50 BC
                            ON THE NATURE OF THINGS
                            by Titus Lucretius Carus
                      Translated by William Ellery Leonard
                                     BOOK I
                    PROEM

  Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
  Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
  Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
  And fruitful lands- for all of living things
  Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
  Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
  Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
  Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
  For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
  For thee waters of the unvexed deep
  Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
  Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
  For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
  And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
  First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
  Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
  And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
  Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
  Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
  Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
  And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
  Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
  Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
  Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
  Kind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone
  Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
  Is risen to reach the shining shores of light,
  Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
  Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
  Which I presume on Nature to compose
  For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
  Peerless in every grace at every hour-
  Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words
  Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
  O'er sea and land the savage works of war,
  For thou alone hast power with public peace
  To aid mortality; since he who rules
  The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
  How often to thy bosom flings his strength
  O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love-
  And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
  Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
  Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
  Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined
  Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
  Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
  Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!
  For in a season troublous to the state
  Neither may I attend this task of mine
  With thought untroubled, nor mid such events
  The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
  Neglect the civic cause.
                           Whilst human kind
  Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
  Before all eyes beneath Religion- who
  Would show her head along the region skies,
  Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-
  A Greek it was who first opposing dared
  Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
  Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
  Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
  Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
  His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
  The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
  And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
  And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
  The flaming ramparts of the world, until
  He wandered the unmeasurable All.
  Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
  What things can rise to being, what cannot,
  And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
  Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
  Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
  And us his victory now exalts to heaven.
    I know how hard it is in Latian verse
  To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
  Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find
  Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;
  Yet worth of thine and the expected joy
  Of thy sweet friendship do persuade me on
  To bear all toil and wake the clear nights through,
  Seeking with what of words and what of song
  I may at last most gloriously uncloud
  For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view
  The core of being at the centre hid.
  And for the rest, summon to judgments true,
  Unbusied ears and singleness of mind
  Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged
  For thee with eager service, thou disdain
  Before thou comprehendest: since for thee
  I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky,
  And the primordial germs of things unfold,
  Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies