On The Nature of Things (Illustrated)

by Lucretius

I know how hard it is in Latian verse To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks, Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;

More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.

Thus easier 'tis to hold that many things Have primal bodies in common (as we see The single letters common to many words) Than aught exists without its origins.

But now Because the fastenings of primordial parts Are put together diversely and stuff Is everlasting, things abide the same Unhurt and sure, until some power comes on Strong to destroy the warp and woof of each: Nothing returns to naught; but all return At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.

Thus naught of what so seems Perishes utterly, since Nature ever Upbuilds one thing from other,

Thus we know, That moisture is dispersed about in bits Too small for eyes to see.

We see how wearing-down hath minished these, But just what motes depart at any time, The envious nature of vision bars our sight.

Bodies, again, Are partly primal germs of things, and partly Unions deriving from the primal germs.

Once more, if nature had given a scope for things To be forever broken more and more, By now the bodies of matter would have been So far reduced by breakings in old days That from them nothing could, at season fixed, Be born, and arrive its prime and top of life.

Moreover, were there not a minimum, The smallest bodies would have infinites, Since then a half-of-half could still be halved, With limitless division less and less. Then what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?

And now again, since food Augments and nourishes the human frame, 'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones And thews are formed of particles unlike To them in kind; or if they say all foods Are of mixed substance having in themselves Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins And particles of blood, then every food, Solid or liquid, must itself be thought As made and mixed of things unlike in kind— Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.

First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion;

But what are liquid, formed Of fluid body, they indeed must be Of elements more smooth and round—because Their globules severally will not cohere:

The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete, As runs the story, whilom did out-drown That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band, Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy, To measured step beat with the brass on brass,

This happens surely by a fixed law: For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down, Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature, Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there, Produce the proper motions; but we see How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many With viewless bodies from their bodies fly, By blows impelled—those impotent to join To any part, or, when inside, to accord And to take on the vital motions there.

You are what you eat!

Why what was black of hue an hour ago Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,— As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves Of marble whiteness:

Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light,

Take that, Newton

Truly, what kind of colour could there be In the viewless dark? Nay, in the light itself A colour changes, gleaming variedly, When smote by vertical or slanting ray. Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat: Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze, Now, by a strange sensation it becomes Green-emerald blended with the coral-red. The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light, Changes its colours likewise, when it turns. Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot, Without such blow these colours can't become.

But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind, Constraining thee to sundry arguments Against belief that from insensate germs The sensible is gendered?—Verily,

'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed, Are yet unable to gender vital sense. And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs This to remember: that I have not said Senses are born, under conditions all, From all things absolutely which create Objects that feel;

Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed, And lastly what they in positi...

Early cell theory

By the new factor, then combine anew In such a way as genders living things.

If the living factor is a cell, sure.

Nor thus doth death So far annihilate things that she destroys The bodies of matter; but she dissipates Their combinations, and conjoins anew One element with others; and contrives That all things vary forms and change their colours And get sensations and straight give them o'er.

It’s the CIR-Cle of liiiiiife!

the mind which oft we call The intellect, wherein is seated life's Counsel and regimen, is part no less Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts Of one whole breathing creature.

So nature of mind must be corporeal, since From stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes.

Since nature of mind is movable so much, Consist it must of seeds exceeding small And smooth and round.

But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both; And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul, Teaching the same to be but mortal, think Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind— Since both are one, a substance inter-joined.

Again, the body's and the mind's live powers Only in union prosper and enjoy; For neither can nature of mind, alone of self Sans body, give the vital motions forth; Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure And use the senses.

No ghosts in the machine here!

That in true death there is no second self Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed, Or stand lamenting that the self lies there Mangled or burning.

"Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon! Thou wrinklest—after thou hast had the sum Of the guerdons of life;

This is so great. I hope I get old and return to be grateful for this. And I learned the word guerdons

And yet in this we don't at all concede That eyes be cheated. For their task it is To note in whatsoever place be light, In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams Be still the same, and whether the shadow which Just now was here is that one passing thither, Or whether the facts be what we said above, 'Tis after all the reasoning of mind That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know The nature of reality.

Sensing vs perceiving

For this same love it is the one sole thing Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns The breast with fell desire.

But, lo, from human face and lovely bloom Naught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed Save flimsy idol-images and vain— A sorry hope which oft the winds disperse.

At last, with members intertwined, when they Enjoy the flower of their age, when now Their bodies have sweet presage of keen joys, And Venus is about to sow the fields Of woman, greedily their frames they lock, And mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths— Yet to no purpose, since they're powerless To rub off aught, or penetrate and pass With body entire into body—for oft They seem to strive and struggle thus to do; So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds, Whilst melt away their members, overcome By violence of delight.

But let her face possess what charm ye will, Let Venus' glory rise from all her limbs,— Forsooth there still are others; and forsooth We lived before without her;

Given the rant that came previously, this reads a little sour grapes

Happens too That sometimes offspring can to being come In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because Their parents in their bodies oft retain Concealed many primal germs, commixed In many modes, which, starting with the stock, Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire; Whence Venus by a variable chance Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back Ancestral features, voices too, and hair.

And now we peek at genetics

the universe Consists of mortal body, born in time, And in what modes that congregated stuff Established itself as earth and sky, Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;

We are all star stuff

And therefore when I see The mightiest members and the parts of this Our world consumed and begot again, 'Tis mine to know that also sky above And earth beneath began of old in time And shall in time go under to disaster.

The brine is filtered off, And then the liquid stuff seeps back again And all regathers at the river-heads, Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows Over the lands, adown the channels which Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along The liquid-footed floods.

Knows his water cycle!

It comes to pass that those primordials, Diffused far and wide through mighty aeons, The while they unions try, and motions too, Of every kind, meet at the last amain, And so become oft the commencements fit Of mighty things—earth, sea, and sky, and race Of living creatures.

Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up Out of sea-pools of salt.

Sa-wing and a miss!

But mortal man Was then far hardier in the old champaign, As well he should be, since a hardier earth Had him begotten; builded too was he Of bigger and more solid bones within, And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh,

Anthropological evolution now?

As round they flew, unnumbered particles— World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm, The one on other caught. These particles First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon, These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock And grow by their conjoining, and by winds Are borne along, along, until collects The tempest fury.

This do I say, as oft I've said before: In earth are atoms of things of every sort; And know, these all thus rise from out the earth— Many life-giving which be good for food, And many which can generate disease And hasten death,

Since to the varied things assigned be The many pores, those pores must be diverse In nature one from other, and each have Its very shape, its own direction fixed.

Biological structure and function!