# Of the Nature of Things (Leonard)/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?