On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (43 page)

Turning a larger light into our eyes

As it moves further from the sun, until

Rising on high it sees its setting, and then

Right opposite the sun the moon shines full.

Then gradually it must needs hide its light

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Behind it, as it glides nearer to the sun

From the opposite region through the zodiac.

So they make out that say the moon’s like a ball

Moving in an orbit below the sun.

Perhaps also the moon has its own light

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And with it displays its bright shapes as they change.

For there may be some other moving body

That glides along with it, obstructing it

And blocking it in all sorts of ways,

Which cannot be seen because it has no light.

Or it may be that it rotates like a ball

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One half of which is filled with brilliant light

And as it turns displays a changing shape

Until it brings round to our gazing eyes

All of the part that is enriched with fire.

Then gradually as it turns it bears away

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The luminous surface of its rounded globe.

This do the Babylonian Chaldees

Maintain, refuting the astronomers,

And trying to prove their art is all in vain.

As if each of these contentions might not be true,

Or there were any reason why you should dare

To embrace one of them rather than another.

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Lastly, why should not a new moon every day

Be created, with fixed phases and fixed shapes,

And every single day the new creation

Perish, and a new one take its place?

That is difficult to explain by reasoning

And prove by words, seeing that many things

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Are created in so fixed and sure an order.

Spring comes, and Venus, and Venus’ harbinger

Winged Cupid runs in front, in Zephyr’s steps,

And mother Flora strews the path before them

With choicest scents and colours everywhere.

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Next follows parching heat and hand in hand

Ceres his dusty friend, and Aquilo

That blows in summertime across the sea;

Next autumn comes and Bacchus’ revel rout;

Then follow other seasons, other winds,

Volturnus thunderer and Auster armed with lightning.

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Last winter brings his snows and freezing frost,

And cold comes after him with chattering teeth.

No marvel then, if at fixed times the moon

Is born and at fixed times again destroyed,

Seeing that in this world so many things

Come into being at so fixed a time.

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The sun’s eclipses and the moon’s retreats

Likewise you must suppose have several causes.

For if the moon can cut the sun’s light off

From earth, with head on high obstructing it,

Blocking its burning rays with its dark orb,

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Why should we not think that some other body

Gliding always without light could do the same?

And why should not the sun at a fixed time

Be able fainting to lay down its fires

And then renew its light, when it has passed

Through regions of air hostile to its flames

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Which can extinguish and destroy its fires?

And if the earth in turn can rob the moon

Of light and keep the sun subdued below

While moon glides monthly through the cone of shadow,

Why should not some other body at the same time

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Be able to travel underneath the moon

Or glide above the sun’s great orb, and so

Block and cut off its rays and light outpoured?

And if the moon shines with its own bright light,

Why should it not in a fixed part of the heavens

Grow faint as it passes through regions hostile to it?

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Well now, since the blue firmament on high

Has been my theme, and I have explained its working,

So that the varying courses of the sun

And wanderings of the moon, what force and cause

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Impels them we can better understand,

And in what way their light dies in eclipse

And darkness brings o’er unexpecting earth

As first they blink and then with open eyes

View all again shining with brilliant light,

I now return to the childhood of the world

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And the soft fields of earth, and tell what first

Into the shores of light they chose to bring

Newborn, and offer to the fickle winds.

In the beginning earth gave birth to plants

After their kind, and ringed with shining green

The hills and plains. The flowering meadows shone

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With verdure. Then between the various trees

A mighty race began, all galloping

To be the first to shoot up into the sky.

As feathers, hair, and bristles sprout from bodies

Of animals four-footed and from birds

Strong on the wing, so then the newborn earth

First thrust forth herbs and shrubs, and then created

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The mortal creatures in their generations,

Of many kinds from many sources sprung.

For animals cannot have fallen from the sky

Nor creatures of the land come from salt pools.

So it remains that earth does well deserve

The name of mother which we give to her,

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Since from the earth all things have been created.

Even now many animals come up from earth

Formed by the rains and warm heat of the sun,

So it’s no wonder if many and larger ones

Sprang and grew up when earth and air were young.

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First the winged things, the varied race of birds,

Were hatched from eggs in springtime, just as now

In summer cicadas from their smooth round shells

Crawl out in search of sustenance and life.

For earth then first gave birth to mortal creatures.

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In the fields were warmth and moisture everywhere

And so wherever a suitable place occurred

Wombs would grow, held by roots into the soil;

These in maturing time young offspring broke

Fleeing from moisture now and seeking air;

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Then nature opened there the pores of earth

And made it from its veins pour out a juice

Like milk, as now when a woman has borne a child

Her breasts fill with sweet milk since all the force

Of nourishment in her flows into the breasts.

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Earth furnished food for the children, warmth for their clothes,

And herbs for bed all covered in soft down.

The world when young knew neither freezing cold

Nor scorching heat nor furious blasts of wind,

For at the same pace all things equally

Increase and reach their peak of strength together.

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Wherefore again and again does earth deserve

The name of mother given to her, for she

Herself alone created the human race

And at an appointed time herself produced

All animals that range the mountains wide

And fowls of the air in all their varied forms.

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But since an end must come to all her bearing

She ceased, like a woman worn out by old age.

For time doth change the nature of the world;

One state of things must pass into another;

Nothing remains the same. All things move on.

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All things does nature turn, transform, and change.

One thing decays, grows faint and weak with age;

Another grows, and is despised no more.

So therefore time the whole nature of the world

Changes, and one state of the earth yields place to another,

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So that what it bore before it cannot bear,

But can bear what it did not bear before.

And many monsters in those days did earth

Try to create, most strange in form and aspect,

Hermaphrodites, halfway ’twixt man and woman

Yet being neither, and cut off from both;

And creatures without feet, or bereft of hands,

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Some dumb and mouthless, some eyeless and blind,

Some crippled, all their limbs stuck to their bodies,

Unable to do anything, go anywhere,

Nor avoid ill nor take what they might need.

And other monsters of like kind earth made,

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