On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics)

by Ronald Melville

And, gazing at you, feeds his hungry eyes,

  Goddess, with love and lolling back his breath

  Hangs on your lips. As he lies resting there

  Upon your sacred body, come, embrace him

  And from your lips pour out sweet blandishments,

  Great lady, and for your Romans crave the calm of peace.

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  Since neither I, in our country’s time of trouble,

  Can bring a mind untroubled to my task,

  Nor in such straits can Memmius’ famous line

  Be found to fail our country in its need.

  For perfect peace gods by their very nature

  Must of necessity enjoy, and immortal life,

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  Far separate, far removed from our affairs.

  For free from every sorrow, every danger,

  Strong in their own powers, needing naught from us,

  They are not won by gifts nor touched by anger.

  And now, good Memmius, receptive ears

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  And keen intelligence detached from cares

  I pray you bring to true philosophy;

  Lest you should scorn and disregard my gifts

  Set out for you with faithful diligence

  Before their meaning has been understood.

  The most high order of heaven and of the gods

  I shall begin to explain to you, and disclose

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  The primal elements of things from which

  Nature creates, increases, nourishes

  All things that are, and into which again

  Nature dissolves them when their time has come.

  These in the language of philosophy

  It is our custom to describe as matter

  Or generative bodies, or seeds of things,

  Or call them primal atoms, since from them,

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  Those first beginnings, everything is formed.

  When human life lay foul for all to see

  Upon the earth, crushed by the burden of religion,

  Religion which from heaven’s firmament

  Displayed its face, its ghastly countenance,

  Lowering above mankind, the first who dared

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  Raise mortal eyes against it, first to take

  His stand against it, was a man of Greece.

  He was not cowed by fables of the gods

  Or thunderbolts or heaven’s threatening roar,

  But they the more spurred on his ardent soul

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  Yearning to be the first to break apart

  The bolts of nature’s gates and throw them open.

  Therefore his lively intellect prevailed

  And forth he marched, advancing onwards far

  Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world,

  And voyaged in mind throughout infinity,

  Whence he victorious back in triumph brings

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  Report of what can be and what cannot

  And in what manner each thing has a power

  That’s limited, and deep-set boundary stone.

  Wherefore religion in its turn is cast

  Beneath the feet of men and trampled down,

  And us his victory has made peers of heaven.

  One thing I fear now is that you may think

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  There’s something impious in philosophy

  And that you are entering on a path of sin.

  Not so. More often has religion itself

  Given birth to deeds both impious and criminal:

  As once at Aulis the leaders of the Greeks,

  Lords of the host, patterns of chivalry,

  The altar of the virgin goddess stained

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  Most foully with the blood of Iphianassa.

  The braiding band around her maiden locks

  Dropped down in equal lengths on either cheek;

  She saw her father by the altar stand

  In sorrow, the priests beside him hiding knives,

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  And all the people weeping when they saw her;

  Then dumb with fear she sank down on her knees.

  Nor could it help, poor girl, at such a time

  That she first gave the king the name of father.

  For men’s hands lifted her and led her on

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  Pale, trembling, to the altar, not indeed

  That in fulfilment of the ancient rite

  The brilliant wedding hymns should be her escort,

  But that a stainless victim foully stained,

  At the very age of wedlock, sorrowing,

  She should be slaughtered by a father’s blade,

  So that a fleet might gain a favouring wind.

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  So great the power religion had for evil.

  You yourself, overcome at times by words

  Of terror from the priests, will seek to abandon us.

  How many dreams indeed they even now

  Invent, to upset the principles of life

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  And all your happiness confound with fear.

  And rightly so. For if men could but see

  A sure end to their woes, somehow they’ld find the strength

  To defy the priests and all their dark religion.

  But as it is, men have no way, no power

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  To stand against them, since they needs must fear

  In death a never-ending punishment.

  They do not know the nature of the soul,

  Whether it is born, or on the contrary

  Makes its way into us at birth, and whether

  It perishes with us, when death dissolves it,

  Or goes to Hades’ glooms and desolate chasms,

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  Or into other creatures finds its way

  By power divine, as our own Ennius sang,

  Who first brought down from lovely Helicon

  A garland evergreen destined to win

  Renown among the nations of Italy.

  Though none the less in his immortal verse

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  He has expounded that there does exist

  A realm of Acheron, in which endure

  Not souls of ours and bodies, but some kind

  Of wraiths or phantoms, marvellously pale.

  And thence the form of Homer, ever deathless,

  Came forth, he tells, and pouring out salt tears

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  Began to unfold the nature of the world.

  Therefore we must lay down right principles

  Concerning things celestial, what makes

  The motions of the sun and moon, what force

  Governs affairs on earth, and most of all

  By keenest reasoning perceive whence comes

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  The spirit and the nature of the mind.

  And we must ask ourselves what thing it is

  That terrifies our minds, confronting us

  When we are awake but sickened with disease,

  Or buried in sleep, so that we seem to see

  And hear in their very presence men who are dead,

  Whose bones lie in the cold embrace of earth.

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  Nor do I fail to see how hard it is

  To bring to light in Latin verse the dark

  Discoveries of the Greeks, especially

  Because of the poverty of our native tongue,

  And the novelty of the subjects of my theme.

  But still your merit, and as I hope, the joy

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  Of our sweet friendship, urge me to any toil

  And lead me on to watch through nights serene

  In my long quest for words, for poetry,

  By which to shine clear light before your mind

  To let you see into the heart of hidden things.

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  Therefore this terror and darkness of the mind

  Not by the sun’s rays, nor the bright shafts of day,


  Must be dispersed, as is most necessary,

  But by the face of nature and her laws.

  We start then from her first great principle

  That nothing ever by divine power comes from nothing.

  For sure fear holds so much the minds of men

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  Because they see many things happen in earth and sky

  Of which they can by no means see the causes,

  And think them to be done by power divine.

  So when we have seen that nothing can be created

  From nothing, we shall at once discern more clearly

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  The object of our search, both the source from which each thing

  Can be created, and the manner in which

  Things come into being without the aid of gods.

  For if things came out of nothing, all kinds of things

  Could be produced from all things. Nothing would need a seed.

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  Men could arise from the sea, and scaly fish

  From earth, and birds hatch in the sky.

  Cattle and farm animals and wild beasts of every kind

  Would fill alike farmlands and wilderness,

  Breed all mixed up, all origins confused.

  Nor could the fruits stay constant on the trees,

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  But all would change, all could bear everything.

  For lacking its own generative bodies

  How could a thing have a mother, fixed and sure?

  But as it is, since each thing is created

  From fixed specific seeds, the source from which

  It is born and comes forth into the shores of light

  Is its material and its primal atoms.

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  That is why all things cannot be born of all things,

  Because in each dwells its distinctive power.

  And why do roses flourish in the spring

  And corn in summer’s heat, and grapes in autumn,

  Unless because each thing that is created

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  Displays itself when at their own due time

  Fixed seeds of things have flowed together, and the seasons

  Attend, and safe and sound the quickened earth

  Brings tender growth up to the shores of light?

  But if they came from nothing, they’ld spring up

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  Quite suddenly, at uncertain intervals,

  And wrong times of the year, since primal atoms

  Would not be there for an unfavourable season

  To restrain from generative union.

  Nor would time be needed for the growth of things,

  For seeds to collect, if they could grow from nothing.

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  For little babes would suddenly be young men

  And in a trice a tree shoot up from earth.

  None of this happens, it is plain, because

  All things grow slowly, as is natural,

  From a fixed seed, and growing keep their character.

  So you may know that each thing gets its growth

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  And nourishment from its own material.

  And add to this that without the year’s fixed rains

  The earth cannot put forth its gladdening fruits,

  Nor deprived of food can any animal

  Beget its kind and keep its life intact.

  So you may sooner think that many bodies

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  Are common to many things, like letters in words,

  Than that anything can exist without first beginnings.

  Again, why could not nature fashion men so huge

  That they could walk through the sea as across a ford

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  And tear apart great mountains with their hands,

  And outlive many living generations

  If not because each thing needs for its birth

  A fixed material that governs what can arise?

  So we must admit that nothing can come from nothing,

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  For seed is needed, from which all things created

  Can spring, and burgeon into air’s soft breezes.

  Lastly, since we see tilled land is better

  Than untilled, and the work of hands yields better fruits,

  It is plain to see that in the ground there lie

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  First elements of things, which when we turn

  The fertile clods with ploughshare and break up

  The earth’s good soil, we start to life and growth.

  But if they were not there, then without our labour

  You’ld see things grow much better by themselves.

  The next great principle is this: that nature

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  Resolves all things back into their elements

  And never reduces anything to nothing.

  If anything were mortal in all its parts,

  Anything might suddenly perish, snatched from sight.

  For no force would be needed to effect

  Disruptions of its parts and loose its bonds.

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  But as it is, since all things are composed

  Of everlasting seeds, until some force

  Has met it, able to shatter it with a blow,

  Or penetrate its voids and break it up,

  Nature forbids that anything should perish.

  And all those things which time through age removes,

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  If utterly by its consuming power

  All the material of them is destroyed,

  Whence then does Venus into the light of life

  Bring back the race of animals, each after its kind,

  Or, when brought back, whence has the well-skilled earth

  The power to nourish them and make them grow,

  Providing food for each after its kind?

  Whence come the rivers flowing from afar

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  That feed it? Whence does ether feed the stars?

  For all things mortal must have been consumed

  By time illimitable and ages past.

  But if through that length of time, those ages past,

  Things have existed from which this world of ours

  Consists and is replenished, then certainly

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  They must be endowed with nature imperishable.

  Therefore things cannot ever return to nothing.

  Again, all things alike would be destroyed

  By the same force and cause, were they not held fast

  By matter everlasting, fastened together

  More or less tightly in its framing bonds.

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  A touch would be enough to cause destruction,

  Since there would be no eternal elements

  Needing a special force to break them up.

  But as it is, since the bonds which bind the elements

  Are various and their matter is everlasting

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  They stay intact, until they meet a force

  Found strong enough to break their textures down.

  Therefore no single thing returns to nothing

  But at its dissolution everything

  Returns to matter’s primal particles.

  Lastly, showers perish when father ether

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  Has cast them into the lap of mother earth.

  But bright crops rise, and branches in the trees

  Grow green, trees grow and ripe fruit burdens them.

  Hence food comes for our kind and for wild beasts,

  Hence we see happy cities flower with children,

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  And leafy woods all singing with young birds,

  Hence cattle wearied by their swollen weight

  Lie down across rich pastures, and the white milky stream

  Flows from their udders. Hence the young progeny

  Frisk with weak limbs on the soft grass, their youthful minds

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&
nbsp; Intoxicated by the strong fresh milk.

  Therefore all things we see do not utterly perish

  Since nature makes good one thing from another,

  And does not suffer anything to be born

  Unless it is aided by another’s death.

  Well now, since I have taught that things cannot be created

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  From nothing, nor, once born, be summoned back to nothing,

  Lest you begin perchance to doubt my words,

  Because our eyes can’t see first elements,

  Learn now of things you must yourself admit

  Exist, and yet remain invisible.

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  The wind, its might aroused, lashes the sea

  And sinks great ships and tears the clouds apart.

  With whirling tempest sweeping across the plains

  It strews them with great trees, the mountain tops

  It rocks amain with forest-felling blasts,

  So fierce the howling fury of the gale,

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  So wild and menacing the wind’s deep roar.

  Therefore for sure there are unseen bodies of wind

  Which sweep the seas, the lands, the clouds of heaven,

  With sudden whirlwinds tossing, ravaging.

  They stream and spread their havoc just as water

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  So soft by nature suddenly bursts out

  In spate when heavy rains upon the mountains

  With huge cascades have swollen a mighty flood,

  Hurling together wreckage from the woods

  And whole trees too; nor can strong bridges stand

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  The sudden force of water coming on,

  So swirling with great rains the river rushes

  With all its mighty strength against the piers.

  It roars and wrecks and rolls huge rocks beneath its waves

  And shatters all that stands in front of it.

  So also must be the motion of the wind

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  When it blasts onward like a rushing river.

  Wherever it goes it drives on all before it,

  Sweeps all away with blow on blow, or else

  In twisting eddy seizes things, and then

  With rapid whirlwind carries them away.

  Wherefore again and yet again I say

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  That winds have hidden bodies, since they rival

  In character and action mighty rivers

  Possessed of bodies plain for all to see.

  Consider this too: we smell different odours

  But never see them coming to our nostrils.

  We can’t see scorching heat, nor set our eyes

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  On cold, nor can we see the sound of voices.

  Yet all these things must needs consist of bodies

  Since they are able to act upon our senses.

  For nothing can be touched or touch except body.

  And clothes hung up beside a wave-tossed shore

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  Grow damp, but spread out in the sun they dry.