Of stir and motion; nay, would then have been
  Nowise begot at all, since matter, then,
  Had staid at rest, its parts together crammed.
  Then too, however solid objects seem,
  They yet are formed of matter mixed with void:
  In rocks and caves the watery moisture seeps,
  And beady drops stand out like plenteous tears;
  And food finds way through every frame that lives;
  The trees increase and yield the season's fruit
  Because their food throughout the whole is poured,
  Even from the deepest roots, through trunks and boughs;
  And voices pass the solid walls and fly
  Reverberant through shut doorways of a house;
  And stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.
  Which but for voids for bodies to go through
  'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.
  Again, why see we among objects some
  Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size:
  Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be
  As much of body as in lump of lead,
  The two should weigh alike, since body tends
  To load things downward, while the void abides,
  By contrary nature, the imponderable.
  Therefore, an object just as large but lighter
  Declares infallibly its more of void;
  Even as the heavier more of matter shows,
  And how much less of vacant room inside.
  That which we're seeking with sagacious quest
  Exists, infallibly, commixed with things-
  The void, the invisible inane.
                                 Right here
  I am compelled a question to expound,
  Forestalling something certain folk suppose,
  Lest it avail to lead thee off from truth:
  Waters (they say) before the shining breed
  Of the swift scaly creatures somehow give,
  And straightway open sudden liquid paths,
  Because the fishes leave behind them room
  To which at once the yielding billows stream.
  Thus things among themselves can yet be moved,
  And change their place, however full the Sum-
  Received opinion, wholly false forsooth.
  For where can scaly creatures forward dart,
  Save where the waters give them room? Again,
  Where can the billows yield a way, so long
  As ever the fish are powerless to go?
  Thus either all bodies of motion are deprived,
  Or things contain admixture of a void
  Where each thing gets its start in moving on.
    Lastly, where after impact two broad bodies
  Suddenly spring apart, the air must crowd
  The whole new void between those bodies formed;
  But air, however it stream with hastening gusts,
  Can yet not fill the gap at once- for first
  It makes for one place, ere diffused through all.
  And then, if haply any think this comes,
  When bodies spring apart, because the air
  Somehow condenses, wander they from truth:
  For then a void is formed, where none before;
  And, too, a void is filled which was before.
  Nor can air be condensed in such a wise;
  Nor, granting it could, without a void, I hold,
  It still could not contract upon itself
  And draw its parts together into one.
  Wherefore, despite demur and counter-speech,
  Confess thou must there is a void in things.

    And still I might by many an argument
  Here scrape together credence for my words.
  But for the keen eye these mere footprints serve,
  Whereby thou mayest know the rest thyself.
  As dogs full oft with noses on the ground,
  Find out the silent lairs, though hid in brush,
  Of beasts, the mountain-rangers, when but once
  They scent the certain footsteps of the way,
  Thus thou thyself in themes like these alone
  Can hunt from thought to thought, and keenly wind
  Along even onward to the secret places
  And drag out truth. But, if thou loiter loth
  Or veer, however little, from the point,
  This I can promise, Memmius, for a fact:
  Such copious drafts my singing tongue shall pour
  From the large well-springs of my plenished breast
  That much I dread slow age will steal and coil
  Along our members, and unloose the gates
  Of life within us, ere for thee my verse
  Hath put within thine ears the stores of proofs
  At hand for one soever question broached.
         NOTHING EXISTS per se EXCEPT ATOMS
                   AND THE VOID

    But, now again to weave the tale begun,
  All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
  Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
  In which they're set, and where they're moved around.
  For common instinct of our race declares
  That body of itself exists: unless
  This primal faith, deep-founded, fail us not,
  Naught will there be whereunto to appeal
  On things occult when seeking aught to prove