T. LUCRETI CARI 
 
 DE RERUM NATURA 
 
 LIBRI SEX 
 
 VOLUME II
 
 T. LUCRETI CARI 
 
 DE RERUM NATURA 
 
 LIBRI SEX 
 
 WITH NOTES AND A TRANSLATION 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. J. MUNEO M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE 
 
 SECOND EDITION REVISED THROUGHOUT AND ENLARGED 
 
 VOLUME II: TRANSLATION 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 DEIGHTON BELL AND CO 
 
 LONDON BELL AND DALDY 
 1866
 
 T. LUCRETI CARI 
 
 DE RERUM NATURA 
 
 LIBRI SEX 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 H. A. J. MUNEO M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE 
 SECOND EDITION REVISED THROUGHOUT 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 DEIGHTON BELL AND CO 
 
 LONDON BELL AND DALDY 
 1866
 
 GTambrfoge: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 1—23 
 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATUKE OF THINGS 
 
 BOOK FIRST 
 
 Mother of the Aeneadae, darling of men and gods, increase- 
 giving Venus, who beneath the gliding signs of heaven fillest 
 with thy presence the ship-carrying sea, the corn-bearing lands, 
 since through thee every kind of living things is conceived, 
 rises up and beholds the light of the sun. Before thee, goddess, 
 flee the winds, the clouds of heaven; before thee and thy ad- 
 vent ; for thee earth manifold in works puts forth sweet-smelling 
 flowers ; for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven pro- 
 pitiated shines with outspread light. For soon as the vernal 
 aspect of day is disclosed, and the birth-favouring breeze of 
 favonius unbarred is blowing fresh, first the fowls of the air, o 
 lady, shew signs of thee and thy entering in, throughly smitten 
 in heart by thy power. Next the wild herds bound over the 
 glad pastures and swim the rapid rivers: in such wise each 
 made prisoner by thy charm follows thee with desire, whither 
 thou goest to lead it on. Yes throughout seas and mountains 
 and sweeping rivers and leafy homes of birds and grassy plains, 
 striking fond love into the breasts of all thou constrainest them 
 each after its kind to continue their races with desire. Since 
 thou then art sole mistress of the nature of things, and without 
 thee nothing rises up into the divine borders of light, nothing 
 grows to be glad or lovely, I would have thee for a helpmate in 
 writing the verses which I essay to pen on the nature of things 
 for our own son of the Memmii, whom thou, goddess, hast willed 
 to have no peer, rich as he ever is in every grace. Wherefore 
 all the more, o lady, lend my lays an everliving charm. Cause
 
 2 I 29 — 76 
 
 meanwhile the savage works of war to be lulled to rest through- 
 out all seas and lands; for thou alone canst bless mankind with 
 calm peace, seeing that Mavors lord of battle controls the savage 
 works of Avar, Mavors who often flings himself into thy lap 
 quite vanquished by the never-healing wound of love ; and then 
 with upturned face and shapely neck thrown back feeds with 
 love his greedy sight gazing, goddess, open-mouthed on thee; 
 and as backward he reclines, his 'breath stays hanging on thy 
 lips. While then, lady, he is reposing on thy holy body, shed 
 thyself about him and above, and pour from thy lips sweet 
 discourse, asking, glorious dame, gentle peace for the Romans. 
 For neither can we in our country's day of trouble with un- 
 troubled mind think only of our work, nor can the illustrious 
 offset of Memmius in times like these be wanting bo the general 
 weal. 
 
 for what remains to tell, apply to true reason unbusied ears and 
 a keen mind withdrawn from cares, lest my gifts set out for you 
 with stedfast zeal you abandon with disdain, before they are un- 
 derstood. For I will essay to discourse to you of the most high 
 system of heaven and the gods and will open up the first-begin- 
 nings of things, out of which nature gives birth to all things and 
 increase and nourishment, and into which nature likewise dis- 
 solves them back after their destruction. These we are accus- 
 tomed in explaining their reason to call matter and begetting 
 bodies of things and to name seeds of things and also to term 
 first bodies, because from them as first elements all things are. 
 
 When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth 
 crushed down under the weight of religion, who shewed her 
 head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering 
 upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his 
 mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face. 
 Him neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with 
 threatening roar could quell, but only stirred up the more the 
 eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first 
 to burst the fast bars of nature's portals. Therefore the living 
 force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the 
 flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind 
 and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns a 
 conqueror to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in
 
 ?<J— 118 I 3 
 
 short on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its 
 deep-set boundary mark. Therefore religion is put under foot 
 and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with 
 heaven. 
 
 This is what I fear herein, lest haply you should fancy that 
 you are entering on unholy grounds of reason and treading the 
 path of sin; whereas on the contrary often and often that heinous 
 religion has given birth to sinful and unholy deeds. Thus in 
 Aulis the chosen chieftains of the Danai foremost of men foully 
 polluted with Iphianassa's blood the altar of the Trivian maid. 
 Soon as the fillet encircling her maiden tresses shed itself in 
 equal lengths adown each cheek, and soon as she saw her father 
 standing sorrowful before the altars and beside him the minis- 
 tering priests hiding the knife and her countrymen at sight of 
 her shedding tears, speechless in terror she dropped down on 
 her knees and sank to the ground. Nor aught in such a mo- 
 ment could it avail the luckless girl that she had first bestowed 
 the name of father on the king. For lifted up in the hands of 
 the men she was carried shivering to the altars, not after due 
 performance of the customary rites to be escorted by the clear- 
 ringing bridal song, but in the very season of marriage, stainless 
 maid mid the stain of blood, to fall a sad victim by the sacrificing 
 stroke of a father, that thus a happy and prosperous departure 
 might be granted to the fleet. So great the evils to which re- 
 ligion could prompt! 
 
 You yourself some time or other overcome by the terror- 
 speaking tales of the seers will seek to fall away from us. Ay 
 indeed, for how many dreams may they now imagine for you, 
 enough to upset the calculations of life and trouble all your 
 fortunes with fear! And with good cause; for if men saw that 
 there was a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able in some 
 way to withstand the religious scruples and threatenings of the 
 seers. As it is, there is no way, no means of resisting, since 
 they must fear after death everlasting pains. For they cannot 
 tell what is the nature of the soul, whether it be born or on the 
 contrary find its way into men at their birth, and whether it 
 perish together with us when severed from us by death or visit 
 the gloom of Orcus and wasteful pools or by divine decree find 
 its way into brutes in our stead, as sang our Ennius who first 
 brought down from delightful Helicon a crown of unfading leaf, 
 
 B2
 
 4 I 119 — 161 
 
 destined to bright renown throughout Italian clans of men. 
 And yet with all this Ennius sets forth that there are Acherusian 
 quarters, publishing it in immortal verses; though in our pas- 
 sage thither neither our souls nor bodies hold together, but only 
 certain idols pale in wondrous wise. From these places he tells 
 us the ghost of everliving Homer uprose before him and began 
 to shed salt tears and to unfold in words the nature of things. 
 Wherefore we must well grasp the principle of things above, the 
 principle by which the courses of the sun and moon go on, the 
 force by which every thing on earth proceeds, but above all we 
 must find out by keen-sighted reason what the soul and the 
 nature of the mind consist of, and what thing it is which meets 
 us and frightens our minds when we are awake and under the 
 influence of disease and when we are buried in sleep, so that we 
 seem to see and hear speaking to us face to face them who are 
 dead and whose bones earth holds in its embrace. 
 
 Nor does my mind fail to perceive how hard it is to make 
 clear 'in Latin verses the dark discoveries of the Greeks, especi- 
 ally as many points must be dealt with in new terms on account 
 of the poverty of the language and the novelty of the questions. 
 But yet your worth and the looked for pleasure of sweet friend- 
 ship prompt me to undergo any labour and lead me on to watch 
 the clear nights through, seeking by what words and in what 
 verse I may be able in the end to shed on your mind so clear a 
 light that you can thoroughly scan hidden things. 
 
 This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not 
 by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the 
 aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose design we shall 
 begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of 
 nothing by divine power. Fear in sooth takes such a hold of all 
 mortals, because they see many operations go on in earth and 
 heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, 
 believing them therefore to be done by power divine. For 
 these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be pro- 
 duced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that 
 which we are pursuing, both the elements out of which every 
 thing can be produced and the manner in which all things are 
 done without the hand of the gods. 
 
 If things came from nothing, any kind might be born of any 
 thing, nothing would require seed. Men for instance might
 
 161 — 204 1 5 
 
 rise out of the sea, the scaly race out of the earth, and birds 
 might burst out of the sky; horned and other herds, every kind 
 of wild-beasts would haunt with changing brood tilth and wil- 
 derness alike. Nor would the same fruits keep constant to 
 trees, but would change; any tree might bear any fruit. For if 
 there were not begetting bodies for each, how could things have 
 a fixed unvarying mother? But in fact because things are all 
 produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and goes forth 
 into the borders of light out of that in which resides its matter 
 and first bodies; and for this reason all things cannot be gotten 
 out of all things, because in particular things resides a distinct 
 power. Again why do we see the rose put forth in spring, corn 
 in the season of heat, vines yielding at the call of autumn, if not 
 because, when the fixed seeds of things have streamed together 
 at the proper time, whatever is born discloses itself, while the 
 clue seasons are there and the quickened eaiih brings its weakly 
 products in safety forth into the borders of light? But if they 
 came from nothing, they would rise up suddenly at uncertain 
 periods and unsuitable times of year, inasmuch as there would 
 be no first-beginnings which might be kept from a begetting 
 union by the unpropitious season. No nor would time be re- 
 quired for the growth of things after the meeting of the seed, if 
 they could increase out of nothing. Little babies would at once 
 grow into men and trees in a moment would rise and start out 
 of the ground. But none of these events it is plain ever comes 
 to pass, since all things grow step by step, as is natural, [since 
 they all grow] from a fixed seed and in growing preserve their 
 kind ; so that you may be sure that all things increase in size 
 and are fed out of their own matter. Furthermore without fixed 
 j^easons of rain the earth is unable to put forth its gladdening 
 produce, nor again if kept from food could the nature of living 
 things continue its kind and sustain life; so that you might 
 hold with greater truth that many bodies are common to many 
 things, as we see letters common to different words, than that 
 any thing could come into being without first-beginnings. Again 
 why could not nature have produced men of such a size and 
 strength as to be able to wade on foot across the sea and rend 
 great mountains with their hands and outlive many generations 
 of living men, if not because an unchanging matter has been 
 assigned for begetting things and what can arise out of this
 
 u 1 204 — 244 
 
 matter is fixed? We must admit therefore that nothing can 
 come from nothing, since things require seed before they can 
 severally be born and be brought out into the buxom fields of 
 air. Lastly since we see that tilled grounds surpass untilled 
 and yield a better produce by the labour of hands, we may 
 infer that there are in the earth first-beginnings of things which 
 we by turning up the fruitful clods with the share and labouring 
 the soil of the earth stimulate to rise. But if there were no 
 such, you would see all things without any labour of ours spon- 
 taneously come forth in much greater perfection. 
 
 Moreover nature dissolves every thing back into its first 
 bodies and does not annihilate things. For if aught were mOr- 
 tal in all its parts alike, the thing in a moment would be 
 snatched away to destruction from before our eyes ; since no 
 force would be needed to produce disruption among its parts 
 and undo their fastenings. Whereas in fact, as all things con- 
 sist of an imperishable seed, nature suffers the destruction of 
 nothing to be seen, until a force has encountered it sufficient to 
 dash things to pieces by a blow or to pierce through the void 
 places within them and break them up. Again if time, when- 
 ever it makes away with things through age, utterly destroys 
 them eating up all their matter, out of what does Venus bring 
 back into the light of life the race of living things each after 
 its kind, or, when they are brought back, out of what does earth 
 manifold in works give them nourishment and increase, furnish- 
 ing them with food each after its kind ? Out of what do its 
 own native fountains and extraneous rivers from far and wide 
 keep full the sea ? Out of what does ether feed the stars ? For 
 infinite time gone by and lapse of days must have eaten up all 
 things which arc of mortal body. Now if in that period of time 
 gone by those things have existed, of which this sum of things 
 is composed and recruited, they are possessed no doubt of an 
 imperishable body, and cannot therefore any of them return to 
 nothing. Again the same force and cause would destroy all 
 things without distinction, unless everlasting matter held them 
 together, matter more or less closely linked in mutual entangle- 
 ment : a touch in sooth would be sufficient cause of death, inas- 
 much as any amount of force must of course undo the texture 
 of things in which no parts at all were of an everlasting body. 
 But in fact, because the fastenings of first-beginnings one with
 
 240-2S5 1 7 
 
 the oilier are unlike and matter is everlasting, things continue 
 with body uninjured, until a force is found to encounter them 
 strong enough to overpower the texture of each. A thing 
 therefore never returns to nothing, but all things after disrup- 
 tion go back into the first bodies of matter. Lastly rains die, 
 when father ether has tumbled them into the lap of mother 
 earth ; but then goodly crops spring up and boughs are green 
 with leaves upon the trees, trees themselves grow and are laden 
 with fruit; by them in turn our race and the race of wild 
 beasts are fed, by them we see glad towns teem with children 
 and the leafy forests ring on all sides with the song of new 
 birds ; through them cattle wearied with their load of fat lay 
 their bodies down about the glad pastures and the white milky 
 stream pours from the distended udders ; through them a new 
 brood with weakly limbs frisks and gambols over the soft grass, 
 their young minds smitten with the love of pure milk. None 
 of the things therefore which seem to be lost is utterly lost, 
 since nature replenishes one thing out of another and does not 
 suffer any thing to be begotten, before she has been recruited 
 by the death of some other. 
 
 Now mark me : since I have taught that things cannot be 
 born from nothing, cannot when begotten be brought back to 
 nothing, that you may not haply yet begin in any shape to 
 mistrust my words, because the first-beginnings of things can- 
 not be seen by the eyes, take moreover this list of bodies which 
 you must yourself admit are in the number of things and can- 
 not be seen. First of all the force of the wind when aroused 
 beats on the harbours and whelms huge ships and scatters 
 clouds ; sometimes in swift whirling eddy it scours the plains 
 and straws them with large trees and scourges the mountain 
 summits with forest-rending blasts : so fiercely does the wind 
 rave with a shrill howling and rage with threatening roar. 
 Winds therefore sure enough are unseen bodies which sweep 
 the seas, the lands, ay and the clouds of heaven, tormenting 
 them and catching them up in sudden whirls. On they stream 
 and spread destruction abroad in just the same way as the soft 
 liquid nature of water when all at once it is borne along in an 
 overflowing stream, and a great downfall of water from the 
 high hills augments it with copious rains, flinging together 
 fragments of forests and entire trees ; nor can the strong bridges
 
 8 I 285—329 
 
 sustain the sudden force of coming water : in such wise turbid 
 with much rain the river dashes upon the piers with mighty 
 strength. With a loud noise the water makes havoc and rolls 
 under its eddies huge stones and throws down whatever opposes 
 its waves. In this way then must the blasts of wind as well 
 move on, and when they like a mighty stream have borne down 
 in any direction, they push things before them and throw them 
 down with repeated assaults, sometimes catch them up in curl- 
 ing eddy and carry them away in swift-circling whirl. Where- 
 fore once and again I say winds are unseen bodies, since in 
 their works and ways they are found to rival great rivers which 
 are of a visible body. Then again we perceive the different smells 
 of things, yet never see them coining to our nostrils ; nor do we 
 behold heats nor can we observe cold with the eyes nor are we 
 used to see voices. Yet all these things must consist of a 
 bodily nature, since they are able to move the senses ; for 
 nothing but body can touch and be touched. Again clothes 
 hung up on a shore which waves break upon become moist, and 
 then get dry if spread out in the sun. Yet it has not been 
 seen in what way the moisture of water has sunk into them 
 nor again in what way this has been dispelled by heat. The 
 moisture therefore is dispersed into small particles which the 
 eyes are quite unable to see. Again after the revolution of 
 many of the sun's years a ring on the finger is thinned on the 
 under side by wearing, the dripping from the eaves hollows 
 a stone, the bent ploughshare of iron imperceptibly decreases 
 in the fields, and we behold the stone-paved streets worn down 
 by the feet of the multitude ; the brass statues too at the gates 
 shew their right hands to be wasted by the touch of the nume- 
 rous passers by who greet them. These things then we see are 
 lessened, since they have been thus worn down ; but what 
 bodies depart at any given time the nature of vision has 
 jealously shut out our seeing. Lastly the bodies which time 
 and nature add to things by little and little, constraining them 
 to grow in due measure, no exertion of the eyesight can behold ; 
 and so too wherever things grow old by age and decay, and 
 when rocks hanging over the sea are eaten away by the fine 
 salt spray, you cannot see what they lose at any given moment. 
 Nature therefore works by unseen bodies. 
 
 And yet all things are not on all sides jammed together and
 
 3^9—375 - 1 9 
 
 kept in by body : there is also void in things. To have learned 
 this will be good for you on many accounts ; it will not suffer 
 you to wander in doubt and be to seek in the sum of things 
 and distrustful of our words. If there were not void, things 
 could not move at all ; for that which is the property of body, 
 to let and hinder, would be present to all things at all times ; 
 nothing therefore could go on, since no other thing would 
 be the first to give way. But in fact throughout seas 
 and lands and the heights of heaven we see before our eyes 
 many things move in many ways for various reasons, which 
 things, if there were no void, I need not say would lack and 
 want restless motion : they never would have been begotten at 
 all, since matter jammed on all sides would have been at rest. 
 Again however solid things are thought to be, you may yet 
 learn from this that they are of rare body : in rocks and caverns 
 the moisture of water oozes through and all things weep with 
 abundant drops ; food distributes itself through the whole 
 body of living things ; trees grow and yield fruit in season, 
 because food is diffused through the whole from the very roots 
 over the stem and all the boughs. Voices pass through walls 
 and fly through houses shut, stiffening frost pierces to the 
 bones. Now if there are no void parts, by what way can the 
 bodies severally pass ? You would see it to be quite impossible. 
 Once more, why do we see one thing surpass another in weight 
 though not larger in size ? For if there is just as much body in 
 a ball of wool as there is in a lump of lead, it is natural it 
 should weigh the same, since the property of body is to weigh 
 all things downwards, while on the contrary the nature of void 
 is ever without weight. Therefore when a thing is just as large, 
 yet is found to be lighter, it proves sure enough that it has 
 more of void in it ; while on the other hand that which is 
 heavier shews that there is in it more of body and that it con- 
 tains within it much less of void. Therefore that which we are 
 seeking with keen-sighted reason exists sure enough, mixed up 
 in things ; and we call it void. 
 
 And herein I am obliged to forestall this point which some 
 raise, lest it draw you away from the truth. The waters they 
 say make way for the scaly creatures as they press on, and open 
 liquid paths, because the fish leave room behind them, into 
 which the yielding waters may stream ; thus other things too
 
 10 I 375—419 
 
 may move and change place among themselves, although the 
 whole sum be full. This you are to know has been taken up 
 wholly on false grounds. For on what side I ask can the scaly 
 creatures move forwards, unless the waters have first made 
 room % again on what side can the waters give place, so long as 
 the fish are unable to go on ? Therefore you must either strip 
 all bodies of motion or admit that in things void is mixed up 
 from which every thing gets its first start in moving. Lastly if 
 two broad bodies after contact quickly spring asunder, the air 
 must surely fill all the void which is formed between the bodies. 
 Well however rapidly it stream together with swift-circling 
 currents, yet the whole space will not be able to be filled up in 
 one moment ; for it must occupy first one spot and then another, 
 until the whole is taken up. Bat if haply any one supposes 
 that, when the bodies have started asunder, that result follows 
 because the air condenses, he is mistaken ; for a void is then 
 formed which was not before, and a void also is filled which 
 existed before ; nor can the air condense in such a way, nor 
 supposing it could, could it methinks without void draw into 
 itself and bring its parts together. 
 
 Wherefore however long you hold out by urging many 
 objections, you must needs in the end admit that there is a 
 void in things. And many more arguments I may state to you 
 in order to accumulate proof on my words; but these slight 
 footprints are enough for a keen-searching mind to enable you 
 by yourself to find out all the rest. For as dogs often discover 
 by smell the lair of a mountain-ranging wild beast though 
 covered over with leaves, when once they have got on the sure 
 tracks, thus you in cases like this will be able by yourself alone 
 to see one thing after another and find your way into all dark 
 corners and draw forth the truth. But if you lag or swerve 
 a jot from the reality, this I can j)romise you, o Memmius, 
 at once without more ado : such plenteous draughts from abun- 
 dant wellsprings my sweet tongue shall pour from my richly 
 furnished breast, that I fear slow age will steal over our limbs 
 and break open in us the fastnesses of life, ere the whole store 
 of reasons on any one question has by my verses been dropped 
 into your ears. 
 
 But now to resume the thread of the design which I am 
 weaving in verse: all nature then, as it exists by itself, has been
 
 420 — 463 * I I 
 
 founded on two things: there are bodies and there is void in 
 which these bodies are placed and through which they move 
 about. For that body exists by itself the general feeling of 
 mankind declares ; and unless the first foundation of belief shall 
 be firmly grounded on this, there will be nothing to which we 
 can appeal on hidden things in order to prove anything by rea- 
 soning of mind. Then again, if room and space which we call 
 void did not exist, bodies could not be placed anywhere nor 
 move about at all in any direction ; as we have demonstrated to 
 you a little before. Moreover there is nothing which you can 
 affirm to be at once separate from all body and quite distinct 
 from void, which would so to say count as the discovery of a 
 third nature. For whatever shall exist, this of itself must be 
 something or other. Now if it shall admit of touch in however 
 slight and small a measure, it will, be it with a large or be it 
 with a little addition, provided it do exist, increase the amount 
 of body and join the sum. But if it shall be intangible and 
 unable to hinder any thing from passing through it on any side, 
 this you are to know will be that which we call empty void. 
 Again whatever shall exist by itself, will either do something 
 or will itself suffer by the action of other things, or else in it 
 things will be able to exist and go on. But no thing can do 
 and suffer without body nor aught furnish room except void 
 and vacanc3 r . Therefore beside void and bodies no third nature 
 taken by itself can be left in the number of things, either such 
 as to fall at any time under the ken of our senses or such as 
 any one can grasp by the reason of his mind. 
 
 For whatever things are named, you will either find to be 
 properties linked to these two things or jou will see to be ac- 
 cidents of these things. That is a property which can in no 
 case be disjoined and separated without destruction accompany- 
 ing the severance, such as the weight of a stone, the heat of 
 fire, the fluidity of water. Slavery on the other hand, poverty 
 and riches, liberty war concord and all other things which may 
 come and go while the nature of the thing remains unharmed, 
 these we are wont, as it is right we should, to call accidents. 
 Time also exists not by itself, but simply from the things which 
 happen the sense apprehends what has been done in time past, 
 as well as what is present and what is to follow after. And 
 we must admit that no one feels time by itself abstracted from
 
 12 I 463—503 
 
 the motion and calm rest of things. So when they say that 
 the daughter of Tyndarus was ravished and the Trojan nations 
 were subdued in war, we must mind that they do not force us 
 to admit that these things are by themselves, since those gene- 
 rations of men, of whom these things were accidents, time now 
 gone by has irrevocably swept away. For whatever shall have 
 been done may be termed an accident in one case of the Teu- 
 cran people, in another of the countries simply. Yes for if 
 there had been no matter of things and no room and space in 
 which things severally go on, never had the fire, kindled by 
 love of the beauty of Tyndarus' daughter, blazed beneath the 
 Phrygian breast of Alexander and lighted up the famous strug- 
 gles of cruel war, nor had the timber-horse unknown to the 
 Trojans wrapt Pergama in flames by its night-issuing brood of 
 sons of the Greeks; so that you may clearly perceive that all 
 actions from first to last exist not by themselves and are not 
 by themselves in the way that body is, nor are terms of the 
 same kind as void is, but are rather of such a kind that you 
 may fairly call them accidents of body and of the room in which 
 they severally go on. 
 
 Bodies again are partly first-beginnings of things, partly 
 those which are formed of a union of first-beginnings. But 
 those which are first-beginnings of things no force can quench : 
 they are sure to have the better by their solid body. Although 
 it seems difficult to believe that aught can be found among 
 things with a solid body. For the lightning of heaven passes 
 through the walls of houses, as well as noise and voices; iron 
 grows red-hot in the fire and rocks burning with fierce heat 
 burst asunder; the hardness of gold is broken up and dissolved 
 by heat; the ice of brass melts vanquished by the flame; warmth 
 and piercing cold ooze through silver, since we have felt both, 
 as we held cups with the hand in due fashion and the water 
 was poured down into them. So universally there is found to 
 be nothing solid in things. But yet because true reason and 
 the nature of things constrains, attend until we make clear in 
 a few verses that there are such things as consist of solid and 
 everlasting body, which we teach are seeds of things and first- 
 beginnings, out of which the whole sum of things which now 
 exists has been produced. 
 
 First of all then since there has been found to exist a two-
 
 504—549 1 1 3 
 
 fold and widely dissimilar nature of two things, that is to say 
 of body and of place in which things severally go on, each of 
 the two must exist for and by itself and quite unmixed. For 
 wherever there is empty space which we call void, there body 
 is not; wherever again body maintains itself, there empty void 
 no wise exists. First bodies therefore are solid and without 
 void. Again since there is void in things begotten, solid matter 
 must exist about this void, and no thing can be proved by true 
 reason to conceal in its body and have within it void, unless you 
 choose to allow that that which holds it in is solid. A^ain that 
 can be nothing but a union of matter which can keep in the 
 void of things. Matter therefore, which consists of a solid body, 
 may be everlasting, though all things else are dissolved. More- 
 over if there were no empty void, the universe would be solid; 
 unless on the other hand there were certain bodies to fill up 
 whatever places they occupied, the existing universe would be 
 empty and void space. Therefore sure enough body and void 
 are marked off in alternate layers, since the universe is neither 
 of a perfect fulness nor a perfect void. There are therefore cer- 
 tain bodies capable of marking off void space from full. These 
 can neither be broken in pieces by the stroke of blows from 
 without nor have their texture undone by aught piercing to 
 their core nor give way before any other kind of assault; as we 
 have proved to you a little before. For without void nothing 
 seems to admit of being crushed in or broken up or split in 
 two by cutting, or of taking in wet or permeating cold or pene- 
 trating fire, by which all things are destroyed. And the more 
 anything contains within it of void, the more thoroughly it 
 gives way to the assault of these things. Therefore if first 
 bodies are as I have shewn solid and without void, they must 
 be everlasting. Again unless matter had been eternal, all 
 things before this would have utterly returned to nothing and 
 whatever things we see would have been born anew from 
 nothing. But since I have proved above that nothing can 
 be produced from nothing, and that what is begotten can- 
 not be recalled to nothing, first-beginnings must be of an im- 
 perishable body, into which all things can be dissolved at 
 their last hour, that there may be a supply of matter for the 
 reproduction of things. Therefore first-beginnings are of solid 
 singleness, and in no other way can they have been preserved
 
 1 4 I 549-595 
 
 through ages during infinite time past in order to reproduce 
 things. 
 
 Again if nature had set no limit to the breaking of things, 
 by this time the bodies of matter would have been so far re- 
 duced by the breaking of past ages that nothing could within 
 a fixed time be conceived out of them and reach its utmost 
 growth of being. For we see that anything is more quickly 
 destroyed than again renewed; and therefore that which the 
 long, the infinite duration of all bygone time had broken up 
 demolished and destroyed, could never be reproduced in all 
 remaining time. But now sure enough a fixed limit to their 
 breaking has been set, since Ave see each thing renewed, and 
 at the same time definite periods fixed for things to reach the 
 flower of their age. Moreover while the bodies of matter are 
 most solid, it may yet be explained in what way all things 
 which are formed soft, as air water earth fires, are so formed 
 and by what force they severally go on, since once for all there 
 is void mixed up in things. But on the other hand if the first- 
 beginnings of things be soft, it cannot be explained out of 
 what enduring basalt and iron can be produced; for their whole 
 nature will utterly lack a first foundation to begin with. First- 
 beginnings therefore are strong in solid singleness, and by a 
 denser combination of these all things can be closely packed 
 and exhibit enduring strength. 
 
 Again if no limit has been set to the breaking of bodies, 
 nevertheless the several bodies which go to things must survive 
 from eternity up to the present time, not yet assailed by any 
 danger. But since they are possessed of a frail nature, it is 
 not consistent with this that they could have continued through 
 eternity harassed through ages by countless blows. Again too 
 since a limit of growing and sustaining life has been assigned 
 to things each after its kind, and since by the laws of nature 
 it stands decreed what they can each do and what they cannot 
 do, and since nothing is changed, but all things are so constant 
 that the different birds all in succession exhibit in their body 
 the distinctive marks of their kind, they must sure enough 
 have a body of unchangeable matter also. For if the first- 
 beginnings of things could in any way be vanquished and 
 changed, it would be then uncertain too what could and what 
 could not rise into being, in short on what principle each thing
 
 595—^39 I 1 5 
 
 has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark; nor could 
 the generations reproduce so often each after its kind the na- 
 ture habits way of life and motions of the parents. 
 
 Then again since there is ever a bounding point to that first 
 body which already is beyond what our senses can perceive, 
 that point sure enough is without parts and consists of a least 
 nature and never has existed apart by itself and will not be able 
 in future so to exist, since it is in itself part of that other; and 
 so a first and single part and then other and other similar parts 
 in succession fill up in close serried mass the nature of the first 
 body; and since these cannot exist by themselves, they must 
 cleave to that from which they cannot in any way be torn. 
 First-beginnings therefore are of solid singleness, massed to- 
 gether and cohering closely by means of least parts, not com- 
 pounded out of a union of those parts, but, rather, strong in 
 everlasting singleness. From them nature allows nothing to be 
 torn, nothing further to be worn away, reserving them as seeds 
 for things. Again unless there shall be a least, the very smallest 
 bodies will consist of infinite parts, inasmuch as the half of the 
 half will always have a half and nothing will set bounds to the 
 division. Therefore between the sum of things and the least of 
 things what difference will there be ? There will be no distinc- 
 tion at all; for how absolutely infinite soever the whole sum is, 
 yet the things which are smallest will equally consist of infinite 
 parts. Now since on this head true reason protests and denies 
 that the mind can believe it, you must yield and admit that 
 there exist such things as are possessed of no parts and are of a 
 least nature. And since these exist, those first bodies also you 
 must admit to be solid and everlasting. Once more, if nature 
 creatress of things had been wont to compel all things to be 
 broken up into least parts, then too she would be unable to 
 reproduce anything out of those parts, because those things 
 which are enriched with no parts cannot have the properties 
 which begetting matter ought to have, I mean the various 
 entanglements weights blows clashings motions by means of 
 which things severally go on. 
 
 For which reasons they who have held fire to be the matter 
 of things and the sum to be formed out of fire alone, are seen to 
 have strayed most widely from true reason. At the head of 
 whom enters Heraclitus to do battle, famous for obscurity more
 
 1 6 T 639—682 
 
 anions: the frivolous than the earnest Greeks who seek the truth. 
 For fools admire and like all things the more which they per- 
 ceive to be concealed under involved language, and determine 
 things to be true which can prettily tickle the ears and are 
 varnished over with finely sounding phrase. 
 
 For I want to know how things can be so various, if they 
 are formed out of fire one and unmixed : it would avail nothing 
 for hot fire to be condensed or rarefied, if the parts of fire had 
 always the same nature which the whole fire likewise has. The 
 heat would be more intense by compression of parts, more faint 
 by their severance and dispersion. More than this you cannot 
 think it in the power of such causes to effect, far less could so 
 great a diversity of things come from mere density and rarity of 
 fires. Observe also, if they suppose void to be mixed up in 
 things, fire may then be condensed and left rare ; but because 
 they see many things rise up in contradiction to them and 
 shrink from leaving unmixed void in things, fearing the steep, 
 they lose the true road, and do not perceive on the other hand 
 that if void is taken from things, all things are condensed and 
 out of all things is formed one single body, which cannot briskly 
 radiate anything from it, in the way heat-giving fire emits light 
 and warmth, letting you see that it is not of closely compressed 
 parts. But if they haply think that in some other way fires 
 may be quenched in the union and change their body, you are 
 to know that if they shall scruple on no side to do this, all heat 
 sure enough will be utterly brought to nothing, and all things 
 that are produced will be formed out of nothing. For whenever 
 a thing changes and quits its proper limits, at once this change 
 of state is the death of that which was before. Therefore some- 
 thing or other must needs be left to those fires of theirs unde- 
 stroyed, that you may not have all things absolutely returning 
 to nothing, and the whole store of things born anew and flour- 
 ishing out of nothing. Since then in fact there are some most 
 unquestionable bodies which always preserve the same nature, 
 on whose going or coming and change of order things change 
 their nature and bodies are transformed, you are to know that 
 these first bodies of things are not of fire. For it would matter 
 nothing that some should withdraw and go away and others 
 should be added on and some should have their order changed, 
 if they yet one and all retained the nature of heat ; for what-
 
 683-726 I 1*7 
 
 ever they produced would be altogether fire. But thus me- 
 thinks it is: there are certain bodies whose clashings motions 
 order position shapes produce fires, and which by a change of 
 order change the nature of the things and do not resemble fire 
 nor anything else which has the power of sending bodies to our 
 senses and touching by its contact our sense of touch. 
 
 Again to say that all things are fire and that no real thing 
 except fire exists in the number of things, as this same man 
 does, appears to be sheer dotage. For he himself takes his 
 stand on the side of the senses to fight against the senses and 
 shakes their authority, on which rests all our belief, ay from 
 which this fire as he calls it is known to himself; for he believes 
 that the senses can truly perceive fire, he does not believe they 
 can perceive all other things which are not a whit less clear. 
 Now this appears to me to be as false as it is foolish; for to what 
 shall we appeal? what surer test can we have than the senses, 
 whereby to note truth and falsehood? Again why should any 
 one rather abolish all things and choose to leave the single 
 nature of heat, than deny that fires exist, while he allows any 
 thing else to be ? it seems to be equal madness to affirm either 
 this or that. 
 
 For these reasons they who have held that fire is the matter 
 of things and that the sum can be formed out of fire, and they 
 who have determined air to be the first-beginning in begetting 
 things, and all who have held that water by itself alone forms 
 things, or that earth produces all things and changes into all the 
 different natures of things, appear to have strayed exceedingly 
 wide of the truth; as well as they who make the first-beginnings 
 of things twofold coupling air with fire and earth with water, 
 and they who believe that all things grow out of four things, 
 fire earth and air and water. Chief of whom is Agrigentine 
 Empedocles : him within the three-cornered shores of its lands 
 that island bore, about which the Ionian sea flows in large 
 cranklings, and splashes up brine from its green waves. Here 
 the sea racing in its straitened frith divides by its waters the 
 shores of Italia's lands from the other's coasts; here is wasteful 
 Charybdis and here the rumblings of JEtna, threaten anew to 
 gather up such fury of flames, as again with force to belch forth 
 the fires bursting from its throat and carry up to heaven once 
 more the lightnings of flame. Now though this great country 
 
 c
 
 I -> I 7^—770 
 
 is seen to deserve in many ways the wonder of mankind and is 
 held to be well worth visiting, rich in all good things, guarded 
 by large force of men, yet seems it to have held within it no- 
 thing more glorious than this man, nothing more holy marvellous 
 and dear. The verses too of his godlike genius cry with a loud 
 voice and set forth in such wise his glorious discoveries that he 
 hardly seems born of a mortal stock. 
 
 Yet he and those whom we have mentioned above immea- 
 surably inferior and far beneath him, although the authors of 
 many excellent and godlike discoveries they have given responses 
 from so to say their hearts' holy of holies with more sanctity 
 and on much more unerring grounds than the Pythia who speaks 
 out from the tripod and laurel of Phoebus, have yet gone to ruin 
 in the first-beginnings of things: it is there they have fallen, 
 and, great themselves, great and heavy has been that fall; first 
 because they have banished void from things and yet assign to 
 them motions, and allow things soft and rare, air sun fire earth 
 living things corn, and yet mix not up void in their body; next 
 because they suppose that there is no limit to the division of 
 bodies and no stop set to their breaking and that there exists 
 no least at all in things; though we see that that is the bound- 
 ing point of any thing which seems to be least in reference to 
 our senses, so that from this you may infer that because the 
 things which you do not see have a bounding point, there is a 
 least in them. Moreover since they assign soft first-beginnings 
 of tilings, which we see to have birth and to be of a body alto- 
 gether mortal, both the sum of things must in that case revert 
 to nothing and the store of things be born anew and flourish out 
 of nothing: now how wide of the truth both of these doctrines 
 are you will already comprehend. In the next place these 
 bodies are in many ways mutually hostile and poisonous; and 
 therefore they will either perish when they have met, or will fly 
 asunder just as we see, when a storm has gathered, lightnings 
 and rains and winds fly asunder. 
 
 Again if all things are produced from four things and all 
 again broken up into those things, how can they more be called 
 first beginnings of things than things be called their first-begin- 
 nings, the supposition being reversed? For they are begotten 
 time about and interchange colour and their whole nature with- 
 out ceasing. But if haply you suppose that the body of fire and
 
 770-812 1 19 
 
 of earth and air and the moisture of water meet in such a way 
 that none of them in the union changes its nature, nothing I 
 can tell you will be able to be thus produced out of them, 
 neither living thing nor thing with inanimate body, as a tree; 
 in fact each thing amid the medley of this discordant mass will 
 display its own nature and air will be seen to be mixed up with 
 earth and heat to remain in union with moisture. But first- 
 beginnings ought in begetting things to bring with them a latent 
 and unseen nature in order that no thing stand out, to be in the 
 way and prevent whatever is produced from having its own 
 proper being. 
 
 Moreover they go back to heaven and its fires for a begin- 
 ning, and first suppose that fire changes into air, next that from 
 air water is begotten and earth is produced out of water, and 
 that all in reverse order come back from earth, water first, next 
 air, then heat, and that these cease not to interchange, to pass 
 from heaven to earth, from earth to the stars of ether. All 
 which first-beginnings must on no account do ; since something 
 unchangeable must needs remain over, that things may not 
 utterly be brought back to nothing. For whenever a thing 
 changes and quits its proper limits, at once this change of state 
 is the death of that which was before. Wherefore since those 
 things which we have mentioned a little before pass into a state 
 of change, they must be formed out of others which cannot 
 in any case be transformed, that you may not have things 
 returning altogether to nothing. Why not rather hold that 
 there are certain bodies possessed of such a nature, that, if they 
 have haply produced fire, the same may, after a few have been 
 taken away and a few added on and the order and motion 
 changed, produce air ; and that all other things may in the 
 same way interchange with one another ? 
 
 'But plain matter of fact clearly proves' you say 'that all 
 things grow up into the air and are fed out of the earth ; and 
 unless the season at the propitious period send such abundant 
 showers that the trees reel beneath the soaking storms of rain, 
 and unless the sun on its part foster them and supply heat, 
 corn trees living things could not grow'. Quite true, and unless 
 solid food and soft water should recruit us, the body would 
 waste away and then the whole life would break up out of all 
 the sinews and bones ; for we beyond doubt are recruited and 
 
 C2
 
 20 I 812-854 
 
 fed by certain tilings, this and that other thing by certain other 
 things. Because many first-beginnings common to many things 
 in many ways are mixed up in things, therefore sure enough 
 different things are fed by different things. And it often makes 
 a great difference with what things and in what position the 
 same first-beginnings are held in union and what motions they 
 mutually impart and receive ; for the same make up heaven sea 
 lands rivers sun, the same make up corn trees living things ; 
 but they are mixed up with different things and in different 
 ways as they move. Nay you see throughout even in these 
 verses of ours many elements common to many words, though 
 you must needs admit that the lines and words differ one from 
 the other both in meaning and in the. sound wherewith they 
 sound. So much can elements effect by a mere change of 
 order ; but those elements which are the first-beginnings of 
 things can bring with them more combinations out of which 
 different things can severally be produced. 
 
 Let us now also examine the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras as 
 the Greeks term it, which the poverty of our native speech does 
 not allow us to name in our own tongue ; though it is easy 
 enough to set forth in words the thing itself. First of all then, 
 when he speaks of the homoeomeria of things, you must know 
 he supposes bones to be formed out of very small and minute 
 bones and flesh of very small and minute fleshes and blood by 
 the coming together of many drops of blood, and gold he thinks 
 can be composed of grains of gold and earth be a concretion of 
 small earths and fires can come from fires and water from 
 waters, and everything else he fancies and supposes to be pro- 
 duced on a like principle. And yet at the same time he does 
 not allow that void exists anywhere in things, or that there is a 
 limit to the division of things. Wherefore he appears to me on 
 both these grounds to be as much mistaken as those whom we 
 have already spoken of above. In addition to this the first - 
 beginnings which he supposes are too frail ; if first-beginnings 
 they be which are possessed of a nature like to the things them- 
 selves and are just as liable to suffering and death, and which 
 nothing reins back from destruction. For which of them will 
 hold out against a strong crushing force, so as to escape death. 
 in the very jaws of destruction ? fire or water or air ? which of 
 these ? blood or bones ? Not one methinks, since everything
 
 854—893 ' 21 
 
 ■will bo just as essentially mortal as those things which we see 
 with the senses perish before our eyes vanquished by some force. 
 But I appeal to facts demonstrated above for proof that things 
 cannot fall away to nothing nor on the other hand grow from 
 nothing. Again since food gives increase and nourishment to 
 the body, you are to know that our veins and blood and bones 
 [and the like are formed of things foreign to them in kind] ; or 
 if they shall say that all foods are of a mixed body and contain 
 in them small bodies of sinews and bones and veins as well and 
 particles of blood, it will follow that all food, solid as well as 
 liquid, must be held to be composed of things foreign to them 
 in kind, of bones that is and sinews and matter and blood 
 mixed up. Again if all the bodies which grow out of the earth, 
 are in the earths, the earth must be composed of things foreign 
 to it in kind which grow out of these earths. Apply again this 
 reasoning to other things, and you may use just the same words. 
 If flame and smoke and ash are latent in woods, woods must 
 necessarily be composed of things foreign to them in kind. 
 Again all those bodies, to which the earth gives food, it increases 
 [out of things foreign to them in kind which rise out of the 
 earth : thus too the bodies of flame which issue from the woods, 
 are fed] out of things foreign to them in kind which rise out of 
 these woods. 
 
 Here some slight opening is left for evasion, which Anaxa- 
 goras avails himself of, choosing to suppose that all things though 
 latent are mixed up in things, and that is alone visible of which 
 there are the largest number of bodies in the mixture and these 
 more ready to hand and stationed in the first rank. This how- 
 ever is far banished from true reason. For then it were natural 
 that corn too should often, when crushed by the formidable 
 force of the stone, shew some mark of blood or some other of 
 the things which have their nourishment in our body; and 
 when we rub one stone on another, blood should ooze out. For 
 like reasons it were fitting that grasses too should yield sweet 
 drops of liquid, like in flavour to the udder of milk in sheep ; 
 ves and that often, when clods of earth have been crumbled, 
 kinds of grasses and corn and leaves should be found to lurk 
 distributed among the earth in minute quantities ; and lastly 
 that ash and smoke and minute fires should be found latent in 
 woods, when they were broken off. Now since plain matter of
 
 It 
 
 893-934 
 
 fact teaches that none of these results follows, you are to know 
 that things are not so mixed up in things; but rather seeds 
 common to many things must in many ways be mixed up and 
 latent in things. 
 
 ' But it often comes to pass on high mountains' you say ' that 
 contiguous tops of tall trees rub together, the strong south winds 
 constraining them so to do, until the flower of flame has broken 
 out and they have burst into a blaze.' Quite true and yet fire 
 is not innate in woods ; but there are many seeds of heat, and 
 when they by rubbing have streamed together, they produce 
 conflagrations in the forests. But if the flame was stored up 
 ready made in the forests, the fire could not be concealed for 
 any length of time, but would destroy forests, burn up trees 
 indiscriminately. Do you now see, as we said a little before, 
 that it often makes a very great difference with what things 
 and in what position the same first-beginnings are held in union 
 and what motions they mutually impart and receive, and that 
 the same may when a little changed in arrangement produce 
 say fires and a fir ? just as the words too consist of elements only 
 a little changed in arrangement, though we denote firs and fires 
 with two quite distinct names. Once again, if you suppose that 
 whatever you perceive among visible things cannot be pro- 
 duced without imagining bodies of matter possessed of a like 
 nature, in this way, you will find, the first-beginnings of things 
 are destroyed : it will come to this that they will be shaken by 
 loud fits of convulsive laughter and will bedew with salt tears 
 face and cheeks. 
 
 Now mark and learn what remains to be known and hear it 
 more distinctly. Nor does my mind fail to perceive how dark 
 the things are ; but the great hope of praise has smitten my 
 heart with sharp thyrsus, and at the same time has struck into 
 my breast sweet love of the muses, with which now inspired 
 I traverse in blooming thought the pathless haunts of the 
 Picrides never yet trodden by sole of man. I love to approach 
 the untasted springs and to quaff, I love to cull fresh flowers 
 and gather for my head a distinguished crown from spots 
 whence the muses have yet veiled the brows of none ; first 
 because I teach of great things and essay to release the mind 
 from the fast bonds of religious scruples, and next because on a 
 dark subject I pen such lucid verses o'erlaying all with the
 
 934-975 I 23 
 
 muses' charm. For that too would seem to be not without 
 good grounds ; but even as physicians when they purpose to 
 give nauseous wormwood to children, first smear the rim round 
 the bowl with the sweet yellow juice of honey, that the unthink- 
 ing age of children may be fooled as far as the lips, and mean- 
 while drink up the bitter draught of wormwood and though 
 beguiled yet not be betrayed, but rather by such means recover 
 health and strength ; so I now, since this doctrine seems gene- 
 rally somewhat bitter to those by whom it has not been handled, 
 and the multitude shrinks back from it in dismay, I have 
 resolved to set forth to you our doctrine in sweet-toned Pierian 
 verse and o'erlay it as it were with the pleasant honey of the 
 muses, if haply by such means I might engage your mind on 
 my verses, till such time as you clearly perceive with what 
 shape the whole nature of things has been put together. 
 
 But since I have taught that most solid bodies of matter fly 
 about for ever unvanquished through all time, mark now, let us 
 unfold whether there is or is not any limit to their sum ; like- 
 wise let us clearly see whether that which has been found to be 
 void, or room and space, in which things severally go on, is all 
 of it altogether finite or stretches without limits and to an 
 unfathomable depth. 
 
 Well then the existing universe is bounded in none of its 
 dimensions ; for then it must have had an outside. Again it is 
 seen that there can be an outside of nothing, unless there be 
 something beyond to bound it, so that that is seen, farther than 
 which this our nature of sense does not follow the thing. Now 
 since we must admit that there is nothing outside the sum, 
 it has no outside, and therefore is without end and limit. And 
 it matters not in which of its regions you take your stand ; so 
 invariably, whatever position any one has taken up, he leaves 
 the universe just as infinite as before in all directions. Again 
 if for the moment all existing space be held to be bounded, sup- 
 posing a man runs forward to its outside borders and stands on 
 the utmost verge and then throws a winged javelin, do you 
 choose that it when hurled with vigorous force shall advance to 
 the point to which it has been sent and fly to a distance, or do 
 you decide that something can get in its way and stop it ? for 
 you must admit and adopt one of the two suppositions ; either 
 of which shuts you out from all escape and compels you to
 
 -4 I 97 6-ioi5 
 
 grant that the universe stretches without end. For whether 
 there is something to get in its way and prevent its coming 
 whither it was sent and placing itself in the point intended, or 
 whether it is carried forward, in either case it has not started 
 from the end. In this way I will go on and, wherever you 
 have placed the outside borders, I will ask what then becomes 
 of the javelin. The result will be that an end can no where be 
 fixed, and that the room given for flight will still prolong the 
 power of flight. Lastly one thing is seen by the eyes to end 
 another thing ; air bounds off hills, and mountains air, earth 
 limits sea and sea again all lands ; the universe however there 
 is nothing outside to end. 
 
 Again if all the space of the whole sum were enclosed with- 
 in fixed borders and were bounded, in that case the store of 
 matter by its solid weights would have streamed together from 
 all sides to the lowest point nor could anything have gone on 
 under the canopy of heaven, no nor would there have been 
 a heaven nor sunlight at all, inasmuch as all matter, settling 
 down through infinite time past, would lie together in a heap. 
 But as it is, sure enough no rest is given to the bodies of the 
 first-beginnings, because there is no lowest point at all, to which 
 they might stream together as it were, and where they might 
 take up their positions. All things are ever going on in cease- 
 less motion from all quarters and bodies of matter stirred to 
 action are supplied from beneath out of infinite space. There- 
 fore the nature of room and the space of the unfathomable void 
 is such as bright thunderbolts cannot race through in their 
 course though gliding on through endless tract of time, no nor 
 lessen one jot the journey that remains to go by all their travel: 
 so huge a room is spread out on all sides for things without any 
 bounds in all directions round. 
 
 Again nature keeps the sum of things from setting any limit 
 to itself, since she compels body to be ended by void and void 
 in turn by body, so that either she thus renders the universe 
 infinite by this alternation of the two, or else the one of the two, 
 in case the other does not bound it, with its single nature 
 stretches nevertheless immeasurably. [But void I have already 
 proved to be infinite ; therefore matter must be infinite : for if 
 void were infinite, and matter finite] neither sea nor earth nor 
 the glittering quarters of heaven nor mortal kind nor the holy
 
 10(5 — 1056 I - 
 
 -3 
 
 bodies of the gods could hold their ground one brief passing 
 hour ; since forced asunder from its union the store of matter 
 would be dissolved and borne along the mighty void, or rather I 
 should say would never have combined to produce any thing, 
 since scattered abroad it could never have been brought toge- 
 ther. For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of 
 things station themselves each in its right place guided by 
 keen-sighted intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say 
 what motions each should assume, but because many in number 
 and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe they 
 are driven and tormented by blows during infinite time past, 
 after trying motions and unions of every kind at length they 
 fall into arrangements such as those out of which this our sum 
 of things has been formed, and by which too it is preserved 
 through many great years when once it has been thrown into 
 the appropriate motions, and causes the streams to replenish 
 the greedy sea with copious river waters and the earth, fostered 
 by the heat of the sun, to renew its produce, and the race of 
 living things to come up and flourish, and the gliding fires of 
 ether to live : all which these several things could in no wise 
 bring to pass, unless a store of matter could rise up from infi- 
 nite space, out of which store they are wont to make up in due 
 season whatever has been lost. For as the nature of living things 
 when robbed of food loses its body and wastes away, thus all 
 things must be broken up, as soon as matter has ceased to be 
 supplied, diverted in any way from its proper course. Nor can 
 blows from without hold together all the sum which has been 
 brought into union. They can it is true frequently strike upon 
 and stay a part, until others come and the sum can be com- 
 pleted. At times however they are compelled to rebound and 
 in so doing grant to the first-beginnings of things room and time 
 for flight, to enable them to get clear away from the mass in 
 union. Wherefore again and again I repeat many bodies must 
 .rise up ; nay more that the blows themselves may not fail, there 
 is need of an infinite supply of matter on all sides. 
 
 And herein, Memmius, be far from believing this, that all 
 things as they say press to the centre of the sum, and that for 
 this reason the nature of the world stands fast without any 
 strokes from the outside and the uppermost and lowest parts 
 cannot part asunder in any direction, because all things have
 
 26 1 X050 — ii02 
 
 been always pressing towards the centre (if you can believe 
 that anything can rest upon itself); or that the heavy bodies 
 which are beneath the earth all press upwards and are at rest 
 on the earth, turned topsyturvy, just like the images of things 
 which we see before us in the waters. In the same way too 
 they maintain that living things walk head downwards and 
 cannot tumble out of earth into the parts of heaven lying be- 
 low them any more than our bodies can spontaneously fly into 
 the quarters of heaven ; that when those see the sun, we behold 
 the stars of night; and that they share with us time about the 
 seasons of heaven and pass nights equal in length to our days. 
 But groundless [error has devised such dreams] for fools, be- 
 cause they have embraced [false principles of reason.] For 
 there can be no centre [where the universe is] infinite ; no nor, 
 even if there were a centre, could anything take up a position 
 there [any more on that account] than for some quite different 
 reason [be driven away.] For all room and space, which we 
 term void, must through centre, through no-centre alike give 
 place to heavy bodies, in whatever directions their motions tend. 
 Nor is there any spot of such a sort that when bodies have 
 reached it, they can lose their force of gravity and stand upon 
 void; and that again which is void must not serve to support 
 anything, but must, as its nature craves, continually give place. 
 Things cannot therefore in such a way be held in union, o'er- 
 mastered by love of a centre. 
 
 Again since they do not suppose that all bodies press to the 
 centre, but only those of earth and water, and such things as 
 are held together by a body of an earthly nature, the fluid of 
 the sea and great waters from the mountains; while on the 
 other hand they teach that the subtle element of air and hot 
 fires at the same time are carried away from the centre and 
 that for this reason the whole ether round bickers with signs 
 and the sun's flame is fed throughout the blue of heaven, be- 
 cause heat flying from the centre all gathers together there, 
 and that the topmost boughs of trees could not put forth leaves 
 at all, unless from time to time [nature supplied] food from the 
 earth to each, [their reasons are not only false, but they con- 
 tradict each other. Space I have already proved to be infinite; 
 and space being infinite matter as I have said must also be in- 
 finite] lest after the winged fashion of flames the walls of the
 
 iio3— ni? 1 2 7 
 
 world should suddenly break up and fly abroad along the 
 mighty void, and all other things follow for like reasons and 
 the innermost quarters of heaven tumble in from above and 
 the earth in an instant withdraw from beneath our feet and 
 amid the commingled ruins of things in it and of heaven, ruins 
 unloosing the first bodies, should wholly pass away along the 
 unfathomable void, so that in a moment of time not a wrack 
 should be left behind, nothing save untenanted space and view- 
 less first-beginnings. For on whatever side you shall first de- 
 termine first bodies to be wanting, this side will be the gate 
 of death for things, through this the whole crowd of matter 
 will fling itself abroad. 
 
 If you will well learn these things, then carried to the end 
 with slight trouble [you will be able by yourself to understand 
 all the rest.] For one thing after another will grow clear and 
 dark night will not rob you of the road, to keep you from sur=- 
 veying the utmost ends of nature: in such wise things will 
 light the torch for other things.
 
 i— 18 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 
 
 BOOK SECOND 
 
 It is sweet, when on the great sea the winds trouble its 
 waters, to behold from land another's deep distress; not that it 
 is a pleasure and delight that any should be afflicted, but be- 
 cause it is sweet to see from what evils you are yourself exempt. 
 It is sweet also to look upon the mighty struggles of war ar- 
 rayed along the plains without sharing yourself in the danger. 
 But nothing is more welcome than to hold the lofty and serene 
 positions well fortified by the learning of the wise, from which 
 you may look down upon others and see them wandering all 
 abroad and going astray in their search for the path of life, see 
 the contest among them of intellect, the rivalry of birth, the 
 striving night and day with surpassing effort to struggle up to 
 the summit of power and be masters of the world. O miserable 
 minds of men ! o blinded breasts ! in what darkness of life and 
 in how great dangers is passed all this term of life whatever its 
 duration ! not choose to see that nature craves for itself nothing 
 more than that the man from whose body pain holds aloof, 
 should in mind enjoy a feeling of pleasure exempt from care 
 and fear? Therefore we see that for the body's nature but 
 little is at all needed in order that such things as take away 
 pain, should be able to spread before us many delights as well. 
 At times nature on her part wants no greater solace, although 
 there are no golden images of youths through the house holding 
 in their right hands flaming lamps, for supply of light to the 
 nightly banquet, though the house shines not with silver nor 
 glitters with gold nor do the pannelled and gilded roofs reecho
 
 cS-70 II 29 
 
 to the harp, what time, though these things be wanting, they 
 spread themselves in groups on the soft grass beside a stream 
 of water under the boughs of a high tree and at no great cost 
 pleasantly refresh their bodies, above all when the weather 
 smiles and the seasons of the year besprinkle the green grass 
 with flowers. Nor do hot fevers sooner quit the body, if you 
 toss about on pictured tapestry and blushing purple, than if you 
 must lie under a poor man's blanket. Wherefore since treasures 
 avail nothing in respect of our body nor birth nor the glory of 
 kingly power, advancing farther you must hold that they are of 
 no service to the mind as well; unless may be when you see 
 your legions swarm over the ground of the campus waging the 
 mimicry of war, strengthened flank and rear by powerful re- 
 serves and great force of cavalry, and you marshall them equip- 
 ped in arms and animated with one spirit, thereupon you find 
 that religious scruples scared by these things fly panic-stricken 
 from the mind; and that then fears of death leave the breast 
 unembarrassed and free from care, when you see your fleet 
 swarm forth and spread itself far and wide. But if we see that 
 these things are food for laughter and mere mockeries, and in 
 good truth the fears of men and dogging cares dread not the 
 clash of arms and cruel weapons, if unabashed they mix among 
 kings and kesars and stand not in awe of the glitter from gold 
 nor the brilliant sheen of the purple robe, how can you doubt 
 that this is wholly the prerogative of reason, when the whole 
 of life withal is a struggle in the dark? For even as children 
 are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we 
 in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more to be 
 dreaded than those which children shudder at in the dark and 
 fancy sure to be. This terror therefore and darkness of mind 
 must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering- 
 shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature. 
 
 Now mark and I will explain by what motion the begetting 
 bodies of matter do beget different things and after they are 
 begotten again break them up, and by what force they are com- 
 pelled so to do and what velocity is given to them for travelling 
 through the great void : do you mind to give heed to my words. 
 For verily matter does not cohere inseparably massed together, 
 since we see that everything wanes and perceive that all things 
 ebb as it were by length of time and that age withdraws them
 
 30 II 
 
 ro— us 
 
 from our sight, though yet the sura is seen to remain unimpaired 
 by reason that the bodies which quit each thing, lessen the 
 things from which they go, gift with increase those to which 
 they have come, compel the former to grow old, the latter to 
 come to their prime, and yet abide not with these. Thus the 
 sum of things is ever renewed and mortals live by a reciprocal 
 dependency. Some nations wax, others wane, and in a brief 
 space the races of living things are changed and like runners 
 hand over the lamp of life. 
 
 If you think that first-beginnings of things can stop and by 
 stopping give birth to new motions of things, you wander far 
 astray from the path of true reason: since they travel about 
 through void, the first-beginnings of things must all move on 
 either by their own weight or haply by the stroke of another. 
 For when during motion they have, as often happens, met and 
 clashed, the result is a sudden rebounding in an opposite direc- 
 tion ; and no wonder, since they are most hard and of weight 
 proportioned to their solidity and nothing behind gets in their 
 way. And that you may more clearly see that all bodies of 
 matter are in restless movement, remember that there is no 
 lowest point in the sum of the universe, and that first bodies 
 have not where to take their stand, since space is without end 
 and limit and extends immeasurably in all directions round, as 
 I have shewn in many words and as has been proved by sure 
 reason. Since this then is a certain truth, sure enough no rest 
 is given to first bodies throughout the unfathomable void, but 
 driven on rather in ceaseless and varied motion they partly, 
 after they have pressed together, rebound leaving great spaces 
 between, while in part they are so dashed away after the stroke 
 as to leave but small spaces between. And all that form a 
 denser aggregation when brought together and rebound leaving 
 trifling spaces between, held fast by their own close-tangled 
 shapes, these form enduring bases of stone and unyielding bodies 
 of iron and such like. But those which spring far off and 
 rebound far leaving great spaces between, these furnish us with 
 thin air and bright sunlight. And many more travel along the 
 great void, which have been thrown off from the unions of things 
 or though admitted have yet in no case been able likewise to 
 assimilate their motions. Of this truth, even as I relate it, we 
 have a representation and picture always going on before our
 
 "3—155 H 31 
 
 eyes and present to us: observe whenever the rays are let in 
 and pour the sunlight through the dark chambers of houses: 
 you will see many minute bodies in many ways through the 
 apparent void mingle in the midst of the light of the rays, and 
 as in never-ending conflict skirmish and give battle combating 
 in troops and never halting, driven about in frequent meetings 
 and partings; so that you may guess from this, what it is for 
 first-beginnings of things to be ever tossing about in the great 
 void. So far as it goes, a small thing may give an illustration 
 of great things and put you on the track of knowledge. And 
 for this reason too it is meet that you should give greater heed 
 to these bodies which are seen to tumble about in the sun's 
 rays, because such tumblings imply that motions also of matter 
 latent and unseen are at the bottom. For you will observe 
 many things there impelled by unseen blows to change their 
 course and driven back to return the way they came now this 
 way now that way in all directions round. All you are to know 
 derive this restlessness from the first-beginnings. For the first- 
 beginnings of things move first of themselves ; next those bodies 
 which form a small aggregate and come nearest so to say to the 
 powers of the first-beginnings, are impelled and set in move- 
 ment by the unseen strokes of those first bodies, and they in 
 turn stir up bodies which are a little larger. Thus motion 
 mounts up from the first-beginnings and step by step issues forth 
 to our senses, so that those bodies also move, which we can dis- 
 cern in the sunlight, though it is not clearly seen by what blows 
 they so act. 
 
 Now what velocity is given to bodies of matter, you may 
 apprehend, Memmius, in few words from this: when morning 
 first sprinkles the earth with fresh light and the different birds 
 flitting about the pathless woods through the buxom air fill all 
 places with their clear notes, we see it to be plain and evident 
 to all how suddenly the sun after rising is wont at such a time 
 to overspread all things and clothe them with his light. But 
 that heat which the sun emits and that bright light pass not 
 through empty void; and therefore they are forced to travel 
 more slowly, until they cleave through the waves so to speak of 
 air. Nor do the several minute bodies of heat pass on one by 
 one, but closely entangled and massed together; whereby at one 
 and the same time they are pulled back by one another and
 
 3- n . 56- 195 
 
 are impeded from without, so that they are forced to travel 
 more slowly. But the first-beginnings which are of solid single- 
 ness, when they pass through empty void and nothing delays 
 them from without and they themselves, single from the nature 
 of their parts, are borne with headlong endeavour towards the 
 one single spot to which their efforts tend, must sure enough 
 surpass in velocity and be carried along much more swiftly than 
 the light of the sun, and race through many times the extent of 
 space in the same time in which the beams of the sun fill the 
 heaven throughout. * nor follow up the several first-beginnings 
 to see by what law each thing goes on. 
 
 But some in opposition to this, being ignorant of matter, 
 believe that nature cannot without the providence of the gods 
 in such nice conformity to the ways of men vary the seasons of 
 the year and bring forth crops, ay and procure all the other 
 things, which divine pleasure the guide of life prompts men to 
 approach, escorting them in person and enticing them by her 
 fondlings to continue their races through the arts of Venus, that 
 mankind may not come to an end. Now when they suppose 
 that the gods designed all things for the sake of men, they seem 
 to me in all respects to have strayed most widely from true 
 reason. For even if I did not know what first-beginnings are, 
 yet this, judging by the very arrangements of heaven, I would 
 venture to affirm, and led by many other circumstances to 
 maintain, that the nature of the world has by no means been 
 made for us by divine power: so great are the defects with 
 which it stands encumbered. All which, Memmius, we will 
 hereafter make clear to you: we will now go on to explain what 
 remains to be told of motions. 
 
 Now methinks is the place, herein to prove this point also 
 that no bodily thing can by its own power be borne upwards 
 and travel upwards ; that the bodies of flames may not in this 
 matter lead you into error. For they are begotten with an 
 upward tendency, and in the same direction receive increase, 
 and goodly crops and trees grow upwards, though their weights, 
 so far as in them is, all tend downwards. And when fires leap 
 to the roofs of houses and with swift flame lick up rafters and 
 beams, we are not to suppose that they do so spontaneously 
 without a force pushing them up. Even thus blood discharged 
 from our body spirts out and springs up on high and scatters
 
 •95-240 II 33 
 
 gore about. See you not too with what force the liquid of water 
 spits out logs and beams? the more we have pushed and forced 
 them deep down and have pressed them in, many of us together, 
 with all our might and much painful effort, with the greater 
 avidity it vomits them up and casts them forth, so that they rise 
 and start out more than half their length. And yet methinks 
 we doubt not that these, so far as in them is, are all borne 
 downwards through the empty void. In the same way flames 
 also ought to be able, when squeezed out, to mount upward 
 through the air, although their weights, so far as in them is, 
 strive to draw them down. See you not too that the nightly 
 meteors of heaven as they fly aloft draw after them long trails 
 of flames in whatever direction nature has given them a passage ? 
 Do you not perceive stars and meteors fall to the earth? The 
 sun also from the height of heaven sheds its heat on all sides 
 and sows the fields with light; to the earth therefore as well the 
 sun's heat tends. Lightnings also you see fly athwart the rains : 
 now from this side now from that fires burst from the clouds and 
 rush about; the force of flame falls to the earth all round. 
 
 This point too herein we wish you to apprehend : when bodies 
 are borne downwards sheer through void, at quite uncertain 
 times and uncertain points of space they swerve a little from 
 their equal poise: you just and only just can call it a change of 
 inclination. If they were not used to swerve, they all would fall 
 down, like drops of rain, through the deep void, and no clashing 
 would have been begotten nor blow produced among the first- 
 beginnings : thus nature never would have produced aught. 
 
 But if haply any one believes that heavier bodies, as they 
 are carried more quickly sheer through space, can fall from 
 above on the lighter and so beget blows able to produce beget- 
 ting motions, he goes most widely astray from true reason. For 
 whenever bodies fall through water and thin air, they must 
 quicken their descents in proportion to their weights, because 
 the body of water and subtle nature of air cannot retard eveiy- 
 thing in equal degree, but more readily give way, overpowered 
 by the heavier: on the other hand empty void cannot offer 
 resistance to anything in any direction at any time, but must, 
 as its nature craves, continually give way; and for this reason 
 all things must be moved and borne along with equal velocity 
 though of unequal weights through the unresisting void. There- 
 
 i)
 
 34 51 -240— 2S2 
 
 fore heavier things will never be able to fall from above on 
 lighter nor of themselves to beget blows sufficient to produce 
 the varied motions by which nature carries on things. Where- 
 fore again and again I say bodies must swerve a little; and yet 
 not more than the least possible ; lest we be found to be imagi n- 
 ing oblique motions and this the reality should refute. For 
 this we see to be plain and evident, that weights, so far as in 
 them is, cannot travel obliquely, when they fall from above, at 
 least so far as you can perceive ; but that nothing swerves in any 
 case from the straight course, who is there that cau perceive ? 
 
 Again if all motion is ever linked together and a new motion 
 ever springs from another in a fixed order and first-beginnings 
 do not by swerving make some commencement of motion to 
 break through the decrees of fate, that cause follow not cause 
 from everlasting, whence have all living creatures here on earth, 
 whence, I ask, has been wrested from the fates the power by 
 which we go forward whither the will leads each, by which like- 
 wise we change the direction of our motions neither at a fixed 
 time nor fixed place, but when and where the 'mind itself has 
 prompted? For beyond a doubt in these things his own will 
 makes for each a beginning and from this beginning motions 
 are welled through the limbs. See you not too, when the bar- 
 riers are thrown open at a given moment, that yet the eager 
 powers of the horses cannot start forward so instantaneously as 
 the mind itself desires? the whole store of matter through the 
 whole body must be sought out, in order that stirred up through 
 all the frame it may follow with undivided effort the bent of the 
 mind; so that you see the beginning of motion is born from the 
 heart, and the action first commences in the will of the mind 
 and next is transmitted through the whole body and frame. 
 Quite different is the case when we move on propelled by a 
 stroke inflicted by the strong might and strong compulsion of 
 another; for then it is quite clear that all the matter of the 
 whole body moves and is hurried on against our inclination, 
 until the will has reined it in throughout the limbs. Do you 
 see then in this case that, though an outward force often pushes 
 men on and compels them frequently to advance against their 
 will and to be hurried headlong on, there yet is something in 
 our breast sufficient to struggle against and resist it? And 
 Avhcn too this something chooses, the store of matter is com-
 
 a8*— 3*4 H 35 
 
 polled sometimes to change its course through the limbs and 
 frame, and after it has been forced forward, is reined in and 
 settles back into its place. Wherefore in seeds too you must 
 admit the same, admit that besides blows and weights there is 
 another cause of motions, from which this power of free action 
 has been begotten iu us, since we see that nothing can come 
 from nothing. For weight forbids that all things be done by- 
 blows through as it were an outward force ; but that the mind 
 itself does not feel an internal necessity in all its actions and is 
 not as it were overmastered and compelled to bear and put up 
 with this, is caused by a minute swerving of first-beginnings at 
 no fixed part of space and no fixed time. 
 
 Nor was the store of matter ever more closely massed nor 
 held apart by larger spaces between; for nothing is either added 
 to its bulk or lost to it. Wherefore the bodies of the first- 
 beginnings in time gone by moved in the same way in which 
 now they move, and will ever hereafter be borne along in like 
 manner, and the things which have been wont to be begotten 
 will be begotten after the same law and will be and will grow 
 and will wax in strength so far as is given to each by the decrees 
 of nature. And no force can change the sum of things; for 
 there is nothing outside, either into which any kind of matter 
 can escape out of the universe or out of which a new supply can 
 arise and burst into the universe and change all the nature of 
 things and alter their motions. 
 
 And herein you need not wonder at this, that though the 
 first-beginnings of things are all in motion, yet the sum is seen 
 to rest in supreme repose, unless where a thing exhibits motions 
 with its individual body. For all the nature of first things lies 
 far away from our senses beneath their ken; and therefore since 
 they are themselves beyond what you can see, they must with- 
 draw from sight their motions as well; and the more so that the 
 things which we can see, do yet often conceal their motions 
 when a great distance off. Thus often the woolly flocks as they 
 crop the glad pastures on a hill, creep on whither the grass 
 jewelled with fresh dew summons and invites each, and the 
 lambs fed to the full gambol and playfully butt ; all which ob- 
 jects appear to us from a distance to be blended together and 
 to rest like a white spot on a green hill. Again when mighty 
 legions fill with their movements all parts of the plains waging 
 
 j. 2
 
 36 II 324-366 
 
 the mimicry of war, the glitter then lifts itself up to the sky 
 and the whole earth round gleams with brass and beneath a 
 noise is raised by the mighty trampling of men and the moun- 
 tains stricken by the shouting reecho the voices to the stars of 
 heaven, and horsemen fly about and suddenly wheeling scour 
 across the middle of the plains, shaking them with the vehe- 
 mence of their charge. And yet there is some spot on the high 
 hills, seen from which they appear to stand still and to rest on 
 the plains as a bright spot. 
 
 Now mark and next in order apprehend of what kind and 
 how widely differing in their forms are the beginnings of all 
 things, how varied by manifold diversities of shape; not that a 
 scanty number are possessed of a like form, but because as a 
 rule they do not all resemble one the other. And no wonder; 
 for since there is so great a store of them that, as I have shewn, 
 there is no end or sum, they must sure enough not one and all 
 be marked by an equal bulk and like shape, one with another. 
 The race of man vouches the fact and the mute swimming 
 shoals of the scaly tribes and the blithe herds and wild beasts 
 and the different birds which haunt the gladdening watering 
 spots about river-banks and springs and pools, and those which 
 flit about and throng the pathless woods: go and take any one 
 you like in any one kind, and you will yet find that they differ 
 in their shapes, every one from every other. And in no other 
 way could child recognise mother or mother child; and this we 
 see that they all can do, and that they are just as well known 
 to one another as human beings are. Thus often in front of the 
 beauteous shrines of the gods a calf falls sacrificed beside the 
 incense-burning altars, and spirts from its breast a warm stream 
 of blood; but the bereaved mother as she ranges over the green 
 lawns knows the footprints stamped on the ground by the cloven 
 hoofs, scanning with her eyes every spot to see if she can any- 
 where behold her lost youngling: then she fills with her moan- 
 ings the leafy wood as she desists from her search and again and 
 again goes back to the stall pierced to the heart by the loss of 
 her calf; nor can the soft willows and grass quickened with dew 
 ami those rivers gliding level with their banks comfort her mind 
 and put away the care that has entered into her, nor can other 
 forms of calves throughout the glad pastures divert her mind 
 and ease it of its care : so persistently she seeks something
 
 3 66- 4 o8 II n 
 
 special and known. Again the tender kids with their shaking- 
 voices know their horned dams and the butting lambs the Hocks 
 of bleating sheep: thus they run, as nature craves, each without 
 foil to its own udder of milk. Lastly in the case of any kind of 
 corn you like you will yet find that any one grain is not so 
 similar to any other in the same kind, but that there runs 
 through them some difference to distinguish the forms. On a 
 like principle of difference we see the class of shells paint the 
 lap of earth, where the sea with gentle waves beats on the thirsty 
 sand of the winding shore. Therefore again and again I say it 
 is necessary for like reasons that first-beginnings of things, since 
 they exist by nature and are not made by hand after the exact 
 model of one, should fly about with shapes in some cases differ- 
 ing one from the other. 
 
 It is right easy for us on such a principle to explain why 
 the fire of lightning has much more power to pierce than ours 
 which is born of earthly pinewood : you may say that the hea- 
 venly fire of lightning subtle as it is is formed of smaller shapes 
 and therefore passes through openings which this our fire can- 
 not pass born as it is of woods and sprung from pine. Again 
 light passes through horn, but rain is thrown off. Why ? if not 
 that those first bodies of light are smaller than those of which 
 the nurturing liquid of water is made. And quickly as we see 
 wines flow through a strainer, sluggish oil on the other hand 
 is slow to do so, because sure enough it consists of elements 
 either larger in size or more hooked and tangled in one another, 
 and therefore it is that the first-beginnings of things cannot so 
 readily be separated from each other and severally stream 
 through the several openings of any thing. 
 
 Moreover the liquids honey and milk excite a pleasant sen- 
 sation of tongue when held in the mouth; but on the other 
 hand the nauseous nature of wormwood and of harsh centaury 
 writhes the mouth with a noisome flavour; so that you may 
 easily see that the things which are able to affect the senses 
 pleasantly, consist of smooth and round elements; while all 
 those on the other hand which are found to be bitter and 
 harsh, are held in connexion by particles that are more hooked 
 and for this reason are wont to tear open passages into our 
 senses and in entering in to break through the body. 
 
 All thinsrs in short which are agreeable to the senses and
 
 
 
 8 IT 408—450 
 
 all which are unpleasant to the feeling are mutually repugnant, 
 formed as they are out of an unlike first shape ; lest haply you 
 suppose that the harsh grating of the creaking saw consists of 
 elements as smooth as those of tuneful melodies which mu- 
 sicians wake into life with nimble fingers and give shape to on 
 strings; or suppose that the first-beginnings are of like shape 
 which pass into the nostrils of men, when noisome carcases are 
 burning, and when the stage is fresh sprinkled with Cilician 
 saffron, while the altar close by exhales Panchaean odours; or 
 decide that the pleasant colours of things which are able to 
 feast the eyes are formed of a seed like to the seed of those 
 which make the pupil smart and force it to shed tears or from 
 their disgusting aspect look hideous and foul. For every shape 
 which gratifies the senses has been formed not without a 
 smoothness in its elements; but on the other hand whatever is 
 painful and harsh, has been produced not without some rough- 
 ness of matter. There are too some elements which are with 
 justice thought to be neither smooth nor altogether hooked 
 with barbed points, but rather to have minute angles slightly 
 projecting, such as can tickle rather than hurt the senses; of 
 which class tartar of wine is formed and the flavours of ele- 
 campane. Again that hot fires and cold frost have fangs of a 
 dissimilar kind wherewith to pierce the senses, is proved to us 
 by the touch of each. For touch, touch, ye holy divinities of 
 the gods, is feeling of the body, either when an extraneous 
 thing makes its way in, or when a thing which is born in the 
 body hurts it, or gives pleasure as it issues forth by the birth- 
 bestowing ways of Venus, or when from some collision the 
 seeds are disordered within the body and distract the feeling 
 by their mutual disturbance; as if haply you were yourself to 
 strike with the hand any part of the body you please and so 
 make trial. Wherefore the shapes of the first-beginnings must 
 differ widely, since they are able to give birth to different 
 feelings. 
 
 Again things which look to us hard and dense must consist 
 of particles more hooked together, and be held in union be- 
 cause welded all through with branch-like elements. In this 
 class first of all diamond stones stand in foremost line inured to 
 despise blows, and stout blocks of basalt and the strength of 
 hard iron and brass bolts which scream out as they hold fast to
 
 450—49^ 
 
 II 39 
 
 their staples. Those things which are liquid and of fluid body 
 ought to consist more of smooth and round elements; for the 
 several drops have no mutual cohesion and their onward course 
 too has a ready flow downwards. All things lastly which you 
 see disperse themselves in an instant, as smoke mists and 
 flames, if they do not consist entirely of smooth and round, 
 must yet not be held fast by closely tangled elements, so that 
 they may be able to pierce the body and enter into loose sub- 
 stances, yet not stick together : thus you may easily know, that 
 whatever we see in this way conveyed to the senses, consists 
 not of tangled but of pointed elements. Do not however hold 
 it to be wonderful that some things which are fluid you see to 
 be likewise bitter, for instance the sea's moisture: because it is 
 fluid, it consists of smooth and round particles, and many rough 
 bodies mixed up with these produce pains; and yet they must 
 not be hooked so as to hold together: you are to know that 
 though rough, they are yet spherical, so that while they roll 
 freely on, they may at the same time hurt the senses. And 
 that you may more readily believe that with smooth are mixed 
 rough first-beginnings from which Neptune's body is made bit- 
 ter, there is a way of separating these, and of seeing how the 
 fresh water, when it is often filtered through the earth, flows 
 by itself into a trench and sweetens; for it leaves above the 
 first-beginnings of the nauseous saltness, inasmuch as the rough 
 particles can more readily stay behind in the earth. 
 
 And now that I have shewn this, I will go on to link to it 
 a truth which depends on this and from this draws its proof: 
 the first-beginnings of things have different shapes, but the 
 number of shapes is finite. If this were not so, then once 
 more it would follow that some seeds must be of infinite bulk 
 of body. For since in one and the same small size of any first 
 body you like the shapes cannot vary much from one another: — 
 say for instance that first bodies consist of three least parts, or 
 augment them by a few more; when to wit in all possible ways, 
 by placing each in turn at the top and at the bottom, by mak- 
 ing the right change places with the left, you shall have tried 
 all those parts of one first body and found what manner of 
 shape each different arrangement gives to the whole of that 
 body, if after all this haply you shall wish still to vary the 
 shapes, you will have to add other parts: it will next follow
 
 40 II 
 
 493—534 
 
 that for like reasons the arrangement will require other parts, 
 if haply you shall wish still again to vary the shapes: — from 
 all this it results that increase of bulk in the body follows upon 
 newness of the shapes. Wherefore you cannot possibly believe 
 that seeds have an infinite variety of forms, lest you force some 
 to be of a monstrous hugeness, which as I have above shewn 
 cannot be proved. Moreover I tell you barbaric robes and ra- 
 diant Meliboean purple dipped in Thessalian dye of shells [and 
 the hues which are displayed] by the golden brood of peacocks 
 steeped in laughing beauty would all be thrown aside surpassed 
 by some new colour of things; the smell of myrrh would be 
 despised and the flavours of honey, and the melodies of the 
 swan and Phoebean tunes set off by the varied play of strings 
 would in like sort be suppressed and silenced; for something 
 ever would arise more surpassing than the rest. All things 
 likewise might fall back into worse states, even as we have said 
 they might advance to better; for reversely too one thing would 
 be more noisome than all other things to nostril ear and eye 
 and taste. Now since these things are not so, but a fixed limit 
 has been assigned to things which bounds their sum on each 
 side, you must admit that matter also has a finite number of 
 different shapes. Once more from summer fires to chill frosts 
 a definite path is traced out and in like manner is again tra- 
 velled back ; for cold and heat lie on the outside, and moderate 
 warmths midway between both, filling up in succession the 
 sum. Therefore things produced differ by finite degrees, since 
 on each side they are marked off by points, one at one, another 
 at the other end, molested on the one hand by flames, on the 
 other by stiffening frosts. 
 
 And now that I have shewn this, I will go on to link to it 
 a truth which depends on this and from this draws its proof: 
 the first-beginnings of things which have a like shape one with 
 the other, are infinite in number. For since the difference of 
 forms is finite, those which are like must be infinite or the 
 sum of matter will be finite, which I proved not to be the case, 
 when I shewed in my verses that the minute bodies of matter 
 from everlasting continually uphold the sum of things through 
 an uninterrupted succession of blows on all sides. For though 
 you see that some animals are rarer than others and discern a 
 less fruitful nature in them, yet in another quarter and spot
 
 534—575 II 41 
 
 and in distant lands there may be many of that kind and the 
 full tale may be made up; jnst as we see that in the class of 
 four-footed beasts snake-handed elephants are elsewhere espe- 
 cially numerous; for India is so fenced about with an ivory 
 rampart made out of many thousands of these, that its inner 
 parts cannot be reached, so great is the quantity of brutes, of 
 which we see but very few samples. But yet though I should 
 grant this point too: be there even as you will some one thing 
 sole in its kind existing alone with a body that had birth, and 
 let no other thing resemble it in the whole world; yet unless 
 there shall be an infinite supply of matter out of which it may 
 be conceived and brought into being, it cannot be produced, 
 and, more than this, it cannot have growth and food. For 
 though I should assume this point also that birth-giving bodies 
 of some one thing are tossed about in finite quantity through- 
 out the universe, whence, where, by what force and in what 
 way shall they meet together and combine in so vast a sea, 
 such an alien medley of matter? They have methinks no way 
 of uniting; but even as when great and numerous shipwrecks 
 have occurred, the great sea is wont to tumble about banks 
 rudders yards prow masts and swimmiDg oars, so that poop- 
 fittings are seen floating about along every shore and utter to 
 mortals a warning to try to shun the snares and violence and 
 guile of the faithless sea, and never at any time to trust to it, 
 when the winning face of calm ocean laughs treacherously ; thus 
 too if you shall once decide that certain first-beginnings are 
 finite, different currents of matter must scatter and tumble 
 them about through all time, so that they can never be brought 
 into union and combine, nor abide in any union nor grow up 
 and increase. But plain matter of fact shews that each of these 
 results manifestly does take place, that things can be brought 
 into being and when begotten advance in growth. It is clear 
 then that in any class you like the first-beginnings of things are 
 infinite, out of which all supplies are furnished. 
 
 Thus then neither can death-dealing motions keep the 
 mastery always nor entomb existence for evermore, nor on the 
 other hand can the birth and increase giving motions of things 
 preserve them always after they are born. Thus the war of 
 first-beginnings waged from eternity is carried on with dubious 
 issue : now here now there the life-bringing elements of things
 
 42 II 575-6'7 
 
 get the mastery and are o'ermastered in turn : with the funeral 
 wail is blended the cry which babies raise when they enter the 
 borders of light ; and no night ever followed day nor morning 
 night that heard not mingling with the sickly infant's cries 
 wailings the attendants on death and black funeral. 
 
 And herein it is proper you should keep under seal, and 
 guard, there consigned, in faithful memory this truth, that 
 there is nothing whose nature is apparent to sense, which con- 
 sists of one kind of first-beginnings ; nothing which is not formed 
 by a mixing of seed. And whenever a thing possesses in itself 
 in larger measure many powers and properties, in that measure 
 it shews that there are in it the greatest number of different 
 kinds and varied shapes of first-beginnings. First of all the 
 earth has in her first bodies out of which springs rolling cool- 
 ness along replenish without fail the boundless sea, she has 
 bodies out of which fires rise up ; for in many spots the earth's 
 crust is on fire and burns, though headstrong Aetna rages with 
 fires of surpassing force. Then too she has bodies out of which 
 she can raise for mankind goodly crops and joyous trees, out 
 of which too she can supply to the mountain-ranging race of wild 
 beasts rivers leaves and glad pastures. Wherefore she has alone 
 been named great mother of gods and mother of beasts and 
 parent of our body. 
 
 Of her the old and learned poets of the Greeks have sung, 
 that [borne aloft on high-raised] seat in a chariot she drives a 
 pair of lions, teaching that the great earth hangs in the expanse 
 of air and that earth cannot rest on earth. To her chariot they 
 have yoked wild beasts, because a brood however savage ought 
 to be tamed and softened by the kind offices of parents. They 
 have encircled the top of her head with a mural crown, because 
 fortified in choice positions she sustains towns ; adorned with 
 which emblem the image of the divine mother is carried now- 
 a-days through wide lands in awe-inspiring state. Her different 
 nations after old-established ritual term Idean mother, and give 
 her for escort Phrygian bands, because they tell that from those 
 lands corn first began to be produced throughout the world. 
 They assign her galli, because they would shew by this type 
 that they who have done violence to the divinity of the mother 
 and have proved ungrateful to their parents, are to be deemed 
 unworthy to bring a living offspring into the borders of light.
 
 6 j S — 66 2 II 43 
 
 Tight-stretched tambourines and hollow cymbals resound all 
 round to the stroke of their open hands, and horns menace with 
 hoarse-sounding music, and the hollow pipe stirs their minds in 
 Phrygian mood. They carry weapons before them, emblems of 
 furious rage, meet to fill the thankless souls and godless breasts 
 of the rabble with terror for the divinity of the goddess. There- 
 fore when first borne in procession through great cities she 
 mutely enriches mortals with a blessing not expressed in words, 
 they straw all her path with brass and silver presenting her 
 with bounteous alms, and scatter over her a snow-shower of 
 roses, o'ershadowing the mother and her troops of attendants. 
 Here an armed band to whom the Greeks give the name of 
 Phrygian Curetes, in that it haply joins in the game of arms 
 and springs up in measure all dripping with blood, shaking 
 with its nodding the frightful crests upon the head, represents 
 the Dictaean Curetes who, as the story is, erst drowned in Crete 
 that infant cry of Jove, when the young band about the young 
 babe in rapid dance arms in hand to measured tread beat brass 
 on brass, that Saturn might not get him to consign to his de- 
 vouring jaws and stab the mother to the heart with a never- 
 healing wound. For these reasons they escort in arms the great 
 mother, or else because they mean by this sign that the goddess 
 preaches to men to be willing with arms and valour to defend 
 their country and be ready to be a safeguard and an ornament 
 to their parents. All which, well and beautifully as it is set 
 forth and told, is yet widely removed from true reason. For the 
 nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality 
 together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from 
 our concerns ; since exempt from every pain, exempt from all 
 dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting aught of us, it 
 is neither gained by favours nor moved by anger. And here if 
 any one thinks proper to call the sea Neptune and corn Ceres 
 and chooses rather to misuse the name of Bacchus than to utter 
 the term that belongs to that liquor, let us allow him to declare 
 that the earth is mother of the gods, if he only forbear in 
 earnest to stain his mind with foul religion. The earth however 
 is at all time without feeling, and because it receives into it the 
 first-beginnings of many things, it brings them forth in many 
 ways into the light of the sun. 
 
 And so the woolly flocks and the martial i>reed of horses aud
 
 44 II 662 — 7°4 
 
 horned herds, though often cropping the grass from one field 
 beneath the same canopy of heaven and slaking their thirst 
 from one stream of water, yet have all their life a dissimilar 
 appearance and retain the nature of their parents and severally 
 imitate their ways each after its kind : so great is the diversity 
 of matter in any kind of herbage, so great in every river. And 
 hence too any one you please out of the whole number of living 
 creatures is made up of bones blood veins heat moisture flesh 
 sinews ; and these things again differ widely from one another 
 and are composed of first-beginnings of unlike shape. Further- 
 more whatever things are set on fire and burned, store up in 
 their body, if nothing else, at least those particles, out of which 
 they may radiate fire and send out light and make sparks fly 
 and scatter embers all about. If you will go over all other 
 things by a like process of reasoning, you will thus find that 
 they conceal in their body the seeds of many things and contain 
 elements of various shapes. Again you see many things to 
 which are given at once both colour and taste together with 
 smell. These several properties in each thing must therefore 
 be made up of elements of different shapes ; for smell enters in 
 where colour passes not into the frame, colour too in one way, 
 taste in another makes its way into the senses ; so that you 
 know they differ in the particular shapes of their elements. 
 Therefore unlike forms unite into one mass and things are made 
 up of a mixture of seed. Throughout moreover these very 
 verses of ours you sec many elements common to many words, 
 though yet you must admit that the verses and words one with 
 another are different and composed of different elements; not 
 that but few letters which are in common run through them or 
 that no two words or verses one with another are made up 
 entirely of the same, but because as a rule they do not all 
 resemble one the other. Thus also though in other things there 
 are many first-beginnings common to many things, yet they can 
 make up one with the other a quite dissimilar whole; so that 
 men and corn and joyous trees may fairly be said to consist of 
 different elements. 
 
 And yet we are not to suppose that all things can be joined 
 together in all ways ; for then you would see prodigies produced 
 on all hands, forms springing up half man half beast and some- 
 times tall boughs .sprouting from the living body, and many
 
 7°4— 747 
 
 II 45 
 
 limbs of land-creatures joined with those' of sea-animals, nature 
 too throughout the all-bearing lands feeding chimeras which 
 breathed flames from hideous mouth. It is plain however that 
 nothing of the sort is done, since we see that all things pro- 
 duced from fixed seeds and a fixed mother can in growing pre- 
 serve the marks of their kind. This you are to know must take 
 place after a fixed law. For the particles suitable for each 
 thing from all kinds of food when inside the body pass into the 
 frame and joining on produce the appropriate motions ; but on 
 the other hand we see nature throw out on the earth those that 
 are alien, and many things with their unseen bodies fly out 
 of the body impelled by blows : those I mean which have not 
 been able to join on to any part nor when inside to feel in 
 unison with and adopt the vital motions. But lest you haply 
 suppose that living things alone are bound by these conditions, 
 such a law keeps all things within their limits. For even as 
 things begotten are in their whole nature all unlike one the 
 other, thus each must consist of first-beginnings of unlike shape ; 
 not that a scanty number are possessed of a like form, but 
 because as a rule they do not all resemble one the other. 
 Aefain since the seeds differ, there must be a difference in the 
 spaces between, the passages, the connexions, the weights, the 
 blows, the clashings, the motions ; all which not only disjoin 
 living bodies, but hold apart the lands and the whole sea, and 
 keep the whole heaven away from the earth. 
 
 Now mark, and apprehend precepts amassed by my wel- 
 come toil, lest haply you deem that those things which you see 
 with your eyes to be bright, because white are formed of white 
 principles, or that the things which are black are born from 
 black seed ; or that things which are steeped in any other 
 colour, bear that colour because the bodies of matter are dyed 
 with a colour like to it. For the bodies of matter have no 
 colour at all either like to the things or unlike. But if haply 
 it seems to you that no impression of the mind can throw itself 
 into these bodies, you wander far astray. For since men born 
 blind who have never beheld the light of the sun, do yet know 
 bodies by touch, you are to know that bodies can fall under the 
 ken of our mind too, though stained with no colour. Again 
 whatever things we ourselves touch in the thick darkness, we 
 do not perceive to be dyed with any colour. And since I prove
 
 4^ II 747-7S8 
 
 that this is the case, I will now shew that there are things 
 linked to no colour from the beginning of time. Well any 
 colour without any exception changes into any other ; and this 
 first-beginnings ought in no wise to do : something unchange- 
 able must remain over, that all things be not utterly reduced 
 to nothing. For whenever a thing changes and quits its proper 
 limits, at once this change of state is the death of that which 
 was before. Therefore mind not to dye with colour the seeds 
 of things, that you may not have all things altogether returning 
 to nothing. 
 
 Moreover if no quality of colour is assigned to first-begin- 
 nings and they are yet possessed of varied shapes out of which 
 they beget colours of every kind and change them about by 
 reason that it makes a great difference with what other seeds 
 and in what position the seeds are severally held in union and 
 what motions they mutually impart and receive, you can ex- 
 plain at once with the greatest ease why those things which 
 just before were of a black colour, may become all at once of 
 marble whiteness ; as the sea, when mighty winds have stirred 
 up its waters, is changed into white waves of the brightness 
 of marble : you may say that when the matter of that which we 
 often see to be black, has been mixed up anew and the arrange- 
 ment of its first-beginnings has been changed and some have 
 been added and some been taken away, the immediate result is 
 that it appears bright and white. But if the waters of the sea 
 consisted of azure seeds, they could in no wise become white ; 
 for however much you jumble together seeds which are azure, 
 they can never pass into a marble colour. But if the seeds 
 which make up the one unmixed brightness of the sea are dyed 
 some with one, some with other colours, just as often out of 
 different forms and varied shapes something square and of a 
 uniform figure is made up, in that case it were natural that as 
 we see unlike forms contained in the square, so we should see 
 in the water of the sea or in any other one and unmixed bright- 
 ness colours widely unlike and different to one another. More- 
 over the unlike figures do not in the least hinder or prevent the 
 whole figure from being a square on the outside ; but the vari- 
 ous colours of things are a let and hindrance to the whole things 
 being of a uniform brightness. 
 
 Then too the reason which lends and draws us on sometimes
 
 788—830 II 47 
 
 to assign colours to the first-beginnings of things, falls to the 
 ground, since white things are not produced from white, nor 
 those which are black from black, but out of things of various 
 colours. For white things will much more readily rise up and 
 be born from no colour than from a black or any other colour 
 which thwarts and opposes it. 
 
 Moreover since colours cannot exist without light and first- 
 beginnings of things do not come out into the light, you may 
 be sure they are clothed with no colour. For what colour can 
 there be in total darkness ? nay it changes in the light itself 
 according as its brightness comes from a straight or slanting 
 stroke of light. After this fashion the down which encircles 
 and crowns the nape and throat of doves shews itself in the sun : 
 at one time it is ruddy with the hue of bright pyropus ; at 
 another it appears by a certain way of looking at it to blend 
 with coral-red green emeralds. The tail of the peacock when it 
 is saturated with abundant light, changes in like fashion its 
 colours as it faces the sun. And since these colours are begot- 
 ten by a certain stroke of light, sure enough you must believe 
 that they cannot be produced without it. And since the pupil 
 receives into it a kind of blow, when it is said to perceive a 
 white colour, and then another, when it perceives black or any 
 other colour, and since it is of no moment with what colour 
 the things which you touch are provided, but rather with what 
 sort of shape they are furnished, you are to know that first- 
 beginnings have no need of colours, but give forth sensations 
 of touch varying according to their various shapes. 
 
 Moreover since no particular kind of colour is assigned to 
 particular shapes and every configuration of first-beginnings can 
 exist in any colour, why on a like principle are not the things 
 which are formed out of them in every kind o'erlaid with 
 colours of every kind ? For then it were natural that crows too 
 in flying should often display a white colour from white wings 
 and that swans should come to be black from a black seed, or 
 of any other different colour you please. 
 
 Again the more minute the parts are into which anything is 
 rent, the more you may perceive the colour fade away by little and 
 little and become extinct ; as for instance if a piece of purple is 
 torn into small shreds : when it has been plucked into separate 
 threads, the purple, and the scarlet far the most brilliant of
 
 4$ II 830—872 
 
 colours, arc quite effaced ; from which you may infer that the 
 shreds part with all their colour before they come back to the 
 seeds of things. 
 
 Lastly since you admit that all bodies do not utter a voice 
 nor emit a smell, for this reason you do not assign to all sounds 
 and smells. So also since we cannot perceive all things with 
 the eyes, you are to know that some things are as much denuded 
 of colour as others are without smell and devoid of sound, and 
 that the keen-discerning mind can just as w r ell apprehend these 
 things as it can take note of things which are destitute of other 
 qualities. 
 
 But lest haply you suppose that first bodies remain stripped 
 of colour alone, they are also wholly devoid of warmth and cold 
 and violent heat, and are judged to be barren of sound and 
 drained of moisture, and emit from their body no scent of their 
 own. Just as when you set about preparing the balmy liquid 
 of sweet marjoram and myrrh and the flower of spikenard which 
 gives forth to the nostrils a scent like nectar, before all you 
 should seek, so far as you may and can find it, the substance of 
 scentless oil, such as gives out no perfume to the nostrils, that 
 it may as little as possible meddle with and destroy by its own 
 pungency the odours mixed in its body and boiled up with it ; 
 for the same reason the first-beginnings of things must not 
 bring to the begetting of things a smell or sound of their own, 
 since they cannot discharge anything from themselves, and for 
 the same reason no taste either nor cold nor any heat moderate 
 or violent, and the like. For as these things, be they what 
 they may, are still liable to death, whether pliant with a soft, 
 brittle with a crumbling, or hollow with a porous body, they 
 must all be withdrawn from the first-beginnings, if we wish 
 to assign to things imperishable foundations for the whole sum 
 of existence to rest upon : that you may not have things return- 
 ing altogether to nothing. 
 
 To come to another point, whatever things we perceive to 
 have sense, you must yet admit to be all composed of senseless 
 first-beginnings: manifest tokens which are open to all to ap- 
 prehend, so far from refuting or contradicting this, do rather 
 themselves take us by the hand and constrain us to believe 
 that, as I say, living things are begotten from senseless things. 
 We may see in fact living worms spring out of stinking dung,
 
 872—913 II 49 
 
 when the soaked earth has gotten putridity after excessive rains: 
 and all things besides change in the same way: rivers leaves 
 and glad pastures change into cattle, cattle change their sub- 
 stance into our bodies, and often out of these the powers of wild 
 beasts and the bodies of the strong of wing are increased. 
 Therefore nature changes all foods into living bodies and engen- 
 ders out of them all the senses of living creatures, much in the 
 same way as she dissolves dry woods into flames and converts 
 all things into fires. Now do you see that it is of great moment 
 in what sort of arrangement the first-beginnings of things are 
 severally placed and with what others they are mixed up, when 
 they impart and receive motions ? 
 
 Then again what is that which strikes your mind, which 
 affects that mind and constrains it to give utterance to many 
 different thoughts, to save you from believing that the sensible 
 is begotten out of senseless things? Sure enough it is because 
 stones and wood and earth however mixed together are yet 
 unable to produce vital sense. This therefore it will be well to 
 remember herein, that I do not assert that the sensible and 
 sensations are forthwith begotten out of all things without ex- 
 ception which produce things; but that it is of great moment 
 first how minute the particles are which make up the sensible 
 thing and then what shape they possess and what in short they 
 are in their motions arrangements positions. None of which 
 requisites we find in woods and clods; and yet even these things, 
 when they have so to speak become rotten through the rains, 
 bring forth worms, because bodies of matter driven from their 
 ancient arrangements by a new condition are combined in the 
 same way as when living creatures are to be begotten. Next 
 they who hold that the sensible can be produced anew out of 
 other sensible things, in that case suppose those things, accus- 
 tomed thus to have sense, to be soft; for all sense is bound up 
 with flesh sinews veins ; which in everything we see to be soft 
 and formed of a mortal body. But even suppose that these 
 things can remain eternal: they must yet I presume either have 
 the sense of some part or else be deemed to possess a sense 
 similar to the entire living creatures. But the parts cannot 
 possibly have sense by themselves alone; for all sense of the 
 different members has reference to something else ; nor can the 
 hand when severed from us nor any other part of the body 
 
 E
 
 50 II 9*3—953 
 
 whatever by itself maintain sensation. It remains to assume 
 that they resemble the entire living creatures. In this case it 
 is necessary that they should feel the things which we feel in 
 the same way as we do, in order that they may be able in all 
 points to work in concert with the vital sense. How then can 
 they be called first-beginnings of things and shun the paths of 
 death, seeing that they are living things, and that living things 
 are one and the same with mortal things? Nay granting they 
 could do this, yet by their meeting and union they will make 
 nothing but a jumble and medley of living things; just you are 
 to know as men cattle and wild beasts would be unable to beget 
 any other thing by all their mixing with one another. But if 
 haply they lose from their body their own sense and adopt an- 
 other, what use was it to assign what is again withdrawn? more- 
 over, the instance to which we had before recourse, inasmuch as 
 we see the eggs of fowls change into living chicks and worms 
 burst forth, when putridity has seized on the earth after exces- 
 sive rains, you are to know that sensations can be begotten out 
 of no-sensations. 
 
 But if haply any one shall say that sense so far may arise 
 from no-sensation by a process of change, or because it is brought 
 forth by a kind of birth, it will be enough to make plain and 
 to prove to him that no birth takes place until a union of ele- 
 ments has first been effected, and that nothing changes without 
 such a process of uniting. Above all senses cannot exist in any 
 body before the nature itself of the living things has been 
 begotten, because sure enough the matter remains scattered 
 about in air rivers earth and things produced from earth, and 
 lias not met together and combined in appropriate fashion the 
 vital motions by which the all-discerning senses are kindled into 
 action in each living thing. 
 
 Again a blow more severe than its nature can endure, pro- 
 strates at once any living thing and goes on to stun all the senses 
 of body and mind. For the positions of the first-beginnings are 
 broken up and the vital motions entirely stopped, until the 
 matter, disordered by the shock through the whole frame, unties 
 from the body the vital fastenings of the soul and scatters it 
 abroad and forces it out through all the pores. For what more 
 can we suppose the infliction of a blow can do, than shake from 
 their place and break up the union of the several elements?
 
 954—995 II 5 1 
 
 Often too when the blow is inflicted with less violence, the re- 
 maining vital motions are wont to prevail, to prevail I say and 
 still the huge disorders caused by the blow and recall each part 
 into its proper channels and shake off the motion of death now 
 reigning as it were paramount in the body and kindle afresh the 
 almost lost senses. For in what other way should the thing be 
 able to gather together its powers of mind and come back to 
 life from the very threshold of death, rather than pass on to the 
 goal to which it had almost run and so pass away? 
 
 Again since there is pain when the bodies of matter are 
 disordered by any force throughout the living flesh and frame 
 and quake in their seats within, and as when they travel back 
 into their place, a soothing pleasure ensues, you are to know 
 that first-beginnings can be assailed by no pain and can derive 
 no pleasure from themselves; since they are not formed of any 
 bodies of first -beginnings, so as to be distressed by any novelty 
 in their motion or derive from it any fruit of fostering delight ; 
 and therefore they must not be possessed of any sense. 
 
 Again if in order that living creatures may severally have 
 sense, sense is to be assigned to their first-beginnings as well, 
 what are we to say of those of which mankind is specifically 
 made? sure enough they both burst into fits of shaking laughter 
 and sprinkle with dewy tears face and cheeks and have the 
 cunning to speak at length on the nature of things and enquire 
 next what their own first-beginnings are; since like in their 
 natures to the entire mortals they must in their turn be formed 
 out of other elements, then those others out of others, so that 
 you can venture nowhere to come to a stop: yes whatever you 
 shall say speaks and laughs and thinks, I will press you with 
 the argument that it is formed of other things performing these 
 same acts. But if we see these notions to be sheer folly and 
 madness, and a man may laugh though not made of laughing 
 things, and think and reason in learned language though not 
 formed of thoughful and eloquent seeds, why cannot the things 
 which we see to have sense, just as well be made up of a mixture 
 of things altogether devoid of sense? 
 
 Again we are all sprung from a heavenly seed, all have that 
 same father, by whom mother earth the giver of increase, when 
 she has taken in from him liquid drops of moisture, conceives 
 and bears goodly crops and joyous trees and the race of man, 
 
 E2
 
 52 II 995— 1°39 
 
 bears all kinds of brute beasts, in that she supplies food with 
 which all feed their bodies and lead a pleasant life and continue 
 their race; wherefore with good cause she has gotten the name 
 of mother. That also which before was from the earth, passes 
 back into the earth, and that which was sent from the borders 
 of ether, is carried back and taken in again by the quarters of 
 heaven. Death does not extinguish things in such a way as to 
 destroy the bodies of matter, but only breaks up the union 
 amongst them, and then joins anew the different elements with 
 others; and thus it comes to pass that all things change their 
 shapes and alter their colours and receive sensations and in a 
 moment yield them up; so that from all this you may know it 
 matters much with what others and in what position the same 
 first-beginnings of things are held in union and what motions 
 they do mutually impart and receive, and you must not sup- 
 pose that that which we see floating about on the surface of 
 things and now born, then at once perishing, can be a property 
 inherent in everlasting first bodies. Moreover in our verses 
 themselves it matters much with what other elements and in 
 what kind of order the several elements are placed. If not all, 
 yet by far the greatest number are alike; but the totals com- 
 posed of them are made to differ by the position of these ele- 
 ments. Thus in actual things as well when the clashings mo- 
 tions arrangement position shapes of matter change about, the 
 things also must change. 
 
 Apply now, we entreat, your mind to true reason. For a 
 new question struggles earnestly to gain your ears, a new aspect 
 of things to display itself. But there is nothing so easy as not 
 to be at first more difficult to believe than afterwards; and 
 nothing too so great, so marvellous, that all do not gradually 
 lessen their admiration of it. Look up at the bright and un- 
 sullied hue of heaven and the stars which it holds within it, 
 wandering all about, and the moon and the sun's light of daz- 
 zling brilliancy: if all these things were now for the first time, if 
 I say they were now suddenly presented to mortals beyond all 
 expectation, what could have been named that would be more 
 marvellous than these things, or that nations beforehand would 
 less venture to believe could be? nothing, methinks: so won- 
 drous strange had been this sight. Yet how little, you know, 
 wearied as all are to satiety with seeing, any one now cares to
 
 ro39— 1078 H 53 
 
 look up into heaven's glittering quarters! Cease therefore to 
 be dismayed by the mere novelty and so to reject reason from 
 your mind with loathing: weigh the questions rather with keen 
 judgment and if they seem to you to be true, surrender, or if 
 the thing is false, gird yourself to the encounter. For since 
 the sum of space is unlimited outside beyond these walls of the 
 world, the mind seeks to apprehend what there is yonder there, 
 to which the spirit ever yearns to look forward, and to which 
 the mind's immission reaches in free and unembarrassed flight. 
 
 In the first place we see that round in all directions, about 
 above and underneath, throughout the universe there is no 
 bound, as I have shewn and as the thing of itself proclaims with 
 loud voice and as clearly shines out in the nature of bottomless 
 space. In no wise then can it be deemed probable, when space 
 yawns illimitable towards all points and seeds in number num- 
 berless and sum unfathomable fly about in manifold ways driven 
 on in ceaseless motion, that this single earth and heaven have 
 been brought into being, that those bodies of matter so many in 
 number do nothing outside them; the more so that this world 
 has been made by nature, and the seeds of things chancing spon- 
 taneously to clash, after being brought together in manifold wise 
 without purpose, without foresight, without result, have at last 
 combined in such masses as, suddenly thrown together, became 
 on each occasion the rudiments of great things, f earth sea and 
 heaven and the race of living things. Wherefore again and 
 again I say you must admit that there are elsewhere other com- 
 binations of matter like to this which ether holds in its greedy 
 grasp. 
 
 Again when much matter is at hand, when room is there 
 and there is no thing, no cause to hinder, things sure enough 
 must go on and be completed. Well then if on the one hand 
 there is so great a store of seeds as the whole life of living 
 creatures cannot reckon up, and if the same force and nature 
 abide in them and have the power to throw the seeds of things 
 together into their several places in the same way as they are 
 thrown together into our world, you must admit that in other 
 parts of space there are other earths and various races of men 
 and kinds of wild beasts. 
 
 Moreover in the sum of all there is no one thing which is 
 begotten single in its kind and grows up single and sole of its
 
 54 II 1078-1117 
 
 kind; but a thing always belongs to some class and there are 
 many other things in the same kind. First in the case of living 
 things, most noble Memmius, you will find that in this sort has 
 been begotten the mountain-ranging race of wild beasts, in this 
 sort the breed of men, in this sort too the mute shoals of scaly 
 creatures and all bodies of fowls. Wherefore on a like principle 
 you must admit that earth and sun moon sea and all things else 
 that are, are not single in their kind, but rather in number past 
 numbering; since the deep-set boundary-mark of life just as 
 much awaits these and they are just as much of a body that 
 had birth, as any class of things which here on earth abounds in 
 samples of its kind. 
 
 If you well apprehend and keep in mind these things, nature 
 free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things 
 spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods. For 
 I appeal to the holy breasts of the gods who in tranquil peace 
 pass a calm time and an unruffled existence, who can rule the 
 sum, who hold in his hand with controlling force the strong 
 reins of the immeasurable deep? who can at once make all the 
 different heavens to roll and warm with ethereal fires all the 
 fruitful earths, or be present in all places at all times, to bring 
 darkness with clouds and shake with noise the heaven's serene 
 expanse, to hurl lightnings and often throw down his own tem- 
 ples, and withdrawing into the deserts there to spend his rage 
 in practising his bolt which often passes the guilty by and 
 strikes dead the innocent and unoffending? 
 
 And since the birth-time of the world and first day of being 
 to sea and earth and the formation of the sun many bodies have 
 been added from without, many seeds added all round, which 
 the great universe in tossing to and fro has contributed; that 
 from them the sea and lands might increase and from them 
 heaven's mansion might enlarge its expanse and raise its high 
 vaults far above earth, and that air might rise up around. For 
 all bodies from all quarters are assigned by blows each to its 
 appropriate thing and all withdraw to their proper classes; mois- 
 ture passes to moisture, from an earthy body earth increases 
 and fires forge fires and ether ether, until nature parent of 
 things with finishing hand has brought all things on to their 
 utmost limit of growth. And this comes to pass when that 
 which is infused into the life-arteries is no more than that
 
 1 1 19 — 116a II 55 
 
 which ebbs from them and withdraws: at this point the life- 
 growth in all things must stop, at this point nature by her pow- 
 ers checks further increase. For whatever things you see grow 
 in size with joyous increase and mount by successive steps to 
 mature age, take to themselves more bodies than they discharge 
 from themselves, while food is readily infused into all the arte- 
 ries and the things are not so widely spread out as to throw off 
 many particles and occasion more waste than their age can take 
 in as nourishment. For no doubt it must be conceded that 
 many bodies ebb away and withdraw from things; but still more 
 must join them, until they have touched the utmost point of 
 growth. Then piece by piece age breaks their powers and ma- 
 tured strength and wastes away on the side of decay. For the 
 larger a thing is and the wider, as soon as its growth is stopped, 
 at once it sheds abroad and dischai'ges from it more bodies in 
 all directions round; and its food is not readily transmitted into 
 all its arteries and is not enough, in proportion to the copious 
 exhalations which the thing throws off, to enable a like amount 
 to rise up and be supplied. For food must keep all things 
 entire by renewing them, food must uphold, food sustain all 
 things: all in vain, since the arteries refuse to hold what is suf- 
 ficient, and nature does not furnish the needful amount. With 
 good reason therefore all things perish, when they have been 
 rarefied by the ebb of particles and succumb to blows from 
 without, since food sooner or later fails advanced age, and 
 bodies never cease to destroy a thing by thumping it from with- 
 out and to overpower it by aggressive blows. In this way then 
 the walls too of the great world around shall be stormed and 
 fall to decay and crumbling ruin. Yes and even now the age is 
 enfeebled and the earth exhausted by bearing scarce produces 
 little living creatures, she who produced all races and gave birth 
 to the huge bodies of wild beasts. For methinks i no golden 
 chain let down to earth from heaven above the races of mortal 
 beings, nor did the sea and waves which lash the rocks produce 
 them, but the same earth bare them which now feeds them 
 from herself. Moreover she first spontaneously of herself pro- 
 duced for mortals goodly corn-crops and joyous vineyards; of 
 herself gave sweet fruits and glad pastures; which now-a-days 
 scarce attain any size when furthered by our labour: we exhaust 
 the oxen and the strength of the husbandmen ; we wear out our
 
 56 II 1 162 — r f 74 
 
 iron, scarce equal to the tillage of the fields; so niggardly are 
 they of their produce and after so much labour do they let 
 it grow. And now the aged ploughman shakes his head and 
 sighs again and again to think that the labours of his hands 
 have come to nothing; and when he compares present times 
 with times past, he often praises the fortunes of his sire and 
 harps on the theme, how the men of old comfortably supported 
 life on a scanty plot of ground, since the allotment of land to 
 each man was far less of yore than now. The sorrowful planter 
 too of the exhausted and shrivelled vine impeaches the march of 
 time and wearies heaven, and comprehends not that all tilings 
 are gradually wasting away and passing to the grave, quite for- 
 spent by age and length of days.
 
 I— 28 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 
 BOOK THIRD 
 
 Thee, who- first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on 
 high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of 
 life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my 
 footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much 
 from a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I 
 yearn to imitate thee ; for why need the swallow contend with 
 swans, or what likeness is there between the feats of racing 
 performed by kids with tottering limbs and by the powerful 
 strength of the horse ? Thou, father, art discoverer of things, 
 thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of 
 all things in the flowery lawns, we, o glorious being, in like 
 manner feed from out thy pages upon all the golden maxims, 
 golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy 
 philosophy issuing from, a godlike intellect has begun with 
 loud voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the 
 mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see 
 things in operation throughout the whole void : the divinity of 
 the gods is revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither 
 winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow con- 
 gealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall : an ever cloudless 
 ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely 
 round. Nature too supplies all their wants and nothing ever 
 impairs their peace of mind. But on the other hand the Ache- 
 rusian quarters are nowhere to be seen, though earth is no bar 
 to all things being descried, which are in operation underneath 
 our feet throughout the void. At all this a kind of godlike
 
 58 III ,8-72 
 
 delight mixed with shuddering awe comes over me to think 
 that nature by thy power is laid thus visibly open, is thus 
 unveiled on every side. 
 
 And now since I have shewn what-like the beginnings of all 
 things are and how diverse with varied shapes as they fly spon- 
 taneously driven on in everlasting motion, and how all things 
 can be severally produced out of these, next after these ques- 
 tions the nature of the mind and soul should methinks be 
 cleared up by my verses and that dread of Acheron be driven 
 headlong forth, troubling as it does the life of man from its 
 inmost depths and overspreading all things with the blackness 
 of death, allowing no pleasure to be pure and unalloyed. For 
 as to what men often give out that diseases and a life of shame 
 are more to be feared than Tartarus place of death, and that 
 they know the soul to be of blood or it may be of wind, if haply 
 their choice so direct, and that they have no need at all of our 
 philosophy, you may perceive for the following reasons that all 
 these boasts are thrown out more for glory's sake than because 
 the thing is really believed. These very men exiles from their 
 country and banished far from the sight of men live degraded 
 by foul charge of guilt, sunk in a word in every kind of misery, 
 and whithersoever the poor wretches have come, they yet do 
 offer sacrifices to the dead and slaughter black sheep and make 
 libations to the gods manes and in times of distress turn their 
 thoughts to religion much more earnestly. Wherefore you 
 can better test the man in doubts and dangers and mid adver- 
 sity learn who he is ; for then and not till then the words of 
 truth are forced out from the bottom of his heart : the mask is 
 torn off, the reality is left. Avarice again and blind lust of 
 honours which constrain unhappy men to overstep the bounds 
 of right and sometimes as partners and agents of crimes to 
 strive night and day with surpassing effort to struggle up to the 
 summit of power, — these sores of life are in no small measure 
 fostered by the dread of death. For foul scorn and pinching 
 want in every case are seen to be far removed from a life of 
 pleasure and security and to be a loitering so to say before the 
 gates of death. And while men driven on by an unreal dread 
 wish to escape far away from these and keep them far from 
 them, they amass wealth by civil bloodshed and greedily double 
 their riches piling up murder on murder; cruelly triumph in
 
 7*-n 5 HI 59 
 
 the sad death of a brother and hate and fear the tables of kins- 
 folk. Often likewise from the same fear envy causes them to 
 pine : they make moan that before their very eyes he is power- 
 ful, he attracts attention, who walks arrayed in gorgeous dig- 
 nity, while they are wallowing in darkness and dirt. Some 
 wear themselves to death for the sake of statues and a name. 
 And often to such a degree through dread of death does hate of 
 life and of the sight of daylight seize upon mortals, that they 
 commit self-murder with a sorrowing heart, quite forgetting 
 that this fear is the source of their cares, puts shame to rout, 
 bursts asunder the bonds of friendship and in fine overturns 
 duty from its very base ; since often ere now men have betrayed 
 country and dear parents in seeking to shun the Acherusian 
 quarters. For even as children are flurried and dread all things 
 in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times 
 things not a whit more to be dreaded than what children slmd- 
 der at in the dark and fancy sure to be. This terror therefore 
 and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the 
 sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law 
 of nature. 
 
 First then I say that the mind which we often call the 
 understanding, in which dwells the directing and governing 
 principle of life, is no less part of the man, than hand and foot 
 and eyes are parts of the whole living creature. [Some how- 
 ever affirm] that the sense of the mind does not dwell in a 
 distinct part, but is a certain vital state of the body, which the 
 Greeks call harmonia, because by it, they say, we live with 
 sense, though the understanding is in no one part ; just as when 
 good health is said to belong to the body, though yet it is not any 
 one part of the man in health. In this way they do not assign 
 a distinct part to the sense of the mind; in all which they 
 appear to me to be grievously at fault in more ways than one. 
 Oftentimes the body which is visible to sight, is sick, while yet 
 we have pleasure in another hidden part ; and oftentimes the 
 case is the very reverse, the man who is unhappy in mind feel- 
 ing pleasure in his whole body ; just as if, while a sick man's 
 foot is pained, the head meanwhile should be in no pain at all. 
 Moreover when the limbs are consigned to soft sleep and the 
 burdened body lies diffused without sense, there is yet a some- 
 thing else in us which during that time is moved in many ways
 
 6o III 
 
 i>5 — »5S 
 
 and admits into it all the motions of joy and unreal cares of the 
 heart. Now that you may know that the soul as well is in the 
 limbs and that the body is not wont to have sense by any 
 harmony, this is a main proof : when much of the body has been 
 taken away, still life often stays in the limbs ; and yet the same 
 life, when a few bodies of heat have been dispersed abroad 
 and some air has been forced out through the mouth, abandons 
 at once the veins and quits the bones : by this you may perceive 
 that all bodies have not functions of like importance nor alike 
 uphold existence, but rather that those seeds which constitute 
 wind and heat, cause life to stay in the limbs. Therefore vital 
 heat and wind are within the body, and abandon our frame at 
 death. Since then the nature of the mind and that of the soul 
 have been proved to be a part as it were of the man, surrender 
 the name of harmony, whether brought down to musicians from 
 high Helicon, or whether rather they have themselves taken it 
 from something else and transferred it to that thing which then 
 was in need of a distinctive name ; whatever it be, let them 
 keep it : do you take in the rest of my precepts. 
 
 Now I assert that the mind and the soul are kept together 
 in close union and make up a single nature, but that the direct- 
 ing principle which we call mind and understanding, is the 
 'head so to speak and reigns paramount in the whole body. It 
 has a fixed seat in the middle region of the breast : here throb 
 fear and apprehension, about these spots dwell soothing joys ; 
 therefore here is the understanding or mind. All the rest of 
 the soul disseminated through the whole body obeys and moves 
 at the will and inclination of the mind. It by itself alone 
 knows for itself, rejoices for itself, at times when the impression 
 does not move either soul or body together with it. And as 
 when some part of us, the head or the eye, suffers from an 
 attack of pain, we do not feel the anguish at the same time over 
 the whole body, thus the mind sometimes suffers pain by itself 
 or is inspirited with joy, when all the rest of the soul through- 
 out the limbs and frame is stirred by no novel sensation. But 
 when the mind is excited by some more vehement apprehension, 
 Ave see the whole soul feel in unison through all the limbs, and 
 thus sweats and paleness spread over the whole body, the 
 tongue falter, the voice die away, a mist cover the eyes, the ears 
 ring, the limbs sink under one ; in short we often see men drop
 
 i57 — 199 JH 6l 
 
 down from terror of mind ; so that anybody may easily perceive 
 from this that the soul is closely united with the mind, and, 
 when it has been smitten by the influence of the mind, forth- 
 Avith pushes and strikes the body. 
 
 This same principle teaches that the nature of the mind and 
 soul is bodily ; for when it is seen to push the limbs, rouse the 
 body from sleep, and alter the countenance and guide and turn 
 about the whole man, and when we see that none of these 
 effects can take place without touch nor touch without body, 
 must we not admit that the mind and the soul are of a bodily 
 nature ? Again you perceive that our mind in our body suffers 
 together with the body and feels in unison with it. When 
 a weapon with a shudder-causing force has been driven in and 
 has laid bare bones and sinews within the body, if it does not 
 take life, yet there ensues a faintness and a lazy sinking to the 
 ground and on the ground the turmoil of mind which arises, and 
 sometimes a kind of undecided inclination to get up. Therefore 
 the nature of the mind must be bodily, since it suffers from 
 ?. tfHz bodily weapons and blows. 
 
 I will now go on to explain in m}^ verses of what kind of 
 body the mind consists and out of what it has been formed. 
 First of all I say that it is extremely fine and formed of exceed- 
 ingly minute bodies. That this is so you may, if you please to 
 attend, clearly perceive from what follows : nothing that is seen 
 takes place with a velocity equal to that of the mind when 
 it starts some suggestion and actually sets it agoing ; the mind 
 therefore is stirred with greater rapidity than any of the things 
 whose nature stands out visible to sight. But that which is so 
 passing nimble, must consist of seeds exceedingly round and 
 exceedingly minute, in order to be stirred and set in motion by 
 a small moving power. Thus water is moved and heaves by 
 ever so small a force, formed as it is of small particles apt to 
 roll. But on the other hand the nature of honey is more sticky, 
 its liquid more sluggish and its movement more dilatory ; for 
 the whole mass of matter coheres more closely, because sure 
 enough it is made of bodies not so smooth fine and round. A | 
 breeze however gentle and light can force, as you may see, 
 a high heap of poppy seed to be blown away from the top down- 
 wards ; but on the other hand eurus itself cannot move a heap ' 
 of stones. Therefore bodies possess a power of moving in pro-
 
 62 III 
 
 199—244 
 
 portion to their smallness and smoothness ; and on the other 
 hand the greater weight and roughness bodies prove to have, 
 the more stable they are. Since then the nature of the mind 
 has been found to be eminently easy to move, it must consist of 
 bodies exceedingly small smooth and round. The knowledge of 
 which fact, my good friend, Avill on many accounts prove useful 
 and be serviceable to you. The following fact too likewise 
 demonstrates how fine the texture is of which its nature is com- 
 posed, and how small the room is in which it can be contained, 
 could it only be collected into one mass : soon as the untroubled 
 sleep of death has gotten hold of a man and the nature of the 
 mind and soul has withdrawn, you can perceive then no dimi- 
 nution of the entire body either in appearance or weight : death 
 makes all good save the vital sense and heat. Therefore the 
 whole soul must consist of very small seeds and be inwoven 
 through veins flesh sinews ; inasmuch as, after it has all with- 
 drawn from the whole body, the exterior contour of the limbs 
 preserves itself entire and not a tittle of the weight is lost. 
 Just in the same way when the flavour of wine is gone or when 
 the delicious aroma of a perfume has been dispersed into the air 
 or when the savour has left some body, yet the thing itself does 
 not therefore look smaller to the eye, nor does aught seem 
 to have been taken from the weight, because sure enough many 
 minute seeds make up the savours and the odour in the whole 
 body of the several things. Therefore, again and again I say, 
 you are to know that the nature of the mind and the soul has 
 1 been formed of exceedingly minute seeds, since at its departure 
 it takes away none of the weight. 
 
 We are not however to suppose that this nature is single. 
 For a certain subtle spirit mixed with heat quits men at death, 
 and then the heat draws air along with it ; there being no heat 
 which has not air too mixed with it: for since its nature is rare, 
 many first-beginnings of air must move about through it. Thus 
 then the nature of the mind is proved to be threefold ; and yet 
 these things all together are not sufficient to produce sense; 
 since the fact of the case does not admit that any of these can 
 produce sense-giving motions and the thoughts which a man 
 turns over in mind. Thus some fourth nature too must be 
 added to these : it is altogether without name ; than it nothing 
 exists more nimble or more fine, or of smaller or smoother
 
 »44— »84 in C,3 
 
 elements: it first transmits the sense-giving motions through 
 the frame ; for it is first stirred, made up as it is of small 
 particles ; next the heat and the unseen force of the spirit 
 receive the motions, then the air; then all things are set in 
 action, the blood is stirred, every part of the flesh is filled with 
 sensation ; last of all the feeling is transmitted to the bones and 
 marrow, whether it be one of pleasure or an opposite excite- 
 ment. No pain however can lightly pierce thus far nor any 
 sharp malady make its way in, without all things being so 
 thoroughly disordered that no room is left for life and the parts 
 of the soul fly abroad through all the pores of the body. But 
 commonly a stop is put to these motions on the surface as it 
 were of the body : for this reason we are able to retain life. 
 
 Now though I would fain explain in what way these are 
 mixed up together and what is the method of their arrange- 
 ment when they exert their powers, the poverty of my native 
 speech deters me sorely against my will : yet will I touch upon 
 them and in summary fashion to the best of my ability : the 
 first-beginnings by their mutual motions are interlaced in such 
 a way that none of them can be separated by itself, nor can the 
 function of any go on divided from the rest by any interval ; but 
 they are so to say the several qualities of one body. Even so in 
 any flesh of living creature you please without exception there 
 is a smell and a heat and savour, and yet out of all these is 
 made up one single bulk of body. Thus the heat and the air 
 and the unseen power of the spirit mixed together produce 
 a single nature, together with that nimble force which transmits 
 to them from itself the origin of motion ; by which means sense- 
 giving motion first takes its rise through the fleshly frame. 
 For this nature lurks secreted in its inmost depths, and nothing 
 in our body is farther beneath all ken than it, and more than 
 this it is the very soul of the whole soul. Just in the same 
 way as the power of the mind and the function of the soul are 
 latent in our limbs and throughout our body, because they are 
 each formed of small and few bodies : even so, you are to know, 
 this nameless power made of minute bodies is concealed and is 
 moreover the very soul so to say of the whole soul, and reigns 
 supreme in the whole body. On a like principle the spirit and 
 air and heat must, as they exert their powers, be mixed up 
 together through the frame, and one must ever be more out of
 
 64 III 284—325 
 
 view or more prominent than another, that a single substance 
 may be seen to be formed from the union of all, lest the heat 
 and spirit apart by themselves and the power of the air apart 
 by itself should destroy sense and dissipate it by their dis- 
 union. Thus the mind possesses that heat which it displays 
 when it boils up in anger and fire flashes from the keen eyes ; 
 there is too much cold spirit comrade of fear, which spreads a 
 shivering over the limbs and stirs the whole frame ; yes and 
 there is also that condition of still air which has place when the 
 breast is calm and the looks cheerful. But they have more of 
 the hot whose keen heart and passionate mind lightly boil up 
 in ansrer. Foremost in this class comes the fierce violence of 
 lions who often as they chafe break their hearts with their 
 roaring and cannot contain within their breast the billows of 
 their rage. Then the chilly mind of stags is fuller of the spirit 
 and more quickly rouses through all the flesh its icy currents 
 which cause a shivering motion to pass over the limbs. But 
 the nature of oxen has its life rather from the still air, and 
 never does the smoky torch of anger applied to it stimulate it 
 too much, shedding over it the shadow of mirky gloom, nor is it 
 transfixed and stiffened by the icy shafts of fear : it lies between 
 the other two, stags and cruel lions. And thus it is with man- 
 kind : however much teaching renders some equally refined, it 
 yet leaves behind the earliest traces of the nature of each mind ; 
 and we are not to suppose that evil habits can be so thoroughly 
 plucked up by the roots, that one man shall not be more prone 
 than another to keen anger, a second shall not be somewhat 
 more quickly assailed by fear, a third shall not take some things 
 more meekly than is right. In many other points there must 
 be differences between the varied natures of men and the 
 tempers which follow upon these ; though at present I am 
 unable to set forth the hidden causes of these or to find names 
 enough for the different shapes which belong to the first-begin- 
 nings, from which shapes arises this diversity of things. What 
 herein I think I may affirm is this : traces of the different 
 natures left behind, which reason is unable to expel from us, are 
 so exceedingly slight that there is nothing to hinder us from 
 living a life worthy of gods. 
 
 Well this nature is contained by the whole body and is in 
 turn the body's guardian and the cause of its existence ; for the
 
 325—367 III 65 
 
 two adhere together with common roots and cannot it is plain 
 be riven asunder without destruction. Even as it is not easy 
 to pluck the perfume out of lumps of frankincense without quite 
 destroying its nature as well ; so it is not easy to withdraw from 
 the whole body the nature of the mind and soul without dis- 
 solving all alike. With first-beginnings so interlaced from 
 their earliest birth are they formed and gifted with a life of 
 joint partnership, and it is plain that the faculty of the body 
 and of the mind cannot feel separately, each alone without the 
 other's power, but sense is kindled throughout our flesh and 
 blown into flame between the two by the joint motions on the 
 part of both. Moreover the body by itself is never either be- 
 gotten or grows or, it is plain, continues to exist after death. y 
 For not in the way that the liquid of water often loses the heat 
 which has been given to it, yet is not for that reason itself riven 
 in pieces, but remains unimpaired, — not in this way, I say, can 
 the abandoned frame endure the separation of the soul, but 
 riven in pieces it utterly perishes and rots away. Thus the 
 mutual connexions of body and soul from the first moment of 
 their existence learn the vital motions even while hid in the 
 body and womb of the mother, so that no separation can take 
 place without mischief and ruin. Thus you may see that, since 
 the cause of existence lies in their joint action, their nature too 
 must be a joint nature. 
 
 Furthermore if any one tries to disprove that the body feels 
 and believes that the soul mixed through the whole body takes 
 upon it this motion which we name sense, he combats even 
 manifest and undoubted facts. For who will ever bring: forward 
 any explanation of what the body's feeling is, except that which 
 the plain fact of the case has itself given and taught to us? 
 But when the soul it is said has departed, the body throughout 
 is without sense; yes for it loses what was not its own peculiar 
 property in life. 
 
 Again to say that the ej'es can see no object, but that the 
 soul discerns through them as through an open door, is far from 
 easy, since their sense contradicts this; and the more so that 
 often we are unable to perceive shining things, because our 
 eyes are embarrassed by the lights. But this is not the case 
 with doors; for, because we ourselves see, the open doors do not 
 therefore undergo any fatigue. Again if our eyes are in the 
 
 F
 
 66 III 367—407 
 
 place of doors, in that case when the eyes are removed the mind 
 ought it would seem to have more power of seeing things after 
 doors, jambs and all, have been taken out of the way. 
 
 And herein you must by no means adopt the opinion which 
 the revered judgment of the worthy man Democritus lays doAvn, 
 that the first-beginnings of body and mind placed together in 
 successive layers come in alternate order and so weave the 
 tissue of our limbs. For not only are the elements of the soul 
 much smaller than those of which our body and flesh are formed, 
 but they are also much fewer in number and are disseminated 
 merely in scanty number through the frame, so that you can 
 warrant no more than this: the first-beginnings of the soul 
 keep spaces between them at least as great as are the smallest 
 bodies which, if thrown upon it, are first able to excite in our 
 body the sense-giving motions. Thus at times we do not feel 
 the adhesion of dust when it settles on our body, nor the impact 
 of chalk when it rests on our limbs, nor do we feel a mist at 
 night nor a spider's slender threads as they come against us, 
 when we are caught in its meshes in moving along, nor the 
 same insect's flimsy web when it has fallen on our head, nor the 
 feathers of birds and down of plants as it flies about, which 
 commonly from exceeding lightness does not lightly fall, nor 
 do we feel the tread of every creeping creature whatsoever nor 
 each particular footprint which gnats and the like stamp on our 
 body. So invariably must many seeds mixed up in our bodies 
 throughout our frames be set in motion ere the first-beginnings 
 of the soul are roused to feel, and ere by thumping with such 
 spaces between they can clash unite and in turn recoil. 
 
 The mind has more to do with holding the fastnesses of life 
 and has more sovereign sway over it than the power of the soul. 
 For without the understanding and the mind no part of the soul 
 can maintain itself in the frame the smallest fraction of time, 
 but follows at once in the other's train and passes away into the 
 air and leaves the cold limbs in the chill of death. But he 
 abides in life whose mind and understanding continue to stay 
 with him: though the trunk is mangled with its limbs shorn 
 all round about it, after the soul has been taken away on all 
 sides and been severed from the limbs the trunk yet lives and 
 inhales the ethereal airs of life. When robbed, if not of the 
 whole, yet of a large portion of the soul, it still lingers in and
 
 407—449 HI 67 
 
 cleaves to life; just as, after the eye has been lacerated all round 
 if the pupil has continued uninjured, the living power of sight 
 remains, provided always you do not destroy the whole ball of 
 the eye and pare close round the pupil and leave only it; for 
 that will not be done without destroying the eyes. But if that 
 middle portion of the eye, small as it is, is eaten into, the sight 
 is gone at once and darkness ensues, though a man have the 
 bright ball quite unimpaired. On such terms of union soul and 
 mind are ever bound to each other. 
 
 Now mark me: that you may know that the minds and 
 light souls of living creatures have birth and are mortal, I will 
 go on to set forth verses worthy of your attention got together 
 by long study and invented with welcome effort. Do you mind 
 to attach to either of the two either name, and when for instance 
 I shall choose to speak of the soul, shewing it to be mortal, 
 believe that I speak of the mind as well, inasmuch as both 
 make up one thing and are one united substance. First of all 
 then since I have shewn the soul to be fine and to be formed of 
 minute bodies and made up of much smaller first-beginnings 
 than is the liquid of water or mist or smoke : — for it far sur- 
 passes these in nimbleness and is moved if struck by a far 
 slenderer cause ; inasmuch as it is moved by images of smoke 
 and mist ; as when for instance sunk in sleep we see altars steam 
 forth their heat and send up their smoke on high; for beyond 
 a doubt images are begotten for us from these things: — well 
 then since you see on the vessels being shattered the water flow 
 away on all sides, and since mist and smoke pass away into air, 
 believe that the soul too is shed abroad and perishes much more 
 quickly and dissolves sooner into its first bodies, when once it 
 has been taken out of the limbs of a man and has withdrawn. 
 For how can you believe that this soul, which the body that 
 serves for its vessel cannot hold, if shattered from any cause 
 and rarefied by the withdrawal of blood from the veins, how 
 can you believe I say that this soul can be held by any air? 
 how can that air which is rarer than our body hold it in? 
 
 Again we perceive that the mind is begotten along with 
 the body and grows up together with it and becomes old along 
 with it. For even as children go about with a tottering and 
 weakly body, so slender sagacity of mind follows along with it ; 
 then when their life has reached the maturity of confirmed 
 
 F 2
 
 68 III 449—492 
 
 strength, the judgment too is greater and the power of the mind 
 more developed. Afterwards when the body has been shattered 
 by the mastering might of time and the frame has drooped 
 with its forces dulled, then the intellect halts, the tongue dotes, 
 the mind gives way, all faculties fail and are found wanting at 
 the same time. It naturally follows then that the whole nature 
 of the soul is dissolved, like smoke, into the high air; since we 
 see it is begotten along with the body and grows up along with 
 it and, as I have shewn, breaks down at the same time worn 
 out with age. 
 
 Moreover we see that even as the body is liable to violent 
 diseases and severe pain, so is the mind to sharp cares and grief 
 and fear; it naturally follows therefore that it is its partner in 
 death as well. Again in diseases of the body the mind often 
 wanders and goes astray; for it loses its reason and drivels in 
 its speech and often in a profound lethargy is carried into deep 
 and never-ending sleep with drooping eyes and head ; out of 
 which it neither hears the voices nor can recognise the faces of 
 those who stand round calling it back to life and bedewing with 
 tears face and cheeks. Therefore you must admit that the 
 mind too dissolves, since the infection of disease reaches to it; 
 for pain and disease are both forgers of death : a truth we have 
 fully learned ere now by the death of many. Again, when the 
 pungent strength of wine has entered into a man and its spirit 
 has been infused into and transmitted through his veins, why is 
 it that a heaviness of the limbs follows along with this, his legs 
 are hampered as he reels about, his tongue falters, his mind is 
 besotted, his eyes swim, shouting hiccuping wranglings are 
 rife, together with all the other usual concomitants, why is all 
 this, if not because the overpowering violence of the wine is 
 wont to disorder the soul within the body? But whenever 
 things can be disordered and hampered, they give token that if 
 a somewhat more potent cause gained an entrance, they would 
 perish and be robbed of all further existence. Moreover it often 
 happens that some one constrained by the violence of disease 
 suddenly drops down before our eyes, as by a stroke of light- 
 ning, and foams at the mouth, moans and shivers through his 
 frame, loses his reason, stiffens his muscles, is racked, gasps for 
 breath fitfully, and wearies his limbs with tossing. Sure enough, 
 because the violence of the disease spreads itself through his
 
 ■49 2 - 533 lil 6y 
 
 frame and disorders him, he foams as he tries to eject his soul 
 just as in the salt sea the waters boil with the mastering might 
 of the winds. A moan too is forced out, because the limbs are 
 seized with pain, and mainly because seeds of voice are driven 
 forth and are carried in a close mass out by the mouth, the 
 road which they are accustomed to take and where they have 
 a well-paved way. Loss of reason follows, because the powers 
 of the mind and soul are disordered and, as I have shewn, are 
 riven and forced asunder, torn to pieces by the same baneful 
 malady. Then after the cause of the disease has bent its 
 course back and the acrid humours of the distempered body 
 return to their hiding-places, then he first gets up like one 
 reeling, and by little and little comes back into full possession 
 of his senses and regains his soul. Since therefore even within 
 the body mind and soul are harassed by such violent distempers 
 and so miserably racked by sufferings, why believe that they 
 without the body in the open air can continue existence battling 
 with fierce winds ? And since we perceive that the mind is 
 healed like the sick body, and we see that it can be altered by 
 medicine, this too gives warning that the mind has a mortal 
 existence. For it is natural that whosoever essays and attempts 
 to change the mind or seeks to alter any other nature you like, 
 should add new parts or change the arrangement of the present, 
 or at least withdraw some small fraction from the whole sum. 
 But that which is immortal wills not to have its parts trans- 
 posed nor any addition to be made nor one tittle to ebb away; 
 for whenever a thing changes and quits its proper limits, this 
 change is at once the death of that which was before. There- 
 fore the mind, whether it is sick or whether it is altered by 
 medicine, alike, as I have shewn, gives forth mortal symptoms. 
 So invariably is truth found to make head against false reason 
 and to cut off all retreat from the assailant and by a two-edged 
 refutation to put falsehood to rout. 
 
 Again we often see a man pass gradually away and limb by 
 limb lose vital sense; first the toes of his feet and the nails 
 turn livid, then the feet and shanks die, then next the steps of 
 chilly death creep with slow pace over the other members. 
 Since in this way the nature of the soul is rent and passes 
 away and comes not forth all at once in its entireness, it must 
 be reckoned mortal. But if haply you suppose that it can
 
 7o III 
 
 533—575 
 
 draw itself in through the whole frame and mass its parts toge- 
 ther and in this way withdraw sense from all the limbs, yet 
 then that spot into which so great a store of soul is gathered, 
 ought to shew itself in possession of a greater amount of sense. 
 But as this is nowhere found, sure enough as we said before, it 
 is torn in pieces and scattered abroad, and therefore dies. More- 
 over if I were pleased for the moment to grant what is false 
 and admit that the soul might be collected in one mass in the 
 body of those who leave the light dying piecemeal, even then 
 you must admit the soul to be mortal ; and it makes no differ- 
 ence whether it perish dispersed in air, or gathered into one 
 lump out of all its parts lose all feeling, since sense ever more 
 and more fails the whole man throughout and less and less of 
 life remains throughout. 
 
 And since the mind is one part of a man which remains 
 fixed in a particular spot, just as are the ears and eyes and the 
 other senses which guide and direct life; and just as the hand 
 or eye or nose when separated from us cannot feel and exist 
 apart, but in however short a time wastes away in putrefaction, 
 thus the mind cannot exist by itself without the body and the 
 man's self which as you see serves for the mind's vessel or any 
 thing else you choose to imagine which implies a yet closer 
 union with it, since the body is attached to it by the nearest 
 ties. 
 
 Again the quickened powers of body and mind by their 
 joint partnership enjoy health and life; for the nature of the 
 mind cannot by itself alone without the body give forth vital 
 motions nor can the body again bereft of the soul continue to 
 exist and make use of its senses: just, you are to know, as the 
 eye itself torn away from its roots cannot see anything when 
 apart from the whole body, thus the soul and mind cannot it is 
 plain do anything by themselves. Sure enough, because mixed 
 up through veins and flesh, sinews and bones, their first-begin- 
 nings are confined by all the body and are not free to bound 
 away leaving great spaces between, therefore thus shut in they 
 make those sense-giving motions which they cannot make after 
 death when forced out of the body into the air by reason that 
 they are not then confined in a like manner; for the air will be 
 a body and a living thing, if the soul shall be able to keep 
 itself together and to enclose in it those motions which it used
 
 575-6.4 HI 7« 
 
 before to perform in the sinews and within the body. Therefore, 
 again and again I say, when the enveloping body has been all 
 broken up and the vital airs have been forced out, you must 
 admit that the senses of the mind and the soul are dissolved, 
 since the cause of destruction is one and inseparable for both 
 body and soul. 
 
 Again since the body is unable to bear the separation of the 
 soul without rotting away in a noisome stench, why doubt that 
 the power of the soul gathering itself up from the inmost 
 depths of body has oozed out and dispersed like smoke, and 
 that the crumbling body has changed and tumbled in with so 
 total a ruin for this reason because its foundations throughout 
 are stirred from their places, the soul oozing out abroad through 
 the frame, through all the winding passages which are in the 
 body, and all openings? so that in ways manifold you may learn 
 that the nature of the soul has been divided piecemeal and 
 gone forth throughout the frame, and that it has been first torn 
 to shreds within the body, ere it glided forth and swam out into 
 the air. Moreover even while it yet moves within the confines 
 of life, often the soul shaken from some cause or other is seen 
 to wish to pass out and be loosed from the whole body, the 
 features are seen to droop as at the last hour and all the limbs 
 to sink flaccid over the bloodless trunk : just as happens, when 
 the phrase is used, the mind is in a bad way, or the soul is 
 quite gone ; when all is hurry and every one is anxious to keep 
 from parting the last tie of life; for then the mind and the 
 power of the soul are shaken throughout and both are quite 
 loosened together with the body; so that a cause somewhat 
 more powerful can quite break them up. Why doubt I would 
 ask that the soul when driven forth out of the body, when in 
 the open air, feeble as it is, stript of its covering, not only 
 cannot continue through eternity, but is unable to hold together 
 the smallest fraction of time? No one when dying appears to 
 feel the soul go forth entire from his whole body or first mount 
 up to the throat and gullet, but all feel it fail in that part 
 which lies in a particular quarter; just as they know that other 
 senses suffer dissolution each in its own place. But if our mind 
 were immortal, it would not when dying complain so much of 
 its dissolution, as of passing abroad and quitting its vesture, 
 like a snake.
 
 72 III 615—655 
 
 Again why are the mind's understanding and judgment 
 never begotten in the head or feet or hands, but cling to one 
 spot and fixed quarter of the man, if it be not that particular 
 places are assigned for the birth of each part, and for the abode 
 of each after it is born, that thus the members may be dis- 
 tributed with such a manifold organisation of parts, that no 
 perverted arrangement of them shall ever shew itself? so in- 
 variably effect follows cause, nor is flame wont to be born in 
 rivers nor cold in fire. 
 
 Again if the nature of the soul is immortal and can feel 
 when separated from our body, methinks we must suppose it to 
 be provided with five senses; and in no other way can we pic- 
 ture to ourselves souls below flitting about Acheron. Painters 
 therefore and former generations of writers have thus repre- 
 sented souls provided with senses. But neither eyes nor nose 
 nor hand can exist for the soul apart from the body nor can 
 tongue, nor can ears perceive by the sense of hearing or exist 
 for the soul by themselves apart from the body. 
 
 And since we perceive that vital sense is in the whole body 
 and we see that it is all endowed with life, if on a sudden any 
 force with swift blow shall have cut it in twain so as quite to 
 dissever the two halves, the power of the soul will without 
 doubt at the same time be cleft and cut asunder and dashed in 
 twain together with the body. But that which is cut and di- 
 vides into any parts, you are to know disclaims for itself an 
 everlasting nature. Stories are told how scythed chariots reek- 
 ing with indiscriminate slaughter often lop off limbs so instan- 
 taneously that that which has fallen down lopped off from the 
 frame is seen to quiver on the ground, while yet the mind and 
 faculty of the man from the suddenness of the mischief cannot 
 feel the pain ; and because his mind once for all is wholly given 
 to the business of fighting, with what remains of his body he 
 mingles in the fray and carnage, and often perceives not that 
 the wheels and devouring scythes have carried off among the 
 horses' feet his left arm shield and all ; another sees not that his 
 right arm has dropped from him, while he mounts and presses 
 forward. Another tries to get up after he has lost his leg, 
 while the dying foot quivers with its toes on the ground close 
 by. The head too when cut off from the warm and living- 
 trunk retains on the ground the expression of life and open
 
 6 5 5- 6^8 III 73 
 
 eyes, until it has yielded up all the remnants of soul. To take 
 another case, if, as a serpent's tongue is quivering, as its tail is 
 darting out from its long body, you choose to chop with an axe 
 into many pieces both tail and body, you will see all the sepa- 
 rate portions thus cut off writhing under the fresh wound and 
 bespattering the earth with gore, the fore part with the mouth 
 making for its own hinder part, to allay with burning bite the 
 pain of the wound with which it has been smitten. Shall we 
 say then that there are entire souls in all those pieces? why 
 from that argument it will follow that one living creature had 
 many souls in its body; and this being absurd, therefore the 
 soul which was one has been divided together with the body ; 
 therefore each alike must be reckoned mortal, since each is 
 alike chopped up into many pieces. 
 
 Again if the nature of the soul is immortal and makes its 
 way into our body at the time of birth, why are we unable to 
 remember besides the time already gone, and why do we retain 
 no traces of past actions ? If the power of the mind has been so 
 completely changed, that all remembrance of past things is lost, 
 that methinks differs not widely from death ; therefore you must 
 admit that the soul which was before has perished and that 
 which now is has now been formed. 
 
 Again if the quickened power of the mind is wont to be put 
 into us after our body is fully formed, at the instant of our birth 
 and our crossing the threshold of life, it ought agreeably to this 
 to live not in such a way as to seem to have grown with the 
 body and together with its members within the blood, but as in 
 a den apart by and to itself: the very contrary to what un- 
 doubted fact teaches ; for it is so closely united with the body 
 throughout the veins flesh sinews and bones, that the very teeth 
 have a share of sense ; as the act of biting proves and the sharp 
 twinge of cold water and the crunching of a rough stone, when 
 it has got into them out of bread. Wherefore, again and again 
 I say, we must believe souls to be neither without a birth nor 
 exempted from the law of death ; for we must not believe that 
 they could have been so completely united with our bodies, if 
 they found their way into them from without, nor, since they 
 are so closely inwoven with them, does it appear that they can 
 get out unharmed and unloose themselves unscathed from all 
 the sinews and bones and joints. But if haply you believe that
 
 74 i' 1 698-740 
 
 the soul finds its way in from without and is wont to ooze 
 through all our limbs, so much the more it will perish thus 
 blended with the body ; for what oozes through another is dis- 
 solved, and therefore dies. As food distributed through all the 
 cavities of the body, while it is transmitted into the limbs and 
 the whole frame, is destroyed and furnishes out of itself the 
 matter of another nature, thus the soul and mind, though they 
 pass entire into a fresh body, yet in oozing through it are dis- 
 solved, whilst there are transmitted so to say into the frame 
 through all the cavities those particles of which this nature of 
 mind is formed, which now is sovereign in our body, being born 
 out of that soul which then perished when dispersed through 
 the frame. Wherefore the nature of the soul is seen to be 
 neither without a birthday nor exempt from death. 
 
 Again are seeds of the soul left in the dead body or not ? If 
 they are left and remain in it, the soul cannot fairly be deemed 
 immortal, since it has withdrawn lessened by the loss of some 
 parts ; but if when taken away it has fled forth with its mem- 
 bers so entire that it has left in the body no parts of itself, 
 whence do carcases exude worms from the now rank flesh and 
 whence does such a swarm of living things, boneless and blood- 
 less, surge through the heaving frame ? But if haply you be- 
 lieve that souls find their way into worms from without and 
 can severally pass each into a body and you make no account of 
 why many thousands of souls meet together in a place from 
 which one has withdrawn, this question at least must, it seems, 
 be raised and brought to a decisive test, whether souls hunt out 
 the several seeds of worms and build for themselves a place to 
 dwell in, or find their way into bodies fully formed so to say. 
 But why they should on their part make a body or take such 
 trouble, cannot be explained ; since being without a body they 
 are not plagued as they flit about with diseases and cold and 
 hunger : the body indeed is more akin to, more troubled by such 
 infirmities, and by its contact with it the mind suffers many ills. 
 Nevertheless be it ever so expedient for them to make a body, 
 when they are going to enter, yet clearly there is no way by 
 which they can so do. Therefore souls do not make for them- 
 selves bodies and limbs ; no nor can they by any method find 
 their way into bodies after they are fully formed ; for they 
 will neither be able to unite themselves with a nice precision
 
 740-7S1 HI 75' 
 
 nor will any connexion of mutual sensation be formed between 
 them. 
 
 Again why does untamed fierceness go along with the sullen 
 brood of lions, cunning with foxes and proneness to flight with 
 stags ? and to take any other instance of the kind, why are all 
 qualities engendered in the limbs and temper from the very 
 commencement of life, if not because a fixed power of mind 
 derived from its proper seed and breed grows up together with 
 the whole body? If it were immortal and wont to pass into 
 different bodies, living creatures would be of interchangeable 
 dispositions ; a dog of Hyrcanian breed would often fly before 
 the attack of an antlered stag, a hawk would cower in mid air 
 as it fled at the approach of a dove, men would be without 
 reason, the savage races of wild beasts would have reason. For 
 the assertion that an immortal soul is altered by a change of 
 body is advanced on a false principle. What is changed is 
 dissolved, and therefore dies : the parts are transposed and quit 
 their former order; therefore they must admit of being dissolved 
 too throughout the frame, in order at last to die one and all 
 together with the body. But if they shall say that souls of men 
 always go into human bodies, I yet will ask how it is a soul can 
 change from wise to foolish, and no child has discretion, and 
 why the mare's foal is not so well trained as the powerful 
 strength of the horse. You may be sure they will fly to the 
 subterfuge that the mind grows weakly in a weakly body. But 
 granting this is so, you must admit the soul to be mortal, 
 since changed so completely throughout the frame it loses its 
 former life and sense. Then too in what way will it be able to 
 grow in strength uniformly with its allotted body and reach the 
 coveted flower of age, unless it shall be its partner at its first 
 beginning? or what means it by passing out from the limbs 
 when decayed with age? does it fear to remain shut up in a 
 crumbling body, fear that its tenement, worn out by protracted 
 length of days, bury it in its ruins ? Why an immortal being 
 incurs no risks. 
 
 Again for souls to stand by at the unions of Venus and the 
 birth-throes of beasts seems to be passing absurd, for them 
 the immortals to wait for mortal limbs in number numberless 
 and struggle with one another in forward rivalry, which shall 
 first and by preference have entrance in ; unless haply bargains
 
 76 III 781-833 
 
 are struck among the souls on these terms, that whichever in 
 its flight shall first come up, shall first have right of entry, and 
 that they shall make no trial at all of each other's strength. 
 
 Again a tree cannot exist in the ether, nor clouds in the 
 deep sea nor can fishes live in the fields nor blood exist in 
 woods nor sap in stones. Where each thing can grow and 
 abide is fixed and ordained. Thus the nature of the mind 
 cannot come into being alone without the body nor exist far 
 away from the sinews and blood. But if (for this would be 
 much more likely to happen than that) the force itself of the 
 mind might be in the head or shoulders or heels or might be 
 born in any other part of the body, it would after all be wont to 
 abide in one and the same man or vessel. But since in our 
 body even it is fixed and seen to be ordained where the soul and 
 the mind can severally be and grow, it must still more strenu- 
 ously be denied that it can abide and be born out of the body 
 altogether. Therefore when the body has died, we must admit 
 that the soul has perished, wrenched away throughout the body. 
 To link forsooth a mortal thing with an everlasting and suppose 
 that they can have sense in common and can be reciprocally 
 acted upon, is sheer folly; for what can be conceived more in- 
 congruous, more discordant and inconsistent with itself, than a 
 thing which is mortal, linked with an immortal and everlasting 
 thing, trying in such union to weather furious storms? But if 
 haply the soul is to be accounted immortal for this reason 
 rather, because it is kept sheltered from death-bringing things, 
 either because things hostile to its existence do not approach 
 at all, or because those which do approach, in some way or 
 other retreat discomfited before we can feel the barm they do, 
 [manifest experience proves that this can not be true]. For 
 besides that it sickens in sympathy with the maladies of the 
 body, it is often attacked by that which frets it on the score of 
 the future and keeps it on the rack of suspense and wears it 
 out with cares, remorse for sins gnawing it on account of past 
 misdeeds : then there is madness peculiar to the mind and for- 
 getfulness of all things ; then too it often sinks into the black 
 waters of lethargy. 
 
 Death therefore to us is nothing, concerns us not a jot, since 
 the nature of the mind is proved to be mortal. And as in time 
 gone by we felt no distress, when the Poeni from all sides came
 
 833-875 HI 77 
 
 together to do battle, and all things shaken by war's troublous 
 uproar shuddered and quaked beneath high heaven, and mortal 
 men were in doubt which of the two peoples it should be to 
 whose empire all must fall by sea and land alike, thus when we 
 shall be no more, when there shall have been a separation of 
 body and soul, out of both of which we are each formed into a 
 single being, to ns, you may be sure, who then shall be no 
 more, nothing whatever can happen to excite sensation, not if 
 earth shall be mingled with sea and sea with heaven. And 
 even supposing the nature of the mind and power of the soul do 
 feel, after they have been severed from our body, yet that is 
 nothing to us who by the binding tie of marriage between body 
 and soul are formed each into one single being. And if time 
 should gather up our matter after our death and bring it once 
 more into the condition in which it now is, and the light of life 
 be given to us again, this result even would concern us not 
 at all, when the chain of our self-consciousness has once been 
 snapped asunder. So now we give ourself no concern about any 
 self which we have been before, nor do we feel any distress on 
 the score of that self. For when you look back on the whole 
 past course of immeasurable time and think how manifold are 
 the shapes which the motions of matter take, you may easily 
 credit this too, that these very same seeds of which we now are 
 formed, have often before been placed in the same order in 
 which they now are ; and yet we cannot recover this in memory : 
 a break in our existence has been interposed, and all the motions 
 have wandered to and fro far astray from the sensations they 
 produced. For he whom evil is to befal, must in his own person 
 exist at the very time it comes, if the misery and suffering are 
 haply to have any place at all ; but since death precludes this, 
 and forbids him to be, upon whom the ills can be brought, you 
 may be sure that we have nothing to fear after death, and 
 that he who exists not, cannot become miserable, and that it 
 matters not a whit whether he has been born into life at any 
 other time, when immortal death has taken away his mortal life. 
 Therefore when you see a man bemoaning his hard case, 
 that after death he shall either rot with his body laid in the 
 grave or be devoured by flames or the jaws of wild beasts, you 
 may be sure that his ring betrays a flaw and that there lurks in 
 his heart a secret goad, though he himself declare that he does
 
 78 HI 875-911 
 
 not believe that any sense will remain to him after death. He 
 does not methinks really grant the conclusion which he pro- 
 fesses to giant nor the principle on which he so professes, nor 
 does he take and force himself root and branch out of life, but 
 all unconsciously imagines something of self to survive. For 
 when any one in life suggests to himself that birds and beasts 
 will rend his body after death, he makes moan for himself: he 
 does not separate himself from that self, nor withdraw himself 
 fully from the body so thrown out, and fancies himself that 
 other self and stands by and impregnates it with his own sense. 
 Hence he makes much moan that he has been born mortal, and 
 sees not that after real death there will be no other self to re- 
 main in life and lament to self that his own self has met death, 
 and there to stand and grieve that his own self there lying is 
 mangled or burnt. For if it is an evil after death to be pulled 
 about by the devouring jaws of wild beasts, I cannot see why 
 it should not be a cruel pain to be laid on fires and burn in 
 hot flames, or to be placed in honey and stifled, or to stiffen 
 with cold, stretched on the smooth surface of an icy slab of 
 stone, or to be pressed down and crushed by a load of earth 
 above. 
 
 'Now no more shall thy house admit thee with glad wel- 
 come, nor a most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be 
 the first to snatch kisses and touch thy heart with a silent joy. 
 No more mayst thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard 
 to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee luckless 
 man in luckless wise all the many prizes of life'. This do men 
 say ; but add not thereto ' and now no longer does any craving 
 for these things beset thee withal'. For if they could rightly 
 perceive this in thought and follow up the thought in words, 
 they would release themselves from great distress and appre- 
 hension of mind. 'Thou, even as now thou art, sunk in the 
 sleep of death, shalt continue so to be all time to come, freed 
 from all distressful pains; but we with a sorrow that would not 
 be sated wept for thee, when close by thou didst turn to an 
 ashen hue on thy appalling funeral pile, and no length of days 
 shall pluck from our hearts our ever-during grief. This ques- 
 tion therefore should be asked of this speaker, what there is in 
 it so passing bitter, if it come in the end to sleep and rest, that 
 any one should pine in never-ending sorrow.
 
 913-95* HI 79 
 
 This too men often, when they have reclined at table cup 
 in hand and shade their brows with crowns, love to say from 
 the heart, 'short is this enjoyment for poor weak men; pre- 
 sently it will have been and never after may it be called back'. 
 As if after their death it is to be one of their chiefest afflictions 
 that thirst and parching drought is to burn them up hapless 
 wretches, or a craving for any thing else is to beset them. 
 What folly! no one feels the want of himself and life at the 
 time when mind and body are together sunk in sleep ; for all 
 we care this sleep might be everlasting, no craving whatever 
 for ourselves then moves us. And yet by no means do those 
 first-beginnings throughout our frame wander at that time far 
 away from their sense-producing motions, when a man starts 
 up from sleep and collects himself at once. Death therefore 
 must be thought to concern us much less, if less there can be 
 than what we see to be nothing; for a greater dispersion of 
 the mass of matter follows in the train of death, and no one 
 wakes up, upon whom the chill cessation of life has once come. 
 
 Once more, if the nature of things could suddenly utter a 
 voice and in person could rally any of us in such words as 
 these, ' what hast thou, o mortal, so much at heart, that thou 
 goest such lengths in sickly sorrows? why bemoan and bewail 
 death? for say thy life past and gone has been welcome to thee 
 and thy blessings have not all, as if they were poured into a 
 perforated vessel, run through and been lost without avail: 
 why not then take thy departure like a guest filled with life, 
 and with resignation, thou fool, enter upon untroubled rest? 
 but if all that thou hast enjoyed, has been squandered and lost 
 and life is a grievance, why seek to make any addition, to be 
 wasted perversely in its turn and lost utterly without avail? 
 why not rather make an end of life and travail? for there is 
 nothing more which I can contrive and discover for thee to give 
 pleasure: all things are ever the sam-e. Though thy body is 
 not yet decayed with years nor thy frame worn out and ex- 
 hausted, yet all things remain the same, ay though in length 
 of life thou shouldst outlast all races of things now living, nay 
 even more if thou shouldst never die', what answer have we to 
 make save this, that nature sets up against us a well-founded 
 claim and puts forth in her pleading a true indictment? If 
 however one of greater age and more advanced in years should
 
 80 III 
 
 95*— 993 
 
 complain and lament poor wretch his death more than is right, 
 would she not with greater cause raise her voice and rally 
 him in sharp accents, 'away from this time forth with thy 
 tears, rascal ; a truce to thy complainings : thou decayest after 
 full enjoyment of all the prizes of life. But because thou ever 
 yearnest for what is not present, and despisest what is, life 
 has slipped from thy grasp unfinished and unsatisfying, and or 
 ever thou thoughtest, death has taken his stand at thy pillow, 
 before thou canst take thy departure sated and filled with good 
 things. Now however give up all things unsuited to thy age, 
 and come and with a good grace rather take thyself off; for it 
 must be so'. With good reason methinks she would bring her 
 charge, with reason rally and reproach ; for old things give way 
 and are supplanted by new without fail, and one thing must 
 ever be replenished out of other things ; and no one is delivered 
 over to the pit and black Tartarus: matter is needed for after 
 generations to grow ; all of which though will follow thee when 
 they have finished their term of life; and thus it is that all 
 these no less than thou have before this come to an end and 
 hereafter will come to an end. Thus one thing will never cease 
 to rise out of another, and life is granted to none in fee-simple, 
 to all in usufruct. Think too how the bygone antiquity of 
 everlasting time before our birth was nothing to us. Nature 
 therefore holds this up to us as a mirror of the time yet to 
 come after our death. Is there aught in this that looks appal- 
 ling, aught that wears an aspect of gloom? is it not more un- 
 troubled than any sleep ? 
 
 And those things sure enough, which are fabled to be in 
 the deep of Acheron, do all exist for us in this life. No Tan- 
 talus, numbed by groundless terror, as the story is, fears poor 
 wretch a huge stone hanging in air; but in life rather a base- 
 less dread of the gods vexes mortals : the fall they fear is such 
 fall of luck as chance brings to each. Nor do birds eat a way 
 into Tityos laid in Acheron, nor can they sooth to say find 
 during eternity food to peck under his large breast. However 
 huge the bulk of body he extends, though such as to take up 
 with outspread limbs not nine acres merely, but the whole 
 earth, yet will he not be able to endure everlasting pain and 
 supply food from his own body for ever. But he is for us a 
 Tityos, whom as he grovels in love vultures rend and bitter
 
 993— 1035 HI 8 1 
 
 bitter anguish eats up or troubled thoughts from any other pas- 
 sion do rive. In life too we have a Sisyphus before our eyes 
 who is bent on asking from the people the rods and cruel axes, 
 and always retires defeated and disappointed. For to ask for 
 power, which empty as it is is never given, and always in the 
 chase of it to undergo severe toil, this is forcing up-hill with 
 much effort a stone which after all rolls back again from the 
 summit and seeks in headlong haste the levels of the plain. 
 Then to be ever feeding the thankless nature of the mind, and 
 never to fill it full and sate it with good things, as the seasons 
 of the year do for us, when they come round and bring their 
 fruits and varied delights, though after all we are never filled 
 with the enjoyments of life, this methinks is to do what is told 
 of the maidens in the flower of their age, to keep pouring water 
 into a perforated vessel which in spite of all can never be filled 
 full. Moreover Cerberus and the furies and yon privation of 
 light [are idle tales, as well as all the rest, Ixion's wheel and 
 black] Tartarus belching forth hideous fires from his throat: 
 things which nowhere are nor sooth to say can be. But there 
 is in life a dread of punishment for evil deeds, signal as the 
 deeds are signal, and for atonement of guilt, the prison and the 
 frightful hurling down from the rock, scourgings executioners, 
 the dungeon of the doomed, the pitch, the metal plate, torches ; 
 and even though these are wanting, yet the conscience-stricken 
 mind through boding fears applies to itself goads and frightens 
 itself with whips, and sees not meanwhile what end there can 
 be of ills or what limit at last is to be set to punishments, and 
 fears lest these very evils be enhanced after death. The life of 
 fools at length becomes a hell here on earth. 
 
 This too you may sometimes say to yourself 'even worthy 
 Ancus has quitted the light with his eyes, who was far far better 
 than thou, unconscionable man. And since then many other 
 kings and kesars have been laid low, who lorded it over mighty 
 nations. He too, even he who erst paved a way over the great 
 sea and made a path for his legions to march over the deep and 
 taught them to pass on foot over the salt pools and set at 
 naught the roarings of the sea, trampling on them with his 
 horses, had the light taken from him and shed forth his soul 
 from his dying body. The son of the Scipios, thunderbolt of 
 war, terror of Carthage, yielded his bones to earth just as if he 
 
 Q
 
 $2 III 
 
 1035—1075 
 
 were the lowest menial. Think too of the inventors of all 
 sciences and graceful arts, think of the companions of the Heli- 
 conian maids; among whom Homer bore the sceptre without a 
 peer, and he now sleeps the same sleep as others. Then there 
 is Demoeritus who, when a ripe old age had warned him that 
 the memory-waking motions of his mind were waning, by his 
 own spontaneous act offered up his head to death. Even Epicurus 
 passed away, when his light of life had run its course, he who 
 surpassed in intellect the race of man and quenched the light of 
 all, as the ethereal sun arisen quenches the stars. Wilt thou 
 then hesitate and think it a hardship to die ? thou for whom life 
 is well nigh dead whilst yet thou livest and seest the light, who 
 spendest the greater part of thy time in sleep and snores* wide 
 awake and ceasest not to see visions and hast a mind troubled 
 with groundless terror and canst not discover often what it is 
 that ails thee, when besotted man thou art sore pressed on all 
 sides with full many cares and goest astray tumbling about in 
 the wayward wanderings of thy mind. 
 
 If, just as they are seen to feel that a load is on their mind 
 which wears them out with its pressure, men might apprehend 
 from what causes too it is produced and whence such a pile, if I 
 may say so, of ill lies on their breast, they would not spend their 
 life as we see them now for the most part do, not knowing any 
 one of them what he means and wanting ever change of place 
 as though he might lay his burden down. The man who is sick 
 of home often issues forth from his large mansion, and as sud- 
 denly comes back to it, finding as he does that he is no better 
 off abroad. He races to his country-house, driving his jennets 
 in headlong haste, as if hurrying to bring help to a house on 
 fire: he yawns the moment he has reached the door of his 
 house, or sinks heavily into sleep and seeks forgetfulness, or 
 even in haste goes back again to town. In this way each man 
 flies from himself, (but self from whom, as you may be sure is 
 commonly the case, he cannot escape, clings to him in his own 
 despite) hates too himself, because he is sick and knows not the 
 cause of the malady; for if he could rightly see into this, relin- 
 quishing all else each man would study to learn the nature of 
 things, since the point at stake is the condition for eternity, not 
 for one hour, in which mortals have to pass all the time which 
 remains for them to expect after death.
 
 1076 — 1094 III 83 
 
 Once more what evil lust of life is this which constrains us 
 with such force to be so mightily troubled in doubts and dangers? 
 a sure term of life is fixed for mortals, and death cannot be 
 shunned, but meet it we must. Moreover we are ever engaged, 
 ever involved in the same pursuits, and no new pleasure is 
 struck out by living on; but whilst what we crave is wanting, 
 it seems to transcend all the rest; then, when it has been got- 
 ten, we crave something else, and ever does the same thirst of 
 life possess us, as we gape for it open-mouthed. Quite doubtful 
 it is what fortune the future will carry with it or what chance 
 will bring us or what end is at hand. Nor by prolonging life 
 do we take one tittle from the time past in death nor can we 
 fret anything away, whereby we may haply be a less long time 
 in the condition of the dead. Therefore you may complete as 
 many generations as you please during your life ; none the less 
 however will that everlasting death await you; and for no less 
 long a time will he be no more in being, who beginning with to- 
 day has ended his life, than the man who has died many months 
 and years ago. 
 
 G 2
 
 1 — 39 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 
 
 BOOK FOURTH 
 
 I traverse the pathless haunts of the Pierides never yet 
 trodden by sole of man. I love to approach the untasted 
 springs and to quaff, I love to cull fresh flowers and gather for 
 my head a distinguished crown from spots whence the muses 
 have yet veiled the brows of none; first because I teach of great 
 things and essay to release the mind from the fast bonds of 
 religious scruples, and next because on a dark subject I pen such 
 lucid verses o'erlaying all with the muses' charm. For that too 
 would seem to be not without good grounds : even as physicians 
 when they purpose to give nauseous wormwood to children, first 
 smear the rim round the bowl with the sweet yellow juice of 
 honey, that the unthinking age of children may be fooled as far 
 as the lips, and meanwhile drink up the bitter draught of worm- 
 wood and though beguiled yet not be betrayed, but rather by 
 such means recover health and strength: so I now, since this 
 doctrine seems generally somewhat bitter to those by whom it 
 has not been handled, and the multitude shrinks back from it 
 in dismay, have resolved to set forth to you our doctrine in 
 sweet-toned Pierian verse and o'erlay it as it were with the 
 pleasant honey of the muses, if haply by such means I might 
 engage your mind on my verses, till such time as you apprehend 
 all the nature of things and throughly feel what use it has. 
 
 And now that I have taught what the nature of the mind is 
 and out of what things it is formed into one quickened being 
 with the body, and how it is dissevered and returns into its first- 
 beginnings, 1 will attempt to lay before you a truth which most
 
 A 
 
 a 9 - 7 8 IV 85 
 
 nearly concerns these questions, the existence of things which 
 we call idols of things: these, like films peeled off from the 
 surface of things, fly to and fro through the air, and do likewise 
 frighten our minds when they present themselves to us awake 
 as well as in sleep, what time we behold strange shapes and 
 idols of the light-bereaved, which have often startled us in ap- 
 palling wise as we lay relaxed in sleep: this I will attempt, that 
 we may not haply believe that souls break loose from Acheron 
 or that shades fly about among the living or that any part of us 
 is left behind after death, when the body and the nature of the 
 mind destroyed together have taken their departure into their 
 several first-beginnings. 
 
 I say then that pictures of things and thin shapes are emitted 
 from things off their surface : these are like films or may each 
 be named a rind, because each image bears an appearance and 
 form like to the thing whatever it is from whose body it is shed 
 and wanders forth. This you may learn however dull of appre- 
 hension from what follows. First of all since among things 
 open to sight many emit bodies, some in a state of loose dif- 
 fusion, like smoke which logs of oak, heat which fires emit; 
 some of a closer and denser texture, like the gossamer coats which 
 at times cicades doff in summer, and the films which calves at 
 their birth cast from the surface of their body, as well as the 
 vesture which the slippery serpent puts off among the thorns ; 
 for often we see the brambles enriched with their flying spoils: 
 since these cases occur, a thin image likewise must be emitted 
 from things off their surface. For why those films should drop 
 off and withdraw from things rather than films which are really 
 thin, not one tittle of proof can be given; especially since there 
 are on the surface of things many minute bodies which may be 
 discharged in the same order they had before and preserve the 
 outline of the shape, and be discharged with far more velocity, 
 inasmuch as they are less liable to get hampered being few in 
 number and stationed in the front rank. For without doubt we 
 see many things discharge and freely give not only from the core 
 and centre, as we said before, but from their surfaces, besides 
 other things colour itself. And this is commonly done by 
 yellow and red and dark-blue awnings, when they are spread 
 over large theatres and flutter and wave as they stretch across 
 their poles and crossbeams; for then they dye the seated assem-
 
 86 IV 78-122 
 
 blage below and all the show of the stage and the richly attired 
 company of the fathers, and compel them to dance about in 
 their colour. And the more these objects are shut in all round 
 by the walls of the theatre, the more do all of them within laugh 
 on all hands, o'erlaid with graceful hues, the light of day being 
 narrowed. Therefore since sheets of canvas emit colour from 
 their surface, all things will naturally emit thin pictures too, 
 since in each case alike they discharge from the surface. There 
 are therefore as now shewn sure outlines of shapes, which fly all 
 about possessed of an exquisitely small thickness and cannot 
 when separate be seen one at a time. Again all smell smoke 
 heat and other such-like things stream off things in a state of 
 diffusion, because while they are coming from the depths of the 
 body having arisen within it, they are torn in their winding 
 passage, and there are no straight orifices to the paths, for them 
 to make their way out by in a mass. But on the other hand 
 when a thin film of surface colour is discharged, there is nothing 
 to rend it, since it is ready to hand stationed in front rank. 
 Lastly in the case of all idols which shew themselves to us in 
 mirrors water or any other shining object, since their outsides 
 are possessed of an appearance like to the things they represent, 
 they must be formed of emitted images of things. There are 
 therefore thin shapes and pictures like to the things which, 
 though no one can see them one at a time, yet when thrown off 
 by constant and repeated reflexion give back a visible image 
 from the plane surface of mirrors ; and in no other way it would 
 seem can they be kept so entire that shapes are given back so 
 exceedingly like each object. 
 
 Now mark, and learn how thin the nature of an image is. 
 And first of all, since the first-beginnings are so far below the 
 ken of our senses and much smaller than the things which our 
 eyes begin to be unable to see, to strengthen yet more the 
 proof of this also, learn in a few words how minutely fine are 
 the beginnings of all things. First, living things are in some 
 cases so very little, that their third part cannot be seen at all. 
 Of what size are we to suppose any gut of such creatures to be? 
 or the ball of the heart or the eyes? the limbs? or any part of 
 the frame? how small they must be! And then further the 
 several first-beginnings of which their soul and the nature of 
 their mind must be formed? do you not perceive how fine, how
 
 I23-l6 3 IV 87 
 
 minute they are? Again in the case of all things which exhale 
 from their body a pungent smell, all-heal, nauseous wormwood, 
 strong-scented southernwood and the bitter centauries, any one 
 of which, if you happen to [feel it] lightly between two [fingers, 
 will impregnate them with a strong smell] * * but rather you 
 are to know that idols of things wander about many in number 
 in many ways, of no force, powerless to excite sense. 
 
 But lest haply you suppose that only those idols of things 
 which go off from things and no others wander about, there are 
 likewise those which are spontaneously begotten and are formed 
 by themselves in this lower heaven which is called air: these 
 fashioned in many ways are borne along on high and being in a 
 fluid state cease not to alter their appearance and change it 
 into the outline of shapes of every possible kind ; as we see clouds 
 sometimes gather into masses on high and blot the calm clear 
 face of heaven, fanning the air with their motion. Thus often 
 the faces of giants are seen to fly along and draw after them a 
 far-spreading shadow; sometimes great mountains and rocks 
 torn from the mountains are seen to go in advance and pass 
 across the sun ; and then some huge beast is observed to draw 
 with it and bring on other storm-clouds. 
 
 Now [I will proceed to shew] with what ease and celerity 
 they are begotten and how incessantly they flow and fall away 
 from things. The outermost surface is ever streaming off from 
 things and admits of being discharged: when this reaches some 
 things, it passes through them, glass especially. But when it 
 reaches rough stones or the matter of wood, it is then so torn 
 that it cannot give back any idol. But when objects at once 
 shining and dense have been put in its way, a mirror especially, 
 none of these results has place : it can neither pass through it, 
 like glass, nor can it be torn either; such perfect safety the 
 polished surface minds to ensure. In consequence of this idols 
 stream back to us from such objects; and however suddenly at 
 any moment you place any thing opposite a mirror, an image 
 shews itself: hence you may be sure that thin textures and thin 
 shapes of things incessantly stream from their surface. There- 
 fore many idols are begotten in a short time, so that the birth 
 of such things is with good reason named a rapid one. And as 
 the sun must send forth many rays of light in a short time in 
 order that all things may be continually filled with it, so also
 
 88 IV J63 — :03 
 
 for a like reason there must be carried away from things in a 
 moment of time idols of things many in number in many ways 
 in all directions round; since to whatever part of them we pre- 
 sent a mirror before their surfaces, other things correspond to 
 these in the mirror of a like shape and like colour. 
 
 Moreover though the state of heaven has just before been 
 of unsullied purity, with exceeding suddenness it becomes so 
 hideously ovei'cast, that you might imagine all its darkness had 
 abandoned Acheron throughout and filled up the great vaults 
 of heaven : in such numbers, mid the frightful night of storm- 
 clouds that has gathered, do faces of black horror hang over us 
 on high. Now there is no one who can tell how small a fraction 
 of these an image is, or express that sum in language. 
 
 Now mark : how swift the motion is with which idols are 
 borne along, and what velocity is assigned to them as they glide 
 through the air, so that but a short hour is spent on a journey 
 through long space, whatever the spot towards which they go 
 with a movement of varied tendency, all this I will tell in 
 sweetly worded rather than in many verses ; as the short song 
 of the swan is better than the loud noise of cranes scattered 
 abroad amid the ethereal clouds of the south. First of all we 
 may very often observe that things which are light and made of 
 minute bodies are swift. Of this kind are the light of the 
 sun and its heat, because they are made of minute first things 
 which are knocked forward so to speak and do not hesitate to 
 pass through the space of air between, ever driven on by a 
 blow following behind ; for light on the instant is supplied by 
 fresh light and brightness goaded to shew its brightness in what 
 you might call an ever on-moving team. Therefore in like 
 manner idols must be able to scour in a moment of time through 
 space unspeakable, fii'st because they are exceeding small and 
 there is a cause at their back to carry and impel them for- 
 ward ; next because when emitted they are possessed of so rare 
 a texture, that they can readily pass through any things and 
 stream as it were through the space of air between. Again if 
 those minute bodies of things which are given out from the 
 inmost depths of these things, as the light and heat of the sun, 
 are seen in a moment of time to glide and spread themselves 
 through the length and breadth of heaven, fly over sea and 
 lands and flood the heaven, what then of those which stand
 
 ioj- 245 
 
 IV 89 
 
 ready posted in front rank, when they are discharged and 
 nothing obstructs their egress, where moreover they are borne 
 on with such winged rapidity ? do you not see how much faster 
 and farther they must travel, scouring through many times the 
 same amount of space in the same time that the sunlight takes 
 to spread over heaven ? This too appears to be an eminently 
 true proof of the velocity with which idols of things are borne 
 along : as soon as ever the brightness of water is set down 
 in the open air, if the heaven is starry, in a moment the clear 
 radiant constellations of ether imaged in the water correspond 
 to those in the heaven. Now do you see in what a moment of 
 time an image drops down from the borders of heaveD to the 
 borders of earth ? Therefore again and again I repeat you 
 must admit that bodies capable of striking the eyes and of pro- 
 voking vision [constantly travel] with a marvellous [velocity]. 
 Smells too incessantly stream from certain things; as does cold 
 from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, 
 that eater into walls near the shore. Various sounds also cease 
 not to fly through the air. Then too a moist salt flavour often 
 comes into the mouth, when we are moving about beside the 
 sea ; and when we look on at the mixing of a decoction of 
 wormwood, its bitterness affects us. In such a constant stream 
 from all these things the several qualities are carried and are 
 transmitted in all directions round, and no delay, no respite in 
 the flow is ever granted, since we constantly have feeling, and 
 may at any time see smell and hear the sound of anything. 
 
 Again since a particular figure felt by the hands in the dark 
 is known to be the same which is seen in the bright light of 
 day, touch and sight must be excited by a quite similar cause. 
 Well then if we handle a square thing and it excites our atten- 
 tion in the dark, in -the day-light what square thing will be 
 able to fall on our sight, except the image of that thing? 
 Therefore the cause of seeing it is plain lies in images and 
 no thing can be perceived without them. Well the idols of 
 things I speak of are borne along all round and are discharged 
 and transmitted in all directions ; but because we can see with 
 the eyes alone, the consequence is that, to whatever point 
 we turn our sight, there all the several things meet and strike 
 it with their shape and colour. And the image gives the power 
 to see and the means to distinguish how far each thing is
 
 90 IV 345—288 
 
 distant from us ; for as soon as ever it is discharged, it pushes 
 before it and impels all the air which lies between it and the 
 eyes ; and thus that air all streams through our eyes and 
 brushes so to say the pupils and so passes through. The con- 
 sequence is that we see how far distant each thing is. And the 
 greater the quantity of air which is driven on before it and the 
 larger the current which brushes our eyes, the more distant 
 each different thing is seen to be. You must know these pro- 
 cesses go on with extreme rapidity, so that at one and the same 
 moment we see what like a thing is and how far distant it is. 
 And this must by no means be deemed strange herein that, 
 while the idols which strike the eyes cannot be seen one at 
 a time, the things themselves are seen. For thus when the 
 wind too beats us with successive strokes and when piercing 
 cold streams, we are not wont to feel each single particle of that 
 wind and cold, but rather the whole sesult ; and then we per- 
 ceive blows take effect on our body just as if something or 
 other were beating it and giving us a sensation of its body out- 
 side. Again when we thump a stone with a finger, we touch 
 merely the outermost colour on the surface of the stone, and 
 yet we do not feel that colour by our touch, but rather we feel 
 the very hardness of the stone seated in its inmost depths. 
 
 Now mark, and learn why the image is seen beyond the 
 mirror ; for without doubt it is seen withdrawn far within. 
 The case is just the same as with things which are viewed 
 in their reality beyond a door, when it offers through it an 
 unobstructed prospect and lets many things outside be seen 
 from a house. That vision too is effected by two separate airs : 
 first there is an air seen in such a case inside the doorway; next 
 come the leaves of the door right and left ; next a light out- 
 side brushes the eyes, then a second air, then those things out- 
 side which are viewed in their reality. Thus when the image 
 of the mirror has first discharged itself, in coming to our sight 
 it pushes forward and impels all the air which lies between it 
 and the eyes, and enables us to see the whole of it before 
 the mirror. But when we have perceived the mirror as well, at 
 once the image which is conveyed from us reaches the mirror 
 and then is reflected and comes back to our eyes, and drives on 
 and rolls in front of it a second air and lets us see this before 
 itself, and for this reason it looks so far withdrawn from the
 
 288-327 
 
 IV 9i 
 
 mirror. Wherefore again and again I repeat there is no cause 
 at all to wonder why the images give back the reflexion from 
 the surface of mirrors in the spot they do, since in both the 
 given cases the result is produced by two airs. To proceed, the 
 right side of our body is seen in mirrors to be on the left, 
 because when the image comes and strikes on the plane of the 
 mirror, it is not turned back unaltered, but is beaten out in a 
 right line backwards, just as if you were to take a plaster mask 
 before it is dry and dash it on a pillar or beam, and it forthwith 
 were to preserve the lines of its features undistorted in front 
 and were to strike out an exact copy of itself straight back- 
 wards. The result will be that the eye which was right will 
 now be left ; and conversely the left become the right. An 
 image may also be so transmitted from one mirror to another 
 that five or six idols are often produced. And thus all the 
 things which lurk in the inmost corners of a house, however far 
 they are withdrawn into tortuous recesses, may yet be all 
 brought out through winding passages by the aid of a number 
 of mirrors and be seen to be in the house. So unfailingly does 
 the image reflect itself from mirror to mirror ; and when the 
 left side is presented, it becomes the right in the new image ; 
 then it is changed back again and turns round to what it was. 
 Moreover all mirrors which form little sides possessing a curva- 
 ture resembling our side, send back to us idols with their right 
 corresponding to our right either for this reason, because the 
 image is transmitted from one mirror to another, and then after 
 it has been twice struck out flies to us, or it may be because 
 the image, when it has come to the mirror, wheels round, 
 because the curved shape of the mirror teaches it to turn itself 
 as we are turned. Again you would think that idols step out 
 and put down their foot at the same time with us and mimic 
 our action, because from before whatever part of a mirror you 
 move away, from that part forthwith no idols can be reflected ; 
 since nature constrains all things, when they are carried back 
 and recoil from things, to be given back at angles equal to those 
 at which they impinged. 
 
 Bright things again the eyes eschew and shun to look upon : 
 the sun even blinds them, if you persist in turning them 
 towards it, because its power is great and idols are borne 
 through the clear air with great downward force from on high,
 
 9? IV 3^8-374 
 
 and strike the eyes and disorder their fastenings. Moreover 
 any vivid brightness often burns the eyes, because it contains 
 many seeds of fire which make a way in and beget pain in the 
 eyes. Again whatever the jaundiced look at, becomes a greenish- 
 yellow, because many seeds of greenish-yellow stream from their 
 body and meet the idols of things, and many too are mixed up 
 in their eyes, and these by their infection tinge all things with 
 sallow hues. Again we see out of the dark things which are in 
 the light for this reason: when the black air of darkness being 
 the nearer has first entered and taken possession of the open 
 eyes, the bright white air follows straightway after and cleanses 
 them so to say and dispels the black shadows of the other air ; 
 for this is a great deal more nimble, a great deal more subtle 
 and more efficacious. As soon as it has filled with light and 
 opened up the passages of the eyes which the black air had 
 before blocked up, forthwith the idols of things which are 
 situated in the light follow and excite them so that we see. 
 This we cannot do conversely in the dark out of the light, 
 because the grosser air of darkness follows behind and quite fills 
 all the openings and blocks up the passages of the eyes, not 
 letting the idols of any things at all be thrown into the eyes to 
 move them. Again when we descry far off the square towers of 
 a town, they often appear to be round for this reason : all the 
 angles are seen from a distance to look obtuse, or rather are not 
 seen at all, and their blow is lost and their stroke never makes 
 its way to our sight, because while the idols are borne on 
 through much air, the air by repeated collisions blunts the 
 stroke perforce. When in this way all the angles have together 
 eluded the sense, the stone structures are rounded off as if by 
 the lathe ; yet they do not look like the things which are close 
 before us and really round, but somewhat resembling them as in 
 shadowy outline. Our shadow likewise seems to move in the 
 sunshine and to follow our steps and mimic our action ; if you 
 think forsooth that air deprived of life can step, imitating the 
 motions and the actions of men ; for that which we are wont to 
 term shadow can be nothing but air devoid of light. Sure 
 enough because the earth in certain spots successively is 
 deprived of light wherever we intercept it in moving about, 
 while that part of it which we have quitted is filled with light, 
 therefore that which was the shadow of our body, seems to
 
 374-415 W . 93 
 
 have always followed us unchanged in a direct line with us. 
 For new rays of light ever pour in and the old are lost, just as 
 if wool were drawn into the fire. Therefore the earth is readily 
 stripped of light, and again filled, and cleanses itself from black 
 shadows. 
 
 And yet in all this we do not admit that the eyes are 
 cheated one whit. For it is their province to observe in what 
 spot soever light and shade are ; but whether the lights are 
 still the same or not, and whether it is the same shadow which 
 was in this spot that is now passing to that, or whether what 
 we said a little before is not rather the fact, this the reason of 
 the mind, and only it, has to determine ; nor can the eyes know 
 the nature of things. Do not then fasten upon the eyes this 
 frailty of the mind. The ship in which we are sailing, moves 
 on while seeming to stand still ; that one which remains at its 
 moorings, is believed to be passing by. The hills and fields 
 seem to be dropping astern, past which we are driving our ship 
 and flying under sail. The stars all seem to be at rest fast 
 fixed to the ethereal vaults, and yet are all in constant motion, 
 since they rise and then go back to their far-off places of 
 setting, after they have traversed the length of heaven with 
 their bright bodies. In like manner sun and moon seem to 
 stay in one place, bodies which simple fact proves are carried 
 on. And though between mountains rising up afar off from 
 amid the waters there opens out for fleets a free passage of 
 wide extent, yet a single island seems to be formed out of them 
 united into one. When children have stopped turning round 
 themselves, the halls appear to them to whirl about and the 
 pillars to course round to such a degree, that they can scarce 
 believe that the whole roof is not threatening to tumble down 
 upon them. Again when nature begins to raise on high the 
 sun's beam ruddy with bickering fires and to lift it up above the 
 mountains, those hills above which the sun then seems to you 
 to be, as blazing close at hand he dyes them with his own fire, 
 are distant from us scarce two thousand arrow-flights, yea often 
 scarce five hundred casts of a javelin; and yet between them 
 and the sun lie immense levels of sea, spread out below the 
 huge borders of ether, and many thousands of lands are between, 
 held by divers peoples and races of wild beasts. Then a 
 puddle of water not more than a finger-breadth deep, which
 
 94 . IV 4*5-455 
 
 stands between the stones in the streets, offers a prospect 
 beneath the earth of a reach as vast, as that with which the high 
 yawning maw of heaven opens out above the earth ; so that 
 you seem to discern clouds and see the sky and all the other 
 objects far withdrawn into that wondrous sky beneath the 
 earth. Again when our stout horse has stuck in the middle of 
 a river and we have looked down on the swift- waters of the 
 stream, some force seems to carry athwart the current the body 
 of the horse which is standing still and to force it rapidly up 
 the stream ; and to whatever point we cast our eyes about, 
 all things seem to be carried on and to be flowing in the same 
 way as we are. Again although a portico runs in parallel lines 
 from one end to the other and stands supported by equal 
 columns along its whole extent, yet when from the top of it 
 it is seen in its entire length, it gradually forms the contracted 
 top of a narrowing cone, until uniting roof with floor and all the 
 right side with the left it has brought them together into the 
 vanishing point of a cone. To sailors on the sea the sun 
 appears to rise out of the waters and in the waters to set and 
 bury his light; just because they behold nothing but water and 
 sky ; that you may not lightly suppose the credit of the senses 
 to be shaken on all hands. Then to people unacquainted with 
 the sea ships in harbour seem to be all askew and with poop- 
 fittings broken to be pressing up against the water. For what- 
 ever part of the oars is raised above the salt water, is straight, 
 and the rudders in their upper half are straight : the parts 
 which are sunk below the water-level, appear to be broken and 
 bent round and to slope up and turn back towards the surface 
 and to be so much twisted back as wellnigh to float on the top 
 of the water. And when the winds carry the thinly scattered 
 clouds across heaven in the night-time, then do the glittering 
 signs appear to glide athwart the rack and to be travelling 
 on high in a direction quite different to their real course. Then 
 if our hand chance to be placed beneath one eye and press 
 it below, through a certain sensation all things which we look 
 at appear then to become double as we look ; the light of 
 lamps brilliant with flames to be double, double too the furni- 
 ture through the whole house, double men's faces and men's 
 bodies. Again when sleep has chained down our limbs in sweet 
 slumber and the whole body is sunk in profound repose, yet
 
 455-495 IV 95 
 
 then we seem to ourselves to be awake and to be moving our 
 limbs, and mid the thick darkness of night we think we see the 
 sun and the daylight ; and though in a confined room, we seem 
 to be passing to new climates seas rivers mountains and to be 
 crossing plains on foot and to hear noises, though the austere 
 silence of night prevails all round, and to be uttering speech 
 though quite silent. Many are the other things of this marvel- 
 lous sort we see, which all seek to shake as it were the credit of 
 the senses : quite in vain, since the greatest part of these cases 
 cheats us on account of the mental suppositions which we add 
 of ourselves, taking those things as seen which have not been 
 seen by the senses. For nothing is harder than to separate 
 manifest facts from doubtful which straightway the mind adds 
 on of itself. 
 
 Again if a man believe that nothing is known, he knows 
 not whether this even can be known, since he admits he knows 
 nothing. I will therefore decline to argue the case against him 
 who places himself with head where his feet should be. And 
 yet granting that he knows this, I would still put this question, 
 since he has never yet seen any truth in things, whence he 
 knows what knowing and not knowing severally are, and what 
 it is that has produced the knowledge of the true and the false 
 and what has proved the doubtful to differ from the certain. 
 You will find that from the senses first has proceeded the know- 
 ledge of the true and that the senses cannot be refuted. For 
 that which is of itself to be able to refute things false by true 
 things must from the nature of the case be proved to have the 
 higher certainty. Well then what must fairly be accounted of 
 higher certainty than sense ? Shall reason founded on false 
 sense be able to contradict them, wholly founded as it is on the 
 senses? and if they are not true, then all reason as well is 
 rendered false. Or shall the ears be able to take the eyes 
 to task, or the touch the ears ? Again shall the taste call 
 in question this touch, or the nostrils refute or the eyes contro- 
 vert it ? Not so, I guess ; for each apart has its own distinct 
 office, each its own power; and therefore we must perceive 
 what is soft and cold or hot by one distinct faculty, by another 
 perceive the different colours of things and see all the qualities 
 conjoined with colour. Taste too has its faculty apart ; smells 
 spring from one source, sounds from another. It must follow
 
 9 6 IV 495-537 
 
 therefore that any one sense cannot confute any other. No nor 
 can any sense take itself to task, since equal credit must be 
 assigned to it at all times. What therefore has at any time 
 appeared true to each sense, is true. And if reason shall be 
 unable to explain away the cause why things which close at 
 hand were square, at a distance looked round, it yet is better, if 
 you are at a loss for the reason, to state erroneously the causes 
 of each shape, than to let slip from your grasp on any side 
 things manifest and ruin the groundwork of belief and wrench 
 up all the foundations on which rest life and existence. For 
 not only would all reason give way, life itself would at once fall 
 to the ground, if you dare not trust the senses and shun preci- 
 pices and all things else of this sort that are to be avoided, and 
 pursue the opposite things. All that host of words then be sure 
 is quite unmeaning, which has been drawn out in array against 
 the senses. Once more, as in a building, if the rule first applied 
 is wry, and the square is untrue and swerves from its straight 
 lines, and if there is the slightest hitch in any part of the level, 
 all the construction must be faulty, all must be wry crooked 
 sloping, leaning forwards, leaning backwards, without symmetry, 
 so that some parts seem ready to fall, others do fall, ruined all 
 by the first erroneous measurements ; so too all reason of things 
 must needs prove to you distorted and false, which is founded 
 on false senses. 
 
 And now to explain in what way the other senses do each 
 perceive their several objects, is the nowise arduous task which 
 is still left. 
 
 In the first place all sound and voice is heard when they 
 have made their way into the ears and have struck with their 
 body the sense of hearing. For voice too and sound you must 
 admit to be bodily, since they are able to act upon the senses. 
 Again voice often abrades the throat, and shouting in passing 
 forth makes the windpipe more rough : when to wit the first- 
 beginnings of voices have risen up in larger mass and commenced 
 to pass abroad through their strait passage, you are to know the 
 door of the mouth now crammed itself is abraded. There is 
 no doubt then that voices and words consist of bodily first- 
 beginnings, with the power to hurt; nor can you fail to know 
 how much of body is taken away and how much is withdrawn 
 from men's very sinews and strength by a speech continued
 
 537-579 IV 97 
 
 without interruption from the dawning brightness of morning to 
 the shadow of black night, above all if it has been poured forth 
 with much loud shouting. Voice therefore must be bodily, since 
 a man by much speaking loses a portion from his body. Next 
 roughness of voice comes from roughness of the first-beginnings, 
 as smoothness is produced from smoothness. Nor are the first- 
 beginnings of like shape which pierce the ears in these two cases : 
 when the trumpet brays dully in deep low tones, the barbarian 
 country roused echoing back the hoarse hollow sound, and when 
 swans from the headstrong torrents of Helicon raise their clear- 
 toned dirge with plaintive voice. 
 
 When therefore we force these voices forth from the depths 
 of our body and discharge them straight out at the mouth, the 
 pliant tongue deft fashioner of words gives them articulate utter- 
 ance and the structure of the lips does its part in shaping them. 
 Therefore when the distance is not long between the point from 
 which each several voice has started and that at which it arrives, 
 the very words too must be plainly heard and distinguished 
 syllable by syllable; for each voice retains its structure and 
 retains its shape. But if the space between be more than is 
 suitable, the words must be huddled together in passing through 
 much air and the voice be disorganised in its flight through the 
 same. Therefore it is that you can hear a sound, yet cannot 
 distinguish what the meaning of the words is : so huddled and 
 hampered is the voice when it comes. Again a single word 
 often stirs the ears of a whole assembly of people, when uttered 
 by the crier's mouth. One voice therefore in a moment starts 
 asunder into many voices, since it distributes itself separately 
 into all the ears, stamping upon them the form and distinct 
 sound of the word. But such of the voices as do not fall directly 
 on the ears, are carried past and lost, fruitlessly dispersed in air : 
 some striking upon solid spots are thrown back and give back a 
 sound and sometimes mock by an echo of the word. When you 
 fully perceive all this, you may explain to yourself and others 
 how it is that in lonely spots rocks give back in regular succession 
 forms of words like to those sent forth, as we seek our comrades 
 straying about among the darkened hills and with loud voice 
 call upon them scattered abroad. I have seen places give back 
 as many as six or seven voices, when you sent forth one: in 
 such wise did the very hills dash back on hills and repeat the 
 
 H
 
 98 IV 579— 6a0 
 
 words thus trained to comeback. These spots the people round 
 fancy thai the goat-footed satyrs and nymphs inhabit, and tell 
 that they are the fauns by whose night-pervading noise and 
 sportive play as they declare the still silence is broken and 
 sounds produced of stringed instruments and sweet plaintive 
 melodies, such as the pipe pours forth when beaten by the fin- 
 gers of the players; the country-people hearing far and wide, 
 what time Pan nodding the piny covering of his head half a 
 beast's oft runs over the gaping reeds with curved Up, making 
 the pipe without ceasing to pour forth its woodland song. Other 
 such like prodigies and marvels they tell of, that they may not 
 Imply be thought to inhabit lonely places, abandoned even by 
 the gods. On this account they vaunt such wonders in their 
 stories or are led on by some other reason; inasmuch as the 
 whole race of man is all too greedy after listening ears. 
 
 To proceed, you need not wonder how it is that through 
 places, through which the eyes cannot see plain things, voices 
 come and strike the ears. We often see a conversation go on 
 even through closed doors, sure enough because the voice can 
 pass uninjured through the winding openings of things, while 
 idols refuse to pass: they are torn to shreds, if the openings 
 through which they glide are not straight, like those of glass, 
 through which every image passes. Again a voice distributes 
 itself in all directions, since voices are begotten one out of an- 
 other, when a single voice has once gone forth and sprung into 
 many, as a spark of fire is often wont to distribute itself into its 
 constituent fires. Therefore places arc filled with voices, which 
 though far withdrawn out of view yet arc all in commotion and 
 stirred by sound. But idols all proceed in straight courses as 
 soon as they have been discharged; and therefore you can never 
 see beyond a wall, but you may hear voices outside it. And yet 
 this very voice even in passing through the walls of houses is 
 blunted and enters the ears in a huddled state, and we seem to 
 hear the sound rather than the actual words. 
 
 The tongue and palate whereby we perceive flavour, have 
 not in them anything that calls for longer explanation or offers 
 more difficulty. In the first place we perceive flavour in the 
 mouth when we press it out in chewing our food, in the same 
 way as when one haply begins to squeeze with his hand and dry 
 a sponge full of water. Next the whole of what we press out
 
 620—659 IV 99 
 
 distributes itself through the cavities of the palate and the in- 
 tricate openings of the porous tongue. Therefore when the 
 bodies of oozing flavour are smooth, they pleasantly touch and 
 pleasantly feel all the parts about the moist exuding quarters of 
 the palate. But on the other hand when they rise in a mass 
 they puncture and tear the sense according to the degree in 
 which they are pervaded by roughness. Next the pleasure 
 from the flavour reaches as far as the palate ; when however it 
 has passed down through the throat, there is no pleasure while 
 it is all distributing itself into the frame. And it makes no 
 matter what the food is with which the body is nurtured, pro- 
 vided you can digest what you take and transmit it into the 
 frame and keep the stomach in an equable condition of moist- 
 ness. 
 
 I will now explain how it is that different food is pleasant 
 and nutritious for different creatures ; also why that which to 
 some is nauseous and bitter, may yet to others seem passing 
 sweet; and why in these matters the difference and discrepancy 
 is so great that what to one man is food, to another is rank 
 poison: thus there may exist a serpent which on being touched 
 by a man's spittle wastes away and destroys itself by gnawing 
 its body. Again hellebore for us is rank poison, but helps to 
 fatten goats and quails. That you may know how T this comes 
 to pass, first of all you must remember what we have said before, 
 that the seeds which are contained in things are mixed up in 
 manifold ways. Again all living creatures soever which take 
 food, even as they are unlike on the outside, and, differing in 
 each after its kind, an exterior contour of limbs bounds them, 
 so likewise are they formed of seeds of varying shape. Again 
 since the seeds differ, there must be a discrepancy in the spaces 
 between and the passages, which we name openings, in all the 
 limbs and mouth and palate as well. Some seeds therefore 
 must be smaller, some larger; some things must have three- 
 cornered, others square seeds; many seeds must be round, some 
 many-angled after many fashions. For as the relation between 
 the shapes of seeds and their motions require, the openings also 
 must differ accordingly in their shapes; and the passages must 
 vary, as varies the texture formed by the seeds which bound 
 them. For this reason when that which is sweet to some be- 
 comes bitter to others, for that creature to whom it is sweet the 
 
 H 2
 
 IOO IV 659 698 
 
 smoothest bodies must enter the cavities of the palate with 
 power to feel them all over; but on the other hand in the case 
 of those to whom the same thing is hitter within, rough and 
 barbed seeds sure enough pass down the throat. It is easy now 
 from these principles to understand all particular cases: thus 
 when a fever has attacked any one from too great a flow of bile, 
 or a violent disease has been excited in any other way, thereupon 
 the whole body is disordered and all the arrangements of par- 
 ticles then and there changed ; the consequence of which is that 
 the bodies which before were suited to excite sensation, suit no 
 more; and those fit it better, which are able to make their way 
 in and beget a bitter sense. Both kinds for instance are mixed 
 up in the flavour of honey : a point we have often proved before. 
 
 Now mark me, and I will discuss the way in which the 
 contact of smell affects the nostrils: and first there must be 
 many things from which a varied flow of smells streams and 
 rolls on; and we must suppose that they thus stream and dis- 
 charge and disperse themselves among all things alike ; but one 
 smell fits itself better to one creature, another to another on 
 account of their unlike shapes ; and therefore bees are drawn 
 on by the smell of honey through the air to a very great dis- 
 tance, and so arc vultures by carcases. Also the far-reaching 
 power of scent in dogs leads them on whithersoever the cloven 
 hoof of wild beasts has carried them in their course; and the 
 smell of man is felt far away by the saviour of the Romans' 
 citadel, the bright white goose. Thus different scents assigned 
 to different creatures lead each to its appropriate food and con- 
 strain them to recoil from nauseous poison, and in this way the 
 races of beasts are preserved. 
 
 Of all these different smells then which strike the nostrils 
 one maj 7 reach to a much greater distance than another; though 
 none of them is carried so far as sound, as voice, to say nothing 
 of things which strike the eyesight and provoke vision. For in 
 its mazy course each comes slowly on and is sooner Lost, being 
 gradually dispersed into the readily receiving, expanse of air; 
 first because coming out of its depths it with difficulty dis- 
 charges itself from the thing: for the fact that all things are 
 found to have a stronger smell when crushed, when pounded, 
 when broken up by fire, shews that odours stream and withdraw 
 from the inner parts of things : next you may see that smell is
 
 698—740 IV ioi 
 
 formed of larger first-beginnings than voice, since it does not 
 pass through stone walls, through which voice and sound are 
 borne without fail. For this reason also you will find that it is 
 not so easy to trace out in what quarter a thing which smells is 
 situated; for the blow cools down as it loiters through the air, 
 and the courier particles of things are no longer hot when they 
 finish their race to sense; for which reason dogs are often at fault 
 and lose the scent. 
 
 But what I have said is not found in smells and in the class 
 of flavours only, but also the forms and colours of things are not 
 all so well suited to the senses of all, but that some will be more 
 distressing to the sight than others. Moreover ravenous lions 
 cannot face and bear to gaze upon a cock with flapping wings 
 putting night to rout and wont to summon morning with shrill 
 voice: in such wise they at once bethink themselves of flight, 
 because sure enough in the body of cocks are certain seeds, and 
 these, when they have been discharged into the eyes of lions, 
 bore into the pupils and cause such sharp pain that fierce though 
 they be, they cannot continue to face them; while at the same 
 time these things cannot hurt at all our sight, either because 
 they do not enter in or because the moment they enter a free 
 passage out of the eyes is granted them, so that they cannot by 
 staying behind hurt the eyes in any part. 
 
 Now mark, and hear what things move the mind, and learn 
 in a few words whence the things which come into it do come. 
 I say first of all that idols of things wander about many in 
 number in many ways in all directions round, extremely thin ; 
 and these when they meet, readily unite, like a cobweb or piece 
 of gold-leaf. For these idols are far thinner in texture than 
 those which take possession of the eyes and provoke vision ; 
 since these enter in through the porous parts of the body and 
 stir the fine nature of the mind within and provoke sensation. 
 Therefore we see Centaurs and limbs of Scylla and Cerberus- 
 like faces of dogs and idols of those who are dead and whose 
 bones earth holds in its embrace ; since idols of every kind are 
 everywhere borne about, partly those which are spontaneously 
 produced within the air, partly all those which withdraw from 
 various things and those which are formed by compounding the 
 shapes of these. For assuredly no image of Centaur is formed 
 out of a live one, since no such nature of living creature ever
 
 102 IV 740— 7 8 ° 
 
 existed ; but when images of ahorse and a man have by chance 
 come together, they readily adhere at once, as we said before, 
 on account of their fine nature and thin texture. All other 
 things of the kind are produced in like fashion. And when 
 these from extreme lightness are borne on with velocity, as I 
 shewed before, any one subtle composite image you like readily 
 moves the mind by a single stroke ; for the mind is fine and is 
 itself wondrously nimble. 
 
 That all this is done as I relate you may easily learn from 
 what follows. So far as the one result is like the other, that 
 which we see with the mind and with the eyes must be pro- 
 duced in the like way. Well then since I have shewn that I 
 perceive for instance a lion by means of idols which provoke 
 the eyes, you may be sure that the mind is moved in a like way, 
 which by means of idols sees a lion or anything else just as well 
 as the eyes, with this difference that it perceives much thinner 
 idols. And when sleep has prostrated the body, for no other 
 reason does the mind's intelligence wake, except because the 
 very same idols provoke our minds which provoke them when 
 we are awake, and to such a degree that we seem without a 
 doubt to perceive him whom life has left and death and earth 
 gotten hold of. This nature constrains to come to pass because 
 all the senses of the body are then hampered and at rest 
 throughout the limbs and cannot refute the unreal by real 
 things. Moreover memory is prostrate and relaxed in sleep 
 and protests not that he has long been in the grasp of death 
 and destruction whom the mind believes it sees alive. Further- 
 more it is not strange that idols move and throw about their 
 arms and other limbs in regular measure : for sometimes in 
 sleep an image is seen to do this : when the first to wit has 
 gone and a second then been born in another posture, that 
 former one seems to have altered its attitude. This remember 
 you must assume to take place with exceeding celerity : so 
 great is the velocity, so great the store of things ; so great in 
 any one unit of time that sense can seize is the store of parti- 
 cles, out of which the supply may go on. 
 
 And here many questions present themselves and many 
 points must be cleared up by us, if we desire to give a plain 
 expo it ion of things. The first question is why, when the wish 
 has occurred to any one to think of a thing, his mind on the
 
 7 So S25 IV 103 
 
 instant thinks of that very thing. Do idols observe our will, 
 and so soon as we will does an image present itself to us, if sea, 
 if earth, ay or heaven is what we wish ? Assemblies of men, 
 a procession, feasts, battles, everything in short does nature at 
 command produce and provide ? and though to increase the 
 marvel the mind of others in the same spot and room is think- 
 ing of things all quite different. What again are we to say, 
 when we see in sleep idols advance in measured tread and 
 move their pliant limbs, pliant I say, when in nimble wise they 
 put out each arm in turn and represent to the eyes over and 
 over again an action with foot that moves in time ? Idols to 
 wit are imbued with art and move about well-trained, to be 
 able in the night-time to exhibit such plays. Or will this 
 rather be the truth ? because in one unit of time, when we can 
 perceive it by sense and while one single word is uttered, many 
 latent times are contained which reason finds to exist, therefore 
 in any time you please all the several idols are at hand ready 
 prepared in each several place. And because they are so thin, 
 the mind can see distinctly only those which it strains itself to 
 see ; therefore all that there are besides are lost, save only such 
 as it has taken to itself. Moreover it makes itself ready and 
 hopes to see that which follows upon each thing ; therefore the 
 result does follow. Do you not see that the eyes also, when 
 they essay to discern things which are thin and fine, strain 
 themselves and make themselves ready, and without that we 
 cannot see distinctly ? And yet you may observe even in 
 things which are plain before us, that if you do not attend, it is 
 just as if the thing were all the time away and far distant. 
 What wonder then, if the mind loses all other things save those 
 with which it is itself earnestly occupied ? Then too from 
 small indications we draw the widest inferences and by our 
 own fault entangle ourselves in the meshes of self-delusion. 
 
 Sometimes it happens too that an image of the same kind is 
 not supplied, but what before was a woman, turns out in our 
 hands to have changed into a man ; or a different face and age 
 succeeds to the first. But sleep and forgetfulness prevent us 
 from feeling surprise at this. 
 
 And herein you should desire with all your might to shun 
 the weakness, with a lively apprehension to avoid the mistake 
 of supposing that the bright lights of the eyes were made in
 
 104 IV 826—865 
 
 order that we might sec; and that the tapering ends of the 
 shanks and hams are attached to the feet as a base in order to 
 enable us to' step out with long strides; or again that the 
 forearms were slung to the stout upper arms and ministering 
 hands given us on each side, that we might be able to discharge 
 the needful duties of life. Other explanations of like sort 
 which men give, one and all put effect for cause through wrong- 
 headed reasoning ; since nothing was born in the body that we 
 might use it, but that which is born begets for itself a use : 
 thus seeing did not exist before the eyes were born, nor the 
 employment of speech ere the tongue was made ; but rather the 
 birth of the tongue was long anterior to language and the ears 
 were made long before sound was heard, and all the limbs, 
 I trow, existed before there was any employment for them : 
 they could not therefore have grown for the purpose of being 
 used. But on the other hand en^aenncf in the strife of battle 
 and mangling the body and staining the limbs with gore were 
 in vogue long before glittering darts ever flew ; and nature 
 prompted to shun a wound or ever the left arm by the help of 
 art held up before the person the defence of a shield. Yes and 
 consigning the tired body to rest is much older than a soft- 
 cushioned bed, and the slaking of thirst had birth before cups. 
 These things therefore which have been invented in accordance 
 with the uses and wants of life, may well be believed to have 
 been discovered for the purpose of being used. Far otherwise 
 is it with all those things which first were born, then afterwards 
 made known the purposes to which they might be put ; at the 
 head of which class we sec the senses and the limbs. Where- 
 fore again and again I repeat, it is quite impossible to believe 
 that they could have been made for the duties which they 
 discharge. 
 
 It ought likewise to cause no wonder that the nature of 
 the body of each living creature absolutely requires food. I 
 have shewn that bodies ebb away and withdraw from things, 
 many in number in many ways ; but most numerous must 
 be those which withdraw from living things ; for because these 
 are tried by active motion, and many particles are pressed 
 out from the depths of the frame and carried off by sweat- 
 ing, many breathed out through the mouth, when they pant 
 from exhaustion, from such causes the body becomes rare-
 
 865— 906 IV 105 
 
 fied and the whole nature undermined ; and this state is 
 attended by pain. Food therefore is taken in order to give 
 support to the frame and recruit the strength by its infusion, 
 and to close up the open-mouthed craving for meat throughout 
 limbs and veins. The moisture too passes into all the parts 
 which call for moisture ; and many accumulated bodies of heat 
 which cause a burning in our stomach, the approach of liquid 
 scatters and quenches as if they were fire, so that dry heat can 
 no longer parch the frame. In this way then you see gasping 
 thirst is drenched out of our body, in this way the hungry 
 craving is satisfied. 
 
 Now how it comes to pass that we are able to step out 
 when we please, and how it is given us to move about our 
 limbs, and what cause is wont to push forward the great load of 
 this our body I will tell : do you take in my words. I say that 
 idols of walking first present themselves to our mind and strike 
 on the mind, as we said before : then the will arises ; for no one 
 begins to do anything, until his mind has first determined what 
 it wills. From the very fact that it first determines such thing, 
 there is an image of that thing. When therefore the mind 
 bestirs itself in such a way as to will to walk and step out, 
 it strikes at the same moment the force of the soul which 
 is spread over the whole body throughout the limbs and frame ; 
 and this is easily done, since the whole is held in close union 
 with the mind. Next the soul in its turn strikes the body, and 
 thus the whole mass by degrees is pushed on and set in motion. 
 Then again the body becomes also rarefied, and the air, as you 
 see its nature is, being always so nimble in moving, comes and 
 passes in great quantity through the opened pores and is thus 
 distributed into the most minute parts of the body. In this 
 way then by these two causes acting in two different ways the 
 body after the fashion of ships is carried on by sails and wind. 
 And herein it need not excite any surprise that such very 
 minute bodies can steer so great a body and turn about the 
 whole of this our load ; for wind though fine with subtle body 
 drives and pushes on a large ship of large moving mass and ODe 
 hand directs it however great the speed at which it is going and 
 one rudder steers it to any point you like ; and by means of 
 blocks of pulleys and tread- wheels a machine stirs many things 
 though of great weight and raises them up with slight effort.
 
 io6 IV 907—948 
 
 Now by what means yon sleep lets a stream of repose over 
 the limbs and dispels from the breast the cares of the mind, I 
 will tell in sweetly worded rather than in many verses; as the 
 short song of the swan is better than the loud noise of cranes 
 scattered abroad amid the ethereal clouds of the south. Do 
 you lend me a nice ear and a keen mind, that you may not 
 deny what I say to be possible and secede with breast disdain- 
 fully rejecting the words of truth, you yourself being in fault 
 the while and unable to discern. Sleep mainly takes place 
 v. ben the force of the soul has been scattered about through the 
 frame, and in part has been forced abroad and taken its depar- 
 ture, and in part has been thrust back and has withdrawn into 
 the depths of the body: after that the limbs are relaxed an 1 
 droop. For there is no doubt that this sense exists in us by the 
 agency of the soul ; and when sleep obstructs the action of this 
 sense, then we must assume that our soul has been disordered 
 and forced abroad ; not indeed all ; for then the body would lie 
 steeped in the everlasting chill of death. Where no part of the 
 soul remained behind concealed in the limbs, as fire remains 
 concealed when buried under much ash, whence could sense be 
 suddenly rekindled through the limbs, as flame can spring up 
 from hidden fire ? 
 
 But by what means this change of condition is accomplished 
 and from what the soul can be disordered and the body grow 
 faint, I will explain : do you mind that I waste not my words 
 on the wind. In the first place the body in its outer side, since 
 it is next to and is touched by the air, must be thumped 
 and beaten by its repeated blows ; and for this reason all things 
 as a rule are covered either by a hide or else by shells or by a 
 callous skin or by bark. When creatures breathe, this air 
 at the same time buffets the inner side also, as it is inhaled 
 and exhaled. Therefore since the body is beaten on both sides 
 alike and blows arrive by means of the small apertures at the 
 primal parts and primal elements of our body, there gradually 
 ensues a sort of breaking up throughout our limbs, the arrange- 
 ments of the first-beginnings of body and mind getting dis- 
 ordered. Then next a part of the soul is forced out and a part 
 withdraws into the inner recesses; a part too scattered about 
 through the frame cannot get united together and so act and 
 be acted upon by motion ; for nature intercepts all communi-
 
 948-9S9 IV 107 
 
 cation and blocks up all the passages ; and therefore sense 
 retires deep into the frame as the motions are all altered. And 
 since there is nothing as it were to lend support to the frame, 
 the body becomes weak and all the limbs are faint, the arms 
 and eyelids droop and the hams even in bed often give way 
 under you and relax their powers. Then sleep follows on food, 
 because food produces just the same effects as air, while it 
 is distributed into all the veins ; and that sleep is much the 
 heaviest which you take when full or tired, because then the 
 greatest number of bodies fall into disorder, bruised by much 
 exertion. On the same principle the soul comes in part to be 
 forced more deeply into the frame, and there is also a more 
 copious emission of it abroad, and at the same time it is more 
 divided and scattered in itself within you. 
 
 And generally to whatever pursuit a man is closely tied down 
 and strongly attached, on whatever subject we have previously 
 much dwelt, the mind having been put to a more than usual 
 strain in it, in sleep we for the most part fancy that we are 
 engaged in the same ; lawyers think they plead causes and 
 draw up covenants of sale, generals that they fight and engage 
 in battle, sailors that they wage and carry on war with the 
 winds, we think we pursue our task and investigate the nature 
 of things constantly and consign it when discovered to writings 
 in our native tongue. So all other pursuits and arts are seen 
 for the most part during sleep to occupy and mock the minds 
 of men. And whenever men have given during many days in 
 succession undivided attention to games, we generally see that 
 after they have ceased to perceive these with their senses, there 
 yet remain passages open in the mind through which the same 
 idols of things may enter. Thus for many days those same ob- 
 jects present themselves to the eyes, so that even when awake 
 they see dancers as they think moving their pliant limbs, and 
 receive into the ears the clear music of the harp and speaking- 
 strings, and behold the same spectators and at the same time 
 the varied decorations of the stage in all their brilliancy. So 
 great is the influence of zeal and inclination, so great is the in- 
 fluence of the things in which men have been habitually en- 
 gaged, and not men only but all living creatures. Thus you 
 will see stout horses, even when their bodies are lying down, yet 
 in their sleep sweat and pant without ceasing and strain their
 
 ioS IV 989—1038 
 
 powers to the utmost as if for the prize, or as if the barriers 
 were thi'own open * . And often during soft repose the dogs 
 of hunters doyel all at once throw about their legs and suddenly 
 utter cries and repeatedly snuff the air with their nostrils, as 
 though they had found and were on the tracks of wild beasts; 
 and after they are awake often chase the shadowy idols of stags, 
 as though they saw them in fall flight, until they have shaken 
 off their delusions and come to themselves again. And the 
 fawning brood of dogs brought up tame in the house haste to 
 shake their body and raise it up from the ground, as if they 
 beheld unknown faces and features. And the fiercer the dif- 
 ferent breeds are, the greater rage they must display in sleep. 
 But the various kinds of birds flee and suddenly in the night 
 time trouble with their wings the groves of the gods, when in 
 gentle sleep hawks have appeared to fly in pursuit and to shew 
 fight and offer battle. Again the minds of men which pursue 
 great aims under great emotions, often during sleep pursue and 
 carry on the same in like manner; kings take by storm, are 
 taken, join battle, raise a loud cry as if stabbed on the spot. 
 Many struggle hard and utter groans in pain, and as if gnawed 
 by the bite of panther or cruel lion fill all the place with loud 
 cries. Many during sleep speak of important affairs and have 
 often and often disclosed their own guilt. Many meet death ; 
 many as if tumbling down from high precipices to the ground 
 with their whole body, are scared with terror and after sleep as 
 if they were out of their judgment scarce come to themselves 
 again, quite disordered by their body's turmoil. Again a thirsty 
 man sits down beside a river or a pleasant spring and gulps 
 down wellnigh all the stream. Cleanly people often, when 
 sound asleep, believing that they are lifting their dress beside a 
 urinal or the public vessels, pour forth the filtered liquid of their 
 whole body, and the Babylonian coverlets of surpassing bril- 
 liancy are drenched. Then too those, into the boiling currents 
 of whose age seed is for the first time passing, when the ripe 
 fulness of days has produced it in their limbs, idols encounter 
 from without from what body soever, harbingers of a glorious 
 face and a beautiful bloom, which stir and excite the appro- 
 priate portions of the frame and often occasion fruitless antici- 
 pations of the pleasures of love. 
 
 That seed we have spoken of before is stirred up in us, as
 
 103^-^79 IV IO9 
 
 soon as ripe age fortifies the frame. For as different causes set 
 in motion and excite different things, so from man the sole 
 influence of man draws forth human seed. As soon then as it 
 has been forced out from and quits its proper seats, throughout 
 the limbs and frame it withdraws itself from the whole body 
 and meets together in appropriate places and rouses forthwith 
 the appropriate parts of the body. The places are excited and 
 swell with seed, and the inclination arises to emit that seed 
 towards that to which the fell desire all tends, and the body 
 seeks that object from which the mind is wounded by love; for 
 all as a rule fall towards their wound and the blood spirts out in 
 that direction whence comes the stroke by which we are struck; 
 and if he is at close quarters, the red stream covers the foe. 
 Thus then he who gets a hurt from the weapons of Venus, 
 whatever be the object that hits him, be it a woman breathing 
 love from her whole body, he inclines to the quarter whence he 
 is wounded, and yearns to unite with it and join body with 
 body ; for a mute desire gives a presage of the pleasure. 
 
 This pleasure is for us Venus; from that desire is the Latin 
 name of love, from that desire has first trickled into the heart 
 yon drop of Venus' honeyed joy, succeeded soon by chilly care; 
 for though that which you yearn for is away, yet idols of it are at 
 hand and its sweet name is present to the ears. But it is meet 
 to fly idols and scare away all that feeds love and turn your 
 mind on another object, distract your passion elsawhere and not 
 keep it, with jour thoughts once set on one object by love of it, 
 and so lay up for yourself care and unfailing pain. For the 
 sore gathers strength and becomes inveterate by feeding, and 
 every day the madness grows in violence and the misery be- 
 comes aggravated, unless you erase the first wounds by new 
 blows and first heal them when yet fresh, roaming abroad after 
 Venus the pandemian, or transfer to something else the emotions 
 of your mind. 
 
 Nor is he who shuns love without the fruits of Venus, but 
 rather enjoys those blessings which are without any pain: 
 doubtless the pleasure from such things is more unalloyed for 
 the healthy-minded than for the love-sick ; for in the very mo- 
 ment of enjoying the burning desire of lovers wavers and wanders 
 undecided, and they canuot tell what first to enjoy with eyes 
 and hands. What they have sought, they tightly squeeze and
 
 I 10 I V 1079 — If22 
 
 cause pain of body and often imprint their teeth on the lips and 
 clash month to month in kissing, because the pleasure is not 
 pure and there are hidden stings which stimulate to hurt even 
 that whatever it is from which spring those germs of frenzy. 
 But Venus with light hand breaks the force of these pains dur- 
 ing love, and the fond pleasure mingled therein reins in the 
 bites. For in this there is hope, that from the same body whence 
 springs their burning desire, their flame may likewise be 
 quenched; the direct contrary of which nature protests to be 
 the case; and this is the one thing of all, in which, when we 
 have most of it, then all the more the breast burns with fell 
 desire. Meat and drink are taken into the body; and as they 
 can fill up certain fixed parts, in this way the craving for drink 
 and bread is easily satisfied; but from the face and beautiful 
 bloom of man nothing is given into the body to enjoy save flimsy 
 idols; a sorry hope which is often snatched off by the wind. 
 As when in sleep a thirsty man seeks to drink and water is not 
 given to quench the burning in his frame, but he seeks the idols 
 of waters and toils in vain and thirsts as he drinks in the midst 
 of the torrent stream, thus in love Venus mocks lovers with 
 idols, nor can bodies satisfy them by all their gazing upon them 
 nor can they with their hands rub aught off the soft limbs, 
 wandering undecided over the whole body. At last when they 
 have united and enjoy the flower of age, when the body now has 
 a presage of joys and Venus is in the mood to sow the fields of 
 woman, they greedily clasp each other's body and suck each 
 other's lips and breathe in, pressing meanwhile teeth on each 
 other's mouth; all in vain, since they can rub nothing off nor 
 enter and pass each with his whole body into the other's body; 
 for so sometimes they seem to will and strive to do: so greedily 
 are they held in the chains of Venus, while their limbs melt 
 overpowered by the might of the pleasure. At length when 
 the gathered desire has gone forth, there ensues for a brief while 
 a short pause in the burning passion; and then returns the 
 same frenzy, then comes back the old madness, when they are 
 at a loss to know what they really desire to get, and cannot find 
 what device is to conquer that mischief; in such utter uncer- 
 tainty they pine away by a hidden wound. 
 
 Then too they waste their strength and ruin themselves by 
 the labour, then too their life is passed at the beck of another.
 
 1 1 : ■ 
 
 -1163 IV in 
 
 Meanwhile their estate runs away and is turned into Babylonian 
 coverlets; duties are neglected and their good name staggers 
 and sickens. On her feet laugh elastic and beautiful Sicyonian 
 shoes, yes, and large emeralds with green light are set in gold 
 and the sea-coloured dress is worn constantly and much used 
 drinks in the sweat. The noble earnings of their fathers are 
 turned into hair-bands, head-dresses; sometimes are changed 
 into a sweeping robe and alideusian and Cean dresses. Feasts 
 set out with rich coverlets and viands, games, numerous cups, 
 perfumes crowns garlands are prepared; all in vain, since out 
 of the very well-spring of delights rises up something of bitter, 
 to pain amid the very flowers; either when the conscience- 
 stricken mind haply gnaws itself with remorse to think that it 
 is passing a life of sloth and ruining itself in brothels, or because 
 she has launched forth some word and left its meaning in doubt 
 and it cleaves to the love-sick heart and burns like living fire, 
 or because it fancies she casts her eyes too freely about or looks 
 on another, and it sees in her face traces of a smile. 
 
 And these evils are found in love that is lasting and highly 
 prosperous ; but in crossed and hopeless love are ills such as 
 you may seize with closed eyes, past numbering ; so that it is 
 better to watch beforehand in the manner I have prescribed, 
 and be on your guard not to be drawn in. For to avoid falling 
 into the toils of love is not so hard as, after you are caught, to 
 get out of the nets you are in and to break through the strong 
 meshes of Venus. And yet even when you are entangled and 
 held fast you may escape the mischief, unless you stand in your 
 own way and begin by overlooking all the defects of her mind 
 or those of her body, whoever it is whom } t ou court and woo. 
 For this men usually do, blinded by passion, and attribute to 
 the beloved those advantages which are not really theirs. "We 
 therefore see women in ways manifold deformed and ugly to be 
 objects of endearment and held in the highest admiration. 
 And one lover jeers at others and advises them to propitiate 
 Venus, since they are troubled by a disgraceful passion, and 
 often, poor wretches, give no thought to their own ills greatest 
 of all. The black is a brune, the filthy and rank has not the 
 love of order ; the cat-eyed is a miniature Pallas, the stringy 
 and wizened a gazelle; the dumpy and dwarfish is one of the 
 graces, from top to toe undiluted esprit ; the big and over-
 
 112 IV 1 163- 
 
 1301 
 
 grown is awe-inspiring and full of dignity. She is tongue-tied, 
 cannot speak, then she has a lisp ; the dumb is bashful; then 
 the fire-spit, the teazing, the gossiping turns to a shining lamp. 
 One becomes a slim darling then when she cannot live from 
 want of flesh ; and she is only spare, who is half-dead with 
 cough. Then the fat and big-breasted is a Ceres' self big- 
 breasted from Iacchus ; the pug-nosed is a she Silenus and a 
 satyrcss ; the thick-lipped a very kiss. It were tedious to 
 attempt to report other things of the kind. Let her however 
 be of ever so great dignity of appearance ; such that the power 
 of Venus goes forth from all her limbs ; yet there are others 
 too ; yet have we lived without her before ; yet does she do, 
 and we know that she does, in all things the same as the ugly 
 woman ; and fumigates herself, poor wretch, with nauseous per- 
 fumes, her very maids running from her and giggling behind her 
 back. But the lover, when shut out, often in tears covers the 
 threshold with flowers and wreaths and anoints the haughty 
 door-posts with oil of marjoram and imprints kisses, poor 
 wretch, on the doors. When however he has been admitted, if 
 on his approach but one single breath should come in his way, 
 lie would seek specious reasons for departing, and the long- 
 conned deep-drawn complaint would fall to the ground ; and 
 then he would blame his folly, on seeing that he had attributed 
 to her more than it is right to concede to a mortal. Nor is this 
 unknown to our Yenuses ; wherefore all the more they them- 
 selves hide with the utmost pains all that goes on behind the 
 scenes of life from those whom they wish to retain in the chains 
 of love ; but in vain, since you may yet draw forth from her 
 mind into the light all these things and search into all her 
 smiles ; and if she is of a fair mind and not troublesome, over- 
 look them in your turn and make allowance for human failings. 
 Nor does the woman sigh always with feigned passion, when 
 she locks in her embrace and joins with her body the man's 
 body and holds it, sucking his lips into her lips and drinking in 
 his kisses. Often she does it from the heart, and seeking mutual 
 joys courts him to run the complete race of love. And in no 
 other way could birds cattle wild beasts sheep and mares sub- 
 mit to bear the males, except because the very exuberance of 
 nature in the females is in heat and burns and joyously draws 
 in the Venus of the covering males. See you not too how those
 
 1201— 1239 IV JI 3 
 
 whom mutual pleasure has chained are often tortured in their 
 common chains ? How often in the highways do dogs, desiring 
 to separate, eagerly pull different ways with all their might, 
 while all the time they are held fast in the strong fetters of 
 Venus ! This they would never do, unless they experienced 
 mutual joys, strong enough to force them into the snare and 
 hold them in its meshes. Wherefore again and again I repeat 
 there is a common pleasure. 
 
 And when haply in mixing her seed with the man's the 
 woman by sudden force has overpowered and seized for herself 
 his force, then children are formed from the mothers' seed like 
 to the mothers, as from the fathers' seed like to the fathers. 
 But those whom you see with a share of both forms, blending 
 equally the features of the parents, grow from the union of the 
 father's body and the mother's blood, when the mutual ardour 
 of desire working in concert has brought and clashed together 
 the seeds roused throughout the frame by the goads of Venus ; 
 and neither of the two has gotten the mastery nor has been 
 mastered. Sometimes too the children may spring up like their 
 grandfathers and often resemble the forms of their grandfathers' 
 fathers, because the parents often keep concealed in their bodies 
 many first-beginnings mixed in many ways, which first pro- 
 ceeding from the original stock one father hands down to the 
 next father; and then from these Venus produces forms after 
 a manifold chance and repeats not only the features, but the 
 voices and hair of their forefathers. And the female sex 
 equally springs from the father's seed and males go forth 
 equally formed from the mother's body ; since these distinctions 
 no more proceed from the fixed seed of one or other parent 
 than our faces and bodies and limbs: the birth is always formed 
 out of the two seeds ; and whichever parent that which is pro- 
 duced more resembles, of that parent it has more than an equal 
 share ; as you may equally observe, whether it is a male child 
 or a female birth. 
 
 Nor do the divine powers debar anybody from the power of 
 begetting, forbidding him ever to receive the name of father 
 from sweet children and forcing him to pass his life in a barren 
 wedlock ; as men commonly fancy when in sorrow they drench 
 the altars with much blood and pile the raised altars with offer- 
 ings, to make their wives pregnant with abundant seed. In
 
 114 IV 12 39— I2So 
 
 vain they weary the divinity of the gods and the sacred lots. 
 They are barren sometimes from the too great thickness of the 
 seed, sometimes from its undue fluidity and thinness : because 
 the thin is unable to get a firm hold on the right spots, it at 
 once passes away and is repelled and withdrawn abortively : 
 since by others again a too thick seed is discharged in a state 
 more solid than is suitable, it either does not fly forth with 
 so prolonged a stroke or cannot equally pass into the proper 
 spots or when it has passed in with difficulty mixes with the 
 woman's seed. For well-assorted matches are found to be of 
 great importance ; and some males impregnate some females 
 more readily than others, and other females conceive and be- 
 come pregnant more readily from other males. And many 
 women have hitherto been barren during several marriages and 
 have yet in the end found mates from whom they could con- 
 ceive children and be enriched with a sweet offspring. And 
 often even for those, to whom hitherto wives however fruitful 
 had been unable in their house to bear, has been found a com- 
 patible nature, enabling them to fortify their age with sons. 
 Of such great importance is it, in order that seeds may agree 
 and blend with seeds in a way to promote birth, whether the 
 thick comes into contact with the fluid and the fluid with the 
 thick. And on this point it matters much on what diet life 
 is supported ; for by some foods seed is thickened in the limbs, 
 and by others again is thinned and wasted. And in what modes 
 the intercourse goes on, is likewise of very great moment; for 
 women are commonly thought to conceive more readily after 
 the manner of wild beasts and quadrupeds, because the seeds 
 in this way can find the proper spots in consequence of the po- 
 sition of the body. Nor have wives the least use for effeminate 
 motions : a woman hinders and stands in the way of her own 
 conceiving, when thus she acts ; for she drives the furrow out of 
 the direct course and path of the share and turns away from the 
 proper spots the sti-oke of the seed. And thus for their own 
 ends harlots are wont to move, in order not to conceive and lie 
 in child-bed frequently, and at the same time to render Venus 
 more attractive to men. This our wives would seem to have no 
 need for. 
 
 Sometimes too by no divine grace and arrows of Venus 
 a sorry woman of inferior beauty comes to be loved ; for the
 
 i?8o— 1287 IV 115 
 
 woman sometimes by her own acts and accommodating manners 
 and by elegant neatness of person, readily habituates you to pass 
 your life with her. Moreover custom renders love attractive ; 
 for that which is struck by oft-repeated blows however lightly, 
 yet after long course of time is overpowered and gives way. 
 See you not too that drops of water falling on rocks after long 
 course of time scoop a hole through these rocks ? 
 
 I 2
 
 i - 23 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 
 BOOK FIFTH 
 
 Who is able with powerful genius to frame a poem worthy 
 of the grandeur of the things and these discoveries ? or who 
 is so great a master of words as to be able to devise praises 
 equal to the deserts of him who left to us such prizes won and 
 earned by his own genius? None methinks who is formed of 
 mortal body. For if we must speak as the acknowled 
 grandeur of the things itself demands, a god he was, a god, most 
 noble Memmius, who first found out that plan of life which is 
 now termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life from 
 such great billows and such thick darkness and moored it in 
 so perfect a calm and in so brilliant a light. Compare the god- 
 like discoveries of others in old times: Ceres is famed to have 
 pointed out to mortals corn, and Liber the vine-born juice of the 
 grape ; though life might well have subsisted without these 
 things, as we are told some nations even now live without them. 
 But a happy life was not possible without a clean breast ; where- 
 fore with more reason this man is deemed by us a god, from 
 whom come those sweet solaces of existence which even now are 
 distributed over great nations and gently soothe men's minds. 
 Then if you shall suppose that the deeds of Hercules surpass 
 his, you will be carried still farther away from true reason. For 
 what would yon great gaping maw of Nemean lion now harm 
 us and the bristled Arcadian boar? ay or what could the bull of 
 Crete do and the hydra plague of Lerna, fenced round with its 
 envenomed snakes ? or how could the triple-breasted might of 
 threefold Geryon, [how could the birds with brazen arrowy
 
 29—71 V 117 
 
 feathers] that dwelt in the Stymphalian swamps do us such 
 mighty injury, and the horses of Thracian Diomede breathing 
 fire from their nostrils along the Bistonian borders and Ismara ? 
 and the serpent which guards the bright golden apples of the 
 Hesperides, fierce, dangerous of aspect, girding the tree's stem 
 with his enormous body, what harm pray could he do us beside 
 the Atlantic shore and melaucholy main, which none of us goes 
 near and no barbarian ventures nigh ? And all other monsters 
 of the kind which have been destroyed, if they had not been 
 vanquished, what harm could they do, I ask, though now alive? 
 None methinks : the earth even now so abounds to repletion 
 in wild beasts and is filled with troublous terror throughout 
 woods and great mountains and deep forests ; places which we 
 have it for the most part in our own power to shun. But unless 
 the breast is cleared, what battles and dangers must then find 
 their way into us in our own despite ! what poignant cares 
 inspired by lust then rend the distressful man, and then also 
 what mighty fears ! and pride, filthy lust and wantonness ? 
 what disasters they occasion ! and luxury and all sorts of sloth ? 
 He therefore who shall have subdued all these and banished 
 them from the mind by words, not arms, shall he not have a 
 just title to be ranked among the gods ? and all the more so 
 that he was wont to deliver many precepts in beautiful and god- 
 like phrase about the immortal gods themselves and to open up 
 by his teachings all the nature of things. 
 
 While walking in his footsteps I follow out his reasonings 
 and teach by my verses, by what law all things are made, what 
 necessity there is then for them to continue in that law, and 
 how impotent they are to annul the binding statutes of time : 
 foremost in which class of things the nature of the mind has 
 been proved to be formed of a body that had birth and to be 
 unable to endure unscathed through great time, mere idols 
 being wont to mock the mind in sleep, when we seem to see 
 him whom life has abandoned : to continue, the order of my 
 design has now brought me to this point, where I must proceed 
 to shew that the world is formed of a mortal body and at the 
 same time had birth; to shew too in what way that union of 
 matter founded earth heaven sea stars sun and the ball of the 
 moon ; also what living creatures sprang out of the earth, as 
 well as those which never at any time were born ; in what way
 
 I iS 
 
 71 — III 
 
 too mankind began to use with one another varied speech by 
 the names conferred on tilings ; and also in what ways yon fear 
 of the gods gained an entry into men's breasts, and now through- 
 out the world maintains as holy fanes lakes groves altars and 
 idols of the gods. Furthermore I shall make clear by what 
 force piloting nature guides the courses of the sun and the 
 wanderings of the moon ; lest haply we imagine that these of 
 their own free will between heaven and earth traverse their 
 everlasting orbits, graciously furthering the increase of crops and 
 living creatures, or we think they roll on by any forethought of 
 the gods. For they who have been rightly taught that the 
 gods lead a life without care, if nevertheless they wonder by 
 what plan all things can be carried on, above all in regard to 
 those things which are seen overhead in the ethereal borders, 
 are borne back again into their old religious scruples and take 
 unto themselves hard taskmasters, whom they poor wretches 
 believe to be almighty, not knowing what can, what cannot 
 be, in short by what system each thing has its powers defined, 
 its deep-set boundary mark. 
 
 Well then not to detain you any longer by mere promises, 
 look before all on seas and lands and heaven : their threefold 
 nature, their three bodies, Memmius, three forms so unlike, 
 three such wondrous textures a single day shall give over to 
 destruction ; and the mass and fabric of the world upheld for 
 many years shall tumble to ruin. Nor can I fail to perceive 
 with what a novel and strange effect it falls upon the mind, this 
 destruction of heaven and earth that is to be, and how hard it 
 is for me to produce a full conviction of it by words ; as is 
 the case when you bring to the ears a thing hitherto unex- 
 ampled, and yet you cannot submit it to the eyesight nor put it 
 into the hands; through which the straightest highway of 
 belief leads into the human breast and quarters of the mind. 
 But yet I will speak out : it well may be that the reality itself 
 will bring credit to my words and that you will see earthquakes 
 arise and all tilings grievously shattered to pieces in a short 
 time. But this may pilot fortune guide far away from us, and 
 may reason rather than the reality convince that all things may 
 be overpowered and tumble in with a frightful crash. 
 
 But before I shall begin on this question to pour forth 
 decrees of fate with more sanctity and much more certainty than
 
 I 12 — ) Si 
 
 119 
 
 the Pythia who speaks out from the tripod and laurel of 
 Phoebus, I will clearly set forth to you many comforting topics 
 in learned language ; lest held in the yoke of religion you haply 
 suppose that earth and sun and heaven, sea stars moon must 
 last for ever with divine body ; and therefore think it right 
 that they after the fashion of the giants should all suffer punish- 
 ment for their monstrous guilt, who by their reasoning displace 
 the walls of the world and seek to quench the glorious sun of 
 heaven, branding immortal things in mortal speech ; though in 
 truth these things are so far from possessing divinity and are so 
 unworthy of being reckoned in the number of gods, that they 
 may be thought to afford a notable instance of what is quite 
 without vital motion and sense. For it is quite impossible to 
 suppose that the nature and judgment of the mind can exist 
 with any body whatever ; even as a tree cannot exist in the 
 ether nor clouds in the salt sea nor can fishes live in the fields 
 nor blood exist in woods nor sap in stones. Where each thing 
 can grow and abide is fixed and ordained Thus the nature 
 of the mind cannot come into being alone without the body 
 nor exist far away from the sinews and blood. But if (for this 
 would be much more likely to happen than that) the force 
 " itself of the mind might be in the head or shoulders or heels or 
 might be born in any other part of the body, it would after all 
 be wont to abide in one and the same man or vessel. But since 
 in our body even it is fixed and seen to be ordained where the 
 soul and the mind can severally be and grow, it must still more 
 strenuously be denied that it can abide out of the body and the 
 living form altogether in crumbling clods of earth or in the fire 
 of the sun or in water or in the high borders of ether. These 
 things therefore are not possessed of divine sense, since they 
 cannot be quickened with the vital feeling. 
 
 This too you may not possibly believe, that the holy seats 
 of the gods exist in any parts of the world : the fine nature of 
 the gods far withdrawn from our senses is hardly seen by the 
 thought of the mind ; and since it has ever eluded the touch 
 and stroke of the hands, it must touch nothing which is tan- 
 gible for us ; for that cannot touch which does not admit of 
 beins; touched in turn. And therefore their seats as well must 
 be unlike our seats, must be, to judge from their bodies, ex- 
 ceedingly fine. All which I will prove to you later in copious
 
 120 V 
 
 i55— '95 
 
 argument. To say again that for the sake of men they have 
 willed to set in order the glorious nature of the world and 
 therefore it is meet to praise the work of the gods calling as it 
 does for all praise, and to believe that it will be eternal and 
 immortal, and that it is an unholy thing ever to shake by any 
 force from its fixed seats that which by the forethought of the 
 gods in ancient days has been established on everlasting foun- 
 dations for mankind, or to assail it by speech and utterly over- 
 turn it from top to bottom ; and to invent and add other 
 figments of the kind, Memmius, is all sheer folly. For what 
 advantage can our gratitude bestow on immortal and blessed 
 beings, that for our sakes they should take in hand to admi- 
 nister aught ? And what novel incident could have induced 
 them hitherto at rest so long after to desire to change their 
 former life ? But then life it would seem lay grovelling in 
 darkness and sorrow, until the first dawn of the birthtime of 
 things ; for it seems natural he should rejoice in a new state of 
 things, whom old things annoy ; but for him whom no ill has 
 befallen in times gone by, when he passed a pleasant existence, 
 what could have kindled in such a one a love of change? or 
 what evil had it been for us never to have been born? whoever 
 has been born must want to continue in life, so long as fond 
 pleasure shall keep him ; but for him who has never tasted the 
 love, never been on the lists, of life, what harm not to have 
 been born? Whence again was first implanted in the gods 
 a pattern for begetting things in general as well as the precon- 
 ception of what men are, so that they knew and saw in mind 
 what they wanted to make; and in what way was the power of 
 first-beginnings ever ascertained, and what they could effect by 
 a change in their mutual arrangements, unless nature herself 
 gave the model for making things ? For in suchwisc the first- 
 beginnings of things many in number in many ways impelled 
 by blows for infinite ages back and kept in motion by their own 
 weights have been wont to be carried along and to unite in all 
 manner of ways and thoroughly test every kind of production 
 possible; by their mutual combinations ; that it is not strange if 
 they have also fallen into arrangements and have come into 
 courses like to those out of which this sum of things is now 
 carried on bv constant renewing. 
 
 But if I did not know what first-beginnings of things are.
 
 196—238 V 12 1 
 
 yet this judging by the very arrangements of heaven I would 
 venture to affirm, and led by many other facts to maintain, that 
 the nature of things has by no means been made for us by 
 divine power : so great are the defects with which it is en- 
 cumbered. In the first place of all the space which the vast 
 reach of heaven covers, a portion greedy mountains and forests 
 of wild beasts have occupied, rocks and wasteful pools take up 
 and the sea which holds wide apart the coasts of different 
 lands. Next of nearly two thirds burning heat and the con- 
 stant fall of frost rob mortals. What is left for tillage, even 
 that nature by its power would overrun with thorns, unless the 
 force of man made head against it, accustomed for the sake of a 
 livelihood to groan beneath the strong hoe and to cut through 
 the earth by pressing down the plough. Unless by turning up 
 the fruitful clods with the share and labouring the soil of the 
 earth we stimulate things to rise, they could not spontaneously 
 come up into the clear air ; and even then sometimes when 
 things earned with great toil now put forth their leaves over the 
 lands and are all in blossom, either the ethereal sun burns them 
 up with excessive heats or sudden shoAvers and cold frosts cut 
 them off, and the blasts of the winds waste them by a furious 
 hurricane. Again why does nature give food and increase to the 
 frightful race of wild beasts dangerous to mankind both by sea 
 and land ? why do the seasons of the year bring diseases in their 
 train ? why stalks abroad untimely death ? Then too the baby, 
 like to a sailor cast away by the cruel waves, lies naked on the 
 ground, speechless, wanting every furtherance of life, soon as 
 nature by the throes of birth has shed him forth from his mo- 
 ther's womb into the borders of light : he fills the room with a 
 rueful wauling, as well he may whose destiny it is to go through 
 in life so many ills. But the different flocks herds and wild 
 beasts grow up ; they want no rattles ; to none of them need be 
 addressed the fond broken accents of the fostering nurse ; they 
 ask not different dresses according to the season ; no nor do 
 they want arms or lofty walls, whereby to protect their own, 
 the earth itself and nature manifold in her works producing in 
 plenty all things for all. 
 
 First of all, since the body of the earth and water and the 
 light breath of air and burning heats, out of which this sum of 
 things is seen to be formed, do all consist of a body that had a
 
 122 V 2 . 3 8- 27 7 
 
 birth and is mortal, the whole nature of the world must be 
 reckoned of a like body. For those things whose parts and 
 members we see to be of a body that had a birth and of forms 
 that are mortal, we perceive to be likewise without exception 
 mortal, and at the same time to have had a birth. Since 
 therefore I see that the; chiefest members and parts of the world 
 are destroyed and begotten anew, I may be sure that for heaven 
 and earth as well there has been a time of beginning and there 
 will be a time of destruction. 
 
 And herein that you may not think I have unfairly seized 
 on this point for myself, because I have assumed that earth and 
 fire are mortal and have not doubted that water and air perish, 
 and have said that these are likewise begotten and grow 
 afresh, mark the proofs : first of all some portion of the earth, 
 burnt up by constant suns, trampled by a multitude of feet, 
 sends forth a cloud and flyiug eddies of dust, which the strong 
 winds disperse over the whole air. Part too of the soil is 
 put under water by rains, and rivers graze against and eat 
 into the banks. Again whatever increases something else, is in 
 its turn replenished ; and since beyond a doubt earth the uni- 
 versal mother is found at the same time to be the general tomb 
 of things,, therefore you see she is lessened and increases and 
 grows again. 
 
 Furthermore, that sea rivers fountains always stream over 
 with new moisture and that waters well up without ceasing, it 
 needs no words to prove : the great flow of waters from all sides 
 clearly shews it. But then the water on the surface is always 
 taken off, and thus it is that on the whole there is no overflow, 
 partly because the seas are lessened by the strong winds sweep- 
 ing over them and by the ethereal sun decomposing them with 
 his rays ; partly, because the water is diffused below the surface 
 over all lands; for the salt is strained off and the matter of 
 liquid streams back again to the source and all meets together 
 at the river-heads, and then flows over the lands in a fresh cur- 
 rent, where a channel once scooped out has carried down the 
 waters with liquid tout. 
 
 And next I will speak of the air which is changed over 
 its whole body every hour in countless ways. For whatever ebb-; 
 from things, is all borne always into the great sea of air; and 
 unless it in return were to give back bodies to things and to
 
 V 
 
 123 
 
 recruit them as they ebb, all things ere now would have been 
 dissolved and changed into air. It therefore ceases not to be 
 begotten from things and to go back again into things, since it 
 is a fact that all things constantly ebb. 
 
 Likewise the abundant source of clear light, the ethereal sun, 
 constantly floods heaven with fresh brightness and supplies the 
 place of light on the instant by new light ; for every previous emis- 
 sion of brightness is quite lost to it, wherever it falls. This you 
 may know from the following examples : as soon as ever clouds 
 begin to pass below the sun and to break off so to say the rays of 
 light, forthwith their lower part is wholly lost, and the earth is 
 overshadowed wherever the clouds pass over ; so that you may 
 know that things constantly require new irradiation and that all 
 the preceding emissions of light are lost, and in no other way 
 can things be seen in the sun, unless the fountain head of light 
 itself send a supply. Moreover, you see, nightly lights which 
 belong to earth, such as hanging lamps and torches bright with 
 darting flames, hasten in like fashion amid great darkness with 
 ministering heat to supply new light ; are eager to bicker with 
 fires, eager I say ; nor is the light ever broken off nor does 
 it quit the spots illuminated : with such suddenness from all the 
 fires is its destruction concealed by the swift birth of flame. 
 In the same way then we must believe that sun moon and stars 
 emit light from fresh and ever fresh supplies rising up, and 
 always lose every previous discharge of flames ; that you may 
 not haply believe that these flourish indestructible. 
 
 Again see you not that even stones are conquered by time, 
 that high towers fall and rocks moulder away, that shrines and 
 idols of gods are worn out with decay, and that the holy divinity 
 cannot prolong the bounds of fate or struggle against the fixed 
 laws of nature ? Then too see we not the monuments of men 
 fall to ruin, and furthermore brass and solid iron grow old ? 
 basalt rocks tumble down riven away from high mountains and 
 unable to endure and suffer the strong might of finite age ? 
 surely they would never fall suddenly riven away, if for infinite 
 time past they had held out against all the batteries of age 
 without a crash. 
 
 Again gaze on this, which about and above holds in its 
 embrace all the earth : if it begets all things out of itself, as 
 some say, and takes them back when they are destroyed, then
 
 12.[ v 321—362 
 
 the whole of it has had a birth and is o{ a mortal body; for 
 whatever gives increase and food out of itself to other things, 
 must be lessened; and must be replenished, when it takes 
 things back. 
 
 Acain if there was no birth-time of earth and heaven and 
 they have been from everlasting, why before the Theban war 
 and the destruction of Troy have not other poets as well sung 
 other themes? whither have so many deeds of men so often 
 passed away, why live they nowhere embodied in lasting records 
 of fame ? The truth methinks is that the sum has but a recent 
 date and the nature of the world is new and has but lately had 
 its commencement. Wherefore even now some arts are receiv- 
 ing their last polish, some are even in course of growth ; just 
 now many improvements have been made in ships ; only yester- 
 day musicians have given birth to tuneful melodies ; then too 
 this nature and system of things has been discovered lately, and 
 I the very first of all have only now been found able to transfer 
 it into native words. But if haply you believe that before 
 this all things have existed just the same, but that the genera- 
 tions of men have perished by burning heat, or that cities have 
 fallen by some great concussion of the world, or that after con- 
 stant rains devouring rivers have gone forth over the earth and 
 have whelmed towns, so much the more you must yield and admit 
 that there will be entire destruction too of earth and heaven ; 
 for when things were tried by so great distempers and so great 
 dangers, at that time had a more disastrous cause pressed upon 
 them, they would far and wide have gone to destruction and 
 mighty ruin. And in no other way are we proved to be mortals, 
 except because we all alike in turn fall sick of the same diseases 
 which those had whom nature has withdrawn from life. 
 
 Again whatever things last for ever, must either, because 
 they are of solid body, repel strokes and not suffer aught to pass 
 into them, sufficient to disunite the closely massed parts within: 
 such are the bodies of matter whose nature we have shewn 
 before: or they must be able to endure through all time for 
 this reason, because they are exempt from blows, as void is 
 which remains untouched and suffers not a jot from any stroke; 
 or else because there is no extent of room around, into which 
 things so to say may depart and be broken up : in this way the 
 sum of sums is eternal and there is no place outside into which
 
 362—403 V 125 
 
 things may spring asunder, nor are there any bodies which can 
 fall upon them and dissolve them by a powerful blow. But the 
 nature of the world, as I have shewn, is neither of solid bod} 7 , 
 since void is mixed up in all things, nor is it again like void, no 
 nor is there lack of bodies that may haply rise up in mass out 
 of the infinite and overthrow this sum of things with furious 
 tornado or bring upon them some other perilous disaster ; nor 
 further is the nature of room and the space of deep void want- 
 ing, into which the walls of the world may be scattered abroad ; 
 or they may be assailed and perish by some other force. There- 
 fore the gate of death is not closed against heaven or sun or 
 earth or deep waters of the sea, but stands open and looks 
 towards them with a huge wide-gaping maw. And therefore 
 also you must admit that these things likewise had a birth ; for 
 things which are of mortal body could not for an infinite time 
 back up to the present have been able to set at naught the 
 puissant strength of immeasurable age. 
 
 Again since the chiefest members of the world fight so hotly 
 together, fiercely stirred by no hallowed civil warfare, see you 
 not that some limit may be set to their long struggle ? either 
 when the sun and all heat shall have drunk up all the waters 
 and gotten the mastery: this they are ever striving to do, but 
 as yet are unable to accomplish their endeavours: such abun- 
 dant supplies the rivers furnish, and threaten to turn aggressors 
 and flood all things with a deluge from the deep gulph of ocean; 
 all in vain, since the winds sweeping over the seas and the 
 ethereal sun decomposing them with his rays do lessen them, 
 and trust to be able to dry all things up before water can attain 
 the end of its endeavour. Such a war do they breathe out with 
 undecided issue, and strive with each other to determine it for 
 mighty ends ; though once by the way fire got the upper hand 
 and once, as the story goes, water reigned dominant in the 
 fields. Fire gained the mastery and licked and burnt up many 
 things, when the headstrong might of the horses of the sun 
 dashed from the course and hurried Phaethon through the whole 
 sky and over all lands. But the almighty father then stirred 
 to fierce wrath with a sudden thunderstroke dashed Phaethon 
 down from his horses to earth, and the sun meeting him as 
 he fell caught from him the ever-burning; lamp of the world and 
 got in hand the scattered steeds and yoked them shaking all
 
 126 V 403— 445 
 
 over; then guided them on his proper course and gave fresh life 
 to all things. Thus to wit have the old poets of the Greeks 
 sung; though it is all too widely at variance with true reason. 
 Fire may gain the mastery when more bodies of matter than 
 usual have gathered themselves up out of the infinite; and 
 then its powers decay, vanquished in some way or other, or else 
 things perish burnt up by the torrid air. Water too of yore 
 gathered itself and began to get the mastery, as the story goes, 
 when it whelmed many cities of men ; and then when all that 
 force that had gathered itself up out of the infinite, by some 
 means or other was turned aside and withdrew, the rains were 
 stayed and the rivers abated their fury. 
 
 But in what ways yon concourse of matter founded earth 
 and heaven and the deeps of the sea, the courses of sun and 
 moon, I will next in order describe. For verily not by design 
 did the first-beennninofs of things station themselves each in its 
 right place by keen-sighted intelligence, nor did they bargain 
 sooth to say what motions each should assume, but because the 
 first-beginnings of things many in number in many ways im- 
 pelled by blows for infinite ages back and kept in motion by 
 their own weights have been wont to be carried along and to 
 unite in all manner of ways and thoroughly to test every kind of 
 production possible by their mutual combinations, therefore it 
 is that spread abroad through great time after trying unions 
 and motions of every kind they at length meet together in 
 those masses which suddenly brought together become often 
 the rudiments of great things, of earth sea and heaven and the 
 race of living things. 
 
 At this time then neither could the sun's disk be discerned 
 flying aloft with its abundant light, nor the stars of great ether, 
 nor sea nor heaven, no nor earth nor air, nor could any thing be 
 seen like to our things, but only a strange stormy crisis and 
 medley, gathered together ou1 of first-beginnings of every kind, 
 whose state of discord joining battle disordered their interspaces 
 passages connexions weights blows clashings motions, because 
 by reason of their unlike forms and varied shapes they could 
 not all remain thus joined together nor fall into mutually har- 
 monious motions. Then next the several parts began to fly 
 asunder and things to be joined like with like and to mark off 
 the world and portion out its members and arrange its mighty
 
 445—49° V I2 7 
 
 parts, that is to say, to separate high heaven from earth, and let 
 the sea spread itself out apart with its unmixed water, and like- 
 wise let the fires of ether spread apart pure and unmixed. 
 
 For first the several bodies of earth, because they were 
 heavy and closely entangled, met together in the middle and 
 took up all of them the lowest positions ; and the more they got 
 entangled and the closer their union, the more they squeezed 
 out those particles which were to make up sea stars sun and 
 moon and the walls of the great world. All these are of smooth 
 and round seeds and of much smaller elements than the earth. 
 Therefore the fire-laden ether first burst out from the different 
 parts of the earth through all the porous openings and lightly 
 bore off with itself many fires ; much in the same way as we 
 often see, so soon as the morning light of the beaming sun 
 blushes golden over the grass jewelled with dew, and the pools 
 and the ever-running rivers exhale a mist, and even as the 
 earth itself is sometimes seen to smoke ; and when all these are 
 gathered together aloft, then do clouds on high with a now 
 cohering body weave a covering beneath heaven. In this way 
 therefore then the light and expansive ether with its now 
 cohering body swept round and arched itself on all sides and 
 expanding widely in all directions round in this way fenced all 
 other things in with its greedy grasp. After it followed the 
 rudiments of sun and moon, whose spheres turn round in air 
 midway between earth and ether : these neither earth has taken 
 unto itself nor greatest ether, because they were neither heavy 
 enough to sink and settle down nor light enough to glide along 
 the uppermost borders ; they yet however are so placed between 
 the two as to wheel along their life-like bodies and still to be 
 parts of the whole world; just as in us some members may be at 
 rest, while others at the same time are in motion. These things 
 then being withdrawn, the earth in those parts where the vast 
 azure level of ocean now spreads, in a moment sank in and 
 drenched with salt flood the holloAvs. And every day the more 
 the heats of ether round and the rays of the sun on all sides 
 compressed the earth into a close mass by oft-repeated blows on 
 all its outer edges, so that thus buffeted it was condensed and 
 drawn together about its centre, ever the more did the salt 
 sweat squeezed out of its body increase by its oozings the sea 
 and floating fields, and ever the more did those many bodies
 
 123 V 49°— 53P 
 
 of heat and air escape and fly abroad and condense far away 
 from earth the high glittering quarters of heaven. The plains 
 sank down, the high hills grew in elevation ; for the rocks could 
 not settle down nor all the parts sink to one uniform level. 
 
 Thus then the ponderous mass of earth was formed with 
 close-cohering body and all the slime of the world so to speak 
 slid down by its weight to the lowest point and settled at the 
 bottom like dregs. Then the sea, then the air, then the fire- 
 laden ether itself, all are left unmixed with their clear bodies ; 
 and some are lighter than others, and clearest and lightest of all 
 ether floats upon the airy currents, and blends not its clear body 
 with the troubled airs ; it suffers all these things below to be 
 upset with furious hurricanes, suffers them to be troubled by 
 wayward storms ; while it carries along its own fires gliding with 
 a changeless omvard sweep. For that ether may stream on 
 gently and with one uniform effort the Pontos shews, a sea 
 which streams with a changeless current, ever preserving one 
 uniform gliding course. 
 
 Let us now sing what causes the motions of the stars. 
 In the first place, if the great sphere of heaven revolves, we 
 must say that an air presses on the pole at each end and 
 confines it on the outside and closes it in at both ends ; and 
 then that a third air streams above and moves in the same 
 direction in which roll on as they shine the stars of the eternal 
 world; or else that this third air streams below in order to 
 carry up the sphere in the contrary direction ; just as we see 
 rivers turn wheels and w r ater-scoops. It is likewise quite pos- 
 sible too that all the heaven remains at rest, while at the same 
 time the glittering signs are carried on ; either because rapid 
 heats of ether are shut in and whirl round while seeking a way 
 out and roll their fires in all directions through heaven's vast 
 quarters ; or else an air streaming from some part from another 
 source outside drives and whirls the fires ; or else they may 
 glide on of themselves going whithersoever the food of each 
 calls and invites them, feeding their flamy bodies everywhere 
 throughout heaven. For which of these causes is in operation 
 in this world, it is not easy to affirm for certain ; but what can 
 be and is done throughout the universe in various worlds 
 formed on various plans, this I teach, and I go on to set 
 forth several causes which may exist throughout the universe
 
 530-569 V 129 
 
 for the motions of stars ; one of which however must in this 
 world also be the cause that imparts lively motion to the signs ; 
 but to dictate which of them it is, is by no means the duty of 
 the man who advances step by step. 
 
 And in order that the earth may rest in the middle of the 
 world, it is proper that its weight should gradually pass away 
 and be lessened, and that it should have another nature under- 
 neath it conjoined from the beginning of its existence and 
 formed into one being with the airy portions of the world 
 in which it is embodied and lives. For this reason it is no 
 burden and does not weigh down the air; just as his limbs are 
 of no weight to a man nor is his head a burden to his neck, nor 
 do we feel that the whole weight of the body rests on the feet; 
 but whatever weights come from without and are laid upon us, 
 hurt us though they are often very much smaller : of such great 
 moment it is what function each thing has to perform. Thus 
 then the earth is not an alien body suddenly brought in and 
 forced from some other quarter on air alien to it, but was con- 
 ceived together with it at the first birth of the world and is a 
 fixed portion of that world, just as our limbs are seen to be to 
 us. Again the earth when suddenly shaken by loud thunder 
 shakes by its motion all the things which are above it; and this 
 it could in no wise do, unless it had been fast bound with the 
 airy portions of the world and with heaven. For the earth and 
 they cohere with one another by common roots, conjoined and 
 formed into a single being from the beginning of their existence. 
 See you not too that great as is the weight of our body, the 
 force of the soul, though of the extremest fineness, supports it, 
 because it is so closely conjoined and formed into a single being 
 with it? Then too what is able to lift the body with a nimble 
 bound save the force of the mind which guides the limbs ? Now 
 do you see what power a subtle nature may have, when it is 
 conjoined with a heavy body, as the air is conjoined with the 
 earth and the force of the mind with us ? 
 
 Again the disk of the sun cannot be much larger nor its 
 body of heat much smaller, than they appear to be to our senses. 
 For from whatever distances fires can reach us with their light 
 and breathe on our limbs burning heat, those distances take 
 away nothing by such spaces between from the body of the 
 flames, the fire is not in the least narrowed in appearance. 
 
 K
 
 130 V sio-6u 
 
 Therefore since the heat of the sun and the light which it Sheds 
 reach our senses and stroke the proper places, the form too and 
 size of the sun must be seen from this earth in their real dimen- 
 sions, so that you may not add anything whatever more or less. 
 And whether the moon as it is borne on illuminates places 
 with a borrowed light, or emits its own light from its own body, 
 whatever that is, the form with which it is thus borne on is not 
 at all larger than the one which it presents to our eyes seems to 
 us to be. For all things which we see at a great distance 
 through much air, look dimmed in appearance before their size 
 is diminished. Therefore since the moon presents a bright 
 aspect and well-defined form, it must be seen on high by us 
 from this earth precisely as it is in the outline which defines it, 
 and of the size it actually is. Lastly in the case of all those 
 fires of ether which you observe from this earth, — since in the 
 case of fires which we see here on earth, so long as their flicker- 
 ing is distinct, so long as their heat is perceived, their size 
 is seen sometimes to change to a very very small extent either 
 way, according to the distance at which they are, — you may 
 infer that the fires of ether may be smaller than they look in an 
 extremely minute degree, or larger by a very small and insigni- 
 ficant fraction. 
 
 This likewise need not excite wonder, how it is that so small 
 a body as yon sun can emit so great a light, enough to flood 
 completely seas and all lands and heaven and to steep all things 
 in its burning heat. It well may be that a single spring for the 
 whole world may open up from this spot and gush out in plen- 
 teous stream and shoot forth light, because elements of heat 
 meet together from all sides out of the whole world in such 
 manner and the mass of them thrown together streams to a 
 point in such manner, that this heat wells forth from a single 
 source. See you not too what a breadth of meadow-land a 
 small spring of water sometimes floods, streaming out over the 
 fields? It is likewise possible that heat from the sun's flame 
 though not at all great may infect the whole air with fervent fires, 
 if haply the air is in a suitable and susceptible state, so that it 
 can be kindled when struck by small bodies of heat ; thus we 
 see sometimes a general conflagration from a single spark catch 
 fields of corn and stubble. Perhaps too the sun as he shines 
 • aloft with rosy lamp has round about him much fire with heats
 
 6.i-<> 5 2 V 131 
 
 that are not visible, and thus the tire may be marked by no 
 radiance, so that fraught with heat it increases to such a degree 
 the stroke of the rays. 
 
 Nor with regard to the sun is there one single explanation, 
 certain and manifest, of the way in which he passes from his 
 summer positions to the midwinter turning-point of Capricorn 
 and then turnine back from thence bends his course to the sol- 
 stitial goal of cancer, and how the moon is seen once a month 
 to pass over that space, in traversing which the sun spends the 
 period of a year. No single plain cause, I say, has been assigned 
 for these things. It seems highly probable that that may be 
 the truth which the revered judgment of the worthy man De- 
 mocritus maintains: the nearer the different constellations are 
 to the earth, the less they can be carried along with the whirl 
 of heaven; for the velocity of its force, he says, passes away and 
 the intensity diminishes in the lower parts, and therefore the 
 sun is gradually left behind with the rearward signs, because he 
 is much lower than the burning signs. And the moon more 
 than the sun : the lower her path is and the more distant she is 
 from heaven and the nearer she approaches to earth, the less 
 she can keep pace with the signs. For the fainter the whirl is 
 in which she is borne along, being as she is lower than the sun, 
 so much the more all the signs around overtake and pass her. 
 Therefore it is that she appears to come back to every sign 
 more quickly, because the signs go more quickly back to her. 
 It is quite possible too that from quarters of the world crossing 
 the sun's path two airs may stream each in its turn at a fixed 
 time ; one of which may force the sun away from the summer 
 signs so far as his midwinter turning-point and freezing cold, 
 and the other may force him back from the freezing shades of 
 cold as far as the heat-laden quarters and burning signs. And 
 in like manner we must suppose that the moon, and the stars 
 which make revolutions of great years in great orbits may pass 
 by means of airs from opposite quarters in turn. See you not 
 too that clouds from contrary winds pass in contrary directions, 
 the upper in a contrary way to the lower ? Why may not yon 
 stars just as well be borne on through their great orbits in ether 
 by currents contrary one to the other ? 
 
 But night buries the earth in thick darkness, either when 
 the sun after his long course has struck upon the utmost parts 
 
 K 2
 
 132 V 652—694 
 
 of heaven and now exhausted has blown forth all his fires 
 shaken by their journey and weakened by passing through 
 much air; or else because the same force which has carried on 
 his orb above the earth, compels him to change his course and 
 pass below the earth. 
 
 At a fixed time too Matuta spreads rosy morning over the 
 borders of ether and opens up her light, either because the same 
 sun, coming back below the earth, seizes heaven before his time 
 trying to kindle it with his rays; or because fires meet together 
 and many seeds of heat are accustomed to stream together at a 
 fixed time, which cause new sunlight to be born every day. 
 Thus they tell that from the high mountains of Ida scattered 
 fires are seen at day-break, that these then unite as it were into 
 a single ball and make up an orb. And herein it ought to cause 
 no surprise that these seeds of fire stream together at a time so 
 surely fixed and reproduce the radiance of the sun. For we see 
 many occurrences which take place at a fixed time in all things. 
 At a fixed time trees blossom and at a fixed time shed their 
 blossoms; and at a time no less surely fixed age bids the teeth 
 be shed and the boy put on the soft dress of puberty and let a 
 soft beard fall down equally from each cheek. Lastly lightnings 
 snow rains clouds winds take place at not very irregular seasons 
 of year. For where causes from their very first beginnings have 
 been in this way and things have thus fallen out from the first 
 birth of the world, in due sequence too they now come round 
 after a fixed order. 
 
 Likewise days may lengthen and nights wane, and days 
 shorten when the nights receive increase, either because the 
 same sun running his course below the earth and above in 
 curves of unlike length parts the borders of ether and divides 
 his orbit into unequal halves; and as he comes round adds on 
 in the opposite half just as much as he has subtracted from the 
 other of the two halves, until he has arrived at that sign of 
 heaven, where the node of the year makes the shades of night 
 of the same length as the daylight. For when the sun's course 
 lies midway between the blast of the north and of the south, 
 heaven keeps his two goals apart at distances now rendered 
 exactly equal on account of the position of the whole starry 
 circle, in gliding through which the sun takes up the period of 
 a year, lighting with slanting rays earth find heaven; as is
 
 694-734 V l 31 
 
 clearly shewn by the plans of those who have mapped out all 
 the quarters of heaven as they are set off with their array of 
 signs. Or else because the air is denser in certain parts, there- 
 fore the quivering beam of fire is retarded below the earth and 
 cannot easily pass through and force its way out to its place of 
 rising: for this reason in winter-time nights linger long, ere the 
 beamy badge of day arrive. Or else, because in the way just 
 mentioned at alternate parts of the year fires are accustomed 
 to stream together more slowly and more quickly, which cause 
 the sun to rise in a certain point, therefore it is that those 
 appear to speak the truth [who suppose a fresh sun to be born 
 every day]. 
 
 The moon may shine because struck by the sun's rays, and 
 turn that light every day more and more directly towards our 
 sight, in proportion as she recedes from the sun's orb, until j list 
 opposite to him she has shone out with full light and at her 
 rising as she soars aloft has beheld his setting; and then by 
 slow steps reversing as it were her course she must in the same 
 way hide her light, the nearer and nearer she now glides to 
 the sun from a different quarter through the circle of the signs ; 
 according to the theory of those who suppose the moon to be 
 like a ball and to hold on her course under the sun. She may 
 also very possibly revolve with her own light and display various 
 phases of brightness ; for there may well be another body which 
 is carried on and glides in her company getting before her path 
 and obstructing her in all manner of ways and yet cannot be 
 seen, because it glides on without light. She may also revolve, 
 like it may be to a spherical ball steeped over one half in 
 shining light, and as she rolls round this sphere she may present 
 changing phases, until she has turned that half which is illu- 
 minated full towards our sight and open eyes; then by slow 
 steps she whirls back and withdraws the light-fraught half of 
 the spherical ball; as the Babylonian science of the Chaldees 
 refuting the system of the astronomers essays to prove in op- 
 position to them; just as though that which each party fights 
 for might not be equally true, or there were any reason why 
 you should venture to embrace the one theory less than the 
 other. Again, why a new moon should not be born every day 
 after a regular succession of forms and regular phases, and each 
 day the one which is born perish and another be produced in
 
 134 v 734-7:6 
 
 its room and stead, it is not easy to teach by reasoning or prove 
 by words, since so many things can be born in such a regular 
 succession. Spring and Venus go their way, and spring's har- 
 binger winged zephyr steps on before; and along the path thej 
 tread mother Flora straws all the way before them and covers 
 it over with the choicest colours and odours. Next in order 
 follows parching heat and in its company dusty Ceres and the 
 etesian blasts of the north winds. Next autumn advances and 
 Euhius Euan steps on together. Then other seasons and winds 
 follow, loud-roaring Volturnus and the southwind stored with 
 lightning. At last midwinter brings with it snows and be- 
 numbing cold; winter goes forth; after it follows cold chattering 
 with its teeth. It is therefore the less strange that a moon is 
 begotten at a fixed time and at a fixed time is destroyed again, 
 since many tilings may take place at a time so surely fixed. 
 
 The eclipses of the sun likewise and the obscurations of the 
 moon you may suppose to take place from many different 
 causes. For why should the moon be able to shut the earth 
 out from the sun's light and keep off fron\ the earth his high- 
 exalted head, placing her dark orb before his burning rays; and 
 yet at the same time it be thought that another body gliding 
 on ever without light cannot do the same?* Why too should 
 not the sun be able, quite exhausted, to lose Ms fires at a fixed 
 time, and again reproduce his light when in his journey through 
 the air he has passed by spots fatal to his flames, which cause 
 his fires to be quenched and to perish? And wliy should tin: 
 earth be able in turn to rob the moon of light and moreover 
 herself to keep the sun suppressed, while in her monthly course 
 she glides through the well-defined shadows of the cone; and 
 yet at the same time another body not be able to pass under 
 the moon or glide above the sun's orb, breaking off its rays and 
 the lisdit it sheds forth? Yes and if the moon shines with her 
 own brightness, why should she not be able to grow faint in a 
 certain part of the world, while she is passing through spots 
 hostile to her own light. 
 
 And now further since I have explained in what way every 
 thing might take place throughout the blue of the great heaven; 
 how we might know what force and cause set in motion the 
 varied courses of the sun and wanderings of the moon ; and in 
 what way their light might be intercepted and they be lost to
 
 7/6-817 V 135 
 
 us and spread darkness over the earth little expecting it, when 
 so to speak they close their eye of light and opening it again 
 survey all places shining in bright radiance, I now go back to 
 the infancy of the world and the tender age of the fields of 
 earth and shew what first in their early essays of production 
 they resolved to raise into the borders of light and to give in 
 charge to the wayward winds. 
 
 In the beginning the earth gave forth all kinds of herbage 
 and verdant sheen about the hills and. over all the plains ; the 
 flowery meadows glittered with the bright green hue, and next 
 in order to the different trees was given a strong and emulous 
 desire of growing up into the air with full unbridled powers. 
 As feathers and hairs and bristles are first born on the limbs of 
 four-footed beasts and the body of the strong of wing, thus the 
 new earth then first put forth grass and bushes, and next gave 
 birth to the races of mortal creatures springing up many in 
 number in many ways after divers fashions. For no living 
 creatures can have dropped from heaven nor can those be- 
 longing to the land have come out of the salt pools. It follows 
 that with good reason the earth has gotten the name of mother, 
 since all things have been produced out of the earth. And 
 many living creatures even now spring out of the earth taking 
 form by rains and the heat of the sun. It is therefore the less 
 strange if at that time they sprang up more in number and 
 larger in size, having come to maturity in the infancy of earth 
 and ether. First of all the race of fowls and the various birds 
 would leave their eggs, hatched in the springtime, just as now 
 in summer the cicades leave spontaneously their delicate coats 
 in quest of a living and life. Then you must know did the 
 earth first give forth races of mortal men. For much heat and 
 moisture would then abound in the fields; and therefore where- 
 ever a suitable spot offered, wombs would grow attached to the 
 earth by roots; and when the warmth of the infants, flying 
 the wet and craving the air, had opened these in the fulness of 
 time, nature would turn to that spot the pores of the earth 
 and constrain it to yield from its opened veins a liquid most 
 like to milk, even as now-a-days every woman when she has 
 borne, is filled with sweet milk, because all that current of 
 nutriment streams towards the breasts. To the children the 
 earth would furnish food, the heat raiment, the grass a bed rich
 
 J 3<5 V 8l7 _8 53 
 
 in abundcance of soft down. Then the fresh youth of the world 
 would give forth neither severe colds nor excessive heats nor 
 gales of great violence; for all things grow and acquire strength 
 in a like proportion. 
 
 Wherefore again and again I say the earth with good title 
 has gotten and keeps the name of mother, since she of herself 
 gave birth to mankind and at a time nearly fixed shed forth 
 every beast that ranges wildly over the great mountains, and 
 at the same time the fowls of the air with all their varied 
 shapes. But because she must have some limit set to her 
 bearing, she ceased like a woman worn out by length of days. 
 For time changes the nature of the whole world and all things 
 must pass on from one condition to another, and nought con- 
 tinues like to itself: all things quit their bounds, all things na- 
 ture changes and compels to alter. One thing crumbles away 
 and is worn and enfeebled with age, then another comes unto 
 honour and issues out of its state of contempt. In this way 
 then time changes the nature of the whole world and the earth 
 passes out of one condition into another, so that now it cannot 
 bear what once it could, and now it can bear what before it did 
 not bear. 
 
 And many monsters too the earth at that time essayed to 
 produce, things coming up with strange face and limbs, the 
 man-woman, a thing between the two and neither the one sex 
 nor the other, widely differing from both ; some things deprived 
 of feet, others again destitute of hands, others too proving dumb 
 without mouth, or blind without eyes, and things bound fast by 
 the adhesion of their limbs over all the body, so that they could 
 not do anything nor go anywhere nor avoid the evil nor take 
 what their needs required. Every other monster and portent 
 of this kind she would produce, but all in vain, since nature 
 set a ban on their increase and they could not reach the coveted 
 flower of age nor find food nor be united in marriage. For wo 
 see that many conditions must meet together in things in order 
 that they may beget and continue their kinds; first a supply of 
 food, then a way by which the birth-producing seeds throughout 
 the frame may stream from the relaxed limbs; also in order 
 that the woman may be united with the male, the possession 
 of organs whereby they may each interchange mutual joys. 
 
 And many races of living things must then have died out
 
 856-896 V 137 
 
 and been unable to beget and continue their breed. For in 
 the case of all things which you see breathing the breath of 
 life, either craft or courage or else speed has from the begin- 
 ning of its existence protected and preserved each particular 
 race. And there are many things which, recommended to us 
 by their useful services, continue to exist consigned to our 
 protection. In the first place the fierce breed of lions and the 
 savage races their courage has protected, foxes their craft and 
 stags their proneness to flight. But light-sleeping dogs with 
 faithful heart in breast and every kind which is born of the 
 seed of beasts of burden and at the same time the woolly flocks 
 and the horned herds are all consigned, Memmius, to the pro- 
 tection of man. For they have ever fled with eagerness from 
 wild beasts and have ensued peace, and plenty of food has been 
 obtained without their own labour, as we give it in requital of 
 their useful services. But those to whom nature has granted 
 none of these qualities, so that they could neither live by their 
 own means nor perform for us any useful service in return for 
 which we should suffer their kind to feed and be safe under our 
 protection, those, you are to know, would lie exposed as a prey 
 and booty of others, hampered all in their own death-bringing 
 shackles, until nature brought that kind to utter destruction. 
 
 But Centaurs never have existed, and at no time can there 
 exist things of twofold nature and double body formed into one 
 frame out of limbs of alien kinds, such that the faculties and 
 powers of this and that portion cannot be sufficiently like. This 
 however dull of understanding you may learn from what fol- 
 lows. To begin, a horse when three years have gone round is 
 in the prime of his vigour, far different the boy: often even at 
 that age he will call in his sleep for the milk of the breast. 
 Afterwards when in advanced age his lusty strength and limbs 
 now faint from ebbing life fail the horse, then and not till then 
 youth in the flower of age commences for that boy and clothes 
 his cheeks in soft down; that you may not haply believe that 
 out of a man and the burden-carrying seed of horses Centaurs 
 can be formed and have being; or that Scyllas with bodies 
 half those of fishes girdled round with raving dogs can exist, 
 and all other things of the kind, whose limbs we see cannot 
 harmonise together; as they neither come to their flower at the 
 same time nor reach the fulness of their bodily strength nor
 
 ! 3^ V 896 939 
 
 lose it in advanced old age, nor burn with similar passions nor 
 bave compatible manners, nor feel the same things give pleasure 
 throughout their frames. Thus we may see bearded goats often 
 fat ton on hemlock which for man is rank poison. Since flame 
 moreover is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies of lions 
 just as much as any other kind of flesh and blood existing on 
 earth, how could it be that a single chimera with triple body, 
 in front a lion, behind a dragon, in the middle the goat whose 
 name it bears, could breathe out at the mouth fierce flame 
 from its body? Wherefore also he who fables that in the new 
 time of the earth and the fresh youth of heaven such living 
 creatures could have been begotten, resting upon this one futile 
 term new, may babble out many things in like fashion, may 
 say that rivers then ran with gold over all parts of the earth, 
 and that trees were wont to blossom with precious stones, or 
 that man was born with such giant force of frame that he could 
 wade on foot across deep seas and whirl the whole heaven about 
 him with his hands. For the fact that there were many seeds 
 of things in the earth what time it first shed forth living crea- 
 tures, is yet no proof that there could have been produced 
 beasts of different kinds mixed together, and limbs of different 
 living things formed into a single frame, because the kinds of 
 herbage and corn and joyous trees which even now spring in 
 plenty out of the earth yet cannot be produced with the several 
 sorts plaited into one, but each thing goes on after its own 
 fashion, and all preserve their distinctive differences according 
 to a fixed law of nature. 
 
 But the race of man then in the fields was much hardier, 
 as beseemed it to be, since the hard earth had produced it; 
 and built on a groundwork of larger and more solid bones 
 within, knit with powerful sinews throughout the frame of flesh ; 
 not lightly to be disabled by heat or cold or strange kinds of 
 food or any malady of body. And during the revolution of 
 many lustres of the sun through heaven they led a life after 
 the roving fashion of wild beasts. No one then was a sturdy 
 guider of the bent plough or knew how to labour the fields 
 with iron or plant in the ground young saplings or lop with 
 pruning-hooks old boughs from the high trees. What the sun 
 and rains had given, what the earth had produced sponta- 
 neously, was guerdon sufficient to content their hearts. Among
 
 939—979 V ! 39 
 
 acorn-bearing oaks they would refresh their bodies for the most 
 part ; and the arbute-berries which you now see in the winter- 
 time ripen with a bright scarlet hue, the earth would then bear 
 in greatest plenty and of a larger size; and many coarse kinds 
 of food besides the teeming freshness of the world then bare, 
 more than enough for poor wretched men. But rivers and 
 springs invited to slake thirst, even as now a rush of water down 
 from the great hills summons with clear plash far and wide the 
 thirsty races of wild beasts. Then too as they ranged about they 
 would occupy the well-known woodland haunts of the nymphs, 
 out of which the} r knew that smooth-gliding streams of water 
 with a copious gush bathed the dripping rocks, the dripping 
 rocks, trickling down over the green moss ; and in parts welled 
 and bubbled out over the level plain. And as yet they knew 
 not how to apply fire to their purposes or to make use of skins 
 and clothe their body in the spoils of wild beasts, but they 
 would dwell in woods and mountain-caves and forests and 
 shelter in the brushwood their squalid limbs when driven to 
 shun the buffeting of the winds and the rains. And they were 
 unable to look to the general weal and knew not how to make 
 a common use of any customs or laws. Whatever prize fortune 
 threw in his way, each man would bear off, trained at his own 
 discretion to think of himself and live for himself alone. And 
 Venus would join the bodies of lovers in the woods; for each 
 woman was gained over either by mutual desire or the head- 
 strong violence and vehement lust of the man or a bribe of 
 some acorns and arbute-berries or choice pears. And trusting 
 to the marvellous powers of their hands and feet they would 
 pursue the forest-haunting races of wild beasts with showers of 
 stones and club of ponderous weight; and many they would 
 conquer, a few they would avoid in hiding-places; and like to 
 bristly swine just as they were they would throw their savage 
 limbs all naked on the ground, when overtaken by night, cover- 
 ing themselves up with leaves and boughs. Yet never with loud 
 wailings would they call for the daylight and the sun, wander- 
 ing terror-stricken over the fields in the shadows of night, but 
 silent and buried in sleep they would wait, till the sun with 
 rosy torch carried light into heaven; for accustomed as they 
 had been from childhood always to see darkness and light be- 
 gotten time about, never could any wonder come over them,
 
 140 V y 8o— 1023 
 
 nor any misgiving that never-ending night would cover the 
 earth and the light of the sun be withdrawn for evermore. 
 But what gave them trouble was rather the races of wild beasts 
 which would often render repose fatal to the poor wretches. 
 And driven from their home they would fly from their rocky 
 shelters on the approach of a foaming boar or a strong lion, 
 and in the dead of night they would surrender in terror to their 
 savage guests their sleeping-places strawn with leaves. 
 
 Nor then much more than now would the races of mortal 
 men leave the sweet light of ebbing life. For then this one or 
 that other one of them would be more likely to be seized, and 
 torn open by their teeth would furnish to the wild beasts a living 
 food, and would fill with his moaning woods and mountains and 
 forests as he looked on his living flesh buried in a living grave. 
 But those whom flight had saved with body eaten into, holding 
 ever after their quivering palms over the noisome sores would 
 summon death with appalling cries, until cruel gripings had rid 
 them of life, forlorn of help, unwitting what wounds wanted. 
 But then a single day gave not over to death many thousands 
 of men marching with banners spread, nor did the stormy 
 waters of the sea dash on the rocks men and ships. At this 
 time the sea would often rise up and rage without aim, without 
 purpose, without result, and just as lightly put off its empty 
 threats; nor could the winning wiles of the calm sea treacher- 
 ously entice any one to his ruin with laughing waters. Then 
 too want of food would consign to death their fainting frames, 
 now on the contrary tis plenty sinks into ruin. They unwit- 
 tingly would often pour out poison for themselves; now with 
 nicer skill men give it to their son's wife instead. 
 
 Next after they had got themselves huts and skins and five, 
 and the woman united with the man passed into the bonds of 
 marriage with one, and they saw an offspring born from them, 
 then first mankind began to soften. For fire made their chilled 
 bodies less able now to bear the frost beneath the canopy of 
 heaven, and Venus impaired their strength and children with 
 their caresses soon broke down the haughty temper of parents. 
 Then too neighbours began to join in a league of friendship 
 mutually desiring neither to do nor suffer harm; and asked for 
 indulgence to children and womankind, when with cries and 
 gestures they declared in stammering speech that meet it is for
 
 10^3 — J o65 V 141 
 
 all to have mercy on the weak. And though harmony could not 
 be established without exception, yet a very large portion ob- 
 served their agreements with good faith, or else the race of man 
 would then have been wholly cut off, nor could the breed have 
 continued their generations to this day. 
 
 But nature impelled them to utter the various sounds of the 
 tongue and use struck out the names of things, much in the 
 same way as the inability to speak is seen in its turn to drive 
 children to the use of gestures, when it forces them to point 
 with the finger at the things which are before them. For every 
 one feels how far he can make use of his peculiar powers. Ere 
 the horns of a calf are formed and project from his forehead, he 
 butts with it when angry and pushes out in his rage. Then 
 whelps of panthers and cubs of lions fight with claws and feet 
 and teeth at a time when teeth and claws are hardly yet formed. 
 Again we see every kind of fowl trust to wings and seek from 
 pinions a fluttering succour. Therefore to suppose that some 
 one man at that time apportioned names to things and that 
 men from him learnt their first words, is sheer folly. For why 
 should this particular man be able to denote all things by words 
 and to utter the various sounds of the tongue, and yet at the 
 same time others be supposed not to have been able to do so? 
 Again if others as well as he had not made use of words among 
 themselves, whence was implanted in this man the previous 
 conception of its use and whence was given to him the original 
 faculty, to know and perceive in mind what he wanted to do? 
 Again one man could not constrain and subdue and force many 
 to choose to learn the names of things. It is no easy thing in 
 any way to teach and convince the deaf of what is needful to be 
 done; for they never would suffer nor in any way endure sounds 
 of voice hitherto unheard to continue to be dinned fruitlessly 
 into their ears. Lastly what is there so passing strange in this 
 circumstance, that the race of men whose voice and tongue were 
 in full force, should denote things by different words as different 
 feelings prompted ? since dumb brutes, yes and the races of wild 
 beasts are accustomed to give forth distinct and varied sounds, 
 when they have fear or pain and when joys are rife. This you 
 may learn from facts plain to sense: when the large spongy 
 opened lips of Molossian dogs begin to growl enraged and bare 
 their hard teeth, thus drawn back in rage they threaten in a
 
 142 V 1065— 1104 
 
 tone far different from that in which they bark outright and fill 
 with sounds all the places round. Again when they essay fondly 
 to lick their whelps with their tongue or when they toss them 
 with their feet and snapping at them make a feint with lightly 
 closing teeth of swallowing though with gentle forbearance, they 
 caress them with a yelping sound of a sort greatly differing from 
 that which they utter when left alone in a house they bay or 
 when they slink away howling from blows with a crouching 
 body. Again is not the neigh too seen to differ, when a young 
 stallion in the flower of age rages among the mares smitten by 
 the goads of winged love, and when with wide-stretched nostrils 
 he snorts out the signal to arms, and when as it chances on any 
 other occasion he neighs with limbs all shaking? Lastly the 
 race of fowls and various birds, hawks and osprays and gulls 
 seeking their living in the salt water mid the waves of the sea, 
 utter at a different time noises widely differing from those they 
 make when they are fighting for food and struggling with their 
 prey. And some of them change together with the weather 
 their harsh croakings, as the long-lived races of crows and flocks 
 of rooks when they are said to be calling for water and rain and 
 sometimes to be summoning winds and gales. Therefore if dif- 
 ferent sensations compel creatures, dumb though they be, to 
 utter different sounds, how much more natural it is that mortal 
 men in those times should have been able to denote dissimilar 
 things by many different words! 
 
 And lest haply on this head you ask in silent thought this 
 question, it was lightning that brought fire down on earth for 
 mortals in the beginning; thence the whole heat of flames is 
 spread abroad. Thus we see many things shine dyed in hea- 
 venly flames, when the stroke from heaven has stored them with 
 its heat. Ay and without this when a branching tree sways to 
 and fro and tosses about under the buffeting of the winds, press- 
 ing against the boughs of another tree, fire is forced out by the 
 power of the violent friction, and sometimes the burning heat of 
 flame flashes out, the boughs and stems rubbing against each 
 other. Now either of these accidents may have given fire to 
 men. Next the sun taught them to cook food and soften it 
 with the heat of flame, since they would see many things grow 
 mellow, when subdued by the strokes of the rays and by heat 
 throughout the fields.
 
 iio5— 1 145 
 
 V i 4: 
 
 And more and more every day men who excelled in intellect 
 and were of vigorous understanding, would kindly shew them 
 how to exchange their former way of living for new methods. 
 Kings began to build towns and lay out a citadel as a place of 
 strength and of refuge for themselves, and divided cattle and 
 lands and gave to each man in proportion to his personal beauty 
 and strength and intellect; for beauty and vigorous strength 
 were much esteemed. Afterwards wealth was discovered and 
 gold found out, which soon robbed of their honours strong and 
 beautiful alike ; for men however valiant and beautiful of person 
 generally follow in the train of the richer man. But were a 
 man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal sub- 
 sistence joined to a contented mind is for him great riches ; for 
 never is there any lack of a little. But men desired to be famous 
 and powerful, in order that their fortunes might rest on a firm 
 foundation and they might be able by their wealth to lead a 
 tranquil life ; but in vain, since in their struggle to mount up 
 to the highest dignities they rendered their path one full of 
 danger ; and even if they reach it, yet envy like a thunderbolt 
 sometimes strikes and dashes men down from the highest point 
 with ignominy into noisome Tartarus ; since the highest summits 
 and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly 
 blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt ; so that far better it is to 
 obey in peace and quiet than to wish to rule with power supreme 
 and be the master of kingdoms. Therefore let men wear them- 
 selves out to no purpose and sweat drops of blood, as they 
 struggle on along the strait road of ambition, since they gather 
 their knowledge from the mouths of others and follow after 
 things from hearsay rather than the dictates of their own feel- 
 ings; and this prevails not now nor will prevail by and bye any 
 more than it has prevailed before. 
 
 Kings therefore being slain the old majesty of thrones and 
 proud sceptres were overthrown and laid in the dust, and the 
 glorious badge of the sovereign head bloodstained beneath the 
 feet of the rabble mourned for its high prerogative ; for that is 
 greedily trampled on which before was too much dreaded. 
 Power therefore would fall to the lowest dregs and to unruly 
 mobs, each man seeking for himself empire and sovereignty. 
 Then a portion of them taught men to elect legal officers, and 
 drew up codes, to induce men to obey the laws. For mankind,
 
 H4 V i , 45 _n87 
 
 tired out with a life of brute force, lay exhausted from its feuds; 
 and therefore the more readily it submitted of its own freewill 
 to laws and stringent codes. For as each one moved by anger 
 took measures to avenge himself with more severity than is now 
 permitted by equitable laws, for this reason men grew sick of a 
 life of brute force. Thence fear of punishment mars the prizes 
 of life ; for violence and wrong enclose all who commit them in 
 their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they 
 began ; and it is not easy for him who by his deeds transgresses 
 the terms of the public peace to pass a tranquil and a peaceful 
 existence. For though he eludes God and man, yet he cannot 
 but feel a misgiving that his secret can be kept for ever; seeing 
 that many by speaking in their dreams or in the wanderings of 
 disease have often we are told betrayed themselves and have 
 disclosed their hidden deeds of evil and their sins. 
 
 And now what cause has spread over great nations the 
 worship of the divinities of the gods and filled towns with altars 
 and led to the performance of stated sacred rites, rites now in 
 fashion on solemn occasions and in solemn places, from which 
 even now is implanted in mortals a shuddering awe which 
 raises new temples of the gods over the whole earth and 
 prompts men to ci'owd them on festive days, all this it is not 
 so difficult to explain in words. Even then in sooth the races 
 of mortal men would see in waking mind glorious forms, would 
 see them in sleep of yet more marvellous size of body. To 
 these then they would attribute sense, because they seemed to 
 move their limbs and to utter lofty words suitable to their 
 glorious aspect and surpassing powers. And they would give 
 them life everlasting, because their face would ever appear be- 
 fore them and their form abide; yes and yet without all this, 
 because they would not believe that beings possessed of such 
 powers could lightly be overcome by any force. And they 
 would believe them to be preeminent in bliss, because none of 
 them was ever troubled with the fear of death, and because at 
 the same time in sleep they would see them perform many mi- 
 racles, yet feel on their part no fatigue from the effort. Again 
 they would see the system of heaven and the different seasons 
 of the years come round in regular succession, and could not 
 find out by what causes this was done; therefore they would 
 seek a refuge in handing over all things to the gods and sup-
 
 1 1S7 — 1 2-9 V 145 
 
 posing all things to be guided by their nod. And they placed 
 in heaven the abodes and realms of the gods, because night 
 and moon are seen to roll through heaven, moon day and night 
 and night's austere constellations and night-wandering meteors 
 of the sky and flying bodies of flame, clouds sun rains snow 
 winds lightnings hail and rapid rumblings and loud threatful 
 thunder-claps. 
 
 hapless race of men, when that they charged the gods 
 with such acts and coupled with them bitter wrath! what 
 groanings did they then beget for themselves, what wounds for 
 us, what tears for our children's children ! No act is it of piety 
 to be often seen with veiled head to turn to a stone and approach 
 every altar and fall prostrate on the ground and spread out the 
 palms before the statues of the gods and sprinkle the altars 
 with much blood of beasts and nail up vow after vow, but ra- 
 ther to be able to look on all things with a mind at peace. 
 For when we turn our gaze on the heavenly quarters of the 
 great upper world and ether fast above the glittering stars, and 
 direct our thoughts to the courses of the sun and moon, then 
 into our breasts burdened with other ills that fear as well be- 
 gins to exalt its reawakened head, the fear that we may haply 
 rind the power of the gods to be unlimited, able to wheel the 
 bright stars in their varied motion; for lack of power to solve 
 the question troubles the mind with doubts, whether there was 
 ever a birth-time of the world, and whether likewise there is 
 to be any end; how far the walls of the world can endure this 
 strain of restless motion; or whether gifted by the grace of the 
 gods with an everlasting existence they may glide on through 
 a never-ending tract of time and defy the strong powers of im- 
 measurable ages. A^ain who is there whose mind does not 
 shrink into itself with fear of the gods, whose limbs do not 
 cower in terror, when the parched earth rocks with the appal- 
 ling stroke and rattlings run through the great heaven? Do 
 not peoples and nations quake, and proud monarchs shrink into 
 themselves smitten with fear of the gods, lest for any foul trans- 
 gression or overweening word the heavy time of reckoning has 
 arrived at its fulness? When too the utmost fury of the head- 
 strong wind passes over the sea and sweeps over its waters the 
 commander of a fleet together with his mighty legions and ele- 
 phants, does he not draw near with vows to seek the mercy of 
 
 L
 
 146 V 1 229 — 1271 
 
 the gods and ask in prayer with fear and trembling a lull in 
 the winds and propitious gales; but all in vain, since often 
 caught nj) in the furious hurricane he is borne none the less to 
 the shoals of death? so constantly does some hidden power 
 trample on human grandeur and is seen to tread under its 
 heel and make sport for itself of the renowned rods and cruel 
 axes. Again when the whole earth rocks under their feet and 
 towns tumble with the shock or doubtfully threaten to fall, 
 what wonder that mortal men abase themselves and make over 
 to the gods in things here on earth high prerogatives and mar- 
 vellous powers, sufficient to govern all things? 
 
 To proceed, copper and gold and iron were discovered and 
 at the same time weighty silver and the substance of lead, 
 when fire had burnt up vast forests on the great hills, either by 
 a discharge of heaven's lightning, or else because men waging 
 with one another a forest-war had carried fire among the enemy 
 in order to strike terror, or because drawn on by the goodness 
 of the soil they would wish to clear rich fields and bring the 
 country into pasture, or else to destroy wild beasts and enrich 
 themselves with the booty; for hunting with the pitfall and 
 with fire came into use before the practice of enclosing the 
 lawn with toils and stirring it with dogs. Whatever the fact is, 
 from whatever cause the heat of flame had swallowed up the 
 forests with a frightful crackling from their very roots and had 
 thoroughly baked the earth with fire, there would run from the 
 boiling veins and collect into the hollows of the ground a 
 stream of silver and gold, as well as of copper and lead. And 
 when they saw these afterwards cool into lumps and glitter on 
 the earth with a brilliant gleam, they would lift them up at- 
 tracted by the bright and polished lustre, and they would see 
 them to be moulded in a shape the same as the outline of the 
 cavities in which each lay. Then it would strike them that 
 these might be melted by heat and cast in any form or shape 
 soever, and might by hammering out be brought to tapering 
 points of any degree of sharpness and fineness, so as to furnish 
 them with tools and enable them to cut the forests and hew 
 timber and plane smooth the planks, and also to drill and 
 pierce and bore. And they would set about these works just 
 as much with silver and gold at first as with the overpowering 
 strength of stout copper, but in vain, since their force would
 
 1271-1314 V 147 
 
 fail and give way and not be able like copper to stand the 
 severe strain. At that time copper was in higher esteem and 
 gold would lie neglected on account of its uselessness, with its 
 dull blunted edge : now copper lies neglected, gold has mounted 
 up to the highest place of honour. Thus time as it goes round 
 changes the seasons of things. That which was in esteem, falls 
 at length into utter disrepute; and then another thing mounts 
 up and issues out of its degraded state and every day is more 
 and more coveted and blossoms forth high in honour when dis- 
 covered and is in marvellous repute with men. 
 
 And now, Memmius, it is easy for you to find out by your- 
 self in what way the nature of iron was discovered. Arms of 
 old were hands nails and teeth and stones and boughs broken 
 off from the forests, and flame and fire, as soon as they had be- 
 come known. Afterwards the force of iron and copper was dis- 
 covered ; and the use of copper was known before that of iron, 
 as its nature is easier to work and it is found in greater quan- 
 tity. With copper they would labour the soil of the earth, with 
 copper stir up the billows of war and deal about wide-gaping 
 wounds and seize cattle and lands; for every thing defenceless 
 and unarmed would readily yield to them with arms in hand. 
 Then by slow steps the sword of iron gained ground and the 
 make of the copper sickle became a byword; and with iron 
 they began to plough through the earth's soil, and the struggles 
 of wavering war were rendered equal. And the custom of 
 mounting in arms on the back of a horse and guiding him with 
 reins and shewing prowess with the right hand is older than 
 that of tempting the risks of war in a two-horsed chariot ; and 
 yoking a pair of horses is older than yoking four or mounting 
 in arms scythed chariots. Next the Poeni taught the lucan 
 kine with towered body, hideous of aspect, with snake-like 
 hand, to endure the wounds of war and to disorder the mighty 
 ranks of Mars. Thus sad discord begat one thing after another, 
 to affright nations of men under arms, and every day made 
 some addition to the terrors of war. 
 
 They made trial of bulls too in the service of war and es- 
 sayed to send savage boars against the enemy. And some sent 
 before them valorous lions with armed trainers and courageous 
 keepers to guide them and to hold them in chains ; but in vain, 
 since heated with promiscuous slaughter they would disorder in 
 
 L'2
 
 r 4 s \ '3'4— 1:.59 
 
 their rage the troops without distinction, shaking all about the 
 ■litful crests upon their heads; and the horsemen were not 
 able to calm the breasts of the horses scared by the roaring 
 and turn them with the bridle upon the enemy. The lionesses 
 with a spring would throw their enraged bodies on all sides 
 and would attack in the face those who met them, and others 
 off their guard they would tear down from behind and twining 
 round them would bring them to the ground overpowered by 
 the wound, fastening on them with firm bite and with hooked 
 claws. The bulls would toss their own friends and trample 
 them under foot, and gore with their horns the flanks and 
 bellies of the horses underneath and turn up the earth with 
 threatening front. The boars too would rend their friends with 
 powerful tusks, in their rage dying with their blood the weapons 
 broken in them, dying with their blood I say the weapons 
 broken in their own bodies; and would put to promiscuous rout 
 horse and foot; for the tame beasts would try to avoid by shy- 
 ing to the side the cruel push of the tusk, or would rear up 
 and paw the winds, all in vain, since you might see them tum- 
 ble down with their tendons severed and straw the ground in 
 their heavy fall. Those whom they believed before to have 
 been sufficiently broken in at home, they would see lash them- 
 selves into fury in the heat of action from wounds shouting 
 flight panic uproar; and they could not rally any j)ortion of 
 them; for all the different kinds of wild beasts would fly all 
 abroad; just as now the lucan kine when cruelly mangled by 
 the steel fly often all abroad, after inflicting on their friends 
 many cruel deaths. But men chose thus to act not so much in 
 any hope of victory, as from a wish to give the enemy something 
 to rue at the cost of their own lives, when they mistrusted their 
 numbers and were in want of arms. 
 
 A garment tied on the body was in use before a dress of 
 woven stuff. Woven stuff comes after iron, because the loom is 
 fitted with iron ; and in no other way can such finely polished 
 things be made, as heddles and spindles, shuttles and ringing 
 yarn-beams. And nature impelled men to work up the wool 
 before womankind : for the male sex in general far excels the 
 other in skiil and is much more ingenious : until the rugged 
 countrymen so upbraided them with it, that they were glad to 
 give it over into the hands of the women and take their share
 
 1359— H03 * 149 
 
 in supporting hard toil, and in such hard work hardened body 
 and hands. 
 
 But nature parent of things was herself the first model of 
 sowing and first gave rise to grafting, since berries and acorns 
 dropping from the trees would put forth in due season swarms 
 of young shoots underneath ; and hence also came the fashion 
 of inserting grafts in their stocks and planting in the ground 
 young saplings over the fields. Next they would try another 
 and yet another kind of tillage for their loved piece of land and 
 would see the earth better the wild fruits through genial foster- 
 ing and kindly cultivation. And they would force the forests 
 to recede every day higher and higher up the hill-side and 
 yield the ground below to tilth, in order to have on the uplands 
 and plains meadows tanks runnels cornfields and glad vine- 
 yards, and allow a gray-green strip of olives to run between and 
 mark the divisions, spreading itself over hillocks and valleys 
 and plains; just as you now see richly dight with varied beauty 
 all the ground which they lay out and plant with rows of sweet 
 fruit-trees and enclose all round with plantations of other 
 goodly trees. 
 
 But imitating with the mouth the clear notes of birds was 
 in use long before men were able to sing in tune smooth-run- 
 ning verses and give pleasure to the ear. And the whistlings 
 of the zephyr through the hollows of reeds first taught peasants 
 to blow into hollow stalks. Then step by step they learned 
 sweet plaintive ditties, which the pipe pours forth pressed by 
 the fingers of the players, heard through pathless woods and 
 forests and lawns, through the unfrequented haunts of shep- 
 herds and abodes of unearthly calm. These things would 
 soothe and gratify their minds when sated with food; for then 
 all things of this kind are welcome. Often therefore stretched in 
 groups on the soft grass beside a stream of water under the 
 boughs of a high tree at no great cost they would pleasantly re- 
 fresh their bodies, above all when the weather smiled and the 
 seasons of the year painted the green grass with flowers. Then 
 went round the jest, the tale, the peals of merry laughter ; for 
 the peasant muse was then in its glory; then frolic mirth would 
 prompt to entwine head and shoulders with garlands plaited 
 with flowers and leaves, and to advance in the dance out of step 
 and move the limbs clumsily and with clumsy foot beat mother
 
 15° > T 1402— i-h: 
 
 earth; which would occasion smiles and peals of merry laughter, 
 because all these things then from their greater novelty and 
 strangeness were in high repute. And the wakeful found a 
 solace for want of sleep in this, in drawing out a variety of 
 notes and going through tunes and running over the reeds with 
 curving lip; whence even at the present day watchmen observe 
 these traditions and have lately learned to keep the proper 
 tune; and yet for all this receive not a jot more of enjoyment, 
 than erst the rugged race of sons of earth received. For that 
 which we have in our hands, if we have known before nothing 
 plcasanter, pleases above all and is thought to be the best; and 
 as a rule the later discovery of something better spoils the taste 
 for the former things and changes the feelings in regard to all 
 that has gone before. Thus began distaste for the acorn, thus 
 were abandoned those sleeping-places strawn with grass and en- 
 riched with leaves. The dress too of wild beasts' skin fell into 
 neglect ; though I can fancy that in those days it was found to 
 arouse such jealousy that he who first wore it met his death by 
 an ambuscade, and after all it was torn in pieces among them 
 and drenched in blood was utterly destroyed and could not be 
 turned to any use. In those times therefore skins, now gold 
 and purple plague men's lives with cares and wear them out 
 with war. And in this methinks the greater blame rests with 
 us; for cold would torture the naked sons of earth without their 
 skins; but us it harms not in the least to do without a robe of 
 purple, spangled with gold and large figures, if only we have a 
 dress of the people to protect us. Mankind therefore ever toils 
 vainly and to no purpose and wastes life in groundless cares, 
 because sure enough they have not learnt what is the true end 
 of getting and up to what point genuine pleasure goes on in- 
 creasing : this by slow degrees has carried life out into the deep 
 sea and stirred up from their lowest depths the mighty billows 
 of war. 
 
 But those watchful guardians sun and moon traversing with 
 their light all round the great revolving sphere of heaven taught 
 men that the seasons of the year came round and that the sys- 
 tem was carried on after a fixed plan and fixed order. 
 
 Already they would pass their life fenced about with strong 
 towers, and the land, portioned out and marked off by bounda- 
 ries, be tilled ; the sea would be filled with ships scudding under
 
 i44»— M57 V 151 
 
 sail; towns have auxiliaries and allies as stipulated by treaty, 
 when poets began to consign the deeds of men to verse; and 
 letters had not been invented long before. For this reason our 
 age cannot look back to what has gone before, save where rea- 
 son points out any traces. 
 
 Ships and tillage, walls laws arms roads dress and all such 
 like things, all the prizes, all the elegancies too of life without 
 exception, poems pictures and the chiselling fine-wrought statues, 
 all these things practice together with the acquired knowledge 
 of the untiring mind taught men by slow degrees as they ad- 
 vanced on the way step by step. Thus time by degrees brings 
 each several thing forth before men's eyes and reason raises 
 it up into the borders of light; for things must be brought 
 to light one after the other and in due order in the different 
 arts, until these have reached their highest point of develop- 
 ment.
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 
 BOOK SIXTH 
 
 In days of yore Athens of famous name first imparted corn- 
 producing crops to suffering mankind, and modelled life anew 
 and passed laws; and first too bestowed sweet solaces of exist- 
 ence, when she gave birth to a man who shewed himself gifted 
 with such a genius and poured forth all knowledge of old from 
 his truth-telling mouth ; whose glory, even now that he is dead, 
 on account of his godlike discoveries confirmed by length of time 
 is spread abroad among men and reaches high as heaven. For 
 when he saw that the things which their needs imperiously de- 
 mand for subsistence, had all without exception been already 
 provided for men, and that life, so far as was possible, was 
 placed on a sure footing, that men were great in affluence of 
 riches and honours and glory and swelled with pride in the high 
 reputation of their children, and yet that none of them at home 
 for all that had a heart the less disquieted, and that it in de- 
 spite of the mind plagued life without any respite and was con- 
 strained to rave with distressful complainings, he then perceived 
 that the vessel itself did cause the corruption and that by its 
 corruption all the things that came into it and were gathered 
 together from abroad, however salutary were spoilt within it ; 
 partly because he saw it to be leaky and full of holes so that it 
 could never by any means be filled full; partly because he per- 
 ceived that it befouled so to say with a nauseous flavour every- 
 thing within it, which it had taken in. He therefore cleansed 
 men's breasts with truth-telling precepts and fixed a limit to 
 lust and fear and explained what was the chief good which we 
 all strive to reach, and pointed out the road by which along a
 
 2 7-66 VI 
 
 03 
 
 narrow track we might arrive at in a straightforward course; he 
 shewed too what evils existed in mortal affairs throughout, 
 rising up and manifoldly flying about by a natural — call it 
 chance or force, because nature had so brought it about; and 
 from what gates you must sally out duly to encounter each ; and 
 he proved that mankind mostly without cause arouse in their 
 breast the melancholy tumbling billows of cares. For even as 
 children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, 
 thus we in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more to 
 be dreaded than what children shudder at in the dark and 
 fancy sure to be. This terror therefore and darkness of mind 
 must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering- 
 shafts of clay, but by the aspect and law of nature. Wherefore 
 the more readily I will go on in my verses to complete the web 
 of my design. 
 
 And since I have shewn that the quarters of ether are mor- 
 tal and that heaven is formed of a body that had a birth, and 
 since of all the things which go on and must go on in it, I have 
 unravelled most, hear further what remains to be told; since 
 once for all [I have willed] to mount the illustrious chariot [of 
 the muses, and ascending to heaven to explain the true law of 
 winds and storms, which men foolishly lay to the charge of the 
 gods, telling how when they are angry, they raise fierce tem- 
 pests ; and, when there is a lull in the fury] of the winds, how 
 that anger is appeased, how the omens which have been are 
 again changed, when their fury has thus been appeased : [I have 
 willed at the same time] to explain all the other things which 
 mortals observe to go on upon earth and in heaven, when often 
 they are in anxious suspense of mind, and which abase their 
 souls with fear of the gods and weigh and press them down to 
 earth, because ignorance of the causes constrains them to submit 
 things to the empire of the gods and to make over to them the 
 kingdom. For they who have been rightly taught that the 
 gods lead a life without care, if nevertheless they wonder on 
 what plan all things can be carried on, above all in regard to 
 those things which are seen overhead in the ethereal borders, are 
 borne back again into their old religious scruples and take unto 
 themselves hard taskmasters, whom they poor wretches believe 
 to be almighty, not knowing what can, what cannot be, in short 
 on what principle each thing has its powers denned, its deep-set
 
 154 VI 66— io8 
 
 boundary mark ; and therefore they are led all the farther astray 
 by blind reason. Now unless you drive from your mind with 
 loathing all these things, and banish far from you all belief in 
 things degrading to the gods and inconsistent with their peace, 
 then often will the holy deities of the gods, having their ma- 
 jesty lessened by you, do you hurt; not that the supreme power 
 of the gods can be so outraged, that in their wrath they shall 
 resolve to exact sharp vengeance, but because you will fancy to 
 yourself that they, though they enjoy quiet and calm peace, do 
 roll great billows of wrath ; nor will you approach the sanctu- 
 aries of the gods with a calm breast nor will you be able with 
 tranquil peace of mind to take in those idols which are carried 
 from their holy body into the minds of men, as heralds of their 
 divine form. And what kind of life follows after this, may be 
 conceived. But in order that most veracious reason may drive 
 it far away from us, though much has already gone forth from 
 me, much however still remains and has to be embellished in 
 smooth-polished verses ; the law and aspect of heaven has to be 
 apprehended; storms and bright lightnings, what they do and 
 from what cause they are borne along, all this has to be sung ; 
 that you may not mark out the heaven into quarters and be 
 startled and distracted on seeing from which of them the volant 
 fire has come or to which of the two halves it has betaken 
 itself, in what way it has gained an entrance within walled 
 places, and how after lording it with tyrant sway, it has gotten 
 itself out from these. Do thou, deft muse Calliope, solace of 
 men and joy of gods, point out the course before me as I race 
 to the white boundary-line of the final goal, that under thy 
 guidance I may win the crown with signal applause. 
 
 In the first place the blue of heaven is shaken with thunder, 
 because the ethereal clouds clash together as they fly aloft when 
 the winds combat from opposite quarters. For no sound ever 
 comes from a cloudless part of heaven, but wheresoever the 
 clouds are gathered in a denser mass, from that part with 
 greater frequency comes a clap with a loud growl. Again 
 clouds cannot be either of so dense a body as stones and tim- 
 bers, nor again so fine as mists and flying bodies of smoke; for 
 then they must either fall borne down by their dead weight like 
 stones, or like smoke they would be unable to keep together 
 and hold within frozen snows and hail-showers. They also give
 
 ioS-i 4 6 VI 155 
 
 forth a sound over tbe levels of the wide-stretching upper 
 world, just as at times a canvas-awning stretched over large 
 theatres makes a creaking noise, when it tosses about among 
 the poles and beams; sometimes too rent by the boisterous 
 gales it madly howls and closely imitates the crackling noise of 
 pieces of paper: this kind of noise too you may notice in thun- 
 der, when the winds whirl about with their blows and buffet 
 through the air either a hanging cloth or flying bits of paper. 
 For sometimes too the clouds cannot meet front to front in 
 direct collision, but must rather move from the flank and so 
 with contrary motions graze leisurely along each other's bodies ; 
 whence comes that dry sound which brushes the ears and is 
 long drawn out, until they have made their way out of their 
 confined positions. 
 
 In this way also all things appear to quake often from the 
 shock of heavy thunder, and the mighty walls of the far- 
 stretchine ether seem in an instant to have been riven and to 
 have sprung asunder; when a storm of violent wind has sud- 
 denly gathered and worked itself into the clouds and, there 
 shut in, with its whirling eddy ever more and more on all 
 sides forces the cloud to become hollow with a thick surround- 
 ing crust of body; afterwards when its force and impetuous 
 onset has split it, then the cloud thus rent gives forth a erash 
 with a hideous hurtling noise. And no wonder, when a small 
 bladder filled with air often emits a great sound if suddenly 
 burst. 
 
 It can also be explained how the winds, when they blow 
 through the clouds, make noises : we see branching and rough 
 clouds often borne along in many ways; thus, you are to know, 
 when the blasts of the northwest blow through a dense forest, 
 the leaves give forth a rustling and the boughs a crashing. 
 Sometimes too the force of the strong wind when aroused rends 
 the cloud, breaking through it by an assault right in front: 
 what a blast of wind can do there, is shewn by facts plain to 
 sense, when here on earth where it is gentler it yet twists out 
 tall trees and tears them up from their deepest roots. There 
 are also waves among the clouds and they give a kind of roar 
 as they break heavily; just as in deep rivers and on the great 
 sea when the surf breaks. Sometimes too when the burning 
 force of thunder has fallen out of one cloud into another, if
 
 156 VI t 4 6-i8a 
 
 haply the latter contains much moisture when it has taken the 
 fire into it, it drowns it at once with a loud noise; just so iron 
 glowing hot from the fiery furnaces sometimes hisses, when we 
 have plunged it quickly into cold water. Again if the cloud 
 which receives the fire is drier, it is set on fire in an instant 
 and burns with a loud noise; just as if a flame should range 
 over the laurel-covered hills through a whirlwind and burn 
 them up with its impetuous assault; and there is not anything 
 that burns in the crackling flame with a more startling sound 
 than the Delphic laurel of Phoebus. Then often too much 
 crushing of ice and tumbling in of hail make a noise in the 
 great clouds on high; for when the wind packs them together 
 into a confined space, the mountains of storm-clouds congealed 
 and mixed with hail break up. 
 
 It lightens too, when the clouds have struck out by their 
 collision many seeds of fire; just as if a stone were to strike 
 another stone or a piece of iron; for then too light bursts out 
 and fire scatters about bright sparks. But w r e hear the thunder 
 with our ears after the eyes see the flash of lightning, because 
 things always travel more slowly to the ears than those which 
 excite vision travel to the eyes. This you may perceive from 
 the following instance as well : when you see a man at a dis- 
 tance cutting with a double-edged axe a large tree, you perceive 
 the stroke before the blow carries the sound to the ear: thus we 
 see lightning too before we hear the thunder, which is discharged 
 at the same time as the fire from the same cause, being born 
 indeed from the same collision. 
 
 Also in the following manner clouds dye places with winged 
 light and the storm flashes out with a rapid quivering move- 
 ment. When the wind has made its way into a cloud and 
 whirling about in it has, as I have shewn above, made the cloud 
 hollow with a dense crust, it becomes hot by its own velocity : 
 thus you see all things thoroughly heated and fired by motion ; 
 nay a leaden ball in whirling through a long course even melts. 
 When therefore this wind now on fire has rent the black cloud, 
 it scatters abroad at once seeds of fire pressed out by force so to 
 speak, and these produce the throbbing flashes of flame; then 
 follows a sound which strikes on the ears more slowly than the 
 things which travel to our eyes strike on them. This you are 
 to know takes place when the clouds are dense and at the same
 
 -22; 
 
 VI 157 
 
 time piled up on high one above the other in marvellous accu- 
 mulation ; that you be not led into error, because we see how 
 great their breadth is below, rather than to how great a height 
 they are piled up. Observe, at a time when the winds shall 
 carry clouds like to mountains with a slanting course through 
 the air, or when you shall see them piled on the sides of great 
 mountains one on the top of the other and pressing down from 
 above perfectly at rest, the winds being buried on all skies : you 
 will then be able to observe their great masses and to see caverns 
 as it were built of hanging rocks; and when a storm has gathered 
 and the winds have filled these, they chafe with a loud roaring 
 shut up in the clouds, and bluster in their dens after the fashion 
 of wild beasts: now from this point, now from that the winds 
 send their growlings through the clouds, and seeking a way out 
 whirl about and roll together seeds of fire out of the clouds and 
 then gather many into a mass and make flame rotate in the 
 hollow furnaces within, until they have burst the cloud and 
 shone forth in forked flashes. 
 
 From this cause again yon golden colour of clear bright fire 
 flies down with velocity to the earth: the clouds must themselves 
 have very many seeds of fire ; for when they are without any 
 moisture, they are mostly of a brilliant flame colour. Moreover 
 they must take in many from the sun's light, so that with good 
 cause they are ruddy and shed forth fires. When therefore the 
 wind has driven thrust squeezed together and collected into one 
 spot these clouds, they press out and shed forth seeds which 
 cause the colours of flame to flash out. It also lightens, when 
 the clouds of heaven are rarefied as well. For when the wind 
 lightly unravels and breaks them up as they move, those seeds 
 which produce the lightning must fall perforce ; and then it 
 lightens without a hideous startling noise and without any 
 uproar. 
 
 Well, to proceed, what kind of nature thunderbolts possess, 
 is shewn by their strokes and the traces of their heat which 
 have burnt themselves into things and the marks which exhale 
 the noxious vapours of sulphur : all these are signs of fire, not 
 of wind or rain. Again they often set on fire even the roofs of 
 houses and with swift flame rule resistless within the house. 
 This fire subtle above all fires nature, you are to know, forms 
 of minute and lightly moving bodies, and it is such as nothing
 
 158 VI iif — 269 
 
 whatever can withstand. The mighty thunderbolt passes through 
 the walls of houses, like a shout and voices, passes through 
 stones, through brass, and in a moment of time melts brass and 
 gold ; and causes wine too in an instant to disappear, while the 
 vessels are untouched, because sure enough its heat on reaching 
 it readily loosens and rarefies all the earthen material of the 
 vessel on every side and forcing a way within lightly separates 
 and disperses the first-beginnings of the wine. This the sun's 
 heat would be unable to accomplish in an age, though beating 
 on it incessantly with its quivering heat: so much more nimble 
 and overpowering is this other force. 
 
 And now in what way these are begotten and are formed 
 with a force so resistless as to be able with their stroke to burst 
 asunder towers, throw down houses, wrench away beams and 
 rafters, and cast down and burn up the monuments of men, to 
 strike men dead, prostrate cattle far and near, by what force 
 they can do all this and the like, I will make clear and will not 
 longer detain you with mere professions. 
 
 Thunderbolts we must suppose to be begotten out of dense 
 clouds piled up high ; for they are never sent forth at all when 
 the sky is clear or when the clouds are of a slight density. That 
 this is so beyond all question is proved by facts evident to sense : 
 clouds at such times form so dense a mass over the whole sky 
 that we might imagine all its darkness had abandoned Acheron 
 throughout and filled up the great vaults of heaven : in such 
 numbers, mid the frightful night of storm-clouds that has 
 gathered, do faces of black horror hang over us on high ; what 
 time the storm begins to forge its thunderbolts. Very often 
 again a black storm-cloud too out at sea, like a stream of pitch 
 sent down from heaven, falls in such wise upon the waters 
 heavily charged with darkness afar off and draws down a black 
 tempest big with lightnings and storms, itself so fraught above 
 all the rest with fires and winds, that even on land men shudder 
 and seek shelter. Thus then we must suppose that the storm 
 above our head reaches high up; for the clouds would never bury 
 the earth in such thick darkness, unless they were built up 
 high heap upon heap, the sunlight totally disappearing; nor 
 could the clouds when they descend drown it with so great a 
 rain, as to make rivers overflow and put fields under water, if 
 they were not piled high up in the sky. In this case then all
 
 269—310 VI I5g 
 
 things are filled with winds and fire; therefore thunderings and 
 lightnings go on all about. For I have shewn above that hollow 
 clouds have very many seeds of heat, and they must also take 
 many in from the sun's rays and their heat. On this account 
 when the same wind which happens to collect them into any one 
 place, has forced out many seeds of heat and has mixed itself 
 up with that fire, then the eddy of wind forces a way in and 
 whirls about in the straitened room and points the thunder- 
 bolt in the fiery furnaces within; for it is kindled in two ways 
 at once : it is heated by its own velocity and from the contact 
 of fire. After that when the force of the wind has been tho- 
 roughly heated and the impetuous power of the fire has entered 
 in, then the thunderbolt fully forged as it were suddenly rends 
 the cloud, and their heat put in motion is carried on traversing 
 all places with flashing lights. Close upon it follows so heavy 
 a clap that it seems to crush down from above the quarters of 
 heaven which have all at once sprung asunder. Then a trem- 
 bling violently seizes the earth and rumblings run through high 
 heaven ; for the whole body of the storm theu without exception 
 quakes with the shock and loud roarings are aroused. After 
 this shock follows so heavy and copious a rain that the whole 
 ether seems to be turning into rain and then to be tumbling 
 down and returning to a deluge : so great a flood of it is dis- 
 charged by the bursting of the cloud and the storm of wind, 
 when the sound flies forth from the burning stroke. At times 
 too the force of the wind aroused from without falls on a cloud 
 hot with a fully forged thunderbolt; and when it has burst it, 
 forthwith there falls down yon fiery eddying whirl which in our 
 native speech we call a thunderbolt. The same takes place on 
 every other side towards which the force in question has borne 
 down. Sometimes too the power of the wind though discharged 
 without fire, yet catches fire in the course of its long travel, and 
 while it is passing on, it loses on the way some large bodies 
 which cannot like the rest get through the air; and gathers 
 together out of the air itself and carries along with it other 
 bodies of very small size which mix with it and produce fire by 
 their flight; very much in the same way as a leaden ball 
 becomes hot during its course, when it loses many bodies of cold 
 and has taken up fire in the air. Sometimes too the force of 
 the blow itself strikes out fire, when the force of wind discharged
 
 i6o VI 
 
 310— 3-1 ! 
 
 in a cold state without fire has struck, because sure enough, 
 when it has smitten with a powerful stroke, the elements of heal 
 are able to stream together out of the wind itself and at the 
 same time out of the thing which then encounters the stroke. 
 Thus, when wo strike a stone with iron, fire flies out; and none 
 the less, because the force of the iron is cold, do its seeds of fiery 
 brightness meet together upon the stroke. Therefore in the 
 same way too a thing ought to be set on fire by the thunderbolt, 
 if it has happened to be in a state suited to receive and suscept- 
 ible of the flames. At the same time the might of the wind 
 cannot lightly be thought to be absolutely and decidedly cold, 
 seeing that it is discharged with such force from above; but if 
 it is not already set on fire during its course, it yet arrives in a 
 warm state with heat mixed up in it. 
 
 But the velocity of thunderbolts is great and their stroke 
 powerful, and they run through their course with a rapid 
 descent, because their force when aroused first in all cases col- 
 lects itself in the clouds and gathers itself up for a great effort 
 at starting; then when the cloud is no longer able to hold the 
 increased moving power, their force is pressed out and therefore 
 flies with a marvellous moving power, like to that with which 
 missiles are carried when discharged from powerful engines. 
 Then too the thunderbolt consists of small and smooth elements, 
 and such a nature it is not easy for anything to withstand ; for 
 it flies between and passes in through the porous passages ; 
 therefore it is not checked and delayed by many collisions, and 
 for this reason it glides and flies on with a swift moving 
 power. Next, all weights without exception naturally pressing 
 downward, when moreover a blow is added, the velocity is 
 doubled and yon moving power becomes so intense that the 
 thunderbolt dashes aside more impetuously and swiftly what- 
 ever gets in its way and tries to hinder it, and pursues its 
 journey. Then too as it advances with a long-continued moving 
 power, it must again and again receive new velocity which ever 
 increases as it goes on and augments its powerful might and 
 gives vigour to its stroke; for it forces all the seeds of the 
 thunder to be borne right onward to one spot so to speak, 
 throwing them all together, as on they roll, into that single line. 
 Perhaps too as it goes on it attracts certain bodies out of the 
 air itself, and these by their blows kindle apace its velocity. It
 
 348-385 VI i6i 
 
 passes too through things without injuring them, and leaves 
 many things quite whole after it has gone through, because the 
 clear bright tire flies through by the pores. And it breaks to 
 pieces many things, when the first bodies of the thunderbolt 
 have fallen exactly on the first bodies of these things, at the 
 points where they are intertwined and held together. Again it 
 easily melts brass and fuses gold in an instant, because its force 
 is formed of bodies minutely small and of smooth elements, 
 which easily make their way in and when they are in, in a 
 moment break up all the knots and untie the bonds of union. 
 And more especially in autumn the mansion of heaven studded 
 with glittering stars and the whole earth are shaken on all 
 sides, and also when the flowery season of spring discloses itself. 
 For during the cold fires are wanting and winds fail during the 
 heat, and the clouds then are not of so dense a body. "When 
 therefore the seasons of heaven are between the two extremes, 
 the different causes of thunder and lightning all combine ; for 
 the very cross-current of the year mixes up cold and heat, both 
 of which a cloud needs for forging thunderbolts ; so that there is 
 great discord in things and the air raving with fires and winds 
 heaves in mighty disorder. The first part of heat and the last 
 of cold is the spring-time ; therefore unlike things must battle 
 with one another and be turbulent when mixed together. And 
 when the last heat mixed with the first cold rolls on its course, 
 a time which goes by the name of autumn, then too fierce win- 
 ters are in conflict with summers. Therefore these seasons 
 are to be called the cross-seas of the year; and it is not won- 
 derful, that in that season thunderbolts are most frequent, 
 and troublous storms are stirred up in heaven; since both 
 sides then engage in the troublous medley of dubious war, 
 the one armed with flames, the other with winds and water 
 commingled. 
 
 This is the way to see into the true nature of the thunder- 
 bolt and to understand by what force it produces each effect, 
 and not the turning over the scrolls of Tyrrhene charms and 
 vainly searching for tokens of the hidden will of the gods, in 
 order to know from what quarter the volant fire has come or to 
 which of the two halves it has betaken itself, in what way it 
 has gained an entrance within walled places, and how after 
 lording it with tyrant sway it has gotten itself out from these; 
 
 M
 
 1 62 VI 386-4^6 
 
 also what harm the thunderstroke from heaven can do. But if 
 Jupiter and other gods shake with an appalling crash the glit- 
 tering quarters of heaven, and hurl their fire whither each is so 
 minded, why strike they not those whoever they be who have 
 recked not of committing some abominable sin and make them 
 give forth the flames of lightning from breast pierced through 
 and through, a sharp lesson to men? and why rather is he 
 whose conscience is burdened with no foul offence, innocent 
 though he be, wrapped and enveloped in the flames, in a 
 moment caught up by the whirlwind and fire of heaven ? Why 
 too aim they at solitary spots and spend their labour in vain? 
 or are they then practising their arms and strengthening their 
 sinews ? and why do they suffer the father's bolt to be blunted 
 on the earth ? why does he allow it himself, and not spare it for 
 his enemies? Why again, when heaven is unclouded on all 
 sides, does Jupiter never hurl a bolt on the earth or send abroad 
 his claps ? or does he, so soon as clouds have spread under, then 
 go down in person into them, that from them he may aim the 
 strokes of his bolt near at hand ? Ay and for what reason does 
 he hurl into the sea ? of what has he to impeach its waters and 
 liquid mass and floating fields ? Again if he wills us to avoid 
 the thunderstroke, why fears he to let us see it discharged ? or 
 if he wills to crush us off our guard with his fire, why thunders 
 he from that side, to enable us to shun it ? why stirs he up 
 beforehand darkness and roarings and rumblings? And how 
 can you believe that he hurls at many points at the same time ? 
 or would you venture to maintain that it never has happened 
 that more than one stroke was made at one time? Nay often 
 and often it has happened and must happen that, even as it 
 rains and showers fall in many different quarters, so many 
 thunderings go on at one time. Once more why does he clash 
 down the holy sanctuaries of the gods and his own gorgeous 
 seats with the destroying thunderbolt, and break the fine- 
 wrought idols of the gods, and spoil his own images of their 
 glory by an overbearing wound? and why does he mostly aim 
 at lofty spots, and why do we see most traces of his fire on the 
 mountain tops? 
 
 To proceed, it is easy from these facts to understand in what 
 way those things, which the Greeks from their nature have 
 named presteres, come down from above into the sea. For
 
 416—467 VI 1 63 
 
 sometimes a pillar so to speak is let down from heaven and 
 descends into the sea, and round about it the surges boil, roused 
 by heavy blasts of winds ; and all ships caught in that turmoil 
 are dashed about and brought into extreme danger. This takes 
 place when at times the force of the wind aroused cannot burst 
 the cloud which it essays to burst, but weighs it down, so that 
 it is bike a pillar let down from heaven into the sea, yet gradu- 
 ally, just as if a thing were thrust down from above and stretched 
 out to the level of the waters by the fist and push of the arm ; 
 and when the force of the wind has rent this cloud, it bursts out 
 from it into the sea and occasions a marvellous boiling in the 
 waters ; for the whirling eddy descends and brings down to- 
 gether with it yon cloud of limber body; and as soon as it has 
 forced it down full-charged as it is to the levels of the sea, the 
 eddy in a moment plunges itself entire into the water, and stirs 
 up the whole sea with a prodigious noise and forces it to boil. 
 Sometimes too the eddy of wind wraps itself up in clouds and 
 gathers out of the air seeds of cloud and imitates in a sort 
 the prester let down from heaven. When this prester has let 
 itself down to the land and has burst, it belches forth a whirl- 
 wind and storm of enormous violence ; but as it seldom takes 
 place at all and as mountains cannot but obstruct it on land, it 
 is seen more frequently on the sea with its wide prospect and 
 unobstructed horizon. 
 
 Clouds are formed, when in this upper space of heaven 
 many bodies flying about have in some one instant met toge- 
 ther, of a rougher sort, such as are able, though they have got 
 the very slightest holds of each other, to catch together and be 
 held in union. These bodies first cause small clouds to form ; 
 and these next catch together and collect into masses and in- 
 crease by joining with each other and are earned on by the 
 winds continually until a fierce storm has gathered. The nearer 
 too the tops of a mountain in each case are to heaven, the more 
 constantly at this elevation they smoke with the thick darkness 
 of a swarthy cloud, because, as soon as clouds form, before the 
 eyes can see them, thin as they are, the winds carry and bring 
 them together to the highest summits of a mountain ; and then 
 at last when they have gathered in a greater mass, being now 
 dense they are able to make themselves visible and at the same 
 time they are seen to rise up from the very top of the mountain 
 
 M 2
 
 164 VI 46.7—509 
 
 into the ether: the very fact of the case and our sensations, 
 when we climb high mountains, prove that the regions which 
 stretch up on high are windy. Again clothes hung up on the 
 shore, when they drink in the clinging moisture, prove that 
 nature takes up many bodies over the whole sea as well. This 
 makes it still more plain that many bodies may likewise rise up 
 out of the salt heaving sea to add to the bulk of clouds ; for the 
 two liquids are near akin in their nature. Again we see mists 
 and steam rise out of all rivers and at the same time from the 
 earth as well ; and they forced out like a breath from these 
 parts are then carried upwards and overcast heaven with their 
 darkness and make up clouds on high as they gradually come 
 together ; for the heat of starry ether at the same time presses 
 down too on them and by condensing as it were weaves a web 
 of clouds below the blue. Sometimes there come here into 
 heaven from without those bodies which form clouds and the 
 flying storm-rack; for I have shewn that their number passes 
 numbering and that the sum of the deep is infinite ; and I 
 have proved with what velocity bodies fly and how in a moment 
 of time the} 7 are wont to pass through space unspeakable. It 
 is not therefore strange that a tempest and darkness often in a 
 short time cover over with such great storm-clouds seas and 
 lands, as they hang down upon them overhead, since on all 
 sides through all the cavities of ether and as it were through 
 the vents of the great world around the power of going out and 
 coming in is accorded to the elements. 
 
 Now mark and I will explain in what way the rainy 
 moisture is formed in the clouds above and then is sent down 
 and falls to the earth in the shape of rain. And first I will 
 prove that many seeds of water rise up together with the 
 clouds themselves out of all things and that both the clouds 
 and the water which is in the clouds thus increase together ; 
 just as our body increases together with the blood, as well as 
 the sweat and all the moisture which is in the frame. The 
 clouds likewise imbibe much sea-water as well, like ban sine 
 fleeces of wool, when the winds carry them over the great 
 sea. In like manner moisture is taken up out of all rivers into 
 the clouds; and when the seeds of waters full many in number 
 in many ways have met in them, augmented from all sides, 
 then the close-packed clouds endeavour to discharge their
 
 £o 9 -547 VI 1 65 
 
 moisture from two causes : the force of the wind drives them 
 together, and likewise the very abundance of the rain-clouds, 
 when a greater mass than usual has been brought together, 
 pushes down, presses from above and forces the rain to stream 
 out. Again when the clouds are also rarefied by the winds, or 
 are dispersed, being smitten at the same time by the heat of 
 the sun, they discharge a rainy moisture and trickle down, just 
 as wax over a hot fire melts away and turns fast into liquid. 
 But a violent rain follows, when the clouds are violently pressed 
 upon by both causes, by their own accumulated weight and by 
 the impetuous assault of the wind. And rains are wont to 
 hold out and to last long, when many seeds of waters are 
 stirred to action, and clouds upon clouds and rack upon rack 
 welling forth from all quarters round about are borne along, 
 and when the reeking earth steams moisture back again from 
 its whole surface. When in such a case the sun has shone 
 with his rays amid the murky tempest right opposite the drip- 
 ping rain-clouds, then the colour of the rainbow shews itself 
 among the black clouds. 
 
 As to the other things which grow by themselves and are 
 formed by themselves, as well as the things which are formed 
 within the clouds, all, without exception all, snow winds hail and 
 cold hoarfrosts and the great force of ice, the great congealing 
 power of waters, and the stop which everywhere curbs run- 
 ning rivers, it is yet most easy to find out and apprehend 
 in mind how all these things take place and in what way they 
 are formed, when you have fully understood the properties 
 assigned to elements. 
 
 Now mark and learn what the law of earthquakes is. And 
 first of all take for granted that the earth below us as well as 
 above is filled in all parts with windy caverns and bears within 
 its bosom many lakes and many chasms, cliffs and craggy rocks; 
 and you must suppose that many rivers hidden beneath the 
 crust of the earth roll on with violence waves and submerged 
 stones ; for the very nature of the case requires it to be through- 
 out like to itself. With such things then attached and placed 
 below, the earth quakes above from the shock of great falling 
 masses, when underneath time has undermined vast caverns ; 
 whole mountains indeed fall in, and in an instant from the 
 mighty shock tremblings spread themselves far and wide from
 
 1 66 Vi S47 _ S 8 7 
 
 that centre. And with good cause, since buildings beside a road 
 tremble throughout when shaken by a waggon of not such very 
 great weight ; and they rock no less, when any sharp pebble on 
 the road jolts up the iron tires of the wheels on both sides. 
 Sometimes too, when an enormous mass of soil through age 
 rolls down from the land into great and extensive pools of 
 water, the earth rocks and sways with the undulation of the 
 water ; just as a vessel at times cannot rest, until the liquid 
 within has ceased to sway about in unsteady undulations. 
 
 Again when the wind gathering itself together in the hollow 
 places underground bears down on one point and pushing on 
 presses with great violence the deep caverns, the earth leans 
 over on the side to which the headlong violence of the wind 
 presses. Then all buildings which are above ground, and ever 
 the more, the more they tower up towards heaven, lean over 
 and bulge out yielding in the same direction, and the timbers 
 wrenched from their supports hang over ready to give way. 
 And yet men shrink from believing that a time of destruction 
 and ruin awaits the nature of the great world, though they see 
 so great a mass of earth hang ready to fall ! And if the winds 
 did not abate their blowing, no force could rein things in or 
 hold them up on their road to destruction. As it is, because by 
 turns they do abate and then increase in violence, and so to 
 speak rally and return to the charge, and then are defeated 
 and retire, for this reason the earth oftener threatens to fall 
 than really falls : it leans over and then sways back again, and 
 after tumbling forward recovers in equal poise its fixed posi- 
 tion. For this reason the whole house rocks, the top more 
 than the middle, the middle than the bottom, the bottom in a 
 very very slight degree. 
 
 The same great quaking likewise arises from this cause, 
 when on a sudden the wind and some enormous force of air 
 gathering either from without or within the earth have flung 
 themselves into the hollows of the earth, and there chafe at 
 first with much uproar among the great caverns and are carried 
 on with a whirling motion, and when their force afterwards 
 stirred and lashed into fury bursts abroad and at the same 
 moment cleaves the deep earth and opens up a great yawning 
 chasm. This fell out in Syrian Sidon and took place at Aegium 
 in the Peloponnese, two towns which an outbreak of wind of
 
 587-623 VI 167 
 
 this sort and the ensuing earthquake threw down. And many- 
 walled places besides fell down by great commotions on land 
 and many towns sank down engulphed in the sea together with 
 their burghers. And if they do not break out, still the im- 
 petuous fury of the air and the fierce violence of the wind 
 spread over the numerous passages of the earth like a shiver- 
 ing- fit and thereby cause a trembling ; just as cold when it has 
 pierced into our frames to the very marrow, sets them a-shiver- 
 ing in spite of themselves, forcing them to shake and move. 
 Men are therefore disturbed by a two-edged terror throughout 
 their cities ; they fear the roofs above their heads, they dread 
 lest the nature of the earth in a moment break up her caverns 
 underneath, and rent asunder display her own wide-gaping 
 maw and wildly tumbled together seek to fill it up with her 
 own ruins. Let them then fancy as much as they please that 
 heaven and earth shall be incorruptible and consigned to an 
 everlasting exemption from decay ; and yet sometimes the very 
 present force of danger applies on some side or other this goad 
 of fear among others, that the earth shall in an instant be with- 
 drawn from under their feet and carried down into the pit, and 
 that the sum of things shall utterly give way and follow after 
 and a jumbled wreck of world ensue. 
 
 First of all they wonder that nature does not increase the 
 
 bulk of the sea, when there is so great a flow of water into it, 
 
 when all rivers from all quarters fall into it. Add to these 
 
 passing rains and flying storms, which bespatter every sea and 
 
 moisten every land; add its own springs; yet all these compared 
 
 with the sum of the sea will be like an addition of bulk hardly 
 
 amounting to a single drop; it is therefore the less wonderful 
 
 that the great sea does not increase. Again the sun absorbs a 
 
 great deal with his heat: we see him with his burning rays 
 
 thoroughly dry clothes dripping with wet: but we know seas 
 
 to be many in number and to stretch over a wide surface. 
 
 Therefore however small the portion of moisture which the sun 
 
 draws off the surface from any one spot, it will yet in so vast 
 
 an expanse take largely from its waters. Then again the winds 
 
 too may withdraw a great deal of moisture as they sweep over 
 
 the surface, since we very often see the roads dried by the 
 
 winds in a single night and the soft mud form into hard crusts. 
 
 Again I have shewn that the clouds take off much moisture too
 
 i68 VI 638-672 
 
 imbibed from the great surface of the sea and scatter it about 
 over the whole earth, when it rains on land and the winds carry 
 on the clouds. Lastly since the earth is of a porous body and 
 is in contact with the sea, girding its shores all round, just as 
 water comes from the earth into the sea, in the same way it 
 must ooze into the land out of the salt sea; for the salt is 
 strained off and the matter of liquid streams back again to the 
 source and all flows together to the river-heads, and then passes 
 anew over the lands in a fresh current, where a channel once 
 scooped out has carried down the waters with liquid foot. 
 
 And now I will explain why it is that fires breathe forth at 
 times through the gorges of mount Aetna with such hurricane- 
 like fury; for with a destroying force of no ordinary kind the 
 flame-storm gathered itself up and lording it over the lands of 
 the Sicilians drew on itself the gaze of neighbouring nations, 
 when seeing all the quarters of heaven smoke and sparkle men 
 were filled in heart with awe-struck apprehension, not knowing 
 what strange change nature was travailing to work. 
 
 In these matters you must look far and deep and make a 
 wide survey in all directions, in order to bear in mind that the 
 sum of things is unfathomable and to perceive how very small, 
 how inconceivably minute a fraction of the whole sum one hea- 
 ven is, not so large a fraction of it as one man is of the whole 
 earth. If you should clearly comprehend, clearly see this point 
 well put, you would cease to wonder at many things. Does any 
 one among us wonder if he has gotten into his frame a fever 
 that has broken out with burning heat, or into his body the 
 pains of any other disease? the foot suddenly swells, sharp pain 
 often seizes the teeth, or else attacks the eyes; the holy fire 
 breaks out and creeping over the body burns whatever part it 
 has seized upon, and spreads over the frame, because sure 
 enough there are seeds of many things, and this earth and 
 heaven bring to us evil enough to allow of a measureless amount 
 of disease springing up. In this way then we must suppose 
 that all things are supplied out of the infinite to the whole 
 heaven and earth in quantity sufficient to allow the earth in a 
 moment to be shaken and stirred, and a rapid hurricane to scour 
 over sea and land, the fire of Aetna to overflow, the heaven to 
 be in flames; for that too is seen and the heavenly quarters 
 are on fire; and rain-storms gather in a heavier mass, when the
 
 <>r- 7'° VI 169 
 
 seeds of water have haply come together for such an end. ' Ay 
 but the stormy rage of the conflagration is too too gigantic' 
 Yes and so any river you like is greatest to him who has never 
 before seen any greater, and thus a tree and a man seem gigan- 
 tic, and in the case of all things of all kinds the greatest a man 
 has seen he fancies to be gigantic, though yet all things with 
 heaven and earth and sea included. are nothing to the whole 
 sum of the universal sum. 
 
 And now at last I will explain in what ways yon flame 
 roused to fury in a moment blazes forth from the huge furnaces 
 of Aetna. And first the nature of the whole mountain is hol- 
 low underneath, underpropped throughout with caverns of ba- 
 salt rocks. Furthermore in all caves are wind and air; for 
 wind is produced, when the air has been stirred and put in mo- 
 tion. When this air has been thoroughly heated and raging 
 about has imparted its heat to all the rocks round, wherever it 
 comes in contact with them, and to the earth, and has struck 
 out from them fire burning with swift flames, it rises up and 
 then forces itself out on high straight through the gorges; and 
 so carries its heat far and scatters far its ashes and rolls on 
 smoke of a thick pitchy blackness and flings out at the same 
 time stones of prodigious weight; leaving no doubt that this is 
 the stormy force of air. Again the sea to a great extent breaks 
 its waves and sucks back its surf at the roots of that mountain. 
 Caverns reach from this sea as far as the deep gorges of the 
 mountain below. Through these you must admit [that air 
 mixed up with water passes; and] the nature of the case com- 
 pels [this air to enter in from that] open sea and pass right 
 within and then go out in blasts and so lift up flame and throw 
 out stones and raise clouds of sand; for on the summit are cra- 
 ters, as they name them in their own language; what we call 
 gorges and mouths. 
 
 There are things too not a few for which it is not sufficient 
 to assign one cause; you must give several, one of which at the 
 same time is the real cause. For instance should you see the 
 lifeless body of a man lying at some distance, it would be na- 
 tural to mention all the different causes of death, in order that 
 the one real cause of that man's death be mentioned among 
 them. Thus you may be able to prove that he has not died 
 by steel or cold or from disease or haply from poison; yet we
 
 i;o VI 
 
 ■10--7 
 
 know that it is something of this kind which has befallen him; 
 and so in many other cases we may make the same remark. 
 
 The Nile rises in summer and overflows the plains, that one 
 sole river throughout the whole land of Egypt. It waters Egypt 
 often in the middle of the hot season, either because in summer 
 there are north winds opposite its mouths, which at that time 
 of year go by the name, of etesian winds. Blowing up the 
 river they retard it and driving the waters backwards fill its 
 channel full and force the river to stand still; for beyond a 
 doubt these blasts which start from the icy constellations of the 
 pole are carried right up the stream. That river comes from 
 the south out of the heat-fraught country, rising far up from 
 the central region of day among races of men black in their 
 sun-baked complexion. It is quite possible too that the great 
 accumulation of sand may bar up the mouths right across 
 against the descending currents, when the sea stirred up by the 
 winds throws up the sand within the channel; whereby the 
 outlet of the river is rendered less free and the current of the 
 waters at the same time less rapid in its downward flow. It 
 may be also that the rains are more frequent at its source in 
 that season, because the etesian blasts of the north winds drive 
 all the clouds together into those parts at that time. And, you 
 are to know, when they have been driven on to the central 
 region of day and have gathered together, then the clouds 
 jammed close against the high mountains are massed together 
 and violently compressed. Perhaps too it gets its increase high 
 up from the lofty mountains of the Ethiopians, when the all- 
 surveying sun with his thawing rays constrains the white snows 
 to descend into the plains. 
 
 Now mark, and I will make clear to you what kind of na- 
 ture the several Avernian places and lakes possess. First of 
 all, as to the name Avernian by which they are called, it has 
 been given to them from their real nature, because they are 
 noxious to all birds; for when they have arrived in flight just 
 opposite those spots, they forget to row with their wings, they 
 drop their sails and fall with soft neck outstretched headlong 
 to the earth, if so be that the nature of the ground admit of 
 that, or into the water, if so be that a lake of Avernus spreads 
 below. There is such a spot at Cumae, where the mountains 
 are charged with acrid sulphur, and smoke enriched with hot
 
 748—790 VI 17 1 
 
 springs. Such a spot there also is within the Athenian walls, 
 on the very summit of the citadel, beside the temple of boun- 
 tiful Tritonian Pallas; which croaking crows never come near 
 on the wing; no not when the high altars smoke with offerings: 
 so constantly they fly not before the sharp wrath of Pallas for 
 the sake of yon vigil kept, as the poets of the Greeks have 
 sung, but the nature of the place suffices by its own proper 
 power. In Syria too as well a spot, we are told, is found to 
 exist of such a sort that as soon as ever even fourfooted beasts 
 have entered in, its mere natural power forces them to fall 
 down heavily, just as if they were felled in a moment as sacri- 
 fices to the manes gods. Now all these things go on by a 
 natural law, and it is quite plain whence spring the causes 
 from which they are produced ; that the gate of Orcus be not 
 haply believed to exist in such spots; and next we imagine 
 that the manes gods from beneath do haply draw souls down 
 from them to the borders of Acheron; as wing-footed stags are 
 supposed often by their scent to draw out from their holes the 
 savage serpent-tribes. How widely opposed to true reason this 
 is, now learn; for now I essay to tell of the real fact. 
 
 First of all I say, as I have often said before, that in the 
 earth are elements of things of every kind: many, which serve 
 for food, helpful to life; and many whose property it is to cause 
 diseases and hasten death. And we have shewn before that 
 one thing is more adapted to one, another thing to another 
 living creature for the purposes of life, because of their natures 
 and their textures and their primary elements being all unlike 
 the one to the other. Many which are noxious pass through 
 the ears, many make their way too through the nostrils, dan- 
 gerous and harsh when they come in contact; and not a few 
 are to be shunned by the touch, and not a few to be avoided 
 by the sight, and others are nauseous in taste. 
 
 Again you may see how many things are for man of a viru- 
 lently noxious sensation and are nauseous and oppressive; to 
 certain trees for instance has been given so very oppressive a 
 shade that they often cause headaches when a man has lain 
 down under them extended on the grass. There is a tree too 
 on the great hills of Helicon which has the property of killing 
 a man by the noisome scent of its flower. All these things 
 you are to know rise up out of the earth, because it contains
 
 1/2 VI 7 </>— 8i8 
 
 many seeds of many things in many ways mixed up together 
 and gives them out in a state of separation. Again when a 
 newly extinguished night-light encounters the nostrils with its 
 acrid stench, it sends to sleep then and there a man who from 
 disease is subject to falling down and foaming at the mouth. 
 A woman is put to sleep by oppressive castor and falls back in 
 her seat, and her gay work drops out of her soft hands, if she 
 has smelt it at the time when she has her monthly discharges. 
 And many things besides relax through all the frame the faint- 
 ing limbs and shake the soul in its seats within. Then too if 
 you linger long in the hot baths when you are somewhat full 
 and do bathe, how liable you are to tumble down in a fit while 
 seated in the midst of the hot water! Again how readily do 
 the oppressive power and fumes of charcoal make their way 
 into the brain, if we have not first taken water! But when 
 burning with more than usual force it has filled the chambers 
 of a house, then the fumes of the virulent substance act like a 
 murderous blow. See you not too that even within the earth 
 sulphur is generated and asphalt forms incrustations of a noi- 
 some stench? see you not, when they are following up the veins 
 of silver and gold and searching with the pick quite into the 
 bowels of the earth, what stenches Scaptensula exhales from 
 below? Then what mischief do gold mines exhale! to what 
 state do they reduce men's faces and what a complexion 
 they produce! Know you not by sight or hearsay how they 
 commonly perish in a short time and how all vital power 
 fails those whom the hard compulsion of necessity confines in 
 such an employment? All such exhalations then the earth 
 steams forth and breathes out into the open air and light of 
 heaven. 
 
 Thus too the Avernian spots must send up some power 
 deadly to birds, which rises up from the earth into the air so 
 as to poison a certain portion of the atmosphere ; in such a 
 way that a bird as soon as ever it is borne on its wings into 
 it, is then attacked by the unseen poison and so palsied that it 
 tumbles plump down on the spot where this exhalation has its 
 course. And when it falls into it, then the same power of that 
 exhalation robs all its limbs of the remnants of life : first of 
 all it causes a sort of dizziness ; but afterwards, when the birds 
 have tumbled into the very springs of the poison, then life too
 
 828—869 VI J 73 
 
 lias to be vomited forth, because all round rises up large store of 
 mischievous matter. 
 
 Sometimes too this power and exhalation of Avernus dispels 
 whatever air lies between the birds and earth, so that almost a 
 void is left there. And when the birds have arrived in their 
 flight just opposite this spot, at once the buoyant force of their 
 pinions is crippled and rendered vain and all the sustaining 
 efforts of their wings are lost on both sides. So when they are 
 unable to buoy themselves up and lean upon their wings, 
 nature, you know, compels them by their weight to tumble 
 down to earth, and lying stark through what is now almost a 
 void they disperse their souls through all the openings of their 
 body. * * Again during summer the water in wells becomes 
 colder, because the earth is rarefied by heat and rapidly sends 
 out into the air whatever seeds of heat it happens to have. The 
 more then the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the 
 water which is hidden in the earth. Again when all the earth 
 is compressed by cold and contracts and so to say congeals, it 
 then, you are to know, while it contracts, presses out into the 
 wells whatever heat it contains itself. 
 
 At the fane of Hammon there is said to be a fountain which 
 is cold in the daylight and hot in the night-time. This fountain 
 men marvel at exceedingly and suppose that it suddenly be- 
 comes hot by the influence of the fierce sun below the earth, 
 when niffht has covered the earth with awful darkness. But 
 this is far far removed from true reason. Why when the sun 
 though in contact with the uncovered body of the water has 
 not been able to make it hot on its upper side, though his light 
 above possesses such great heat, how can he below the earth 
 which is of so dense a body boil the water and glut it with 
 heat ? above all when he can scarcely with his burning rays 
 force his heat through the walls of houses. What then is 
 the cause ? this sure enough : the earth is more porous and 
 warmer round the fountain than the rest of the earth, and 
 there are many seeds of fire near the body of water. For this 
 reason when night has buried the earth in its dewy shadows, 
 the earth at once becomes quite cold and contracts : in this way 
 just as if it were squeezed by the hand it forces out into the 
 fountain whatever seeds of fire it has ; and these make the 
 water hot to the touch and taste. Next when the sun has risen
 
 174 VI 869-910 
 
 and with his rays has loosened the earth and has rarefied it as 
 his heat waxes stronger, the first-beginnings of fire return back 
 to their ancient seats and all the heat of the water withdraws 
 into the earth : for this reason the fountain becomes cold in the 
 daylight. Again the liquid of water is played upon by the 
 sun's rays and in the light is rarefied by his throbbing heat; 
 and therefore it gives up whatever seeds of fire it has ; just as 
 it often parts with the frost which it holds in itself, and thaws 
 the ice and loosens its bonds. 
 
 There is also a cold fountain of such a nature that tow often 
 when held over it imbibes fire forthwith and emits flame ; a 
 pine torch in like manner is lighted and shines among the 
 waters, in whatever direction it swims under the impulse of the 
 winds. Because sure enough there are in the water very many 
 seeds of heat, and from the earth itself at the bottom must rise 
 up bodies of fire throughout the whole fountain and at the same 
 time pass abroad in exhalations and go forth into the air, not in 
 such numbers however that the fountain can become hot, for 
 these reasons a force compels those seeds to burst out through 
 the water and disperse abroad and to unite when they have 
 mounted up. In the sea at Aradus is a fountain of this kind, 
 which wells up with fresh water and keeps off the salt waters all 
 round it ; and in many other quarters the sea affords a season- 
 able help in need to thirsting sailors, vomiting forth fresh 
 waters amid the salt. In this way then those seeds may burst 
 forth through that fountain and well out into the tow. And 
 when they meet together in it or cohere in the body of the 
 pine-torch, they at once readily take fire, because the tow and 
 pinewood contain in them likewise many seeds of latent fire. 
 See you not too that, when you bring a newly extinguished wick 
 near night-lamps, it catches light before it has touched the 
 flame ; and the same with the pinewood ? And many things 
 besides catch fire at some distance touched merely by the heat, 
 before the fire in actual contact infects them. This therefore 
 you must suppose to take place in that fountain as well. 
 
 Next in order I will proceed to discuss by what law of 
 nature it comes to pass that iron can be attracted by that stone 
 which the Greeks call the Magnet from the name of its native 
 place, because it has its origin within the bounds of the country 
 of the Magnesians. This stone men wonder at ; as it often pro-
 
 910-954 VI i;5 
 
 duces a chain of rings hanging down from it. Thus you may 
 see sometimes five and more suspended in succession and tossing 
 about in the light airs, one always hanging down from one and 
 attached to its lower side, and each in turn one from the other 
 experiencing the binding power of the stone : with such a con- 
 tinued current its force flies through all. 
 
 In things of this kind many points must be established 
 before you can assign the true law of the thing in question, 
 and it must be approached by a very circuitous road ; wherefore 
 all the more I call for an attentive ear and mind. 
 
 In the first place from all things whatsoever which we see 
 there must incessantly stream and be discharged and scattered 
 abroad such bodies as strike the eyes and provoke vision. 
 Smells too incessantly stream from certain things ; as does cold 
 from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, 
 that eater into walls near the shore. Various sounds too cease 
 not to stream through the air. Then a moist salt flavour often 
 comes into the mouth, when we are moving about beside the 
 sea; and when we look on at the mixing of a decoction of 
 wormwood, its bitterness affects us. In such a constant stream 
 from all these things the several qualities of things are carried and 
 are transmitted in all directions round, and no delay, no respite 
 in the flow is ever granted, since we constantly have feeling, 
 and may at any time see, smell and hear the sound of anything. 
 
 And now I will state once again how rare a body all things 
 have : a question made clear in the first part of my poem also : 
 although the knowledge of this is of importance in regard to 
 many things, above all in regard to this very question which 
 I am coming to discuss, at the very outset it is necessary to 
 establish that nothing comes under sense save body mixed with 
 void. For instance in caves rocks overhead sweat with moisture 
 and trickle down in oozing drops. Sweat too oozes out from 
 our whole body ; the beard grows and hairs over all our limbs 
 and frame. Food is distributed through all the veins, gives 
 increase and nourishment to the very extremities and nails. 
 We feel too cold and heat pass through brass, we feel them pass 
 through gold and silver, when we hold full cups. Again voices 
 fly through the stone partitions of houses ; smell passes through 
 and cold and the heat of fire, which is wont ay to pierce even 
 the strength of iron, where the Gaulish cuirass girds the body
 
 1/6 VI 954-997 
 
 round. And storms that have gathered in earth and heaven 
 withdraw respectively to heaven and earth and there do work 
 their wills ; and along with them the influence of disease, when 
 it makes its way in from without ; since there is nothing at all 
 that is not of a rare texture of body. 
 
 Furthermore all bodies whatever which are discharged from 
 things are not qualified to excite the same sensations nor are 
 adapted for all things alike. The sun for instance bakes and 
 dries up the earth, but thaws ice, and forces the snows piled up 
 high on the high hills to melt away beneath his rays ; wax 
 again turns to liquid when placed within reach of his heat. 
 Fire also melts brass and fuses gold, but shrivels up and draws 
 together hides and flesh. The liquid of water after fire hardens 
 steel, but softens hides and flesh hardened by heat. The wild 
 olive delights the bearded she-goats as much as if the flavour of 
 ambrosia and nectar in truth streamed from it ; but nothing 
 that puts forth leaf is more bitter to man than this food. Again 
 a swine eschews marjoram-oil and dreads all perfumes ; for they 
 are rank poison to bristly swine, though they are found at 
 times to give us as it were fresh life. But on the other hand 
 though mire is to us the nastiest filth, it is found to be so wel- 
 come to swine that they wallow in it all over with a craving not 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 There is still one point left which it seems proper to men- 
 tion, before I come to speak of the matter in hand. Since 
 many pores are assigned to various things, they must possess 
 natures differing the one from the other and must have each its 
 own nature, its own direction : thus there are in living creatures 
 various senses, each of which takes into it in its own peculiar 
 way its own special object ; for we see that sounds pass into one 
 thing, taste from different flavours into another thing, smells 
 into another. Again one thing is seen to stream through stones 
 and another thing to pass through woods, another through gold, 
 and another still to go out through silver and brass ; for form 
 is seen to stream through this passage, heat through that, and 
 one thing is seen to pass through by the same way more quickly 
 than other things. The nature of the passages, you are to 
 know, compels it so to be, varying in manifold wise, as we 
 have shewn a little above, owing to the unlike natures and 
 textures of things.
 
 9y8—io 4 o VI 177 
 
 Therefore now that these points have all been established 
 and arranged for us as premisses ready to our hand, for what 
 remains, the law will easily be explained out of them, and the 
 whole cause be laid open which attracts the strength of iron. 
 First of all there must stream from this stone very many seeds 
 or a current if you will which dispels with blow\s all the air 
 which lies between the stone and iron. When this space is 
 emptied aud much room left void between, forthwith the first- 
 beginnings of iron fall headlong forward into the void in one 
 mass, and in consequence the ring itself follows and then goes 
 on with its whole body. And nothing has its primal elements 
 more intricately entangled or coheres in closer connexion than 
 the nature of stubborn iron and its coldness that makes you 
 shiver. Therefore what I say is the less strange, that from 
 among such elements as these bodies cannot gather in large 
 numbers out of the iron and be carried into the void without 
 the whole ring following. This it does do, and follows on until 
 it has quite reached the stone and fastened on it with unseen 
 bonds of connexion. The same thing takes place in all direc- 
 tions : on whatever side a void is formed, whether athwart or 
 from above the first bodies next it are at once carried on into 
 the void ; for they are set in motion by blows from another 
 source and cannot by their own free act rise up into the air. 
 Moreover (to render it more feasible, this thing also is helped 
 on by external aid and motion) as soon as the air in front of the 
 ring has been made rarer and the space more empty and void, 
 it follows at once that all the air which lies behind, carries and 
 pushes it on as it were at its back. For the air which lies 
 around them always beats on things ; but at such a time as 
 this it is able to push on the iron, because on one side a space 
 is void and receives the iron into it. This air of which I am 
 speaking to you makes its way with much subtlety through the 
 frequent pores of the iron to its minute parts and then thrusts 
 and pushes it on, as the wind a ship and its sails. Again all 
 things must have air in their body, since they are of a rare 
 body and air surrounds and is in contact with all things. 
 This air therefore which is in the inmost recesses of the iron, 
 is ever stirred in restless motion and therefore beats the ring 
 without a doubt and stirs it within, you know : the ring is 
 carried in the direction in which it has once plunged for- 
 
 N
 
 *7$ ^ I 1040-1080 
 
 ward, and into the void part towards which it has made its 
 
 start. 
 
 Sometimes too it happens that the nature of iron is repelled 
 from this stone, being in the habit of flying from and following 
 it in turns. I have seen Samothracian iron rings even jump up, 
 and at the same time filings of iron rave within brass basins, 
 when this Magnet stone had been placed under : such a strong 
 desire the iron seems to have to fly from the stone. So great a 
 disturbance is raised by the interposition of the brass, because 
 sure enough when the current of the brass has first seized on 
 and taken possession of the open passages of the iron, the cur- 
 rent of the stone comes after and finds all things full in the iron 
 and has no ojDening to swim through as before. It is forced 
 therefore to dash against and beat with its wave the iron tex- 
 ture ; by which means it repels from it and sets in motion 
 through the brass that which without the brass it often draws 
 to itself. And forbear herein to wonder that the current from 
 this stone is not able to set in motion other things as well as 
 iron : some of these stand still by the power of their own weight ; 
 for instance gold ; and others, because they are of so rare a body 
 that the current flies through them uninterrupted, cannot in 
 any case be set in motion ; to which class wood is found to 
 belong. When therefore the nature of iron lying between the 
 two has received into it certain first bodies of brass, then do the 
 Magnet stones set it in motion with their stream. 
 
 And yet these cases are not so much at variance with other 
 things, that I have only a scanty store of similar instances to 
 relate of things mutually fitted one for the other and for nothing- 
 else : stones for instance you see are cemented by mortar alone ; 
 wood is united with wood so firmly by bulls' glue only, that the 
 veins of boards often gape in cracks before the binding power 
 of the glue can be brought to loosen its hold. Vine-born juices 
 venture to mix with streams of water, though heavy pitch and 
 light oil cannot. Again the purple dye of the shellfish so unites 
 with the body of wool alone, that it cannot in any case be 
 severed, not were you to take pains to undo what is done with 
 Neptune's wave, not if the whole sea were willed to wash it out 
 with all its waters. Then too is there not one thing only that 
 fastens gold to gold, and is not brass soldered to brass by tin ? 
 and how many other cases of the kind might one find ! what
 
 I0S0-1I20 VI 179 
 
 then ? you have no need whatever of such long circuitous roads, 
 nor is it worth my while to spend so much pains on this, but 
 it is better briefly to comprise many things in few words : things 
 whose textures have such a mutual correspondence, that cavities 
 fit solids, the cavities of the first the solids of the second, the 
 cavities of the second the solids of the first, form the closest 
 union. Again some things may be fastened together and held 
 in union with hooks and eyes as it were ; and this seems rather 
 to be the case with this stone and iron. 
 
 And now I will explain what the law of diseases is and 
 from what causes the force of disease may suddenly gather 
 itself up and bring death-dealing destruction on the race of 
 man and the troops of brute beasts. And first I have shewn 
 above that there are seeds of many things helpful to our life ; 
 and on the other hand many must fly about conducing to 
 disease and death. When these by chance have happened to 
 gather together and have disordered the atmosphere, the air 
 becomes distempered. And all that force of disease and that 
 pestilence come either from without down through the at- 
 mosphere in the shape of clouds and mists, or else do gather 
 themselves up and rise out of the earth, when soaked with wet 
 it has contracted a taint, being beaten upon by unseasonable 
 rains and suns. See you not too that all who come to a place 
 far away from country and home are affected by the strange- 
 ness of climate and water, because there are wide differences in 
 such things ? for what a difference may we suppose between 
 the climate of the Briton and that of Egypt where the pole 
 of heaven slants askew, and again betAveen that in Pontus and 
 that of Gade's and so on to the races of men black with sun- 
 baked complexion ? Now as we see these four climates under 
 the four opposite winds and quarters of heaven all differing 
 from each other, so also the complexions and faces of the men 
 are seen to differ widely and diseases varying in kind are found 
 to seize upon the different races. There is the elephant disease 
 which is generated beside the streams of Nile in the midst of 
 Egypt and nowhere else. In Attica the feet are attacked and 
 the eyes in Achaean lands. And so different places are hurtful 
 to different parts and members : the variations of air occasion 
 that. Therefore when an atmosphere which happens to put 
 itself in motion unsuited to us and a hurtful air bes^in to ad-
 
 iSo VI 1120—116! 
 
 vance, they creep slowly on in the shape of mist and cloud and 
 disorder everything in their line of advance and compel all to 
 change ; and when they have at length reached our atmosphere, 
 they corrupt it too and make it like to themselves and un- 
 suited to us. This new destroying power and pestilence there- 
 fore either fall upon the waters or else sink deep into the corn- 
 crops or other food of man and provender of beast ; or else their 
 force remains suspended within the atmosphere, and when we 
 inhale from it mixed airs, we must absorb at the same time 
 into our body those things as well. In like manner pestilence 
 often falls on kine also and a distemper too on the silly sheep. 
 And it makes no difference whether w r e travel to places un- 
 favourable to us and change the atmosphere which wraps us 
 round, or whether nature without our choice brings to us an 
 atmosphere unsuited to us or something to the use of which 
 we have not been accustomed, and which is able to attack us 
 on its first arrival. 
 
 Such a form of disease and a death-fraught miasm erst 
 within the borders of Cecrops defiled the whole land with dead, 
 and dispeopled the streets, drained the town of burghers. 
 Rising first and starting from the inmost corners of Egypt, 
 after traversing much air and many floating fields, the plague 
 brooded at last over the whole people of Pandion ; and then 
 they were handed over in troops to disease and death. First of 
 all they would have the head seized with burning heat and 
 both eyes blood-shot with a glare diffused over : the livid 
 throat within would exude blood and the passage of the voice 
 be clogged and choked with ulcers, and the mind's interpreter 
 the tongue drip with gore, quite enfeebled with sufferings, 
 heavy in movement, rough to touch. Next when the force of 
 disease passing clown the throat had filled the breast and had 
 streamed together even into the sad heart of the sufferers, then 
 w r ould all the barriers of life give way. The breath would pour 
 out at the mouth a noisome stench, even as the stench of 
 rotting carcases thrown out unburied. And then the powers of 
 the entire mind, the whole body would sink utterly, now on the 
 very threshold of death. And a bitter bitter despondency was 
 the. constant attendant on insufferable ills and complaining 
 mingled with moaning. An ever-recurring hiccup often the 
 night and day through, forcing on continual spasms in sinews
 
 ji6i— 1204 VI 181 
 
 and limbs, would break men quite, forwearying those forspent 
 before. And yet in none could you perceive the skin on the 
 surface of the body burn with any great heat, but the body 
 would rather offer to the hand a lukewarm sensation and at the 
 same time be red all over with ulcers burnt into it so to speak, 
 like unto the holy fire as it spreads over the frame. The inward 
 parts of the men however would burn to the very bones, 
 a flame would burn within the stomach as within furnaces. 
 Nothing was light and thin enough to apply to the relief of 
 the body of any one ; ever wind and cold alone. Many would 
 plunge their limbs burning with disease into the cool rivers, 
 throwing their body naked into the water. Many tumbled 
 headforemost deep down into the wells, meeting the water 
 straight with mouth wide-agape. Parching thirst with a craving 
 not to be appeased, drenching their bodies, would make an 
 abundant draught no better than the smallest drop. No respite 
 was there of ill : their bodies would lie quite spent. The heal- 
 ing art would mutter low in voiceless fear, as again and again 
 they rolled about their eye-balls wide open, burning with disease, 
 never visited by sleep. And many symptoms of death besides 
 would then be given, the mind disordered in sorrow and fear, 
 the clouded brow, the fierce delirious expression, the ears too 
 troubled and filled with ringings, the breathing quick or else 
 strangely loud and slow-recurring, and the sweat glistening wet 
 over the neck, the spittle in thin small flakes, tinged with a 
 saffron-colour, salt, scarce forced up the rough throat by cough- 
 ing. The tendons of the hands ceased not to contract, the limbs 
 to shiver, a coldness to mount with slow sure pace from the feet 
 upwards. Then at their very last moments they had nostrils 
 pinched, the tip of the nose sharp, eyes deep-sunk, temples 
 hollow, the skin cold and hard, on the grim mouth a grin, the 
 brow tense and swollen ; and not long after their limbs would 
 be stretched stiff in death : about the eighth day of bright sun- 
 light or else on the ninth return of his lamp they would yield 
 up life. And if any of them at that time had shunned the 
 doom of death, yet in after time consumption and death would 
 await him from noisome ulcers and the black discharge of the 
 bowels, or else a quantity of purulent blood accompanied by 
 headache would often pass out by the gorged nostrils : into 
 these the whole strength and substance of the man would
 
 1 82 vr q 
 
 ' - 1 F204 — I2.(S 
 
 stream. Then too if any one had escaped the acrid discharge 
 of noisome blood, the disease would yet pass into his sinews and 
 joints and onward even into the sexual organs of the body; and 
 some from excessive dread of the gates of death would live 
 bereaved of these parts by the knife ; and some though without 
 hands and feet would continue in life, and some would lose 
 their eyes : with such force had the fear of death come upon 
 them. And some were seized with such loss of memory that 
 they quite forgot everything else and did not know themselves. 
 And though bodies lay in heaps above bodies unburied on the 
 ground, yet would the race of birds and beasts either scour far 
 away, to escape the acrid stench, or where any one had tasted, 
 it drooped in near-following death. Though hardly at all in 
 those days would any bird appear, or the sullen breeds of wild 
 beasts quit the forests. Many would droop with disease and 
 die: above all faithful dogs would lie stretched in all the streets 
 and yield up breath with a struggle ; for the power of disease 
 would wrench life from their frame. Funerals lonely, unattend- 
 ed, would be hurried on with emulous haste. And no sure and 
 universal method of cure was found ; for that which had given 
 to one man the power to inhale the vital air and to gaze on the 
 quarters of heaven, would be destruction to others and would 
 bring on death. But in such times this was what was de- 
 plorable and above all eminently heart-rending: when a man 
 saw himself enmeshed by the disease, as though he were doomed 
 to death, losing all spirit he would lie with sorrow-stricken 
 heart, and with his thoughts turned on death would surrender 
 his life then and there. Ay for at no time did they cease to 
 catch from one another the infection of the devouring plague, 
 like to woolly flocks and horned herds. And this above all 
 heaped death on death : whenever any refused to attend their 
 own sick, killing neglect soon after would punish them for 
 their too great love of life and fear of death by a foul and 
 evil death, abandoned in turn, forlorn of help. But they who 
 had stayed by them, would perish by infection and the labour 
 which shame would then compel them to undergo and the sick 
 man's accents of affection mingled with those of complaining : 
 this kind of death the most virtuous would meet. * * and dif- 
 ferent bodies on different piles, struggling as they did to bury 
 the multitude of their dead: then spent with tears and grief
 
 I2 4 8— 1286 VI 183 
 
 they would go home ; and in great part they would take to their 
 bed from sorrow. And none could be found whom at so fearful 
 a time neither disease nor death nor mourning assailed. 
 
 Then too every shepherd and herdsman, ay and sturdy 
 guider of the bent plough sickened ; and their bodies would 
 lie huddled together in the corners of a hut, delivered over to 
 death by poverty and disease. Sometimes you might see life- 
 less bodies of parents above their lifeless children, and then the 
 reverse of this, children giving up life above their mothers and 
 fathers. And in no small measure that affliction streamed from 
 the land into the town, brought thither by the sickening crowd 
 of peasants meeting plague-stricken from every side. They 
 would fill all places and buildings : wherefore all the more the 
 heat would [destroy them and] thus close-}3acked death would 
 pile them up in heaps. Many bodies drawn forth by thirst and 
 tumbled out along the street would lie extended by the foun- 
 tains of water, the breath of life cut off from their too great 
 delight in water ; and over all the open places of the people and 
 the streets you might see many limbs drooping with their half- 
 lifeless body, foul with stench and covered with rags, perish 
 away from filth of body, with nothing but skin on their bones, 
 now nearly buried in noisome sores and dirt. All the holy 
 sanctuaries of the gods too death had filled with lifeless bodies, 
 and all the temples of the heavenly powers in all parts stood 
 burdened with carcases : all which places the wardens had 
 thronged with guests. For now no longer the worship of the 
 gods or their divinities were greatly regarded : so overmastering 
 was the present affliction. Nor did those rites of sepulture con- 
 tinue in force in the city, with which that pious folk had always 
 been wont to be buried ; for the whole of it was in dismay and 
 confusion, and each man would sorrowfully bury as the present 
 moment allowed. And the sudden pressure and poverty prompted 
 to many frightful acts ; thus with a loud uproar they would 
 place their own kinsfolk upon the funeral piles of others, and 
 apply torches, quarrelling often with much bloodshed sooner 
 than abandon the bodies. 
 
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