Читать книгу On the Nature of Things - Тит Лукреций Кар - Страница 8

     'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds

     Roll up its waste of waters, from the land

     To watch another's labouring anguish far,

     Not that we joyously delight that man

     Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet

     To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;

     'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife

     Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,

     Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught

     There is more goodly than to hold the high

     Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,

     Whence thou may'st look below on other men

     And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed

     In their lone seeking for the road of life;

     Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,

     Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil

     For summits of power and mastery of the world.

     O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!

     In how great perils, in what darks of life

     Are spent the human years, however brief!—

     O not to see that nature for herself

     Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,

     Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy

     Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!

     Therefore we see that our corporeal life

     Needs little, altogether, and only such

     As takes the pain away, and can besides

     Strew underneath some number of delights.

     More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves

     No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth

     There be no golden images of boys

     Along the halls, with right hands holding out

     The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,

     And if the house doth glitter not with gold

     Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound

     No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,

     Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass

     Beside a river of water, underneath

     A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh

     Our frames, with no vast outlay—most of all

     If the weather is laughing and the times of the year

     Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.

     Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,

     If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,

     Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie

     Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since

     Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign

     Avail us naught for this our body, thus

     Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:

     Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth

     Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,

     Rousing a mimic warfare—either side

     Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,

     Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;

     Or save when also thou beholdest forth

     Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea:

     For then, by such bright circumstance abashed,

     Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then

     The fears of death leave heart so free of care.

     But if we note how all this pomp at last

     Is but a drollery and a mocking sport,

     And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels,

     Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords

     But among kings and lords of all the world

     Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed

     By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright

     Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this

     Is aught, but power of thinking?—when, besides

     The whole of life but labours in the dark.

     For just as children tremble and fear all

     In the viewless dark, so even we at times

     Dread in the light so many things that be

     No whit more fearsome than what children feign,

     Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.

     This terror then, this darkness of the mind,

     Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,

     Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,

     But only nature's aspect and her law.