Proem
O WHO can build with puissant breast a songWorthy the majesty of these great finds?Or who in words so strong that he can frameThe fit laudations for deserts of himWho left us heritors of such vast prizes,By his own breast discovered and sought out?—There shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock.For if must needs be named for him the nameDemanded by the now known majestyOf these high matters, then a god was he,—Hear me, illustrious Memmius—a god;Who first and chief found out that plan of lifeWhich now is called philosophy, and whoBy cunning craft, out of such mighty waves,Out of such mighty darkness, moored lifeIn havens so serene, in light so clear.Compare those old discoveries divineOf others: lo, according to the tale,Ceres established for mortalityThe grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape,Though life might yet without these things abide,Even as report saith now some peoples live.But man’s well-being was impossibleWithout a breast all free. Wherefore the moreThat man doth justly seem to us a god,From whom sweet solaces of life, afarDistributed o’er populous domains,Now soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkestLabours of Hercules excel the same,Much farther from true reasoning thou farest.For what could hurt us now that mighty mawOf Nemeaean Lion, or what the BoarWho bristled in Arcadia? Or, again,O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pestOf Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous?Or what the triple-breasted power of herThe three-fold Geryon…The sojourners in the Stymphalian fensSo dreadfully offend us, or the SteedsOf Thracian Diomedes breathing fireFrom out their nostrils off along the zonesBistonian and Ismarian? And the Snake,The dread fierce gazer, guardian of the goldenAnd gleaming apples of the Hesperides,Coiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk,O what, again, could he inflict on usAlong the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea?—Where neither one of us approacheth nighNor no barbarian ventures. And the restOf all those monsters slain, even if alive,Unconquered still, what injury could they do?None, as I guess. For so the glutted earthSwarms even now with savage beasts, even nowIs filled with anxious terrors through the woodsAnd mighty mountains and the forest deeps—Quarters ’tis ours in general to avoid.But lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then,What perils, must bosom, in our own despite!O then how great and keen the cares of lustThat split the man distraught! How great the fears!And lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness—How great the slaughters in their train! and lo,Debaucheries and every breed of sloth!Therefore that man who subjugated these,And from the mind expelled, by words indeed,Not arms, O shall it not be seemly himTo dignify by ranking with the gods?—And all the more since he was wont to give,Concerning the immortal gods themselves,Many pronouncements with a tongue divine,And to unfold by his pronouncements allThe nature of the world.