The Infinity of the Universe
Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!And for myself, my mind is not deceivedHow dark it is: But the large hope of praiseHath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;On the same hour hath strook into my breastSweet 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 joyTo come on undefiled fountains there,To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,To seek for this my head a signal crownFrom regions where the Muses never yetHave garlanded the temples of a man:First, since I teach concerning mighty things,And go right on to loose from round the mindThe tightened coils of dread religion;Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frameSongs so pellucid, touching all throughoutEven with the Muses’ charm—which, as ‘twould seem,Is not without a reasonable ground:But as physicians, when they seek to giveYoung boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touchThe brim around the cup with the sweet juiceAnd yellow of the honey, in order thatThe thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoledAs far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow downThe wormwood’s bitter draught, and, though befooled,Be yet not merely duped, but rather thusGrow strong again with recreated health:So now I too (since this my doctrine seemsIn general somewhat woeful unto thoseWho’ve had it not in hand, and since the crowdStarts back from it in horror) have desiredTo expound our doctrine unto thee in songSoft-speaking and Pierian, and, as ‘twere,To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse—If by such method haply I might holdThe 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 that bodies of matter, madeCompletely solid, hither and thither flyForevermore unconquered through all time,Now come, and whether to the sum of themThere be a limit or be none, for theeLet us unfold; likewise what has been foundTo be the wide inane, or room, or spaceWherein all things soever do go on,Let us examine if it finite beAll and entire, or reach unmeasured roundAnd downward an illimitable profound.
Thus, then, the All that is is limitedIn no one region of its onward paths,For then ‘tmust have forever its beyond.And a beyond ’tis seen can never beFor aught, unless still further on there beA somewhat somewhere that may bound the same—So that the thing be seen still on to whereThe nature of sensation of that thingCan follow it no longer. Now becauseConfess we must there’s naught beside the sum,There’s no beyond, and so it lacks all end.It matters nothing where thou post thyself,In whatsoever regions of the same;Even any place a man has set him downStill leaves about him the unbounded allOutward in all directions; or, supposingA moment the all of space finite to be,If some one farthest traveller runs forthUnto the extreme coasts and throws aheadA flying spear, is’t then thy wish to thinkIt goes, hurled off amain, to where ’twas sentAnd shoots afar, or that some object thereCan thwart and stop it? For the one or otherThou must admit and take. Either of whichShuts off escape for thee, and does compelThat thou concede the all spreads everywhere,Owning no confines. Since whether there beAught that may block and check it so it comesNot where ’twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,Or whether borne along, in either view‘Thas started not from any end. And soI’ll follow on, and whereso’er thou setThe extreme coasts, I’ll query, “what becomesThereafter of thy spear?” ‘Twill come to passThat nowhere can a world’s-end be, and thatThe chance for further flight prolongs foreverThe flight itself. Besides, were all the spaceOf the totality and sum shut inWith fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,Then would the abundance of world’s matter flowTogether by solid weight from everywhereStill downward to the bottom of the world,Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,Nor could there be a sky at all or sun—Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,By having settled during infinite time.But in reality, repose is givenUnto no bodies ‘mongst the elements,Because there is no bottom whereuntoThey might, as ‘twere, together flow, and whereThey might take up their undisturbed abodes.In endless motion everything goes onForevermore; out of all regions, evenOut of the pit below, from forth the vast,Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.The nature of room, the space of the abyssIs such that even the flashing thunderboltsCan neither speed upon their courses through,Gliding across eternal tracts of time,Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,That they may bate their journeying one whit:Such huge abundance spreads for things around—Room off to every quarter, without end.Lastly, before our very eyes is seenThing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,And sea in turn all lands; but for the AllTruly is nothing which outside may bound.That, too, the sum of things itself may notHave power to fix a measure of its own,Great nature guards, she who compels the voidTo bound all body, as body all the void,Thus rendering by these alternates the wholeAn infinite; or else the one or other,Being unbounded by the other, spreads,Even by its single nature, ne’erthelessImmeasurably forth…Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of godsCould keep their place least portion of an hour:For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borneAlong the illimitable inane afar,Or rather, in fact, would ne’er have once combinedAnd given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,It could not be united. For of truthNeither by counsel did the primal germs‘Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,Each in its proper place; nor did they make,Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;But since, being many and changed in many modesAlong the All, they’re driven abroad and vexedBy blow on blow, even from all time of old,They thus at last, after attempting allThe kinds of motion and conjoining, comeInto those great arrangements out of whichThis sum of things established is create,By which, moreover, through the mighty years,It is preserved, when once it has been thrownInto the proper motions, bringing to passThat ever the streams refresh the greedy mainWith river-waves abounding, and that earth,Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,Renews her broods, and that the lusty raceOf breathing creatures bears and blooms, and thatThe gliding fires of ether are alive—What still the primal germs nowise could do,Unless from out the infinite of spaceCould come supply of matter, whence in seasonThey’re wont whatever losses to repair.For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,Losing its body, when deprived of food:So all things have to be dissolved as soonAs matter, diverted by what means soeverFrom off its course, shall fail to be on hand.Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,On every side, whatever sum of a worldHas been united in a whole. They canIndeed, by frequent beating, check a part,Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;But meanwhile often are they forced to springRebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,Unto those elements whence a world derives,Room and a time for flight, permitting themTo be from off the massy union borneFree and afar. Wherefore, again, again:Needs must there come a many for supply;And also, that the blows themselves shall beUnfailing ever, must there ever beAn infinite force of matter all sides round.
And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, farFrom yielding faith to that notorious talk:That all things inward to the centre press;And thus the nature of the world stands firmWith never blows from outward, nor can beNowhere disparted—since all height and depthHave always inward to the centre pressed(If thou art ready to believe that aughtItself can rest upon itself ); or thatThe ponderous bodies which be under earthDo all press upwards and do come to restUpon the earth, in some way upside down,Like to those images of things we seeAt present through the waters. They contend,With like procedure, that all breathing thingsHead downward roam about, and yet cannotTumble from earth to realms of sky below,No more than these our bodies wing awaySpontaneously 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 skyThey thus alternately divide, and thusDo pass the night coequal to our days,But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,Which they’ve embraced with reasoning perverseFor centre none can be where world is stillBoundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,Could aught take there a fixed position moreThan for some other cause ‘tmight be dislodged.For all of room and space we call the voidMust both through centre and non-centre yieldAlike 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 voidFurnish support to any,—nay, it must,True to its bent of nature, still give way.Thus in such manner not at all can thingsBe held in union, as if overcomeBy craving for a centre.
But besides,Seeing they feign that not all bodies pressTo centre inward, rather only thoseOf 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 teachHow 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 boughsUpon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,Unless, little by little, from out the earthFor each were nutriment…
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 burstAnd splinter upward, and the earth forthwithWithdraw 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, naughtOf wrack and remnant would be left, besideThe desolate space, and germs invisible.For on whatever side thou deemest firstThe primal bodies lacking, lo, that sideWill 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.