On the Nature of Things Part 4

Ergo, an augmentation of its frame Follows upon each novelty of forms.

Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake That seeds have infinite differences in form, Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be Of an immeasurable immensity-- Which I have taught above cannot be proved.

And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye Of the Thessalian sh.e.l.l...

The peac.o.c.k's golden generations, stained With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown By some new colour of new things more bright; The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised; The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns, Once modulated on the many chords, Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute: For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest, Would be arising evermore. So, too, Into some baser part might all retire, Even as we said to better might they come: For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue, Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.

Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given Their fixed limitations which do bound Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes Does differ. Again, from earth's midsummer heats Unto the icy h.o.a.r-frosts of the year The forward path is fixed, and by like law O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.

For each degree of hot, and each of cold, And the half-warm, all filling up the sum In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there Betwixt the two extremes: the things create Must differ, therefore, by a finite change, Since at each end marked off they ever are By fixed point--on one side plagued by flames And on the other by congealing frosts.

The which now having taught, I will go on To bind thereto a fact to this allied And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs Which have been fas.h.i.+oned all of one like shape Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms Themselves are finite in divergences, Then those which are alike will have to be Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains A finite--what I've proved is not the fact, Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff, From everlasting and to-day the same, Uphold the sum of things, all sides around By old succession of unending blows.

For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare, And mark'st in them a less prolific stock, Yet in another region, in lands remote, That kind abounding may make up the count; Even as we mark among the four-foot kind Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall With ivory ramparts India about, That her interiors cannot entered be-- So big her count of brutes of which we see Such few examples. Or suppose, besides, We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole With body born, to which is nothing like In all the lands: yet now unless shall be An infinite count of matter out of which Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life, It cannot be created and--what's more-- It cannot take its food and get increase.

Yea, if through all the world in finite tale Be tossed the procreant bodies of one thing, Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power, Shall they to meeting come together there, In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-- No means they have of joining into one.

But, just as, after mighty s.h.i.+p-wrecks piled, The mighty main is wont to scatter wide The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow, The masts and swimming oars, so that afar Along all sh.o.r.es of lands are seen afloat The carven fragments of the rended p.o.o.p, Giving a lesson to mortality To shun the ambush of the faithless main, The violence and the guile, and trust it not At any hour, however much may smile The crafty enticements of the placid deep: Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true That certain seeds are finite in their tale, The various tides of matter, then, must needs Scatter them flung throughout the ages all, So that not ever can they join, as driven Together into union, nor remain In union, nor with increment can grow-- But facts in proof are manifest for each: Things can be both begotten and increase.

'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs, Are infinite in any cla.s.s thou wilt-- From whence is furnished matter for all things.

Nor can those motions that bring death prevail Forever, nor eternally entomb The welfare of the world; nor, further, can Those motions that give birth to things and growth Keep them forever when created there.

Thus the long war, from everlasting waged, With equal strife among the elements Goes on and on. Now here, now there, prevail The vital forces of the world--or fall.

Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail Of infants coming to the sh.o.r.es of light: No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries, The wild laments, companions old of death And the black rites.

This, too, in these affairs 'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned With no forgetting brain: nothing there is Whose nature is apparent out of hand That of one kind of elements consists-- Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.

And whatsoe'er possesses in itself More largely many powers and properties Shows thus that here within itself there are The largest number of kinds and differing shapes Of elements. And, chief of all, the earth Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs, Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-- For burns in many a spot her flamed crust, Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed From more profounder fires--and she, again, Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise The s.h.i.+ning grains and gladsome trees for men; Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures Can she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.

Wherefore great mother of G.o.ds, and mother of beasts, And parent of man hath she alone been named.

Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece

Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air To drive her team of lions, teaching thus That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie Resting on other earth. Unto her car They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny, However savage, must be tamed and chid By care of parents. They have girt about With turret-crown the summit of her head, Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high, 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned With that same token, to-day is carried forth, With solemn awe through many a mighty land, The image of that mother, the divine.

Her the wide nations, after antique rite, Do name Idaean Mother, giving her Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say, From out those regions 'twas that grain began Through all the world. To her do they a.s.sign The Galli, the emasculate, since thus They wish to show that men who violate The majesty of the mother and have proved Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged Unfit to give unto the sh.o.r.es of light A living progeny. The Galli come: And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines Resound around to bangings of their hands; The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray; The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives, Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts To panic with terror of the G.o.ddess' might.

And so, when through the mighty cities borne, She blesses man with salutations mute, They strew the highway of her journeyings With coin of bra.s.s and silver, gifting her With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade With flowers of roses falling like the snow Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.

Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since Haply among themselves they use to play In games of arms and leap in measure round With b.l.o.o.d.y mirth and by their nodding shake The terrorizing crests upon their heads, This is the armed troop that represents The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete, As runs the story, whilom did out-drown That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band, Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy, To measured step beat with the bra.s.s on bra.s.s, That Saturn might not get him for his jaws, And give its mother an eternal wound Along her heart. And 'tis on this account That armed they escort the mighty Mother, Or else because they signify by this That she, the G.o.ddess, teaches men to be Eager with armed valour to defend Their motherland, and ready to stand forth, The guard and glory of their parents' years.

A tale, however beautifully wrought, That's wide of reason by a long remove: For all the G.o.ds must of themselves enjoy Immortal aeons and supreme repose, Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar: Immune from peril and immune from pain, Themselves abounding in riches of their own, Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath They are not taken by service or by gift.

Truly is earth insensate for all time; But, by obtaining germs of many things, In many a way she brings the many forth Into the light of sun. And here, whoso Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse The name of Bacchus rather than p.r.o.nounce The liquor's proper designation, him Let us permit to go on calling earth Mother of G.o.ds, if only he will spare To taint his soul with foul religion.

So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine, And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing Often together along one gra.s.sy plain, Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking From out one stream of water each its thirst, All live their lives with face and form unlike, Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits, Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.

So great in any sort of herb thou wilt, So great again in any river of earth Are the distinct diversities of matter.

Hence, further, every creature--any one From out them all--compounded is the same Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews-- All differing vastly in their forms, and built Of elements dissimilar in shape.

Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze, Within their frame lay up, if naught besides, At least those atoms whence derives their power To throw forth fire and send out light from under, To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.

If, with like reasoning of mind, all else Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus That in their frame the seeds of many things They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.

Further, thou markest much, to which are given Along together colour and flavour and smell, Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.

Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.

A smell of scorching enters in our frame Where the bright colour from the dye goes not; And colour in one way, flavour in quite another Works inward to our senses--so mayst see They differ too in elemental shapes.

Thus unlike forms into one ma.s.s combine, And things exist by intermixed seed.

But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view Portents begot about thee every side: Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up, At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk, Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit, And nature along the all-producing earth Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame From hideous jaws--Of which 'tis simple fact That none have been begot; because we see All are from fixed seed and fixed dam Engendered and so function as to keep Throughout their growth their own ancestral type.

This happens surely by a fixed law: For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down, Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature, Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there, Produce the proper motions; but we see How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many With viewless bodies from their bodies fly, By blows impelled--those impotent to join To any part, or, when inside, to accord And to take on the vital motions there.

But think not, haply, living forms alone Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.

For just as all things of creation are, In their whole nature, each to each unlike, So must their atoms be in shape unlike-- Not since few only are fas.h.i.+oned of like form, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all. Nay, here in these our verses, Elements many, common to many words, Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess The words and verses differ, each from each, Compounded out of different elements-- Not since few only, as common letters, run Through all the words, or no two words are made, One and the other, from all like elements, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all. Thus, too, in other things, Whilst many germs common to many things There are, yet they, combined among themselves, Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.

Thus fairly one may say that humankind, The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up Of different atoms. Further, since the seeds Are different, difference must there also be In intervening s.p.a.ces, thoroughfares, Connections, weights, blows, clas.h.i.+ngs, motions, all Which not alone distinguish living forms, But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands, And hold all heaven from the lands away.

ABSENCE OF SECONDARY QUALITIES

Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess That the white objects s.h.i.+ning to thine eyes Are gendered of white atoms, or the black Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught That's steeped in any hue should take its dye From bits of matter tinct with hue the same.

For matter's bodies own no hue the least-- Or like to objects or, again, unlike.

But, if percase it seem to thee that mind Itself can dart no influence of its own Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.

For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed The light of sun, yet recognise by touch Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them, 'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought No less unto the ken of our minds too, Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.

Again, ourselves whatever in the dark We touch, the same we do not find to be Tinctured with any colour.

Now that here I win the argument, I next will teach

Now, every colour changes, none except, And every...

Which the primordials ought nowise to do.

Since an immutable somewhat must remain, Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.

For change of anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before.

Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour The seeds of things, lest things return for thee All utterly to naught.

But now, if seeds Receive no property of colour, and yet Be still endowed with variable forms From which all kinds of colours they beget And vary (by reason that ever it matters much With what seeds, and in what positions joined, And what the motions that they give and get), Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise Why what was black of hue an hour ago Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,-- As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved Its level plains, is changed to h.o.a.ry waves Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare, That, when the thing we often see as black Is in its matter then commixed anew, Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn, And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn Glowing and white. But if of azure seeds Consist the level waters of the deep, They could in nowise whiten: for however Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never Pa.s.s into marble hue. But, if the seeds-- Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen-- Be now with one hue, now another dyed, As oft from alien forms and divers shapes A cube's produced all uniform in shape, 'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube We see the forms to be dissimilar, That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt) Colours diverse and all dissimilar.

Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least The whole in being externally a cube; But differing hues of things do block and keep The whole from being of one resultant hue.

Then, too, the reason which entices us At times to attribute colours to the seeds Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not Create from white things, nor are black from black, But evermore they are create from things Of divers colours. Verily, the white Will rise more readily, is sooner born Out of no colour, than of black or aught Which stands in hostile opposition thus.

Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light, And the primordials come not forth to light, 'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour-- Truly, what kind of colour could there be In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself A colour changes, gleaming variedly, When smote by vertical or slanting ray.

Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat: Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze, Now, by a strange sensation it becomes Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.

The peac.o.c.k's tail, filled with the copious light, Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.

Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot, Without such blow these colours can't become.

And since the pupil of the eye receives Within itself one kind of blow, when said To feel a white hue, then another kind, When feeling a black or any other hue, And since it matters nothing with what hue The things thou touchest be perchance endowed, But rather with what sort of shape equipped, 'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour, But render forth sensations, as of touch, That vary with their varied forms.

Besides, Since special shapes have not a special colour, And all formations of the primal germs Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then, Are not those objects which are of them made Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?

For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly, Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen, Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be Of any single varied dye thou wilt.

Again, the more an object's rent to bits, The more thou see its colour fade away Little by little till 'tis quite extinct; As happens when the gaudy linen's picked Shred after shred away: the purple there, Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes, Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread; Hence canst perceive the fragments die away From out their colour, long ere they depart Back to the old primordials of things.

And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.

So, too, since we behold not all with eyes, 'Tis thine to know some things there are as much Orphaned of colour, as others without smell, And reft of sound; and those the mind alert No less can apprehend than it can mark The things that lack some other qualities.

But think not haply that the primal bodies Remain despoiled alone of colour: so, Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold And from hot exhalations; and they move, Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw Not any odour from their proper bodies.

Just as, when undertaking to prepare A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram, And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes Odour of nectar, first of all behooves Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can, The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang The odorous essence with its body mixed And in it seethed. And on the same account The primal germs of things must not be thought To furnish colour in begetting things, Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught From out themselves, nor any flavour, too, Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.