Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  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  The daylight being withdrawn.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 mass 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 pass away....

  For ever every outside streams away

  From off all objects, since discharge they may;

  And when this outside reaches other things,

  As chiefly glass, it passes 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 glass, 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 assigned

  To them across the breezes swimming on —

  So that o’er lengths of space 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 class 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 interspaces of the air

  To pass delay not, urged by blows behind;

  For light by light is instantly supplied

  And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.
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  Thus likewise must the images have power

  Through unimaginable space 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 space 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 space

  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 shores of ether falls

  Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,

  And yet again, ’tis needful to confess

  With wondrous...

  THE SENSES AND MENTAL PICTURES

  Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.

  From certain things flow odours evermore,

  As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray

  From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls

  Around the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit

  The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.

  Then too there comes into the mouth at times

  The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea

  We roam about; and so, whene’er we watch

  The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.

  To such degree from all things is each thing

  Borne streamingly along, and sent about

  To every region round; and nature grants

  Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,

  Since ’tis incessantly we feeling have,

  And all the time are suffered to descry

  And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.

  Besides, since shape examined by our hands

  Within the dark is known to be the same

  As that by eyes perceived within the light

  And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be

  By one like cause aroused. So, if we test

  A square and get its stimulus on us

  Within the dark, within the light what square

  Can fall upon our sight, except a square

  That images the things? Wherefore it seems

  The source of seeing is in images,

  Nor without these can anything be viewed.

  Now these same films I name are borne about

  And tossed and scattered into regions all.

  But since we do perceive alone through eyes,

  It follows hence that whitherso we turn

  Our sight, all things do strike against it there

  With form and hue. And just how far from us

  Each thing may be away, the image yields

  To us the power to see and chance to tell:

  For when ’tis sent, at once it shoves ahead

  And drives along the air that’s in the space

  Betwixt it and our eyes. And thus this air

  All glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as ‘twere,

  Brushes athrough our pupils and thuswise

  Passes across. Therefore it comes we see

  How far from us each thing may be away,

  And the more air there be that’s driven before,

  And too the longer be the brushing breeze

  Against our eyes, the farther off removed

  Each thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work

  With mightily swift order all goes on,

  So that upon one instant we may see

  What kind the object and how far away.

  Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed

  In these affairs that, though the films which strike

  Upon the eyes cannot be singly seen,

  The things themselves may be perceived. For thus

  When the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke

  And when the sharp cold streams, ’tis not our wont

  To feel each private particle of wind

  Or of that cold, but rather all at once;

  And so we see how blows affect our body,

  As if one thing were beating on the same

  And giving us the feel of its own body

  Outside of us. Again, whene’er we thump

  With finger-tip upon a stone, we touch

  But the rock’s surface and the outer hue,

  Nor feel that hue by contact — rather feel

  The very hardness deep within the rock.

  Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass

  An image may be seen, perceive. For seen

  It soothly is, removed far within.

  ’Tis the same sort as objects peered upon

  Outside in their true shape, whene’er a door

  Yields through itself an open peering-place,

  And lets us see so many things outside

  Beyond the house. Also that sight is made

  By a twofold twin air: for first is seen

  The air inside the door-posts; next the doors,

  The twain to left and right; and afterwards

  A light beyond comes brushing through our eyes,

  Then other air, then objects peered upon

  Outside in their true shape. And thus, when first

  The image of the glass projects itself,

  As to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead

  And drives along the air that’s in the space

  Betwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass

  That we perceive the air ere yet the glass.

  But when we’ve also seen the glass itself,

  Forthwith that image which from us is borne

  Reaches the glass, and there thrown back again

  Comes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls

  Ahead of itself another air, that then

  ’Tis this we see before itself, and thus

  It looks so far removed behind the glass.

  Wherefore again, again, there’s naught for wonder

  In those which render from the mirror’s plane

  A vision back, since each thing comes to pass

  By means of the two airs. Now, in the glass

  The right part of our members is observed

  Upon the left, because, when comes the image

  Hitting against the level of the glass,

  ’Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off

  Backwards in line direct and not oblique, —

  Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask

  Should dash, before ‘twere dry, on post or beam,

  And it should straightway keep, at clinging there,

  Its shape, reversed, facing him who threw,

  And so remould the features it gives back:

  It comes that now the right eye is the left,

  The left the right. An image too may be

  From mirror into mirror handed on,
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  Until of idol-films even five or six

  Have thus been gendered. For whatever things

  Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same,

  However far removed in twisting ways,

  May still be all brought forth through bending paths

  And by these several mirrors seen to be

  Within the house, since nature so compels

  All things to be borne backward and spring off

  At equal angles from all other things.

  To such degree the image gleams across

  From mirror unto mirror; where ’twas left

  It comes to be the right, and then again

  Returns and changes round unto the left.

  Again, those little sides of mirrors curved

  Proportionate to the bulge of our own flank

  Send back to us their idols with the right

  Upon the right; and this is so because

  Either the image is passed on along

  From mirror unto mirror, and thereafter,

  When twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves;

  Or else the image wheels itself around,

  When once unto the mirror it has come,

  Since the curved surface teaches it to turn

  To usward. Further, thou might’st well believe

  That these film-idols step along with us

  And set their feet in unison with ours

  And imitate our carriage, since from that

  Part of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn

  Straightway no images can be returned.

  Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright

  And shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds,

  If thou goest on to strain them unto him,

  Because his strength is mighty, and the films

  Heavily downward from on high are borne

  Through the pure ether and the viewless winds,

  And strike the eyes, disordering their joints.

  So piecing lustre often burns the eyes,

  Because it holdeth many seeds of fire

  Which, working into eyes, engender pain.

  Again, whatever jaundiced people view

  Becomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies

  Flow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet

  The films of things, and many too are mixed

  Within their eye, which by contagion paint

  All things with sallowness. Again, we view

  From dark recesses things that stand in light,

  Because, when first has entered and possessed

  The open eyes this nearer darkling air,

  Swiftly the shining air and luminous

  Followeth in, which purges then the eyes

  And scatters asunder of that other air

  The sable shadows, for in large degrees