Moreover, if there never was a time
Of origin when earth and heaven were born,
If they have always been from everlasting,
Why then before the Theban war and Troy’s
Destruction, have not other poets sung
Of other deeds as well? Whither have vanished
So many exploits of so many men?
Why are they nowhere blossoming engrafted
On the eternal monuments of fame?
But in truth, as I think, this sum of things
Is in its youth: the nature of the world
Is recent, and began not long ago.
Wherefore even now some arts are being wrought
To their last polish, some are still in growth.
Of late many improvements have been made
In navigation, and musicians too
Have given birth to new melodious sounds.
Also this theory of the nature of things
Has been discovered lately, and I myself
Have only now been found the very first
Able to turn it into our native words.
Nevertheless, if you perchance believe
That long ago these things were just the same,
But that the generations of mankind
Perished by scorching heat, or that their cities
Fell in some great convulsion of the world,
Or else that flooded by incessant rains
Devouring rivers broke forth over the earth
And swallowed up whole towns, so much the more
Must you admit that there will come to pass
A like destruction of earth and heaven too.
For when things were assailed by such great maladies
And dangers, if some yet more fatal cause
Had whelmed them, they would then have been dissolved
In havoc and vast ruin far and wide.
And in no other way do we perceive
That we are mortal, save that we all alike
In turn fall sick of the same maladies
As those whom Nature has withdrawn from life.

Again, whatever things abide eternally,
Must either, because they are of solid body,
Repulse assaults, nor suffer anything
To penetrate them, which might have the power
To disunite the close-locked parts within:
(Such are those bodies whereof matter is made,
Whose nature we have shown before:) or else
They must be able to endure throughout
All time, because they are exempt from blows,
As void is, which abides untouched, nor suffers
One whit from any stroke: or else because
There is no further space surrounding them,
Into which things might as it were depart
And be dissolved; even as the sum of sums
Is eternal, nor is there any space
Outside it, into which its particles
Might spring asunder, nor are there other bodies
That could strike and dissolve them with strong blows.
But neither, as I have shown, is this world’s nature
Solid, since there is void mixed up in things;
Nor yet is it like void; nor verily
Are atoms lacking that might well collect
Out of the infinite, and overwhelm
This sum of things with violent hurricane,
Or threaten it with some other form of ruin;
Nor further is there any want of room
And of deep space, into which the world’s walls
Might be dispersed abroad; or they may perish
Shattered by any other force you will.
Therefore the gates of death are never closed
Against sky, sun or earth, or the deep seas;
But they stand open, awaiting them with huge
Vast-gaping jaws. So you must needs admit
That all these likewise once were born: for things
Of mortal body could not until now
Through infinite past ages have defied
The strong powers of immeasurable time.

Again, since the chief members of the world
So mightily contend together, stirred
By unhallowed civil warfare, see you not
That some end may be set to their long strife?
It may be when the sun and every kind
Of heat shall have drunk all the moisture up,
And gained the mastery they were struggling for,
Though they have failed as yet to achieve their aim:
So vast are the supplies the rivers bring,
Threatening in turn to deluge every land
From out the deep abysses of the ocean;
All in vain, since the winds, sweeping the seas,
Diminish them, and the sun in heaven unweaves
Their fabric with his rays; and ’tis their boast
That they are able to dry all things up,
Before moisture can achieve its end.
So terrible a war do they breathe out
On equal terms, striving one with another
For mighty issues: though indeed fire once
Obtained the mastery, so the fable tells,
And water once reigned supreme in the fields.
For fire prevailing licked up and consumed
Many things, when the ungovernable might
Of the Sun’s horses, swerving from their course,
Through the whole sky and over every land
Whirled PhaËthon. But then the almighty Father,
Stirred to fierce wrath, with sudden thunder-stroke
Dashed great-souled PhaËthon from his team to the earth,
And as he fell the Sun-god meeting him
Caught from him the world’s everlasting lamp,
And brought back tamed and trembling to the yoke
The scattered steeds; then on their wonted course
Guiding them, unto all things gave fresh life.
Thus verily the old From one condition to another: nothing
Continues like itself. All is in flux:
Nature is ever changing and compelling
All that exists to alter. For one thing
Moulders and wastes away grown weak with age,
And then another comes forth into light,
Issuing from obscurity. So thus Time
Changes the whole world’s nature, and the Earth
Passes from one condition to another:
So that what once it bore it can no longer,
And now can bear what it did not before.

And many monsters too did the Earth essay
To produce in those days, creatures arising
With marvellous face and limbs, the Hermaphrodite,
A thing of neither sex, between the two,
Differing from both: some things deprived of feet;
Others again with no hands; others dumb
Without mouths, or else blind for lack of eyes,
Or bound by limbs that everywhere adhered
Fast to their bodies, so that they could perform
No function, nor go anywhere, nor shun
Danger, nor take what their need might require.
Many such monstrous prodigies did Earth
Produce, in vain, since Nature banned their increase,
Nor could they reach the coveted flower of age,
Nor find food, nor be joined in bonds of love.
For we see numerous conditions first
Must meet together, before living things
Can beget and perpetuate their kind.
First they must have food, then a means by which
The seeds of birth may stream throughout the frame
From the relaxed limbs; also that the male
And female may unite, they must have that
Whereby each may exchange mutual joys.

And many breeds of creatures in those days
Must have died out, being powerless to beget
And perpetuate their kind. For those which now
You see breathing the breath of life, ’tis craft,
Or courage, or else speed, that from its origin
Must have protected and preserved each race.
Moreover many by their usefulness
Commended to us, continue to exist
Favoured by our protection. The fierce breed
Of lions first, and the other savage beasts,
Their courage has preserved, foxes their craft,
Stags their swift flight. But the light-slumbering hearts
Of faithful dogs, and the whole family
Born from the seed of burden-bearing beasts,
Also the woolly flocks and horned herds,
All these by man’s protection are preserved.
For their desire has always been to shun
Wild beasts and to live peaceably, supplied
Without toil of their own with food in plenty,
Which to reward their services we give them.
But those whom Nature has not thus endowed
With power either to live by their own means
Or else to render us such useful service
That in return we allow their race to feed
And dwell in safety beneath our guardianship,
All these, ’tis plain, would lie exposed a prey
To others, trammelled in their own fatal bonds,
Till Nature had extinguished that whole kind.

But Centaurs there have never been, nor yet
Ever can things exist of twofold nature
And double body moulded into one
From limbs of alien kind, whose faculties
And functions cannot be on either side
Sufficiently alike. That this is so,
The dullest intellect may be thus convinced.
Consider first that a horse after three years
Is in his flower of vigour, but a boy
By no means so: for often in sleep even then
Will he seek milk still from his mother’s breasts
Afterwards, when the horse’s lusty strength
Fails him in old age, and his limbs grow languid
As life ebbs, then first for a boy begins
The flowering time of youth, and clothes his cheeks
With soft down. Do not then believe that ever
From man’s and burden-bearing horse’s seed
Centaurs can be compounded and have being;
Nor yet Scyllas with half-fish bodies girdled
With raging dogs, and other suchlike things,
Whose limbs we see discordant with themselves,
Since neither do they reach their flower together,
Nor acquire bodily strength, nor in old age
Lose it at the same time: dissimilar
In each the love that burns them, and their modes
Of life incongruous: nor do the same things give
Their bodies pleasure. Thus we may often see
Bearded goats thrive on hemlock, which for man
Is virulent poison. Since moreover flame
Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies
Of lions no less than every other kind
Of flesh and blood on earth, how could it be
That one, yet with a triple body, in front
A lion, behind a serpent, in the midst
Its goat’s self, a Chimaera should breathe forth
From such a body fierce flame at the mouth?
Therefore he who can fable that when earth
Was new and the sky young, such animals
Could have been propagated, resting alone
Upon this vain term, newness, he no doubt
Will babble out many follies in like fashion,
Will say that rivers then throughout the earth
Commonly flowed with gold, that trees were wont
To bloom with jewels, or that man was born
Of such huge bulk and force that he could wade
With giant strides across deep seas and turn
The whole heaven round about him with his hands.
For the fact that there were many seeds of things
Within the earth at that time when it first
Shed living creatures forth, is yet no proof
That beasts could have been born of mingled kinds,
Or limbs of different animals joined together;
Because the various families of plants,
The crops and thriving trees, which even now
Teem upward from the soil luxuriantly,
Can yet never be born woven together;
But each thing has its own process of growth:
Method of tilling their loved piece of land,
And so could watch how kindly fostering culture
Helped the earth to improve its own wild fruits.
And they would force the forests day by day
To retreat higher up the mountain-sides
And yield the ground below to husbandry,
That so meadows and ponds, rivulets, crops,
And glad vineyards might cover hill and plain,
While grey-green boundary strips of olive trees
Might run between the fields, stretching far out
O’er hillock, valley and plain; as now we see
Whole countrysides glowing with varied beauty,
Adorned with rows of sweet fruit-bearing trees,
And enclosed round about with joyous groves.

But the art of imitating with their mouths
The liquid notes of birds, came long before
Men could delight their ears by singing words
To smooth tunes; and the whistlings of the zephyr
In hollow reeds first taught the husbandman
To blow through hollow stalks. Then by degrees
They learnt those sweet sad ditties, which the pipe,
Touched by the fingers of the melodist,
Pours forth, such as are heard ’mid pathless woods,
Forests and glades, or in the lonely haunts
Of shepherds, and the abodes of magic calm.
Thus would they soothe and gratify their minds,
When satiate with food; for all such things
Give pleasure then. So often, couched together
On the soft grass, beside a waterbrook
Beneath a tall tree’s boughs, at no great cost
They would regale their bodies joyously,
At those times chiefly when the weather smiled,
And the year’s seasons painted the green herbage
With flowers. Then went round the jest, the tale,
The merry laugh, for then the rustic muse
Was in full force: then frolick jollity
Would prompt them to enwreathe their heads and shoulders
With plaited garlands woven of flowers and leaves,
Or dancing out of measure to move their limbs
Clumsily, and with clumsy foot to beat
Their mother earth; whence smiles and jovial laughter
Would rise; since the more novel then and strange
All such sports seemed, the more they were admired.
And they would find a salve for wakefulness
In giving voice to many varied tones
Of winding melody, running with curved lip
Over the reed-pipes: and from them this custom
Is handed down to watchmen nowadays,
Who, though they have better learnt to observe time,
Yet not one whit more pleasure do they enjoy
Than once that silvan race of earth-born men.
For what is present, if we have never known
Anything more delightful, gives us pleasure
Beyond all else, and seems to be the best;
But if some better thing be afterwards
Discovered, this will often spoil for us all
That pleased us once, and change our feelings towards it.
Thus it was acorns came to be disliked:
Thus were abandoned those beds of strewn grass
And heaped leaves: the dress too of wild beast’s skin
Fell thus into contempt. Yet I suppose
That when it was invented it would rouse
Such envy, that the man who wore it first
Would be waylaid and slain: yet after all
It would be torn to pieces among the thieves
And with much bloodshed utterly destroyed,
So that it never could be turned to use.
Therefore skins then, now gold and purple vex
Men’s lives with cares and wear them out with war.
And here, I think, the greater guilt is ours;
For the cold would torment these earth-born men
Naked without their skins; but us no harm
Whatever can it cause to go without
A purple robe broidered with large designs
In gold thread, so we have but on our backs
A plain plebeian cloak to keep us warm.
Therefore mankind is always toiling vainly,
Fruitlessly wasting life in empty cares,
Doubtless because they will not recognise
The limits of possession, nor the bounds
Beyond which no true pleasure can increase.
And so by slow degrees this ignorance
Has carried life out into the deep seas,
And from the bottom stirred up war’s huge waves.

But those vigilant watchers, sun and moon,
That circling round illumine with their light
The vast revolving temple of the sky,
Taught mankind how the seasons of the year
Return, and how all things are brought to pass
According to fixed system and fixed law.

And now men dwelt securely fenced about
By strong towers, and the land was portioned out
And marked off to be tilled. Already now
The sea was white with flitting sails, and towns
Were joined in league of friendship and alliance.
Then first poets made record in their songs
Of men’s deeds: for not long before this time
Letters had been invented. For which cause
Our age cannot look backward to things past,
Save where reason reveals some evidence.

Shipping and agriculture, city-walls,
Laws, arms, roads, robes and other suchlike things,
Moreover all life’s prizes and refinements,
Poems and pictures, and the chiselling
Of fine-wrought statues, every one of these
Long practice and the untiring mind’s experience
Taught men by slow degrees, as they progressed
Step after step. Thus time little by little
Brings forth each several thing, and reason lifts it
Into the borders of the light; for first
One thing and then another must in turn
Rise from obscurity, until each art
Attains its highest pitch of excellence.