On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (29 page)

Can never fill it. Cerberus and the Furies

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Dwell in that land where daylight never comes,

They say, and Tartarus flames belching out;

And none of these exist, nor ever can.

But in this life there is fear of punishment

For evil deeds, fear no less terrible

Than the deeds themselves, and expiation of crime,

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Prison, and the dread hurling from the rock,

Stripes, torturers, dungeons, red-hot plates,

Firebrands, and even if all of these be spared

The guilty conscience filled with wild foreboding

Applies the goad and scorches itself with whips,

Seeing no end to all these miseries,

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No final limit to its punishment,

And fears that after death there’s worse to come.

So fools make for themselves a Hell on earth.

Now here is something you might say to yourself:

‘Even good Ancus lost the sight of day,

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A better man than you, you rogue, by far.

And many kings and powers after him

Have fallen, rulers of great states and nations.

And he who laid a highway through the sea

And o’er the deep a road for armies made,

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Taught them to walk across the briny lake

And spurned the roaring waves with his cavalry,

He also lost the glorious light of day

And dying poured his spirit from his body.

Great Scipio, the thunderbolt of war,

Terror of Carthage, gave to earth his bones

As though he had been the humblest of his slaves.

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Add men that found out things of science and beauty

Add all the brotherhood of Helicon,

Whose one and only king throughout the ages

Homer lies now in sleep with all the rest.

Democritus, when a mature old age

Warned him his mind and memory were fading,

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Offered his head right willingly to death.

Epicurus himself died when the light of life

Had run its course, he who in genius

Surpassed the race of men, outshone them all

As the sun risen in heaven outshines the stars.

And you, will you doubt and feel aggrieved to die?

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Already, while you live and see, your life

Is all but dead. You waste most of your time

In sleep. You snore while wide awake; and dream

Incessantly; and always in your mind

You’re plagued with fear that’s meaningless, and often

You can’t make out what is wrong with you, oppressed,

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You drunken wretch, by cares on every side,

And drift on shifting tides of fantasy.’

If they could see, those men who know they feel

A burden on their minds that wearies them,

If they could also know the causes of it

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And whence so great a pile of woe lies on them,

They’ld never live as most of them do now

Each ignorant of what he wants and seeking always

By change of place to lay his burden down.

A man leaves his great house because he’s bored

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With life at home, and suddenly returns,

Finding himself no happier abroad.

He rushes off to his villa driving like mad,

You’ld think he’s going to a house on fire,

And yawns before he’s put his foot inside,

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Or falls asleep and seeks oblivion,

Or even rushes back to town again.

So each man flies from himself (vain hope, because

It clings to him the more closely against his will)

And hates himself because he is sick in mind

And does not know the cause of his disease.

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Which if he clearly saw, at once he would

Leave everything, and study first to know

The nature of the world. For what is in question

Is not of one hour but of eternity,

The state in which all mortals after death

Must needs remain for all remaining time.

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And what is this great and evil lust of life

That drives and tosses us in doubt and peril?

A certain end of life is fixed for men.

There is no escape from death and we must die.

Again, we live and move and have our being

In the same place always, and no new pleasure

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By living longer can be hammered out.

But while we can’t get what we want, that seems

Of all things most desirable. Once got,

We must have something else. One constant thirst

Of life besets us ever open-mouthed.

And there is doubt what fortunes later years

And chance may bring us and what end awaits.

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Nor by prolonging life, one single second

Do we deduct from the long years of death.

Nor have we strength to make in any way

Our time less long once death has come to us.

Live though you may through all ages that you wish,

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No less that eternal death will still await,

And no less long a time will be no more

He who today from light his exit made

Than he who perished months and years ago.

A pathless country of the Pierides

I traverse, where no foot has ever trod.

A joy it is to come to virgin springs

And drink, a joy it is to pluck new flowers,

To make a glorious garland for my head

From fields whose blooms the Muses never picked

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To crown the brows of any man before.

First, since of matters high I make my theme,

Proceeding to set free the minds of men

Bound by the tight knots of religion.

Next, since of things so dark in verse so clear

I write, and touch all things with the Muses’ charm.

In this no lack of purpose may be seen.

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For as with children, when the doctors try

To give them loathsome wormwood, first they smear

Sweet yellow honey on the goblet’s rim,

That childhood all unheeding may be deceived

At the lip’s edge, and so drink up the juice

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Of bitter medicine, tricked but not betrayed,

And by such means gain health and strength again,

So now do I: for oft my doctrine seems

Distasteful to those that have not sampled it

And most shrink back from it. My purpose is

With the sweet voices of Pierian song

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To expound my doctrine, and as it were to touch it

With the delicious honey of the Muses;

So in this way perchance my poetry

Can hold your mind, while you attempt to grasp

The nature of the world, and understand

Its value and its usefulness to men.

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And since I have shown the nature of the mind,

What it consists of, and how combined with body

It flourishes, and how when torn away

From the body it returns to its first elements,

Now I address a matter of great import

For our enquiries, and I show that there

Exist what we call images of things;

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Which as it were peeled off from the surfaces

Of objects, fly this way and that through the air;

These same, encountering us in wakeful hours,

Terrify our minds, and also in sleep, as when

We see strange shapes and phantoms of the dead

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Which often as in slumber sunk we lay

Have roused us in horror; lest perchance we think

That spirits escape from Acheron, or ghosts

Flit among the living, or that after death

Something of us remains when once the body

And mind alike together have been destroyed,

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And each to its primal atoms has dissolved.

I say therefore that likenesses or thin shapes

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Are sent out from the surfaces of things

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Which we must call as it were their films or bark

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Because the image bears the look and shape

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Of the body from which it came, as it floats in the air.

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And this the dullest brain can recognize:

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In the first place, since within the range of vision

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Many things throw off bodies, some rarefied

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As bonfires throw off smoke or fires heat,

And others denser and more closely knit

Like the thin coats cicadas often drop

In summer, and when calves in birth throw off

The caul from the body’s surface, or when snakes

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Slough off their skins on thorns, and so we see

Brambles bedizened with their fluttering spoils.

Since these things happen, thin images also

Must be thrown off from the surface of things;

For if those other things fall, there is no reason,

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No whisper of one, why these thinnest films

Should not also and all the more fall off;

Especially since on the outer surface of things

Are many minute bodies which can be cast off

In the same order in which they were before

And keep the shape of the objects, and far more quickly,

Since they are so much less able to be impeded

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Being fewer and placed on the extreme outside.

For many things are thrown off lavishly

Not only from deep within (as we said before)

But from their surfaces, among them colour.

Awnings do this, yellow and red and purple

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Spread over a great theatre, for all to see,

On posts and beams, flapping and billowing;

For then the great assembly massed below,

The scenes on the stage, the grandees in their boxes,

They dye, and make to glow and flow with colour.

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And the more the theatre’s surrounding walls

Enclose it, the more all things with beauty filled

Laugh when the light of day is thus confined.

Therefore, since canvas throws off colour from its surface,

All other things must equally send out

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Thin images from the surface everywhere.

And so there are now fixed outlines of shapes

Of finest texture which fly all around

But individually cannot be seen.

Again, the reason why all smell, smoke, heat,

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And similar things stream out into the air diffused

So widely is that they come up from the depths

And in their tortuous course are split apart,

And there are no straight openings to the paths

Of exit, through which they can push out together.

But on the other hand, when the thin film

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Of surface colour is thrown off, there is nothing

To tear it up, because it lies exposed

And is located on the outer surface.

Lastly, whatever similitudes we see

In mirrors, water, or any shining surface,

Since they possess the same outward appearance

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As those objects, it follows that they must

Consist of images thrown off from them.

There are therefore thin shapes and likenesses

Of things which singly no one can perceive

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Yet being flung back by continual

And instantaneous recoil produce

A vision from the surfaces of mirrors.

Nor is there clearly any other way

In which they could be presented to reproduce

So accurate a likeness of each object.

Now I’ll explain to you how very thin

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Each image is. First since their atoms are

So far below our senses and so much

Smaller than those things which the eyes begin

No longer to see, to confirm this let me explain

In a few words how exceedingly minute

The primal elements of all things are.

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First, there exist some animals so small

That a third part of them is quite invisible.

What do you think one of their guts is like?

The ball of the heart? or the eyes? or limbs and joints?

How small they are! And what too of the atoms

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Of which the mind and spirit are composed?

Do you not see how fine and minute they are?

Consider also things that from their bodies

Emit a pungent small—all-heal, rank wormwood,

Strong southern-wood, astringent centaury

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If you press lightly a leaf of one of them

Between two fingers

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Rather you may know that many likenesses

Of things are flying about in many ways

And all beneath the power of our perception.

Now these similitudes cast off from objects

Are not the only ones that fly around.

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Others there are which of their own accord

Come into being and by themselves are formed

In this part of the sky we call the air,

Which formed in many ways are carried aloft

And melting never cease to change their shapes

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And form the outlines of things of many kinds.

We see clouds quickly massing in the sky

That mar the clear face of the firmament

Stroking the air as they move. For often giants

Appear to fly above, casting deep shadows,

Sometimes great mountains and rocks torn off from them

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Seem to confront the sun and pass across it

And then some monster pulling other clouds.

Unceasingly they melt and change their shapes

And take the outlines of forms of every kind.

Now let me tell you how easily and swiftly

These images arise, perpetually