and it is a sure sign of infirmity to have many wants. It is with life just as with swimming: that man is the most expert who is the most disengaged from all incumbrances. . . . For my part, I have learned that in this especially the gods surpass mankind, that they have to satisfy no necessities. Hence it is that him among us who has the fewest possible necessities, I consider most strongly to resemble a god. FROM LUCRETIUS.1 TRANSLATION BY W. H. MALLOCK. [TITUS CARUS LUCRETIUS, Roman poet of the first rank, was born B.C. 95; committed suicide B.C. 55. His poem "On the Nature of Things" expounds the atomic theory and the Epicurean philosophy, to the result of atheism but with great splendor of thought and poetry.] MOTHER and mistress of the Roman race, Venus, whose presence breathes in every place, And all the water's navigable ways, Water and earth and air and everything, Since by thy power alone their life is given Goddess, thou comest, and the clouds before thee To overarch thine advent; and for thee For lo, no sooner come the soft and glowing Out of the bill of every pairing bird; And every songster feels, on every tree, Its small heart pulsing with the power of thee. By permission of W. Black wood & Sons. (Crown 8vo., price 2s. 6d.) Next the herds feel thee; and the wild fleet races Wherefore, since thou, O lady, only thou When human life a shame to human eyes, With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate - Him not the tales of all the gods in heaven, By these vain vauntings, to desire the more To burst through Nature's gates, and rive the unriven And back returning, crowned with victory, he How to each force is set strong boundaries, Yet fear I lest thou haply deem that thus And those great chiefs who, in the windless season, Bade young Iphianassa's form be laid Upon the altar of the Trivian maid? Soon as the fillet round her virgin hair Fell in its equal lengths down either cheek,- Hiding the knife, and many a faithful Greek Weeping her knees grew weak, and with no sound She sank, in speechless terror, on the ground. But naught availed it in that hour accurst To save the maid from such a doom as this, That her lips were the baby lips that first Called the king father with their cries and kiss. For round her came the strong men, and none durst Refuse to do what cruel part was his; So silently they raised her up, and bore her, And as they bore her, ne'er a golden lyre Rang round her coming with a bridal strain; But in the very season of desire, A stainless maiden, amid bloody stain, She died a victim felled by its own sire That so the ships the wished-for wind might gain, And air puff out their canvas. Learn thou, then, To what damned deeds religion urges men. 'Tis sweet when tempests roar upon the sea To watch from land another's deep distress Amongst the waves — his toil and misery: Not that his sorrow makes our happiness, But that some sweetness there must ever be Watching what sorrows we do not possess: So, too, 'tis sweet to safely view from far Gleam o'er the plains the savage ways of war. But sweeter far to look with purgèd eyes Down from the battlements and topmost towers Of learning, those high bastions of the wise, And far below us see this world of ours, The vain crowds wandering blindly, led by lies, Spending in pride and wrangling all their powers So far below the pygmy toil and strife, - The pain and piteous rivalries of life. O peoples miserable! O fools and blind! Is all that Nature pleads for, for this span, Wherefore we see that for the body's need A pause from pain almost itself suffices. It oft itself with its own smile entices, What though about the halls no silent band Of golden boys on many a pedestal Dangle their hanging lamps from outstretched hand, To flare along the midnight festival Though on our board no priceless vessels stand, Nor gold nor silver fret the dazzling wall, Nor does the soft voluptuous air resound The grass is ours, and sweeter sounds than these, And overhead we hear the branching trees That shade us, whisper; and for food we bring Only the country's simple luxuries. Ah, sweet is this, and sweetest in the spring, When the sun goes through all the balmy hours, And all the green earth's lap is filled with flowers! TRANSLATION BY DRYDEN. What has this bugbear death to frighten man, For, as before our birth we felt no pain, When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled, Nay, e'en suppose, when we have suffered fate, We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part For backward if you look on that long space Of ages past, and view the changing face In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind. From thence to infer, that seeds of things have been In the same order as they now are seen: Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace, Because a pause of life, a gaping space, Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead, And all the wandering motions from the sense are fled. For whosoe'er shall in misfortunes live, Must be, when those misfortunes shall arrive; And since the man who is not, feels not woe, |