De Rerum Natura

And set it down, when once discovered, here

In these my country's leaves. Thus all pursuits,

All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock

And master the minds of men. And whosoever

Day after day for long to games have given

Attention undivided, still they keep

(As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp

Those games with their own senses, open paths

Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films

Of just those games can come. And thus it is

For many a day thereafter those appear

Floating before the eyes, that even awake

They think they view the dancers moving round

Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears

The liquid song of harp and speaking chords,

And view the same assembly on the seats,

And manifold bright glories of the stage-

So great the influence of pursuit and zest,

And of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont

Of men to be engaged-nor only men,

But soothly all the animals. Behold,

Thou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched,

Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever,

And straining utmost strength, as if for prize,

As if, with barriers opened now...

And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose

Yet toss asudden all their legs about,

And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff

The winds again, again, as though indeed

They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts,

And, even when wakened, often they pursue

The phantom images of stags, as though

They did perceive them fleeing on before,

Until the illusion's shaken off and dogs

Come to themselves again. And fawning breed

Of house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge

To shake their bodies and start from off the ground,

As if beholding stranger-visages.

And ever the fiercer be the stock, the more

In sleep the same is ever bound to rage.

But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex

With sudden wings by night the groves of gods,

When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed

Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight.

Again, the minds of mortals which perform

With mighty motions mighty enterprises,

Often in sleep will do and dare the same

In manner like. Kings take the towns by storm,

Succumb to capture, battle on the field,

Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut

Even then and there. And many wrestle on

And groan with pains, and fill all regions round

With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed

By fangs of panther or of lion fierce.

Many amid their slumbers talk about

Their mighty enterprises, and have often

Enough become the proof of their own crimes.

Many meet death; many, as if headlong

From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth

With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright;

And after sleep, as if still mad in mind,

They scarce come to, confounded as they are

By ferment of their frame. The thirsty man,

Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring

Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat

Nigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young,

By sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress

By pail or public jordan and then void

The water filtered down their frame entire

And drench the Babylonian coverlets,

Magnificently bright. Again, those males

Into the surging channels of whose years

Now first has passed the seed (engendered

Within their members by the ripened days)

Are in their sleep confronted from without

By idol-images of some fair form-

Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom,

Which stir and goad the regions turgid now

With seed abundant; so that, as it were

With all the matter acted duly out,

They pour the billows of a potent stream

And stain their garment.

And as said before,

That seed is roused in us when once ripe age

Has made our body strong...

As divers causes give to divers things

Impulse and irritation, so one force

In human kind rouses the human seed

To spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues,

Forced from its first abodes, it passes down

In the whole body through the limbs and frame,

Meeting in certain regions of our thews,

And stirs amain the genitals of man.

The goaded regions swell with seed, and then

Comes the delight to dart the same at what

The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks

That object, whence the mind by love is pierced.

For well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound,

And our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence

The stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed