On the Nature of Things Part 2

And, next, these bodies are among themselves In many ways poisons and foes to each, Wherefore their congress will destroy them quite Or drive asunder as we see in storms Rains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.

Thus too, if all things are create of four, And all again dissolved into the four, How can the four be called the primal germs Of things, more than all things themselves be thought, By retroversion, primal germs of them?

For ever alternately are both begot, With interchange of nature and aspect From immemorial time. But if percase Thou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air, The dew of water can in such wise meet As not by mingling to resign their nature, From them for thee no world can be create-- No thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree: In the wild congress of this varied heap Each thing its proper nature will display, And air will palpably be seen mixed up With earth together, unquenched heat with water.

But primal germs in bringing things to birth Must have a latent, unseen quality, Lest some outstanding alien element Confuse and minish in the thing create Its proper being.

But these men begin From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign That fire will turn into the winds of air, Next, that from air the rain begotten is, And earth created out of rain, and then That all, reversely, are returned from earth-- The moisture first, then air thereafter heat-- And that these same ne'er cease in interchange, To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth Unto the stars of the aethereal world-- Which in no wise at all the germs can do.

Since an immutable somewhat still must be, Lest all things utterly be sped to naught; For change in anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before.

Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore, Suffer a changed state, they must derive From others ever unconvertible, Lest an things utterly return to naught.

Then why not rather presuppose there be Bodies with such a nature furnished forth That, if perchance they have created fire, Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn, Or added few, and motion and order changed) Fashion the winds of air, and thus all things Forevermore be interchanged with all?

"But facts in proof are manifest," thou sayest, "That all things grow into the winds of air And forth from earth are nourished, and unless The season favour at propitious hour With rains enough to set the trees a-reel Under the soak of bulking thunderheads, And sun, for its share, foster and give heat, No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow."

True--and unless hard food and moisture soft Recruited man, his frame would waste away, And life dissolve from out his thews and bones; For out of doubt recruited and fed are we By certain things, as other things by others.

Because in many ways the many germs Common to many things are mixed in things, No wonder 'tis that therefore divers things By divers things are nourished. And, again, Often it matters vastly with what others, In what positions the primordial germs Are bound together, and what motions, too, They give and get among themselves; for these Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands, Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things, But yet commixed they are in divers modes With divers things, forever as they move.

Nay, thou beholdest in our verses here Elements many, common to many worlds, Albeit thou must confess each verse, each word From one another differs both in sense And ring of sound--so much the elements Can bring about by change of order alone.

But those which are the primal germs of things Have power to work more combinations still, Whence divers things can be produced in turn.

Now let us also take for scrutiny The homeomeria of Anaxagoras, So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech Yieldeth no name in the Italian tongue, Although the thing itself is not o'erhard For explanation. First, then, when he speaks Of this homeomeria of things, he thinks Bones to be sprung from littlest bones minute, And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh, And blood created out of drops of blood, Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold, And earth concreted out of bits of earth, Fire made of fires, and water out of waters, Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.

Yet he concedes not any void in things, Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.

Wherefore to me he seems on both accounts To err no less than those we named before.

Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-- If they be germs primordial furnished forth With but same nature as the things themselves, And travail and perish equally with those, And no rein curbs them from annihilation.

For which will last against the grip and crush Under the teeth of death? the fire? the moist?

Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones?

No one, methinks, when every thing will be At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark To perish by force before our gazing eyes.

But my appeal is to the proofs above That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet From naught increase. And now again, since food Augments and nourishes the human frame, 'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones And thews are formed of particles unlike To them in kind; or if they say all foods Are of mixed substance having in themselves Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins And particles of blood, then every food, Solid or liquid, must itself be thought As made and mixed of things unlike in kind-- Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.

Again, if all the bodies which upgrow From earth, are first within the earth, then earth Must be compound of alien substances.

Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.

Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood Must be compound of alien substances Which spring from out the wood.

Right here remains A certain slender means to skulk from truth, Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself, Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all While that one only comes to view, of which The bodies exceed in number all the rest, And lie more close to hand and at the fore-- A notion banished from true reason far.

For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones, Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else Which in our human frame is fed; and that Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.

Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's; Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves, All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil; Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.

But since fact teaches this is not the case, 'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things, Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.

"But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest, "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed One against other, smote by the bl.u.s.tering south, Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."

Good sooth--yet fire is not ingraft in wood, But many are the seeds of heat, and when Rubbing together they together flow, They start the conflagrations in the forests.

Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay Stored up within the forests, then the fires Could not for any time be kept unseen, But would be laying all the wildwood waste And burning all the boscage. Now dost see (Even as we said a little s.p.a.ce above) How mightily it matters with what others, In what positions these same primal germs Are bound together? And what motions, too, They give and get among themselves? how, hence, The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-- Precisely as these words themselves are made By somewhat altering their elements, Although we mark with name indeed distinct The igneous from the ligneous. Once again, If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest, Among all visible objects, cannot be, Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed With a like nature,--by thy vain device For thee will perish all the germs of things: 'Twill come to pa.s.s they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.

THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE

Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!

And for myself, my mind is not deceived How dark it is: But the large hope of praise Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart; On the same hour hath strook into my breast Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct, I wander afield, thriving in st.u.r.dy thought, Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, Trodden by step of none before. I joy To come on undefiled fountains there, To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, To seek for this my head a signal crown From regions where the Muses never yet Have garlanded the temples of a man: First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion; Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground: But as physicians, when they seek to give Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch The brim around the cup with the sweet juice And yellow of the honey, in order that The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus Grow strong again with recreated health: So now I too (since this my doctrine seems In general somewhat woeful unto those Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-- If by such method haply I might hold The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou see through the nature of all things, And how exists the interwoven frame.

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made Completely solid, hither and thither fly Forevermore unconquered through all time, Now come, and whether to the sum of them There be a limit or be none, for thee Let us unfold; likewise what has been found To be the wide inane, or room, or s.p.a.ce Wherein all things soever do go on, Let us examine if it finite be All and entire, or reach unmeasured round And downward an illimitable profound.

Thus, then, the All that is is limited In no one region of its onward paths, For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.

And a beyond 'tis seen can never be For aught, unless still further on there be A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-- So that the thing be seen still on to where The nature of sensation of that thing Can follow it no longer. Now because Confess we must there's naught beside the sum, There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.

It matters nothing where thou post thyself, In whatsoever regions of the same; Even any place a man has set him down Still leaves about him the unbounded all Outward in all directions; or, supposing A moment the all of s.p.a.ce finite to be, If some one farthest traveller runs forth Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent And shoots afar, or that some object there Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other Thou must admit and take. Either of which Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel That thou concede the all spreads everywhere, Owning no confines. Since whether there be Aught that may block and check it so it comes Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal, Or whether borne along, in either view 'Thas started not from any end. And so I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pa.s.s That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that The chance for further flight prolongs forever The flight itself. Besides, were all the s.p.a.ce Of the totality and sum shut in With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere, Then would the abundance of world's matter flow Together by solid weight from everywhere Still downward to the bottom of the world, Nor aught could happen under cope of sky, Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-- Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie, By having settled during infinite time.

But in reality, repose is given Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements, Because there is no bottom whereunto They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where They might take up their undisturbed abodes.

In endless motion everything goes on Forevermore; out of all regions, even Out of the pit below, from forth the vast, Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.

The nature of room, the s.p.a.ce of the abyss Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts Can neither speed upon their courses through, Gliding across eternal tracts of time, Nor, further, bring to pa.s.s, as on they run, That they may bate their journeying one whit: Such huge abundance spreads for things around-- Room off to every quarter, without end.

Lastly, before our very eyes is seen Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill, And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea, And sea in turn all lands; but for the All Truly is nothing which outside may bound.

That, too, the sum of things itself may not Have power to fix a measure of its own, Great nature guards, she who compels the void To bound all body, as body all the void, Thus rendering by these alternates the whole An infinite; or else the one or other, Being unbounded by the other, spreads, Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless Immeasurably forth....

Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky, Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of G.o.ds Could keep their place least portion of an hour: For, driven apart from out its meetings fit, The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne Along the illimitable inane afar, Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide, It could not be united. For of 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 since, being many and changed in many modes Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed By blow on blow, even from all time of old, They thus at last, after attempting all The kinds of motion and conjoining, come Into those great arrangements out of which This sum of things established is create, By which, moreover, through the mighty years, It is preserved, when once it has been thrown Into the proper motions, bringing to pa.s.s That ever the streams refresh the greedy main With river-waves abounding, and that earth, Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun, Renews her broods, and that the l.u.s.ty race Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that The gliding fires of ether are alive-- What still the primal germs nowise could do, Unless from out the infinite of s.p.a.ce Could come supply of matter, whence in season They're wont whatever losses to repair.

For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes, Losing its body, when deprived of food: So all things have to be dissolved as soon As matter, diverted by what means soever From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.

Nor can the blows from outward still conserve, On every side, whatever sum of a world Has been united in a whole. They can Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part, Till others arriving may fulfil the sum; But meanwhile often are they forced to spring Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield, Unto those elements whence a world derives, Room and a time for flight, permitting them To be from off the ma.s.sy union borne Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again: Needs must there come a many for supply; And also, that the blows themselves shall be Unfailing ever, must there ever be An infinite force of matter all sides round.

And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far From yielding faith to that notorious talk: That all things inward to the centre press; And thus the nature of the world stands firm With never blows from outward, nor can be Nowhere disparted--since all height and depth Have always inward to the centre pressed (If thou art ready to believe that aught Itself can rest upon itself ); or that The ponderous bodies which be under earth Do all press upwards and do come to rest Upon the earth, in some way upside down, Like to those images of things we see At present through the waters. They contend, With like procedure, that all breathing things Head downward roam about, and yet cannot Tumble from earth to realms of sky below, No more than these our bodies wing away Spontaneously to vaults of sky above; That, when those creatures look upon the sun, We view the constellations of the night; And that with us the seasons of the sky They thus alternately divide, and thus Do pa.s.s the night coequal to our days, But a vain error has given these dreams to fools, Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse For centre none can be where world is still Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were, Could aught take there a fixed position more Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

For all of room and s.p.a.ce we call the void Must both through centre and non-centre yield Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.

Nor is there any place, where, when they've come, Bodies can be at standstill in the void, Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void Furnish support to any,--nay, it must, True to its bent of nature, still give way.

Thus in such manner not at all can things Be held in union, as if overcome By craving for a centre.

But besides, Seeing they feign that not all bodies press To centre inward, rather only those Of earth and water (liquid of the sea, And the big billows from the mountain slopes, And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere, In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach How the thin air, and with it the hot fire, Is borne asunder from the centre, and how, For this all ether quivers with bright stars, And the sun's flame along the blue is fed (Because the heat, from out the centre flying, All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves, Unless, little by little, from out the earth For each were nutriment...

Lest, after the manner of the winged flames, The ramparts of the world should flee away, Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void, And lest all else should likewise follow after, Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk, Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven, With slipping asunder of the primal seeds, Should pa.s.s, along the immeasurable inane, Away forever, and, that instant, naught Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside The desolate s.p.a.ce, and germs invisible.

For on whatever side thou deemest first The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side Will be for things the very door of death: Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash, Out and abroad.

These points, if thou wilt ponder, Then, with but paltry trouble led along...

For one thing after other will grow clear, Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road, To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.

Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.

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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 circ.u.mstance 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.