第10章

For, driven apart from out its meetings fit, The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne Along the illimitable inane afar, Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide, It could not be united.For of truth Neither 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 modes Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed By blow on blow, even from all time of old, They thus at last, after attempting all The kinds of motion and conjoining, come Into those great arrangements out of which This sum of things established is create, By which, moreover, through the mighty years, It is preserved, when once it has been thrown Into the proper motions, bringing to pass That ever the streams refresh the greedy main With river-waves abounding, and that earth, Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun, Renews her broods, and that the lusty race Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that The gliding fires of ether are alive-What still the primal germs nowise could do, Unless from out the infinite of space Could come supply of matter, whence in season They'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 soon As matter, diverted by what means soever From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.

Nor can the blows from outward still conserve, On every side, whatever sum of a world Has been united in a whole.They can Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part, Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;But meanwhile often are they forced to spring Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield, Unto those elements whence a world derives, Room and a time for flight, permitting them To be from off the massy union borne Free and afar.Wherefore, again, again:

Needs must there come a many for supply;

And also, that the blows themselves shall be Unfailing ever, must there ever be An infinite force of matter all sides round.

And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far From yielding faith to that notorious talk:

That all things inward to the centre press;And thus the nature of the world stands firm With never blows from outward, nor can be Nowhere disparted- since all height and depth Have always inward to the centre pressed (If thou art ready to believe that aught Itself can rest upon itself ); or that The ponderous bodies which be under earth Do all press upwards and do come to rest Upon the earth, in some way upside down, Like to those images of things we see At present through the waters.They contend, With like procedure, that all breathing things Head downward roam about, and yet cannot Tumble from earth to realms of sky below, No more than these our bodies wing away Spontaneously 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 sky They thus alternately divide, and thus Do pass the night coequal to our days, But a vain error has given these dreams to fools, Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse For centre none can be where world is still Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were, Could aught take there a fixed position more Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

For all of room and space we call the void Must both through centre and non-centre yield Alike 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 void Furnish support to any,- nay, it must, True to its bent of nature, still give way.

Thus in such manner not at all can things Be held in union, as if overcome By craving for a centre.

But besides, Seeing they feign that not all bodies press To centre inward, rather only those Of 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 teach How 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 boughs Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves, Unless, little by little, from out the earth For 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 burst And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith Withdraw 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, naught Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside The desolate space, and germs invisible.

For on whatever side thou deemest first The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side Will 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.