BOOK II

                        PROEM

  'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds

  Roll up its waste of waters, from the land

  To watch another's labouring anguish far,

  Not that we joyously delight that man

  Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet

  To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;

  'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife

  Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,

  Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught

  There is more goodly than to hold the high

  Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,

  Whence thou may'st look below on other men

  And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed

  In their lone seeking for the road of life;

  Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,

  Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil

  For summits of power and mastery of the world.

  O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!

  In how great perils, in what darks of life

  Are spent the human years, however brief! -

  O not to see that Nature for herself

  Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,

  Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy

  Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!

  Therefore we see that our corporeal life

  Needs little, altogether, and only such

  As takes the pain away, and can besides

  Strew underneath some number of delights.

  More grateful 'tis at times (for Nature craves

  No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth

  There be no golden images of boys

  Along the halls, with right hands holding out

  The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,

  And if the house doth glitter not with gold

  Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound

  No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,

  Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass

  Beside a river of water, underneath

  A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh

  Our frames, with no vast outlay - most of all

  If the weather is laughing and the times of the year

  Besprinkle 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 lie

  Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since

  Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign

  Avail us naught for this our body, thus

  Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:

  Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth

  Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,

  Rousing a mimic warfare - either side

  Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,

  Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;

  Or save when also thou beholdest forth

  Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:

  For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,

  Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then

  The fears of death leave heart so free of care.

  But if we note how all this pomp at last

  Is 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 swords

  But among kings and lords of all the world

  Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed

  By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright

  Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this

  Is aught, but power of thinking? - when, besides

  The whole of life but labours in the dark.

  For just as children tremble and fear all

  In the viewless dark, so even we at times

  Dread in the light so many things that be

  No 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.

                 ATOMIC MOTIONS

    Now come: I will untangle for thy steps

  Now by what motions the begetting bodies

  Of 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 them

  Wherewith 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 eyes

  How eld withdraws each object at the end,

  Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,

  Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing

  Diminish what they part from, but endow

  With increase those to which in turn they come,

  Constraining these to wither in old age,

  And those to flower at the prime (and yet

  Biding not long among them). Thus the sum

  Forever is replenished, and we live

  As 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 life

  One unto other.

                         But if thou believe

  That 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 needs

  Be borne along, either by weight their own,

  Or haply by another's blow without.

  For, when, in their incessancy so oft

  They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain

  They 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 all

  These mites of matter are darted round about,

  Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum

  Of All exists a bottom, - nowhere is

  A realm of rest for primal bodies; since

  (As amply shown and proved by reason sure)

  Space has no bound nor measure, and extends

  Unmetered forth in all directions round.

  Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt

  No rest is rendered to the primal bodies

  Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,

  Inveterately plied by motions mixed,

  Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave

  Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow

  Are 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 intertangled shapes, -

  These form the irrefragable roots of rocks

  And the brute bulks of iron, and what else

  Is of their kind...

  The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,

  Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply

  For 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 eyes

  Present each moment; for behold whenever

  The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down

  Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see

  The many mites in many a manner mixed

  Amid 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 sort

  The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds

  Amid the mightier void - at least so far

  As small affair can for a vaster serve,

  And by example put thee on the spoor

  Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit

  Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies

  Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:

  Namely, because such tumblings are a sign

  That motions also of the primal stuff

  Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.

  For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled

  By 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 same

  Primordial seeds of things first move of self,

  And then those bodies built of unions small

  And nearest, as it were, unto the powers

  Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up

  By 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 we

  Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears

  What blows do urge them.

                            Herein wonder not

  How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all

  Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand

  Supremely still, except in cases where

  A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.

  For far beneath the ken of senses lies

  The 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, oft

  Yet hide their motions, when afar from us

  Along the distant landscape. Often thus,

  Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks

  Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about

  Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed

  With 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 sheen

  Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about

  Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound

  Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,

  And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send

  The voices onward to the stars of heaven,

  And hither and thither darts the cavalry,

  And of a sudden down the midmost fields

  Charges with onset stout enough to rock

  The solid earth: and yet some post there is

  Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem

  To stand - a gleam at rest along the plains.

     Now what the speed to matter's atoms given

  Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:

  When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light

  The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad

  Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes

  Filling the regions along the mellow air,

  We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man

  How suddenly the risen sun is wont

  At such an hour to overspread and clothe

  The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's

  Warm exhalations and this serene light

  Travel not down an empty void; and thus

  They are compelled more slowly to advance,

  Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;

  Nor one by one travel these particles

  Of the warm exhalations, but are all

  Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once

  Each is restrained by each, and from without

  Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.

  But the primordial atoms with their old

  Simple solidity, when forth they travel

  Along the empty void, all undelayed

  By aught outside them there, and they, each one

  Being one unit from nature of its parts,

  Are borne to that one place on which they strive

  Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,

  Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne

  Than light of sun, and over regions rush,

  Of space much vaster, in the self-same time

  The 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 else

  To 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 feign

  That gods have stablished all things but for man,

  They seem in all ways mightily to lapse

  From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew

  What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare

  This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based

  Upon the ways and conduct of the skies -

  This to maintain by many a fact besides -

  That in no wise the nature of the world

  For us was builded by a power divine -

  So great the faults it stands encumbered with:

  The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee

  We will clear up. Now as to what remains

  Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.

    Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs

  To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal

  Of its own force can e'er be upward borne,

  Or upward go - nor let the bodies of flames

  Deceive thee here: for they engendered are

  With 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 round

  The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up

  Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed

  They act of own accord, no force beneath

  To urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged

  From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft

  And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked

  With what a force the water will disgorge

  Timber 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 more

  The 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 bears

  Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames

  Ought also to be able, when pressed out,

  Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though

  The 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 flame

  Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?

  How stars and constellations drop to earth,

  Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven

  Sheds 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 power

  Falls likewise down to earth.

                                In these affairs

  We wish thee also well aware of this:

  The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

  Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,

  In scarce determined places, from their course

  Decline a little - call it, so to speak,

  Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

  Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,

  Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;

  And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows

  Among the primal elements; and thus

  Nature would never have created aught.

    But, if perchance be any that believe

  The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne

  Plumb down the void, are able from above

  To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows

  Able to cause those procreant motions, far

  From highways of true reason they retire.

  For whatsoever through the waters fall,

  Or through thin air, must their descent,

  Each after its weight - on this account, because

  Both bulk of water and the subtle air

  By 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 aught

  Oppose 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 above

  Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes

  Which cause those divers motions, by whose means

  Nature transacts her work. And so I say,

  The atoms must a little swerve at times -

  But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

  Motions 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 who

  Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

  At 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 new

  In fixed order, and primordial seeds

  Produce not by their swerving some new start

  Of 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 will

  Whereby we step right forward where desire

  Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

  In motions, not as at some fixed time,

  Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

  The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

  In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself

  That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

  Incipient motions are diffused. Again,

  Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,

  The bars are opened, how the eager strength

  Of horses cannot forward break as soon

  As pants their mind to do? For it behooves

  That 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 gendered

  From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds

  First 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 powers

  And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough

  All matter of our total body goes,

  Hurried along, against our own desire -

  Until the will has pulled upon the reins

  And checked it back, throughout our members all;

  At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes

  The stock of matter's forced to change its path,

  Throughout our members and throughout our joints,

  And, after being forward cast, to be

  Reined up, whereat it settles back again.

  So seest thou not, how, though external force

  Drive men before, and often make them move,

  Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,

  Yet is there something in these breasts of ours

  Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same? -

  Wherefore no less within the primal seeds

  Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,

  Some other cause of motion, whence derives

  This power in us inborn, of some free act. -

  Since naught from nothing can become, we see.

  For weight prevents all things should come to pass

  Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;

  But that man's mind itself in all it does

  Hath not a fixed necessity within,

  Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled

  To bear and suffer, - this state comes to man

  From that slight swervement of the elements

  In 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 old

  And shall the same hereafter evermore.

  And what was wont to be begot of old

  Shall be begotten under selfsame terms

  And grow and thrive in power, so far as given

  To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.

  The sum of things there is no power can change,

  For naught exists outside, to which can flee

  Out of the world matter of any kind,

  Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,

  Break in upon the founded world, and change

  Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.

                ATOMIC FORMS AND THEIR

                     COMBINATIONS

    Now come, and next hereafter apprehend

  What 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 furnished

  With one like form, but rather not at all

  In general have they likeness each with each,

  No marvel: since the stock of them's so great

  That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,

  They must indeed not one and all be marked

  By equal outline and by shape the same.

  Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks

  Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,

  And joyous herds around, and all the wild,

  And all the breeds of birds - both those that teem

  In 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 still

  Each from the other still unlike in shape.

  Nor in no other wise could offspring know

  Mother, nor mother offspring - which we see

  They 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 breast

  Breathing 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 lanes

  With her complaints; and oft she seeks again

  Within 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 thereby

  Distract her mind or lighten pain the least -

  So keen her search for something known and hers.

  Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats

  Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs

  The 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 kind

  Is so far like another, that there still

  Is not in shapes some difference running through.

  By a like law we see how earth is pied

  With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea

  Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.

  Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things

  Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands

  After a fixed pattern of one other,

  They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes

  In types dissimilar to one another.

  Easy enough by thought of mind to solve

  Why fires of lightning more can penetrate

  Than 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 horn

  On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.

  And why? - unless those bodies of light should be

  Finer than those of water's genial showers.

  We see how quickly through a colander

  The 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. Thus

  It comes that the primordials cannot be

  So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,

  One through each several hole of anything.

    And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk

  Yields 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 whatsoever

  Can touch the senses pleasingly are made

  Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those

  Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held

  Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so

  Are 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 suppose

  That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw

  Consists of elements as smooth as song

  Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings

  The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose

  That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce

  When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage

  Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,

  And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;

  Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues

  Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting

  Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,

  Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.

  For never a shape which charms our sense was made

  Without some elemental smoothness; whilst

  Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed

  Still with some roughness in its elements.

  Some, too, there are which justly are supposed

  To 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 wine

  And flavours of the gummed elecampane.

  Again, that glowing fire and icy rime

  Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting

  Our 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 born

  Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out

  Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;

  Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl

  Disordered in the body and confound

  By tumult and confusion all the sense -

  As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand

  Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.

  On which account, the elemental forms

  Must differ widely, as enabled thus

  To cause diverse sensations.

                               And, again,

  What seems to us the hardened and condensed

  Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked,

  Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere

  By branch-like atoms - of which sort the chief

  Are 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, formed

  Of fluid body, they indeed must be

  Of elements more smooth and round - because

  Their globules severally will not cohere:

  To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand

  Is quite as easy as drinking water down,

  And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.

  But that thou seest among the things that flow

  Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is,

  Is not the least a marvel...

  For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are

  And 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 see

  How the sweet water, after filtering through

  So often underground, flows freshened forth

  Into some hollow; for it leaves above

  The primal germs of nauseating brine,

  Since cling the rough more readily in earth.

  Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse

  Upon 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 perceive

  They're not from linked but pointed elements.

    The which now having taught, I will go on

  To bind thereto a fact to this allied

  And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs

  Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.

  For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds

  Would 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 parts

  Consist the primal bodies, or add a few:

  When, now, by placing all these parts of one

  At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,

  Thou hast with every kind of shift found out

  What the aspect of shape of its whole body

  Each new arrangement gives, for what remains,

  If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,

  New parts must then be added; 'twill follow next,

  If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,

  That by like logic each arrangement still

  Requires its increment of other parts.

  Ergo, an augmentation of its frame

  Follows upon each novelty of forms.

  Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake

  That seeds have infinite differences in form,

  Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be

  Of an immeasurable immensity -

  Which I have taught above cannot be proved.

  And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam

  Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye

  Of the Thessalian shell...

  The peacock's golden generations, stained

  With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown

  By 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 rest

  To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,

  Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.

  Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given

  Their fixed limitations which do bound

  Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed

  That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes

  Does differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats

  Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year

  The forward path is fixed, and by like law

  O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.

  For each degree of hat, and each of cold,

  And the half-warm, all filling up the sum

  In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there

  Betwixt the two extremes: the things create

  Must differ, therefore, by a finite change,

  Since at each end marked off they ever are

  By fixed point - on one side plagued by flames

  And on the other by congealing frosts.

    The which now having taught, I will go on

  To bind thereto a fact to this allied

  And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs

  Which have been fashioned all of one like shape

  Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms

  Themselves are finite in divergences,

  Then those which are alike will have to be

  Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains

  A 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 around

  By 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 kind

  Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall

  With ivory ramparts India about,

  That her interiors cannot entered be -

  So big her count of brutes of which we see

  Such few examples. Or suppose, besides,

  We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole

  With body born, to which is nothing like

  In all the lands: yet now unless shall be

  An infinite count of matter out of which

  Thus 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 tale

  Be 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 shipwrecks piled,

  The mighty main is wont to scatter wide

  The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,

  The masts and swimming oars, so that afar

  Along all shores of lands are seen afloat

  The carven fragments of the rended poop,

  Giving a lesson to mortality

  To shun the ambush of the faithless main,

  The violence and the guile, and trust it not

  At any hour, however much may smile

  The crafty enticements of the placid deep:

  Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true

  That certain seeds are finite in their tale,

  The various tides of matter, then, must needs

  Scatter them flung throughout the ages all,

  So that not ever can they join, as driven

  Together into union, nor remain

  In 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 prevail

  Forever, nor eternally entomb

  The welfare of the world; nor, further, can

  Those motions that give birth to things and growth

  Keep them forever when created there.

  Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,

  With equal strife among the elements

  Goes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail

  The vital forces of the world - or fall.

  Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail

  Of infants coming to the shores of light:

  No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed

  That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,

  The wild laments, companions old of death

  And the black rites.

                          This, too, in these affairs

  'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned

  With no forgetting brain: nothing there is

  Whose nature is apparent out of hand

  That of one kind of elements consists -

  Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.

  And whatsoe'er possesses in itself

  More largely many powers and properties

  Shows thus that here within itself there are

  The largest number of kinds and differing shapes

  Of elements. And, chief of all, the earth

  Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs,

  Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore

  The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise -

  For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,

  Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed

  From more profounder fires - and she, again,

  Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise

  The shining grains and gladsome trees for men;

  Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures

  Can 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 air

  To drive her team of lions, teaching thus

  That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie

  Resting on other earth. Unto her car

  They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,

  However savage, must be tamed and chid

  By care of parents. They have girt about

  With turret-crown the summit of her head,

  Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,

  'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned

  With 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 her

  Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,

  From out those regions 'twas that grain began

  Through all the world. To her do they assign

  The Galli, the emasculate, since thus

  They wish to show that men who violate

  The majesty of the mother and have proved

  Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged

  Unfit to give unto the shores of light

  A living progeny. The Galli come:

  And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines

  Resound around to bangings of their hands;

  The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;

  The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds

  In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,

  Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power

  The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts

  To 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 journeyings

  With coin of brass and silver, gifting her

  With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade

  With flowers of roses falling like the snow

  Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.

  Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks

  Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since

  Haply among themselves they use to play

  In games of arms and leap in measure round

  With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake

  The terrorizing crests upon their heads,

  This is the armed troop that represents

  The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,

  As runs the story, whilom did out-drown

  That 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 wound

  Along her heart. And it is on this account

  That armed they escort the mighty Mother,

  Or else because they signify by this

  That she, the goddess, teaches men to be

  Eager with armed valour to defend

  Their 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 enjoy

  Immortal 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 wrath

  They 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 forth

  Into the light of sun. And here, whoso

  Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or

  The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse

  The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce

  The liquor's proper designation, him

  Let us permit to go on calling earth

  Mother of Gods, if only he will spare

  To taint his soul with foul religion.

   So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,

   And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing

  Often together along one grassy plain,

  Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking

  From 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 earth

  Are the distinct diversities of matter.

  Hence, further, every creature - any one

  From out them all - compounded is the same

  Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews -

  All differing vastly in their forms, and built

  Of 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 power

  To throw forth fire and send out light from under,

  To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.

  If, with like reasoning of mind, all else

  Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus

  That in their frame the seeds of many things

  They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.

  Further, thou markest much, to which are given

  Along 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 frame

  Where the bright colour from the dye goes not;

  And colour in one way, flavour in quite another

  Works inward to our senses - so mayst see

  They 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 ways

  All things can be conjoined; for then wouldest view

  Portents 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 earth

  Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame

  From hideous jaws - Of which 'tis simple fact

  That none have been begot; because we see

  All are from fixed seed and fixed dam

  Engendered and so function as to keep

  Throughout 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 see

  How, contrariwise, Nature upon the ground

  Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many

  With viewless bodies from their bodies fly,

  By blows impelled - those impotent to join

  To any part, or, when inside, to accord

  And to take on the vital motions there.

  But think not, haply, living forms alone

  Are 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 not

  The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,

  Elements many, common to many words,

  Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess

  The words and verses differ, each from each,

  Compounded out of different elements -

  Not since few only, as common letters, run

  Through 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 not

  The same as all. Thus, too, in other things,

  Whilst many germs common to many things

  There are, yet they, combined among themselves,

  Can form new who to others quite unlike.

  Thus fairly one may say that humankind,

  The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up

  Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds

  Are different, difference must there also be

  In intervening spaces, thoroughfares,

  Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all

  Which 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 sought

  Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess

  That the white objects shining to thine eyes

  Are gendered of white atoms, or the black

  Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught

  That's steeped in any hue should take its dye

  From 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 mind

  Itself can dart no influence of its own

  Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.

  For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed

  The light of sun, yet recognise by touch

  Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them,

  'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought

  No less unto the ken of our minds too,

  Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.

  Again, ourselves whatever in the dark

  We touch, the same we do not find to be

  Tinctured with any colour.

                            Now that here

  I 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 bounds

  Means instant death of that which was before.

  Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour

  The seeds of things, lest things return for thee

  All utterly to naught.

                           But now, if seeds

  Receive no property of colour, and yet

  Be still endowed with variable forms

  From which all kinds of colours they beget

  And vary (by reason that ever it matters much

  With, what seeds, and in what positions joined,

  And what the motions that they give and get),

  Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise

  Why what was black of hue an hour ago

  Can of a sudden like the marble gleam, -

  As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved

  Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves

  Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare,

  That, when the thing we often see as black

  Is in its matter then commixed anew,

  Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn,

  And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn

  Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds

  Consist the level waters of the deep,

  They could in nowise whiten: for however

  Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never

  Pass into marble hue. But, if the seeds -

  Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen -

  Be now with one hue, now another dyed,

  As oft from alien forms and divers shapes

  A cube's produced all uniform in shape,

  'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube

  We see the forms to be dissimilar,

  That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep

  (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt)

  Colours diverse and all dissimilar.

  Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least

  The whole in being externally a cube;

  But differing hues of things do block and keep

  The whole from being of one resultant hue.

  Then, too, the reason which entices us

  At times to attribute colours to the seeds

  Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not

  Create from white things, nor are black from black,

  But evermore they are create from things

  Of divers colours. Verily, the white

  Will rise more readily, is sooner born

  Out of no colour, than of black or aught

  Which stands in hostile opposition thus.

    Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,

  And the primordials come not forth to light,

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

  Truly, what kind of colour could there be

  In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself

  A colour changes, gleaming variedly,

  When smote by vertical or slanting ray.

  Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves

  That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat:

  Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze,

  Now, by a strange sensation it becomes

  Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.

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

  Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.

  Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot,

  Without such blow these colours can't become.

    And since the pupil of the eye receives

  Within itself one kind of blow, when said

  To feel a white hue, then another kind,

  When feeling a black or any other hue,

  And since it matters nothing with what hue

  The things thou touchest be perchance endowed,

  But rather with what sort of shape equipped,

  'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour,

  But render forth sensations, as of touch,

  That vary with their varied forms.

                                     Besides,

  Since special shapes have not a special colour,

  And all formations of the primal germs

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

  Are not those objects which are of them made

  Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?

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

  Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen,

  Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be

  Of any single varied dye thou wilt.

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

  The more thou see its colour fade away

  Little by little till 'tis quite extinct;

  As happens when the gaudy linen's picked

  Shred after shred away: the purple there,

  Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes,

  Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread;

  Hence canst perceive the fragments die away

  From out their colour, long ere they depart

  Back to the old primordials of things.

  And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies

  Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus

  That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.

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

  'Tis thine to know some things there are as much

  Orphaned of colour, as others without smell,

  And reft of sound; and those the mind alert

  No less can apprehend than it can mark

  The things that lack some other qualities.

    But think not haply that the primal bodies

  Remain despoiled alone of colour: so,

  Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold

  And from hot exhalations; and they move,

  Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw

  Not any odour from their proper bodies.

  Just as, when undertaking to prepare

  A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram,

  And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes

  Odour of nectar, first of all behooves

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

  The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends

  One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may

  The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang

  The odorous essence with its body mixed

  And in it seethed. And on the same account

  The primal germs of things must not be thought

  To furnish colour in begetting things,

  Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught

  From 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 be

  Disjoined from the primal elements,

  If still we wish under the world to lay

  Immortal ground-works, whereupon may rest

  The sum of weal and safety, lest for thee

  All things return to nothing utterly.

    Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense

  Must yet confessedly be stablished all

  From 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 born

  Of elements insensate, as I say.

  Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung

  Live 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 pastures

  Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change

  Into our bodies, and from our body, oft

  Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts

  And mighty-winged birds. Thus Nature changes

  All foods to living frames, and procreates

  From them the senses of live creatures all,

  In manner about as she uncoils in flames

  Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.

  And seest not, therefore, how it matters much

  After 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 arguments

  Against belief that from insensate germs

  The 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 affairs

  This to remember: that I have not said

  Senses are born, under conditions all,

  From all things absolutely which create

  Objects that feel; but much it matters here

  Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose

  The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed,

  And lastly what they in positions be,

  In motions, in arrangements. Of which facts

  Naught we perceive in logs of wood and clods;

  And yet even these, when sodden by the rains,

  Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies

  Of matter, from their old arrangements stirred

  By the new factor, then combine anew

  In such a way as genders living things.

    Next, they who deem that feeling objects can

  From feeling objects be create, and these,

  In turn, from others that are wont to feel

  When soft they make them; for all sense is linked

  With 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 same

  As that within live creatures as a whole.

  But of themselves those parts can never feel,

  For all the sense in every member back

  To 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 power

  Of feeling sensation concordant in each part

  With the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel

  The things we feel exactly as do we.

  If such the case, how, then, can they be named

  The primal germs of things, and how avoid

  The highways of destruction? - since they be

  Mere living things and living things be all

  One and the same with mortal. Grant they could,

  Yet by their meetings and their unions all,

  Naught would result, indeed, besides a throng

  And hurly-burly all of living things -

  Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts,

  By mere conglomeration each with each

  Can 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 that

  Which is withdrawn thereafter? And besides,

  To touch on proof that we pronounced before,

  Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls

  To change to living chicks, and swarming worms

  To bubble forth when from the soaking rains

  The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all

  Can out of non-sensations be begot.

    But if one say that sense can so far rise

  From non-sense by mutation, or because

  Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth,

  'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove

  There is no birth, unless there be before

  Some formed union of the elements,

  Nor any change, unless they be unite.

    In first place, senses can't in body be

  Before its living nature's been begot, -

  Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed

  About through rivers, air, and earth, and all

  That is from earth created, nor has met

  In combination, and, in proper mode,

  Conjoined into those vital motions which

  Kindle the all-perceiving senses - they

  That keep and guard each living thing soever.

    Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength

  Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,

  And on it goes confounding all the sense

  Of body and mind. For of the primal germs

  Are 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 body

  And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,

  Through all the pores. For what may we surmise

  A blow inflicted can achieve besides

  Shaking asunder and loosening all apart?

  It happens also, when less sharp the blow,

  The vital motions which are left are wont

  Oft to win out - win out, and stop and still

  The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,

  And call each part to its own courses back,

  And shake away the motion of death which now

  Begins its own dominion in the body,

  And kindle anew the senses almost gone.

  For by what other means could they the more

  Collect their powers of thought and turn again

  From very doorways of destruction

  Back unto life, rather than pass whereto

  They be already well-nigh sped and so

  Pass quite away?

                     Again, since pain is there

  Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,

  Through vitals and through joints, within their seats

  Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight,

  When they remove unto their place again:

  'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be