On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (44 page)

In vain, since nature scared away their growth,

Nor could they reach the longed-for flower of age,

Nor find food nor be joined in acts of Venus.

For any things we see must needs combine

Before by procreation living beings

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Can hammer out the pattern of their kind.

First they need food, then the life-bringing seed

From limbs lying limp must find a way to flow;

And male and female cannot join together

Unless they have means to make their shared delights.

In those days many breeds of animals

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Must have died out, unable by procreation

To hammer out a chain of progeny.

All those that you see drawing the breath of life

Either by guile or courage or by speed

From the beginning of time have been preserved.

And there are many which their usefulness

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Has commended to us, entrusted to our protection.

Courage has kept the savage lion safe,

Cunning the fox and speed the fleeing stag.

The dog, our faithful watchman of the night,

And beasts of burden of all kinds, and sheep

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With woolly fleeces also, and horned cattle,

All these have man’s protection, Memmius.

Gladly they fled the beasts of prey and sought

Peace and good victuals without labour won

Which we supply them in reward for service.

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But those on which nature no such qualities

Bestowed, no means to fend for themselves, no use

That might persuade us to give them sustenance

To live in safety under our protection,

All these to prey or profit victims lay,

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Bound by the shackles of their destiny

Till nature brought destruction to their kind.

Centaurs never existed, nor at any time

Can there be creatures of a double nature

Composed of alien limbs and twofold body

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Such that the two parts live in balance together.

And here is proof the dullest brain can grasp.

First, the horse reaches its vigorous prime

At about three years; by no means so the boy.

For even at that age oft he will in sleep

Seek the soft comfort of his mother’s breasts.

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And later, when the horse’s strong limbs fail

Wearied by age, and faint as life recedes,

Then long-delayed the flower of boyhood comes,

And youth begins, and clothes his cheeks with down.

Think not therefore that Centaurs can be formed

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From seed of man and horse that bears the rider,

Or Scyllas, half-fish, girt with rabid dogs,

And all the other monsters of that kind

Composed of members incompatible;

Which neither reach their flower and prime of life

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Together, nor fail as old age weakens them,

Nor burn with Venus equally, nor join

In the same habits, nor the same pleasures feel.

In fact you may see that often bearded goats

Grow fat on hemlock which to man is poison.

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Again, since fire burns lions’ tawny bodies

No less than all things made of flesh and blood,

How could the Chimaera, three bodies joined in one,

Lion in front, serpent behind, goat in the middle,

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Belch from its body blasts of burning flame?

Wherefore, if anyone pretends that beasts

Of such a kind could have been brought to birth

And made, when earth was young and heaven new,

Relying on that empty concept ‘new’,

Let him continue with his nonsense,

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Let him believe that rivers ran with gold,

That trees bore jewels for blossom, that a man

Was born with such a mighty stretch of limbs

That he could set his stride across the sea

And turn the whole sky round him with his hands.

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Though many seeds of things were in the soil

At the time when earth first brought forth animals,

That is no proof that beasts of compound form

Could have been made, from alien bodies joined.

Things which now spring abundantly from earth,

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All breeds of plants, and crops, and smiling woodlands

Cannot be interbred and woven together,

But each proceeds on its appointed way

And by fixed laws of nature stays distinct.

And in those days the men that roamed the earth

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Were hardier by far, as was most fitting,

Since hard earth made them. Larger bones they had

And solider, with stronger sinews fitted;

And neither heat nor cold could readily

Subdue them, nor strange food, nor ills of body.

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Through many lustres of the circling sun

They led their lives, wide-wandering like wild beasts.

No sturdy arm then steered the curving plough,

No one knew how to work the fields with iron,

Or to set cuttings into the soil, or use

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The hook to cut dead branches from the trees.

What sun and rain had given them, what earth

Created for them of her own accord,

That was a gift enough to bring content.

Mostly amid the oaks they stayed their hunger

With acorns; and the berries which now you see

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In winter on arbutus ripening red

Earth then bore larger and more plentiful.

And many other foods young flowering earth

Then bore for them, hard foods, but food enough

To meet poor mortals’ needs.

Rivers and springs called them to quench their thirst,

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As now in the high hills the waterfalls

Call from afar the thirsting tribes of beasts.

They made their homes amid the woodland realms

Of nymphs, known to them in their wanderings,

Where well they knew the living waters still

Washed the wet rocks in their abundant flow,

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Wet rocks, and dripped down o’er the verdant moss,

Or bubbling up broke out across the plain.

Nor yet they knew how to work things with fire

Nor skins for clothes, the spoils of animals,

But woods and forests and the mountain caves

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They made their homes, and hid their uncouth limbs

Beneath the bushes, when they must needs

Seek shelter from the lash of wind and rain.

They could not look to any common good

Nor guide their lives by custom or by law.

What nature gave a man for prey, he kept,

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Taught that his own will gave him strength to live.

And Venus coupled lovers in the woods;

Mutual desire attracted them, or else

The strength of man and overpowering lust

Forced her, or else he won her by a bribe

Of acorns or arbutus or choice pears.

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And with their marvellous powers of hand and foot

They hunted the beasts that roamed the woods and plains,

With stones for missiles or with heavy clubs.

Many they killed; from few they hid themselves.

When night came o’er them, naked on the ground

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Like bristling hogs they laid their woodland limbs

And made a coverlet of leaves and branches.

Nor, wandering frightened in the shades of night,

Sought they with wailing loud the sun and day,

But buried in sleep they waited quietly

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Until the sun with rosy torch again

Spread his new morning light across the sky.

For since from childhood always to their sight

Darkness and light returned alternately,

This brought no wonder to their minds, no cause

To tremble lest the earth be held in night

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Perpetual, the sun’s bright light withdrawn.

Much more they worried that the hours of rest

Brought danger from marauding animals.

Driven from home, they fled their rocky shelters

At the approach of foaming boar, or lion,

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And at dead of night they’ld yield their leaf-strewn beds

In terror to their savage visitors.

Nor did poor mortals much more then than now

Leave the sweet light of life with sad lament.

More often then one single man might die

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Caught by wild beasts and torn, devoured alive,

Filling the woods and hills with screams, seeing

His living flesh buried in a living tomb.