Of the Nature of Things. T. Lucretius Carus

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       A first and single part, whence other parts

       And others similar in order lie

       In a packed phalanx, filling to the full

       The nature of first body: being thus

       Not self-existent, they must cleave to that

       From which in nowise they can sundered be.

       So primal germs have solid singleness,

       Which tightly packed and closely joined cohere

       By virtue of their minim particles--

       No compound by mere union of the same;

       But strong in their eternal singleness,

       Nature, reserving them as seeds for things,

       Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.

       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?

       None: for however infinite the sum,

       Yet even the smallest would consist the same

       Of infinite parts. But since true reason here

       Protests, denying that the mind can think it,

       Convinced thou must confess such things there are

       As have no parts, the minimums of nature.

       And since these are, likewise confess thou must

       That primal bodies are solid and eterne.

       Again, if Nature, creatress of all things,

       Were wont to force all things to be resolved

       Unto least parts, then would she not avail

       To reproduce from out them anything;

       Because whate'er is not endowed with parts

       Cannot possess those properties required

       Of generative stuff--divers connections,

       Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things

       Forevermore have being and go on.

       CONFUTATION OF OTHER PHILOSOPHERS

       And on such grounds it is that those who held

       The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire

       Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen

       Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.

       Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes

       That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech

       Among the silly, not the serious Greeks

       Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone

       That to bewonder and adore which hides

       Beneath distorted words, holding that true

       Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,

       Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.

       For how, I ask, can things so varied be,

       If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit

       'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,

       If all the parts of fire did still preserve

       But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.

       The heat were keener with the parts compressed,

       Milder, again, when severed or dispersed--

       And more than this thou canst conceive of naught

       That from such causes could become; much less

       Might earth's variety of things be born

       From any fires soever, dense or rare.

       This too: if they suppose a void in things,

       Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;

       But since they see such opposites of thought

       Rising against them, and are loath to leave

       An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep

       And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,

       That, if from things we take away the void,

       All things are then condensed, and out of all

       One body made, which has no power to dart

       Swiftly from out itself not anything--

       As throws the fire its light and warmth around,

       Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.

       But if perhaps they think, in other wise,

       Fires through their combinations can be quenched

       And change their substance, very well: behold,

       If fire shall spare to do so in no part,

       Then heat will perish utterly and all,

       And out of nothing would the world be formed.

       For change in anything from out its bounds

       Means instant death of that which was before;

       And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed

       Amid the world, lest all return to naught,

       And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.

       Now since indeed there are those surest bodies

       Which keep their nature evermore the same,

       Upon whose going out and coming in

       And changed order things their nature change,

       And all corporeal substances transformed,

       'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then,

       Are not of fire. For 'twere of no avail

       Should some depart and go away, and some

       Be added СКАЧАТЬ