LUCRETIUS
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1-25 |
1-19 333-351 |
894-903 |
453-461 |
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[1] Life-giving Venus, mother of Aeneas'
descendants, delight of men and gods, you who beneath the gliding heavenly bodies
fill with your presence both ship-bearing sea and fruit-bearing earth - since
it is through you that every kind of living creature is conceived and, rising
up, visits the light of the sun: from you, O goddess, from you the winds flee,
before you and your approach the clouds of heaven fly; at your bidding the
variegated earth puts forth sweet flowers; for you the ocean levels laugh and
the calmed sky glows with a diffused radiance. For as soon as the face of the
spring day is displayed and the fertilizing breath of the west wind has been
unbarred and is blowing free, first do the birds of the air give intimation of
you and of your coming, O goddess, their hearts smitten by your influence.
Next, wild beasts and cattle bound through the rich pastures and swim across
the swift streams: so, captivated by delight, each eagerly follows you wherever
you go on leading it. Finally, throughout seas and mountains, rapacious
torrents and verdurous plains, and the leafy abodes of birds, you instill
alluring love into the breasts of all creatures, and you bring it about that
they eagerly propagate their breeds after their kind. Since you alone are the
guiding power of the universe and without you nothing emerges into the bright
realms of light, nor does anything become gladsome and lovely, I desire you to
be my partner in writing these lines which I am essaying to compose on the
nature of things.
[1] Sweet it is, on the great sea when the winds are
disturbing its surface, to behold from the land the great discomfort of
another; not because it is a joyful pleasure that anyone should be distressed,
but because it is sweet to see from what ills one is free. Sweet too it is to
contemplate the great struggles of war arrayed over the plains, without
yourself sharing in the danger. But nothing is sweeter than to occupy those
well-fortified serene abodes, raised by the learning of the wise, from which
you may look down on others and see them straying in all directions, and
wandering about looking for the [best] path of life, striving in intellectual
ability, contending [with each other] in nobility [of birth], night and day
struggling with unstinted effort to rise to the greatest power and to obtain
the government of affairs. O wretched minds of men! O blind souls! In what
darkness of life and in what dangers is this little span of years passed! To
think that men should not see that nature demands nothing other for itself, but
that pain may be absent, removed from the body, and that, withdrawn from care
and fear, she [= nature] may enjoy in mind the feeling of pleasure?
~
BREAK ~
[333] Come now and learn in the next place of what
kind the primordial components of the universe are, and how very different they
are in their forms, how varied they are in their manifold shapes; not because
only a few are endowed with like form, but because without exception all are
not identical to all others. And no wonder, for since the abundance of them is
such that, as I have shown, there is neither any limit or sum, obviously they
can not absolutely all be endowed with a like build and a shape equal to all
others.
[342] Besides, consider the human race, the dumb
swimming shoals of scaly fish, the fat herds of cattle, the wild beasts and the
various birds which frequent the cheerful reaches of water by river banks and
springs and lakes, and which flit through and haunt the pathless groves. Then
go on taking any of these you like, kind by kind, and you will still find that
they differ from each other in shape. Otherwise the young could not recognise
their mother, nor the mother her young; whereas we see that they can do this,
and that no less than human beings all these things are known apart.
[894]
‘Very soon', men say, ‘your happy home will no longer receive you, nor your
excellent wife; nor sweet children run
to be the first to snatch kisses, and touch your heart with secret delight. You
will no longer be a protection to your flourishing affairs or to your
dependants. Unhappily, one treacherous day has deprived you, unhappy man, of
all the many blessings of life.' In these remarks they do not add this: ‘nor
now, moreover, does any longing for these things still abide with you.' If they
perceived this clearly with their minds and followed it out in their words,
they would free themselves from much anxiety and fear of mind.
[453] Furthermore when sleep has enmeshed our limbs
in pleasant repose, and the whole body lies in deepest rest, yet at that very
time we seem to ourselves to be wide awake and moving our limbs; and in the
impenetrable darkness of night we imagine that we see the sun and the light of
day; and though in a confined space we seem to traverse sky and sea, rivers and
mountains, and to cross over plains on foot; and [we seem] to hear sounds,
though the austere silence of the night reigns all around; and [we seem] to
utter words, though silent.