De Rerum Natura

Will strain in preparation, otherwise

Unable sharply to perceive at all?

Yet know thou canst that, even in objects plain,

If thou attendest not, 'tis just the same

As if 'twere all the time removed and far.

What marvel, then, that mind doth lose the rest,

Save those to which 'thas given up itself?

So 'tis that we conjecture from small signs

Things wide and weighty, and involve ourselves

In snarls of self-deceit.

In these affairs

We crave that thou wilt passionately flee

The one offence, and anxiously wilt shun

The error of presuming the clear lights

Of eyes created were that we might see;

Or thighs and knees, aprop upon the feet,

Thuswise can bended be, that we might step

With goodly strides ahead; or forearms joined

Unto the sturdy uppers, or serving hands

On either side were given, that we might do

Life's own demands. All such interpretation

Is aft-for-fore with inverse reasoning,

Since naught is born in body so that we

May use the same, but birth engenders use:

No seeing ere the lights of eyes were born,

No speaking ere the tongue created was;

But origin of tongue came long before

Discourse of words, and ears created were

Much earlier than any sound was heard;

And all the members, so meseems, were there

Before they got their use: and therefore, they

Could not be gendered for the sake of use.

But contrariwise, contending in the fight

With hand to hand, and rending of the joints,

And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there,

O long before the gleaming spears ere flew;

And nature prompted man to shun a wound,

Before the left arm by the aid of art

Opposed the shielding targe. And, verily,

Yielding the weary body to repose,

Far ancienter than cushions of soft beds,

And quenching thirst is earlier than cups.

These objects, therefore, which for use and life

Have been devised, can be conceived as found

For sake of using. But apart from such

Are all which first were born and afterwards

Gave knowledge of their own utility-

Chief in which sort we note the senses, limbs:

Wherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power

To hold that these could thus have been create

For office of utility.

Likewise,

'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures

Seek, even by nature of their frame, their food.

Yes, since I've taught thee that from off the things

Stream and depart innumerable bodies

In modes innumerable too; but most

Must be the bodies streaming from the living-

Which bodies, vexed by motion evermore,

Are through the mouth exhaled innumerable,

When weary creatures pant, or through the sweat

Squeezed forth innumerable from deep within.

Thus body rarefies, so undermined

In all its nature, and pain attends its state.

And so the food is taken to underprop

The tottering joints, and by its interfusion

To re-create their powers, and there stop up

The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins,

For eating. And the moist no less departs

Into all regions that demand the moist;

And many heaped-up particles of hot,

Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours,

The liquid on arriving dissipates

And quenches like a fire, that parching heat

No longer now can scorch the frame. And so,

Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away

From off our body, how the hunger-pang

It, too, appeased.

Now, how it comes that we,

Whene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead,

And how 'tis given to move our limbs about,

And what device is wont to push ahead

This the big load of our corporeal frame,

I'll say to thee- do thou attend what's said.

I say that first some idol-films of walking

Into our mind do fall and smite the mind,

As said before. Thereafter will arises;

For no one starts to do a thing, before

The intellect previsions what it wills;

And what it there pre-visioneth depends

On what that image is. When, therefore, mind

Doth so bestir itself that it doth will

To go and step along, it strikes at once

That energy of soul that's sown about

In all the body through the limbs and frame-

And this is easy of performance, since

The soul is close conjoined with the mind.

Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees

Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.

Then too the body rarefies, and air,