De Rerum Natura

That, too, the sum of things itself may not

Have power to fix a measure of its own,

Great nature guards, she who compels the void

To bound all body, as body all the void,

Thus rendering by these alternates the whole

An infinite; or else the one or other,

Being unbounded by the other, spreads,

Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless

Immeasurably forth....

Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,

Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods

Could keep their place least portion of an hour:

For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,

The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne

Along the illimitable inane afar,

Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined

And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,

It could not be united. For of truth

Neither by counsel did the primal germs

'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,

Each in its proper place; nor did they make,

Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;

But since, being many and changed in many modes

Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed

By blow on blow, even from all time of old,

They thus at last, after attempting all

The kinds of motion and conjoining, come

Into those great arrangements out of which

This sum of things established is create,

By which, moreover, through the mighty years,

It is preserved, when once it has been thrown

Into the proper motions, bringing to pass

That ever the streams refresh the greedy main

With river-waves abounding, and that earth,

Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,

Renews her broods, and that the lusty race

Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that

The gliding fires of ether are alive-

What still the primal germs nowise could do,

Unless from out the infinite of space

Could come supply of matter, whence in season

They're wont whatever losses to repair.

For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,

Losing its body, when deprived of food:

So all things have to be dissolved as soon

As matter, diverted by what means soever

From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.

Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,

On every side, whatever sum of a world

Has been united in a whole. They can

Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,

Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;

But meanwhile often are they forced to spring

Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,

Unto those elements whence a world derives,

Room and a time for flight, permitting them

To be from off the massy union borne

Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:

Needs must there come a many for supply;

And also, that the blows themselves shall be

Unfailing ever, must there ever be

An infinite force of matter all sides round.

And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far

From yielding faith to that notorious talk:

That all things inward to the centre press;

And thus the nature of the world stands firm

With never blows from outward, nor can be

Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth

Have always inward to the centre pressed

(If thou art ready to believe that aught

Itself can rest upon itself ); or that

The ponderous bodies which be under earth

Do all press upwards and do come to rest

Upon the earth, in some way upside down,

Like to those images of things we see

At present through the waters. They contend,

With like procedure, that all breathing things

Head downward roam about, and yet cannot

Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,

No more than these our bodies wing away

Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;

That, when those creatures look upon the sun,

We view the constellations of the night;

And that with us the seasons of the sky

They thus alternately divide, and thus

Do pass the night coequal to our days,

But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,

Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse

For centre none can be where world is still

Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,

Could aught take there a fixed position more

Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

For all of room and space we call the void

Must both through centre and non-centre yield

Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.

Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,

Bodies can be at standstill in the void,

Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void

Furnish support to any,- nay, it must,

True to its bent of nature, still give way.