Translations from Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

But in what ways matter converging once
Established earth and heaven and the sea’s deeps,
The sun’s course and the moon’s, I will set forth
In order. For in truth not by design
Did the primordial particles of things
Arrange themselves each in its own right place
With provident mind, nor verily have they bargained
What motions each should follow; but because
These primal atoms in such multitudes
And in so many ways through infinite time
Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight,
Have been borne onward so incessantly,
Uniting in every way and making trial
Of every shape they could combine to form,
Therefore it is that after wandering wide
Through vast periods, attempting every kind
Of union and of motion, they at last
Collect into such groups as, suddenly
Flocking together, oftentimes become
The rudiments of mighty things, of earth,
Sea and sky, and the race of living creatures.

At that time neither could the disk of the sun
Be seen flying aloft with bounteous light,
Nor the stars of great heaven, nor sea, nor sky,
Nor yet earth nor the air, nor anything
Resembling those things which we now behold,
But only a sort of strange tempest, a mass
Gathered together out of primal atoms
Of all kinds, which discordantly waged war
Disordering so their interspaces, paths,
Connections, weights, collisions, meetings, motions,
Since with their unlike forms and varied shapes,
They could not therefore all remain united,
Nor move among themselves harmoniously.
Thereupon parts began to fly asunder,
And like things to unite with like, and so
To separate off the world, and to divide
Its members, portioning out its mighty parts;
That is, to mark off the high heaven from earth,
And the sea by itself, that it might spread
With unmixed waters, and likewise the fires
Of aether by themselves, pure and unmixed.

Now first the several particles of earth,
Since they were heavy and close-packed, all met
Together in the middle, and took up
The lowest places: and the more they met
In close-packed throngs, the more did they squeeze out
Those particles which were to form sea, stars,
Sun and moon, and the walls of the great world.
For all these are of smoother rounder seeds,
And of much smaller elements than earth.
So first through porous openings in the soil
The fire-laden aether here and there
Bursting forth rose and lightly carried off
Many fires with it, much in the same way
As often we may see when first the beams
Of the radiant sun with golden morning light
Blush through the grasses gemmed with dew, and lakes
And ever-flowing rivers exhale mist,
While earth itself is sometimes seen to smoke;
And when floating aloft these vapours all
Unite on high, then taking bodily shape
As clouds, they weave a veil beneath the heavens.
Thus then the light diffusive aether once
Took bodily shape, and, arched round on all sides,
Far into every quarter spreading out,
So with its greedy embrace hemmed in all else.
Next came the rudiments of sun and moon,
Whose globes turn in the air midway between
Aether and earth; for neither did the earth
Nor the great aether claim them for itself,
Since they were not so heavy as to sink
And settle down, nor so light as to glide
Along the topmost borders: yet their course
Between the two is such, that as they roll
Their lifelike bodies onward, they are still
Parts of the whole world; even as with us
Some of our members may remain at rest,
While at the same time others may be in motion.
So when these things had been withdrawn, the earth,
Where now the ocean’s vast blue region spreads,
Sank suddenly down, and flooded with salt surge
Its hollow parts. And day by day the more
The encircling aether’s heats and the sun’s rays
Compressed the earth into a closer mass
By constant blows upon its outer surface
From every side, so that thus beaten upon
It shrank and drew together round its centre,
The more did the salt sweat squeezed from its body
Increase by its oozings the sea’s floating plains,
And the more did those many particles
Of heat and air escaping fly abroad,
And far away from the earth condensing, form
The lofty glittering mansions of the sky.
The plains sank lower, the high mountains grew
Yet steeper; for the rocks could not sink down,
Nor could all parts subside to one same level.

Thus then the earth’s ponderous mass was formed
With close-packed body, and all the slime of the world
Slid to the lowest plane by its own weight,
And at the bottom settled down like dregs.
Then the sea, then the air, then the fire-laden
Aether itself, all these were now left pure
With liquid bodies. Some indeed are lighter
Than others, and most liquid and light of all
Over the airy currents aether floats,
Not blending with the turbulent atmosphere
Its liquid substance. All below, it suffers
To be embroiled by violent hurricanes,
Suffers all to be tossed with wayward storms,
While itself gliding on with changeless sweep
Bears its own fires along. For, that the aether
May stream on steadily with one impulse,
The Pontos demonstrates, that sea which streams
With an unchanging tide, unceasingly
Preserving as it glides one constant pace.

Now let us sing what cause could set the stars
In motion. First, if the great globe of heaven
Revolves, then we must needs maintain that air
Presses upon the axis at each end,
And holds it from outside, closing it in
At both poles; also that there streams above
Another current, moving the same way,
In which the stars of the eternal world
Roll glittering onward; or else that beneath
There is another stream, that drives the sphere
Upwards the opposite way, just as we see
Rivers turn mill-wheels with their water-scoops.
It likewise may well be that the whole sky
Remains at rest, yet that the shining signs
Are carried onwards; either because within them
Are shut swift tides of aether, that whirl round
Seeking a way out, and so roll their fires
On all sides through the sky’s nocturnal mansions;
Or else that from some other source outside
An air-stream whirls and drives the fires along;
Or else they may be gliding of themselves,
Moving whithersoever the food of each
Calls and invites them, nourishing everywhere
Their flaming bodies throughout the whole sky.
For it is hard to affirm with certainty
Which of these causes operates in this world:
But what throughout the universe both can
And does take place in various worlds, created
On various plans, this I teach, and proceed
To expound what divers causes may exist
Through the universe for the motion of the stars:
And one of these in our world too must be
The cause which to the heavenly signs imparts
Their motive vigour: but dogmatically
To assert which this may be, is in no wise
The function of those advancing step by step.

Now in order that the earth should be at rest
In the world’s midst, it would seem probable
That its weight gradually diminishing
Should disappear, and that the earth should have
Another nature underneath, conjoined
And blent in union from its earliest age
With those aerial portions of the world
Wherein it lives embodied. For this cause
It is no burden, nor weighs down the air,
Just as to a man his own limbs are no weight,
Nor is the head a burden to the neck,
Nor do we feel that the whole body’s weight
Rests on the feet: yet a much smaller burden
Laid on us from outside, will often hurt us.
Of such great moment is it what each thing’s
Function may be. Thus then the earth is not
An alien body intruded suddenly,
Nor thrust from elsewhere into an alien air,
But was conceived together with the world
At its first birth as a fixed portion of it,
Just as our limbs are seen to be of us.
Moreover the earth, when shaken suddenly
With violent thunder, by its trembling shakes
All that is over it; which in no wise
Could happen, if it were not closely bound
With the world’s airy parts, and with the sky.
For they all, as though by common roots, cohere
One with another, from their earliest age
Conjoined and blent in union. See you not too
That heavy as our body’s weight may be,
Yet the soul’s force, though subtle exceedingly,
Sustains it, being so closely joined and blent
In union with it? Also what has power
To lift the body with a nimble leap,
Except the mind’s force that controls the limbs?
Do you not now perceive how great the power
May be of a subtle nature, when ’tis joined
With a heavy body, even as with the earth
The air is joined, and the mind’s force with us?

Also the sun’s disk cannot be much larger,
Nor its heat be much less, than to our sense
They appear to be. For from whatever distance
Fires can fling light, and breathe upon our limbs
Their warming heat, these intervening spaces
Take away nothing from the body of flame;
The fire is not shrunken visibly.
So since the sun’s heat and the light it sheds
Both reach our senses and caress our limbs,
The form also and contour of the sun
Must needs be seen from the earth in their true scale,
With neither addition nor diminishment.
Also the moon, whether it moves along
Illuminating earth with borrowed light,
Or throws out its own rays from its own body,
Howe’er that be, moves with a shape no larger
Than seems that shape which our eyes contemplate.
For all things which we look at from far off
Through much air, seem to our vision to grow dim
Before their contours lessen. Therefore the moon,
Seeing that it presents a clear aspect
And definite shape, must needs by us on earth
Be seen on high in its defining outline
Just as it is, and of its actual size.
Lastly consider all those fires of aether
You see from the earth. Since fires, which here below
We observe, for so long as their flickering
Remains distinct, and their heat is perceived,
Are sometimes seen to change their size to less
Or greater to some very slight extent
According to their distance, you may thence
Know that the fires of aether can be smaller
Only by infinitesimal degrees,
Or larger by the tiniest minute fraction.

This also is not wonderful, how the sun
Small as it is, can shed so great a light,
As with its flood to fill all seas and lands
And sky, with warm heat bathing everything.
For from this spot perhaps a single well
For the whole world may open and gush out,
Shooting forth an abundant stream of light,
Because from everywhere throughout the world
In such wise do the particles of heat
Gather together, and their united mass
Converges in such wise, that blazing fire
Streams forth here from a single fountain-head.
See you not too how wide a meadow-land
One little spring of water sometimes floods,
Overflowing whole fields? It may be also
That from the sun’s flame, though it be not great,
Heat pervades the whole air with scorching fires,
Should the air chance to be susceptible
And ready to be kindled, when it is struck
By tiny heat-rays. Then we sometimes see
A wide-spread conflagration from one spark
Catch fields of corn or stubble. Perhaps too
The sun shining on high with ruddy torch
May be surrounded by much fire and heats
Invisible, fire which no radiance
Reveals, but laden with heat it does no more
Than reinforce the stroke of the sun’s rays.

Nor is there any single theory,
Certain and obvious, of how the sun
Out of his summer stations passing forth
Approaches the midwinter turning-point
Of Capricorn, and how coming back thence
He bends his course to the solstitial goal
Of Cancer; then too how the moon is seen
To traverse every month that space, whereon
The journeying sun spends a year’s period.
For these events, I say, no single cause
Can be assigned. It seems most probable
That the august opinion of Democritus
Should be the truth; the nearer to the earth
The several constellations move, the less
Can they be borne on with the whirl of heaven:
For in the lower portions of this whirl
He says its speed and energy diminish
And disappear; so that little by little
The sun is outstripped by the signs that follow,
Since he is far beneath the burning stars.
And the moon, so he says, more than the sun.
The lower and the further from the sky
Her course is, and the nearer to the earth,
The less can she keep even with the signs.
For the more languid is the whirl whereby
She is borne along, being lower than the sun,
The more do all the signs around her path
Overtake and pass by her. Thus it is
That she seems to move backward to each sign
More quickly, because the signs come up to her.
It may be also that two streams of air
Cross the sun’s path at fixed times, each in turn
Flowing from opposite quarters of the world,
Whereof the first may thrust the sun away
Out of the summer signs, until he comes
To his winter turning-point and the icy frost;
While the other from the freezing shades of cold
Sweeps him right back to the heat-laden regions
And the torrid constellations. And just so
We must suppose that the moon and the planets,
Which roll in their huge orbits through huge years,
May move on streams of air alternately
From opposite quarters. Do you not also see
How clouds are shifted by opposing winds,
The lower in directions contrary
To those above? Why should not yonder stars
Be likewise carried by opposing currents
Upon their mighty orbits through the sky?
But night covers the earth with vast darkness
Either when after his long course the sun
Has entered on the uttermost parts of heaven,
And now grown languid has breathed forth his fires,
Exhausted by their journey, and worn out
By traversing much air; or else because
That same force which has borne his orb along
Above the earth, compels him now to turn
Backward his course and pass beneath the earth.

Likewise at a fixed time Matuta spreads
The rosy dawn abroad through the sky’s borders,
And opens out her light; either because
The same sun, travelling back below the earth,
Seizes the sky beforehand, and is fain
To kindle it with his rays; or else because
Fires meet together, and many seeds of heat
Are wont at a fixed time to stream together
Causing new sunlight each day to be born.
Even so ’tis told that from the mountain heights
Of Ida at daybreak scattered fires are seen;
These then unite as if into one globe
And make up the sun’s orb. Nor yet herein
Should it cause wonder that these seeds of fire
Can stream together at a time so fixed,
Repairing thus the radiance of the sun.
For everywhere we see many events
Happening at fixed times. Thus trees both flower
And shed their blossoms at fixed times; and age
At a time no less fixed bids the teeth drop,
And the boy clothe his features with the down
Of puberty, and let a soft beard fall
From either cheek. Lastly lightning and snow,
Rains, clouds and winds happen at more or less
Regular yearly seasons. For where causes
From the beginning have remained the same,
And things from the first origin of the world
Have so fallen out, they still repeat themselves
In regular sequence after a fixed order.