the fire? the moist?Or else the air? which then? the blood? the bones? No one, methinks, when every thing will be
At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark To perish by force before our gazing eyes. But my appeal is to the proofs above
That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet From naught increase. 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. Again, if all the bodies which upgrow
From earth, are first within the earth, then earth
Must be compound of alien substances.
Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth. Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use
The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash
Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood Must be compound of alien substances Which spring from out the wood.
Right here remains
A certain slender means to skulk from truth, Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself,
Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all
While that one only comes to view, of which
The bodies exceed in number all the rest,
And lie more close to hand and at the fore-- A notion banished from true reason far.
For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains
Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones, Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else
Which in our human frame is fed; and that Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze. Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's; Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up
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The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves, All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil;
Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid. But since fact teaches this is not the case,
'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things, Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
"But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest, "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed One against other, smote by the blustering south, Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame." Good sooth--yet fire is not ingraft in wood,
But many are the seeds of heat, and when
Rubbing together they together flow,
They start the conflagrations in the forests. Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay Stored up within the forests, then the fires Could not for any time be kept unseen,
But would be laying all the wildwood waste And burning all the boscage. Now dost see (Even as we said a little space above)
How mightily it matters with what others, In what positions these same primal germs Are bound together? And what motions, too,
They give and get among themselves? how, hence, The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-- Precisely as these words themselves are made
By somewhat altering their elements, Although we mark with name indeed distinct The igneous from the ligneous. Once again, If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest, Among all visible objects, cannot be,
Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed
With a like nature,--by thy vain device
For thee will perish all the germs of things:
'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth,
Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE
Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear! And for myself, my mind is not deceived
How dark it is: But the large hope of praise
Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart; On the same hour hath strook into my breast
Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct, I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, Trodden by step of none before. I joy
To come on undefiled fountains there,
To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,
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To seek for this my head a signal crown From regions where the Muses never yet Have garlanded the temples of a man:
First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion;
Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame
Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout
Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground:
But as physicians, when they seek to give
Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch
The brim around the cup with the sweet juice
And yellow of the honey, in order that
The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled
As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down
The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus
Grow strong again with recreated health:
So now I too (since this my doctrine seems
In general somewhat woeful unto those
Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd
Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,
To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-- If by such method haply I might hold
The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou see through the nature of all things, And how exists the interwoven frame.
But since I've taught
