De Rerum Natura

In vain, since ne'ertheless thou canst by thought

Drag all the matter forth into the light

And well search out the cause of all these smiles;

And if of graceful mind she be and kind,

Do thou, in thy turn, overlook the same,

And thus allow for poor mortality.

Nor sighs the woman always with feigned love,

Who links her body round man's body locked

And holds him fast, making his kisses wet

With lips sucked into lips; for oft she acts

Even from desire, and, seeking mutual joys,

Incites him there to run love's race-course through.

Nor otherwise can cattle, birds, wild beasts,

And sheep and mares submit unto the males,

Except that their own nature is in heat,

And burns abounding and with gladness takes

Once more the Venus of the mounting males.

And seest thou not how those whom mutual pleasure

Hath bound are tortured in their common bonds?

How often in the cross-roads dogs that pant

To get apart strain eagerly asunder

With utmost might?- When all the while they're fast

In the stout links of Venus. But they'd ne'er

So pull, except they knew those mutual joys-

So powerful to cast them unto snares

And hold them bound. Wherefore again, again,

Even as I say, there is a joint delight.

And when perchance, in mingling seed with his,

The female hath o'erpowered the force of male

And by a sudden fling hath seized it fast,

Then are the offspring, more from mothers' seed,

More like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed,

They're like to fathers. But whom seest to be

Partakers of each shape, one equal blend

Of parents' features, these are generate

From fathers' body and from mothers' blood,

When mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed

Together seeds, aroused along their frames

By Venus' goads, and neither of the twain

Mastereth or is mastered. Happens too

That sometimes offspring can to being come

In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back

Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because

Their parents in their bodies oft retain

Concealed many primal germs, commixed

In many modes, which, starting with the stock,

Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire;

Whence Venus by a variable chance

Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back

Ancestral features, voices too, and hair.

A female generation rises forth

From seed paternal, and from mother's body

Exist created males: since sex proceeds

No more from singleness of seed than faces

Or bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth

Is from a twofold seed; and what's created

Hath, of that parent which it is more like,

More than its equal share; as thou canst mark,-

Whether the breed be male or female stock.

Nor do the powers divine grudge any man

The fruits of his seed-sowing, so that never

He be called "father" by sweet children his,

And end his days in sterile love forever.

What many men suppose; and gloomily

They sprinkle the altars with abundant blood,

And make the high platforms odorous with burnt gifts,

To render big by plenteous seed their wives-

And plague in vain godheads and sacred lots.

For sterile are these men by seed too thick,

Or else by far too watery and thin.

Because the thin is powerless to cleave

Fast to the proper places, straightaway

It trickles from them, and, returned again,

Retires abortively. And then since seed

More gross and solid than will suit is spent

By some men, either it flies not forth amain

With spurt prolonged enough, or else it fails

To enter suitably the proper places,

Or, having entered, the seed is weakly mixed

With seed of the woman: harmonies of Venus

Are seen to matter vastly here; and some

Impregnate some more readily, and from some

Some women conceive more readily and become

Pregnant. And many women, sterile before

In several marriage-beds, have yet thereafter

Obtained the mates from whom they could conceive

The baby-boys, and with sweet progeny

Grow rich. And even for husbands (whose own wives,

Although of fertile wombs, have borne for them

No babies in the house) are also found

Concordant natures so that they at last

Can bulwark their old age with goodly sons.

A matter of great moment 'tis in truth,

That seeds may mingle readily with seeds

Suited for procreation, and that thick

Should mix with fluid seeds, with thick the fluid.

And in this business 'tis of some import

Upon what diet life is nourished:

For some foods thicken seeds within our members,

And others thin them out and waste away.