In solemn state the image thus adorned
Of the holy Mother is borne now through the world.
And different peoples in their ancient rites
610
Name her Idaean Mother; and Phrygians
They appoint escort since from there, they say,
First came the corn that spreads now through the world.
Eunuchs they give her, wishing thus to show
That those who violate the Mother’s godhead
615
And have been found ungrateful to their parents
Must be accounted shameful and unworthy
To bring live offspring into the shores of light.
On tight-drawn drums palms thunder, cymbals clash,
Horns blare their hoarse threats out, the hollow pipe
Thrills every heart with Phrygian melodies.
620
Next spears are borne before her, savage signs
Of force, to terrify the crowd’s ungrateful minds
And impious hearts with fear of power divine.
Therefore when first she rides through some great city,
And silent, with unspoken benediction
625
Blesses mankind, much copper then and silver
They strew along her way in rich largesse,
And with a snow of roses falling, falling
Shadow the Mother and her retinue.
Next comes an armed band dancing, fired with blood,
Leaping in rhythm midst the Phrygian throng,
630
Shaking their awful crests with nodding heads.
These the Greeks name Curetes. They recall
Dicte’s Curetes who, the story tells,
In Crete once drowned the infant cries of Jove.
A band of boys around the baby boy
635
All armed and nimbly dancing, keeping time,
Clashed bronze on bronze, lest Saturn find the child
And seize and crush him in his jaws, and deal
The Mother’s heart an everlasting wound.
Therefore in arms the Great Mother they escort,
640
Or else to show the goddess’ high command
That they in arms and valour strong be ready
To defend their native land, and to their parents
Protection give and pride for all to see.
All this is well and admirably told.
It is, however, far removed from truth.
645
For perfect peace gods by their very nature
Must of necessity enjoy, and immortal life,
Far separate, far removed from our affairs.
For free from every sorrow, every danger,
Strong in their own powers, needing naught from us,
650
They are not won by gifts nor touched by anger.
Indeed the earth is now and has been always
Devoid entirely of any kind of feeling.
The reason why it brings forth many things
In many ways into the light of sun
Is that it holds a multitude of atoms.
If anyone decides to call the sea Neptune,
655
And corn Ceres, and misuse the name of Bacchus
Rather than give grape juice its proper title,
Let us agree that he can call the earth
Mother of the Gods, on this condition—
That he refuses to pollute his mind
With the foul poison of religion.
660
We often see grazing the fields together
Under the same wide canopy of heaven
Sheep in their woolly flocks, the martial breed
Of horses, and the horned herds of cattle,
Quenching their thirst all from a single stream,
And yet to each life gives a different shape,
665
And each retains the nature of its parents,
Each after its kind copies their behaviour.
So great is the variety of matter
In every kind of herbage, every river.
Moreover every animal of every kind
Is made of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and sinews,
670
And all of these are widely different,
Being formed of atoms differently shaped.
Again, whatever can be set on fire
And burnt, for sure must hide within its body,
If nothing else, at least the matter needed
To generate flame and fire and send out light,
675
And make sparks fly and scatter glowing embers.
And all the rest, if with like reasoning
You run through them in your mind, you’ll find they have
The seeds of many things hidden inside them
And make combinations of atoms of various shapes.
Again, you see many things have colour and taste
680
Together with smell. Chief among these might be
Burnt offerings smoking on some holy altar.
These therefore must be made of various shapes.
For scent can permeate the human frame
Where colour cannot go; and colour glides
Into the senses separately from taste.
Thus you’ll recognize that their atoms have different shapes.
685
Different shapes therefore combine in a single mass
And all things are composed of a mixture of seeds.
Everywhere in my verses you can see
Many letters common to many words,
Although it is obvious that both words and verses
690
Are different and composed of different letters.
Not that there are not many letters common
To separate words, or that no two words consist
Of the same letters, but as a general rule
Words are not made up of the same letters.
Likewise in other things, though many atoms
695
Are common to many things, yet combined together
They can make a whole quite different in substance.
So that the human race and crops and fruitful trees
We may rightly think are made from different elements.
Do not imagine that atoms of every kind
700
Can be linked in every sort of combination.
If that were so, then monsters everywhere
You’ld see, things springing up half-man, half-beast,
Tall branches sprouting from a living body,
Limbs of land animals joined with those of sea.
Chimaeras breathing flame from hideous mouths
705
Nature would feed throughout the fertile earth,
Too fertile, generating everything.
That these things do not happen is manifest.
We see all things created from fixed seeds
By a fixed parent and able as they grow
To keep true to the stock from which they sprang.
All this, for sure, fixed laws of nature govern.
710
Each thing contains its own specific atoms
Which, fed by all its food, spread through the body
Into the limbs and there, combined together,
Produce appropriate movements. By contrast
Alien elements are thrown back by nature
Into the earth; and under the impact of blows
Invisible particles fly off from the body
715
In quantity, unable anywhere
To combine with it, or feel the vital motions
That are in the body so as to copy them.
However, you must not think these laws apply
Only to animals. The same principle
Determines everything that is in the world.
All things created differ from each other
720
By their whole natures; each one therefore must
Consist of atoms differently shaped.
Not that there are not many atoms endowed
With the same shape, but as a general rule
Things do not consist wholly of the same atoms.
Further, since the seeds are different, different also
725
Must be their intervals, paths, weights, and impacts,
Connections, meetings, motions. These separate
Not only animals, but land from sea,
And hold the expanse of heaven apart from earth.
Now here’s a matter which with labour sweet
730
I have researched. When you see before your eyes
A white thing shining bright, do not suppose
That it is made of white atoms; nor when you see something black
That it is made of black atoms; or that anything
Imbued with colour has it for the reason
735
That its atoms are dyed with corresponding colour.
The atoms of matter are wholly without colour,
Not of the same colour as things, nor of different colour.
And if you think the mind cannot comprehend
Bodies of this kind, you wander far astray.
740
Men blind from birth, who have never seen the light of sun,
Nevertheless can recognize by touch
Things that from birth they have not linked with colour.
In the same way bodies not marked by any hue
Are able to form a concept in the mind.
745
We ourselves, when we touch a thing in the dark,
Do not feel that it possesses any colour.
Since I have proved this, now I will show there are
[One or more missing lines]
Any colour can change completely into another,
Which primal atoms never ought to do.
750
For something must survive unchangeable
Lest all things utterly return to nothing.
For all things have their own fixed boundaries;
Transgress them, and death follows instantly.
Therefore beware of staining atoms with colour
755
Lest you find all things utterly return to nothing.
If atoms are by nature colourless
But possess different shapes from which they make
Colours of every kind in varied hues—
A process in which it is of great importance
760
How they combine, what positions they take up,
What motions mutually they give and take—
That gives you at once a simple explanation
Why things that were black a little while before
Can suddenly become as white as marble,
765
As the sea when strong winds beat upon its surface
Turns into white wave-crests of marble lustre.
You could say that often what we see as black,
When its matter has been mixed and the arrangement
Of atoms changed, some added, some taken away,
770
Immediately is seen as white and shining.
But if the atoms of the sea’s wide levels
Were blue, they could not possibly be whitened.
Stir up blue matter anyway you will,
It can never change its colour into marble.
775
Or if the different atoms that compose
The single unmixed brightness of the sea
Are dyed with different colours, as a square,
A single shape, may be made up of parts
Of different shape and form, it would be right
That, as in the square we see the different shapes,
780
So on the surface of the sea, or in
The unmixed brightness of some other object,
We should see various colours, widely different.
Besides, the different shapes of various parts
Do not prevent the whole from being a square;
785
But different colours make it impossible
For a thing to possess one single brightness.
The argument that sometimes entices us
To attribute colours to atoms, falls apart;
For white things are not made from white, nor black
790
From black, but both from different colours.
White obviously comes much more easily
From no colour than from black, or any other
Colour that interferes with it and thwarts it.
And since there can be no colour without light
795
And atoms do not emerge into the light,
You can be certain that no colour clothes them.
What colour can there be in total darkness?
It is light itself that produces change of colour
As things are lit by rays direct or slanting.
The feathers of a pigeon in the sunshine
800
Around its neck, crowning its lovely head,
Sometimes you see them gleaming bronze and ruby,
At other times, viewed from a certain angle,
They mix sky blue with green of emeralds.
805
A peacock’s tail, when filled with bounteous light,
In the same way changes colour as it turns.
These colours are made by incidence of light;
Without it certainly no colour could exist.
When the eye is said to see the colour white,
810
The pupil receives a certain kind of impact,
And another when it sees black and all the rest;
But when you touch things, it matters not at all
What colour they have but only what the shape is.
For sure then, atoms have no need of colour,
815
But their different shapes and forms produce
Various sensations of touch and different feelings.
There is no direct connection between colour and shape,
And all formations of atoms can exist in every hue;
Why therefore are things composed of them,
820
Not tinted all with every kind of colour?
You would see ravens flying through the air
Emit a snowy sheen from snowy wings,
And swans turn black, their atoms being black,
Or any colour uniform or mixed.
Again, the more a thing is divided up
825
Into minute parts, the more you see the colour
Fades gradually away and is extinguished.
When purple cloth for instance is pulled to pieces
Thread by thread, the purple and the scarlet,
Brightest of colours, are totally destroyed.
830
So that you may see that, before its particles
Are reduced to atoms, they breathe out all their colour.
Finally, since you accept that certain things
Emit neither noise nor smell, for this reason
835
You do not attribute sound or scent to everything.
So, since our eyes cannot see everything,
You may be sure that certain things exist
Which have no colour, any more than scent or sound.
And these the intelligent mind can comprehend
840
No less than things that lack some other quality.
Do not suppose that atoms are bereft
Only of colour. They are quite devoid
Also of warmth and cold and fiery heat.
Barren of sound and starved of taste they move.
Their bodies emit no odour of their own.
845
When you set out to make a pleasing scent
From marjoram
or myrrh or the sweet flower
Of spikenard breathing nectar to our nostrils
Among the first things that you need to seek
Is an oil that is, so far as you may find one,
850
Odourless and emits no breath of anything.
For this will least with harsh taint of its own
Corrupt the scents concocted with its substance.
For the same reason atoms must not bring
An odour of their own in making things,
855
Nor sound, since they can emit nothing from themselves,
Nor similarly taste of any kind,
Nor cold likewise nor heat nor gentle warmth
And all the rest. All these are perishable—
The softness of their substance makes them pliant,
Its hollowness porous, its brittleness makes them crumble—
860
All must be kept well separate from atoms,
If we wish to lay a strong and sure foundation,
Immortal, on which the sum of life may rest;
Lest you find all things utterly returned to nothing.
Now here is another point. Things that we see have feeling
865
Consist of atoms that are devoid of feeling.
Nor do things plainly known to us
And manifest refute this or fight against it.
Rather they take us by the hand and make us believe
That living things, as I say, are born from insentient atoms.
870
Why, you can see that living worms emerge
From filthy dung when the wet earth is soaked
And rotted by unseasonable rains.
All other things are seen likewise to change.
Rivers and leaves and joyful pastures change
875
Into cattle, and cattle change into our bodies,
And often too our bodies build the strength
Of wild beasts and winged masters of the air.
So nature turns all foods to living bodies
And from them makes all the senses of animals
880
In much the same way as she makes dry logs
Unfold in flames and turns them into fire.
Now do you see how very important is
The order in which all the atoms are placed,
How they combine, what motions they give and take?
885
What is it then that strikes the mind itself
And moves it, and compels it to express
Ideas which forbid you to believe
That the sentient comes from the insentient?
Doubtless it is that a mixture of water and logs
And earth cannot produce a vital sense.
890
And here you will please bear this in mind:
I do not say that all the substances
Which produce sentient bodies always do so.
It all depends how small the atoms are
That make a sentient thing, what shapes they have,
895
What motions and arrangements and positions.
On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) Page 11
