Has been united in a whole. They can Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part, Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;But meanwhile often are they forced to spring Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield, Unto those elements whence a world derives, Room and a time for flight, permitting them To be from off the massy union borne
Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again: Needs must there come a many for supply; And also, that the blows themselves shall be Unfailing ever, must there ever be
An infinite force of matter all sides round.
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And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far
From yielding faith to that notorious talk: That all things inward to the centre press; And thus the nature of the world stands firm With never blows from outward, nor can be
Nowhere disparted--since all height and depth
Have always inward to the centre pressed (If thou art ready to believe that aught Itself can rest upon itself ); or that
The ponderous bodies which be under earth Do all press upwards and do come to rest Upon the earth, in some way upside down, Like to those images of things we see
At present through the waters. They contend, With like procedure, that all breathing things Head downward roam about, and yet cannot Tumble from earth to realms of sky below, No more than these our bodies wing away Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;
That, when those creatures look upon the sun, We view the constellations of the night;
And that with us the seasons of the sky They thus alternately divide, and thus Do pass the night coequal to our days,
But a vain error has given these dreams to fools, Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse For centre none can be where world is still Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,
Could aught take there a fixed position more Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged. For all of room and space we call the void
Must both through centre and non-centre yield
Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
Nor is there any place, where, when they've come, Bodies can be at standstill in the void,
Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void
Furnish support to any,--nay, it must, True to its bent of nature, still give way. Thus in such manner not at all can things Be held in union, as if overcome
By craving for a centre.
But besides,
Seeing they feign that not all bodies press
To centre inward, rather only those
Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,
And the big billows from the mountain slopes, And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,
In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach
How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,
Is borne asunder from the centre, and how, For this all ether quivers with bright stars, And the sun's flame along the blue is fed (Because the heat, from out the centre flying,
All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves, Unless, little by little, from out the earth
For each were nutriment...
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Lest, after the manner of the winged flames, The ramparts of the world should flee away, Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void, And lest all else should likewise follow after,
Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,
Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven, With slipping asunder of the primal seeds, Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,
Away forever, and, that instant, naught
Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside
The desolate space, and germs invisible. For on whatever side thou deemest first The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side Will be for things the very door of death:
Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash, Out and abroad.
These points, if thou wilt ponder, Then, with but paltry trouble led along...
For one thing after other will grow clear,
Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road, To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth. Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.
BOOK II
PROEM
'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
Roll up its waste of waters, from the land To watch another's labouring anguish far, Not that we joyously delight that man
Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;
'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains, Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught There is more goodly than to hold the high Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise, Whence thou may'st look below on other men And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed In their lone seeking for the road of life;
Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil For summits of power and mastery of the world. O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!
In how great perils, in what darks of life
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Are spent the human years, however brief !-- O not to see that nature for herself
Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off, Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear! Therefore we see that our corporeal life
Needs little, altogether, and only such As takes the pain away, and can besides Strew underneath some number of delights. More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
There be no golden images of boys
Along the halls, with right hands holding out The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts, And if the house doth glitter not with gold Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
Beside a river of water, underneath
A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh
Our frames, with no vast outlay--most of all
If the weather is laughing and the times of the year Besprinkle
