SOME VITAL FUNCTIONS In these affairs We crave that thou wilt passionately flee The one offence, and anxiously wilt shun The error of presuming the clear lights Of eyes created were that we might see; Or thighs and knees, aprop upon the feet, Thuswise can bended be, that we might step With goodly strides ahead; or forearms joined Unto the sturdy uppers, or serving hands On either side were given, that we might do Life's own demands. All such interpretation Is aft-for-fore with inverse reasoning, Since naught is born in body so that we May use the same, but birth engenders use: No seeing ere the lights of eyes were born, No speaking ere the tongue created was; But origin of tongue came long before Discourse of words, and ears created were Much earlier than any sound was heard; And all the members, so meseems, were there Before they got their use: and therefore, they Could not be gendered for the sake of use. But contrariwise, contending in the fight With hand to hand, and rending of the joints, And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there, O long before the gleaming spears ere flew; And nature prompted man to shun a wound, Before the left arm by the aid of art Opposed the shielding targe. And, verily, Yielding the weary body to repose, Far ancienter than cushions of soft beds, And quenching thirst is earlier than cups. These objects, therefore, which for use and life Have been devised, can be conceived as found For sake of using. But apart from such Are all which first were born and afterwards Gave knowledge of their own utility- Chief in which sort we note the senses, limbs: Wherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power To hold that these could thus have been create For office of utility. Likewise, 'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures Seek, even by nature of their frame, their food. Yes, since I've taught thee that from off the things Stream and depart innumerable bodies In modes innumerable too; but most Must be the bodies streaming from the living- Which bodies, vexed by motion evermore, Are through the mouth exhaled innumerable, When weary creatures pant, or through the sweat Squeezed forth innumerable from deep within. Thus body rarefies, so undermined In all its nature, and pain attends its state. And so the food is taken to underprop The tottering joints, and by its interfusion To re-create their powers, and there stop up The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins, For eating. And the moist no less departs Into all regions that demand the moist; And many heaped-up particles of hot, Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours, The liquid on arriving dissipates And quenches like a fire, that parching heat No longer now can scorch the frame. And so, Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away From off our body, how the hunger-pang It, too, appeased. Now, how it comes that we, Whene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead, And how 'tis given to move our limbs about, And what device is wont to push ahead This the big load of our corporeal frame, I'll say to thee- do thou attend what's said. I say that first some idol-films of walking Into our mind do fall and smite the mind, As said before. Thereafter will arises; For no one starts to do a thing, before The intellect previsions what it wills; And what it there pre-visioneth depends On what that image is. When, therefore, mind Doth so bestir itself that it doth will To go and step along, it strikes at once That energy of soul that's sown about In all the body through the limbs and frame- And this is easy of performance, since The soul is close conjoined with the mind. Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved. Then too the body rarefies, and air, Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness, Comes on and penetrates aboundingly Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round Unto all smallest places in our frame. Thus then by these twain factors, severally, Body is borne like ship with oars and wind. Nor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder That particles so fine can whirl around So great a body and turn this weight of ours; For wind, so tenuous with its subtle body, Yet pushes, driving on the mighty ship Of mighty bulk; one hand directs the same, Whatever its momentum, and one helm Whirls it around, whither ye please; and loads, Many and huge, are moved and hoisted high By enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels, With but light strain. Now, by what modes this sleep Pours through our members waters of repose And frees the breast from cares of mind, 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. Do thou Give me sharp ears and a sagacious mind,- That thou mayst not deny the things to be Whereof I'm speaking, nor depart away With bosom scorning these the spoken truths, Thyself at fault unable to perceive. Sleep chiefly comes when energy of soul Hath now been scattered through the frame, and part Expelled abroad and gone away, and part Crammed back and settling deep within the frame- Whereafter then our loosened members droop. For doubt is none that by the work of soul Exist in us this sense, and when by slumber That sense is thwarted, we are bound to think The soul confounded and expelled abroad- Yet not entirely, else the frame would lie Drenched in the everlasting cold of death. In sooth, where no one part of soul remained Lurking among the members, even as fire Lurks buried under many ashes, whence Could sense amain rekindled be in members, As flame can rise anew from unseen fire? By what devices this strange state and new May be occasioned, and by what the soul Can be confounded and the frame grow faint, I will untangle: see to it, thou, that I Pour forth my words not unto empty winds. In first place, body on its outer parts- Since these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts- Must there be thumped and strook by blows of air Repeatedly. And therefore almost all Are covered either with hides, or else with shells, Or with the horny callus, or with bark. Yet this same air lashes their inner parts, When creatures draw a breath or blow it out. Wherefore, since body thus is flogged alike Upon the inside and the out, and blows Come in upon us through the little pores Even inward to our body's primal parts And primal elements, there comes to pass By slow degrees, along our members then, A kind of overthrow; for then confounded Are those arrangements of the primal germs Of body and of mind. It comes to pass That next a part of soul's expelled abroad, A part retreateth in recesses hid, A part, too, scattered all about the frame, Cannot become united nor engage In interchange of motion. Nature now So hedges off approaches and the paths; And thus the sense, its motions all deranged, Retires down deep within; and since there's naught, As 'twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens, And all the members languish, and the arms And eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed, Even there the houghs will sag and loose their powers. Again, sleep follows after food, because The food produces same result as air, Whilst being scattered round through all the veins; And much the heaviest is that slumber which, Full or fatigued, thou takest; since 'tis then That the most bodies disarrange themselves, Bruised by labours hard. And in same wise, This three-fold change: a forcing of the soul Down deeper, more a casting-forth of it, A moving more divided in its parts And scattered more. And to whate'er pursuit A man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs On which we theretofore have tarried much, And mind hath strained upon the more, we seem In sleep not rarely to go at the same. The lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees, Commanders they to fight and go at frays, Sailors to live in combat with the winds, And we ourselves indeed to make this book, And still to seek the nature of the world And set it down, when once discovered, here In these my country's leaves. Thus all pursuits, All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock And master the minds of men. And whosoever Day after day for long to games have given Attention undivided, still they keep (As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp Those games with their own senses, open paths Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films Of just those games can come. And thus it is For many a day thereafter those appear Floating before the eyes, that even awake They think they view the dancers moving round Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears The liquid song of harp and speaking chords, And view the same assembly on the seats, And manifold bright glories of the stage- So great the influence of pursuit and zest, And of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont Of men to be engaged-nor only men, But soothly all the animals. Behold, Thou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched, Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever, And straining utmost strength, as if for prize, As if, with barriers opened now... And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose Yet toss asudden all their legs about, And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff The winds again, again, as though indeed They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts, And, even when wakened, often they pursue The phantom images of stags, as though They did perceive them fleeing on before, Until the illusion's shaken off and dogs Come to themselves again. And fawning breed Of house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge To shake their bodies and start from off the ground, As if beholding stranger-visages. And ever the fiercer be the stock, the more In sleep the same is ever bound to rage. But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex With sudden wings by night the groves of gods, When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight. Again, the minds of mortals which perform With mighty motions mighty enterprises, Often in sleep will do and dare the same In manner like. Kings take the towns by storm, Succumb to capture, battle on the field, Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut Even then and there. And many wrestle on And groan with pains, and fill all regions round With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed By fangs of panther or of lion fierce. Many amid their slumbers talk about Their mighty enterprises, and have often Enough become the proof of their own crimes. Many meet death; many, as if headlong From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright; And after sleep, as if still mad in mind, They scarce come to, confounded as they are By ferment of their frame. The thirsty man, Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat Nigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young, By sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress By pail or public jordan and then void The water filtered down their frame entire And drench the Babylonian coverlets, Magnificently bright. Again, those males Into the surging channels of whose years Now first has passed the seed (engendered Within their members by the ripened days) Are in their sleep confronted from without By idol-images of some fair form- Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom, Which stir and goad the regions turgid now With seed abundant; so that, as it were With all the matter acted duly out, They pour the billows of a potent stream And stain their garment. And as said before, That seed is roused in us when once ripe age Has made our body strong... As divers causes give to divers things Impulse and irritation, so one force In human kind rouses the human seed To spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues, Forced from its first abodes, it passes down In the whole body through the limbs and frame, Meeting in certain regions of our thews, And stirs amain the genitals of man. The goaded regions swell with seed, and then Comes the delight to dart the same at what The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks That object, whence the mind by love is pierced. For well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound, And our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence The stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed The foe be close, the red jet reaches him. Thus, one who gets a stroke from Venus ' shafts- Whether a boy with limbs effeminate Assault him, or a woman darting love From all her body- that one strains to get Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs To join with it and cast into its frame The fluid drawn even from within its own. For the mute craving doth presage delight. THE PASSION OF LOVE This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us: From this, engender all the lures of love, From this, O first hath into human hearts Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed, Though she thou lovest now be far away, Yet idol-images of her are near And the sweet name is floating in thy ear. But it behooves to flee those images; And scare afar whatever feeds thy love; And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm, Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies, Nor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love, Keep it for one delight, and so store up Care for thyself and pain inevitable. For, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing Grows to more life with deep inveteracy, And day by day the fury swells aflame, And the woe waxes heavier day by day- Unless thou dost destroy even by new blows The former wounds of love, and curest them While yet they're fresh, by wandering freely round After the freely-wandering Venus , or Canst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind. Nor doth that man who keeps away from love Yet lack the fruits of Venus ; rather takes Those pleasures which are free of penalties. For the delights of Venus, verily, Are more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul Than for those sick-at-heart with love-pining. Yea, in the very moment of possessing, Surges the heat of lovers to and fro, Restive, uncertain; and they cannot fix On what to first enjoy with eyes and hands. The parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight, And pain the creature's body, close their teeth Often against her lips, and smite with kiss Mouth into mouth,- because this same delight Is not unmixed; and underneath are stings Which goad a man to hurt the very thing, Whate'er it be, from whence arise for him Those germs of madness. But with gentle touch Venus subdues the pangs in midst of love, And the admixture of a fondling joy Doth curb the bites of passion. For they hope That by the very body whence they caught The heats of love their flames can be put out. But nature protests 'tis all quite otherwise; For this same love it is the one sole thing Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns The breast with fell desire. For food and drink Are taken within our members; and, since they Can stop up certain parts, thus, easily Desire of water is glutted and of bread. But, lo, from human face and lovely bloom Naught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed Save flimsy idol-images and vain- A sorry hope which oft the winds disperse. As when the thirsty man in slumber seeks To drink, and water ne'er is granted him Wherewith to quench the heat within his members, But after idols of the liquids strives And toils in vain, and thirsts even whilst he gulps In middle of the torrent, thus in love Venus deludes with idol-images The lovers. Nor they cannot sate their lust By merely gazing on the bodies, nor They cannot with their palms and fingers rub Aught from each tender limb, the while they stray Uncertain over all the body. Then, At last, with members intertwined, when they Enjoy the flower of their age, when now Their bodies have sweet presage of keen joys, And Venus is about to sow the fields Of woman, greedily their frames they lock, And mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths- Yet to no purpose, since they're powerless To rub off aught, or penetrate and pass With body entire into body- for oft They seem to strive and struggle thus to do; So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds, Whilst melt away their members, overcome By violence of delight. But when at last Lust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself, There come a brief pause in the raging heat- But then a madness just the same returns And that old fury visits them again, When once again they seek and crave to reach They know not what, all powerless to find The artifice to subjugate the bane. In such uncertain state they waste away With unseen wound. To which be added too, They squander powers and with the travail wane; Be added too, they spend their futile years Under another's beck and call; their duties Neglected languish and their honest name Reeleth sick, sick; and meantime their estates Are lost in Babylonian tapestries; And unguents and dainty Sicyonian shoes Laugh on her feet; and (as ye may be sure) Big emeralds of green light are set in gold; And rich sea-purple dress by constant wear Grows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat; And the well-earned ancestral property Becometh head-bands, coifs, and many a time The cloaks, or garments Alidensian Or of the Cean isle. And banquets, set With rarest cloth and viands, are prepared- And games of chance, and many a drinking cup, And unguents, crowns and garlands. All in vain, Since from amid the well-spring of delights Bubbles some drop of bitter to torment Among the very flowers- when haply mind Gnaws into self, now stricken with remorse For slothful years and ruin in baudels, Or else because she's left him all in doubt By launching some sly word, which still like fire Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart; Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes Too much about and gazes at another,- And in her face sees traces of a laugh. These ills are found in prospering love and true; But in crossed love and helpless there be such As through shut eyelids thou canst still take in- Uncounted ills; so that 'tis better far To watch beforehand, in the way I've shown, And guard against enticements. For to shun A fall into the hunting-snares of love Is not so hard, as to get out again, When tangled in the very nets, and burst The stoutly-knotted cords of Aphrodite. Yet even when there enmeshed with tangled feet, Still canst thou scape the danger-lest indeed Thou standest in the way of thine own good, And overlookest first all blemishes Of mind and body of thy much preferred, Desirable dame. For so men do, Eyeless with passion, and assign to them Graces not theirs in fact. And thus we see Creatures in many a wise crooked and ugly The prosperous sweethearts in a high esteem; And lovers gird each other and advise To placate Venus, since their friends are smit With a base passion- miserable dupes Who seldom mark their own worst bane of all. The black-skinned girl is "tawny like the honey"; The filthy and the fetid's "negligee"; The cat-eyed she's "a little Pallas ," she; The sinewy and wizened's "a gazelle"; The pudgy and the pigmy is "piquant, One of the Graces sure"; the big and bulky O she's "an Admiration, imposante"; The stuttering and tongue-tied "sweetly lisps"; The mute girl's "modest"; and the garrulous, The spiteful spit-fire, is "a sparkling wit"; And she who scarcely lives for scrawniness Becomes "a slender darling"; "delicate" Is she who's nearly dead of coughing-fit; The pursy female with protuberant breasts She is "like Ceres when the goddess gave Young Bacchus suck"; the pug-nosed lady-love "A Satyress, a feminine Silenus"; The blubber-lipped is "all one luscious kiss"- A weary while it were to tell the whole. But let her face possess what charm ye will, Let Venus ' glory rise from all her limbs,- Forsooth there still are others; and forsooth We lived before without her; and forsooth She does the same things- and we know she does- All, as the ugly creature, and she scents, Yes she, her wretched self with vile perfumes; Whom even her handmaids flee and giggle at Behind her back. But he, the lover, in tears Because shut out, covers her threshold o'er Often with flowers and garlands, and anoints Her haughty door-posts with the marjoram, And prints, poor fellow, kisses on the doors- Admitted at last, if haply but one whiff Got to him on approaching, he would seek Decent excuses to go out forthwith; And his lament, long pondered, then would fall Down at his heels; and there he'd damn himself For his fatuity, observing how He had assigned to that same lady more- Than it is proper to concede to mortals. And these our Venuses are 'ware of this. Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide All the-behind-the-scenes of life from those Whom they desire to keep in bonds of love- In vain, since ne'ertheless thou canst by thought Drag all the matter forth into the light And well search out the cause of all these smiles; And if of graceful mind she be and kind, Do thou, in thy turn, overlook the same, And thus allow for poor mortality. Nor sighs the woman always with feigned love, Who links her body round man's body locked And holds him fast, making his kisses wet With lips sucked into lips; for oft she acts Even from desire, and, seeking mutual joys, Incites him there to run love's race-course through. Nor otherwise can cattle, birds, wild beasts, And sheep and mares submit unto the males, Except that their own nature is in heat, And burns abounding and with gladness takes Once more the Venus of the mounting males. And seest thou not how those whom mutual pleasure Hath bound are tortured in their common bonds? How often in the cross-roads dogs that pant To get apart strain eagerly asunder With utmost might?- When all the while they're fast In the stout links of Venus . But they'd ne'er So pull, except they knew those mutual joys- So powerful to cast them unto snares And hold them bound. Wherefore again, again, Even as I say, there is a joint delight. And when perchance, in mingling seed with his, The female hath o'erpowered the force of male And by a sudden fling hath seized it fast, Then are the offspring, more from mothers' seed, More like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed, They're like to fathers. But whom seest to be Partakers of each shape, one equal blend Of parents' features, these are generate From fathers' body and from mothers' blood, When mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed Together seeds, aroused along their frames By Venus ' goads, and neither of the twain Mastereth or is mastered. Happens too That sometimes offspring can to being come In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because Their parents in their bodies oft retain Concealed many primal germs, commixed In many modes, which, starting with the stock, Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire; Whence Venus by a variable chance Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back Ancestral features, voices too, and hair. A female generation rises forth From seed paternal, and from mother's body Exist created males: since sex proceeds No more from singleness of seed than faces Or bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth Is from a twofold seed; and what's created Hath, of that parent which it is more like, More than its equal share; as thou canst mark,- Whether the breed be male or female stock. Nor do the powers divine grudge any man The fruits of his seed-sowing, so that never He be called "father" by sweet children his, And end his days in sterile love forever. What many men suppose; and gloomily They sprinkle the altars with abundant blood, And make the high platforms odorous with burnt gifts, To render big by plenteous seed their wives- And plague in vain godheads and sacred lots. For sterile are these men by seed too thick, Or else by far too watery and thin. Because the thin is powerless to cleave Fast to the proper places, straightaway It trickles from them, and, returned again, Retires abortively. And then since seed More gross and solid than will suit is spent By some men, either it flies not forth amain With spurt prolonged enough, or else it fails To enter suitably the proper places, Or, having entered, the seed is weakly mixed With seed of the woman: harmonies of Venus 
 Are seen to matter vastly here; and some Impregnate some more readily, and from some Some women conceive more readily and become Pregnant. And many women, sterile before In several marriage-beds, have yet thereafter Obtained the mates from whom they could conceive The baby-boys, and with sweet progeny Grow rich. And even for husbands (whose own wives, Although of fertile wombs, have borne for them No babies in the house) are also found Concordant natures so that they at last Can bulwark their old age with goodly sons. A matter of great moment 'tis in truth, That seeds may mingle readily with seeds Suited for procreation, and that thick Should mix with fluid seeds, with thick the fluid. And in this business 'tis of some import Upon what diet life is nourished: For some foods thicken seeds within our members, And others thin them out and waste away. And in what modes the fond delight itself Is carried on- this too importeth vastly. For commonly 'tis thought that wives conceive More readily in manner of wild-beasts, After the custom of the four-foot breeds, Because so postured, with the breasts beneath And buttocks then upreared, the seeds can take Their proper places. Nor is need the least For wives to use the motions of blandishment; For thus the woman hinders and resists Her own conception, if too joyously Herself she treats the Venus of the man With haunches heaving, and with all her bosom Now yielding like the billows of the sea- Aye, from the ploughshare's even course and track She throws the furrow, and from proper places Deflects the spurt of seed. And courtesans Are thuswise wont to move for their own ends, To keep from pregnancy and lying in, And all the while to render Venus more A pleasure for the men- the which meseems Our wives have never need of. Sometimes too It happens- and through no divinity Nor arrows of Venus- that a sorry chit Of scanty grace will be beloved by man; For sometimes she herself by very deeds, By her complying ways, and tidy habits, Will easily accustom thee to pass With her thy life-time- and, moreover, lo, Long habitude can gender human love, Even as an object smitten o'er and o'er By blows, however lightly, yet at last Is overcome and wavers. Seest thou not, Besides, how drops of water falling down Against the stones at last bore through the stones? 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 A 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 regathers 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 rays 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.