第15章

Be't that something in-from-outward works, Be't that something in the body born Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite;Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl Disordered in the body and confound By tumult and confusion all the sense-As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.

On which account, the elemental forms Must differ widely, as enabled thus To cause diverse sensations.

And, again, What seems to us the hardened and condensed Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked, Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere By branch-like atoms- of which sort the chief Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows, And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron, And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks, Do grate and scream.But what are liquid, formed Of fluid body, they indeed must be Of elements more smooth and round- because Their globules severally will not cohere:

To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand Is quite as easy as drinking water down, And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.

But that thou seest among the things that flow Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is, Is not the least a marvel...

For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein;Yet need not these be held together hooked:

In fact, though rough, they're globular besides, Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.

And that the more thou mayst believe me here, That with smooth elements are mixed the rough (Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes), There is a means to separate the twain, And thereupon dividedly to see How the sweet water, after filtering through So often underground, flows freshened forth Into some hollow; for it leaves above The primal germs of nauseating brine, Since cling the rough more readily in earth.

Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse Upon the instant- smoke, and cloud, and flame-Must not (even though not all of smooth and round)Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined, That thus they can, without together cleaving, So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.

Whatever we see...

Given to senses, that thou must perceive They're not from linked but pointed elements.

The which now having taught, I will go on To bind thereto a fact to this allied And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.

For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds Would have a body of infinite increase.

For in one seed, in one small frame of any, The shapes can't vary from one another much.

Assume, we'll say, that of three minim parts Consist the primal bodies, or add a few:

When, now, by placing all these parts of one At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights, Thou hast with every kind of shift found out What the aspect of shape of its whole body Each new arrangement gives, for what remains, If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes, New parts must then be added; follows next, If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes, That by like logic each arrangement still Requires its increment of other parts.

Ergo, an augmentation of its frame Follows upon each novelty of forms.

Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake That seeds have infinite differences in form, Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be Of an immeasurable immensity-Which I have taught above cannot be proved.......

And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye Of the Thessalian shell...

The peacock's golden generations, stained With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown By some new colour of new things more bright;The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised;The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns, Once modulated on the many chords, Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute:

For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest, Would be arising evermore.So, too, Into some baser part might all retire, Even as we said to better might they come:

For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue, Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.

Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given Their fixed limitations which do bound Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes Does differ.Again, from earth's midsummer heats Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year The forward path is fixed, and by like law O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.

For each degree of hot, and each of cold, And the half-warm, all filling up the sum In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there Betwixt the two extremes: the things create Must differ, therefore, by a finite change, Since at each end marked off they ever are By fixed point- on one side plagued by flames And on the other by congealing frosts.

The which now having taught, I will go on To bind thereto a fact to this allied And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs Which have been fashioned all of one like shape Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms Themselves are finite in divergences, Then those which are alike will have to be Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains A finite- what I've proved is not the fact, Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff, From everlasting and to-day the same, Uphold the sum of things, all sides around By old succession of unending blows.

For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare, And mark'st in them a less prolific stock, Yet in another region, in lands remote, That kind abounding may make up the count;Even as we mark among the four-foot kind Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall With ivory ramparts India about, That her interiors cannot entered be-So big her count of brutes of which we see Such few examples.Or suppose, besides, We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole With body born, to which is nothing like In all the lands: yet now unless shall be An infinite count of matter out of which Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life, It cannot be created and- what's more-It cannot take its food and get increase.