De Rerum Natura

And some more interwoven and condensed-

As when the locusts in the summertime

Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves

At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,

Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs

Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see

The breres augmented with their flying spoils:

Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too

That tenuous images from things are sent,

From off the utmost outside of the things.

For why those kinds should drop and part from things,

Rather than others tenuous and thin,

No power has man to open mouth to tell;

Especially, since on outsides of things

Are bodies many and minute which could,

In the same order which they had before,

And with the figure of their form preserved,

Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,

Being less subject to impediments,

As few in number and placed along the front.

For truly many things we see discharge

Their stuff at large, not only from their cores

Deep-set within, as we have said above,

But from their surfaces at times no less-

Their very colours too. And commonly

The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,

Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,

Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,

Have such an action quite; for there they dye

And make to undulate with their every hue

The circled throng below, and all the stage,

And rich attire in the patrician seats.

And ever the more the theatre's dark walls

Around them shut, the more all things within

Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,

The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since

The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye

From off their surface, things in general must

Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,

Because in either case they are off-thrown

From off the surface. So there are indeed

Such certain prints and vestiges of forms

Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,

Invisible, when separate, each and one.

Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such

Streams out of things diffusedly, because,

Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth

And rising out, along their bending path

They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight

Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.

But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film

Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught

Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front

Ready to hand. Lastly those images

Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,

In water, or in any shining surface,

Must be, since furnished with like look of things,

Fashioned from images of things sent out.

There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,

Like unto them, which no one can divine

When taken singly, which do yet give back,

When by continued and recurrent discharge

Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.

Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept

So well conserved that thus be given back

Figures so like each object.

Now then, learn

How tenuous is the nature of an image.

And in the first place, since primordials be

So far beneath our senses, and much less

E'en than those objects which begin to grow

Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few

How nice are the beginnings of all things-

That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:

First, living creatures are sometimes so small

That even their third part can nowise be seen;

Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-

What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,

The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are!

And what besides of those first particles

Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not

How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever

Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-

The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,

Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-

If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain

Perchance [thou touch] a one of them

. . . . . .

Then why not rather know that images

Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,

Bodiless and invisible?

But lest

Haply thou holdest that those images

Which come from objects are the sole that flit,

Others indeed there be of own accord

Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,

Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,

Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,

Cease not to change appearance and to turn

Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;