Chapter VI: Book V (1)

Who is there that by energy of mind
Could build a poem worthy of our theme’s
Majesty and of these discoveries?
Or who has such a mastery of words
As to devise praises proportionate
To his deserts, who to us has bequeathed
Such prizes, earned by his own intellect?
No man, I think, formed of a mortal body.
For if we are to speak as the acknowledged
Majesty of our theme demands, a god
Was he, most noble Memmius, a god,
Who first found out that discipline of life
Which now is called philosophy, and whose skill
From such great billows and a gloom so dark
Delivered life, and steered it into a calm
So peaceful and beneath so bright a light.
For compare the divine discoveries
Of others in old times. ’Tis told that Ceres
First revealed corn to men, Liber the juice
Of grape-born wine; though life without these things
Might well have been sustained; and even now
’Tis said there are some people that live so.
But to live happily was not possible
Without a serene mind. Therefore more justly
Is this man deemed by us a god, from whom
Came those sweet solaces of life, which now
Already through great nations spread abroad
Have power to soothe men’s minds. Should you suppose
Moreover that the deeds of Hercules
Surpass his, then yet further will you drift
Out of true reason’s course. For what harm now
Would those great gaping jaws of Nemea’s lion
Do to us, and the bristly Arcadian boar?
What could the bull of Crete, or Lerna’s pest
The Hydra fenced around with venomous snakes,
And threefold Gerion’s triple-breasted might,
Or those brazen-plumed birds inhabiting
Stymphalian swamps, what injury so great
Could they inflict upon us, or the steeds
Of Thracian Diomede, with fire-breathing nostrils
Ranging Bistonia’s wilds and Ismarus?
Also the serpent, guardian of the bright
Gold-gleaming apples of the Hesperides,
Fierce and grim-glancing, with huge body coiled
Round the tree’s stem, how were it possible
He could molest us by the Atlantic shore
And those lone seas, where none of us sets foot,
And no barbarian ventures to draw near?
And all those other monsters which likewise
Have been destroyed, if they had not been vanquished,
What harm, pray, could they do, though now alive?
None, I presume: for the earth even now abounds
With wild beasts to repletion, and is filled
With shuddering terror throughout its woods, great mountains
And deep forests, regions which we have power
For the most part to avoid. But if the heart
Has not been purged, what tumults then, what dangers
Must needs invade us in our own despite!
What fierce anxieties, offspring of desire,
Rend the distracted man, what mastering fears!
Pride also, sordid avarice, and violence,
Of what calamities are not they the cause!
Luxury too, and slothfulness! He therefore
Who could subdue all these, and banish them
Out of our minds by force of words, not arms,
Is it not right we should deem such a man
Worthy to be numbered among the gods?
The more that he was wont in beautiful
And godlike speech to utter many truths
About the immortal gods themselves, and set
The whole nature of things in clear words forth.

I, in his footsteps treading, follow out
His reasonings and expound in my discourse
By what law all things are created, how
They are compelled to abide within that law,
Without power to annul the immutable
Decrees of time; and first above all else
The mind’s nature was found to be composed
Of a body that had birth, without the power
To endure through a long period unscathed:
For it was found to be mere images
That are wont to deceive the mind in sleep,
Whenever we appear to behold one
Whom life has abandoned. Now, for what remains,
The order of my argument has brought me
To the point where I must show both how the world
Is composed of a body which must die,
Also that it was born; and in what way
Matter once congregating and uniting
Established earth sky sea, the stars, the sun,
And the moon’s globe: also what living creatures
Rose from the earth, and which were those that never
At any time were born: next in what way
Mankind began to employ varied speech
One with another by giving names to things:
Then for what causes that fear of the gods
Entered their breasts, and now through the whole world
Gives sanctity to shrines, lakes and groves,
Altars and images of gods. Moreover
I will make plain by what force and control
Nature pilots the courses of the sun
And the wanderings of the moon, lest we perchance
Deem that they traverse of their own free will
Their yearly orbits between heaven and earth,
Obsequiously furthering the increase
Of crops and living things, or should suppose
That they roll onwards by the gods’ design.
For those who have learnt rightly that the gods
Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder
By what means all things can be carried on,
Such above all as are perceived to happen
In the ethereal regions overhead,
They are borne back again into their old
Religious fears, and adopt pitiless lords,
Whom in their misery they believe to be
Almighty; for they are ignorant of what can
And what cannot exist; in fine they know not
Upon what principle each thing has its powers
Limited, and its deep-set boundary stone.

But now, lest I detain you with more promises,
In the first place consider, Memmius,
The seas, the land, the sky, whose threefold nature,
Three bodies, three forms so dissimilar,
And three such wondrous textures, a single day
Shall give to destruction, and the world’s vast mass
And fabric, for so many years upheld,
Shall fall to ruin. Nor am I unaware
How novel and strange, when first it strikes the mind,
Must appear this destruction of earth and heaven
That is to be, and for myself how difficult
It will prove to convince you by mere words,
As happens when one brings to a man’s ears
Some notion unfamiliar hitherto,
If yet one cannot thrust it visibly
Beneath his eyes, or place it in his hands;
For the paved highway of belief through touch
And sight leads straightest into the human heart
And the precincts of the mind. Yet none the less
I will speak out. Reality itself
It may be will bring credence to my words,
And in a little while you will behold
The earth terribly quaking, and all things
Shattered to ruins. But may pilot fortune
Steer far from us such disaster, and may reason
Convince us rather than reality
That the whole universe may well collapse,
Tumbling together with a dread crash and roar.

But before I attempt concerning this
To announce fate’s oracles in more holy wise,
And with assurance far more rational
Than doth the Pythoness, when from the tripod
And laurel wreath of Phoebus her voice sounds,
Many consolatories will I first
Expound to you in learned words, lest haply
Curbed by religion’s bit you should suppose
That earth and sun and sky, sea, stars and moon,
Their substance being divine, must needs abide
Eternally, and should therefore think it just
That all, after the manner of the giants,
Should suffer penance for their monstrous guilt
Who by their reasoning shake the world’s firm walls,
And fain would quench the glorious sun in heaven,
Shaming with mortal speech immortal things;
Though in fact such objects are so far removed
From any share in divine energy,
And so unworthy to be accounted gods,
That they may be considered with more reason
To afford us the conception of what is quite
Devoid of vital motion and of sense.
For truly by no means can we suppose
That the nature and judgment of the mind
Can exist linked with every kind of body,
Even as in the sky trees cannot exist,
Nor clouds in the salt waters, nor can fish
Live in the fields, neither can blood be found
In wood, nor sap in stones: but where each thing
Can dwell and grow, is determined and ordained.
Even so the nature of mind cannot be born
Alone without a body, nor exist
Separated from sinews and from blood.
But if (for this is likelier by far)
The mind’s force might reside within the head
Or shoulders, or be born down in the heels,
Or in any part you will, it would at least
Inhabit the same man and the same vessel.
But since even in our body it is seen
To be determined and ordained where soul
And mind can separately dwell and grow,
All the more must it be denied that mind
Cannot have being quite outside a body
And a living form, in crumbling clods of earth,
In the sun’s fire, or water, or aloft
In the domains of ether. Such things therefore
Are not endowed with divine consciousness,
Because they cannot be quickened into life.

This too you cannot possibly believe,
That there are holy abodes of deities
Anywhere in the world. For so tenuous
Is the nature of gods, and from our senses
So far withdrawn, that hardly can the mind
Imagine it. And seeing that hitherto
It has eluded touch or blow of hands,
It must touch nothing which for us is tangible:
For naught can touch that may not itself be touched.
So even their abodes must be unlike
Our own, tenuous as their bodies are.
All this hereafter I will prove to you
By plentiful argument. Further, to say
That for the sake of mankind the gods willed
To frame the wondrous nature of the world,
And that on this account we ought to extol
Their handiwork as worthy of all praise,
And to believe that it will prove eternal
And indestructible, and to think it sin
Ever by any effort to disturb
What by the ancient wisdom of the gods
Has been established everlastingly
For mankind’s benefit, or by argument
To assail and overthrow it utterly
From top to bottom, and to invent besides
Other such errors--all this, Memmius,
Is folly. For what advantage could our thanks
Bestow upon immortal and blessed beings
That for our sakes they should bestir themselves
To perform any task? Or what new fact
Could have induced them, tranquil hitherto,
After so long to change their former life?
For it seems fitting he should take delight
In a new state of things, to whom the old
Was painful: but for him whom in past times,
While he was living in felicity,
No evil had befallen, for such a one
What could have kindled a desire for change?
Must we imagine that their life lay prostrate
In darkness and in misery, till the birth
And origin of things first dawned upon them?
Besides, what evil had it been to us
Not to have been created? For whoever
Has once been born, must wish to abide in life
So long as luring pleasure bids him stay:
But one who has never tasted the love of life,
Nor even been numbered in life’s ranks, what harm
Were it for him not to have been created?
Again whence first was implanted in the gods
A pattern for begetting things? Whence too
The preconception of what men should be,
So that they knew and imaged in their minds
What they desired to make? And by what means
Could they have ever ascertained the energy
Latent in primal atoms, or what forms
Might be produced by changes in their order,
Unless Nature herself had given them first
A sample of creation? For indeed
These primal atoms in such multitudes
And in so many ways, through infinite time
Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight,
Have been borne onward so incessantly,
Uniting in every way and making trial
Of every shape they could combine to form,
That ’tis not strange if they have also fallen
Into such grouping, and acquired such motions
As those whereby the present sum of things
Is carried on and ceaselessly renewed.

But even were I ignorant how things
Were formed of primal elements, yet this
Would I have ventured to affirm, and prove
Not only from the system of the heavens,
But from much other evidence, that nature
Has by no means been fashioned for our benefit
By divine power; so great are the defects
Which are its bane. First, of the whole space
Covered by the enormous reach of heaven,
A greedy portion mountains occupy
And forests of wild beasts; rocks and waste swamps
Possess it, or the wide land-sundering sea.
Besides, well nigh two-thirds are stolen from men
By burning heat and frost ceaselessly falling.
All that is left for husbandry, even that
The force of Nature soon would overspread
With thorns, unless resisted by man’s force,
Ever wont for his livelihood to groan
Over the strong hoe, and with down-pressed plough
To cleave the earth. For if we do not turn
The fertile clods with coulters, and subduing
The soil of earth, summon the crops to birth,
They could not of their own accord spring up
Into the bright air. Even then sometimes,
When answering our long toil throughout the land
Every bud puts forth its leaves and flowers,
Either the sun in heaven scorches them
With too much heat, or sudden gusts of rain
Or nipping frosts destroy them, or wind-storms
Shatter them with impetuous whirling blasts.
Furthermore why does Nature multiply
And nourish terrible tribes of savage beasts
By land and sea, dangerous to mankind?
Why does untimely death range to and fro?
Then again, like a mariner cast ashore
By raging waves, the human infant lies
Naked upon the ground, speechless, in want
Of every help needful for life, when first
Nature by birth-throes from his mother’s womb
Thrusts him into the borders of the light,
So that he fills the room with piteous wailing,
As well he may, whose fate in life will be
To pass through so much misery. But flocks
And herds of divers kind, and the wild beasts,
These, as they grow up, have no need of rattles:
To none of them a foster-nurse must utter
Fond broken speech: they seek not different dresses
To suit each season: no, nor do they need
Weapons nor lofty walls whereby to guard
What is their own, since all things for them all
The Earth herself brings forth abundantly,
And Nature, the creatress manifold.

First of all, since the substance of the earth,
Moisture, and the light breathings of the air,
And burning heats, of which this sum of things
Is seen to be composed, have all been formed
Of a body that was born and that will die,
Of such a body must we likewise deem
That the whole nature of the world was made.
For things whose parts and members we see formed
Of a body that had birth and shapes that die,
These we perceive are themselves always mortal,
And likewise have been born. Since then we see
That the chief parts and members of the world
Decay and are reborn, it is no less certain
That once for heaven and earth there was a time
Of origin, and will be of destruction.

Herein lest you should think that without proof
I have seized this vantage, in that I have assumed
Earth and fire to be mortal, and have not doubted
That moisture and air perish, but maintained
That these too are reborn and grow afresh,
Consider first how no small part of the earth
Ceaselessly baked by the sun’s rays and trampled
By innumerable feet, gives off a mist
And flying clouds of dust, which the strong winds
Disperse through the whole atmosphere. Part too
Of the earth’s soil is turned to swamp by rains,
While scouring rivers gnaw their banks away.
Furthermore whatsoever goes to augment
Some other thing, is in its turn restored;
And since beyond all doubt the all-mother Earth
Is seen to be no less the general tomb,
You thus may see how she is ever lessened,
Yet with new growth increases evermore.

Next, that the sea, the rivers and the springs
Are always amply fed by new supplies
Of moisture oozing up perennially,
It needs no words to explain. The vast down-flow
Of waters from all sides is proof of this.
But as the water that is uppermost
Is always taken away, it comes to pass
That on the whole there is no overflow;
Partly because strong winds, sweeping the seas,
Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves
Their fabric with his rays; partly because
The water is distributed below
Throughout all lands. For the salt is strained off,
And the pure fluid matter, oozing back,
Gathers together at the river-heads,
Thence in fresh current streams over the land,
Wherever it finds a channel ready scooped
To carry down its waves with liquid foot.

Now must I speak of air, which every hour
Is changed through its whole body in countless ways.
For always whatsoever flows from things
Is all borne into the vast sea of air:
And if it were not in its turn to give
Particles back to things, recruiting them
As they dissolve, all would have been long since
Disintegrated, and so changed to air.
Therefore it never ceases to be born
Out of things, and to pass back into things,
Since, as we know, all are in constant flux.

Likewise that bounteous fountain of clear light,
The sun in heaven, ceaselessly floods the sky
With fresh brightness, and momently supplies
The place of light with new light: for each former
Emission of his radiance perishes,
On whatsoever spot it falls. This truth
You may thus learn. So soon as clouds begin
To pass below the sun, and as it were
To break off the light’s rays, their lower part
Forthwith perishes wholly, and the earth
Is shadow-swept, wherever the clouds move.
Thus you may know that things have ever need
Of fresh illumination, and that each
Former discharge of radiance perishes,
Nor in any other way could things be seen
In sunlight, if the fountain-head itself
Did not send forth a perpetual supply.
Also those lights we use here upon earth
At night-time, hanging lamps, and torches bright
With darting beams, rich with abundant smoke,
Are in haste in like fashion to supply
New radiance with ministering fire;
The very flames seem eager, eager to flicker;
Nor does the still unbroken stream of light
One instant quit the spots whereon it played,
So suddenly is its perishing concealed
By the swift birth of flame from all these fires.
It is thus then you must think sun moon and stars
Shoot forth their light from ever fresh supplies,
And that they always lose whatever beams
Come foremost; lest perchance you should believe
Their energy to be indestructible.

Again, is it not seen that even stones
By time are vanquished, that tall towers fall
And rocks crumble away, that shrines and idols
Of gods grow worn out and dilapidate,
Nor may the indwelling holiness prolong
The bounds of destiny, or strive against
The laws of Nature? Then do we not see
The monuments of men, fallen to ruin,
Ask for themselves whether you would believe
That they also grow old?[F] See we not rocks
Split off from mountain heights fall crashing down
Unable more to endure the powerful stress
Of finite years? Surely they would not fall
Thus suddenly split off, if through the lapse
Of infinite past years they had withstood
All the assaults of time, without being shattered.
Now contemplate that which around and above
Compasses the whole earth with its embrace.
If it begets all things out of itself,
As some have told us, and receives them back
When they have perished, then the whole sky is made
Of a body that had birth and that must die.
For whatsoever nourishes and augments
Other things from itself, must needs be minished,
And be replenished, when it receives them back.

Moreover, if there never was a time
Of origin when earth and heaven were born,
If they have always been from everlasting,
Why then before the Theban war and Troy’s
Destruction, have not other poets sung
Of other deeds as well? Whither have vanished
So many exploits of so many men?
Why are they nowhere blossoming engrafted
On the eternal monuments of fame?
But in truth, as I think, this sum of things
Is in its youth: the nature of the world
Is recent, and began not long ago.
Wherefore even now some arts are being wrought
To their last polish, some are still in growth.
Of late many improvements have been made
In navigation, and musicians too
Have given birth to new melodious sounds.
Also this theory of the nature of things
Has been discovered lately, and I myself
Have only now been found the very first
Able to turn it into our native words.
Nevertheless, if you perchance believe
That long ago these things were just the same,
But that the generations of mankind
Perished by scorching heat, or that their cities
Fell in some great convulsion of the world,
Or else that flooded by incessant rains
Devouring rivers broke forth over the earth
And swallowed up whole towns, so much the more
Must you admit that there will come to pass
A like destruction of earth and heaven too.
For when things were assailed by such great maladies
And dangers, if some yet more fatal cause
Had whelmed them, they would then have been dissolved
In havoc and vast ruin far and wide.
And in no other way do we perceive
That we are mortal, save that we all alike
In turn fall sick of the same maladies
As those whom Nature has withdrawn from life.

Again, whatever things abide eternally,
Must either, because they are of solid body,
Repulse assaults, nor suffer anything
To penetrate them, which might have the power
To disunite the close-locked parts within:
(Such are those bodies whereof matter is made,
Whose nature we have shown before:) or else
They must be able to endure throughout
All time, because they are exempt from blows,
As void is, which abides untouched, nor suffers
One whit from any stroke: or else because
There is no further space surrounding them,
Into which things might as it were depart
And be dissolved; even as the sum of sums
Is eternal, nor is there any space
Outside it, into which its particles
Might spring asunder, nor are there other bodies
That could strike and dissolve them with strong blows.
But neither, as I have shown, is this world’s nature
Solid, since there is void mixed up in things;
Nor yet is it like void; nor verily
Are atoms lacking that might well collect
Out of the infinite, and overwhelm
This sum of things with violent hurricane,
Or threaten it with some other form of ruin;
Nor further is there any want of room
And of deep space, into which the world’s walls
Might be dispersed abroad; or they may perish
Shattered by any other force you will.
Therefore the gates of death are never closed
Against sky, sun or earth, or the deep seas;
But they stand open, awaiting them with huge
Vast-gaping jaws. So you must needs admit
That all these likewise once were born: for things
Of mortal body could not until now
Through infinite past ages have defied
The strong powers of immeasurable time.

Again, since the chief members of the world
So mightily contend together, stirred
By unhallowed civil warfare, see you not
That some end may be set to their long strife?
It may be when the sun and every kind
Of heat shall have drunk all the moisture up,
And gained the mastery they were struggling for,
Though they have failed as yet to achieve their aim:
So vast are the supplies the rivers bring,
Threatening in turn to deluge every land
From out the deep abysses of the ocean;
All in vain, since the winds, sweeping the seas,
Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves
Their fabric with his rays; and ’tis their boast
That they are able to dry all things up,
Before moisture can achieve its end.
So terrible a war do they breathe out
On equal terms, striving one with another
For mighty issues: though indeed fire once
Obtained the mastery, so the fable tells,
And water once reigned supreme in the fields.
For fire prevailing licked up and consumed
Many things, when the ungovernable might
Of the Sun’s horses, swerving from their course,
Through the whole sky and over every land
Whirled Phaëthon. But then the almighty Father,
Stirred to fierce wrath, with sudden thunder-stroke
Dashed great-souled Phaëthon from his team to the earth,
And as he fell the Sun-god meeting him
Caught from him the world’s everlasting lamp,
And brought back tamed and trembling to the yoke
The scattered steeds; then on their wonted course
Guiding them, unto all things gave fresh life.
Thus verily the old Greek poets sang,
Though straying from true reason all too far.
For fire can only gain the mastery
When an excess of fiery particles
Have flocked together out of infinite space;
And then its strength fails, vanquished in some way,
Or else things perish, utterly consumed
By scorching gusts. Likewise moisture once
Gathering together, as the story tells,
Strove for the mastery, when it overwhelmed
Many cities of mankind. But afterwards,
When all that force, which out of infinite space
Had gathered itself up, was by some means
Diverted and withdrew, the rains ceased then,
And the violence of the rivers was abated.

But in what ways matter converging once
Established earth and heaven and the sea’s deeps,
The sun’s course and the moon’s, I will set forth
In order. For in truth not by design
Did the primordial particles of things
Arrange themselves each in its own right place
With provident mind, nor verily have they bargained
What motions each should follow; but because
These primal atoms in such multitudes
And in so many ways through infinite time
Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight,
Have been borne onward so incessantly,
Uniting in every way and making trial
Of every shape they could combine to form,
Therefore it is that after wandering wide
Through vast periods, attempting every kind
Of union and of motion, they at last
Collect into such groups as, suddenly
Flocking together, oftentimes become
The rudiments of mighty things, of earth,
Sea and sky, and the race of living creatures.

At that time neither could the disk of the sun
Be seen flying aloft with bounteous light,
Nor the stars of great heaven, nor sea, nor sky,
Nor yet earth nor the air, nor anything
Resembling those things which we now behold,
But only a sort of strange tempest, a mass
Gathered together out of primal atoms
Of all kinds, which discordantly waged war
Disordering so their interspaces, paths,
Connections, weights, collisions, meetings, motions,
Since with their unlike forms and varied shapes,
They could not therefore all remain united,
Nor move among themselves harmoniously.
Thereupon parts began to fly asunder,
And like things to unite with like, and so
To separate off the world, and to divide
Its members, portioning out its mighty parts;
That is, to mark off the high heaven from earth,
And the sea by itself, that it might spread
With unmixed waters, and likewise the fires
Of aether by themselves, pure and unmixed.

Now first the several particles of earth,
Since they were heavy and close-packed, all met
Together in the middle, and took up
The lowest places: and the more they met
In close-packed throngs, the more did they squeeze out
Those particles which were to form sea, stars,
Sun and moon, and the walls of the great world.
For all these are of smoother rounder seeds,
And of much smaller elements than earth.
So first through porous openings in the soil
The fire-laden aether here and there
Bursting forth rose and lightly carried off
Many fires with it, much in the same way
As often we may see when first the beams
Of the radiant sun with golden morning light
Blush through the grasses gemmed with dew, and lakes
And ever-flowing rivers exhale mist,
While earth itself is sometimes seen to smoke;
And when floating aloft these vapours all
Unite on high, then taking bodily shape
As clouds, they weave a veil beneath the heavens.
Thus then the light diffusive aether once
Took bodily shape, and, arched round on all sides,
Far into every quarter spreading out,
So with its greedy embrace hemmed in all else.
Next came the rudiments of sun and moon,
Whose globes turn in the air midway between
Aether and earth; for neither did the earth
Nor the great aether claim them for itself,
Since they were not so heavy as to sink
And settle down, nor so light as to glide
Along the topmost borders: yet their course
Between the two is such, that as they roll
Their lifelike bodies onward, they are still
Parts of the whole world; even as with us
Some of our members may remain at rest,
While at the same time others may be in motion.
So when these things had been withdrawn, the earth,
Where now the ocean’s vast blue region spreads,
Sank suddenly down, and flooded with salt surge
Its hollow parts. And day by day the more
The encircling aether’s heats and the sun’s rays
Compressed the earth into a closer mass
By constant blows upon its outer surface
From every side, so that thus beaten upon
It shrank and drew together round its centre,
The more did the salt sweat squeezed from its body
Increase by its oozings the sea’s floating plains,
And the more did those many particles
Of heat and air escaping fly abroad,
And far away from the earth condensing, form
The lofty glittering mansions of the sky.
The plains sank lower, the high mountains grew
Yet steeper; for the rocks could not sink down,
Nor could all parts subside to one same level.

Thus then the earth’s ponderous mass was formed
With close-packed body, and all the slime of the world
Slid to the lowest plane by its own weight,
And at the bottom settled down like dregs.
Then the sea, then the air, then the fire-laden
Aether itself, all these were now left pure
With liquid bodies. Some indeed are lighter
Than others, and most liquid and light of all
Over the airy currents aether floats,
Not blending with the turbulent atmosphere
Its liquid substance. All below, it suffers
To be embroiled by violent hurricanes,
Suffers all to be tossed with wayward storms,
While itself gliding on with changeless sweep
Bears its own fires along. For, that the aether
May stream on steadily with one impulse,
The Pontos demonstrates, that sea which streams
With an unchanging tide, unceasingly
Preserving as it glides one constant pace.

Now let us sing what cause could set the stars
In motion. First, if the great globe of heaven
Revolves, then we must needs maintain that air
Presses upon the axis at each end,
And holds it from outside, closing it in
At both poles; also that there streams above
Another current, moving the same way,
In which the stars of the eternal world
Roll glittering onward; or else that beneath
There is another stream, that drives the sphere
Upwards the opposite way, just as we see
Rivers turn mill-wheels with their water-scoops.
It likewise may well be that the whole sky
Remains at rest, yet that the shining signs
Are carried onwards; either because within them
Are shut swift tides of aether, that whirl round
Seeking a way out, and so roll their fires
On all sides through the sky’s nocturnal mansions;
Or else that from some other source outside
An air-stream whirls and drives the fires along;
Or else they may be gliding of themselves,
Moving whithersoever the food of each
Calls and invites them, nourishing everywhere
Their flaming bodies throughout the whole sky.
For it is hard to affirm with certainty
Which of these causes operates in this world:
But what throughout the universe both can
And does take place in various worlds, created
On various plans, this I teach, and proceed
To expound what divers causes may exist
Through the universe for the motion of the stars:
And one of these in our world too must be
The cause which to the heavenly signs imparts
Their motive vigour: but dogmatically
To assert which this may be, is in no wise
The function of those advancing step by step.

Now in order that the earth should be at rest
In the world’s midst, it would seem probable
That its weight gradually diminishing
Should disappear, and that the earth should have
Another nature underneath, conjoined
And blent in union from its earliest age
With those aerial portions of the world
Wherein it lives embodied. For this cause
It is no burden, nor weighs down the air,
Just as to a man his own limbs are no weight,
Nor is the head a burden to the neck,
Nor do we feel that the whole body’s weight
Rests on the feet: yet a much smaller burden
Laid on us from outside, will often hurt us.
Of such great moment is it what each thing’s
Function may be. Thus then the earth is not
An alien body intruded suddenly,
Nor thrust from elsewhere into an alien air,
But was conceived together with the world
At its first birth as a fixed portion of it,
Just as our limbs are seen to be of us.
Moreover the earth, when shaken suddenly
With violent thunder, by its trembling shakes
All that is over it; which in no wise
Could happen, if it were not closely bound
With the world’s airy parts, and with the sky.
For they all, as though by common roots, cohere
One with another, from their earliest age
Conjoined and blent in union. See you not too
That heavy as our body’s weight may be,
Yet the soul’s force, though subtle exceedingly,
Sustains it, being so closely joined and blent
In union with it? Also what has power
To lift the body with a nimble leap,
Except the mind’s force that controls the limbs?
Do you not now perceive how great the power
May be of a subtle nature, when ’tis joined
With a heavy body, even as with the earth
The air is joined, and the mind’s force with us?

Also the sun’s disk cannot be much larger,
Nor its heat be much less, than to our sense
They appear to be. For from whatever distance
Fires can fling light, and breathe upon our limbs
Their warming heat, these intervening spaces
Take away nothing from the body of flame;
The fire is not shrunken visibly.
So since the sun’s heat and the light it sheds
Both reach our senses and caress our limbs,
The form also and contour of the sun
Must needs be seen from the earth in their true scale,
With neither addition nor diminishment.
Also the moon, whether it moves along
Illuminating earth with borrowed light,
Or throws out its own rays from its own body,
Howe’er that be, moves with a shape no larger
Than seems that shape which our eyes contemplate.
For all things which we look at from far off
Through much air, seem to our vision to grow dim
Before their contours lessen. Therefore the moon,
Seeing that it presents a clear aspect
And definite shape, must needs by us on earth
Be seen on high in its defining outline
Just as it is, and of its actual size.
Lastly consider all those fires of aether
You see from the earth. Since fires, which here below
We observe, for so long as their flickering
Remains distinct, and their heat is perceived,
Are sometimes seen to change their size to less
Or greater to some very slight extent
According to their distance, you may thence
Know that the fires of aether can be smaller
Only by infinitesimal degrees,
Or larger by the tiniest minute fraction.

This also is not wonderful, how the sun
Small as it is, can shed so great a light,
As with its flood to fill all seas and lands
And sky, with warm heat bathing everything.
For from this spot perhaps a single well
For the whole world may open and gush out,
Shooting forth an abundant stream of light,
Because from everywhere throughout the world
In such wise do the particles of heat
Gather together, and their united mass
Converges in such wise, that blazing fire
Streams forth here from a single fountain-head.
See you not too how wide a meadow-land
One little spring of water sometimes floods,
Overflowing whole fields? It may be also
That from the sun’s flame, though it be not great,
Heat pervades the whole air with scorching fires,
Should the air chance to be susceptible
And ready to be kindled, when it is struck
By tiny heat-rays. Then we sometimes see
A wide-spread conflagration from one spark
Catch fields of corn or stubble. Perhaps too
The sun shining on high with ruddy torch
May be surrounded by much fire and heats
Invisible, fire which no radiance
Reveals, but laden with heat it does no more
Than reinforce the stroke of the sun’s rays.

Nor is there any single theory,
Certain and obvious, of how the sun
Out of his summer stations passing forth
Approaches the midwinter turning-point
Of Capricorn, and how coming back thence
He bends his course to the solstitial goal
Of Cancer; then too how the moon is seen
To traverse every month that space, whereon
The journeying sun spends a year’s period.
For these events, I say, no single cause
Can be assigned. It seems most probable
That the august opinion of Democritus
Should be the truth; the nearer to the earth
The several constellations move, the less
Can they be borne on with the whirl of heaven:
For in the lower portions of this whirl
He says its speed and energy diminish
And disappear; so that little by little
The sun is outstripped by the signs that follow,
Since he is far beneath the burning stars.
And the moon, so he says, more than the sun.
The lower and the further from the sky
Her course is, and the nearer to the earth,
The less can she keep even with the signs.
For the more languid is the whirl whereby
She is borne along, being lower than the sun,
The more do all the signs around her path
Overtake and pass by her. Thus it is
That she seems to move backward to each sign
More quickly, because the signs come up to her.
It may be also that two streams of air
Cross the sun’s path at fixed times, each in turn
Flowing from opposite quarters of the world,
Whereof the first may thrust the sun away
Out of the summer signs, until he comes
To his winter turning-point and the icy frost;
While the other from the freezing shades of cold
Sweeps him right back to the heat-laden regions
And the torrid constellations. And just so
We must suppose that the moon and the planets,
Which roll in their huge orbits through huge years,
May move on streams of air alternately
From opposite quarters. Do you not also see
How clouds are shifted by opposing winds,
The lower in directions contrary
To those above? Why should not yonder stars
Be likewise carried by opposing currents
Upon their mighty orbits through the sky?
But night covers the earth with vast darkness
Either when after his long course the sun
Has entered on the uttermost parts of heaven,
And now grown languid has breathed forth his fires,
Exhausted by their journey, and worn out
By traversing much air; or else because
That same force which has borne his orb along
Above the earth, compels him now to turn
Backward his course and pass beneath the earth.

Likewise at a fixed time Matuta spreads
The rosy dawn abroad through the sky’s borders,
And opens out her light; either because
The same sun, travelling back below the earth,
Seizes the sky beforehand, and is fain
To kindle it with his rays; or else because
Fires meet together, and many seeds of heat
Are wont at a fixed time to stream together
Causing new sunlight each day to be born.
Even so ’tis told that from the mountain heights
Of Ida at daybreak scattered fires are seen;
These then unite as if into one globe
And make up the sun’s orb. Nor yet herein
Should it cause wonder that these seeds of fire
Can stream together at a time so fixed,
Repairing thus the radiance of the sun.
For everywhere we see many events
Happening at fixed times. Thus trees both flower
And shed their blossoms at fixed times; and age
At a time no less fixed bids the teeth drop,
And the boy clothe his features with the down
Of puberty, and let a soft beard fall
From either cheek. Lastly lightning and snow,
Rains, clouds and winds happen at more or less
Regular yearly seasons. For where causes
From the beginning have remained the same,
And things from the first origin of the world
Have so fallen out, they still repeat themselves
In regular sequence after a fixed order.

The cause too why days lengthen and nights wane,
While daylight shortens as the nights increase,
May either be because the same sun, journeying
Underneath and above the earth in curves
Of unlike length, parts the celestial regions
And into unequal halves divides his orbit:
Whatever he has subtracted from one half,
Just so much does he add, when he comes round,
On to the other half, till he has reached
That sign of heaven where the year’s node makes
The night’s shade equal to the light of day.
For in the sun’s mid course between the blasts
Of south wind and of north, the heaven holds
His turning-points apart at distances
Now equalised, since such is the position
Of the whole starry circle, to glide through which
The sun takes up the period of a year,
Lighting the earth and sky with slanting rays,
As is shown by the arguments of those
Who have mapped out all the quarters of the sky,
Adorned with their twelve signs spaced out in order.
Or else because the air in certain parts
Is thicker, therefore the trembling lamp of fire
Is hindered in its course beneath the earth,
And cannot easily force a passage through
And emerge at the place where it should rise.
So in winter-time the nights are long and lingering,
Ere the day’s radiant oriflamme comes forth.
Or else again those fires which cause the sun
To rise from a fixed point, for a like reason
Are wont to stream together slower or quicker
In alternating periods of the year.
So those would seem to speak the truth who hold
That every morning a new sun is born.
It may be the moon shines because she is struck
By the sun’s rays, and turns towards our eyes
A larger portion of this light each day,
The further she recedes from the sun’s orb,
Until over against him with full light
She has shone forth, and as she rises up
Has looked upon his setting from on high.
Thereafter in her gradual backward course
In the same manner she must hide her light,
The nearer she now glides to the sun’s fire
Travelling through the circle of the signs
From an opposite direction: as those hold
Who fancy that the moon is like a ball,
And moves along a course below the sun.
It is also possible that she revolves
With her own light, and yet shows varying
Phases of brightness: for there may well be
Another body which glides on beside her,
Obstructing and occulting her continually,
And yet cannot be seen, because it moves
Without light. Or perhaps she may turn round
Like a ball, let us say, whose sphere is tinged
With glowing light over one-half its surface;
And as she turns her sphere, she may present
Varying phases, till she has turned that side
Which glows with fire towards our gazing eyes;
Then she twists gradually back once more
And hides the luminous half of her round ball:
As the Chaldean sages seek to prove,
Refuting with their Babylonian doctrine
The opposing science of the astronomers;
Just as though what each sect is fighting for
Might not be true, or there were any reason
Why you should risk embracing the one creed
Less than the other. Again why every time
There should not be created a fresh moon,
With fixed succession of phases and fixed shapes,
So that each day this new-created moon
Would perish, and another in its stead
Be reproduced, this were no easy task
To prove by argument convincingly,
Since there can be so many things created
In fixed succession. Thus Spring goes its way,
And Venus, and the wingèd harbinger
Of Venus leads them on; while treading close
On Zephyr’s footsteps, mother Flora strews
The path before them, covering it all over
With every loveliest colour and rich scent.
Next in procession follows parching heat,
With dusty Ceres in its company,
And the Etesian blasts of the North winds.
After these Autumn comes, and by its side
Advances Euhius Euan,[G] following whom
The other Seasons with their winds appear,
Volturnus thundering on high, and Auster
Terrible with its lightnings. Then at length
December brings snow and renews numb frost.
Winter follows with teeth chattering for cold.
Wherefore it seems less wonderful that the moon
Should be begotten and destroyed again
At fixed times, seeing that so many things
Can come to pass at times so surely fixed.

Likewise the occultations of the sun
And the moon’s vanishings you must suppose
May be produced by many different causes.
For why should the moon be able to shut out
The earth from the sun’s light, and lift her head
On high to obstruct him from the earthward side,
Blocking his fiery beams with her dark orb,
And yet at the same time some other body
Gliding on without light continually
Should be supposed unable to do this?
Why too should not the sun at a fixed time
Grow faint and lose his fires, and then again
Revive his light, when he has had to pass
Through tracts of air so hostile to his flames
That awhile his fires are quenched by them and perish?
And why should the earth have power in turn to rob
The moon of light, and likewise keep the sun
Suppressed, while in her monthly course the moon
Glides through the clear-cut shadows of the cone,
And yet at the same time some other body
Should not have power to pass under the moon,
Or glide above the sun’s orb, breaking off
The beams of light he sheds? And furthermore,
If the moon shines with her own radiance,
Why in a certain region of the world
Might she not grow faint, while she makes her way
Through tracts that are unfriendly to her light?

Now since I have demonstrated how each thing
Might come to pass throughout the azure spaces
Of the great heaven, how we may know what force
Can cause the varying motions of the sun,
And wanderings of the moon, and in what way
Their light being intercepted they might vanish
Covering with darkness the astonished earth,
When as it were they close their eye of light,
And opening it again, survey all places
Radiant with shining brightness,--therefore now
I will go back to the world’s infancy
And the tender age of the world’s fields, and show
What in their first fecundity they resolved
To raise into the borders of the light
And give in charge unto the wayward winds.

In the beginning the Earth brought forth all kinds
Of plants and growing verdure on hillsides
And over all the plains: the flowering meadows
Shone with green colour: next to the various trees
Was given a mighty emulous impulse
To shoot up into the air with unchecked growth.
As feathers, hairs and bristles first are born
On limbs of quadrupeds and on the bodies
Of winged fowl, so the new Earth then put forth
Grasses and brushwood first, and afterwards
Gave birth to all the breeds of mortal things,
That sprang up many in number, in many modes
And divers fashions. For no animals
Can have dropped from the sky, nor can land-creatures
Have issued from the salt pools. Hence it is
That with good reason the Earth has won the name
Of Mother, since from the Earth all things are born.
And many living creatures even now
Rise from the soil, formed by rains, and the sun’s
Fierce heat. Therefore the less strange it appears
If then they arose more numerous and more large
Fostered by a new earth and atmosphere.
So first of all the varied families
And tribes of birds would leave their eggs, hatched out
In the spring season, as now the cicadas
In summer-time leave of their own accord
Their filmy skins in search of food and life.
Then was the time when first the Earth produced
The race of mortal men. For in the fields
Plenteous heat and moisture would abound,
So that wherever a fit place occurred,
Wombs would grow, fastened to the earth by roots:
And when the warmth of the infants in due time,
Avoiding moisture and demanding air,
Had broken these wombs open, then would Nature
Turn to that place the porous ducts of the Earth,
Compelling it to exude through open veins
A milk-like liquid, just as nowadays
After child-bearing every woman is filled
With sweet milk; for with her too the whole flow
Of nutriment sets streaming towards her breasts.
Earth to these children furnished food, the heat
Clothing, the grass a bed, well lined with rich
Luxuriance of soft down. Moreover then
The world in its fresh newness would give rise
Neither to rigorous cold nor extreme heat,
Nor violent storms of wind, for in a like
Proportion all things grow and gather strength.

Therefore again and yet again I say
That with good reason the Earth has won and keeps
The name of Mother, since she of herself
Gave birth to humankind, and at a period
Well nigh determined shed forth every beast
That roams o’er the great mountains far and wide,
Likewise the birds of air, many in shape.
But because she must have some limit set
To her time of bearing, she ceased, like a woman
Worn out by lapse of years. For Time transforms
The whole world’s nature, and all things must pass
From one condition to another: nothing
Continues like itself. All is in flux:
Nature is ever changing and compelling
All that exists to alter. For one thing
Moulders and wastes away grown weak with age,
And then another comes forth into light,
Issuing from obscurity. So thus Time
Changes the whole world’s nature, and the Earth
Passes from one condition to another:
So that what once it bore it can no longer,
And now can bear what it did not before.

And many monsters too did the Earth essay
To produce in those days, creatures arising
With marvellous face and limbs, the Hermaphrodite,
A thing of neither sex, between the two,
Differing from both: some things deprived of feet;
Others again with no hands; others dumb
Without mouths, or else blind for lack of eyes,
Or bound by limbs that everywhere adhered
Fast to their bodies, so that they could perform
No function, nor go anywhere, nor shun
Danger, nor take what their need might require.
Many such monstrous prodigies did Earth
Produce, in vain, since Nature banned their increase,
Nor could they reach the coveted flower of age,
Nor find food, nor be joined in bonds of love.
For we see numerous conditions first
Must meet together, before living things
Can beget and perpetuate their kind.
First they must have food, then a means by which
The seeds of birth may stream throughout the frame
From the relaxed limbs; also that the male
And female may unite, they must have that
Whereby each may exchange mutual joys.

And many breeds of creatures in those days
Must have died out, being powerless to beget
And perpetuate their kind. For those which now
You see breathing the breath of life, ’tis craft,
Or courage, or else speed, that from its origin
Must have protected and preserved each race.
Moreover many by their usefulness
Commended to us, continue to exist
Favoured by our protection. The fierce breed
Of lions first, and the other savage beasts,
Their courage has preserved, foxes their craft,
Stags their swift flight. But the light-slumbering hearts
Of faithful dogs, and the whole family
Born from the seed of burden-bearing beasts,
Also the woolly flocks and horned herds,
All these by man’s protection are preserved.
For their desire has always been to shun
Wild beasts and to live peaceably, supplied
Without toil of their own with food in plenty,
Which to reward their services we give them.
But those whom Nature has not thus endowed
With power either to live by their own means
Or else to render us such useful service
That in return we allow their race to feed
And dwell in safety beneath our guardianship,
All these, ’tis plain, would lie exposed a prey
To others, trammelled in their own fatal bonds,
Till Nature had extinguished that whole kind.