BOOK IV

BOOK IV

PROEM

 I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,
 Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,
 Trodden by step of none before. I joy
 To come on undefiled fountains there,
 To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,
 To seek for this my head a signal crown
 From regions where the Muses never yet
 Have garlanded the temples of a man:
 First, since I teach concerning mighty things,
 And go right on to loose from round the mind
 The tightened coils of dread religion;
 Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame
 Song so pellucid, touching all throughout
 Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem,
 Is not without a reasonable ground:
 For as physicians, when they seek to give
 Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch
 The brim around the cup with the sweet juice
 And yellow of the honey, in order that
 The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled
 As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down
 The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,
 Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus
 Grow strong again with recreated health:
 So now I too (since this my doctrine seems
 In general somewhat woeful unto those
 Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd
 Starts back from it in horror) have desired
 To expound our doctrine unto thee in song
 Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,
 To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse--
 If by such method haply I might hold
 The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,
 Till thou dost learn the nature of all things
 And understandest their utility.

EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES

 But since I've taught already of what sort
 The seeds of all things are, and how distinct
 In divers forms they flit of own accord,
 Stirred with a motion everlasting on,
 And in what mode things be from them create,
 And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,
 And of what things 'tis with the body knit
 And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn
 That mind returns to its primordials,
 Now will I undertake an argument--
 One for these matters of supreme concern--
 That there exist those somewhats which we call
 The images of things: these, like to films
 Scaled off the utmost outside of the things,
 Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere,
 And the same terrify our intellects,
 Coming upon us waking or in sleep,
 When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes
 And images of people lorn of light,
 Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay
 In slumber--that haply nevermore may we
 Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron,
 Or shades go floating in among the living,
 Or aught of us is left behind at death,
 When body and mind, destroyed together, each
 Back to its own primordials goes away.

 And thus I say that effigies of things,
 And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,
 From off the utmost outside of the things,
 Which are like films or may be named a rind,
 Because the image bears like look and form
 With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth--
 A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,
 Well learn from this: mainly, because we see
 Even 'mongst visible objects many be
 That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused--
 Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires--
 And some more interwoven and condensed--
 As when the locusts in the summertime
 Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves
 At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,
 Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs
 Its vestments 'mongst the thorns--for oft we see
 The breres augmented with their flying spoils:
 Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too
 That tenuous images from things are sent,
 From off the utmost outside of the things.
 For why those kinds should drop and part from things,
 Rather than others tenuous and thin,
 No power has man to open mouth to tell;
 Especially, since on outsides of things
 Are bodies many and minute which could,
 In the same order which they had before,
 And with the figure of their form preserved,
 Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,
 Being less subject to impediments,
 As few in number and placed along the front.
 For truly many things we see discharge
 Their stuff at large, not only from their cores
 Deep-set within, as we have said above,
 But from their surfaces at times no less--
 Their very colours too. And commonly
 The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,
 Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,
 Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,
 Have such an action quite; for there they dye
 And make to undulate with their every hue
 The circled throng below, and all the stage,
 And rich attire in the patrician seats.
 And ever the more the theatre's dark walls
 Around them shut, the more all things within
 Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,
 The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since
 The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye
 From off their surface, things in general must
 Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,
 Because in either case they are off-thrown
 From off the surface. So there are indeed
 Such certain prints and vestiges of forms
 Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,
 Invisible, when separate, each and one.
 Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such
 Streams out of things diffusedly, because,
 Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth
 And rising out, along their bending path
 They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight
 Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.
 But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film
 Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught
 Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front
 Ready to hand. Lastly those images
 Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
 In water, or in any shining surface,
 Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
 Fashioned from images of things sent out.
 There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
 Like unto them, which no one can divine
 When taken singly, which do yet give back,
 When by continued and recurrent discharge
 Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
 Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
 So well conserved that thus be given back
 Figures so like each object.

                         Now then, learn
 How tenuous is the nature of an image.
 And in the first place, since primordials be
 So far beneath our senses, and much less
 E'en than those objects which begin to grow
 Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few
 How nice are the beginnings of all things--
 That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:
 First, living creatures are sometimes so small
 That even their third part can nowise be seen;
 Judge, then, the size of any inward organ--
 What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,
 The skeleton?--How tiny thus they are!
 And what besides of those first particles
 Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?--Seest not
 How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever
 Exhales from out its body a sharp smell--
 The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,
 Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury--
 If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain
 Perchance [thou touch] a one of them

 *****

 Then why not rather know that images
 Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,
 Bodiless and invisible?

                                  But lest
 Haply thou holdest that those images
 Which come from objects are the sole that flit,
 Others indeed there be of own accord
 Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,
 Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,
 Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,
 Cease not to change appearance and to turn
 Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;
 As we behold the clouds grow thick on high
 And smirch the serene vision of the world,
 Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen
 The giants' faces flying far along
 And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times
 The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks
 Going before and crossing on the sun,
 Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain
 And leading in the other thunderheads.
 Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be
 Engendered, and perpetually flow off
 From things and gliding pass away....

 *****

 For ever every outside streams away
 From off all objects, since discharge they may;
 And when this outside reaches other things,
 As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where
 It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,
 There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back
 An image. But when gleaming objects dense,
 As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,
 Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't
 Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent--its safety,
 By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.
 'Tis therefore that from them the images
 Stream back to us; and howso suddenly
 Thou place, at any instant, anything
 Before a mirror, there an image shows;
 Proving that ever from a body's surface
 Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.
 Thus many images in little time
 Are gendered; so their origin is named
 Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun
 Must send below, in little time, to earth
 So many beams to keep all things so full
 Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,
 From things there must be borne, in many modes,
 To every quarter round, upon the moment,
 The many images of things; because
 Unto whatever face of things we turn
 The mirror, things of form and hue the same
 Respond. Besides, though but a moment since
 Serenest was the weather of the sky,
 So fiercely sudden is it foully thick
 That ye might think that round about all murk
 Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
 The mighty vaults of sky--so grievously,
 As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night,
 Do faces of black horror hang on high--
 Of which how small a part an image is
 There's none to tell or reckon out in words.

 Now come; with what swift motion they are borne,
 These images, and what the speed assigned
 To them across the breezes swimming on--
 So that o'er lengths of space a little hour
 Alone is wasted, toward whatever region
 Each with its divers impulse tends--I'll tell
 In verses sweeter than they many are;
 Even as the swan's slight note is better far
 Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes
 Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first,
 One oft may see that objects which are light
 And made of tiny bodies are the swift;
 In which class is the sun's light and his heat,
 Since made from small primordial elements
 Which, as it were, are forward knocked along
 And through the interspaces of the air
 To pass delay not, urged by blows behind;
 For light by light is instantly supplied
 And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.
 Thus likewise must the images have power
 Through unimaginable space to speed
 Within a point of time,--first, since a cause
 Exceeding small there is, which at their back
 Far forward drives them and propels, where, too,
 They're carried with such winged lightness on;
 And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off,
 With texture of such rareness that they can
 Through objects whatsoever penetrate
 And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.
 Besides, if those fine particles of things
 Which from so deep within are sent abroad,
 As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide
 And spread themselves through all the space of heaven
 Upon one instant of the day, and fly
 O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then
 Of those which on the outside stand prepared,
 When they're hurled off with not a thing to check
 Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed
 How swifter and how farther must they go
 And speed through manifold the length of space
 In time the same that from the sun the rays
 O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be
 Example chief and true with what swift speed
 The images of things are borne about:
 That soon as ever under open skies
 Is spread the shining water, all at once,
 If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth,
 Serene and radiant in the water there,
 The constellations of the universe--
 Now seest thou not in what a point of time
 An image from the shores of ether falls
 Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,
 And yet again, 'tis needful to confess
 With wondrous...

 *****

THE SENSES AND MENTAL PICTURES

 Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
 From certain things flow odours evermore,
 As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray
 From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls
 Around the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit
 The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.
 Then too there comes into the mouth at times
 The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea
 We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch
 The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.
 To such degree from all things is each thing
 Borne streamingly along, and sent about
 To every region round; and nature grants
 Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,
 Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,
 And all the time are suffered to descry
 And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
 Besides, since shape examined by our hands
 Within the dark is known to be the same
 As that by eyes perceived within the light
 And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be
 By one like cause aroused. So, if we test
 A square and get its stimulus on us
 Within the dark, within the light what square
 Can fall upon our sight, except a square
 That images the things? Wherefore it seems
 The source of seeing is in images,
 Nor without these can anything be viewed.

 Now these same films I name are borne about
 And tossed and scattered into regions all.
 But since we do perceive alone through eyes,
 It follows hence that whitherso we turn
 Our sight, all things do strike against it there
 With form and hue. And just how far from us
 Each thing may be away, the image yields
 To us the power to see and chance to tell:
 For when 'tis sent, at once it shoves ahead
 And drives along the air that's in the space
 Betwixt it and our eyes. And thus this air
 All glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as 'twere,
 Brushes athrough our pupils and thuswise
 Passes across. Therefore it comes we see
 How far from us each thing may be away,
 And the more air there be that's driven before,
 And too the longer be the brushing breeze
 Against our eyes, the farther off removed
 Each thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work
 With mightily swift order all goes on,
 So that upon one instant we may see
 What kind the object and how far away.

 Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed
 In these affairs that, though the films which strike
 Upon the eyes cannot be singly seen,
 The things themselves may be perceived. For thus
 When the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke
 And when the sharp cold streams, 'tis not our wont
 To feel each private particle of wind
 Or of that cold, but rather all at once;
 And so we see how blows affect our body,
 As if one thing were beating on the same
 And giving us the feel of its own body
 Outside of us. Again, whene'er we thump
 With finger-tip upon a stone, we touch
 But the rock's surface and the outer hue,
 Nor feel that hue by contact--rather feel
 The very hardness deep within the rock.

 Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass
 An image may be seen, perceive. For seen
 It soothly is, removed far within.
 'Tis the same sort as objects peered upon
 Outside in their true shape, whene'er a door
 Yields through itself an open peering-place,
 And lets us see so many things outside
 Beyond the house. Also that sight is made
 By a twofold twin air: for first is seen
 The air inside the door-posts; next the doors,
 The twain to left and right; and afterwards
 A light beyond comes brushing through our eyes,
 Then other air, then objects peered upon
 Outside in their true shape. And thus, when first
 The image of the glass projects itself,
 As to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead
 And drives along the air that's in the space
 Betwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass
 That we perceive the air ere yet the glass.
 But when we've also seen the glass itself,
 Forthwith that image which from us is borne
 Reaches the glass, and there thrown back again
 Comes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls
 Ahead of itself another air, that then
 'Tis this we see before itself, and thus
 It looks so far removed behind the glass.
 Wherefore again, again, there's naught for wonder

 *****

 In those which render from the mirror's plane
 A vision back, since each thing comes to pass
 By means of the two airs. Now, in the glass
 The right part of our members is observed
 Upon the left, because, when comes the image
 Hitting against the level of the glass,
 'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off
 Backwards in line direct and not oblique,--
 Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask
 Should dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam,
 And it should straightway keep, at clinging there,
 Its shape, reversed, facing him who threw,
 And so remould the features it gives back:
 It comes that now the right eye is the left,
 The left the right. An image too may be
 From mirror into mirror handed on,
 Until of idol-films even five or six
 Have thus been gendered. For whatever things
 Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same,
 However far removed in twisting ways,
 May still be all brought forth through bending paths
 And by these several mirrors seen to be
 Within the house, since nature so compels
 All things to be borne backward and spring off
 At equal angles from all other things.
 To such degree the image gleams across
 From mirror unto mirror; where 'twas left
 It comes to be the right, and then again
 Returns and changes round unto the left.
 Again, those little sides of mirrors curved
 Proportionate to the bulge of our own flank
 Send back to us their idols with the right
 Upon the right; and this is so because
 Either the image is passed on along
 From mirror unto mirror, and thereafter,
 When twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves;
 Or else the image wheels itself around,
 When once unto the mirror it has come,
 Since the curved surface teaches it to turn
 To usward. Further, thou might'st well believe
 That these film-idols step along with us
 And set their feet in unison with ours
 And imitate our carriage, since from that
 Part of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn
 Straightway no images can be returned.

 Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright
 And shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds,
 If thou goest on to strain them unto him,
 Because his strength is mighty, and the films
 Heavily downward from on high are borne
 Through the pure ether and the viewless winds,
 And strike the eyes, disordering their joints.
 So piecing lustre often burns the eyes,
 Because it holdeth many seeds of fire
 Which, working into eyes, engender pain.
 Again, whatever jaundiced people view
 Becomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies
 Flow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet
 The films of things, and many too are mixed
 Within their eye, which by contagion paint
 All things with sallowness. Again, we view
 From dark recesses things that stand in light,
 Because, when first has entered and possessed
 The open eyes this nearer darkling air,
 Swiftly the shining air and luminous
 Followeth in, which purges then the eyes
 And scatters asunder of that other air
 The sable shadows, for in large degrees
 This air is nimbler, nicer, and more strong.
 And soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light
 The pathways of the eyeballs, which before
 Black air had blocked, there follow straightaway
 Those films of things out-standing in the light,
 Provoking vision--what we cannot do
 From out the light with objects in the dark,
 Because that denser darkling air behind
 Followeth in, and fills each aperture
 And thus blockades the pathways of the eyes
 That there no images of any things
 Can be thrown in and agitate the eyes.

 And when from far away we do behold
 The squared towers of a city, oft
 Rounded they seem,--on this account because
 Each distant angle is perceived obtuse,
 Or rather it is not perceived at all;
 And perishes its blow nor to our gaze
 Arrives its stroke, since through such length of air
 Are borne along the idols that the air
 Makes blunt the idol of the angle's point
 By numerous collidings. When thuswise
 The angles of the tower each and all
 Have quite escaped the sense, the stones appear
 As rubbed and rounded on a turner's wheel--
 Yet not like objects near and truly round,
 But with a semblance to them, shadowily.
 Likewise, our shadow in the sun appears
 To move along and follow our own steps
 And imitate our carriage--if thou thinkest
 Air that is thus bereft of light can walk,
 Following the gait and motion of mankind.
 For what we use to name a shadow, sure
 Is naught but air deprived of light. No marvel:
 Because the earth from spot to spot is reft
 Progressively of light of sun, whenever
 In moving round we get within its way,
 While any spot of earth by us abandoned
 Is filled with light again, on this account
 It comes to pass that what was body's shadow
 Seems still the same to follow after us
 In one straight course. Since, evermore pour in
 New lights of rays, and perish then the old,
 Just like the wool that's drawn into the flame.
 Therefore the earth is easily spoiled of light
 And easily refilled and from herself
 Washeth the black shadows quite away.

 And yet in this we don't at all concede
 That eyes be cheated. For their task it is
 To note in whatsoever place be light,
 In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams
 Be still the same, and whether the shadow which
 Just now was here is that one passing thither,
 Or whether the facts be what we said above,
 'Tis after all the reasoning of mind
 That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know
 The nature of reality. And so
 Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,
 Nor lightly think our senses everywhere
 Are tottering. The ship in which we sail
 Is borne along, although it seems to stand;
 The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed
 There to be passing by. And hills and fields
 Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge
 The ship and fly under the bellying sails.
 The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed
 To the ethereal caverns, though they all
 Forever are in motion, rising out
 And thence revisiting their far descents
 When they have measured with their bodies bright
 The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon
 Seem biding in a roadstead,--objects which,
 As plain fact proves, are really borne along.
 Between two mountains far away aloft
 From midst the whirl of waters open lies
 A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet
 They seem conjoined in a single isle.
 When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,
 The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,
 Until they now must almost think the roofs
 Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.
 And now, when nature begins to lift on high
 The sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires,
 And raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains--
 O'er which he seemeth then to thee to be,
 His glowing self hard by atingeing them
 With his own fire--are yet away from us
 Scarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed
 Oft scarce five hundred courses of a dart;
 Although between those mountains and the sun
 Lie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath
 The vasty shores of ether, and intervene
 A thousand lands, possessed by many a folk
 And generations of wild beasts. Again,
 A pool of water of but a finger's depth,
 Which lies between the stones along the pave,
 Offers a vision downward into earth
 As far, as from the earth o'erspread on high
 The gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view
 Clouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged
 Wondrously in heaven under earth.
 Then too, when in the middle of the stream
 Sticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze
 Into the river's rapid waves, some force
 Seems then to bear the body of the horse,
 Though standing still, reversely from his course,
 And swiftly push up-stream. And wheresoe'er
 We cast our eyes across, all objects seem
 Thus to be onward borne and flow along
 In the same way as we. A portico,
 Albeit it stands well propped from end to end
 On equal columns, parallel and big,
 Contracts by stages in a narrow cone,
 When from one end the long, long whole is seen,--
 Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor,
 And the whole right side with the left, it draws
 Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point.
 To sailors on the main the sun he seems
 From out the waves to rise, and in the waves
 To set and bury his light--because indeed
 They gaze on naught but water and the sky.
 Again, to gazers ignorant of the sea,
 Vessels in port seem, as with broken poops,
 To lean upon the water, quite agog;
 For any portion of the oars that's raised
 Above the briny spray is straight, and straight
 The rudders from above. But other parts,
 Those sunk, immersed below the water-line,
 Seem broken all and bended and inclined
 Sloping to upwards, and turned back to float
 Almost atop the water. And when the winds
 Carry the scattered drifts along the sky
 In the night-time, then seem to glide along
 The radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds
 And there on high to take far other course
 From that whereon in truth they're borne. And then,
 If haply our hand be set beneath one eye
 And press below thereon, then to our gaze
 Each object which we gaze on seems to be,
 By some sensation twain--then twain the lights
 Of lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame,
 And twain the furniture in all the house,
 Two-fold the visages of fellow-men,
 And twain their bodies. And again, when sleep
 Has bound our members down in slumber soft
 And all the body lies in deep repose,
 Yet then we seem to self to be awake
 And move our members; and in night's blind gloom
 We think to mark the daylight and the sun;
 And, shut within a room, yet still we seem
 To change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills,
 To cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds,
 Though still the austere silence of the night
 Abides around us, and to speak replies,
 Though voiceless. Other cases of the sort
 Wondrously many do we see, which all
 Seek, so to say, to injure faith in sense--
 In vain, because the largest part of these
 Deceives through mere opinions of the mind,
 Which we do add ourselves, feigning to see
 What by the senses are not seen at all.
 For naught is harder than to separate
 Plain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith
 Adds by itself.

                 Again, if one suppose
 That naught is known, he knows not whether this
 Itself is able to be known, since he
 Confesses naught to know. Therefore with him
 I waive discussion--who has set his head
 Even where his feet should be. But let me grant
 That this he knows,--I question: whence he knows
 What 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn,
 And what created concept of the truth,
 And what device has proved the dubious
 To differ from the certain?--since in things
 He's heretofore seen naught of true. Thou'lt find
 That from the senses first hath been create
 Concept of truth, nor can the senses be
 Rebutted. For criterion must be found
 Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat
 Through own authority the false by true;
 What, then, than these our senses must there be
 Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung
 From some false sense, prevail to contradict
 Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is
 From out the senses?--For lest these be true,
 All reason also then is falsified.
 Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes,
 Or yet the touch the ears? Again, shall taste
 Accuse this touch or shall the nose confute
 Or eyes defeat it? Methinks not so it is:
 For unto each has been divided off
 Its function quite apart, its power to each;
 And thus we're still constrained to perceive
 The soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart
 All divers hues and whatso things there be
 Conjoined with hues. Likewise the tasting tongue
 Has its own power apart, and smells apart
 And sounds apart are known. And thus it is
 That no one sense can e'er convict another.
 Nor shall one sense have power to blame itself,
 Because it always must be deemed the same,
 Worthy of equal trust. And therefore what
 At any time unto these senses showed,
 The same is true. And if the reason be
 Unable to unravel us the cause
 Why objects, which at hand were square, afar
 Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,
 Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause
 For each configuration, than to let
 From out our hands escape the obvious things
 And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck
 All those foundations upon which do rest
 Our life and safety. For not only reason
 Would topple down; but even our very life
 Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared
 To trust our senses and to keep away
 From headlong heights and places to be shunned
 Of a like peril, and to seek with speed
 Their opposites! Again, as in a building,
 If the first plumb-line be askew, and if
 The square deceiving swerve from lines exact,
 And if the level waver but the least
 In any part, the whole construction then
 Must turn out faulty--shelving and askew,
 Leaning to back and front, incongruous,
 That now some portions seem about to fall,
 And falls the whole ere long--betrayed indeed
 By first deceiving estimates: so too
 Thy calculations in affairs of life
 Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee
 From senses false. So all that troop of words
 Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.

 And now remains to demonstrate with ease
 How other senses each their things perceive.

 Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,
 When, getting into ears, they strike the sense
 With their own body. For confess we must
 Even voice and sound to be corporeal,
 Because they're able on the sense to strike.
 Besides voice often scrapes against the throat,
 And screams in going out do make more rough
 The wind-pipe--naturally enough, methinks,
 When, through the narrow exit rising up
 In larger throng, these primal germs of voice
 Have thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,
 Also the door of the mouth is scraped against
 [By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].

 *****

 And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words
 Consist of elements corporeal,
 With power to pain. Nor art thou unaware
 Likewise how much of body's ta'en away,
 How much from very thews and powers of men
 May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged
 Even from the rising splendour of the morn
 To shadows of black evening,--above all
 If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.
 Therefore the voice must be corporeal,
 Since the long talker loses from his frame
 A part.

       Moreover, roughness in the sound
 Comes from the roughness in the primal germs,
 As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;
 Nor have these elements a form the same
 When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,
 As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe
 Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans
 By night from icy shores of Helicon
 With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.

 Thus, when from deep within our frame we force
 These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,
 The mobile tongue, artificer of words,
 Makes them articulate, and too the lips
 By their formations share in shaping them.
 Hence when the space is short from starting-point
 To where that voice arrives, the very words
 Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.
 For then the voice conserves its own formation,
 Conserves its shape. But if the space between
 Be longer than is fit, the words must be
 Through the much air confounded, and the voice
 Disordered in its flight across the winds--
 And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,
 Yet not determine what the words may mean;
 To such degree confounded and encumbered
 The voice approaches us. Again, one word,
 Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears
 Among the populace. And thus one voice
 Scatters asunder into many voices,
 Since it divides itself for separate ears,
 Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.
 But whatso part of voices fails to hit
 The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,
 Idly diffused among the winds. A part,
 Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back
 Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear
 With a mere phantom of a word. When this
 Thou well hast noted, thou canst render count
 Unto thyself and others why it is
 Along the lonely places that the rocks
 Give back like shapes of words in order like,
 When search we after comrades wandering
 Among the shady mountains, and aloud
 Call unto them, the scattered. I have seen
 Spots that gave back even voices six or seven
 For one thrown forth--for so the very hills,
 Dashing them back against the hills, kept on
 With their reverberations. And these spots
 The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be
 Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;
 And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise
 And antic revels yonder they declare
 The voiceless silences are broken oft,
 And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet
 Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,
 Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race
 Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings
 Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan
 With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er
 The open reeds,--lest flute should cease to pour
 The woodland music! Other prodigies
 And wonders of this ilk they love to tell,
 Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots
 And even by gods deserted. This is why
 They boast of marvels in their story-tellings;
 Or by some other reason are led on--
 Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been,
 To prattle fables into ears.

                             Again,
 One need not wonder how it comes about
 That through those places (through which eyes cannot
 View objects manifest) sounds yet may pass
 And assail the ears. For often we observe
 People conversing, though the doors be closed;
 No marvel either, since all voice unharmed
 Can wind through bended apertures of things,
 While idol-films decline to--for they're rent,
 Unless along straight apertures they swim,
 Like those in glass, through which all images
 Do fly across. And yet this voice itself,
 In passing through shut chambers of a house,
 Is dulled, and in a jumble enters ears,
 And sound we seem to hear far more than words.
 Moreover, a voice is into all directions
 Divided up, since off from one another
 New voices are engendered, when one voice
 Hath once leapt forth, outstarting into many--
 As oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle
 Itself into its several fires. And so,
 Voices do fill those places hid behind,
 Which all are in a hubbub round about,
 Astir with sound. But idol-films do tend,
 As once sent forth, in straight directions all;
 Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught,
 Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.

 Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,
 Present more problems for more work of thought.
 Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,
 When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,--
 As any one perchance begins to squeeze
 With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.
 Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about
 Along the pores and intertwined paths
 Of the loose-textured tongue. And so, when smooth
 The bodies of the oozy flavour, then
 Delightfully they touch, delightfully
 They treat all spots, around the wet and trickling
 Enclosures of the tongue. And contrariwise,
 They sting and pain the sense with their assault,
 According as with roughness they're supplied.
 Next, only up to palate is the pleasure
 Coming from flavour; for in truth when down
 'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is,
 Whilst into all the frame it spreads around;
 Nor aught it matters with what food is fed
 The body, if only what thou take thou canst
 Distribute well digested to the frame
 And keep the stomach in a moist career.

 Now, how it is we see some food for some,
 Others for others....

 *****

 I will unfold, or wherefore what to some
 Is foul and bitter, yet the same to others
 Can seem delectable to eat,--why here
 So great the distance and the difference is
 That what is food to one to some becomes
 Fierce poison, as a certain snake there is
 Which, touched by spittle of a man, will waste
 And end itself by gnawing up its coil.
 Again, fierce poison is the hellebore
 To us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.
 That thou mayst know by what devices this
 Is brought about, in chief thou must recall
 What we have said before, that seeds are kept
 Commixed in things in divers modes. Again,
 As all the breathing creatures which take food
 Are outwardly unlike, and outer cut
 And contour of their members bounds them round,
 Each differing kind by kind, they thus consist
 Of seeds of varying shape. And furthermore,
 Since seeds do differ, divers too must be
 The interstices and paths (which we do call
 The apertures) in all the members, even
 In mouth and palate too. Thus some must be
 More small or yet more large, three-cornered some
 And others squared, and many others round,
 And certain of them many-angled too
 In many modes. For, as the combination
 And motion of their divers shapes demand,
 The shapes of apertures must be diverse
 And paths must vary according to their walls
 That bound them. Hence when what is sweet to some,
 Becomes to others bitter, for him to whom
 'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs
 Have entered caressingly the palate's pores.
 And, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet
 Is sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt
 The rough and barbed particles have got
 Into the narrows of the apertures.
 Now easy it is from these affairs to know
 Whatever...

 *****

 Indeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile
 Is stricken with fever, or in other wise
 Feels the roused violence of some malady,
 There the whole frame is now upset, and there
 All the positions of the seeds are changed,--
 So that the bodies which before were fit
 To cause the savour, now are fit no more,
 And now more apt are others which be able
 To get within the pores and gender sour.
 Both sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey--
 What oft we've proved above to thee before.
 Now come, and I will indicate what wise
 Impact of odour on the nostrils touches.
 And first, 'tis needful there be many things
 From whence the streaming flow of varied odours
 May roll along, and we're constrained to think
 They stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about
 Impartially. But for some breathing creatures
 One odour is more apt, to others another--
 Because of differing forms of seeds and pores.
 Thus on and on along the zephyrs bees
 Are led by odour of honey, vultures too
 By carcasses. Again, the forward power
 Of scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on
 Whithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast
 Hath hastened its career; and the white goose,
 The saviour of the Roman citadel,
 Forescents afar the odour of mankind.
 Thus, diversly to divers ones is given
 Peculiar smell that leadeth each along
 To his own food or makes him start aback
 From loathsome poison, and in this wise are
 The generations of the wild preserved.

 Yet is this pungence not alone in odours
 Or in the class of flavours; but, likewise,
 The look of things and hues agree not all
 So well with senses unto all, but that
 Some unto some will be, to gaze upon,
 More keen and painful. Lo, the raving lions,
 They dare not face and gaze upon the cock
 Who's wont with wings to flap away the night
 From off the stage, and call the beaming morn
 With clarion voice--and lions straightway thus
 Bethink themselves of flight, because, ye see,
 Within the body of the cocks there be
 Some certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes
 Injected, bore into the pupils deep
 And yield such piercing pain they can't hold out
 Against the cocks, however fierce they be--
 Whilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least,
 Either because they do not penetrate,
 Or since they have free exit from the eyes
 As soon as penetrating, so that thus
 They cannot hurt our eyes in any part
 By there remaining.

                    To speak once more of odour;
 Whatever assail the nostrils, some can travel
 A longer way than others. None of them,
 However, 's borne so far as sound or voice--
 While I omit all mention of such things
 As hit the eyesight and assail the vision.
 For slowly on a wandering course it comes
 And perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed
 Easily into all the winds of air;--
 And first, because from deep inside the thing
 It is discharged with labour (for the fact
 That every object, when 'tis shivered, ground,
 Or crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger
 Is sign that odours flow and part away
 From inner regions of the things). And next,
 Thou mayest see that odour is create
 Of larger primal germs than voice, because
 It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough
 Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne;
 Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not
 So easy to trace out in whatso place
 The smelling object is. For, dallying on
 Along the winds, the particles cool off,
 And then the scurrying messengers of things
 Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.
 So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.

 Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind,
 And learn, in few, whence unto intellect
 Do come what come. And first I tell thee this:
 That many images of objects rove
 In many modes to every region round--
 So thin that easily the one with other,
 When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air,
 Like gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed,
 Far thinner are they in their fabric than
 Those images which take a hold on eyes
 And smite the vision, since through body's pores
 They penetrate, and inwardly stir up
 The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.
 Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus
 The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see,
 And images of people gone before--
 Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago;
 Because the images of every kind
 Are everywhere about us borne--in part
 Those which are gendered in the very air
 Of own accord, in part those others which
 From divers things do part away, and those
 Which are compounded, made from out their shapes.
 For soothly from no living Centaur is
 That phantom gendered, since no breed of beast
 Like him was ever; but, when images
 Of horse and man by chance have come together,
 They easily cohere, as aforesaid,
 At once, through subtle nature and fabric thin.
 In the same fashion others of this ilk
 Created are. And when they're quickly borne
 In their exceeding lightness, easily
 (As earlier I showed) one subtle image,
 Compounded, moves by its one blow the mind,
 Itself so subtle and so strangely quick.

 That these things come to pass as I record,
 From this thou easily canst understand:
 So far as one is unto other like,
 Seeing with mind as well as with the eyes
 Must come to pass in fashion not unlike.
 Well, now, since I have shown that I perceive
 Haply a lion through those idol-films
 Such as assail my eyes, 'tis thine to know
 Also the mind is in like manner moved,
 And sees, nor more nor less than eyes do see
 (Except that it perceives more subtle films)
 The lion and aught else through idol-films.
 And when the sleep has overset our frame,
 The mind's intelligence is now awake,
 Still for no other reason, save that these--
 The self-same films as when we are awake--
 Assail our minds, to such degree indeed
 That we do seem to see for sure the man
 Whom, void of life, now death and earth have gained
 Dominion over. And nature forces this
 To come to pass because the body's senses
 Are resting, thwarted through the members all,
 Unable now to conquer false with true;
 And memory lies prone and languishes
 In slumber, nor protests that he, the man
 Whom the mind feigns to see alive, long since
 Hath been the gain of death and dissolution.

 And further, 'tis no marvel idols move
 And toss their arms and other members round
 In rhythmic time--and often in men's sleeps
 It haps an image this is seen to do;
 In sooth, when perishes the former image,
 And other is gendered of another pose,
 That former seemeth to have changed its gestures.
 Of course the change must be conceived as speedy;
 So great the swiftness and so great the store
 Of idol-things, and (in an instant brief
 As mind can mark) so great, again, the store
 Of separate idol-parts to bring supplies.

 It happens also that there is supplied
 Sometimes an image not of kind the same;
 But what before was woman, now at hand
 Is seen to stand there, altered into male;
 Or other visage, other age succeeds;
 But slumber and oblivion take care
 That we shall feel no wonder at the thing.

 And much in these affairs demands inquiry,
 And much, illumination--if we crave
 With plainness to exhibit facts. And first,
 Why doth the mind of one to whom the whim
 To think has come behold forthwith that thing?
 Or do the idols watch upon our will,
 And doth an image unto us occur,
 Directly we desire--if heart prefer
 The sea, the land, or after all the sky?
 Assemblies of the citizens, parades,
 Banquets, and battles, these and all doth she,
 Nature, create and furnish at our word?--
 Maugre the fact that in same place and spot
 Another's mind is meditating things
 All far unlike. And what, again, of this:
 When we in sleep behold the idols step,
 In measure, forward, moving supple limbs,
 Whilst forth they put each supple arm in turn
 With speedy motion, and with eyeing heads
 Repeat the movement, as the foot keeps time?
 Forsooth, the idols they are steeped in art,
 And wander to and fro well taught indeed,--
 Thus to be able in the time of night
 To make such games! Or will the truth be this:
 Because in one least moment that we mark--
 That is, the uttering of a single sound--
 There lurk yet many moments, which the reason
 Discovers to exist, therefore it comes
 That, in a moment how so brief ye will,
 The divers idols are hard by, and ready
 Each in its place diverse? So great the swiftness,
 So great, again, the store of idol-things,
 And so, when perishes the former image,
 And other is gendered of another pose,
 The former seemeth to have changed its gestures.
 And since they be so tenuous, mind can mark
 Sharply alone the ones it strains to see;
 And thus the rest do perish one and all,
 Save those for which the mind prepares itself.
 Further, it doth prepare itself indeed,
 And hopes to see what follows after each--
 Hence this result. For hast thou not observed
 How eyes, essaying to perceive the fine,
 Will strain in preparation, otherwise
 Unable sharply to perceive at all?
 Yet know thou canst that, even in objects plain,
 If thou attendest not, 'tis just the same
 As if 'twere all the time removed and far.
 What marvel, then, that mind doth lose the rest,
 Save those to which 'thas given up itself?
 So 'tis that we conjecture from small signs
 Things wide and weighty, and involve ourselves
 In snarls of self-deceit.

SOME VITAL FUNCTIONS

                          In these affairs
 We crave that thou wilt passionately flee
 The one offence, and anxiously wilt shun
 The error of presuming the clear lights
 Of eyes created were that we might see;
 Or thighs and knees, aprop upon the feet,
 Thuswise can bended be, that we might step
 With goodly strides ahead; or forearms joined
 Unto the sturdy uppers, or serving hands
 On either side were given, that we might do
 Life's own demands. All such interpretation
 Is aft-for-fore with inverse reasoning,
 Since naught is born in body so that we
 May use the same, but birth engenders use:
 No seeing ere the lights of eyes were born,
 No speaking ere the tongue created was;
 But origin of tongue came long before
 Discourse of words, and ears created were
 Much earlier than any sound was heard;
 And all the members, so meseems, were there
 Before they got their use: and therefore, they
 Could not be gendered for the sake of use.
 But contrariwise, contending in the fight
 With hand to hand, and rending of the joints,
 And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there,
 O long before the gleaming spears ere flew;
 And nature prompted man to shun a wound,
 Before the left arm by the aid of art
 Opposed the shielding targe. And, verily,
 Yielding the weary body to repose,
 Far ancienter than cushions of soft beds,
 And quenching thirst is earlier than cups.
 These objects, therefore, which for use and life
 Have been devised, can be conceived as found
 For sake of using. But apart from such
 Are all which first were born and afterwards
 Gave knowledge of their own utility--
 Chief in which sort we note the senses, limbs:
 Wherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power
 To hold that these could thus have been create
 For office of utility.

                       Likewise,
 'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures
 Seek, even by nature of their frame, their food.
 Yes, since I've taught thee that from off the things
 Stream and depart innumerable bodies
 In modes innumerable too; but most
 Must be the bodies streaming from the living--
 Which bodies, vexed by motion evermore,
 Are through the mouth exhaled innumerable,
 When weary creatures pant, or through the sweat
 Squeezed forth innumerable from deep within.
 Thus body rarefies, so undermined
 In all its nature, and pain attends its state.
 And so the food is taken to underprop
 The tottering joints, and by its interfusion
 To re-create their powers, and there stop up
 The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins,
 For eating. And the moist no less departs
 Into all regions that demand the moist;
 And many heaped-up particles of hot,
 Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours,
 The liquid on arriving dissipates
 And quenches like a fire, that parching heat
 No longer now can scorch the frame. And so,
 Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away
 From off our body, how the hunger-pang
 It, too, appeased.

                    Now, how it comes that we,
 Whene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead,
 And how 'tis given to move our limbs about,
 And what device is wont to push ahead
 This the big load of our corporeal frame,
 I'll say to thee--do thou attend what's said.
 I say that first some idol-films of walking
 Into our mind do fall and smite the mind,
 As said before. Thereafter will arises;
 For no one starts to do a thing, before
 The intellect previsions what it wills;
 And what it there pre-visioneth depends
 On what that image is. When, therefore, mind
 Doth so bestir itself that it doth will
 To go and step along, it strikes at once
 That energy of soul that's sown about
 In all the body through the limbs and frame--
 And this is easy of performance, since
 The soul is close conjoined with the mind.
 Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees
 Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.
 Then too the body rarefies, and air,
 Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness,
 Comes on and penetrates aboundingly
 Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round
 Unto all smallest places in our frame.
 Thus then by these twain factors, severally,
 Body is borne like ship with oars and wind.
 Nor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder
 That particles so fine can whirl around
 So great a body and turn this weight of ours;
 For wind, so tenuous with its subtle body,
 Yet pushes, driving on the mighty ship
 Of mighty bulk; one hand directs the same,
 Whatever its momentum, and one helm
 Whirls it around, whither ye please; and loads,
 Many and huge, are moved and hoisted high
 By enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels,
 With but light strain.

                   Now, by what modes this sleep
 Pours through our members waters of repose
 And frees the breast from cares of mind, I'll tell
 In verses sweeter than they many are;
 Even as the swan's slight note is better far
 Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes
 Among the southwind's aery clouds. Do thou
 Give me sharp ears and a sagacious mind,--
 That thou mayst not deny the things to be
 Whereof I'm speaking, nor depart away
 With bosom scorning these the spoken truths,
 Thyself at fault unable to perceive.
 Sleep chiefly comes when energy of soul
 Hath now been scattered through the frame, and part
 Expelled abroad and gone away, and part
 Crammed back and settling deep within the frame--
 Whereafter then our loosened members droop.
 For doubt is none that by the work of soul
 Exist in us this sense, and when by slumber
 That sense is thwarted, we are bound to think
 The soul confounded and expelled abroad--
 Yet not entirely, else the frame would lie
 Drenched in the everlasting cold of death.
 In sooth, where no one part of soul remained
 Lurking among the members, even as fire
 Lurks buried under many ashes, whence
 Could sense amain rekindled be in members,
 As flame can rise anew from unseen fire?

 By what devices this strange state and new
 May be occasioned, and by what the soul
 Can be confounded and the frame grow faint,
 I will untangle: see to it, thou, that I
 Pour forth my words not unto empty winds.
 In first place, body on its outer parts--
 Since these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts--
 Must there be thumped and strook by blows of air
 Repeatedly. And therefore almost all
 Are covered either with hides, or else with shells,
 Or with the horny callus, or with bark.
 Yet this same air lashes their inner parts,
 When creatures draw a breath or blow it out.
 Wherefore, since body thus is flogged alike
 Upon the inside and the out, and blows
 Come in upon us through the little pores
 Even inward to our body's primal parts
 And primal elements, there comes to pass
 By slow degrees, along our members then,
 A kind of overthrow; for then confounded
 Are those arrangements of the primal germs
 Of body and of mind. It comes to pass
 That next a part of soul's expelled abroad,
 A part retreateth in recesses hid,
 A part, too, scattered all about the frame,
 Cannot become united nor engage
 In interchange of motion. Nature now
 So hedges off approaches and the paths;
 And thus the sense, its motions all deranged,
 Retires down deep within; and since there's naught,
 As 'twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens,
 And all the members languish, and the arms
 And eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed,
 Even there the houghs will sag and loose their powers.
 Again, sleep follows after food, because
 The food produces same result as air,
 Whilst being scattered round through all the veins;
 And much the heaviest is that slumber which,
 Full or fatigued, thou takest; since 'tis then
 That the most bodies disarrange themselves,
 Bruised by labours hard. And in same wise,
 This three-fold change: a forcing of the soul
 Down deeper, more a casting-forth of it,
 A moving more divided in its parts
 And scattered more.

                     And to whate'er pursuit
 A man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs
 On which we theretofore have tarried much,
 And mind hath strained upon the more, we seem
 In sleep not rarely to go at the same.
 The lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees,
 Commanders they to fight and go at frays,
 Sailors to live in combat with the winds,
 And we ourselves indeed to make this book,
 And still to seek the nature of the world
 And set it down, when once discovered, here
 In these my country's leaves. Thus all pursuits,
 All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock
 And master the minds of men. And whosoever
 Day after day for long to games have given
 Attention undivided, still they keep
 (As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp
 Those games with their own senses, open paths
 Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films
 Of just those games can come. And thus it is
 For many a day thereafter those appear
 Floating before the eyes, that even awake
 They think they view the dancers moving round
 Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears
 The liquid song of harp and speaking chords,
 And view the same assembly on the seats,
 And manifold bright glories of the stage--
 So great the influence of pursuit and zest,
 And of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont
 Of men to be engaged-nor only men,
 But soothly all the animals. Behold,
 Thou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched,
 Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever,
 And straining utmost strength, as if for prize,
 As if, with barriers opened now...
 And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose
 Yet toss asudden all their legs about,
 And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff
 The winds again, again, as though indeed
 They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts,
 And, even when wakened, often they pursue
 The phantom images of stags, as though
 They did perceive them fleeing on before,
 Until the illusion's shaken off and dogs
 Come to themselves again. And fawning breed
 Of house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge
 To shake their bodies and start from off the ground,
 As if beholding stranger-visages.
 And ever the fiercer be the stock, the more
 In sleep the same is ever bound to rage.
 But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex
 With sudden wings by night the groves of gods,
 When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed
 Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight.
 Again, the minds of mortals which perform
 With mighty motions mighty enterprises,
 Often in sleep will do and dare the same
 In manner like. Kings take the towns by storm,
 Succumb to capture, battle on the field,
 Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut
 Even then and there. And many wrestle on
 And groan with pains, and fill all regions round
 With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed
 By fangs of panther or of lion fierce.
 Many amid their slumbers talk about
 Their mighty enterprises, and have often
 Enough become the proof of their own crimes.
 Many meet death; many, as if headlong
 From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth
 With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright;
 And after sleep, as if still mad in mind,
 They scarce come to, confounded as they are
 By ferment of their frame. The thirsty man,
 Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring
 Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat
 Nigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young,
 By sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress
 By pail or public jordan and then void
 The water filtered down their frame entire
 And drench the Babylonian coverlets,
 Magnificently bright. Again, those males
 Into the surging channels of whose years
 Now first has passed the seed (engendered
 Within their members by the ripened days)
 Are in their sleep confronted from without
 By idol-images of some fair form--
 Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom,
 Which stir and goad the regions turgid now
 With seed abundant; so that, as it were
 With all the matter acted duly out,
 They pour the billows of a potent stream
 And stain their garment.

                        And as said before,
 That seed is roused in us when once ripe age
 Has made our body strong...
 As divers causes give to divers things
 Impulse and irritation, so one force
 In human kind rouses the human seed
 To spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues,
 Forced from its first abodes, it passes down
 In the whole body through the limbs and frame,
 Meeting in certain regions of our thews,
 And stirs amain the genitals of man.
 The goaded regions swell with seed, and then
 Comes the delight to dart the same at what
 The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks
 That object, whence the mind by love is pierced.
 For well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound,
 And our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence
 The stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed
 The foe be close, the red jet reaches him.
 Thus, one who gets a stroke from Venus' shafts--
 Whether a boy with limbs effeminate
 Assault him, or a woman darting love
 From all her body--that one strains to get
 Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs
 To join with it and cast into its frame
 The fluid drawn even from within its own.
 For the mute craving doth presage delight.

THE PASSION OF LOVE

 This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us:
 From this, engender all the lures of love,
 From this, O first hath into human hearts
 Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long
 Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,
 Though she thou lovest now be far away,
 Yet idol-images of her are near
 And the sweet name is floating in thy ear.
 But it behooves to flee those images;
 And scare afar whatever feeds thy love;
 And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm,
 Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies,
 Nor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love,
 Keep it for one delight, and so store up
 Care for thyself and pain inevitable.
 For, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing
 Grows to more life with deep inveteracy,
 And day by day the fury swells aflame,
 And the woe waxes heavier day by day--
 Unless thou dost destroy even by new blows
 The former wounds of love, and curest them
 While yet they're fresh, by wandering freely round
 After the freely-wandering Venus, or
 Canst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind.

 Nor doth that man who keeps away from love
 Yet lack the fruits of Venus; rather takes
 Those pleasures which are free of penalties.
 For the delights of Venus, verily,
 Are more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul
 Than for those sick-at-heart with love-pining.
 Yea, in the very moment of possessing,
 Surges the heat of lovers to and fro,
 Restive, uncertain; and they cannot fix
 On what to first enjoy with eyes and hands.
 The parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight,
 And pain the creature's body, close their teeth
 Often against her lips, and smite with kiss
 Mouth into mouth,--because this same delight
 Is not unmixed; and underneath are stings
 Which goad a man to hurt the very thing,
 Whate'er it be, from whence arise for him
 Those germs of madness. But with gentle touch
 Venus subdues the pangs in midst of love,
 And the admixture of a fondling joy
 Doth curb the bites of passion. For they hope
 That by the very body whence they caught
 The heats of love their flames can be put out.
 But nature protests 'tis all quite otherwise;
 For this same love it is the one sole thing
 Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns
 The breast with fell desire. For food and drink
 Are taken within our members; and, since they
 Can stop up certain parts, thus, easily
 Desire of water is glutted and of bread.
 But, lo, from human face and lovely bloom
 Naught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed
 Save flimsy idol-images and vain--
 A sorry hope which oft the winds disperse.
 As when the thirsty man in slumber seeks
 To drink, and water ne'er is granted him
 Wherewith to quench the heat within his members,
 But after idols of the liquids strives
 And toils in vain, and thirsts even whilst he gulps
 In middle of the torrent, thus in love
 Venus deludes with idol-images
 The lovers. Nor they cannot sate their lust
 By merely gazing on the bodies, nor
 They cannot with their palms and fingers rub
 Aught from each tender limb, the while they stray
 Uncertain over all the body. Then,
 At last, with members intertwined, when they
 Enjoy the flower of their age, when now
 Their bodies have sweet presage of keen joys,
 And Venus is about to sow the fields
 Of woman, greedily their frames they lock,
 And mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe
 Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths--
 Yet to no purpose, since they're powerless
 To rub off aught, or penetrate and pass
 With body entire into body--for oft
 They seem to strive and struggle thus to do;
 So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds,
 Whilst melt away their members, overcome
 By violence of delight. But when at last
 Lust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself,
 There come a brief pause in the raging heat--
 But then a madness just the same returns
 And that old fury visits them again,
 When once again they seek and crave to reach
 They know not what, all powerless to find
 The artifice to subjugate the bane.
 In such uncertain state they waste away
 With unseen wound.

                   To which be added too,
 They squander powers and with the travail wane;
 Be added too, they spend their futile years
 Under another's beck and call; their duties
 Neglected languish and their honest name
 Reeleth sick, sick; and meantime their estates
 Are lost in Babylonian tapestries;
 And unguents and dainty Sicyonian shoes
 Laugh on her feet; and (as ye may be sure)
 Big emeralds of green light are set in gold;
 And rich sea-purple dress by constant wear
 Grows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat;
 And the well-earned ancestral property
 Becometh head-bands, coifs, and many a time
 The cloaks, or garments Alidensian
 Or of the Cean isle. And banquets, set
 With rarest cloth and viands, are prepared--
 And games of chance, and many a drinking cup,
 And unguents, crowns and garlands. All in vain,
 Since from amid the well-spring of delights
 Bubbles some drop of bitter to torment
 Among the very flowers--when haply mind
 Gnaws into self, now stricken with remorse
 For slothful years and ruin in baudels,
 Or else because she's left him all in doubt
 By launching some sly word, which still like fire
 Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart;
 Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes
 Too much about and gazes at another,--
 And in her face sees traces of a laugh.

 These ills are found in prospering love and true;
 But in crossed love and helpless there be such
 As through shut eyelids thou canst still take in--
 Uncounted ills; so that 'tis better far
 To watch beforehand, in the way I've shown,
 And guard against enticements. For to shun
 A fall into the hunting-snares of love
 Is not so hard, as to get out again,
 When tangled in the very nets, and burst
 The stoutly-knotted cords of Aphrodite.
 Yet even when there enmeshed with tangled feet,
 Still canst thou scape the danger-lest indeed
 Thou standest in the way of thine own good,
 And overlookest first all blemishes
 Of mind and body of thy much preferred,
 Desirable dame. For so men do,
 Eyeless with passion, and assign to them
 Graces not theirs in fact. And thus we see
 Creatures in many a wise crooked and ugly
 The prosperous sweethearts in a high esteem;
 And lovers gird each other and advise
 To placate Venus, since their friends are smit
 With a base passion--miserable dupes
 Who seldom mark their own worst bane of all.
 The black-skinned girl is "tawny like the honey";
 The filthy and the fetid's "negligee";
 The cat-eyed she's "a little Pallas," she;
 The sinewy and wizened's "a gazelle";
 The pudgy and the pigmy is "piquant,
 One of the Graces sure"; the big and bulky
 O she's "an Admiration, imposante";
 The stuttering and tongue-tied "sweetly lisps";
 The mute girl's "modest"; and the garrulous,
 The spiteful spit-fire, is "a sparkling wit";
 And she who scarcely lives for scrawniness
 Becomes "a slender darling"; "delicate"
 Is she who's nearly dead of coughing-fit;
 The pursy female with protuberant breasts
 She is "like Ceres when the goddess gave
 Young Bacchus suck"; the pug-nosed lady-love
 "A Satyress, a feminine Silenus";
 The blubber-lipped is "all one luscious kiss"--
 A weary while it were to tell the whole.
 But let her face possess what charm ye will,
 Let Venus' glory rise from all her limbs,--
 Forsooth there still are others; and forsooth
 We lived before without her; and forsooth
 She does the same things--and we know she does--
 All, as the ugly creature, and she scents,
 Yes she, her wretched self with vile perfumes;
 Whom even her handmaids flee and giggle at
 Behind her back. But he, the lover, in tears
 Because shut out, covers her threshold o'er
 Often with flowers and garlands, and anoints
 Her haughty door-posts with the marjoram,
 And prints, poor fellow, kisses on the doors--
 Admitted at last, if haply but one whiff
 Got to him on approaching, he would seek
 Decent excuses to go out forthwith;
 And his lament, long pondered, then would fall
 Down at his heels; and there he'd damn himself
 For his fatuity, observing how
 He had assigned to that same lady more--
 Than it is proper to concede to mortals.
 And these our Venuses are 'ware of this.
 Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide
 All the-behind-the-scenes of life from those
 Whom they desire to keep in bonds of love--
 In vain, since ne'ertheless thou canst by thought
 Drag all the matter forth into the light
 And well search out the cause of all these smiles;
 And if of graceful mind she be and kind,
 Do thou, in thy turn, overlook the same,
 And thus allow for poor mortality.
 Nor sighs the woman always with feigned love,
 Who links her body round man's body locked
 And holds him fast, making his kisses wet
 With lips sucked into lips; for oft she acts
 Even from desire, and, seeking mutual joys,
 Incites him there to run love's race-course through.
 Nor otherwise can cattle, birds, wild beasts,
 And sheep and mares submit unto the males,
 Except that their own nature is in heat,
 And burns abounding and with gladness takes
 Once more the Venus of the mounting males.
 And seest thou not how those whom mutual pleasure
 Hath bound are tortured in their common bonds?
 How often in the cross-roads dogs that pant
 To get apart strain eagerly asunder
 With utmost might?--When all the while they're fast
 In the stout links of Venus. But they'd ne'er
 So pull, except they knew those mutual joys--
 So powerful to cast them unto snares
 And hold them bound. Wherefore again, again,
 Even as I say, there is a joint delight.

 And when perchance, in mingling seed with his,
 The female hath o'erpowered the force of male
 And by a sudden fling hath seized it fast,
 Then are the offspring, more from mothers' seed,
 More like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed,
 They're like to fathers. But whom seest to be
 Partakers of each shape, one equal blend
 Of parents' features, these are generate
 From fathers' body and from mothers' blood,
 When mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed
 Together seeds, aroused along their frames
 By Venus' goads, and neither of the twain
 Mastereth or is mastered. Happens too
 That sometimes offspring can to being come
 In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back
 Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because
 Their parents in their bodies oft retain
 Concealed many primal germs, commixed
 In many modes, which, starting with the stock,
 Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire;
 Whence Venus by a variable chance
 Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back
 Ancestral features, voices too, and hair.
 A female generation rises forth
 From seed paternal, and from mother's body
 Exist created males: since sex proceeds
 No more from singleness of seed than faces
 Or bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth
 Is from a twofold seed; and what's created
 Hath, of that parent which it is more like,
 More than its equal share; as thou canst mark,--
 Whether the breed be male or female stock.

 Nor do the powers divine grudge any man
 The fruits of his seed-sowing, so that never
 He be called "father" by sweet children his,
 And end his days in sterile love forever.
 What many men suppose; and gloomily
 They sprinkle the altars with abundant blood,
 And make the high platforms odorous with burnt gifts,
 To render big by plenteous seed their wives--
 And plague in vain godheads and sacred lots.
 For sterile are these men by seed too thick,
 Or else by far too watery and thin.
 Because the thin is powerless to cleave
 Fast to the proper places, straightaway
 It trickles from them, and, returned again,
 Retires abortively. And then since seed
 More gross and solid than will suit is spent
 By some men, either it flies not forth amain
 With spurt prolonged enough, or else it fails
 To enter suitably the proper places,
 Or, having entered, the seed is weakly mixed
 With seed of the woman: harmonies of Venus
 Are seen to matter vastly here; and some
 Impregnate some more readily, and from some
 Some women conceive more readily and become
 Pregnant. And many women, sterile before
 In several marriage-beds, have yet thereafter
 Obtained the mates from whom they could conceive
 The baby-boys, and with sweet progeny
 Grow rich. And even for husbands (whose own wives,
 Although of fertile wombs, have borne for them
 No babies in the house) are also found
 Concordant natures so that they at last
 Can bulwark their old age with goodly sons.
 A matter of great moment 'tis in truth,
 That seeds may mingle readily with seeds
 Suited for procreation, and that thick
 Should mix with fluid seeds, with thick the fluid.
 And in this business 'tis of some import
 Upon what diet life is nourished:
 For some foods thicken seeds within our members,
 And others thin them out and waste away.
 And in what modes the fond delight itself
 Is carried on--this too importeth vastly.
 For commonly 'tis thought that wives conceive
 More readily in manner of wild-beasts,
 After the custom of the four-foot breeds,
 Because so postured, with the breasts beneath
 And buttocks then upreared, the seeds can take
 Their proper places. Nor is need the least
 For wives to use the motions of blandishment;
 For thus the woman hinders and resists
 Her own conception, if too joyously
 Herself she treats the Venus of the man
 With haunches heaving, and with all her bosom
 Now yielding like the billows of the sea--
 Aye, from the ploughshare's even course and track
 She throws the furrow, and from proper places
 Deflects the spurt of seed. And courtesans
 Are thuswise wont to move for their own ends,
 To keep from pregnancy and lying in,
 And all the while to render Venus more
 A pleasure for the men--the which meseems
 Our wives have never need of.

                             Sometimes too
 It happens--and through no divinity
 Nor arrows of Venus--that a sorry chit
 Of scanty grace will be beloved by man;
 For sometimes she herself by very deeds,
 By her complying ways, and tidy habits,
 Will easily accustom thee to pass
 With her thy life-time--and, moreover, lo,
 Long habitude can gender human love,
 Even as an object smitten o'er and o'er
 By blows, however lightly, yet at last
 Is overcome and wavers. Seest thou not,
 Besides, how drops of water falling down
 Against the stones at last bore through the stones?