On the Nature of Things Part 8

O why not rather make an end of life, Of labour? For all I may devise or find To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are The same forever. Though not yet thy body Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts Outworn, still things abide the same, even if Thou goest on to conquer all of time With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-- What were our answer, but that Nature here Urges just suit and in her words lays down True cause of action? Yet should one complain, Riper in years and elder, and lament, Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit, Then would she not, with greater right, on him Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill: "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!

Thou wrinklest--after thou hast had the sum Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever What's not at hand, contemning present good, That life has slipped away, unperfected And unavailing unto thee. And now, Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head Stands--and before thou canst be going home Sated and laden with the goodly feast.

But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-- Up, with good grace! make room for sons: thou must."

Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus, Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever The one thing from the others is repaired.

Nor no man is consigned to the abyss Of Tartarus, the black. For stuff must be, That thus the after-generations grow,-- Though these, their life completed, follow thee; And thus like thee are generations all-- Already fallen, or some time to fall.

So one thing from another rises ever; And in fee-simple life is given to none, But unto all mere usufruct.

Look back: Nothing to us was all fore-pa.s.sed eld Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.

And Nature holds this like a mirror up Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.

And what is there so horrible appears?

Now what is there so sad about it all?

Is't not serener far than any sleep?

And, verily, those tortures said to be In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed With baseless terror, as the fables tell, Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air: But, rather, in life an empty dread of G.o.ds Urges mortality, and each one fears Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.

Nor eat the vultures into t.i.tyus Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find, Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught To pry around for in that mighty breast.

However hugely he extend his bulk-- Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine, But the whole earth--he shall not able be To bear eternal pain nor furnish food From his own frame forever. But for us A t.i.tyus is he whom vultures rend Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats, Whom troubles of any unappeased desires Asunder rip. We have before our eyes Here in this life also a Sisyphus In him who seeketh of the populace The rods, the axes fell, and evermore Retires a beaten and a gloomy man.

For to seek after power--an empty name, Nor given at all--and ever in the search To endure a world of toil, O this it is To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone Which yet comes rolling back from off the top, And headlong makes for levels of the plain.

Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind, Filling with good things, satisfying never-- As do the seasons of the year for us, When they return and bring their progenies And varied charms, and we are never filled With the fruits of life--O this, I fancy, 'tis To pour, like those young virgins in the tale, Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.

Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light

Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge Of horrible heat--the which are nowhere, nor Indeed can be: but in this life is fear Of retributions just and expiations For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes, The executioners, the oaken rack, The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.

And even though these are absent, yet the mind, With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile What terminus of ills, what end of pine Can ever be, and feareth lest the same But grow more heavy after death. Of truth, The life of fools is Acheron on earth.

This also to thy very self sometimes Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things A better man than thou, O worthless hind; And many other kings and lords of rule Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed O'er mighty peoples. And he also, he-- Who whilom paved a highway down the sea, And gave his legionaries thoroughfare Along the deep, and taught them how to cross The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn, Trampling upon it with his cavalry, The bellowings of ocean--poured his soul From dying body, as his light was ta'en.

And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war, Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth, Like to the lowliest villein in the house.

Add finders-out of sciences and arts; Add comrades of the Heliconian dames, Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all, Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.

Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld Admonished him his memory waned away, Of own accord offered his head to death.

Even Epicurus went, his light of life Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped The human race, extinguishing all others, As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.

Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-- For whom already life's as good as dead, Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?--who in sleep Wastest thy life--time's major part, and snorest Even when awake, and ceasest not to see The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch, Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares, And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."

If men, in that same way as on the mind They feel the load that wearies with its weight, Could also know the causes whence it comes, And why so great the heap of ill on heart, O not in this sort would they live their life, As now so much we see them, knowing not What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever A change of place, as if to drop the burden.

The man who sickens of his home goes out, Forth from his splendid halls, and straight--returns, Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.

He races, driving his Gallic ponies along, Down to his villa, madly,--as in haste To hurry help to a house afire.--At once He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold, Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about And makes for town again. In such a way Each human flees himself--a self in sooth, As happens, he by no means can escape; And w.i.l.l.y-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes, Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.

Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then, Leaving all else, he'd study to divine The nature of things, since here is in debate Eternal time and not the single hour, Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains After great death.

And too, when all is said, What evil l.u.s.t of life is this so great Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught In perils and alarms? one fixed end Of life abideth for mortality; Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet.

Besides we're busied with the same devices, Ever and ever, and we are at them ever, And there's no new delight that may be forged By living on. But whilst the thing we long for Is lacking, that seems good above all else; Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else We long for; ever one equal thirst of life Grips us agape. And doubtful 'tis what fortune The future times may carry, or what be That chance may bring, or what the issue next Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life Take we the least away from death's own time, Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby To minish the aeons of our state of death.

Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil As many generations as thou may: Eternal death shall there be waiting still; And he who died with light of yesterday Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more Than he who perished months or years before.

BOOK IV

PROEM

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 Song so pellucid, touching all throughout Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground: For 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 dost learn the nature of all things And understandest their utility.

EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES

But since I've taught already of what sort The seeds of all things are, and how distinct In divers forms they flit of own accord, Stirred with a motion everlasting on, And in what mode things be from them create, And since I've taught what the mind's nature is, And of what things 'tis with the body knit And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn That mind returns to its primordials, Now will I undertake an argument-- One for these matters of supreme concern-- That there exist those somewhats which we call The images of things: these, like to films Scaled off the utmost outside of the things, Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere, And the same terrify our intellects, Coming upon us waking or in sleep, When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes And images of people lorn of light, Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay In slumber--that haply nevermore may we Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron, Or shades go floating in among the living, Or aught of us is left behind at death, When body and mind, destroyed together, each Back to its own primordials goes away.

And thus I say that effigies of things, And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things, Which are like films or may be named a rind, Because the image bears like look and form With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-- A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits, Well learn from this: mainly, because we see Even 'mongst visible objects many be That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-- Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-- And some more interwoven and condensed-- As when the locusts in the summertime Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves At birth drop membranes from their body's surface, Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs Its vestments 'mongst the thorns--for oft we see The breres augmented with their flying spoils: Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too That tenuous images from things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things.

For why those kinds should drop and part from things, Rather than others tenuous and thin, No power has man to open mouth to tell; Especially, since on outsides of things Are bodies many and minute which could, In the same order which they had before, And with the figure of their form preserved, Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too, Being less subject to impediments, As few in number and placed along the front.

For truly many things we see discharge Their stuff at large, not only from their cores Deep-set within, as we have said above, But from their surfaces at times no less-- Their very colours too. And commonly The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue, Stretched overhead in mighty theatres, Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering, Have such an action quite; for there they dye And make to undulate with their every hue The circled throng below, and all the stage, And rich attire in the patrician seats.

And ever the more the theatre's dark walls Around them shut, the more all things within Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints, The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye From off their surface, things in general must Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge, Because in either case they are off-thrown From off the surface. So there are indeed Such certain prints and vestiges of forms Which flit around, of subtlest texture made, Invisible, when separate, each and one.

Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such Streams out of things diffusedly, because, Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth And rising out, along their bending path They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight Wherethrough to ma.s.s themselves and struggle abroad.

But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand. Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out.

There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which no one can divine When taken singly, which do yet give back, When by continued and recurrent discharge Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.

Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept So well conserved that thus be given back Figures so like each object.

Now then, learn How tenuous is the nature of an image.

And in the first place, since primordials be So far beneath our senses, and much less E'en than those objects which begin to grow Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few How nice are the beginnings of all things-- That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof: First, living creatures are sometimes so small That even their third part can nowise be seen; Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-- What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs, The skeleton?--How tiny thus they are!

And what besides of those first particles Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?--Seest not How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-- The nauseous absinth, or the panacea, Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-- If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain Perchance [thou touch] a one of them

Then why not rather know that images Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes, Bodiless and invisible?

But lest Haply thou holdest that those images Which come from objects are the sole that flit, Others indeed there be of own accord Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies, Which, moulded to innumerable shapes, Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are, Cease not to change appearance and to turn Into new outlines of all sorts of forms; As we behold the clouds grow thick on high And smirch the serene vision of the world, Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen The giants' faces flying far along And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks Going before and crossing on the sun, Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain And leading in the other thunderheads.

Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be Engendered, and perpetually flow off From things and gliding pa.s.s away....

For ever every outside streams away From off all objects, since discharge they may; And when this outside reaches other things, As chiefly gla.s.s, it pa.s.ses through; but where It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood, There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back An image. But when gleaming objects dense, As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it, Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't Go, as through gla.s.s, nor yet be rent--its safety, By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.

'Tis therefore that from them the images Stream back to us; and howso suddenly Thou place, at any instant, anything Before a mirror, there an image shows; Proving that ever from a body's surface Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.

Thus many images in little time Are gendered; so their origin is named Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun Must send below, in little time, to earth So many beams to keep all things so full Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same, From things there must be borne, in many modes, To every quarter round, upon the moment, The many images of things; because Unto whatever face of things we turn The mirror, things of form and hue the same Respond. Besides, though but a moment since Serenest was the weather of the sky, So fiercely sudden is it foully thick That ye might think that round about all murk Had parted forth from Acheron and filled The mighty vaults of sky--so grievously, As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night, Do faces of black horror hang on high-- Of which how small a part an image is There's none to tell or reckon out in words.

Now come; with what swift motion they are borne, These images, and what the speed a.s.signed To them across the breezes swimming on-- So that o'er lengths of s.p.a.ce a little hour Alone is wasted, toward whatever region Each with its divers impulse tends--I'll tell In verses sweeter than they many are; Even as the swan's slight note is better far Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first, One oft may see that objects which are light And made of tiny bodies are the swift; In which cla.s.s is the sun's light and his heat, Since made from small primordial elements Which, as it were, are forward knocked along And through the inters.p.a.ces of the air To pa.s.s delay not, urged by blows behind; For light by light is instantly supplied And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.

Thus likewise must the images have power Through unimaginable s.p.a.ce to speed Within a point of time,--first, since a cause Exceeding small there is, which at their back Far forward drives them and propels, where, too, They're carried with such winged lightness on; And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off, With texture of such rareness that they can Through objects whatsoever penetrate And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.

Besides, if those fine particles of things Which from so deep within are sent abroad, As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide And spread themselves through all the s.p.a.ce of heaven Upon one instant of the day, and fly O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then Of those which on the outside stand prepared, When they're hurled off with not a thing to check Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed How swifter and how farther must they go And speed through manifold the length of s.p.a.ce In time the same that from the sun the rays O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be Example chief and true with what swift speed The images of things are borne about: That soon as ever under open skies Is spread the shining water, all at once, If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth, Serene and radiant in the water there, The constellations of the universe-- Now seest thou not in what a point of time An image from the sh.o.r.es of ether falls Unto the sh.o.r.es of earth? Wherefore, again, And yet again, 'tis needful to confess With wondrous...