De Rerum Natura

And from the mind expelled, by words indeed,

Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him

To dignify by ranking with the gods?-

And all the more since he was wont to give,

Concerning the immortal gods themselves,

Many pronouncements with a tongue divine,

And to unfold by his pronouncements all

The nature of the world.

And walking now

In his own footprints, I do follow through

His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach

The covenant whereby all things are framed,

How under that covenant they must abide

Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'

Inexorable decrees,- how (as we've found),

In class of mortal objects, o'er all else,

The mind exists of earth-born frame create

And impotent unscathed to abide

Across the mighty aeons, and how come

In sleep those idol-apparitions,

That so befool intelligence when we

Do seem to view a man whom life has left.

Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan

Hath brought me now unto the point where I

Must make report how, too, the universe

Consists of mortal body, born in time,

And in what modes that congregated stuff

Established itself as earth and sky,

Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;

And then what living creatures rose from out

The old telluric places, and what ones

Were never born at all; and in what mode

The human race began to name its things

And use the varied speech from man to man;

And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts

That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands

Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.

Also I shall untangle by what power

The steersman nature guides the sun's courses,

And the meanderings of the moon, lest we,

Percase, should fancy that of own free will

They circle their perennial courses round,

Timing their motions for increase of crops

And living creatures, or lest we should think

They roll along by any plan of gods.

For even those men who have learned full well

That godheads lead a long life free of care,

If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan

Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things

Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),

Again are hurried back unto the fears

Of old religion and adopt again

Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,

Unwitting what can be and what cannot,

And by what law to each its scope prescribed,

Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

But for the rest,- lest we delay thee here

Longer by empty promises- behold,

Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:

O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,

Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,

Three frames so vast, a single day shall give

Unto annihilation! Then shall crash

That massive form and fabric of the world

Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I

Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous

This fact must strike the intellect of man,-

Annihilation of the sky and earth

That is to be,- and with what toil of words

'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft

When once ye offer to man's listening ears

Something before unheard of, but may not

Subject it to the view of eyes for him

Nor put it into hand- the sight and touch,

Whereby the opened highways of belief

Lead most directly into human breast

And regions of intelligence. But yet

I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,

Will force belief in these my words, and thou

Mayst see, in little time, tremendously

With risen commotions of the lands all things

Quaking to pieces- which afar from us

May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may

Reason, O rather than the fact itself,

Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown

And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!

But ere on this I take a step to utter

Oracles holier and soundlier based

Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men

From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel,

I will unfold for thee with learned words

Many a consolation, lest perchance,

Still bridled by religion, thou suppose

Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon,

Must dure forever, as of frame divine-

And so conclude that it is just that those,

(After the manner of the Giants), should all

Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime,

Who by their reasonings do overshake

The ramparts of the universe and wish