Atomic Forms and Their Combinations
Now come, and next hereafter apprehendWhat sorts, how vastly different in form,How varied in multitudinous shapes they are—These old beginnings of the universe;Not in the sense that only few are furnishedWith one like form, but rather not at allIn general have they likeness each with each,No marvel: since the stock of them’s so greatThat there’s no end (as I have taught) nor sum,They must indeed not one and all be markedBy equal outline and by shape the same.
*****Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocksOf scaly creatures swimming in the streams,And joyous herds around, and all the wild,And all the breeds of birds—both those that teemIn gladsome regions of the water-haunts,About the river-banks and springs and pools,And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree,Through trackless woods—Go, take which one thou wilt,In any kind: thou wilt discover stillEach from the other still unlike in shape.Nor in no other wise could offspring knowMother, nor mother offspring—which we seeThey yet can do, distinguished one from other,No less than human beings, by clear signs.Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,Beside the incense-burning altars slain,Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breastBreathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,With eyes regarding every spot about,For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanesWith her complaints; and oft she seeks againWithin the stall, pierced by her yearning still.Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;Nor other shapes of calves that graze therebyDistract her mind or lighten pain the least—So keen her search for something known and hers.Moreover, tender kids with bleating throatsDo know their horned dams, and butting lambsThe flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,Unfailingly each to its proper teat,As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,Thou’lt see that no one kernel in one kindIs so far like another, that there stillIs not in shapes some difference running through.By a like law we see how earth is piedWith shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the seaBeats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.Wherefore again, again, since seeds of thingsExist by nature, nor were wrought with handsAfter a fixed pattern of one other,They needs must flitter to and fro with shapesIn types dissimilar to one another.
Easy enough by thought of mind to solveWhy fires of lightning more can penetrateThan these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.For thou canst say lightning’s celestial fire,So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,And passes thus through holes which this our fire,Born from the wood, created from the pine,Cannot. Again, light passes through the hornOn the lantern’s side, while rain is dashed away.And why?—unless those bodies of light should beFiner than those of water’s genial showers.We see how quickly through a colanderThe wines will flow; how, on the other hand,The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,Because ’tis wrought of elements more large,Or else more crook’d and intertangled. ThusIt comes that the primordials cannot beSo suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,One through each several hole of anything.
And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milkYields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,With their foul flavour set the lips awry;Thus simple ’tis to see that whatsoeverCan touch the senses pleasingly are madeOf smooth and rounded elements, whilst thoseWhich seem the bitter and the sharp, are heldEntwined by elements more crook’d, and soAre wont to tear their ways into our senses,And rend our body as they enter in.In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,Being up-built of figures so unlike,Are mutually at strife—lest thou supposeThat the shrill rasping of a squeaking sawConsists of elements as smooth as songWhich, waked by nimble fingers, on the stringsThe sweet musicians fashion; or supposeThat same-shaped atoms through men’s nostrils pierceWhen foul cadavers burn, as when the stageIs with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;Or hold as of like seed the goodly huesOf things which feast our eyes, as those which stingAgainst the smarting pupil and draw tears,Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.For never a shape which charms our sense was madeWithout some elemental smoothness; whilstWhate’er is harsh and irksome has been framedStill with some roughness in its elements.Some, too, there are which justly are supposedTo be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,To tickle rather than to wound the sense—And of which sort is the salt tartar of wineAnd flavours of the gummed elecampane.Again, that glowing fire and icy rimeAre fanged with teeth unlike whereby to stingOur body’s sense, the touch of each gives proof.For touch—by sacred majesties of Gods!—Touch is indeed the body’s only sense—Be’t that something in-from-outward works,Be’t that something in the body bornWounds, or delighteth as it passes outAlong the procreant paths of Aphrodite;Or be’t the seeds by some collision whirlDisordered in the body and confoundBy tumult and confusion all the sense—As thou mayst find, if haply with the handThyself thou strike thy body’s any part.On which account, the elemental formsMust differ widely, as enabled thusTo cause diverse sensations.
And, again,What seems to us the hardened and condensedMust be of atoms among themselves more hooked,Be held compacted deep within, as ‘twereBy branch-like atoms—of which sort the chiefAre diamond stones, despisers of all blows,And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron,And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks,Do grate and scream. But what are liquid, formedOf fluid body, they indeed must beOf elements more smooth and round—becauseTheir globules severally will not cohere:To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of handIs quite as easy as drinking water down,And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.But that thou seest among the things that flowSome bitter, as the brine of ocean is,Is not the least a marvel…For since ’tis fluid, smooth its atoms areAnd round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;Yet need not these be held together hooked:In fact, though rough, they’re globular besides,Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.And that the more thou mayst believe me here,That with smooth elements are mixed the rough(Whence Neptune’s salt astringent body comes),There is a means to separate the twain,And thereupon dividedly to seeHow the sweet water, after filtering throughSo often underground, flows freshened forthInto some hollow; for it leaves aboveThe primal germs of nauseating brine,Since cling the rough more readily in earth.Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperseUpon the instant—smoke, and cloud, and flame—Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined,That thus they can, without together cleaving,So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.Whatever we see…Given to senses, that thou must perceiveThey’re not from linked but pointed elements.
The which now having taught, I will go onTo bind thereto a fact to this alliedAnd drawing from this its proof: these primal germsVary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.For were these shapes quite infinite, some seedsWould have a body of infinite increase.For in one seed, in one small frame of any,The shapes can’t vary from one another much.Assume, we’ll say, that of three minim partsConsist the primal bodies, or add a few:When, now, by placing all these parts of oneAt top and bottom, changing lefts and rights,Thou hast with every kind of shift found outWhat the aspect of shape of its whole bodyEach new arrangement gives, for what remains,If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes,New parts must then be added; follows next,If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes,That by like logic each arrangement stillRequires its increment of other parts.Ergo, an augmentation of its frameFollows upon each novelty of forms.Wherefore, it cannot be thou’lt undertakeThat seeds have infinite differences in form,Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to beOf an immeasurable immensity—Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleamOf Meliboean purple, touched with dyeOf the Thessalian shell…The peacock’s golden generations, stainedWith spotted gaieties, would lie o’erthrownBy some new colour of new things more bright;The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;The swan’s old lyric, and Apollo’s hymns,Once modulated on the many chords,Would likewise sink o’ermastered and be mute:For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest,Would be arising evermore. So, too,Into some baser part might all retire,Even as we said to better might they come:For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the restTo nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue,Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.Since ’tis not so, but unto things are givenTheir fixed limitations which do boundTheir sum on either side, ‘tmust be confessedThat matter, too, by finite tale of shapesDoes differ. Again, from earth’s midsummer heatsUnto the icy hoar-frosts of the yearThe forward path is fixed, and by like lawO’ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.For each degree of hot, and each of cold,And the half-warm, all filling up the sumIn due progression, lie, my Memmius, thereBetwixt the two extremes: the things createMust differ, therefore, by a finite change,Since at each end marked off they ever areBy fixed point—on one side plagued by flamesAnd on the other by congealing frosts.
The which now having taught, I will go onTo bind thereto a fact to this alliedAnd drawing from this its proof: those primal germsWhich have been fashioned all of one like shapeAre infinite in tale; for, since the formsThemselves are finite in divergences,Then those which are alike will have to beInfinite, else the sum of stuff remainsA finite—what I’ve proved is not the fact,Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff,From everlasting and to-day the same,Uphold the sum of things, all sides aroundBy old succession of unending blows.For though thou view’st some beasts to be more rare,And mark’st in them a less prolific stock,Yet in another region, in lands remote,That kind abounding may make up the count;Even as we mark among the four-foot kindSnake-handed elephants, whose thousands wallWith ivory ramparts India about,That her interiors cannot entered be—So big her count of brutes of which we seeSuch few examples. Or suppose, besides,We feign some thing, one of its kind and soleWith body born, to which is nothing likeIn all the lands: yet now unless shall beAn infinite count of matter out of whichThus to conceive and bring it forth to life,It cannot be created and—what’s more—It cannot take its food and get increase.Yea, if through all the world in finite taleBe tossed the procreant bodies of one thing,Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power,Shall they to meeting come together there,In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?—No means they have of joining into one.But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled,The mighty main is wont to scatter wideThe rowers’ banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow,The masts and swimming oars, so that afarAlong all shores of lands are seen afloatThe carven fragments of the rended poop,Giving a lesson to mortalityTo shun the ambush of the faithless main,The violence and the guile, and trust it notAt any hour, however much may smileThe crafty enticements of the placid deep:Exactly thus, if once thou holdest trueThat certain seeds are finite in their tale,The various tides of matter, then, must needsScatter them flung throughout the ages all,So that not ever can they join, as drivenTogether into union, nor remainIn union, nor with increment can grow—But facts in proof are manifest for each:Things can be both begotten and increase.’Tis therefore manifest that primal germs,Are infinite in any class thou wilt—From whence is furnished matter for all things.
Nor can those motions that bring death prevailForever, nor eternally entombThe welfare of the world; nor, further, canThose motions that give birth to things and growthKeep them forever when created there.Thus the long war, from everlasting waged,With equal strife among the elementsGoes on and on. Now here, now there, prevailThe vital forces of the world—or fall.Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wailOf infants coming to the shores of light:No night a day, no dawn a night hath followedThat heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries,The wild laments, companions old of deathAnd the black rites.
This, too, in these affairs’Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consignedWith no forgetting brain: nothing there isWhose nature is apparent out of handThat of one kind of elements consists—Nothing there is that’s not of mixed seed.And whatsoe’er possesses in itselfMore largely many powers and propertiesShows thus that here within itself there areThe largest number of kinds and differing shapesOf elements. And, chief of all, the earthHath in herself first bodies whence the springs,Rolling chill waters, renew forevermoreThe unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise—For burns in many a spot her flamed crust,Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeedFrom more profounder fires—and she, again,Hath in herself the seed whence she can raiseThe shining grains and gladsome trees for men;Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pasturesCan she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts,And parent of man hath she alone been named.
Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece
Seated in chariot o’er the realms of airTo drive her team of lions, teaching thusThat the great earth hangs poised and cannot lieResting on other earth. Unto her carThey’ve yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,However savage, must be tamed and chidBy care of parents. They have girt aboutWith turret-crown the summit of her head,Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,’Tis she sustains the cities; now, adornedWith that same token, to-day is carried forth,With solemn awe through many a mighty land,The image of that mother, the divine.Her the wide nations, after antique rite,Do name Idaean Mother, giving herEscort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,From out those regions ’twas that grain beganThrough all the world. To her do they assignThe Galli, the emasculate, since thusThey wish to show that men who violateThe majesty of the mother and have provedIngrate to parents are to be adjudgedUnfit to give unto the shores of lightA living progeny. The Galli come:And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourinesResound around to bangings of their hands;The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;The tubed pipe excites their maddened mindsIn Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have powerThe rabble’s ingrate heads and impious heartsTo panic with terror of the goddess’ might.And so, when through the mighty cities borne,She blesses man with salutations mute,They strew the highway of her journeyingsWith coin of brass and silver, gifting herWith alms and largesse, and shower her and shadeWith flowers of roses falling like the snowUpon the Mother and her companion-bands.Here is an armed troop, the which by GreeksAre called the Phrygian Curetes. SinceHaply among themselves they use to playIn games of arms and leap in measure roundWith bloody mirth and by their nodding shakeThe terrorizing crests upon their heads,This is the armed troop that representsThe arm’d Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,As runs the story, whilom did out-drownThat infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,To measured step beat with the brass on brass,That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,And give its mother an eternal woundAlong her heart. And ’tis on this accountThat armed they escort the mighty Mother,Or else because they signify by thisThat she, the goddess, teaches men to beEager with armed valour to defendTheir motherland, and ready to stand forth,The guard and glory of their parents’ years.A tale, however beautifully wrought,That’s wide of reason by a long remove:For all the gods must of themselves enjoyImmortal aeons and supreme repose,Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar:Immune from peril and immune from pain,Themselves abounding in riches of their own,Needing not us, they are not touched by wrathThey are not taken by service or by gift.Truly is earth insensate for all time;But, by obtaining germs of many things,In many a way she brings the many forthInto the light of sun. And here, whosoDecides to call the ocean Neptune, orThe grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuseThe name of Bacchus rather than pronounceThe liquor’s proper designation, himLet us permit to go on calling earthMother of Gods, if only he will spareTo taint his soul with foul religion.So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine,And brood of battle-eager horses, grazingOften together along one grassy plain,Under the cope of one blue sky, and slakingFrom out one stream of water each its thirst,All live their lives with face and form unlike,Keeping the parents’ nature, parents’ habits,Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.So great in any sort of herb thou wilt,So great again in any river of earthAre the distinct diversities of matter.Hence, further, every creature—any oneFrom out them all—compounded is the sameOf bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews—All differing vastly in their forms, and builtOf elements dissimilar in shape.Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze,Within their frame lay up, if naught besides,At least those atoms whence derives their powerTo throw forth fire and send out light from under,To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.If, with like reasoning of mind, all elseThou traverse through, thou wilt discover thusThat in their frame the seeds of many thingsThey hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.Further, thou markest much, to which are givenAlong together colour and flavour and smell,Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.
Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.A smell of scorching enters in our frameWhere the bright colour from the dye goes not;And colour in one way, flavour in quite anotherWorks inward to our senses—so mayst seeThey differ too in elemental shapes.Thus unlike forms into one mass combine,And things exist by intermixed seed.
But still ‘tmust not be thought that in all waysAll things can be conjoined; for then wouldst viewPortents begot about thee every side:Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up,At times big branches sprouting from man’s trunk,Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit,And nature along the all-producing earthFeeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flameFrom hideous jaws—Of which ’tis simple factThat none have been begot; because we seeAll are from fixed seed and fixed damEngendered and so function as to keepThroughout their growth their own ancestral type.This happens surely by a fixed law:For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down,Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature,Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there,Produce the proper motions; but we seeHow, contrariwise, nature upon the groundThrows off those foreign to their frame; and manyWith viewless bodies from their bodies fly,By blows impelled—those impotent to joinTo any part, or, when inside, to accordAnd to take on the vital motions there.But think not, haply, living forms aloneAre bound by these laws: they distinguished all.
For just as all things of creation are,In their whole nature, each to each unlike,So must their atoms be in shape unlike—Not since few only are fashioned of like form,But since they all, as general rule, are notThe same as all. Nay, here in these our verses,Elements many, common to many words,Thou seest, though yet ’tis needful to confessThe words and verses differ, each from each,Compounded out of different elements—Not since few only, as common letters, runThrough all the words, or no two words are made,One and the other, from all like elements,But since they all, as general rule, are notThe same as all. Thus, too, in other things,Whilst many germs common to many thingsThere are, yet they, combined among themselves,Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.Thus fairly one may say that humankind,The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made upOf different atoms. Further, since the seedsAre different, difference must there also beIn intervening spaces, thoroughfares,Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, allWhich not alone distinguish living forms,But sunder earth’s whole ocean from the lands,And hold all heaven from the lands away.