De Rerum Natura

To state- but rather several, whereof one

Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy

Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse,

'Twere meet to name all causes of a death,

That cause of his death might thereby be named:

For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,

By cold, nor even by poison nor disease,

Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him

We know- And thus we have to say the same

In divers cases.

Toward the summer, Nile

Waxeth and overfloweth the champaign,

Unique in all the landscape, river sole

Of the Aegyptians. In mid-season heats

Often and oft he waters Aegypt o'er,

Either because in summer against his mouths

Come those northwinds which at that time of year

Men name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus

Upstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves,

Fill him o'erfull and force his flow to stop.

For out of doubt these blasts which driven be

From icy constellations of the pole

Are borne straight up the river. Comes that river

From forth the sultry places down the south,

Rising far up in midmost realm of day,

Among black generations of strong men

With sun-baked skins. 'Tis possible, besides,

That a big bulk of piled sand may bar

His mouths against his onward waves, when sea,

Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;

Whereby the river's outlet were less free,

Likewise less headlong his descending floods.

It may be, too, that in this season rains

Are more abundant at its fountain head,

Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds

Then urge all clouds into those inland parts.

And, soothly, when they're thus foregathered there,

Urged yonder into midmost realm of day,

Then, crowded against the lofty mountain sides,

They're massed and powerfully pressed. Again,

Perchance, his waters wax, O far away,

Among the Aethiopians' lofty mountains,

When the all-beholding sun with thawing beams

Drives the white snows to flow into the vales.

Now come; and unto thee I will unfold,

As to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns,

What sort of nature they are furnished with.

First, as to name of "birdless,"- that derives

From very fact, because they noxious be

Unto all birds. For when above those spots

In horizontal flight the birds have come,

Forgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails,

And, with down-drooping of their delicate necks,

Fall headlong into earth, if haply such

The nature of the spots, or into water,

If haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.

Such spot's at Cumae, where the mountains smoke,

Charged with the pungent sulphur, and increased

With steaming springs. And such a spot there is

Within the walls of Athens, even there

On summit of Acropolis, beside

Fane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful,

Where never cawing crows can wing their course,

Not even when smoke the altars with good gifts,-

But evermore they flee- yet not from wrath

Of Pallas, grieved at that espial old,

As poets of the Greeks have sung the tale;

But very nature of the place compels.

In Syria also- as men say- a spot

Is to be seen, where also four-foot kinds,

As soon as ever they've set their steps within,

Collapse, o'ercome by its essential power,

As if there slaughtered to the under-gods.

Lo, all these wonders work by natural law,

And from what causes they are brought to pass

The origin is manifest; so, haply,

Let none believe that in these regions stands

The gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose,

Haply, that thence the under-gods draw down

Souls to dark shores of Acheron- as stags,

The wing-footed, are thought to draw to light,

By sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs

The wriggling generations of wild snakes.

How far removed from true reason is this,

Perceive thou straight; for now I'll try to say

Somewhat about the very fact.

And, first,

This do I say, as oft I've said before:

In earth are atoms of things of every sort;

And know, these all thus rise from out the earth-

Many life-giving which be good for food,

And many which can generate disease

And hasten death, O many primal seeds

Of many things in many modes- since earth

Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete.

And we have shown before that certain things

Be unto certain creatures suited more

For ends of life, by virtue of a nature,

A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike

For kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see