The World Is Not Eternal
And first,Since body of earth and water, air’s light breath,And fiery exhalations (of which fourThis sum of things is seen to be compact)So all have birth and perishable frame,Thus the whole nature of the world itselfMust be conceived as perishable too.For, verily, those things of which we seeThe parts and members to have birth in timeAnd perishable shapes, those same we markTo be invariably born in timeAnd born to die. And therefore when I seeThe mightiest members and the parts of thisOur world consumed and begot again,’Tis mine to know that also sky aboveAnd earth beneath began of old in timeAnd shall in time go under to disaster.
And lest in these affairs thou deemest meTo have seized upon this point by sleight to serveMy own caprice—because I have assumedThat earth and fire are mortal things indeed,And have not doubted water and the airBoth perish too and have affirmed the sameTo be again begotten and wax big—Mark well the argument: in first place, lo,Some certain parts of earth, grievously parchedBy unremitting suns, and trampled onBy a vast throng of feet, exhale abroadA powdery haze and flying clouds of dust,Which the stout winds disperse in the whole air.A part, moreover, of her sod and soilIs summoned to inundation by the rains;And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.Besides, whatever takes a part its ownIn fostering and increasing [aught]…
Is rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt,Earth, the all-mother, is beheld to beLikewise the common sepulchre of things,Therefore thou seest her minished of her plenty,And then again augmented with new growth.
And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springsForever with new waters overflow,And that perennially the fluids well,Needeth no words—the mighty flux itselfOf multitudinous waters round aboutDeclareth this. But whatso water firstStreams up is ever straightway carried off,And thus it comes to pass that all in allThere is no overflow; in part becauseThe burly winds (that over-sweep amain)And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)Do minish the level seas; in part becauseThe water is diffused undergroundThrough all the lands. The brine is filtered off,And then the liquid stuff seeps back againAnd all regathers at the river-heads,Whence in fresh-water currents on it flowsOver the lands, adown the channels whichWere cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore alongThe liquid-footed floods.
Now, then, of airI’ll speak, which hour by hour in all its bodyIs changed innumerably. For whatso’erStreams up in dust or vapour off of things,The same is all and always borne alongInto the mighty ocean of the air;And did not air in turn restore to thingsBodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,All things by this time had resolved beenAnd changed into air. Therefore it neverCeases to be engendered off of thingsAnd to return to things, since verilyIn constant flux do all things stream.
Likewise,The abounding well-spring of the liquid light,The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o’erWith constant flux of radiance ever new,And with fresh light supplies the place of light,Upon the instant. For whatever effulgenceHath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,Is lost unto the sun. And this ’tis thineTo know from these examples: soon as cloudsHave first begun to under-pass the sun,And, as it were, to rend the rays of lightIn twain, at once the lower part of themIs lost entire, and earth is overcastWhere’er the thunderheads are rolled along—So know thou mayst that things forever needA fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwiseCan things be seen in sunlight, lest alwayThe fountain-head of light supply new light.Indeed your earthly beacons of the night,The hanging lampions and the torches, brightWith darting gleams and dense with livid soot,Do hurry in like manner to supplyWith ministering heat new light amain;Are all alive to quiver with their fires,—Are so alive, that thus the light ne’er leavesThe spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:So speedily is its destruction veiledBy the swift birth of flame from all the fires.Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moonAnd stars dart forth their light from under-birthsEver and ever new, and whatso flamesFirst rise do perish always one by one—Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endureInviolable.
Again, perceivest notHow stones are also conquered by Time?—Not how the lofty towers ruin down,And boulders crumble?—Not how shrines of godsAnd idols crack outworn?—Nor how indeedThe holy Influence hath yet no powerThere to postpone the Terminals of Fate,Or headway make ’gainst Nature’s fixed decrees?Again, behold we not the monumentsOf heroes, now in ruins, asking us,In their turn likewise, if we don’t believeThey also age with eld? Behold we notThe rended basalt ruining amainDown from the lofty mountains, powerlessTo dure and dree the mighty forces thereOf finite time?—for they would never fallRended asudden, if from infinite PastThey had prevailed against all engin’riesOf the assaulting aeons, with no crash.
Again, now look at This, which round, above,Contains the whole earth in its one embrace:If from itself it procreates all things—As some men tell—and takes them to itselfWhen once destroyed, entirely must it beOf mortal birth and body; for whate’erFrom out itself giveth to other thingsIncrease and food, the same perforce must beMinished, and then recruited when it takesThings back into itself.
Besides all this,If there had been no origin-in-birthOf lands and sky, and they had ever beenThe everlasting, why, ere Theban warAnd obsequies of Troy, have other bardsNot also chanted other high affairs?Whither have sunk so oft so many deedsOf heroes? Why do those deeds live no more,Ingrafted in eternal monumentsOf glory? Verily, I guess, becauseThe Sum is new, and of a recent dateThe nature of our universe, and hadNot long ago its own exordium.Wherefore, even now some arts are being stillRefined, still increased: now unto shipsIs being added many a new device;And but the other day musician-folkGave birth to melic sounds of organing;And, then, this nature, this account of thingsHath been discovered latterly, and IMyself have been discovered only now,As first among the first, able to turnThe same into ancestral Roman speech.Yet if, percase, thou deemest that ere thisExisted all things even the same, but thatPerished the cycles of the human raceIn fiery exhalations, or cities fellBy some tremendous quaking of the world,Or rivers in fury, after constant rains,Had plunged forth across the lands of earthAnd whelmed the towns—then, all the more must thouConfess, defeated by the argument,That there shall be annihilation tooOf lands and sky. For at a time when thingsWere being taxed by maladies so great,And so great perils, if some cause more fellHad then assailed them, far and wide they wouldHave gone to disaster and supreme collapse.And by no other reasoning are weSeen to be mortal, save that all of usSicken in turn with those same maladiesWith which have sickened in the past those menWhom nature hath removed from life.
*****gain,Whatever abides eternal must indeedEither repel all strokes, because ’tis madeOf solid body, and permit no entranceOf aught with power to sunder from withinThe parts compact—as are those seeds of stuffWhose nature we’ve exhibited before;Or else be able to endure through timeFor this: because they are from blows exempt,As is the void, the which abides untouched,Unsmit by any stroke; or else becauseThere is no room around, whereto things can,As ‘twere, depart in dissolution all,—Even as the sum of sums eternal is,Without or place beyond whereto things mayAsunder fly, or bodies which can smite,And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.But not of solid body, as I’ve shown,Exists the nature of the world, becauseIn things is intermingled there a void;Nor is the world yet as the void, nor are,Moreover, bodies lacking which, percase,Rising from out the infinite, can fellWith fury-whirlwinds all this sum of things,Or bring upon them other cataclysmOf peril strange; and yonder, too, abidesThe infinite space and the profound abyss—Whereinto, lo, the ramparts of the worldCan yet be shivered. Or some other powerCan pound upon them till they perish all.Thus is the door of doom, O nowise barredAgainst the sky, against the sun and earthAnd deep-sea waters, but wide open standsAnd gloats upon them, monstrous and agape.Wherefore, again, ’tis needful to confessThat these same things are born in time; for thingsWhich are of mortal body could indeedNever from infinite past until to-dayHave spurned the multitudinous assaultsOf the immeasurable aeons old.
Again, since battle so fiercely one with otherThe four most mighty members the world,Aroused in an all unholy war,Seest not that there may be for them an endOf the long strife?—Or when the skiey sunAnd all the heat have won dominion o’erThe sucked-up waters all?—And this they tryStill to accomplish, though as yet they fail,—For so aboundingly the streams supplyNew store of waters that ’tis rather theyWho menace the world with inundations vastFrom forth the unplumbed chasms of the sea.But vain—since winds (that over-sweep amain)And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)Do minish the level seas and trust their powerTo dry up all, before the waters canArrive at the end of their endeavouring.Breathing such vasty warfare, they contendIn balanced strife the one with other stillConcerning mighty issues,—though indeedThe fire was once the more victorious,And once—as goes the tale—the water wonA kingdom in the fields. For fire o’ermasteredAnd licked up many things and burnt away,What time the impetuous horses of the SunSnatched Phaethon headlong from his skiey roadDown the whole ether and over all the lands.But the omnipotent Father in keen wrathThen with the sudden smite of thunderboltDid hurl the mighty-minded hero offThose horses to the earth. And Sol, his sire,Meeting him as he fell, caught up in handThe ever-blazing lampion of the world,And drave together the pell-mell horses thereAnd yoked them all a-tremble, and amain,Steering them over along their own old road,Restored the cosmos,—as forsooth we hearFrom songs of ancient poets of the Greeks—A tale too far away from truth, meseems.For fire can win when from the infiniteHas risen a larger throng of particlesOf fiery stuff; and then its powers succumb,Somehow subdued again, or else at lastIt shrivels in torrid atmospheres the world.And whilom water too began to win—As goes the story—when it overwhelmedThe lives of men with billows; and thereafter,When all that force of water-stuff which forthFrom out the infinite had risen upDid now retire, as somehow turned aside,The rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.