Delphi Complete Works of Lucretius

by Titus Lucretius Carus

  nec potuere cupitum aetatis tangere florem

  nec reperire cibum nec iungi per Veneris res.

  multa videmus enim rebus concurrere debere,

  850 ut propagando possint procudere saecla;

  pabula primum ut sint, genitalia deinde per artus

  semina qua possint membris manare remissis,

  feminaque ut maribus coniungi possit, habere,

  mutua qui mutent inter se gaudia uterque.

  855 Multaque tum interiisse animantum saecla necessest

  nec potuisse propagando procudere prolem.

  nam quae cumque vides vesci vitalibus auris,

  aut dolus aut virtus aut denique mobilitas est

  ex ineunte aevo genus id tutaTA reservans.

  [819] for all things grow and acquire strength in a like proportion.

  Wherefore again and again I say the earth with good title has gotten and keeps the name of mother, since she of herself gave birth to mankind and at a time nearly fixed shed forth every beast that ranges wildly over the great mountains, and at the same time the fowls of the air with all their varied shapes.

  But because she must have some limit set to her bearing, she ceased like a woman worn out by length of days.

  For time changes the nature of the whole world and all things must pass on from one condition to another, and nothing continues like to itself: all things quit their bounds, all things nature changes and compels to alter.

  One thing crumbles away and is worn and enfeebled with age, then another comes unto honor and issues out of its state of contempt.

  In this way then time changes the nature of the whole world and the earth passes out of one condition into another: what once it could, it can bear no more, in order to be able to bear what before it did not bear.

  And many monsters too the earth at that time essayed to produce, things coming up with strange face and limbs, the man-woman, a thing between the two and neither the one sex nor the other, widely differing from both; some things deprived of feet, others again destitute of hands, others too proving dumb without mouth, or blind without eyes, and things bound fast by the adhesion of their limbs overall the body, so that they could not do anything nor go anywhere nor avoid the evil nor take what their needs required.

  Every other monster and portent of this kind she would produce, but all in vain, since nature set a ban on their increase and they could not reach the coveted flower of age nor find food nor be united in marriage.

  For we see that many conditions must meet together in things in order that they may beget and continue their kinds; first a supply of food, then a way by which the birth-producing seeds throughout the frame may stream from the relaxed limbs; also in order that the woman may be united with the male, the possession of organs whereby they may each interchange mutual joys.

  And many races of living things must then have died out and been unable to beget and continue their breed.

  For in the case of all things which you see breathing the breath of life, either craft or courage or else speed has from the beginning of its existence protected and preserved each particular race.

  860 multaque sunt, nobis ex utilitate sua quae

  commendata manent, tutelae tradita nostrae.

  principio genus acre leonum saevaque saecla

  tutatast virtus, volpes dolus et fuga cervos.

  at levisomna canum fido cum pectore corda,

  865 et genus omne quod est veterino semine partum

  lanigeraeque simul pecudes et bucera saecla

  omnia sunt hominum tutelae tradita, Memmi;

  nam cupide fugere feras pacemque secuta

  sunt et larga suo sine pabula parta labore,

  870 quae damus utilitatis eorum praemia causa.

  at quis nil horum tribuit natura, nec ipsa

  sponte sua possent ut vivere nec dare nobis

  utilitatem aliquam, quare pateremur eorum

  praesidio nostro pasci genus esseque tutum,

  875 scilicet haec aliis praedae lucroque iacebant

  indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis,

  donec ad interitum genus id natura redegit.

  Sed neque Centauri fuerunt nec tempore in ullo

  esse queunt duplici natura et corpore bino

  880 ex alienigenis membris compacta, potestas

  hinc illinc partis ut sat par esse potissit.

  id licet hinc quamvis hebeti cognoscere corde.

  principio circum tribus actis impiger annis

  floret equus, puer haut quaquam; nam saepe etiam nunc

  885 ubera mammarum in somnis lactantia quaeret.

  post ubi equum validae vires aetate senecta

  membraque deficiunt fugienti languida vita,

  tum demum puerili aevo florenta iuventas

  officit et molli vestit lanugine malas;

  890 ne forte ex homine et veterino semine equorum

  confieri credas Centauros posse neque esse,

  aut rapidis canibus succinctas semimarinis

  corporibus Scyllas et cetera de genere horum,

  inter se quorum discordia membra videmus;

  895 quae neque florescunt pariter nec robora sumunt

  corporibus neque proiciunt aetate senecta

  nec simili Venere ardescunt nec moribus unis

  conveniunt neque sunt eadem iucunda per artus.

  [860] And there are many things which, recommended to us by their useful services, continue to exist consigned to our protection.

  In the first place the fierce breed of lions and the savage races their courage has protected, foxes their craft and stags their proneness to flight.

  But light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast and every kind which is born of the seed of beasts of burden and at the same time the woolly flocks and the horned herds are all consigned, Memmius, to the protection of man.

  For they have ever fled with eagerness from wild beasts and have ensued peace and plenty of food obtained without their own labor, as we give it in requital of their useful services.

  But those to whom nature has granted none of these qualities, so that they could neither live by their own means nor perform for us any useful service in return for which we should suffer their kind to feed and be safe under our protection, those, you are to know, would lie exposed as a prey and booty of others, hampered all in their own death-bringing shackles, until nature brought that kind to utter destruction.

  But Centaurs never have existed, and at no time can there exist things of twofold nature and double body formed into one frame out of limbs of alien kinds, such that the faculties and powers of this and that portion cannot be sufficiently like.

  This however dull of understanding you may learn from what follows:

  To begin, a horse when three years have gone round is in the prime of his vigor, far different the boy: often even at that age he will call in his sleep for the milk of the breast.

  Afterwards when in advanced age his lusty strength and limbs now faint with ebbing life fail the horse, then and not till then youth in the flower of age commences for that boy and clothes his cheeks in soft down; that you may not haply believe that out of a man and the burden-carrying seed of horses Centaurs can be formed and have being; or that Scyllas with bodies half those of fishes girdled round with raving dogs can exist, and all other things of the kind, whose limbs we see cannot harmonize together; as they neither come to their flower at the same time nor reach the fulness of their bodily strength nor lose it in advanced old age, nor burn with similar passions nor have compatible manners, nor feel the same things give pleasure throughout their frames.

  quippe videre licet pinguescere saepe cicuta

  900 barbigeras pecudes, homini quae est acre venenum.

  flamma quidem vero cum corpora fulva leonum

  tam soleat torrere atque urere quam genus omne

  visceris in terris quod cumque et sanguinis extet,

  qui fieri potuit, triplici cum corpore ut una,

  905 prima leo, postrema dra
co, media ipsa, Chimaera

  ore foras acrem flaret de corpore flammam?

  quare etiam tellure nova caeloque recenti

  talia qui fingit potuisse animalia gigni,

  nixus in hoc uno novitatis nomine inani,

  910 multa licet simili ratione effutiat ore,

  aurea tum dicat per terras flumina vulgo

  fluxisse et gemmis florere arbusta suësse

  aut hominem tanto membrorum esse impete natum,

  trans maria alta pedum nisus ut ponere posset

  915 et manibus totum circum se vertere caelum.

  nam quod multa fuere in terris semina rerum,

  tempore quo primum tellus animalia fudit,

  nil tamen est signi mixtas potuisse creari

  inter se pecudes compactaque membra animantum,

  920 propterea quia quae de terris nunc quoque abundant

  herbarum genera ac fruges arbustaque laeta

  non tamen inter se possunt complexa creari,

  sed res quaeque suo ritu procedit et omnes

  foedere naturae certo discrimina servant.

  925 Et genus humanum multo fuit illud in arvis

  durius, ut decuit, tellus quod dura creasset,

  et maioribus et solidis magis ossibus intus

  fundatum, validis aptum per viscera nervis,

  nec facile ex aestu nec frigore quod caperetur

  930 nec novitate cibi nec labi corporis ulla.

  multaque per caelum solis volventia lustra

  volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum.

  nec robustus erat curvi moderator aratri

  quisquam, nec scibat ferro molirier arva

  935 nec nova defodere in terram virgulta neque altis

  arboribus veteres decidere falcibus ramos.

  quod sol atque imbres dederant, quod terra crearat

  sponte sua, satis id placabat pectora donum.

  glandiferas inter curabant corpora quercus

  [898] Thus we may see bearded goats often fatten on hemlock which for man is rank poison.

  Since flame moreover is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies of lions just as much as any other kind of flesh and blood existing on earth, how could it be that a single chimera with triple body, in front a lion, behind a dragon, in the middle the goat whose name it bears, could breathe out at the mouth fierce flame from its body?

  Wherefore also he who fables that in the new time of the earth and the fresh youth of heaven such living creatures could have been begotten, resting upon this one futile term new, may babble out many things in like fashion, may say that rivers then ran with gold over all parts of the earth and that trees were wont to blossom with precious stones, or that man was born with such giant force of frame that he could wade on foot across deep seas and whirl the whole heaven about him with his hands.

  For the fact that there were many seeds of things in the earth what time it first shed forth living creatures, is yet no proof that there could have been produced beasts of different kinds mixed together, and limbs of different living things formed into a single frame, because the kinds of herbage and corn and joyous trees which even now spring in plenty out of the earth yet cannot be produced with the several sorts plaited into one, but each thing goes on after its own fashion, and all preserve their distinctive differences according to a fixed law of nature.

  But the race of man then in the fields was much hardier, as beseemed it to be, since the hard earth had produced it; and built on a groundwork of larger and more solid bones within, knit with powerful sinews throughout the frame of flesh; not lightly to be disabled by heat or cold or strange kinds of food or any malady of body.

  And during the revolution of many lusters of the sun through heaven they led a life after the roving fashion of wild beasts.

  No one then was a sturdy guider of the bent plow or knew how to labor the fields with iron or plant in the ground young saplings or lop with pruning-hooks old boughs from the high trees.

  What the sun and rains had given, what the earth had produced spontaneously, was guerdon sufficient to content their hearts.

  Among acorn-bearing oaks they would refresh their bodies for the most part;

  940 plerumque; et quae nunc hiberno tempore cernis

  arbita puniceo fieri matura colore,

  plurima tum tellus etiam maiora ferebat.

  multaque praeterea novitas tum florida mundi

  pabula dura tulit, miseris mortalibus ampla.

  945 at sedare sitim fluvii fontesque vocabant,

  ut nunc montibus e magnis decursus aquai

  claricitat late sitientia saecla ferarum.

  denique nota vagis silvestria templa tenebant

  nympharum, quibus e scibant umore fluenta

  950 lubrica proluvie larga lavere umida saxa,

  umida saxa, super viridi stillantia musco,

  et partim plano scatere atque erumpere campo.

  necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti

  pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,

  955 sed nemora atque cavos montis silvasque colebant

  et frutices inter condebant squalida membra

  verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti.

  nec commune bonum poterant spectare neque ullis

  moribus inter se scibant nec legibus uti.

  960 quod cuique obtulerat praedae fortuna, ferebat

  sponte sua sibi quisque valere et vivere doctus.

  et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum;

  conciliabat enim vel mutua quamque cupido

  vel violenta viri vis atque inpensa libido

  965 vel pretium, glandes atque arbita vel pira lecta.

  et manuum mira freti virtute pedumque

  consectabantur silvestria saecla ferarum

  missilibus saxis et magno pondere clavae.

  multaque vincebant, vitabant pauca latebris;

  970 saetigerisque pares subus silvestria membra

  nuda dabant terrae nocturno tempore capti,

  circum se foliis ac frondibus involventes.

  nec plangore diem magno solemque per agros

  quaerebant pavidi palantes noctis in umbris,

  975 sed taciti respectabant somnoque sepulti,

  dum rosea face sol inferret lumina caelo.

  a parvis quod enim consuerant cernere semper

  alterno tenebras et lucem tempore gigni,

  non erat ut fieri posset mirarier umquam

  980 nec diffidere, ne terras aeterna teneret

  nox in perpetuum detracto lumine solis.

  sed magis illud erat curae, quod saecla ferarum

  infestam miseris faciebant saepe quietem.

  [940] and the arbute-berries which you now see in the winter-time ripen with a bright scarlet hue, the earth would then bear in greatest plenty and of a larger size; and many coarse kinds of food besides the teeming freshness of the world then bare, more than enough for poor wretched men.

  But rivers and springs invited to slake thirst, even as now a rush of water down from the great hills summons with clear plash far and wide the thirsty races of wild beasts.

  Then too as they ranged about they would occupy the well-known woodland haunts of the nymphs, out of which they knew that smooth-gliding streams of water with a copious gush bathed the dripping rocks, the dripping rocks, trickling down over the green moss; and in parts welled and bubbled out over the level plain.

  And as yet they knew not how to apply fire to their purposes or to make use of skins and clothe their body in the spoils of wild beasts, but they would dwell in woods and mountain-caves and forests and shelter in the brushwood their squalid limbs when driven to shun the buffeting of the winds and the rains.

  And they were unable to look to the general weal and knew not how to make a common use of any customs or laws.

  Whatever prize fortune threw in his way, each man would bear off, trained at his own discretion to think of himself and live for himself alone.

  And Venus would join the bodies of lovers in th
e woods; for each woman was gained over either by mutual desire or the headstrong violence and vehement lust of the man or a bribe of some acorns and arbute-berries or choice pears.

  And trusting to the marvelous powers of their hands and feet they would pursue the forest-haunting races of wild beasts with showers of stones and club of ponderous weight; and many they would conquer, a few they would avoid in hiding-places; and like to bristly swine just as they were they would throw their savage limbs all naked on the ground, when overtaken by night, covering themselves up with leaves and boughs.

  Yet never with loud wailings would they call for the daylight and the sun, wandering terror-stricken over the fields in the shadows of night, but silent and buried in sleep they would wait, till the sun with rosy torch carried light into heaven; for accustomed as they had been from childhood always to see darkness and light begotten time about, never could any wonder come over them, nor any misgiving that never-ending night would cover the earth and the light of the sun be withdrawn for evermore.

  eiectique domo fugiebant saxea tecta

  985 spumigeri suis adventu validique leonis

  atque intempesta cedebant nocte paventes

  hospitibus saevis instrata cubilia fronde.

  Nec nimio tum plus quam nunc mortalia saecla

  dulcia linquebant lamentis lumina vitae.

  990 unus enim tum quisque magis deprensus eorum

  pabula viva feris praebebat, dentibus haustus,

  et nemora ac montis gemitu silvasque replebat

  viva videns vivo sepeliri viscera busto.

  at quos effugium servarat corpore adeso,

  995 posterius tremulas super ulcera tetra tenentes

  palmas horriferis accibant vocibus Orcum,

  donique eos vita privarant vermina saeva

  expertis opis, ignaros quid volnera vellent.

  at non multa virum sub signis milia ducta

  1000 una dies dabat exitio nec turbida ponti

  aequora lidebant navis ad saxa virosque.

  nam temere in cassum frustra mare saepe coortum

  saevibat leviterque minas ponebat inanis,

  nec poterat quemquam placidi pellacia ponti

  1005 subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis.

  improba navigii ratio tum caeca iacebat.

  tum penuria deinde cibi languentia leto

  membra dabat, contra nunc rerum copia mersat.