Origins of Vegetable and Animal Life
And now to what remains!—Since I’ve resolvedBy what arrangements all things come to passThrough the blue regions of the mighty world,—How we can know what energy and causeStarted the various courses of the sunAnd the moon’s goings, and by what far meansThey can succumb, the while with thwarted light,And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,When, as it were, they blink, and then againWith open eye survey all regions wide,Resplendent with white radiance—I do nowReturn unto the world’s primeval ageAnd tell what first the soft young fields of earthWith earliest parturition had decreedTo raise in air unto the shores of lightAnd to entrust unto the wayward winds.In the beginning, earth gave forth, aroundThe hills and over all the length of plains,The race of grasses and the shining green;The flowery meadows sparkled all aglowWith greening colour, and thereafter, lo,Unto the divers kinds of trees was givenAn emulous impulse mightily to shoot,With a free rein, aloft into the air.As feathers and hairs and bristles are begotThe first on members of the four-foot breedsAnd on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,Thus then the new Earth first of all put forthGrasses and shrubs, and afterward begatThe mortal generations, there upsprung—Innumerable in modes innumerable—After diverging fashions. For from skyThese breathing-creatures never can have dropped,Nor the land-dwellers ever have come upOut of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,How merited is that adopted nameOf earth—“The Mother!”—since from out the earthAre all begotten. And even now ariseFrom out the loams how many living things—Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.Wherefore ’tis less a marvel, if they sprangIn Long Ago more many, and more big,Matured of those days in the fresh young yearsOf earth and ether. First of all, the raceOf the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;As now-a-days in summer tree-cricketsDo leave their shiny husks of own accord,Seeking their food and living. Then it wasThis earth of thine first gave unto the dayThe mortal generations; for prevailedAmong the fields abounding hot and wet.And hence, where any fitting spot was given,There ‘gan to grow womb-cavities, by rootsAffixed to earth. And when in ripened timeThe age of the young within (that sought the airAnd fled earth’s damps) had burst these wombs, O thenWould Nature thither turn the pores of earthAnd make her spurt from open veins a juiceLike unto milk; even as a woman nowIs filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk,Because all that swift stream of alimentIs thither turned unto the mother-breasts.There earth would furnish to the children food;Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bedAbounding in soft down. Earth’s newness thenWould rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold,Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers—For all things grow and gather strength through timeIn like proportions; and then earth was young.
Wherefore, again, again, how meritedIs that adopted name of Earth—The Mother!—Since she herself begat the human race,And at one well-nigh fixed time brought forthEach breast that ranges raving round aboutUpon the mighty mountains and all birdsAerial with many a varied shape.But, lo, because her bearing years must end,She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.For lapsing aeons change the nature ofThe whole wide world, and all things needs must takeOne status after other, nor aught persistsForever like itself. All things depart;Nature she changeth all, compelleth allTo transformation. Lo, this moulders down,A-slack with weary eld, and that, again,Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt.In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons changeThe nature of the whole wide world, and earthTaketh one status after other. And whatShe bore of old, she now can bear no longer,And what she never bore, she can to-day.
In those days also the telluric worldStrove to beget the monsters that upsprungWith their astounding visages and limbs—The Man-woman—a thing betwixt the twain,Yet neither, and from either sex remote—Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet,Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors tooWithout a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye,Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and armsCleaving unto the body fore and aft,Thuswise, that never could they do or go,Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.And other prodigies and monsters earthWas then begetting of this sort—in vain,Since Nature banned with horror their increase,And powerless were they to reach untoThe coveted flower of fair maturity,Or to find aliment, or to intertwineIn works of Venus. For we see there mustConcur in life conditions manifold,If life is ever by begetting lifeTo forge the generations one by one:First, foods must be; and, next, a path wherebyThe seeds of impregnation in the frameMay ooze, released from the members all;Last, the possession of those instrumentsWhereby the male with female can unite,The one with other in mutual ravishments.
And in the ages after monsters died,Perforce there perished many a stock, unableBy propagation to forge a progeny.For whatsoever creatures thou beholdestBreathing the breath of life, the same have beenEven from their earliest age preserved aliveBy cunning, or by valour, or at leastBy speed of foot or wing. And many a stockRemaineth yet, because of use to man,And so committed to man’s guardianship.Valour hath saved alive fierce lion-breedsAnd many another terrorizing race,Cunning the foxes, flight the antlered stags.Light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast,However, and every kind begot from seedOf beasts of draft, as, too, the woolly flocksAnd horned cattle, all, my Memmius,Have been committed to guardianship of men.For anxiously they fled the savage beasts,And peace they sought and their abundant foods,Obtained with never labours of their own,Which we secure to them as fit rewardsFor their good service. But those beasts to whomNature has granted naught of these same things—Beasts quite unfit by own free will to thriveAnd vain for any service unto usIn thanks for which we should permit their kindTo feed and be in our protection safe—Those, of a truth, were wont to be exposed,Enshackled in the gruesome bonds of doom,As prey and booty for the rest, untilNature reduced that stock to utter death.
But Centaurs ne’er have been, nor can there beCreatures of twofold stock and double frame,Compact of members alien in kind,Yet formed with equal function, equal forceIn every bodily part—a fact thou mayst,However dull thy wits, well learn from this:The horse, when his three years have rolled away,Flowers in his prime of vigour; but the boyNot so, for oft even then he gropes in sleepAfter the milky nipples of the breasts,An infant still. And later, when at lastThe lusty powers of horses and stout limbs,Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age,Lo, only then doth youth with flowering yearsBegin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeksWith the soft down. So never deem, percase,That from a man and from the seed of horse,The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composedOr e’er exist alive, nor Scyllas be—The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs—Nor others of this sort, in whom we markMembers discordant each with each; for ne’erAt one same time they reach their flower of ageOr gain and lose full vigour of their frame,And never burn with one same lust of love,And never in their habits they agree,Nor find the same foods equally delightsome—Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goatsBatten upon the hemlock which to manIs violent poison. Once again, since flameIs wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulksOf the great lions as much as other kindsOf flesh and blood existing in the lands,How could it be that she, Chimaera lone,With triple body—fore, a lion she;And aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat—Might at the mouth from out the body belchInfuriate flame? Wherefore, the man who feignsSuch beings could have been engenderedWhen earth was new and the young sky was fresh(Basing his empty argument on new)May babble with like reason many whimsInto our ears: he’ll say, perhaps, that thenRivers of gold through every landscape flowed,That trees were wont with precious stones to flower,Or that in those far aeons man was bornWith such gigantic length and lift of limbsAs to be able, based upon his feet,Deep oceans to bestride or with his handsTo whirl the firmament around his head.For though in earth were many seeds of thingsIn the old time when this telluric worldFirst poured the breeds of animals abroad,Still that is nothing of a sign that thenSuch hybrid creatures could have been begotAnd limbs of all beasts heterogeneousHave been together knit; because, indeed,The divers kinds of grasses and the grainsAnd the delightsome trees—which even nowSpring up abounding from within the earth—Can still ne’er be begotten with their stemsBegrafted into one; but each sole thingProceeds according to its proper wontAnd all conserve their own distinctions basedIn nature’s fixed decree.