aught of more renown,Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dearThan this true man. Nay, ever so far and pureThe lofty music of his breast divineLifts up its voice and tells of glories found,That scarce he seems of human stock create.Yet he and those forementioned (known to beSo far beneath him, less than he in all),Though, as discoverers of much goodly truth,They gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine,Responses holier and soundlier basedThan ever the Pythia pronounced for menFrom out the triped and the Delphian laurel,Have still in matter of first-elementsMade ruin of themselves, and, great men, greatIndeed and heavy there for them the fall:First, because, banishing the void from things,They yet assign them motion, and allowThings soft and loosely textured to exist,As air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains,Without admixture of void amid their frame.Next, because, thinking there can be no endIn cutting bodies down to less and lessNor pause established to their breaking up,They hold there is no minimum in things;Albeit we see the boundary point of aughtIs that which to our senses seems its least,Whereby thou mayst conjecture, that, becauseThe things thou canst not mark have boundary points,They surely have their minimums. Then, too,Since these philosophers ascribe to thingsSoft primal germs, which we behold to beOf birth and body mortal, thus, throughout,The sum of things must be returned to naught,And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew—Thou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.And, next, these bodies are among themselvesIn many ways poisons and foes to each,Wherefore their congress will destroy them quiteOr drive asunder as we see in stormsRains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.Thus too, if all things are create of four,And all again dissolved into the four,How can the four be called the primal germsOf things, more than all things themselves be thought,By retroversion, primal germs of them?For ever alternately are both begot,With interchange of nature and aspectFrom immemorial time. But if percaseThou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air,The dew of water can in such wise meetAs not by mingling to resign their nature,From them for thee no world can be create—No thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree:In the wild congress of this varied heapEach thing its proper nature will display,And air will palpably be seen mixed upWith earth together, unquenched heat with water.But primal germs in bringing things to birthMust have a latent, unseen quality,Lest some outstanding alien elementConfuse and minish in the thing createIts proper being.But these men beginFrom heaven, and from its fires; and first they feignThat fire will turn into the winds of air,Next, that from air the rain begotten is,And earth created out of rain, and thenThat all, reversely, are returned from earth—The moisture first, then air thereafter heat—And that these same ne'er cease in interchange,To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earthUnto the stars of the aethereal world—Which in no wise at all the germs can do.Since an immutable somewhat still must be,Lest all things utterly be sped to naught;For change in anything from out its boundsMeans instant death of that which was before.Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore,Suffer a changed state, they must deriveFrom others ever unconvertible,Lest an things utterly return to naught.Then why not rather presuppose there beBodies with such a nature furnished forthThat, if perchance they have created fire,Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn,Or added few, and motion and order changed)Fashion the winds of air, and thus all thingsForevermore be interchanged with all?"But facts in proof are manifest," thou sayest,"That all things grow into the winds of airAnd forth from earth are nourished, and unlessThe season favour at propitious hourWith rains enough to set the trees a-reelUnder the soak of bulking thunderheads,And sun, for its share, foster and give heat,No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow."True—and unless hard food and moisture softRecruited man, his frame would waste away,And life dissolve from out his thews and bones;For out of doubt recruited and fed are weBy certain things, as other things by others.Because in many ways the many germsCommon to many things are mixed in things,No wonder 'tis that therefore divers thingsBy divers things are nourished. And, again,Often it matters vastly with what others,In what positions the primordial germsAre bound together, and what motions, too,They give and get among themselves; for theseSame germs do put together sky, sea, lands,Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things,But yet commixed they are in divers modesWith divers things, forever as they move.Nay, thou beholdest in our verses hereElements many, common to many worlds,Albeit thou must confess each verse, each wordFrom one another differs both in senseAnd ring of sound—so much the elementsCan bring about by change of order alone.But those which are the primal germs of thingsHave power to work more combinations still,Whence divers things can be produced in turn.Now let us also take for scrutinyThe homeomeria of Anaxagoras,So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speechYieldeth no name in the Italian tongue,Although the thing itself is not o'erhardFor explanation. First, then, when he speaksOf this homeomeria of things, he thinksBones to be sprung from littlest bones minute,And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh,And blood created out of drops of blood,Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold,And earth concreted out of bits of earth,Fire made of fires, and water out of waters,Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.Yet he concedes not any void in things,Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.Wherefore to me he seems on both accountsTo err no less than those we named before.Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail—If they be germs primordial furnished forthWith but same nature as the things themselves,And travail and perish equally with those,And no rein curbs them from annihilation.For which will last against the grip and crushUnder the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?No one, methinks, when every thing will beAt bottom as mortal as whate'er we markTo perish by force before our gazing eyes.But my appeal is to the proofs aboveThat things cannot fall back to naught, nor yetFrom naught increase. And now again, since foodAugments and nourishes the human frame,'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bonesAnd thews are formed of particles unlikeTo them in kind; or if they say all foodsAre of mixed substance having in themselvesSmall bodies of thews, and bones, and also veinsAnd particles of blood, then every food,Solid or liquid, must itself be thoughtAs made and mixed of things unlike in kind—Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.Again, if all the bodies which upgrowFrom earth, are first within the earth, then earthMust be compound of alien substances.Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.Transfer the argument, and thou may'st useThe selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ashStill lurk unseen within the wood, the woodMust be compound of alien substancesWhich spring from out the wood.Right here remainsA certain slender means to skulk from truth,Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,Who holds that all things lurk commixed with allWhile that one only comes to view, of whichThe bodies exceed in number all the rest,And lie more close to hand and at the fore—A notion banished from true reason far.For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grainsShould oft, when crunched between the might of stones,Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught elseWhich in our human frame is fed; and thatRock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth dropsOf sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's;Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling upThe earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves,All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;Lastly we ought to find in cloven woodAshes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.But since fact teaches this is not the case,'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with thingsThuswise; but seeds, common to many things,Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things."But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest,"That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbedOne against other, smote by the blustering south,Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."Good sooth—yet fire is not ingraft in wood,But many are the seeds of heat, and whenRubbing together they together flow,They start the conflagrations in the forests.Whereas if flame, already fashioned, layStored up within the forests, then the firesCould not for any time be kept unseen,But would be laying all the wildwood wasteAnd burning all the boscage. Now dost see(Even as we said a little space above)How mightily it matters with what others,In what positions these same primal germsAre bound together? And what motions, too,They give and get among themselves? how, hence,The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can bodyBoth igneous and ligneous objects forth—Precisely as these words themselves are madeBy somewhat altering their elements,Although we mark with name indeed distinctThe igneous from the ligneous. Once again,If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest,Among all visible objects, cannot be,Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowedWith a like nature,—by thy vain deviceFor thee will perish all the germs of things:'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men,Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!And for myself, my mind is not deceivedHow dark it is: But the large hope of praiseHath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;On the same hour hath strook into my breastSweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,Trodden by step of none before. I joyTo come on undefiled fountains there,To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,To seek for this my head a signal crownFrom regions where the Muses never yetHave garlanded the temples of a man:First, since I teach concerning mighty things,And go right on to loose from round the mindThe tightened coils of dread religion;Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frameSongs so pellucid, touching all throughoutEven with the Muses' charm—which, as 'twould seem,Is not without a reasonable ground:But as physicians, when they seek to giveYoung boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touchThe brim around the cup with the sweet juiceAnd yellow of the honey, in order thatThe thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoledAs far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow downThe wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,Be yet not merely duped, but rather thusGrow strong again with recreated health:So now I too (since this my doctrine seemsIn general somewhat woeful unto thoseWho've had it not in hand, and since the crowdStarts back from it in horror) have desiredTo expound our doctrine unto thee in songSoft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse—If by such method haply I might holdThe mind of thee upon these lines of ours,Till thou see through the nature of all things,And how exists the interwoven frame.But since I've taught that bodies of matter, madeCompletely solid, hither and thither flyForevermore unconquered through all time,Now come, and whether to the sum of themThere be a limit or be none, for theeLet us unfold; likewise what has been foundTo be the wide inane, or room, or spaceWherein all things soever do go on,Let us examine if it finite beAll and entire, or reach unmeasured roundAnd downward an illimitable profound.Thus, then, the All that is is limitedIn no one region of its onward paths,For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.And a beyond 'tis seen can never beFor aught, unless still further on there beA somewhat somewhere that may bound the same—So that the thing be seen still on to whereThe nature of sensation of that thingCan follow it no longer. Now becauseConfess we must there's naught beside the sum,There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.It matters nothing where thou post thyself,In whatsoever regions of the same;Even any place a man has set him downStill leaves about him the unbounded allOutward in all directions; or, supposingA moment the all of space finite to be,If some one farthest traveller runs forthUnto the extreme coasts and throws aheadA flying spear, is't then thy wish to thinkIt goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sentAnd shoots afar, or that some object thereCan thwart and stop it? For the one or otherThou must admit and take. Either of whichShuts off escape for thee, and does compelThat thou concede the all spreads everywhere,Owning no confines. Since whether there beAught that may block and check it so it comesNot where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,Or whether borne along, in either view'Thas started not from any end. And soI'll follow on, and whereso'er thou setThe extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomesThereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to passThat nowhere can a world's-end be, and thatThe chance for further flight prolongs foreverThe flight itself. Besides, were all the spaceOf the totality and sum shut inWith fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,Then would the abundance of world's matter flowTogether by solid weight from everywhereStill downward to the bottom of the world,Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,Nor could there be a sky at all or sun—Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,By having settled during infinite time.But in reality, repose is givenUnto no bodies 'mongst the elements,Because there is no bottom whereuntoThey might, as 'twere, together flow, and whereThey might take up their undisturbed abodes.In endless motion everything goes onForevermore; out of all regions, evenOut of the pit below, from forth the vast,Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.The nature of room, the space of the abyssIs such that even the flashing thunderboltsCan neither speed upon their courses through,Gliding across eternal tracts of time,Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,That they may bate their journeying one whit:Such huge abundance spreads for things around—Room off to every quarter, without end.Lastly, before our very eyes is seenThing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,And sea in turn all lands; but for the AllTruly is nothing which outside may bound.That, too, the sum of things itself may notHave power to fix a measure of its own,Great nature guards, she who compels the voidTo bound all body, as body all the void,Thus rendering by these alternates the wholeAn infinite; or else the one or other,Being unbounded by the other, spreads,Even by its single nature, ne'erthelessImmeasurably forth....Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of godsCould keep their place least portion of an hour:For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borneAlong the illimitable inane afar,Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combinedAnd given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,It could not be united. For of truthNeither by counsel did the primal germs'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,Each in its proper place; nor did they make,Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;But since, being many and changed in many modesAlong the All, they're driven abroad and vexedBy blow on blow, even from all time of old,They thus at last, after attempting allThe kinds of motion and conjoining, comeInto those great arrangements out of whichThis sum of things established is create,By which, moreover, through the mighty years,It is preserved, when once it has been thrownInto the proper motions, bringing to passThat ever the streams refresh the greedy mainWith river-waves abounding, and that earth,Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,Renews her broods, and that the lusty raceOf breathing creatures bears and blooms, and thatThe gliding fires of ether are alive—What still the primal germs nowise could do,Unless from out the infinite of spaceCould come supply of matter, whence in seasonThey're wont whatever losses to repair.For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,Losing its body, when deprived of food:So all things have to be dissolved as soonAs matter, diverted by what means soeverFrom off its course, shall fail to be on hand.Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,On every side, whatever sum of a worldHas been united in a whole. They canIndeed, by frequent beating, check a part,Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;But meanwhile often are they forced to springRebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,Unto those elements whence a world derives,Room and a time for flight, permitting themTo be from off the massy union borneFree and afar. Wherefore, again, again:Needs must there come a many for supply;And also, that the blows themselves shall beUnfailing ever, must there ever beAn infinite force of matter all sides round.And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, farFrom yielding faith to that notorious talk:That all things inward to the centre press;And thus the nature of the world stands firmWith never blows from outward, nor can beNowhere disparted—since all height and depthHave always inward to the centre pressed(If thou art ready to believe that aughtItself can rest upon itself ); or thatThe ponderous bodies which be under earthDo all press upwards and do come to restUpon the earth, in some way upside down,Like to those images of things we seeAt present through the waters. They contend,With like procedure, that all breathing thingsHead downward roam about, and yet cannotTumble from earth to realms of sky below,No more than these our bodies wing awaySpontaneously to vaults of sky above;That, when those creatures look upon the sun,We view the constellations of the night;And that with us the seasons of the skyThey thus alternately divide, and thusDo pass the night coequal to our days,But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,Which they've embraced with reasoning perverseFor centre none can be where world is stillBoundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,Could aught take there a fixed position moreThan for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.For all of room and space we call the voidMust both through centre and non-centre yieldAlike to weights where'er their motions tend.Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,Bodies can be at standstill in the void,Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may voidFurnish support to any,—nay, it must,True to its bent of nature, still give way.Thus in such manner not at all can thingsBe held in union, as if overcomeBy craving for a centre.But besides,Seeing they feign that not all bodies pressTo centre inward, rather only thoseOf earth and water (liquid of the sea,And the big billows from the mountain slopes,And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,In earthen body), contrariwise, they teachHow the thin air, and with it the hot fire,Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,For this all ether quivers with bright stars,And the sun's flame along the blue is fed(Because the heat, from out the centre flying,All gathers there), and how, again, the boughsUpon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,Unless, little by little, from out the earthFor each were nutriment...
Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,The ramparts of the world should flee away,Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,And lest all else should likewise follow after,Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burstAnd splinter upward, and the earth forthwithWithdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,Away forever, and, that instant, naughtOf wrack and remnant would be left, besideThe desolate space, and germs invisible.For on whatever side thou deemest firstThe primal bodies lacking, lo, that sideWill be for things the very door of death:Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,Out and abroad.These points, if thou wilt ponder,Then, with but paltry trouble led along...
For one thing after other will grow clear,Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.
'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the windsRoll up its waste of waters, from the landTo watch another's labouring anguish far,Not that we joyously delight that manShould thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweetTo mark what evils we ourselves be spared;'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strifeOf armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naughtThere is more goodly than to hold the highSerene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,Whence thou may'st look below on other menAnd see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersedIn their lone seeking for the road of life;Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,Pressing through days and nights with hugest toilFor summits of power and mastery of the world.O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!In how great perils, in what darks of lifeAre spent the human years, however brief!—O not to see that nature for herselfBarks after nothing, save that pain keep off,Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoyDelightsome feeling, far from care and fear!Therefore we see that our corporeal lifeNeeds little, altogether, and only suchAs takes the pain away, and can besidesStrew underneath some number of delights.More grateful 'tis at times (for nature cravesNo artifice nor luxury), if forsoothThere be no golden images of boysAlong the halls, with right hands holding outThe lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,And if the house doth glitter not with goldNor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resoundNo fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grassBeside a river of water, underneathA big tree's boughs, and merrily to refreshOur frames, with no vast outlay—most of allIf the weather is laughing and the times of the yearBesprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lieUpon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, sinceTreasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reignAvail us naught for this our body, thusReckon them likewise nothing for the mind:Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forthThy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,Rousing a mimic warfare—either sideStrengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;Or save when also thou beholdest forthThy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,Religion pales and flees thy mind; O thenThe fears of death leave heart so free of care.But if we note how all this pomp at lastIs but a drollery and a mocking sport,And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swordsBut among kings and lords of all the worldMingles undaunted, nor is overawedBy gleam of gold nor by the splendour brightOf purple robe, canst thou then doubt that thisIs aught, but power of thinking?—when, besidesThe whole of life but labours in the dark.For just as children tremble and fear allIn the viewless dark, so even we at timesDread in the light so many things that beNo whit more fearsome than what children feign,Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.This terror then, this darkness of the mind,Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,But only nature's aspect and her law.
Now come: I will untangle for thy stepsNow by what motions the begetting bodiesOf the world-stuff beget the varied world,And then forever resolve it when begot,And by what force they are constrained to this,And what the speed appointed unto themWherewith to travel down the vast inane:Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,Since we behold each thing to wane away,And we observe how all flows on and off,As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyesHow eld withdraws each object at the end,Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thingDiminish what they part from, but endowWith increase those to which in turn they come,Constraining these to wither in old age,And those to flower at the prime (and yetBiding not long among them). Thus the sumForever is replenished, and we liveAs mortals by eternal give and take.The nations wax, the nations wane away;In a brief space the generations pass,And like to runners hand the lamp of lifeOne unto other.But if thou believeThat the primordial germs of things can stop,And in their stopping give new motions birth,Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.For since they wander through the void inane,All the primordial germs of things must needsBe borne along, either by weight their own,Or haply by another's blow without.For, when, in their incessancy so oftThey meet and clash, it comes to pass amainThey leap asunder, face to face: not strange—Being most hard, and solid in their weights,And naught opposing motion, from behind.And that more clearly thou perceive how allThese mites of matter are darted round about,Recall to mind how nowhere in the sumOf All exists a bottom,—nowhere isA realm of rest for primal bodies; since(As amply shown and proved by reason sure)Space has no bound nor measure, and extendsUnmetered forth in all directions round.Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubtNo rest is rendered to the primal bodiesAlong the unfathomable inane; but rather,Inveterately plied by motions mixed,Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leaveHuge gaps between, and some from off the blowAre hurried about with spaces small between.And all which, brought together with slight gaps,In more condensed union bound aback,Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,—These form the irrefragable roots of rocksAnd the brute bulks of iron, and what elseIs of their kind...The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,Leaving huge gaps between: and these supplyFor us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.And many besides wander the mighty void—Cast back from unions of existing things,Nowhere accepted in the universe,And nowise linked in motions to the rest.And of this fact (as I record it here)An image, a type goes on before our eyesPresent each moment; for behold wheneverThe sun's light and the rays, let in, pour downAcross dark halls of houses: thou wilt seeThe many mites in many a manner mixedAmid a void in the very light of the rays,And battling on, as in eternal strife,And in battalions contending without halt,In meetings, partings, harried up and down.From this thou mayest conjecture of what sortThe ceaseless tossing of primordial seedsAmid the mightier void—at least so farAs small affair can for a vaster serve,And by example put thee on the spoorOf knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fitThou turn thy mind the more unto these bodiesWhich here are witnessed tumbling in the light:Namely, because such tumblings are a signThat motions also of the primal stuffSecret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelledBy viewless blows, to change its little course,And beaten backwards to return again,Hither and thither in all directions round.Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,From the primeval atoms; for the samePrimordial seeds of things first move of self,And then those bodies built of unions smallAnd nearest, as it were, unto the powersOf the primeval atoms, are stirred upBy impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,And these thereafter goad the next in size:Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,And stage by stage emerges to our sense,Until those objects also move which weCan mark in sunbeams, though it not appearsWhat blows do urge them.Herein wonder notHow 'tis that, while the seeds of things are allMoving forever, the sum yet seems to standSupremely still, except in cases whereA thing shows motion of its frame as whole.For far beneath the ken of senses liesThe nature of those ultimates of the world;And so, since those themselves thou canst not see,Their motion also must they veil from men—For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oftYet hide their motions, when afar from usAlong the distant landscape. Often thus,Upon a hillside will the woolly flocksBe cropping their goodly food and creeping aboutWhither the summons of the grass, begemmedWith the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar—A glint of white at rest on a green hill.Again, when mighty legions, marching round,Fill all the quarters of the plains below,Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheenShoots up the sky, and all the fields aboutGlitter with brass, and from beneath, a soundGoes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, sendThe voices onward to the stars of heaven,And hither and thither darts the cavalry,And of a sudden down the midmost fieldsCharges with onset stout enough to rockThe solid earth: and yet some post there isUp the high mountains, viewed from which they seemTo stand—a gleam at rest along the plains.Now what the speed to matter's atoms givenThou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:When first the dawn is sprinkling with new lightThe lands, and all the breed of birds abroadFlit round the trackless forests, with liquid notesFilling the regions along the mellow air,We see 'tis forthwith manifest to manHow suddenly the risen sun is wontAt such an hour to overspread and clotheThe whole with its own splendour; but the sun'sWarm exhalations and this serene lightTravel not down an empty void; and thusThey are compelled more slowly to advance,Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;Nor one by one travel these particlesOf the warm exhalations, but are allEntangled and enmassed, whereby at onceEach is restrained by each, and from withoutChecked, till compelled more slowly to advance.But the primordial atoms with their oldSimple solidity, when forth they travelAlong the empty void, all undelayedBy aught outside them there, and they, each oneBeing one unit from nature of its parts,Are borne to that one place on which they striveStill to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borneThan light of sun, and over regions rush,Of space much vaster, in the self-same timeThe sun's effulgence widens round the sky.
Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,To see the law whereby each thing goes on.But some men, ignorant of matter, think,Opposing this, that not without the gods,In such adjustment to our human ways,Can nature change the seasons of the years,And bring to birth the grains and all of elseTo which divine Delight, the guide of life,Persuades mortality and leads it on,That, through her artful blandishments of love,It propagate the generations still,Lest humankind should perish. When they feignThat gods have stablished all things but for man,They seem in all ways mightily to lapseFrom reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knewWhat seeds primordial are, yet would I dareThis to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment basedUpon the ways and conduct of the skies—This to maintain by many a fact besides—That in no wise the nature of the worldFor us was builded by a power divine—So great the faults it stands encumbered with:The which, my Memmius, later on, for theeWe will clear up. Now as to what remainsConcerning motions we'll unfold our thought.Now is the place, meseems, in these affairsTo prove for thee this too: nothing corporealOf its own force can e'er be upward borne,Or upward go—nor let the bodies of flamesDeceive thee here: for they engendered areWith urge to upwards, taking thus increase,Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,Though all the weight within them downward bears.Nor, when the fires will leap from under roundThe roofs of houses, and swift flame laps upTimber and beam, 'tis then to be supposedThey act of own accord, no force beneathTo urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, dischargedFrom out our bodies, spurts its jets aloftAnd spatters gore. And hast thou never markedWith what a force the water will disgorgeTimber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,We push them in, and, many though we be,The more we press with main and toil, the moreThe water vomits up and flings them back,That, more than half their length, they there emerge,Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,That all the weight within them downward bearsThrough empty void. Well, in like manner, flamesOught also to be able, when pressed out,Through winds of air to rise aloft, even thoughThe weight within them strive to draw them down.Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,How after them they draw long trails of flameWherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?How stars and constellations drop to earth,Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heavenSheds round to every quarter its large heat,And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,The fires dash zig-zag—and that flaming powerFalls likewise down to earth.In these affairsWe wish thee also well aware of this:The atoms, as their own weight bears them downPlumb through the void, at scarce determined times,In scarce determined places, from their courseDecline a little—call it, so to speak,Mere changed trend. For were it not their wontThuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;And then collisions ne'er could be nor blowsAmong the primal elements; and thusNature would never have created aught.But, if perchance be any that believeThe heavier bodies, as more swiftly bornePlumb down the void, are able from aboveTo strike the lighter, thus engendering blowsAble to cause those procreant motions, farFrom highways of true reason they retire.For whatsoever through the waters fall,Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,Each after its weight—on this account, becauseBoth bulk of water and the subtle airBy no means can retard each thing alike,But give more quick before the heavier weight;But contrariwise the empty void cannot,On any side, at any time, to aughtOppose resistance, but will ever yield,True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,With equal speed, though equal not in weight,Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.Thus ne'er at all have heavier from aboveBeen swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokesWhich cause those divers motions, by whose meansNature transacts her work. And so I say,The atoms must a little swerve at times—But only the least, lest we should seem to feignMotions oblique, and fact refute us there.For this we see forthwith is manifest:Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,Down on its headlong journey from above,At least so far as thou canst mark; but whoIs there can mark by sense that naught can swerveAt all aside from off its road's straight line?Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,And from the old ever arise the newIn fixed order, and primordial seedsProduce not by their swerving some new startOf motion to sunder the covenants of fate,That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,Whence is it wrested from the fates,—this willWhereby we step right forward where desireLeads each man on, whereby the same we swerveIn motions, not as at some fixed time,Nor at some fixed line of space, but whereThe mind itself has urged? For out of doubtIn these affairs 'tis each man's will itselfThat gives the start, and hence throughout our limbsIncipient motions are diffused. Again,Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,The bars are opened, how the eager strengthOf horses cannot forward break as soonAs pants their mind to do? For it behoovesThat all the stock of matter, through the frame,Be roused, in order that, through every joint,Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;So thus thou seest initial motion's genderedFrom out the heart, aye, verily, proceedsFirst from the spirit's will, whence at the last'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powersAnd mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enoughAll matter of our total body goes,Hurried along, against our own desire—Until the will has pulled upon the reinsAnd checked it back, throughout our members all;At whose arbitrament indeed sometimesThe stock of matter's forced to change its path,Throughout our members and throughout our joints,And, after being forward cast, to beReined up, whereat it settles back again.So seest thou not, how, though external forceDrive men before, and often make them move,Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,Yet is there something in these breasts of oursStrong to combat, strong to withstand the same?—Wherefore no less within the primal seedsThou must admit, besides all blows and weight,Some other cause of motion, whence derivesThis power in us inborn, of some free act.—Since naught from nothing can become, we see.For weight prevents all things should come to passThrough blows, as 'twere, by some external force;But that man's mind itself in all it doesHath not a fixed necessity within,Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelledTo bear and suffer,—this state comes to manFrom that slight swervement of the elementsIn no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:For naught gives increase and naught takes away;On which account, just as they move to-day,The elemental bodies moved of oldAnd shall the same hereafter evermore.And what was wont to be begot of oldShall be begotten under selfsame termsAnd grow and thrive in power, so far as givenTo each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.The sum of things there is no power can change,For naught exists outside, to which can fleeOut of the world matter of any kind,Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,Break in upon the founded world, and changeWhole nature of things, and turn their motions about.