BOOK V

                        PROEM

  O who can build with puissant breast a song

  Worthy the majesty of these great finds?

  Or who in words so strong that he can frame

  The fit laudations for deserts of him

  Who left us heritors of such vast prizes,

  By his own breast discovered and sought out? -

  There shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock.

  For if must needs be named for him the name

  Demanded by the now known majesty

  Of these high matters, then a god was he, -

  Hear me, illustrious Memmius - a god;

  Who first and chief found out that plan of life

  Which now is called philosophy, and who

  By cunning craft, out of such mighty waves,

  Out of such mighty darkness, moored life

  In havens so serene, in light so clear.

  Compare those old discoveries divine

  Of others: lo, according to the tale,

  Ceres established for mortality

  The grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape,

  Though life might yet without these things abide,

  Even as report saith now some peoples live.

  But man's well-being was impossible

  Without a breast all free. Wherefore the more

  That man doth justly seem to us a god,

  From whom sweet solaces of life, afar

  Distributed o'er populous domains,

  Now soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkest

  Labours of Hercules excel the same,

  Much farther from true reasoning thou farest.

  For what could hurt us now that mighty maw

  Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar

  Who bristled in Arcadia? Or, again,

  O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest

  Of Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous?

  Or what the triple-breasted power of her

  The three-fold Geryon...

  The sojourners in the Stymphalian fens

  So dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds

  Of Thracian Diomedes breathing fire

  From out their nostrils off along the zones

  Bistonian and Ismarian? And the Snake,

  The dread fierce gazer, guardian of the golden

  And gleaming apples of the Hesperides,

  Coiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk,

  O what, again, could he inflict on us

  Along the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea? -

  Where neither one of us approacheth nigh

  Nor no barbarian ventures. And the rest

  Of all those monsters slain, even if alive,

  Unconquered still, what injury could they do?

  None, as I guess. For so the glutted earth

  Swarms even now with savage beasts, even now

  Is filled with anxious terrors through the woods

  And mighty mountains and the forest deeps -

  Quarters 'tis ours in general to avoid.

  But lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then,

  What perils, must bosom, in our own despite!

  O then how great and keen the cares of lust

  That split the man distraught! How great the fears!

  And lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness -

  How great the slaughters in their train! and lo,

  Debaucheries and every breed of sloth!

  Therefore that man who subjugated these,

  And from the mind expelled, by words indeed,

  Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him

  To dignify by ranking with the gods? -

  And all the more since he was wont to give,

  Concerning the immortal gods themselves,

  Many pronouncements with a tongue divine,

  And to unfold by his pronouncements all

  The nature of the world.

             ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK AND NEW

              PROEM AGAINST TELEOLOGICAL

                       CONCEPT

                                And walking now

  In his own footprints, I do follow through

  His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach

  The covenant whereby all things are framed,

  How under that covenant they must abide

  Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'

  Inexorable decrees - how (as we've found),

  In class of mortal objects, o'er all else,

  The mind exists of earth-born frame create

  And impotent unscathed to abide

  Across the mighty aeons, and how come

  In sleep those idol-apparitions

  That so befool intelligence when we

  Do seem to view a man whom life has left.

  Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan

  Hath brought me now unto the point where I

  Must make report how, too, the universe

  Consists of mortal body, born in time,

  And in what modes that congregated stuff

  Established itself as earth and sky,

  Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;

  And then what living creatures rose from out

  The old telluric places, and what ones

  Were never born at all; and in what mode

  The human race began to name its things

  And use the varied speech from man to man;

  And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts

  That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands

  Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.

  Also I shall untangle by what power

  The steersman Nature guides the sun's courses,

  And the meanderings of the moon, lest we,

  Percase, should fancy that of own free will

  They circle their perennial courses round,

  Timing their motions for increase of crops

  And living creatures, or lest we should think

  They roll along by any plan of gods.

  For even those men who have learned full well

  That godheads lead a long life free of care,

  If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan

  Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things

  Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),

  Again are hurried back unto the fears

  Of old religion and adopt again

  Harsh masters, deemed almighty - wretched men,

  Unwitting what can be and what cannot,

  And by what law to each its scope prescribed,

  Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

    But for the rest, lest we delay thee here

  Longer by empty promises - behold,

  Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:

  O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,

  Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,

  Three frames so vast, a single day shall give

  Unto annihilation! Then shall crash

  That massive form and fabric of the world

  Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I

  Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous

  This fact must strike the intellect of man, -

  Annihilation of the sky and earth

  That is to be, - and with what toil of words

  'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft

  When once ye offer to man's listening ears

  Something before unheard of, but may not

  Subject it to the view of eyes for him

  Nor put it into hand - the sight and touch,

  Whereby the opened highways of belief

  Lead most directly into human breast

  And regions of intelligence. But yet

  I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,

  Will force belief in these my words, and thou

  Mayst see, in little time, tremendously

  With risen commotions of the lands all things

  Quaking to pieces - which afar from us

  May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may

  Reason, O rather than the fact itself,

  Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown

  And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!

    But ere on this I take a step to utter

  Oracles holier and soundlier based

  Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men

  From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,

  I will unfold for thee with learned words

  Many a consolation, lest perchance,

  Still bridled by religion, thou suppose

  Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,

  Must dure forever, as of frame divine -

  And so conclude that it is just that those,

  (After the manner of the Giants), should all

  Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,

  Who by their reasonings do overshake

  The ramparts of the universe and wish

  There to put out the splendid sun of heaven,

  Branding with mortal talk immortal things -

  Though these same things are even so far removed

  From any touch of deity and seem

  So far unworthy of numbering with the gods,

  That well they may be thought to furnish rather

  A goodly instance of the sort of things

  That lack the living motion, living sense.

  For sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think

  That judgment and the nature of the mind

  In any kind of body can exist -

  Just as in ether can't exist a tree,

  Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields

  Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be,

  Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged

  Where everything may grow and have its place.

  Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone

  Without the body, nor have its being far

  From thews and blood. Yet if 'twere possible? -

  Much rather might this very power of mind

  Be in the head, the shoulders, or the heels,

  And, born in any part soever, yet

  In the same man, in the same vessel abide

  But since within this body even of ours

  Stands fixed and appears arranged sure

  Where soul and mind can each exist and grow,

  Deny we must the more that they can dure

  Outside the body and the breathing form

  In rotting clods of earth, in the sun's fire,

  In water, or in ether's skiey coasts.

  Therefore these things no whit are furnished

  With sense divine, since never can they be

  With life-force quickened.

                           Likewise, thou canst ne'er

  Believe the sacred seats of gods are here

  In any regions of this mundane world;

  Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle,

  So far removed from these our senses, scarce

  Is seen even by intelligence of mind.

  And since they've ever eluded touch and thrust

  Of human hands, they cannot reach to grasp

  Aught tangible to us. For what may not

  Itself be touched in turn can never touch.

  Wherefore, besides, also their seats must be

  Unlike these seats of ours, - even subtle too,

  As meet for subtle essence - as I'll prove

  Hereafter unto thee with large discourse.

  Further, to say that for the sake of men

  They willed to prepare this world's magnificence,

  And that 'tis therefore duty and behoof

  To praise the work of gods as worthy praise,

  And that 'tis sacrilege for men to shake

  Ever by any force from out their seats

  What hath been stablished by the Forethought old

  To everlasting for races of mankind,

  And that 'tis sacrilege to assault by words

  And overtopple all from base to beam, -

  Memmius, such notions to concoct and pile,

  Is verily - to dote. Our gratefulness,

  O what emoluments could it confer

  Upon Immortals and upon the Blessed

  That they should take a step to manage aught

  For sake of us? Or what new factor could,

  After so long a time, inveigle them -

  The hitherto reposeful - to desire

  To change their former life? For rather he

  Whom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice

  At new; but one that in fore-passed time

  Hath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years.

  O what could ever enkindle in such an one

  Passion for strange experiment? Or what

  The evil for us, if we had ne'er been born? -

  As though, forsooth, in darkling realms and woe

  Our life were lying till should dawn at last

  The day-spring of creation! Whosoever

  Hath been begotten wills perforce to stay

  In life, so long as fond delight detains;

  But whoso ne'er hath tasted love of life,

  And ne'er was in the count of living things,

  What hurts it him that he was never born?

  Whence, further, first was planted in the gods

  The archetype for gendering the world

  And the fore-notion of what man is like,

  So that they knew and pre-conceived with mind

  Just what they wished to make? Or how were known

  Ever the energies of primal germs,

  And what those germs, by interchange of place,

  Could thus produce, if nature's self had not

  Given example for creating all?

  For in such wise primordials of things,

  Many in many modes, astir by blows

  From immemorial aeons, in motion too

  By their own weights, have evermore been wont

  To be so borne along and in all modes

  To meet together and to try all sorts

  Which, by combining one with other, they

  Are powerful to create, that thus it is

  No marvel now, if they have also fallen

  Into arrangements such, and if they've passed

  Into vibrations such, as those whereby

  This sum of things is carried on to-day

  By fixed renewal. But knew I never what

  The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare

  This to affirm, even from deep judgments based

  Upon the ways and conduct of the skies -

  This to maintain by many a fact besides -

  That in no wise the nature of all things

  For us was fashioned by a power divine -

  So great the faults it stands encumbered with.

  First, mark all regions which are overarched

  By the prodigious reaches of the sky:

  One yawning part thereof the mountain-chains

  And forests of the beasts do have and hold;

  And cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea

  (Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands)

  Possess it merely; and, again, thereof

  Well-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat

  And a perpetual fall of frost doth rob

  From mortal kind. And what is left to till,

  Even that the force of Nature would o'errun

  With brambles, did not human force oppose, -

  Long wont for livelihood to groan and sweat

  Over the two-pronged mattock and to cleave

  The soil in twain by pressing on the plough.

  Unless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods

  And kneading the mould, we quicken into birth,

  The crops spontaneously could not come up

  Into the free bright air. Even then sometimes,

  When things acquired by the sternest toil

  Are now in leaf, are now in blossom all,

  Either the skiey sun with baneful heats

  Parches, or sudden rains or chilling rime

  Destroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl

  Torment and twist. Beside these matters, why

  Doth Nature feed and foster on land and sea

  The dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes

  Of the human clan? Why do the seasons bring

  Distempers with them? Wherefore stalks at large

  Death, so untimely? Then, again, the babe,

  Like to the castaway of the raging surf,

  Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want

  Of every help for life, when Nature first

  Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light

  With birth-pangs from within the mother's womb,

  And with a plaintive wail he fills the place, -

  As well befitting one for whom remains

  In life a journey through so many ills.

  But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts

  Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles,

  Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse's

  Dear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes

  To suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine,

  Nor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal

  Their own to guard - because the earth herself

  And Nature, artificer of the world, bring forth

  Aboundingly all things for all.

               THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL

                              And first,

  Since body of earth and water, air's light breath,

  And fiery exhalations (of which four

  This sum of things is seen to be compact)

  So all have birth and perishable frame,

  Thus the whole nature of the world itself

  Must be conceived as perishable too.

  For, verily, those things of which we see

  The parts and members to have birth in time

  And perishable shapes, those same we mark

  To be invariably born in time

  And born to die. And therefore when I see

  The mightiest members and the parts of this

  Our world consumed and begot again,

  'Tis mine to know that also sky above

  And earth beneath began of old in time

  And shall in time go under to disaster.

    And lest in these affairs thou deemest me

  To have seized upon this point by sleight to serve

  My own caprice - because I have assumed

  That earth and fire are mortal things indeed,

  And have not doubted water and the air

  Both perish too and have affirmed the same

  To be again begotten and wax big -

  Mark well the argument: in first place, lo,

  Some certain parts of earth, grievously parched

  By unremitting suns, and trampled on

  By a vast throng of feet, exhale abroad

  A powdery haze and flying clouds of dust,

  Which the stout winds disperse in the whole air.

  A part, moreover, of her sod and soil

  Is summoned to inundation by the rains;

  And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.

  Besides, whatever takes a part its own

  In fostering and increasing aught...

  Is rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt,

  Earth, the all-mother, is beheld to be

  Likewise the common sepulchre of things,

  Therefore thou seest her minished of her plenty,

  And then again augmented with new growth.

    And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springs

  Forever with new waters overflow

  And that perennially the fluids well.

  Needeth no words - the mighty flux itself

  Of multitudinous waters round about

  Declareth this. But whatso water first

  Streams up is ever straightway carried off,

  And thus it comes to pass that all in all

  There is no overflow; in part because

  The burly winds (that over-sweep amain)

  And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

  Do minish the level seas; in part because

  The water is diffused underground

  Through all the lands. The brine is filtered off,

  And then the liquid stuff seeps back again

  And all re-gathers at the river-heads,

  Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows

  Over the lands, adown the channels which

  Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along

  The liquid-footed floods.

                              Now, then, of air

  I'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body

  Is changed innumerably. For whatso'er

  Streams up in dust or vapour off of things,

  The same is all and always borne along

  Into the mighty ocean of the air;

  And did not air in turn restore to things

  Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,

  All things by this time had resolved been

  And changed into air. Therefore it never

  Ceases to be engendered off of things

  And to return to things, since verily

  In constant flux do all things stream.

                                  Likewise,

  The abounding well-spring of the liquid light,

  The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o'er

  With constant flux of radiance ever new,

  And with fresh light supplies the place of light,

  Upon the instant. For whatever effulgence

  Hath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,

  Is lost unto the sun. And this 'tis thine

  To know from these examples: soon as clouds

  Have first begun to under-pass the sun,

  And, as it were, to rend the days of light

  In twain, at once the lower part of them

  Is lost entire, and earth is overcast

  Where'er the thunderheads are rolled along -

  So know thou mayst that things forever need

  A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,

  And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,

  Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwise

  Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway

  The fountain-head of light supply new light.

  Indeed your earthly beacons of the night,

  The hanging lampions and the torches, bright

  With darting gleams and dense with livid soot,

  Do hurry in like manner to supply

  With ministering heat new light amain;

  Are all alive to quiver with their fires, -

  Are so alive, that thus the light ne'er leaves

  The spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:

  So speedily is its destruction veiled

  By the swift birth of flame from all the fires.

  Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon

  And stars dart forth their light from under-births

  Ever and ever new, and whatso flames

  First rise do perish always one by one -

  Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure

  Inviolable.

               Again, perceivest not

  How stones are also conquered by Time? -

  Not how the lofty towers ruin down,

  And boulders crumble? - Not how shrines of gods

  And idols crack outworn? - Nor how indeed

  The holy Influence hath yet no power

  There to postpone the Terminals of Fate,

  Or headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees?

  Again, behold we not the monuments

  Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us,

  In their turn likewise, if we don't believe

  They also age with eld? Behold we not

  The rended basalt ruining amain

  Down from the lofty mountains, powerless

  To dure and dree the mighty forces there

  Of finite time? - for they would never fall

  Rended asudden, if from infinite Past

  They had prevailed against all engin'ries

  Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.

    Again, now look at This, which round, above,

  Contains the whole earth in its one embrace:

  If from itself it procreates all things -

  As some men tell - and takes them to itself

  When once destroyed, entirely must it be

  Of mortal birth and body; for whate'er

  From out itself giveth to other things

  Increase and food, the same perforce must be

  Minished, and then recruited when it takes

  Things back into itself.

                           Besides all this,

  If there had been no origin-in-birth

  Of lands and sky, and they had ever been

  The everlasting, why, ere Theban war

  And obsequies of Troy, have other bards

  Not also chanted other high affairs?

  Whither have sunk so oft so many deeds

  Of heroes? Why do those deeds live no more,

  Ingrafted in eternal monuments

  Of glory? Verily, I guess, because

  The Sum is new, and of a recent date

  The nature of our universe, and had

  Not long ago its own exordium.

  Wherefore, even now some arts are being still

  Refined, still increased: now unto ships

  Is being added many a new device;

  And but the other day musician-folk

  Gave birth to melic sounds of organing;

  And, then, this nature, this account of things

  Hath been discovered latterly, and I

  Myself have been discovered only now,

  As first among the first, able to turn

  The same into ancestral Roman speech.

  Yet if, percase, thou deemest that ere this

  Existed all things even the same, but that

  Perished the cycles of the human race

  In fiery exhalations, or cities fell

  By some tremendous quaking of the world,

  Or rivers in fury, after constant rains,

  Had plunged forth across the lands of earth

  And whelmed the towns - then, all the more must thou

  Confess, defeated by the argument,

  That there shall be annihilation too

  Of lands and sky. For at a time when things

  Were being taxed by maladies so great,

  And so great perils, if some cause more fell

  Had then assailed them, far and wide they would

  Have gone to disaster and supreme collapse.

  And by no other reasoning are we

  Seen to be mortal, save that all of us

  Sicken in turn with those same maladies

  With which have sickened in the past those men

  Whom Nature hath removed from life.

                                       Again,

  Whatever abides eternal must indeed

  Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made

  Of solid body, and permit no entrance

  Of aught with power to sunder from within

  The parts compact - as are those seeds of stuff

  Whose nature we've exhibited before;

  Or else be able to endure through time

  For this: because they are from blows exempt,

  As is the void, the which abides untouched,

  Unsmit by any stroke; or else because

  There is no room around, whereto things can,

  As 'twere, depart in dissolution all -

  Even as the sum of sums eternal is,

  Without or place beyond whereto things may

  Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite,

  And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.

  But not of solid body, as I've shown,

  Exists the nature of the world, because

  In things is intermingled there a void;

  Nor is the world yet as the void, nor are,

  Moreover, bodies lacking which, percase,

  Rising from out the infinite, can fell

  With fury-whirlwinds all this sum of things,

  Or bring upon them other cataclysm

  Of peril strange; and yonder, too, abides

  The infinite space and the profound abyss -

  Whereinto, lo, the ramparts of the world

  Can yet be shivered. Or some other power

  Can pound upon them till they perish all.

  Thus is the door of doom, O nowise barred

  Against the sky, against the sun and earth

  And deep-sea waters, but wide open stands

  And gloats upon them, monstrous and agape.

  Wherefore, again, 'tis needful to confess

  That these same things are born in time; for things

  Which are of mortal body could indeed

  Never from infinite past until to-day

  Have spurned the multitudinous assaults

  Of the immeasurable aeons old.

    Again, since battle so fiercely one with other

  The four most mighty members the world,

  Aroused in an all unholy war,

  Seest not that there may be for them an end

  Of the long strife? - Or when the skiey sun

  And all the heat have won dominion o'er

  The sucked-up waters all? - And this they try

  Still to accomplish, though as yet they fail, -

  For so aboundingly the streams supply

  New store of waters that 'tis rather they

  Who menace the world with inundations vast

  From forth the unplumbed chasms of the sea.

  But vain - since winds (that over-sweep amain)

  And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

  Do minish the level seas and trust their power

  To dry up all, before the waters can

  Arrive at the end of their endeavouring.

  Breathing such vasty warfare, they contend

  In balanced strife the one with other still

  Concerning mighty issues - though indeed

  The fire was once the more victorious,

  And once - as goes the tale - the water won

  A kingdom in the fields. For fire o'ermastered

  And licked up many things and burnt away,

  What time the impetuous horses of the Sun

  Snatched Phaethon headlong from his skiey road

  Down the whole ether and over all the lands.

  But the omnipotent Father in keen wrath

  Then with the sudden smite of thunderbolt

  Did hurl the mighty-minded hero off

  Those horses to the earth. And Sol, his sire,

  Meeting him as he fell, caught up in hand

  The ever-blazing lampion of the world,

  And drave together the pell-mell horses there

  And yoked them all a-tremble, and amain,

  Steering them over along their own old road,

  Restored the cosmos - as forsooth we hear

  From songs of ancient poets of the Greeks -

  A tale too far away from truth, meseems.

  For fire can win when from the infinite

  Has risen a larger throng of particles

  Of fiery stuff; and then its powers succumb,

  Somehow subdued again, or else at last

  It shrivels in torrid atmospheres the world.

  And whilom water too began to win -

  As goes the story - when it overwhelmed

  The lives of men with billows; and thereafter,

  When all that force of water-stuff which forth

  From out the infinite had risen up

  Did now retire, as somehow turned aside,

  The rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.

              FORMATION OF THE WORLD AND

                ASTRONOMICAL QUESTIONS

    But in what modes that conflux of first-stuff

  Did found the multitudinous universe

  Of earth, and sky, and the unfathomed deeps

  Of ocean, and courses of the sun and moon,

  I'll now in order tell. For of a truth

  Neither 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, lo, because primordials of things,

  Many in many modes, astir by blows

  From immemorial aeons, in motion too

  By their own weights, have evermore been wont

  To be so borne along and in all modes

  To meet together and to try all sorts

  Which, by combining one with other, they

  Are powerful to create: because of this

  It comes to pass that those primordials,

  Diffused far and wide through mighty aeons,

  The while they unions try, and motions too,

  Of every kind, meet at the last amain,

  And so become oft the commencements fit

  Of mighty things - earth, sea, and sky, and race

  Of living creatures.

                        In that long-ago

  The wheel of the sun could nowhere be discerned

  Flying far up with its abounding blaze,

  Nor constellations of the mighty world,

  Nor ocean, nor heaven, nor even earth nor air.

  Nor aught of things like unto things of ours

  Could then be seen - but only some strange storm

  And a prodigious hurly-burly mass

  Compounded of all kinds of primal germs,

  Whose battling discords in disorder kept

  Interstices, and paths, coherencies,

  And weights, and blows, encounterings, and motions,

  Because, by reason of their forms unlike

  And varied shapes, they could not all thuswise

  Remain conjoined nor harmoniously

  Have interplay of movements. But from there

  Portions began to fly asunder, and like

  With like to join, and to block out a world,

  And to divide its members and dispose

  Its mightier parts - that is, to set secure

  The lofty heavens from the lands, and cause

  The sea to spread with waters separate,

  And fires of ether separate and pure

  Likewise to congregate apart.

                                 For, lo,

  First came together the earthy particles

  (As being heavy and intertangled) there

  In the mid-region, and all began to take

  The lowest abodes; and ever the more they got

  One with another intertangled, the more

  They pressed from out their mass those particles

  Which were to form the sea, the stars, the sun,

  And moon, and ramparts of the mighty world -

  For these consist of seeds more smooth and round

  And of much smaller elements than earth.

  And thus it was that ether, fraught with fire,

  First broke away from out the earthen parts,

  Athrough the innumerable pores of earth,

  And raised itself aloft, and with itself

  Bore lightly off the many starry fires;

  And not far otherwise we often see

  And the still lakes and the perennial streams

  Exhale a mist, and even as earth herself

  Is seen at times to smoke, when first at dawn

  The light of the sun, the many-rayed, begins

  To redden into gold, over the grass

  Begemmed with dew. When all of these are brought

  Together overhead, the clouds on high

  With now concreted body weave a cover

  Beneath the heavens. And thuswise ether too,

  Light and diffusive, with concreted body

  On all sides spread, on all sides bent itself

  Into a dome, and, far and wide diffused

  On unto every region on all sides,

  Thus hedged all else within its greedy clasp.

  Hard upon ether came the origins

  Of sun and moon, whose globes revolve in air

  Midway between the earth and mightiest ether, -

  For neither took them, since they weighed too little

  To sink and settle, but too much to glide

  Along the upmost shores; and yet they are

  In such a wise midway between the twain

  As ever to whirl their living bodies round,

  And ever to dure as parts of the wide Whole;

  In the same fashion as certain members may

  In us remain at rest, whilst others move.

  When, then, these substances had been withdrawn,

  Amain the earth, where now extend the vast

  Cerulean zones of all the level seas,

  Caved in, and down along the hollows poured

  The whirlpools of her brine; and day by day

  The more the tides of ether and rays of sun

  On every side constrained into one mass

  The earth by lashing it again, again,

  Upon its outer edges (so that then,

  Being thus beat upon, 'twas all condensed

  About its proper centre), ever the more

  The salty sweat, from out its body squeezed,

  Augmented ocean and the fields of foam

  By seeping through its frame, and all the more

  Those many particles of heat and air

  Escaping, began to fly aloft, and form,

  By condensation there afar from earth,

  The high refulgent circuits of the heavens.

  The plains began to sink, and windy slopes

  Of the high mountains to increase; for rocks

  Could not subside, nor all the parts of ground

  Settle alike to one same level there.

    Thus, then, the massy weight of earth stood firm

  With now concreted body, when (as 'twere)

  All of the slime of the world, heavy and gross,

  Had run together and settled at the bottom,

  Like lees or bilge. Then ocean, then the air,

  Then ether herself, the fraught-with-fire, were all

  Left with their liquid bodies pure and free,

  And each more lighter than the next below;

  And ether, most light and liquid of the three,

  Floats on above the long aerial winds,

  Nor with the brawling of the winds of air

  Mingles its liquid body. It doth leave

  All there - those under-realms below her heights -

  There to be overset in whirlwinds wild, -

  Doth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts,

  Whilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still,

  Itself it bears its fires along. For, lo,

  That ether can flow thus steadily on, on,

  With one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves -

  That sea which floweth forth with fixed tides,

  Keeping one onward tenor as it glides.

    And that the earth may there abide at rest

  In the mid-region of the world, it needs

  Must vanish bit by bit in weight and lessen,

  And have another substance underneath,

  Conjoined to it from its earliest age

  In linked unison with the vasty world's

  Realms of the air in which it roots and lives.

  On this account, the earth is not a load,

  Nor presses down on winds of air beneath;

  Even as unto a man his members be

  Without all weight - the head is not a load

  Unto the neck; nor do we feel the whole

  Weight of the body to centre in the feet.

  But whatso weights come on us from without,

  Weights laid upon us, these harass and chafe,

  Though often far lighter. For to such degree

  It matters always what the innate powers

  Of any given thing may be. The earth

  Was, then, no alien substance fetched amain,

  And from no alien firmament cast down

  On alien air; but was conceived, like air,

  In the first origin of this the world,

  As a fixed portion of the same, as now

  Our members are seen to be a part of us.

    Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook

  By the big thunder, doth with her motion shake

  All that's above her - which she ne'er could do

  By any means, were earth not bounden fast

  Unto the great world's realms of air and sky:

  For they cohere together with common roots,

  Conjoined both, even from their earliest age,

  In linked unison. Aye, seest thou not

  That this most subtle energy of soul

  Supports our body, though so heavy a weight, -

  Because, indeed, 'tis with it so conjoined

  In linked unison? What power, in sum,

  Can raise with agile leap our body aloft,

  Save energy of mind which steers the limbs?

  Now seest thou not how powerful may be

  A subtle nature, when conjoined it is

  With heavy body, as air is with the earth

  Conjoined, and energy of mind with us?

    Now let's us sing what makes the stars to move.

  In first place, if the mighty sphere of heaven

  Revolveth round, then needs we must aver

  That on the upper and the under pole

  Presses a certain air, and from without

  Confines them and encloseth at each end;

  And that, moreover, another air above

  Streams on athwart the top of the sphere and tends

  In same direction as are rolled along

  The glittering stars of the eternal world;

  Or that another still streams on below

  To whirl the sphere from under up and on

  In opposite direction - as we see

  The rivers turn the wheels and water-scoops.

  It may be also that the heavens do all

  Remain at rest, whilst yet are borne along

  The lucid constellations; either because

  Swift tides of ether are by sky enclosed,

  And whirl around, seeking a passage out,

  And everywhere make roll the starry fires

  Through the Summanian regions of the sky;

  Or else because some air, streaming along

  From an eternal quarter off beyond,

  Whileth the driven fires, or, then, because

  The fires themselves have power to creep along,

  Going wherever their food invites and calls,

  And feeding their flaming bodies everywhere

  Throughout the sky. Yet which of these is cause

  In this our world 'tis hard to say for sure;

  But what can be throughout the universe,

  In divers worlds on divers plan create,

  This only do I show, and follow on

  To assign unto the motions of the stars

  Even several causes which 'tis possible

  Exist throughout the universal All;

  Of which yet one must be the cause even here

  Which maketh motion for our constellations.

  Yet to decide which one of them it be

  Is not the least the business of a man

  Advancing step by cautious step, as I.

    Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much

  Nor its own blaze much less than either seems

  Unto our senses. For from whatso spaces

  Fires have the power on us to cast their beams

  And blow their scorching exhalations forth

  Against our members, those same distances

  Take nothing by those intervals away

  From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire

  Is nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat

  And the outpoured light of skiey sun

  Arrive our senses and caress our limbs,

  Form too and bigness of the sun must look

  Even here from earth just as they really be,

  So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.

  And whether the journeying moon illuminate

  The regions round with bastard beams, or throw

  From off her proper body her own light, -

  Whichever it be, she journeys with a form

  Naught larger than the form doth seem to be

  Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all

  The far removed objects of our gaze

  Seem through much air confused in their look

  Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,

  Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form,

  May there on high by us on earth be seen

  Just as she is with extreme bounds defined,

  And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires

  Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these

  Thou mayst consider as possibly of size

  The least bit less, or larger by a hair

  Than they appear - since whatso fires we view

  Here in the lands of earth are seen to change

  From time to time their size to less or more

  Only the least, when more or less away,

  So long as still they bicker clear, and still

  Their glow's perceived.

                         Nor need there be for men

  Astonishment that yonder sun so small

  Can yet send forth so great a light as fills

  Oceans and all the lands and sky aflood,

  And with its fiery exhalations steeps

  The world at large. For it may be, indeed,

  That one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole

  Wide world from here hath opened and out-gushed,

  And shot its light abroad; because thuswise

  The elements of fiery exhalations

  From all the world around together come,

  And thuswise flow into a bulk so big

  That from one single fountain-head may stream

  This heat and light. And seest thou not, indeed,

  How widely one small water-spring may wet

  The meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?

  'Tis even possible, besides, that heat

  From forth the sun's own fire, albeit that fire

  Be not a great, may permeate the air

  With the fierce hot - if but, perchance, the air

  Be of condition and so tempered then

  As to be kindled, even when beat upon

  Only by little particles of heat -

  Just as we sometimes see the standing grain

  Or stubble straw in conflagration all

  From one lone spark. And possibly the sun,

  Agleam on high with rosy lampion,

  Possesses about him with invisible heats

  A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked,

  So that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire,

  Increase to such degree the force of rays.

    Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men

  How the sun journeys from his summer haunts

  On to the mid-most winter turning-points

  In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers

  Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor

  How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross

  That very distance which in traversing

  The sun consumes the measure of a year.

  I say, no one clear reason hath been given

  For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood

  Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought

  Of great Democritus lays down: that ever

  The nearer the constellations be to earth

  The less can they by whirling of the sky

  Be borne along, because those skiey powers

  Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease

  In under-regions, and the sun is thus

  Left by degrees behind amongst those signs

  That follow after, since the sun he lies

  Far down below the starry signs that blaze;

  And the moon lags even tardier than the sun:

  In just so far as is her course removed

  From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,

  In just so far she fails to keep the pace

  With starry signs above; for just so far

  As feebler is the whirl that bears her on,

  (Being, indeed, still lower than the sun),

  In just so far do all the starry signs,

  Circling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.

  Therefore it happens that the moon appears

  More swiftly to return to any sign

  Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun,

  Because those signs do visit her again

  More swiftly than they visit the great sun.

  It can be also that two streams of air

  Alternately at fixed periods

  Blow out from transverse regions of the world,

  Of which the one may thrust the sun away

  From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals

  And rigors of the cold, and the other then

  May cast him back from icy shades of chill

  Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs

  That blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,

  We must suppose the moon and all the stars,

  Which through the mighty and sidereal years

  Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped

  By streams of air from regions alternate.

  Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped

  By contrary winds to regions contrary,

  The lower clouds diversely from the upper?

  Then, why may yonder stars in ether there

  Along their mighty orbits not be borne

  By currents opposite the one to other?

    But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk

  Either when sun, after his diurnal course,

  Hath walked the ultimate regions of the sky

  And wearily hath panted forth his fires,

  Shivered by their long journeying and wasted

  By traversing the multitudinous air,

  Or else because the self-same force that drave

  His orb along above the lands compels

  Him then to turn his course beneath the lands.

  Matuta also at a fixed hour

  Spreadeth the roseate morning out along

  The coasts of heaven and deploys the light,

  Either because the self-same sun, returning

  Under the lands, aspires to seize the sky,

  Striving to set it blazing with his rays

  Ere he himself appear, or else because

  Fires then will congregate and many seeds

  Of heat are wont, even at a fixed time,

  To stream together - gendering evermore

  New suns and light. Just so the story goes

  That from the Idaean mountain-tops are seen

  Dispersed fires upon the break of day

  Which thence combine, as 'twere, into one ball

  And form an orb. Nor yet in these affairs

  Is aught for wonder that these seeds of fire

  Can thus together stream at time so fixed

  And shape anew the splendour of the sun.

  For many facts we see which come to pass

  At fixed time in all things: burgeon shrubs

  At fixed time, and at a fixed time

  They cast their flowers; and Eld commands the teeth,

  At time as surely fixed, to drop away,

  And Youth commands the growing boy to bloom

  With the soft down and let from both his cheeks

  The soft beard fall. And lastly, thunder-bolts,

  Snow, rains, clouds, winds, at seasons of the year

  Nowise unfixed, all do come to pass.

  For where, even from their old primordial start

  Causes have ever worked in such a way,

  And where, even from the world's first origin,

  Thuswise have things befallen, so even now

  After a fixed order they come round

  In sequence also.

                      Likewise, days may wax

  Whilst the nights wane, and daylight minished be

  Whilst nights do take their augmentations,

  Either because the self-same sun, coursing

  Under the lands and over in two arcs,

  A longer and a briefer, doth dispart

  The coasts of ether and divides in twain

  His orbit all unequally, and adds,

  As round he's borne, unto the one half there

  As much as from the other half he's ta'en,

  Until he then arrives that sign of heaven

  Where the year's node renders the shades of night

  Equal unto the periods of light.

  For when the sun is midway on his course

  Between the blasts of north wind and of south,

  Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally,

  By virtue of the fixed position old

  Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which

  That sun, in winding onward, takes a year,

  Illumining the sky and all the lands

  With oblique light - as men declare to us

  Who by their diagrams have charted well

  Those regions of the sky which be adorned

  With the arranged signs of Zodiac.

  Or else, because in certain parts the air

  Under the lands is denser, the tremulous

  Bright beams of fire do waver tardily,

  Nor easily can penetrate that air

  Nor yet emerge unto their rising-place:

  For this it is that nights in winter time

  Do linger long, ere comes the many-rayed

  Round Badge of the day. Or else because, as said,

  In alternating seasons of the year

  Fires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont

  To stream together - the fires which make the sun

  To rise in some one spot - therefore it is

  That those men seem to speak the truth who hold

  A new sun is with each new daybreak born.

    The moon she possibly doth shine because

  Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day

  May turn unto our gaze her light, the more

  She doth recede from orb of sun, until,

  Facing him opposite across the world,

  She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad,

  And, at her rising as she soars above,

  Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise

  She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind

  By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides,

  Along the circle of the Zodiac,

  From her far place toward fires of yonder sun -

  As those men hold who feign the moon to be

  Just like a ball and to pursue a course

  Betwixt the sun and earth. There is, again,

  Some reason to suppose that moon may roll

  With light her very own, and thus display

  The varied shapes of her resplendence there.

  For near her is, percase, another body,

  Invisible, because devoid of light,

  Borne on and gliding all along with her,

  Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.

  Again, she may revolve upon herself,

  Like to a ball's sphere - if perchance that be -

  One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light,

  And by the revolution of that sphere

  She may beget for us her varying shapes,

  Until she turns that fiery part of her

  Full to the sight and open eyes of men;

  Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls,

  Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part

  Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily,

  The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees,

  Refuting the art of Greek astrologers,

  Labours, in opposition, to prove sure -

  As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights,

  Might not alike be true - or aught there were

  Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one

  More than the other notion. Then, again,

  Why a new moon might not forevermore

  Created be with fixed successions there

  Of shapes and with configurations fixed,

  And why each day that bright created moon

  Might not miscarry and another be,

  In its stead and place, engendered anew,

  'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words

  To prove absurd - since, lo, so many things

  Can be create with fixed successions:

  Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy,

  The winged harbinger, steps on before,

  And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora,

  Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all

  With colours and with odours excellent;

  Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he

  Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one,

  And by the Etesian Breezes of the north

  At rising of the dog-star of the year;

  Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps

  Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too

  And other Winds do follow - the high roar

  Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong

  With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day

  Bears on to men the snows and brings again

  The numbing cold. And Winter follows her,

  His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis

  The less a marvel, if at fixed time

  A moon is thus begotten and again

  At fixed time destroyed, since things so many

  Can come to being thus at fixed time.

    Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's

  Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem

  As due to several causes. For, indeed,

  Why should the moon be able to shut out

  Earth from the light of sun, and on the side

  To earthward thrust her high head under sun,

  Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams -

  And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect

  Could not result from some one other body

  Which glides devoid of light forevermore?

  Again, why could not sun, in weakened state,

  At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then,

  When he has passed on along the air

  Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames,

  That quench and kill his fires, why could not he

  Renew his light? And why should earth in turn

  Have power to rob the moon of light, and there,

  Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath,

  Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course

  Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone? -

  And yet, at same time, some one other body

  Not have the power to under-pass the moon,

  Or glide along above the orb of sun,

  Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?

  And still, if moon herself refulgent be

  With her own sheen, why could she not at times

  In some one quarter of the mighty world

  Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through

  Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?

               ORIGINS OF VEGETABLE AND

                    ANIMAL LIFE

    And now to what remains! - Since I've resolved

  By what arrangements all things come to pass

  Through the blue regions of the mighty world, -

  How we can know what energy and cause

  Started the various courses of the sun

  And the moon's goings, and by what far means

  They can succumb, the while with thwarted light,

  And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,

  When, as it were, they blink, and then again

  With open eye survey all regions wide,

  Resplendent with white radiance - I do now

  Return unto the world's primeval age

  And tell what first the soft young fields of earth

  With earliest parturition had decreed

  To raise in air unto the shores of light

  And to entrust unto the wayward winds.

    In the beginning, earth gave forth, around

  The hills and over all the length of plains,

  The race of grasses and the shining green;

  The flowery meadows sparkled all aglow

  With greening colour, and thereafter, lo,

  Unto the divers kinds of trees was given

  An emulous impulse mightily to shoot,

  With a free rein, aloft into the air.

  As feathers and hairs and bristles are begot

  The first on members of the four-foot breeds

  And on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,

  Thus then the new Earth first of all put forth

  Grasses and shrubs, and afterward begat

  The mortal generations, there upsprung -

  Innumerable in modes innumerable -

  After diverging fashions. For from sky

  These breathing-creatures never can have dropped,

  Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up

  Out of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,

  How merited is that adopted name

  Of earth - "The Mother!" - since from out the earth

  Are all begotten. And even now arise

  From out the loams how many living things -

  Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.

  Wherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang

  In Long Ago more many, and more big,

  Matured of those days in the fresh young years

  Of earth and ether. First of all, the race

  Of the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,

  Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;

  As now-a-days in summer tree-crickets

  Do leave their shiny husks of own accord,

  Seeking their food and living. Then it was

  This earth of thine first gave unto the day

  The mortal generations; for prevailed

  Among the fields abounding hot and wet.

  And hence, where any fitting spot was given,

  There 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots

  Affixed to earth. And when in ripened time

  The age of the young within (that sought the air

  And fled earth's damps) had burst these wombs, O then

  Would Nature thither turn the pores of earth

  And make her spurt from open veins a juice

  Like unto milk; even as a woman now

  Is filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk,

  Because all that swift stream of aliment

  Is thither turned unto the mother-breasts.

  There earth would furnish to the children food;

  Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed

  Abounding in soft down. Earth's newness then

  Would rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold,

  Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers -

  For all things grow and gather strength through time

  In like proportions; and then earth was young.

    Wherefore, again, again, how merited

  Is that adopted name of Earth - The Mother! -

  Since she herself begat the human race,

  And at one well-nigh fixed time brought forth

  Each breast that ranges raving round about

  Upon the mighty mountains and all birds

  Aerial with many a varied shape.

  But, lo, because her bearing years must end,

  She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.

  For lapsing aeons change the nature of

  The whole wide world, and all things needs must take

  One status after other, nor aught persists

  Forever like itself. All things depart;

  Nature she changeth all, compelleth all

  To transformation. Lo, this moulders down,

  A-slack with weary eld, and that, again,

  Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt.

  In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change

  The nature of the whole wide world, and earth

  Taketh one status after other. And what

  She bore of old, she now can bear no longer,

  And what she never bore, she can to-day.

    In those days also the telluric world

  Strove to beget the monsters that upsprung

  With their astounding visages and limbs -

  The Man-woman - a thing betwixt the twain,

  Yet neither, and from either sex remote -

  Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet,

  Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too

  Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye,

  Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms

  Cleaving unto the body fore and aft,

  Thuswise, that never could they do or go,

  Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.

  And other prodigies and monsters earth

  Was then begetting of this sort - in vain,

  Since Nature banned with horror their increase,

  And powerless were they to reach unto

  The coveted flower of fair maturity,

  Or to find aliment, or to intertwine

  In works of Venus. For we see there must

  Concur in life conditions manifold,

  If life is ever by begetting life

  To forge the generations one by one:

  First, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby

  The seeds of impregnation in the frame

  May ooze, released from the members all;

  Last, the possession of those instruments

  Whereby the male with female can unite,

  The one with other in mutual ravishments.

    And in the ages after monsters died,

  Perforce there perished many a stock, unable

  By propagation to forge a progeny.

  For whatsoever creatures thou beholdest

  Breathing the breath of life, the same have been

  Even from their earliest age preserved alive

  By cunning, or by valour, or at least

  By speed of foot or wing. And many a stock

  Remaineth yet, because of use to man,

  And so committed to man's guardianship.