On the Nature of Things Part 14

In vain--since there thou mightest see them sink, Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall Bestrew the ground. And such of these as men Supposed well-trained long ago at home, Were in the thick of action seen to foam In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight, The panic, and the tumult; nor could men Aught of their numbers rally. For each breed And various of the wild beasts fled apart Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel Grievously mangled, after they have wrought Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.

(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all: But scarcely I'll believe that men could not With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come, Such foul and general disaster.--This We, then, may hold as true in the great All, In divers worlds on divers plan create,-- Somewhere afar more likely than upon One certain earth.) But men chose this to do Less in the hope of conquering than to give Their enemies a goodly cause of woe, Even though thereby they perished themselves, Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.

Now, clothes of roughly inter-plaited strands Were earlier than loom-wove coverings; The loom-wove later than man's iron is, Since iron is needful in the weaving art, Nor by no other means can there be wrought Such polished tools--the treadles, spindles, shuttles, And sounding yarn-beams. And nature forced the men, Before the woman kind, to work the wool: For all the male kind far excels in skill, And cleverer is by much--until at last The rugged farmer folk jeered at such tasks, And so were eager soon to give them o'er To women's hands, and in more hardy toil To harden arms and hands.

But nature herself, Mother of things, was the first seed-sower And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns, Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath Put forth in season swarms of little shoots; Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips Upon the boughs and setting out in holes The young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts, And mark they would how earth improved the taste Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.

And day by day they'd force the woods to move Still higher up the mountain, and to yield The place below for tilth, that there they might, On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats, Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain, And happy vineyards, and that all along O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run The silvery-green belt of olive-trees, Marking the plotted landscape; even as now Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness All the terrain which men adorn and plant With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round With thriving shrubberies sown.

But by the mouth To imitate the liquid notes of birds Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make, By measured song, melodious verse and give Delight to ears. And whistlings of the wind Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught The peasantry to blow into the stalks Of hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours, Beaten by finger-tips of singing men, When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.

Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little unto the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the sh.o.r.es of light.

These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals When sated with food,--for songs are welcome then.

And often, lounging with friends in the soft gra.s.s Beside a river of water, underneath A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh Their frames, with no vast outlay--most of all If the weather were smiling and the times of the year Were painting the green of the gra.s.s around with flowers.

Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity Would circle round; for then the rustic muse Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves, And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot To beat our mother earth--from whence arose Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo, Such frolic acts were in their glory then, Being more new and strange. And wakeful men Found solaces for their unsleeping hours In drawing forth variety of notes, In modulating melodies, in running With puckered lips along the tuned reeds, Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard These old traditions, and have learned well To keep true measure. And yet they no whit Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness Than got the woodland aborigines In olden times. For what we have at hand-- If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-- That chiefly pleases and seems best of all; But then some later, likely better, find Destroys its worth and changes our desires Regarding good of yesterday.

And thus Began the loathing of the acorn; thus Abandoned were those beds with gra.s.ses strewn And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again, Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-- Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess, Aroused in those days envy so malign That the first wearer went to woeful death By ambuscades,--and yet that hairy prize, Rent into rags by greedy foemen there And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old 'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.

Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack, Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth; But us it nothing hurts to do without The purple vestment, broidered with gold And with imposing figures, if we still Make s.h.i.+ft with some mean garment of the Plebs.

So man in vain futilities toils on Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-- Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt What the true end of getting is, nor yet At all how far true pleasure may increase.

And 'tis desire for better and for more Hath carried by degrees mortality Out onward to the deep, and roused up From the far bottom mighty waves of war.

But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world, With their own lanterns traversing around The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught Unto mankind that seasons of the years Return again, and that the Thing takes place After a fixed plan and order fixed.

Already would they pa.s.s their life, hedged round By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth All portioned out and boundaried; already Would the sea flower and sail-winged s.h.i.+ps; Already men had, under treaty pacts, Confederates and allies, when poets began To hand heroic actions down in verse; Nor long ere this had letters been devised-- Hence is our age unable to look back On what has gone before, except where reason Shows us a footprint.

Sailings on the seas, Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads, Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes Of polished sculptures--all these arts were learned By practice and the mind's experience, As men walked forward step by eager step.

Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little into the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the sh.o.r.es of light.

For one thing after other did men see Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.

BOOK VI

PROEM

'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name, That whilom gave to hapless sons of men The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life, And decreed laws; and she the first that gave Life its sweet solaces, when she begat A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth; The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day, Because of those discoveries divine Renowned of old, exalted to the sky.

For when saw he that well-nigh everything Which needs of man most urgently require Was ready to hand for mortals, and that life, As far as might be, was established safe, That men were lords in riches, honour, praise, And eminent in goodly fame of sons, And that they yet, O yet, within the home, Still had the anxious heart which vexed life Unpausingly with torments of the mind, And raved perforce with angry plaints, then he, Then he, the master, did perceive that 'twas The vessel itself which worked the bane, and all, However wholesome, which from here or there Was gathered into it, was by that bane Spoilt from within,--in part, because he saw The vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise 'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because He marked how it polluted with foul taste Whate'er it got within itself. So he, The master, then by his truth-speaking words, Purged the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men, and set the bounds Of l.u.s.t and terror, and exhibited The supreme good whither we all endeavour, And showed the path whereby we might arrive Thereunto by a little cross-cut straight, And what of ills in all affairs of mortals Upsprang and flitted deviously about (Whether by chance or force), since nature thus Had destined; and from out what gates a man Should sally to each combat. And he proved That mostly vainly doth the human race Roll in its bosom the grim waves of care.

For just as children tremble and fear all In the viewless dark, so even we at times Dread in the light so many things that be No whit more fearsome than what children feign, Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.

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.

Wherefore the more will I go on to weave In verses this my undertaken task.

And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults Are mortal and that sky is fas.h.i.+oned Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er Therein go on and must perforce go on

The most I have unravelled; what remains Do thou take in, besides; since once for all To climb into that chariot' renowned

Of winds arise; and they appeased are So that all things again...

Which were, are changed now, with fury stilled; All other movements through the earth and sky Which mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft In quaking thoughts!), and which abase their minds With dread of deities and press them crushed Down to the earth, because their ignorance Of cosmic causes forces them to yield All things unto the empery of G.o.ds And to concede the kingly rule to them.

For even those men who have learned full well That G.o.dheads lead a long life free of care, If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), Again are hurried back unto the fears Of old religion and adopt again Harsh masters, deemed almighty,--wretched men, Unwitting what can be and what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on By blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless From out thy mind thou spuest all of this And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be Unworthy G.o.ds and alien to their peace, Then often will the holy majesties Of the high G.o.ds be harmful unto thee, As by thy thought degraded,--not, indeed, That essence supreme of G.o.ds could be by this So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek Revenges keen; but even because thyself Thou plaguest with the notion that the G.o.ds, Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose, Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath; Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast Shrines of the G.o.ds; nor wilt thou able be In tranquil peace of mind to take and know Those images which from their holy bodies Are carried into intellects of men, As the announcers of their form divine.

What sort of life will follow after this 'Tis thine to see. But that afar from us Veriest reason may drive such life away, Much yet remains to be embellished yet In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth So much from me already; lo, there is The law and aspect of the sky to be By reason grasped; there are the tempest times And the bright lightnings to be hymned now-- Even what they do and from what cause soe'er They're borne along--that thou mayst tremble not, Marking off regions of prophetic skies For auguries, O foolishly distraught Even as to whence the flying flame hath come, Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how Through walled places it hath wound its way, Or, after proving its dominion there, How it hath speeded forth from thence amain-- Whereof nowise the causes do men know, And think divinities are working there.

Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse, Solace of mortals and delight of G.o.ds, Point out the course before me, as I race On to the white line of the utmost goal, That I may get with signal praise the crown, With thee my guide!

GREAT METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA, ETC.

And so in first place, then, With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven, Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft, Together clash, what time 'gainst one another The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes From out the serene regions of the sky; But wheresoever in a host more dense The clouds foregather, thence more often comes A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again, Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame As stones and timbers, nor again so fine As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight, Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be To keep their ma.s.s, or to retain within Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth O'er skiey levels of the spreading world A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too, Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves And imitates the tearing sound of sheets Of paper--even this kind of noise thou mayst In thunder hear--or sound as when winds whirl With las.h.i.+ngs and do buffet about in air A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.

For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds Cannot together crash head-on, but rather Move side-wise and with motions contrary Graze each the other's body without speed, From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears, So long drawn-out, until the clouds have pa.s.sed From out their close positions.

And, again, In following wise all things seem oft to quake At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls Of the wide reaches of the upper world There on the instant to have sprung apart, Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once Twisted its way into a ma.s.s of clouds, And, there enclosed, ever more and more Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud To grow all hollow with a thickened crust Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force And the keen onset of the wind have weakened That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain, Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.

No marvel this; since oft a bladder small, Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst, Give forth a like large sound.

There's reason, too, Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds: We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds Rough-edged or branched many forky ways; And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow, Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.

It happens too at times that roused force Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud, Breaking right through it by a front a.s.sault; For what a blast of wind may do up there Is manifest from facts when here on earth A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.

Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar; As when along deep streams or the great sea Breaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever Out from one cloud into another falls The fiery energy of thunderbolt, That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet, Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise; As iron, white from the hot furnaces, Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound, As if a flame with whirl of winds should range Along the laurel-tressed mountains far, Upburning with its vast a.s.sault those trees; Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame Consumes with sound more terrible to man Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.

Oft, too, the mult.i.tudinous crash of ice And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound Among the mighty clouds on high; for when The wind hath packed them close, each mountain ma.s.s Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...

Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck, By their collision, forth the seeds of fire: As if a stone should smite a stone or steel, For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters The s.h.i.+ning sparks. But with our ears we get The thunder after eyes behold the flash, Because forever things arrive the ears More tardily than the eyes--as thou mayst see From this example too: when markest thou Some man far yonder felling a great tree With double-edged ax, it comes to pa.s.s Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears: Thus also we behold the flas.h.i.+ng ere We hear the thunder, which discharged is At same time with the fire and by same cause, Born of the same collision.

In following wise The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands, And the storm flashes with tremulous elan: When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there, Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud Into a hollow with a thickened crust, It becomes hot of own velocity: Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat And set ablaze all objects,--verily A leaden ball, hurtling through length of s.p.a.ce, Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds, Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force Of sudden from the cloud;--and these do make The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth The detonation which attacks our ears More tardily than aught which comes along Unto the sight of eyeb.a.l.l.s. This takes place-- As know thou mayst--at times when clouds are dense And one upon the other piled aloft With wonderful upheavings--nor be thou Deceived because we see how broad their base From underneath, and not how high they tower.

For make thine observations at a time When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on, Or when about the sides of mighty peaks Thou seest them one upon the other ma.s.sed And burdening downward, anch.o.r.ed in high repose, With the winds sepulchred on all sides round: Then canst thou know their mighty ma.s.ses, then Canst view their caverns, as if builded there Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes In gathered storm have filled utterly, Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around With mighty roarings, and within those dens Bl.u.s.ter like savage beasts, and now from here, And now from there, send growlings through the clouds, And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about, And roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire, And heap them mult.i.tudinously there, And in the hollow furnaces within Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.

Again, from following cause it comes to pa.s.s That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire; For, when they be without all moisture, then They be for most part of a flamy hue And a resplendent. And, indeed, they must Even from the light of sun unto themselves Take mult.i.tudinous seeds, and so perforce Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.

And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust, Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds, They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out, Which make to flash these colours of the flame.

Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when The wind with gentle touch unravels them And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds Which make the lightnings must by nature fall; At such an hour the horizon lightens round Without the hideous terror of dread noise And skiey uproar.

To proceed apace, What sort of nature thunderbolts possess Is by their strokes made manifest and by The brand-marks of their searing heat on things, And by the scorched scars exhaling round The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.

Again, they often enkindle even the roofs Of houses and inside the very rooms With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.

Know thou that nature fas.h.i.+oned this fire Subtler than fires all other, with minute And dartling bodies,--a fire 'gainst which there's naught Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt, The mighty, pa.s.ses through the hedging walls Of houses, like to voices or a shout,-- Through stones, through bronze it pa.s.ses, and it melts Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes, Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth, The wine-jars intact,--because, ye see, Its heat arriving renders loose and porous Readily all the wine--jar's earthen sides, And winding its way within, it scattereth The elements primordial of the wine With speedy dissolution--process which Even in an age the fiery steam of sun Could not accomplish, however puissant he With his hot coruscations: so much more Agile and overpowering is this force.

Now in what manner engendered are these things, How fas.h.i.+oned of such impetuous strength As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all To overtopple, and to wrench apart Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments To pile in ruins and upheave amain, And to take breath forever out of men, And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-- Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this, All this and more, I will unfold to thee, Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.

The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived As all begotten in those cra.s.ser clouds Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene And from the clouds of lighter density, None are sent forth forever. That 'tis so Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares: To wit, at such a time the densed clouds So ma.s.s themselves through all the upper air That we might think that round about all murk Had parted forth from Acheron and filled The mighty vaults of sky--so grievously, As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might, Do faces of black horror hang on high-- When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.

Besides, full often also out at sea A blackest thunderhead, like cataract Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed Tremendously with fires and winds, that even Back on the lands the people shudder round And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said, The storm must be conceived as o'er our head Towering most high; for never would the clouds O'erwhelm the lands with such a ma.s.sy dark, Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap, To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds, As on they come, engulf with rain so vast As thus to make the rivers overflow And fields to float, if ether were not thus Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then, Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-- Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.

For, verily, I've taught thee even now How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable Of fiery exhalations, and they must From off the sunbeams and the heat of these Take many still. And so, when that same wind (Which, haply, into one region of the sky Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same The many fiery seeds, and with that fire Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself, O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now, Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.