Lucretius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Sweet it is, when winds are churning the waters of the great sea,
to watch from land another's great struggle;
not because anyone's distress is a pleasant delight,
but because it is sweet to see what troubles you yourself are free of.
Sweet too to watch the great contests of war
drawn up across the plains, with no share of the danger yourself;
but nothing is sweeter than to hold the well-fortified,
serene, high sanctuaries built by the teaching of the wise,
from which you can look down on others and see them everywhere
wandering, and seeking, astray, the path of life,
vying in wit, competing in rank,
striving night and day with outstanding effort
to rise to the heights of wealth and gain mastery of things.
O wretched minds of men, O blind hearts!
In what darkness of life, amid what dangers,
this span of time, however long it is, is spent! Do you not see
that nature barks for nothing else for itself, except that pain
be absent, kept apart from the body, and the mind enjoy
a pleasant feeling, with worry and fear removed?
So we see that for the body's own nature few things
are needed at all: whatever things remove pain
can also lay out many delights beneath it,
more pleasantly at times, though nature herself does not require it,
if there are no golden statues of youths throughout the halls,
holding fire-bearing torches in their right hands,
so that light may be supplied for nighttime feasts,
nor does the house gleam with silver and glitter with gold,
nor do lyres resound through gilded, paneled ceilings,
when nevertheless, lying together on the soft grass,
beside a stream of water, under the branches of a tall tree,
people tend their bodies pleasantly at no great cost,
especially when the weather smiles and the season
of the year sprinkles the greening grass with flowers.
Nor do hot fevers leave the body any sooner
if you toss about on woven pictured cloth and reddening purple,
than if you must lie down in a common garment.
Therefore, since treasures do nothing for our body,
nor does noble birth, nor the glory of kingship,
it must be thought that, for the rest, they do the mind no good either;
unless perhaps, when you see your legions across the open plain
seething, rousing the mock-battles of war,
reinforced by great reserves and the strength of wealth,
decked out with arms, and equally spirited,
then, at this sight, your fear-struck scruples of religion
flee trembling from your mind, and your fears of death
then leave your breast empty and free of care.
But if we see that these things are laughable mockeries,
and that, in truth, men's fears and the cares that pursue them
fear neither the clash of arms nor fierce weapons,
but boldly mingle among kings and the powerful,
and pay no reverence to the gleam of gold
nor the bright splendor of purple clothing,
why do you doubt that all this lies within the power of reason,
especially since all of life labors in darkness?
For just as children tremble and fear everything
in blind darkness, so we in the light fear,
at times, things that are no more to be feared than
what children shudder at in the dark and imagine will happen.
This terror of the mind, then, and this darkness, must
be dispelled not by the sun's rays nor the bright shafts of day,
but by the outward form and the reasoned account of nature.
Now come, by what motion the generative bodies of matter
beget the various things there are, and dissolve them once begotten,
and by what force they are compelled to do this, and what mobility
is granted them for traveling through the great void,
I shall set forth: remember to give yourself to my words.
For matter does not, in truth, cohere among itself
packed tight, since we see each thing grow less
and we perceive all things flow away, as it were, over the long span of time,
and old age steal them from our sight,
while nevertheless the sum of things seems to remain unharmed,
because whatever bodies depart from each thing,
they lessen the place they leave, and endow with increase the place they reach.
They force those things to grow old, but these others, on the contrary, to flourish,
nor do they linger there. Thus the sum of things is ever
renewed, and mortal things live by mutual exchange among themselves.
Some races grow, others dwindle,
and in a brief span the generations of living things are changed,
and, like runners, hand on the torch of life.
If you think the first-beginnings of things can come to rest,
and by resting beget new motions in things,
you wander far astray from true reasoning.
For since they wander through the void, all the first-beginnings of things
must be carried either by their own weight
or by a chance blow from another. For when swift-moving bodies often
collide as they meet, it happens that they suddenly
bounce apart in different directions; and no wonder, since they are utterly hard
with solid weight, and nothing stands in their way from behind.
And so that you may see more clearly that all the bodies of matter
are tossed about, recall that there is no bottom at all
to the sum of things, nor any place where the first bodies
can come to rest, since space is without end or limit,
and extends immeasurably in every direction on all sides,
as has been shown in many ways and proved by sure reasoning.
Since this is established, no rest at all, to be sure,
is granted to the first bodies through the deep void,
but rather, driven by constant and varied motion,
some rebound after colliding across great intervals,
and some are buffeted by blows within short spaces.
And whichever ones, gathered in a denser combination,
rebound, driven together, across tiny intervals,
entangled by their own interlocking shapes,
these make up the strong roots of stone, and the fierce
bodies of iron, and the rest of that kind.
A few, besides, wander on through the great void;
the rest spring far apart and run far back again
across great intervals; these supply for us
the thin air, and the sun's bright light.
And besides, many wander through the great void,
cast out from the unions of things, and nowhere
have they been able, once taken back, to join their motions with others.
Of this thing I describe, an image and likeness
is always before our eyes, present and pressing upon us.
For observe: whenever the sun's beams,
let in, pour their rays through the dark places of houses:
you will see many tiny bodies mingling in many ways through the void,
in the very light of the beams,
and as if in an eternal contest waging battles and fights,
contending in troops, and never giving a pause,
driven by frequent unions and separations;
so that from this you can guess what it is like
for the first-beginnings of things to be tossed forever in the great void.
At least, a small thing can give an example
of great things, and traces of knowledge.
It is fitting, too, that you turn your mind all the more to these
bodies that seem to be stirred about in the sun's rays,
because such stirrings show that motions of matter also
lie hidden beneath, secret and unseen.
For you will see many things there, struck by unseen blows,
change course, and, driven back, turn back again
now this way, now that, in every direction on all sides.
This wandering, clearly, comes to all of them from the first-beginnings.
For the first-beginnings of things move first, of themselves,
then those bodies that are made of a small combination
and are, as it were, nearest to the power of the first-beginnings,
are set in motion, struck by their unseen blows,
and they in turn go on to stir up bodies a little larger.
Thus motion mounts up from the first-beginnings and passes
gradually to our senses, so that those things too are set moving
which we are able to discern in the light of the sun,
though by what blows they do this is not clearly evident.
Now, what mobility is granted to the bodies
of matter, you may learn from this in a few words, Memmius.
First, when dawn scatters the lands with new light
and the varied birds, flitting through the trackless groves,
fill the places through the soft air with their clear voices,
how suddenly, at such a time, the risen sun is wont
to clothe everything, flooding it with its light —
this we see is plain and evident to everyone.
But that warmth which the sun sends out, and its clear light,
does not travel through the empty void; hence it is forced
to go more slowly, as it beats its way through the waves of air;
nor do the tiny bodies of that warmth travel one by one,
but they move locked together and clustered with one another;
and so they are held back together among themselves, and from outside
they are hindered, so that they are forced to go more slowly.
But those first-beginnings that are solid in their simplicity,
when they travel through the empty void and nothing outside
delays them, and they themselves, being one thing made of their own parts,
are carried, straining as one, to the single place they set out for,
they must, without doubt, excel in speed
and be carried much more swiftly than the light of the sun,
and race across many times the space
in the same time that the sun's rays spread across the sky.
* * *
nor to track down each single first-beginning one by one,
so as to see by what process each thing comes about.
But some, on the other hand, ignorant of matter,
hold that nature could not, without a god's power,
change the seasons of the year and bring forth crops
so precisely, matched to human calculations,
and all the rest besides — which divine Pleasure, life's guide,
herself urges mortals to approach, and leads them to,
and coaxes, through the arts of Venus, to propagate their kind,
lest the human race perish. But when they imagine
that the gods established all things for the sake of these,
in every respect they seem to have fallen far from true reasoning.
For although I may not know what the first-beginnings of things are,
yet this, from the very workings of the heavens, I would dare
to affirm, and to prove from many other things besides,
that the nature of the world was by no means created for us
by divine power: it stands endowed with so much fault.
which I shall make plain to you later, Memmius;
now I shall set forth what remains concerning motions.
Now, I think, is the place, amid these matters, also
to affirm to you this: that no bodily thing can be carried
upward by its own force, or travel upward.
And do not let the bodies of flames deceive you on this point;
for they are born and take on increase in an upward direction,
and upward, too, bright crops and trees grow,
though weights, so far as lies in them, all tend downward.
Nor, when flames leap up to the roofs of houses,
and with swift fire taste the beams and rafters,
should it be thought that they do this of their own accord, without force applied beneath.
Of this kind, too, is blood released from our body,
which spurts up leaping high and scatters gore.
Do you not see, too, with what force beams and rafters
the water's wetness spits back? For the more, straight down,
and with great force, many of us press hard and with much labor,
the more eagerly it thrusts them up again, and gives them back,
and spring out beyond it and leap forth still more.
Yet I do not doubt that these things too, so far as lies in them,
are all borne downward through the empty void.
So too flames must be able, through the breezes
of the air, once forced out, to rise upward, although
their weights, so far as lies in them, strive to draw them down.
And the night-fires of the sky, flying on high—
do you not see them draw long trails of flame
in whatever direction nature has given them passage?
Do you not see stars and constellations fall to earth?
The sun too, from the height of the sky, scatters all
its heat into every quarter and sows the fields with light;
so the sun's heat too inclines down toward the earth.
And you see lightning bolts fly slantwise through the rains,
now from here, now from there, fires torn loose from the clouds
clash together; the fiery force falls to earth on every side.
This too, in these matters, we are eager for you to grasp:
when bodies are carried straight down through the void
by their own weights, at a time wholly uncertain
and at uncertain places, they swerve a little from their course—
only so much that you could call it a shift of motion.
For if they were not in the habit of swerving, all things would fall
straight down through the deep void like drops of rain,
no collision would arise, no blow would be produced
among the first beginnings; so nature would never have created anything.
But if by chance someone believes that heavier
bodies, since they are carried more swiftly straight through the void,
can fall from above onto lighter ones, and so
produce blows able to give back generative motions,
he strays far from true reasoning.
For whatever falls through water or through thin air,
must quicken its fall in proportion to its weight,
because the substance of water and the thin nature
of air cannot equally hinder every object,
but yield more quickly, overcome by heavier things;
but empty void, on the other hand, can never, at any point
or at any time, stand firm beneath a thing,
but must go on yielding, as its own nature demands;
therefore all things must be borne through the calm void
at equal speed, though their weights are not equal.
Heavier things, then, will never be able to fall upon lighter ones
from above, nor produce blows by themselves
that could vary the motions by which nature carries on her work.
Wherefore, again and again, the first bodies must swerve
a little; and no more than the least amount, lest we seem to imagine
slanting motions, and the plain truth refute it.
For this we see to be evident and manifest,
that weights, so far as lies in them, cannot move at a slant,
when they plunge down from above—this you can observe;
but that nothing at all swerves from the straight line of its path—
who is there that could ever perceive it?
Again, if every motion is always linked to another
and new motion arises from the old in a fixed order,
and if the first bodies do not by swerving create some
new beginning of motion that might break the bonds of fate,
so that cause should not follow cause from infinity back—
from where comes this free will, spread through the lands, that living things have—
from where, I ask, is this will torn away from the fates,
through which we go forward wherever pleasure leads each of us,
and by which we likewise swerve our motions, not at a fixed time
nor at a fixed place, but wherever the mind itself has carried us?
For without doubt it is each one's own will
that gives the start to these things, and from it the motions flow through the limbs.
Do you not see, too, that when the starting gates are thrown open
at a given instant, the eager force of the horses
still cannot burst forward as suddenly as the mind itself desires?
For the whole store of matter through the whole body
must be roused, and once roused through every limb,
must follow and strain after the striving of the mind;
so that you may see that the start of motion is created in the heart,
and proceeds first from the will of the mind,
and only then is passed on through the whole body and limbs.
Nor is it the same as when we move forward driven by a blow,
by the great force and compulsion of another;
for then it is plain to us that all the matter of the whole body
moves and is swept along against our will,
until the will has reined it in throughout the limbs.
Do you see, then, that although an outside force
often drives many people and compels them, unwilling, to go forward
and be swept headlong, yet there is something in our breast
that can fight back and resist it?
And at its bidding the store of matter too
is forced at times to turn throughout the limbs and joints,
and, thrust forward, is reined in and settles back again.
Wherefore in the seeds too you must admit the same must be true:
that there is, besides blows and weight, another cause
of motions, from which this power innate in us derives,
since we see that nothing can come from nothing.
For weight prevents all things from happening by blows,
as it were by an outside force; but that the mind itself does not have
some inner necessity in all that it does,
and is not, as it were, overpowered, forced to endure and suffer—
this is brought about by the tiny swerve of the first beginnings,
at no fixed place and at no fixed time.
Nor has the store of matter ever been more crowded together
than now, nor again more widely spaced apart;
for nothing is added to it and nothing is lost from it.
Wherefore the motion in which the first bodies
now move, in that same motion they moved in ages past,
and hereafter they will always be carried on in the same way,
and the things that have been accustomed to be born will be born
under the same condition, and will exist and grow and thrive in strength,
as much as is granted to each by the laws of nature.
And no force can change the sum of things;
for there is no place outside to which any kind of matter
could escape from the whole, nor any place from which
new force could arise and burst in and change
the whole nature of things and overturn its motions.
In this there is nothing to wonder at, that although
all the first bodies of things are in motion,
the whole should nonetheless seem to stand wholly at rest,
except where something gives motion with its own particular body.
For the nature of the first bodies lies far beneath
all our senses; wherefore, since you cannot even
perceive the bodies themselves, their motions too must be hidden from you—
especially since even things we can perceive
often conceal their motions when set at a distance.
For often, on a hillside, cropping the rich pasture,
the wool-bearing flocks creep along, wherever each is called
and drawn by the grass, gemmed with fresh dew,
and the lambs, well fed, play and butt each other gently;
yet all this, to us, seems blurred at that distance,
a mere gleam of white settled on the green hill.
Besides, when great legions fill the plains
with their running, rousing images of war,
a brightness lifts to the sky and all around
the earth glitters with bronze, and beneath it the tramp
of men's feet stirs up sound, and the mountains, struck
by the shouting, throw back voices to the stars of heaven,
and horsemen wheel about and suddenly
gallop across the midst of the plains, shaking them with mighty charge;
and yet there is a certain spot high in the mountains from which
they seem to stand still, and the brightness to rest fixed upon the plains.
Now come, next in order learn the beginnings
of all things—of what sort they are, and how far apart in shape,
and grasp how greatly they are varied in their many forms;
not that few are endowed with a like shape,
but because, as a rule, not all things are alike in every respect.
Nor is this strange; for since their store is so vast
that, as I have taught, there is no end and no total to it,
surely they must not all possess, throughout,
the same outline and be marked by a like shape.
Besides, the race of mankind, and the mute swimming
scaly herds, and the glad flocks and wild beasts,
and the varied birds that throng the gladdening waters
around the banks, the springs, and the pools,
and those that range the trackless groves in flight—
take any one of these, of any kind you please,
and you will still find them differing from one another in shape.
Nor could offspring know its mother by any other means,
nor mother her offspring; and we see that this can happen
no less among them than it is well known to happen among men.
For often, before the fair shrines of the gods, a calf
falls, slaughtered beside the incense-burning altars,
breathing out from its breast a warm stream of blood;
but the mother, bereaved, roaming the green glades,
knows the tracks pressed into the ground by cloven hooves,
scanning every place with her eyes, if anywhere she might
catch sight of her lost young, and fills with her complaints
the leafy grove, stopping there, and returns again and again
to the stall, pierced through with longing for her calf;
nor can the soft willows and the grass thriving with dew,
nor any rivers gliding along their banks' edge,
delight her mind and turn aside her sudden care,
nor can the sight of other calves among the rich pastures
divert her mind and lighten her care;
so much does she seek something of her own and known.
Besides, tender kids with quavering voices
know their horned mothers, and butting lambs know
the bleating flocks; so, as nature demands,
each runs back, as a rule, to its own milk-bearing udder.
Lastly, you will see that no single kind of grain
is so wholly alike within its own kind to itself,
but that some measure of difference in shape runs between them.
And in like manner we see the race of shells
paint the bosom of the earth, where with soft waves the sea
feeds the thirsty sand of the curving shore.
Wherefore, again and again, it must in like manner be true,
since they are made by nature and not fashioned by hand
to one fixed pattern, that the first beginnings of things
fly about among themselves differing in shape.
It is very easy for us to unravel, by reasoning,
why fire from lightning is far more penetrating
than ours that rises from earthly torches;
for one may say that the heavenly fire of the lightning
is finer, made up of smaller shapes,
and so passes through openings which this fire of ours
born from wood and produced from torches cannot pass.
Besides, light passes through horn, but rain
is repelled by it. Why, unless the bodies of light
are smaller than those of which the nourishing liquid of water is made?
And though we see wine flow through a strainer
quickly, yet, on the other hand, oil lingers and is slow,
either because, no doubt, it is made of larger elements,
or of ones more hooked and more entwined with one another,
and so it happens that its first bodies cannot so suddenly
be drawn apart from one another so as each
to seep singly through each opening.
Add to this that the liquids of honey and of milk
are handled with a pleasant sensation by the tongue in the mouth,
but on the other hand the foul nature of wormwood and the fierce
centaury twist the mouth with their disgusting taste;
so that you may easily recognize that whatever
can touch the senses pleasantly is made of smooth, round bodies,
while whatever, on the other hand, seems bitter and harsh,
is held together by parts more hooked among themselves,
and so is apt to tear open paths into our
senses, and burst through the body as it enters.
In short, all things good to the senses, and all things bad to the touch,
are made up in conflict with one another, of dissimilar shape;
do not suppose, then, that the harsh grating of the shrieking saw
is made of elements as smooth
as the melodies of music, which the fingers of players
call forth, moving nimbly over the strings and giving them shape;
nor suppose that first bodies of a like form penetrate
the nostrils of men when foul corpses are burning,
and when the stage has just been sprinkled with Cilician saffron,
and when the altar nearby breathes out Panchaean perfumes;
nor should you conclude that the pleasant colors of things are made
of a like seed, the ones that can feed the eyes,
and those that prick the sight and force it to weep,
or that seem foul and repulsive in their disgusting appearance.
For everything that soothes the senses, whatever it may be,
is never created without some smoothness in its first bodies;
but whatever, on the other hand, is found troublesome and harsh,
is never found without some roughness of matter.
There are also some that are rightly thought neither
altogether smooth nor hooked with bent points,
but rather having small angles slightly projecting, so that
they can tickle the senses more than injure them—
of which kind are already tartar and the flavors of elecampane.
Again, that hot fires and icy frost
prick the senses of the body with teeth of a different kind,
the sense of touch, in either case, is proof enough for us.
For touch, touch, by the sacred powers of the gods,
is the sense of the body, whether when some outside thing
works its way in, or when something born within the body hurts it
or gives pleasure as it passes out through the organs of Venus's work,
or when, from some collision, the seeds are thrown into confusion
within the body itself and disturb the sense among themselves;
as if you should, by chance, strike some part of your own body
with your own hand and put it to the test.
Wherefore the shapes of the first beginnings must differ
greatly, since they can produce such varied sensations.
Again, whatever seems to us hard and dense,
this must be made of parts more hooked among themselves
and held tightly packed together as if by branching links.
In this class, first of all, stand the diamond-hard stones,
accustomed to scorn blows at the first onset,
and sturdy flints, and the strength of hard iron,
and bronze bolts that cry out as they resist in their sockets.
But those things that are liquid and flow with a fluid body
must be made rather of smooth, round parts.
For a draught of poppy seed pours as easily as water does;
its little clusters are not held fast to one another,
and once struck it likewise rolls readily downhill.
Lastly, everything you see scatter in an instant,
as smoke, mist, and flames do, must necessarily,
even if not entirely made of smooth, round parts,
still not be entangled and bound by interlocking shapes,
so that they can prick the body and pass through stone,
yet not cling to one another; so that whatever we perceive
by the senses as sharp-toothed, you may easily recognize
is made not of interlocking but of pointed elements.
But that things which are bitter should at the same time be fluid,
as is the brine of the sea, ought not to seem strange in the least—
* * *
for what is fluid is made of smooth, round parts,
but mixed in with the smooth ones are hooked bodies of pain;
yet these need not be held fast by their hooks:
clearly they are still round in shape, though rough,
so that they can roll along together and yet hurt the senses.
And so that you may see more clearly that rough elements are mixed
with smooth ones, from which comes Neptune's bitter body,
there is a way to separate them and see them apart:
when the same sweet water, seeping repeatedly through the earth,
filters through into a pit and there grows mild;
for it leaves behind, up above, the first bodies of its foul taste,
since the rough ones are the more able to cling fast in the earth.
Since I have taught this, I will go on to link to it a matter
that draws its warrant from this: that the first beginnings of things
vary within a limited range of shapes.
For if it were not so, then once again certain seeds
would have to be of infinite size of body.
For within the small compass of any single body,
the shapes cannot vary greatly among themselves.
Suppose, then, that the first bodies are made of three
of the smallest parts, or increase them by a few more;
when you have tried out all the parts of a single body—
placing top and bottom, and swapping right for left—
in every possible arrangement, testing what shape
each ordering gives to the whole outline of that body,
then, beyond that, if by chance you wish to vary the shapes further,
further parts will have to be added. It will follow from this,
by the same reasoning, that the arrangement will call for still more parts,
if you should wish, in turn, to vary the shapes yet again.
So an increase of body follows upon novelty
of shape. Wherefore you cannot believe
that seeds differ in an infinite number of shapes,
lest you be forced to make some of them of monstrous
size, which I have already shown above cannot be proved.
Otherwise, before you, barbarian robes and the shining
purple of Meliboea, dyed with Thessalian shellfish color,
and the golden generations of peacocks, steeped in their laughing
charm, would lie outmatched by some new color of things,
and the scent of myrrh would be despised, and the flavors of honey,
and the songs of the swan, and Apollo's intricate melodies
played on the strings, would in the same way be silenced, outdone;
for something more excellent than another would forever be arising.
And likewise all things could recede backward
into worse forms, just as we said they could into better ones;
for one thing would in turn seem more foul than another
to the nostrils, the ears, the eyes, and the taste of the mouth.
Since these things are not so, but a fixed limit on either side
holds the sum of each thing, you must admit
that matter too differs by shapes that are finite.
Lastly, from the fires to the icy frosts of winter
the distance is finite, and measured back again in equal degree.
For all heat and cold and the temperate warmths between
lie between the two extremes, filling up the sum in due order.
Therefore things created differ within a finite range,
since they are marked off at both ends by an opposing point,
hemmed in on the one side by flames, on the other by stiff frosts.
Since I have taught this, I will go on to link to it a matter
that draws its warrant from this: that the first beginnings of things,
which are made alike in shape to one another,
are infinite in number. For since the range
of shapes is finite, it must be that those which are alike
are infinite, or else that the sum total of matter
is finite—which I have proved is not so.
* * *
I will show in verses that the tiny bodies of matter
keep up the sum of things from infinity onward,
by an unbroken relay of blows on every side.
For as to certain animals that you see are rarer,
and whose nature you perceive to be the more fertile,
yet in another region and place, in lands far off,
many of that kind may exist and fill out the number;
just as we see, among four-footed creatures, first of all
the snake-handed elephants, of whose kind India
is fortified by many thousands with an ivory rampart,
so that it cannot be penetrated within: so great is the force
of these creatures, of which we see only very few examples.
But even granting that too, let it be, if you like,
that some one thing exists alone, of a body born unique,
with nothing like it anywhere in the whole world;
yet unless the supply of matter is infinite,
from which it might be conceived and brought to birth, it will not be able
to be created, nor, further, to grow at all.
For indeed, suppose that finite bodies, throughout
all space, are tossed about, the generative matter of one single thing—
from where, by what force, and in what way will they come together and unite
in so vast a sea and crowd of alien matter?
They have, I think, no means of combining;
but just as, when great and many shipwrecks have occurred,
the great sea tends to scatter benches, ribs,
yardarms, prow, masts, and floating oars,
so that stern-ornaments are seen drifting along
every shore of every land, giving mortals a warning
to avoid the treacherous sea's snares, its force and guile,
and never to trust it at any time,
when the calm sea's deceitful smile beguiles them—
so, if you should once suppose certain first beginnings
to be finite, they would have to be scattered through all
time, driven apart by the currents of matter in every direction,
and never able to be driven together into a union,
nor to remain in that union, nor to grow by increase;
yet plain fact shows that both of these plainly happen,
that things are brought to birth, and once born, can grow.
It is clear, then, that in every kind there are first beginnings of things
infinite in number, from which all things are supplied.
And so the death-dealing motions cannot prevail
forever, nor bury life's welfare for all time,
nor, on the other hand, can the generative and growth-giving
motions of things preserve what is created forever.
So the war of the first beginnings, drawn out
from infinity in time, is waged with even contest.
Now here, now there, the vital forces of things prevail,
and are in turn overcome. The funeral wail mingles
with the cry the infant lifts on first seeing the shores of light;
and no night has ever followed day, nor dawn followed night,
that has not heard, mixed with the feeble wailing of infants,
laments, the companions of death and of black funeral.
It is fitting, too, to hold this fact sealed
among these matters, and keep it entrusted to a mindful memory:
that nothing exists, of those things whose nature seems evident,
that is made of a single kind of first bodies,
nor anything that is not made of a mingled seed.
And whatever possesses in itself the more force
and powers, thereby shows that it holds within itself
the most kinds and the most varied shapes of first beginnings.
First of all, the earth holds within it first bodies
from which the springs, rolling their cold waters, constantly
replenish the boundless sea, and holds those from which fires arise;
for in many places the ground of the earth is kindled and burns,
and from its lowest depths Etna rages with fire.
Then, too, it holds within it what can raise up
shining crops and glad orchards for the human race,
and can furnish rivers, leaves, and rich pastures as well
to the mountain-roving race of wild beasts.
Therefore she is called the great mother of the gods and mother of beasts,
and the sole begetter of our body, this same one.
Her the learned poets of the Greeks of old have sung
as driving a yoked pair of lions from her seat in a chariot,
teaching that the great earth hangs in the expanse of air
and that earth cannot rest upon earth.
They yoked wild beasts to her, because however savage the offspring,
it must be softened, mastered, by the dutiful care of parents.
And they crowned the top of her head with a mural crown,
because, fortified in her chosen strongholds, she upholds cities.
Adorned with which emblem now throughout great lands
the image of the divine mother is carried in dread solemnity.
Her, by the ancient custom of sacred rites, various nations
call the Idaean Mother, and give her Phrygian troops
as companions, because they say it was first from those borders
that crops began to be brought forth throughout the round world.
They assign her the Galli, because those who violate her divine power
of the Mother, and have been found ungrateful to their own parents,
they mean thereby to show should be thought unworthy
to bring living offspring forth into the shores of light.
Taut drums thunder beneath their palms, and cymbals round them
hollow, and horns menace with harsh-sounding blare,
and the hollow pipe spurs minds on with its Phrygian strain,
and they carry weapons before them, tokens of violent frenzy,
the ungrateful minds and impious hearts of the crowd
to strike with terror through fear of the goddess's power.
So then, when first, carried through the great cities,
she does mortals a silent kindness with her mute greeting,
they strew the whole course of the roads with bronze and silver,
enriching her with lavish offerings, and shower down snow of roses,
shading the Mother and her band of companions with blossoms.
Here an armed band, whom the Greeks call by the name Curetes
they tell of, if by chance among the Phrygian troops
they sport and leap in time, joyful in bloodshed,
shaking with a toss the fearsome crests upon their heads,
they re-enact the Dictaean Curetes, who once are said
to have hidden the infant wailing of Jove in Crete,
when boys around the boy, in swift-footed dance,
[arms him, and in swift-footed dance, in rhythm]
armed, would strike bronze on bronze in rhythm,
lest Saturn, once he seized him, consign him to his jaws
and deal an eternal wound beneath the mother's heart.
For this reason, armed, they escort the great Mother,
or because they signify that the goddess counsels that with arms
and courage men should be willing to defend their homeland,
and stand as a guard and an honor to their parents.
All this, however well and finely it may be arranged,
is nonetheless far removed from true reasoning.
For the whole nature of the gods must, of itself,
enjoy immortal life in utmost peace,
set apart from our affairs and far disjoined;
for, free from all pain, free from every peril,
strong in its own resources, wanting nothing from us,
it is never won by our good deeds nor stirred by anger.
Earth, indeed, is wholly without feeling at every time,
and because it possesses the first-beginnings of many things,
it brings many things forth in many ways into the sun's light.
Here, if someone should choose to call the sea Neptune
and the crops Ceres, and prefers to misuse the name of Bacchus
rather than speak out the proper name of that liquor,
let us allow him to keep calling the round earth
the mother of the gods, provided that he himself, in truth,
refrains from staining his own mind with shameful superstition.
Often, then, cropping the grass from one same field,
the wool-bearing flocks and the warlike breed of horses
and horned herds, beneath the same canopy of sky,
and slaking their thirst from one same river's water,
live on with differing appearance, and each keeps its parents'
nature, and each mimics their ways after its kind.
So great, in every kind of grass, is the matter's
differing composition, so great is it in the river too.
Hence too, whatever single living creature is formed from all of these—
bones, blood, veins, warmth, moisture, flesh, sinews—
these make it up, and they in turn differ far,
each made up of first-beginnings of a different shape.
Then further, whatever things are burned, kindled by flame,
if nothing else, still hold this within their substance,
which lets them throw off fire and send up light
and drive forth sparks, and scatter embers far and wide.
Ranging over the rest by a like process of thought,
you will find, then, that the seeds of many things
lie hidden in a body, holding various shapes.
Finally, you see many things in which color and flavor, together
with fragrance, are all bestowed — most fruits especially.
These, therefore, must be composed of varied shapes;
for scent penetrates into the limbs where dye does not go,
dye likewise separately, <separately> flavor insinuates itself
into the senses — so you may know they differ in first shapes.
Dissimilar shapes, therefore, gather together into one mass,
and things are composed of intermingled seed.
Indeed, everywhere in these very verses of ours
you see many letters shared among many words,
though still you must admit that verses and words
are composed, one from another, of different elements —
not that few letters run in common through them,
or that no two of them are made of all the same,
but because not all are, as a rule, composed alike in every part.
So too in other things, in the same way, though many elements
are common to many objects, the first-beginnings of things
can still combine, one with another, in a differing sum,
so that rightly the human race is said to be composed of elements
different from those of crops and flourishing orchards.
Yet it must not be thought that all things can be joined together
in every fashion; for you would see monsters arising everywhere,
half-beast forms of men coming to exist, and tall
branches sometimes springing from a living body,
and many limbs of land creatures joined to those of the sea,
and Chimaeras breathing flame from a foul mouth,
fed by nature, the all-begetter, across the lands.
None of this plainly happens, since we see that all things,
created from fixed seeds by a fixed parent stock,
as they grow, are able to keep their kind.
Clearly this must happen by a fixed process.
For out of every kind of food, each thing's own matter, inside, into the limbs,
the particles pass off, and, joined together, produce
fitting motions; but on the other hand, we see foreign matter
cast back by nature onto the ground, and many things, driven
by unseen blows of matter, flee from the body,
things which could not be joined anywhere, nor within
harmonize with and follow the motions of life.
But lest you think perhaps that only living creatures are bound
by these laws — a like principle bounds all things:
for, just as things born, each from the other,
are wholly dissimilar in nature, so must each
be composed of first-beginnings of unlike shape;
not that few are endowed with a similar form,
but because not all consist alike in everything.
And since the seeds, in turn, differ, there must differ too
the intervals, paths, connections, weights, blows,
encounters, motions — things which set apart not living creatures
alone, but part the lands and the whole sea
and hold the whole sky apart, away from the lands.
Now come, take in the words won by my sweet labor,
lest perhaps you think the white things you see
bright before your eyes, are made of white first-beginnings,
or that the things that blacken are born of black seed;
or that whatever is steeped in any other color you like
you should think bears that hue for the reason that matter's
particles are dyed with a matching color of their own;
for no color at all belongs to matter's
particles, neither like things nor, indeed, unlike them.
and if it seems to you that into these particles no
reach of the mind can be cast, you wander far astray.
For since the blind from birth, who have never
beheld the light of the sun, still know objects by touch,
objects joined with no color, from their earliest years,
we may know that objects can present themselves to our mind too
and come to notice, smeared about with no dye at all.
Finally, we ourselves, whatever we touch
in blind darkness, feel to be dyed with no color at all.
And since I show that this happens, I will now teach that it is so.
For every color is wholly changed into every other;
which the first-beginnings must by no means do;
for something unchangeable must remain over,
lest all things be reduced utterly to nothing;
for whatever, once changed, passes beyond its own bounds,
this is at once the death of what it was before.
So take care not to taint the seeds of things with color,
lest for you all things return utterly to nothing.
Besides, if no nature of color at all is
granted to the first-beginnings, and they are endowed with varied shapes,
from which they beget and vary colors of every kind,
because it matters greatly with what other seeds each
seed is bound together, and in what arrangement,
and what motions they give and receive between them,
you could very easily give account at once
why things that a little before were black in color
can suddenly turn to a gleaming marble whiteness,
as the sea, when great winds stir its level waters,
is turned into hoary waves of gleaming marble.
For you could say that what we often see as black,
once its matter has been remixed and the order
of its first-beginnings changed, some added, some removed,
at once it happens that it appears gleaming and white.
But if the waters of the sea were composed of dark-blue
seeds, they could by no means turn white;
for however you jumble things that are dark-blue,
they can never pass over into a marble-white color.
But if the seeds are dyed with one color and another,
which together make the sea's single, pure sheen,
just as, often, out of different forms and varied shapes,
something square, of one single shape, is made,
it would follow — just as in the square we discern
dissimilar shapes present — so too to discern in the sea's expanse,
or in any other single, pure sheen,
colors far different from one another and varied.
Besides, the dissimilar shapes do nothing to hinder or oppose,
so that the square should be any less entirely square from outside;
but the varied colors of things do hinder and prevent
the whole thing from being of a single sheen.
Then, further, what leads and tempts us to grant
colors, now and then, to the first-beginnings of things as their cause,
collapses, since white things are not created from white,
nor those called black from black, but from varied seeds.
For indeed, far more readily will white things arise,
born of no color at all, than born of black,
or of any other that would fight against it and resist.
Besides, since colors cannot exist without light,
and the first-beginnings of things do not step out into the light,
we may know how they are veiled in no color at all.
For what kind of color could there be in blind darkness?
Indeed, it changes according to the light itself, because
struck by direct or slanting light, it shines back differently;
just as the plumage of doves is seen in sunlight,
which, set about the neck, crowns the throat;
for at times it happens to be red with bright bronze-gold,
and sometimes, in a certain light, it happens to appear
to mingle green emeralds in with dark blue.
And the peacock's tail, when it is filled with ample light,
turned toward it, changes its colors by the like process;
and since these colors are begotten by a certain stroke of light,
we may know it — without light they cannot be thought to arise.
And since the pupil takes into itself a certain kind of impact,
when it is said to perceive the color white,
and a different one again, when it perceives black and the rest,
and it makes no difference with what color, as it happens,
the things you touch are endowed, but rather with what shape they are better fitted,
we may know that the first-beginnings have no need at all of color,
but, varying in their shapes, produce varying touches.
Besides, since a fixed nature of color is not bound
to fixed shapes, and all the formations of the first-beginnings
can exist in any brightness whatever,
why are not the things composed of them likewise
suffused with every kind of color in every class?
For it would follow that crows too, often as they fly,
would cast a white color from white feathers,
and swans would turn black, born of black seed,
or of any other single, varied color.
Indeed, the more each thing, torn apart into minute
portions, is pulled apart, the more you can see
its color gradually vanish and go out;
as happens when purple cloth is torn into small pieces:
purple, and crimson, by far the brightest color,
when it is pulled apart thread by thread, is wholly lost;
so you may learn from this that the particles breathe out all their color first,
before they break apart into the seeds of things.
Finally, since you grant that not all bodies
send forth a sound, nor a smell, for this reason it follows
that you do not assign sounds and smells to all things:
so, since we cannot perceive all things with our eyes,
we may know that certain things likewise exist bereft of color
just as certain things are without any smell, and set apart from sound,
and no less can a keen mind come to know these things
than it can mark those deprived of other properties.
But lest you think perhaps that the first bodies, stripped only of color,
remain as they are, they are also cut off from warmth
and cold entirely, and from hot vapor,
and are said to be barren of sound and empty of savor,
nor do they cast off any smell of their own from their body.
Just as, when you set out to make the soothing perfume of marjoram and myrrh,
and the essence of nard, which breathes nectar to the nostrils,
it is fitting, first of all, to seek out
so far as you can find it — the nature of scentless olive oil,
which sends no breath at all to the nostrils,
so that it may, as little as possible, spoil in its own substance
the blended, digested scents by handling them with its own strength;
for that same <reason> the first-beginnings of things must
not lend their own smell to the things they beget,
nor sound, since they can send forth nothing from themselves,
nor, by the same reasoning, finally any flavor at all,
nor cold, nor likewise hot or lukewarm vapor,
and the rest — things which, though such that mortal bodies are composed of them,
soft and yielding, brittle and crumbling, hollow with a loose texture,
all these must be kept apart from the first-beginnings,
if we wish to set immortal foundations beneath things
as their basis, on which the whole of their continuance may rest;
lest for you all things return utterly to nothing.
Now, whatever things we see to have feeling, it is necessary
that you admit all are nonetheless composed
of insensible first-beginnings; nor do plain facts refute this,
nor do the things plainly known fight against it,
but rather lead us, so to speak, by the hand, and compel us to believe
that, as I say, living creatures are born from insensible things.
For indeed we may see living worms come into being
from foul dung, when the moist earth has taken on a stench
from untimely rains.
Besides, all things likewise transform themselves.
Rivers turn themselves into leaves and lush pasture,
into flocks; flocks turn their substance into our bodies,
and from our body often the strength of wild beasts
grows, and the bodies of birds strong of wing.
So nature turns all food into living bodies,
and from it brings forth all the senses of living creatures,
in no very different way than it unfolds dry wood
into flames, and turns everything into fire.
Do you see now, then, how much it matters for the first-beginnings of things
in what order each is set,
and, mixed with what, they give and receive motions?
Then further — this thing itself that strikes the mind,
which moves it and forces it to bring forth its varied feelings —
do you doubt that the sensible can be born of the insensible?
No doubt it is that stones and wood and earth, mixed all together,
still cannot render up living sensation.
This, then, in these matters, it will be well to remember,
that I do not say sensations are born at once
from every single thing whatever that creates sensible beings,
but that it matters greatly, first, how small the things are that compose
the sensible creature, and with what shape they are endowed,
and finally what they are in motions, arrangement, and position.
None of which we see present in logs or clods of earth;
and yet these, when they are, so to speak, rotted through by rains,
bring forth small worms, because the particles of matter,
stirred from their old arrangements by this new turn of events,
combine in just the way that living creatures must be born.
Then those who hold that the sensible can be created out of the sensible,
and further, that these are accustomed to feel by way of other things
* * *
when they make things soft — for all sensation is bound up
with flesh, sinews, veins — whatever we see
to be soft, made up of mortal substance.
But grant, even so, that these could remain eternal;
surely they must still either have the feeling of a part
or be thought like whole living creatures themselves.
But it must be that the parts cannot feel by themselves:
for the mind rejects every sensation belonging to the limbs,
nor can a hand, once cut off from us, nor any
part of the body at all, hold sensation on its own.
It remains, then, that they be likened to whole living creatures,
so that they can share vital feeling on every side.
How, then, can they be called the first-beginnings of things,
and escape the paths of death, if they are living creatures,
and living creatures <are> one and the same thing as mortal beings?
But even granting they could be so, still by gathering and combining
they will produce nothing beyond a crowd and throng of living creatures,
just as men, herds, and wild beasts cannot,
by coming together among themselves, beget any single thing.
so likewise, in the same way, whatever makes us feel must itself feel.
But if perhaps they give up their own feeling from their body
and take on another, what need was there to grant them that
which is then taken away? Besides, as we showed before,
since we see eggs turn into living chicks
of birds, and worms swarm forth from the earth
once an untimely rain has brought a stench upon it,
we may know that feelings can be born from things devoid of feeling.
But if perhaps someone should say that, so long as feelings arise
from non-feeling by way of change,
or by some sort of birth, as it were, that is brought forth outward,
for him it will be enough to make this plain and prove it:
that no birth occurs unless a combination has first been formed,
nor can anything be changed without a combining of parts.
To begin with, there cannot be feelings belonging to any body
before the very nature of the living creature has been begotten,
because, no doubt, its matter is held scattered apart
in air, in rivers, in earth, and in things sprung from earth,
and it has not yet, coming together, joined the fitting
vital motions among themselves, by which the all-perceiving
senses, once kindled, keep watch over each living creature.
Besides, a blow too great for nature to endure
suddenly strikes down any living creature, and goes on
to confound all the sensations of body and mind alike.
For the arrangements of the first-beginnings are broken apart,
and the vital motions are hindered deep within,
until all the matter, shaken through the limbs,
loosens the knots of the living soul from the body
and, once it is scattered, casts it all out through every passage.
For what else should we think a blow, once dealt,
could do, except shake apart and dissolve each thing?
It also happens, when the blow dealt is less severe,
that the remaining vital motions often prevail,
prevail, and settle the huge turmoil of the blow,
and call back again, each into its own course, whatever was disturbed,
and shake apart the motion of death, as it were already master in the body,
and kindle again senses almost lost;
for by what means else, rather, from the very threshold of death,
could they, their minds gathered back together, return to life,
rather than go on and pass away to where their course was already nearly run?
Besides, since pain occurs when the bodies of matter,
stirred by some force through the living flesh, through the limbs,
tremble within, in their own inner seats,
and when they migrate back into place, a soothing pleasure arises,
we may know that the first-beginnings can be assailed
by no pain at all, nor take any pleasure from themselves;
since they are not made up of any bodies
of further first-beginnings, whose motions might suffer from novelty
or might reap some enjoyment of nourishing sweetness.
Therefore they must not be endowed with any feeling at all.
Finally, so that living creatures generally may be able to feel,
if feeling must now be granted to their first-beginnings,
what of those from which the human race in particular is made?
Surely they too, shaken with quivering laughter, must burst out laughing,
and bedew their faces and cheeks with dropping tears,
and be skilled at discoursing on the mixture of things,
and further inquire for themselves what their own first-beginnings are;
since, being likened to whole mortal creatures,
they too must themselves be composed of further elements,
and those in turn from still others, so that you would never dare to stop;
for indeed I will press you: whatever you say speaks and laughs
and is wise, must be so because still other things do these very things.
But if we see that this is raving and mad,
and that something can laugh, though built up out of things that do not laugh,
and be wise, and render reasoned account in learned speech,
though not made of seeds that are wise and eloquent,
why can the things we see to feel be any less
composed of seeds mingled together that lack all feeling whatever?
Finally, we are all sprung from a seed that comes from the sky;
of all of us that same one is father, from whom, when the fostering earth
our mother, has taken in drops of flowing moisture,
made fruitful, she bears bright crops and flourishing trees
and the human race; she bears all the generations of wild beasts,
since she supplies the food with which all creatures feed their bodies
and they lead a sweet life, and propagate their offspring;
for which reason she has rightly earned the name of mother.
So too it passes back again — what was earlier from earth —
into the earth, and what was sent from the shores of the sky,
that, carried back again, the vaults of heaven receive.
Nor does death destroy things in such a way that it
annihilates the bodies of matter, but scatters their union;
then it joins one thing to another, and brings it about that all
things change their shapes and alter their colors
and take on sensation, and in an instant give it up again;
so that you may know it matters, for these things, what
other elements, and in what arrangement, hold them together,
and what motions they give and receive among themselves,
and do not think that it can dwell forever within
the eternal first bodies, that which we see floating on the surface
of things, and now and then born and suddenly perishing.
Indeed it matters, even in these very verses of ours,
with which letters, and in what order, each is placed;
for the same letters signify sky, sea, lands, rivers, sun —
the same denote crops, trees, living creatures;
if not all, still by far the greatest part
is alike; but things differ in their arrangement.
So too, in things themselves, likewise, of matter
[the intervals, paths, connections, weights, blows]
the meetings, motions, order, arrangement, shapes —
when these are changed, things too must change.
Now turn your mind to the true reasoning we offer.
For a strange thing labors powerfully to reach your ears,
and a new appearance of things to show itself.
But no thing is so easy that it does not first
stand as more difficult to believe; and likewise
nothing is so great, nor anything so marvelous,
that all do not gradually cease to marvel at it,
beginning with the bright and pure color of the sky,
and all it holds within itself, the stars wandering everywhere,
and the moon, and the sun's brilliant, shining light;
all of which, if they were now for the first time
suddenly thrown before mortal eyes, unforeseen,
what could be called more marvelous than these things,
or what would peoples have dared less to believe could be, beforehand?
Nothing, I think; so wondrous would this sight have been.
Yet now no one, wearied and sated with seeing it,
deigns to look up at the bright vaults of the sky.
Cease, therefore, terrified by its mere novelty,
to spit reason out of your mind, but rather with keener
judgment weigh it, and if it seems true to you,
surrender, or, if it is false, gird yourself against it.
For the mind seeks a reason, since the sum of space is
infinite, out beyond these ramparts of the world,
what there may be further on, to which the mind wishes to look
still onward, and to which the free cast of thought would fly.
First of all, in every direction, on all sides,
and on either side, <above> and below, throughout the whole,
there is no limit; as I have taught, and the thing itself, of itself,
cries it aloud, and the nature of the deep shines clear.
It must now be thought in no way likely,
since on every side space lies open, infinite,
and seeds in number uncountable, through the deep sum of things,
fly about in many ways, driven by eternal motion,
that this one globe of earth and sky was created,
and that so many bodies of matter beyond it do nothing;
especially since this world was made by nature, and itself,
of its own accord, by chance, the seeds of things colliding,
driven together randomly in many ways, vainly and in vain,
at last settled into those which, suddenly thrown together,
would always become the beginnings of great things —
of earth, sea, sky, and the race of living creatures.
Wherefore, again and again, you must admit it is necessary
that there are other gatherings of matter elsewhere,
such as this one, which the eager embrace of the ether holds.
Moreover, since much matter is prepared,
since space is at hand, and neither thing nor cause delays
at all, things must, no doubt, be carried on and brought about.
Now if there is so great a supply of seeds as
the whole lifetime of living creatures could not count,
and the same nature remains, which is able to throw
the seeds of things into any place, by the same means
as they were thrown together here, you must admit
that there are other worlds in other regions of space,
and various races of men, and generations of wild beasts.
To this is added that in the sum of things no thing is single,
unique, born alone, and growing alone and unique,
but rather belongs to some kind, and very many others of the same
kind exist. First, among living creatures, with your mind as guide,
you will find that so it is with the mountain-roaming race of beasts,
so with the twofold offspring of men, so finally with the mute
scaly-bearing herds, and all the bodies of flying things.
For this reason it must be admitted, by like reasoning,
that sky and earth and sun, moon, sea, and all else that exist,
are not single, but rather countless in number;
since indeed a boundary of life, deeply set,
holds as firmly for these, and their bodies are just as truly born,
as is every kind that teems, abundant, generation by generation, among these things.
If you hold these things well understood, nature is seen
at once to be free, stripped of haughty masters,
doing everything herself, by her own will, through herself, having no part of the gods.
For by the holy, tranquil hearts of the gods, in their peace,
who pass a calm age and a serene life,
who is able to govern the sum of the immeasurable, who to hold
in hand the strong reins of the deep, steering them,
who to turn all the heavens alike, and all
the fertile earths to warm with fires of the ether,
and to be present in all places at every time,
so as to make darkness with clouds, and to shake the clear sky
with a crash, then hurl thunderbolts, and often
overturn his own temples, and, withdrawing into deserts,
rage there, wielding a weapon that often passes
by the guilty and strikes down the undeserving and unoffending?
And many bodies, after the birthing-time and day of the world,
the first arising of sea and earth and sun,
were added from outside, seeds added all around,
which the great All contributed by casting them in,
from which the sea and lands could grow, and from which
the space of heaven's house might appear, and raise its lofty roof
far from the earth, and the air rise up.
For to each its own, from every place, all bodies
are distributed by blows, and withdraw to their own kind,
moisture to moisture; earth grows with earthy body,
and fires forge fire, and <ether> forges ether,
until at last, perfecting their growth to its final
limit, creative nature brought all things to a close;
as happens when no more is now given within
the vital veins than what flows out and departs.
Here the growth of all things must come to a halt,
here nature reins in their increase with her own powers.
For whatever you see growing large with joyful increase
and climbing by degrees the steps of mature age,
takes on more bodies for itself than it sends off from itself,
so long as food is easily placed into the veins, and so long
as things are not spread so wide that they release much,
and cause more loss than the age feeds upon.
For surely it must be granted that bodies flow and depart
in great number from things; but more must come in,
until they have touched the highest peak of growing.
Then, little by little, age breaks their strength
and mature vigor, and dissolves into the worse part.
For indeed, the larger a thing is, once its increase is spent,
and the broader it is, in every direction, on all sides,
the more bodies it now scatters and sends off from itself,
nor is all its food easily distributed into its veins,
nor is there enough, against the great tides it seethes with,
from which so much could arise anew and be supplied.
Rightly, then, they perish, when, made porous by outflow,
they are, and when all things give way beneath blows from outside,
since indeed food fails at last for their great age,
nor do the bodies that batter, from outside, ever cease
to wear away anything, and subdue it with hostile blows.
So too, then, the ramparts of the great world, stormed
on every side, will give way to decay and crumbling ruin;
for food must renew and restore all things,
and food must prop them up, <food> must sustain everything,
all in vain, since the veins do not endure
what is enough, nor does nature supply as much as is needed.
And now indeed the age is broken, and the earth, worn out with bearing,
scarcely creates small creatures, she who created all
the generations, and gave birth to the huge bodies of wild beasts.
For, I think, no golden cord let down mortal generations
from the sky above onto the fields,
nor did the sea, nor the waves beating on the rocks, create them,
but the same earth that now feeds them from herself, bore them.
Moreover, she herself first, of her own accord,
created for mortals bright crops and joyful vineyards,
she herself gave sweet fruits and joyful pastures;
which now scarcely grow large, though increased by our labor,
and we wear down oxen and the strength of farmers,
we wear out iron, scarcely supplied by the fields:
so much do they stint their yield and increase our toil.
And now the aged plowman, shaking his head, sighs
again and again, that his great labors have fallen out in vain,
and when he compares present times with times
past, he often praises the good fortune of his fathers.
So too the sad planter of the old, <shriveled> vine
blames the movement of time and rails at the age,
and grumbles that the ancient race, filled with piety,
bore its life quite easily within narrow bounds,
when the measure of land allotted per man was once far smaller;
not grasping that all things waste away little by little, and go
to the grave, worn out by the long span of age.