Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  After the beauty, strength, and sense of each —

  For beauty then imported much, and strength

  Had its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth

  Discovered was, and gold was brought to light,

  Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;

  For men, however beautiful in form

  Or valorous, will follow in the main

  The rich man’s party. Yet were man to steer

  His life by sounder reasoning, he’d own

  Abounding riches, if with mind content

  He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,

  Is there a lack of little in the world.

  But men wished glory for themselves and power

  Even that their fortunes on foundations firm

  Might rest forever, and that they themselves,

  The opulent, might pass a quiet life —

  In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb

  On to the heights of honour, men do make

  Their pathway terrible; and even when once

  They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt

  At times will smite, O hurling headlong down

  To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo,

  All summits, all regions loftier than the rest,

  Smoke, blasted as by envy’s thunderbolts;

  So better far in quiet to obey,

  Than to desire chief mastery of affairs

  And ownership of empires. Be it so;

  And let the weary sweat their life-blood out

  All to no end, battling in hate along

  The narrow path of man’s ambition;

  Since all their wisdom is from others’ lips,

  And all they seek is known from what they’ve heard

  And less from what they’ve thought. Nor is this folly

  Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,

  Than’ twas of old.

  And therefore kings were slain,

  And pristine majesty of golden thrones

  And haughty sceptres lay o’erturned in dust;

  And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,

  Soon bloody under the proletarian feet,

  Groaned for their glories gone — for erst o’er-much

  Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest

  Trampled beneath the rabble heel. Thus things

  Down to the vilest lees of brawling mobs

  Succumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself

  Dominion and supremacy. So next

  Some wiser heads instructed men to found

  The magisterial office, and did frame

  Codes that they might consent to follow laws.

  For humankind, o’er wearied with a life

  Fostered by force, was ailing from its feuds;

  And so the sooner of its own free will

  Yielded to laws and strictest codes. For since

  Each hand made ready in its wrath to take

  A vengeance fiercer than by man’s fair laws

  Is now conceded, men on this account

  Loathed the old life fostered by force. ’Tis thence

  That fear of punishments defiles each prize

  Of wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare

  Each man around, and in the main recoil

  On him from whence they sprung. Not easy ’tis

  For one who violates by ugly deeds

  The bonds of common peace to pass a life

  Composed and tranquil. For albeit he ‘scape

  The race of gods and men, he yet must dread

  ‘Twill not be hid forever — since, indeed,

  So many, oft babbling on amid their dreams

  Or raving in sickness, have betrayed themselves

  (As stories tell) and published at last

  Old secrets and the sins.

  But nature ’twas

  Urged men to utter various sounds of tongue

  And need and use did mould the names of things,

  About in same wise as the lack-speech years

  Compel young children unto gesturings,

  Making them point with finger here and there

  At what’s before them. For each creature feels

  By instinct to what use to put his powers.

  Ere yet the bull-calf’s scarce begotten horns

  Project above his brows, with them he ‘gins

  Enraged to butt and savagely to thrust.

  But whelps of panthers and the lion’s cubs

  With claws and paws and bites are at the fray

  Already, when their teeth and claws be scarce

  As yet engendered. So again, we see

  All breeds of winged creatures trust to wings

  And from their fledgling pinions seek to get

  A fluttering assistance. Thus, to think

  That in those days some man apportioned round

  To things their names, and that from him men learned

  Their first nomenclature, is foolery.

  For why could he mark everything by words

  And utter the various sounds of tongue, what time

  The rest may be supposed powerless

  To do the same? And, if the rest had not

  Already one with other used words,

  Whence was implanted in the teacher, then,

  Fore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given

  To him alone primordial faculty

  To know and see in mind what ’twas he willed?

  Besides, one only man could scarce subdue

  An overmastered multitude to choose

  To get by heart his names of things. A task

  Not easy ’tis in any wise to teach

  And to persuade the deaf concerning what

  ’Tis needful for to do. For ne’er would they

  Allow, nor ne’er in anywise endure

  Perpetual vain dingdong in their ears

  Of spoken sounds unheard before. And what,

  At last, in this affair so wondrous is,

  That human race (in whom a voice and tongue

  Were now in vigour) should by divers words

  Denote its objects, as each divers sense

  Might prompt? — since even the speechless herds, aye, since

  The very generations of wild beasts

  Are wont dissimilar and divers sounds

  To rouse from in them, when there’s fear or pain,

  And when they burst with joys. And this, forsooth,

  ’Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first

  Huge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds,

  Baring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl,

  They threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back,

  In sounds far other than with which they bark

  And fill with voices all the regions round.

  And when with fondling tongue they start to lick

  Their puppies, or do toss them round with paws,

  Feigning with gentle bites to gape and snap,

  They fawn with yelps of voice far other then

  Than when, alone within the house, they bay,

  Or whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.

  Again the neighing of the horse, is that

  Not seen to differ likewise, when the stud

  In buoyant flower of his young years raves,

  Goaded by winged Love, amongst the mares,

  And when with widening nostrils out he snorts

  The call to battle, and when haply he

  Whinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?

  Lastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,

  Hawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life

  Amid the ocean billows in the brine,

  Utter at other times far other cries

  Than when they fight for food, or with their prey

  Struggle and strain. And birds there are which change

  With changing weather their own raucous songs —

  As long-l
ived generations of the crows

  Or flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry

  For rain and water and to call at times

  For winds and gales. Ergo, if divers moods

  Compel the brutes, though speechless evermore,

  To send forth divers sounds, O truly then

  How much more likely ‘twere that mortal men

  In those days could with many a different sound

  Denote each separate thing.

  And now what cause

  Hath spread divinities of gods abroad

  Through mighty nations, and filled the cities full

  Of the high altars, and led to practices

  Of solemn rites in season — rites which still

  Flourish in midst of great affairs of state

  And midst great centres of man’s civic life,

  The rites whence still a poor mortality

  Is grafted that quaking awe which rears aloft

  Still the new temples of gods from land to land

  And drives mankind to visit them in throngs

  On holy days— ’tis not so hard to give

  Reason thereof in speech. Because, in sooth,

  Even in those days would the race of man

  Be seeing excelling visages of gods

  With mind awake; and in his sleeps, yet more —

  Bodies of wondrous growth. And, thus, to these

  Would men attribute sense, because they seemed

  To move their limbs and speak pronouncements high,

  Befitting glorious visage and vast powers.

  And men would give them an eternal life,

  Because their visages forevermore

  Were there before them, and their shapes remained,

  And chiefly, however, because men would not think

  Beings augmented with such mighty powers

  Could well by any force o’ermastered be.

  And men would think them in their happiness

  Excelling far, because the fear of death

  Vexed no one of them at all, and since

  At same time in men’s sleeps men saw them do

  So many wonders, and yet feel therefrom

  Themselves no weariness. Besides, men marked

  How in a fixed order rolled around

  The systems of the sky, and changed times

  Of annual seasons, nor were able then

  To know thereof the causes. Therefore ’twas

  Men would take refuge in consigning all

  Unto divinities, and in feigning all

  Was guided by their nod. And in the sky

  They set the seats and vaults of gods, because

  Across the sky night and the moon are seen

  To roll along — moon, day, and night, and night’s

  Old awesome constellations evermore,

  And the night-wandering fireballs of the sky,

  And flying flames, clouds, and the sun, the rains,

  Snow and the winds, the lightnings, and the hail,

  And the swift rumblings, and the hollow roar

  Of mighty menacings forevermore.

  O humankind unhappy! — when it ascribed

  Unto divinities such awesome deeds,

  And coupled thereto rigours of fierce wrath!

  What groans did men on that sad day beget

  Even for themselves, and O what wounds for us,

  What tears for our children’s children! Nor, O man,

  Is thy true piety in this: with head

  Under the veil, still to be seen to turn

  Fronting a stone, and ever to approach

  Unto all altars; nor so prone on earth

  Forward to fall, to spread upturned palms

  Before the shrines of gods, nor yet to dew

  Altars with profuse blood of four-foot beasts,

  Nor vows with vows to link. But rather this:

  To look on all things with a master eye

  And mind at peace. For when we gaze aloft

  Upon the skiey vaults of yon great world

  And ether, fixed high o’er twinkling stars,

  And into our thought there come the journeyings

  Of sun and moon, O then into our breasts,

  O’erburdened already with their other ills,

  Begins forthwith to rear its sudden head

  One more misgiving: lest o’er us, percase,

  It be the gods’ immeasurable power

  That rolls, with varied motion, round and round

  The far white constellations. For the lack

  Of aught of reasons tries the puzzled mind:

  Whether was ever a birth-time of the world,

  And whether, likewise, any end shall be

  How far the ramparts of the world can still

  Outstand this strain of ever-roused motion,

  Or whether, divinely with eternal weal

  Endowed, they can through endless tracts of age

  Glide on, defying the o’er-mighty powers

  Of the immeasurable ages. Lo,

  What man is there whose mind with dread of gods

  Cringes not close, whose limbs with terror-spell

  Crouch not together, when the parched earth

  Quakes with the horrible thunderbolt amain,

  And across the mighty sky the rumblings run?

  Do not the peoples and the nations shake,

  And haughty kings do they not hug their limbs,

  Strook through with fear of the divinities,

  Lest for aught foully done or madly said

  The heavy time be now at hand to pay?

  When, too, fierce force of fury-winds at sea

  Sweepeth a navy’s admiral down the main

  With his stout legions and his elephants,

  Doth he not seek the peace of gods with vows,

  And beg in prayer, a-tremble, lulled winds

  And friendly gales? — in vain, since, often up-caught

  In fury-cyclones, is he borne along,

  For all his mouthings, to the shoals of doom.

  Ah, so irrevocably some hidden power

  Betramples forevermore affairs of men,

  And visibly grindeth with its heel in mire

  The lictors’ glorious rods and axes dire,

  Having them in derision! Again, when earth

  From end to end is rocking under foot,

  And shaken cities ruin down, or threaten

  Upon the verge, what wonder is it then

  That mortal generations abase themselves,

  And unto gods in all affairs of earth

  Assign as last resort almighty powers

  And wondrous energies to govern all?

  Now for the rest: copper and gold and iron

  Discovered were, and with them silver’s weight

  And power of lead, when with prodigious heat

  The conflagrations burned the forest trees

  Among the mighty mountains, by a bolt

  Of lightning from the sky, or else because

  Men, warring in the woodlands, on their foes

  Had hurled fire to frighten and dismay,

  Or yet because, by goodness of the soil

  Invited, men desired to clear rich fields

  And turn the countryside to pasture-lands,

  Or slay the wild and thrive upon the spoils.

  (For hunting by pit-fall and by fire arose

  Before the art of hedging the covert round

  With net or stirring it with dogs of chase.)

  Howso the fact, and from what cause soever

  The flamy heat with awful crack and roar

  Had there devoured to their deepest roots

  The forest trees and baked the earth with fire,

  Then from the boiling veins began to ooze

  O rivulets of silver and of gold,

  Of lead and copper too, collecting soon

  Into the hollow places of the ground.

  And when men saw the cooled lumps anon

  To
shine with splendour-sheen upon the ground,

  Much taken with that lustrous smooth delight,

  They ‘gan to pry them out, and saw how each

  Had got a shape like to its earthy mould.

  Then would it enter their heads how these same lumps,

  If melted by heat, could into any form

  Or figure of things be run, and how, again,

  If hammered out, they could be nicely drawn

  To sharpest points or finest edge, and thus

  Yield to the forgers tools and give them power

  To chop the forest down, to hew the logs,

  To shave the beams and planks, besides to bore

  And punch and drill. And men began such work

  At first as much with tools of silver and gold

  As with the impetuous strength of the stout copper;

  But vainly — since their over-mastered power

  Would soon give way, unable to endure,

  Like copper, such hard labour. In those days

  Copper it was that was the thing of price;

  And gold lay useless, blunted with dull edge.

  Now lies the copper low, and gold hath come

  Unto the loftiest honours. Thus it is

  That rolling ages change the times of things:

  What erst was of a price, becomes at last

  A discard of no honour; whilst another

  Succeeds to glory, issuing from contempt,

  And day by day is sought for more and more,

  And, when ’tis found, doth flower in men’s praise,

  Objects of wondrous honour.

  Now, Memmius,

  How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst

  Of thine own self divine. Man’s ancient arms

  Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs —

  Breakage of forest trees — and flame and fire,

  As soon as known. Thereafter force of iron

  And copper discovered was; and copper’s use

  Was known ere iron’s, since more tractable

  Its nature is and its abundance more.

  With copper men to work the soil began,

  With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,

  To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away

  Another’s flocks and fields. For unto them,

  Thus armed, all things naked of defence

  Readily yielded. Then by slow degrees

  The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape

  Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned:

  With iron to cleave the soil of earth they ‘gan,

  And the contentions of uncertain war

  Were rendered equal.

  And, lo, man was wont

  Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse

  And guide him with the rein, and play about

  With right hand free, oft times before he tried