Then be it ours with steady mind to clasp The purport of the skies—the law behind The wandering courses of the sun and moon; To scan the powers that speed all life below; But most to see with reasonable eyes Of what the mind, of what the soul is made, And what it is so terrible that breaks On us asleep, or waking in disease, Until we seem to mark and hear at hand Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.SUBSTANCE IS ETERNAL—146–328 This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only Nature's aspect and her law, Which, teaching us, hath this exordium: Nothing from nothing ever yet was born. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolves Into their primal bodies again, and naught Perishes ever to annihilation. R. E. Aiken. We view The rock-paved highways worn by many feet; And at the gates the brazen statues show Their right hands leaner from the frequent touch Of wayfarers innumerable who greet. 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. 2001 - 262 pp. Download: A text-only version is available for download. And for the rest, summon to judgments true, Unbusied ears and singleness of mind Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged For thee with eager service, thou disdain Before thou comprehendest: since for thee I prove the súpreme law of Gods and sky, And the primordial germs of things unfold, Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies And fosters all, and whither she resolves Each in the end when each is overthrown. For, were aught mortal in its every part, Before our eyes it might be snatched away Unto destruction; since no force were needed To sunder its members and undo its bands. For lapsèd years and infinite age must else Have eat all shapes of mortal stock away: But be it the Long Ago contained those germs, By which this sum of things recruited lives, Those same infallibly can never die, Nor nothing to nothing evermore return. And thus his will and hardy wisdom won; And forward thus he fared afar, beyond The flaming ramparts of the world, until He wandered the unmeasurable All. Click or Press Enter to view the items in your shopping bag or Press Tab to interact with the Shopping bag tooltip, Up to 50% Off Select Toys and Collectibles, Knock Knock Gifts, Books & Office Supplies, B&N Exclusive Holiday Totes - $4.99 with Purchase, Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. [and] it is streets ahead of the competition. Thus it comes That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains, Could bear no produce such as makes us glad, And whatsoever lives, if shut from food, Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more. "Nothing ever springs miraculously from nothing... all are formed fr… Verified Purchase. It is also believed that the Roman poet Virgil referenced Lucretius and his work in the second book of his Georgics when he wrote: "Happy is he who has discovered the causes of things and has cast beneath his feet all fears, unavoidable fate, and the din of the devouring Underworld" (felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas/atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum/subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis … Lucretius begins his poem with a prayer to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, whose reproductive powers allow everything in nature to flourish. Nor more Can we observe what's lost at any time, When things wax old with eld and foul decay, Or when salt seas eat under beetling crags. Martin Ferguson Smith has for many years been one of the leading Lucretian scholars in the world. Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports What things can rise to being, what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time. Written in the first century b.C., On the Nature of Things (in Latin, De Rerum Natura) is a poem in six books that aims at explaining the Epicurean philosophy to the Roman audience.Among digressions about the importance of philosophy in men's life and praises of Epicurus, Lucretius created a solid treatise on the atomic theory, the falseness of religion and many kinds of natural phenomena. Again, why see we lavished o'er the lands At spring the rose, at summer heat the corn, The vines that mellow when the autumn lures, If not because the fixèd seeds of things At their own season must together stream, And new creations only be revealed When the due times arrive and pregnant earth Safely may give unto the shores of light Her tender progenies? We should expect from the beginning then that we are in the hands of a wise and learned guide as soon as we open his Lucretius, and this expectation is certainly borne out by the quality of this sensitive and thoughtful edition. In Book 2 he explains atomic movement, the variety of atomic shapes, and argues that the atoms lack colour, sensation, and other secondary qualities. On the Nature of Things … And there shall come the time when even thou, Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek To break from us. The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. 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