Читать книгу On the Nature of Things - Тит Лукреций Кар - Страница 9

     Now come: I will untangle for thy steps

     Now by what motions the begetting bodies

     Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,

     And then forever resolve it when begot,

     And by what force they are constrained to this,

     And what the speed appointed unto them

     Wherewith to travel down the vast inane:

     Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.

     For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight,

     Since we behold each thing to wane away,

     And we observe how all flows on and off,

     As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes

     How eld withdraws each object at the end,

     Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same,

     Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing

     Diminish what they part from, but endow

     With increase those to which in turn they come,

     Constraining these to wither in old age,

     And those to flower at the prime (and yet

     Biding not long among them). Thus the sum

     Forever is replenished, and we live

     As mortals by eternal give and take.

     The nations wax, the nations wane away;

     In a brief space the generations pass,

     And like to runners hand the lamp of life

     One unto other.

                          But if thou believe

     That the primordial germs of things can stop,

     And in their stopping give new motions birth,

     Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.

     For since they wander through the void inane,

     All the primordial germs of things must needs

     Be borne along, either by weight their own,

     Or haply by another's blow without.

     For, when, in their incessancy so oft

     They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain

     They leap asunder, face to face: not strange—

     Being most hard, and solid in their weights,

     And naught opposing motion, from behind.

     And that more clearly thou perceive how all

     These mites of matter are darted round about,

     Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum

     Of All exists a bottom,—nowhere is

     A realm of rest for primal bodies; since

     (As amply shown and proved by reason sure)

     Space has no bound nor measure, and extends

     Unmetered forth in all directions round.

     Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt

     No rest is rendered to the primal bodies

     Along the unfathomable inane; but rather,

     Inveterately plied by motions mixed,

     Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave

     Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow

     Are hurried about with spaces small between.

     And all which, brought together with slight gaps,

     In more condensed union bound aback,

     Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,—

     These form the irrefragable roots of rocks

     And the brute bulks of iron, and what else

     Is of their kind…

     The rest leap far asunder, far recoil,

     Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply

     For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.

     And many besides wander the mighty void—

     Cast back from unions of existing things,

     Nowhere accepted in the universe,

     And nowise linked in motions to the rest.

     And of this fact (as I record it here)

     An image, a type goes on before our eyes

     Present each moment; for behold whenever

     The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down

     Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see

     The many mites in many a manner mixed

     Amid a void in the very light of the rays,

     And battling on, as in eternal strife,

     And in battalions contending without halt,

     In meetings, partings, harried up and down.

     From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort

     The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds

     Amid the mightier void—at least so far

     As small affair can for a vaster serve,

     And by example put thee on the spoor

     Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit

     Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies

     Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light:

     Namely, because such tumblings are a sign

     That motions also of the primal stuff

     Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.

     For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled

     By viewless blows, to change its little course,

     And beaten backwards to return again,

     Hither and thither in all directions round.

     Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,

     From the primeval atoms; for the same

     Primordial seeds of things first move of self,

     And then those bodies built of unions small

     And nearest, as it were, unto the powers

     Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up

     By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,

     And these thereafter goad the next in size:

     Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,

     And stage by stage emerges to our sense,

     Until those objects also move which we

     Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears

     What blows do urge them.

                             Herein wonder not

     How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all

     Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand

     Supremely still, except in cases where

     A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.

     For far beneath the ken of senses lies

     The nature of those ultimates of the world;

     And so, since those themselves thou canst not see,

     Their motion also must they veil from men—

     For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft

     Yet hide their motions, when afar from us

     Along the distant landscape. Often thus,

     Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks

     Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about

     Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed

     With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs,

     Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:

     Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar—

     A glint of white at rest on a green hill.

     Again, when mighty legions, marching round,

     Fill all the quarters of the plains below,

     Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen

     Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about

     Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound

     Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,

     And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send

     The voices onward to the stars of heaven,

     And hither and thither darts the cavalry,

     And of a sudden down the midmost fields

     Charges with onset stout enough to rock

     The solid earth: and yet some post there is

     Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem

     To stand—a gleam at rest along the plains.

      Now what the speed to matter's atoms given

     Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:

     When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light

     The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad

     Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes

     Filling the regions along the mellow air,

     We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man

     How suddenly the risen sun is wont

     At such an hour to overspread and clothe

     The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's

     Warm exhalations and this serene light

     Travel not down an empty void; and thus

     They are compelled more slowly to advance,

     Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;

     Nor one by one travel these particles

     Of the warm exhalations, but are all

     Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once

     Each is restrained by each, and from without

     Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.

     But the primordial atoms with their old

     Simple solidity, when forth they travel

     Along the empty void, all undelayed

     By aught outside them there, and they, each one

     Being one unit from nature of its parts,

     Are borne to that one place on which they strive

     Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,

     Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne

     Than light of sun, and over regions rush,

     Of space much vaster, in the self-same time

     The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.

     Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,

     To see the law whereby each thing goes on.

     But some men, ignorant of matter, think,

     Opposing this, that not without the gods,

     In such adjustment to our human ways,

     Can nature change the seasons of the years,

     And bring to birth the grains and all of else

     To which divine Delight, the guide of life,

     Persuades mortality and leads it on,

     That, through her artful blandishments of love,

     It propagate the generations still,

     Lest humankind should perish. When they feign

     That gods have stablished all things but for man,

     They seem in all ways mightily to lapse

     From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew

     What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare

     This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based

     Upon the ways and conduct of the skies—

     This to maintain by many a fact besides—

     That in no wise the nature of the world

     For us was builded by a power divine—

     So great the faults it stands encumbered with:

     The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee

     We will clear up. Now as to what remains

     Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.

     Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs

     To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal

     Of its own force can e'er be upward borne,

     Or upward go—nor let the bodies of flames

     Deceive thee here: for they engendered are

     With urge to upwards, taking thus increase,

     Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees,

     Though all the weight within them downward bears.

     Nor, when the fires will leap from under round

     The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up

     Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed

     They act of own accord, no force beneath

     To urge them up. 'Tis thus that blood, discharged

     From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft

     And spatters gore. And hast thou never marked

     With what a force the water will disgorge

     Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,

     We push them in, and, many though we be,

     The more we press with main and toil, the more

     The water vomits up and flings them back,

     That, more than half their length, they there emerge,

     Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,

     That all the weight within them downward bears

     Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames

     Ought also to be able, when pressed out,

     Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though

     The weight within them strive to draw them down.

     Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,

     The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,

     How after them they draw long trails of flame

     Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?

     How stars and constellations drop to earth,

     Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven

     Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,

     And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:

     Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.

     Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;

     Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds,

     The fires dash zig-zag—and that flaming power

     Falls likewise down to earth.

                                 In these affairs

     We wish thee also well aware of this:

     The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

     Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,

     In scarce determined places, from their course

     Decline a little—call it, so to speak,

     Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

     Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,

     Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;

     And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows

     Among the primal elements; and thus

     Nature would never have created aught.

     But, if perchance be any that believe

     The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne

     Plumb down the void, are able from above

     To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows

     Able to cause those procreant motions, far

     From highways of true reason they retire.

     For whatsoever through the waters fall,

     Or through thin air, must quicken their descent,

     Each after its weight—on this account, because

     Both bulk of water and the subtle air

     By no means can retard each thing alike,

     But give more quick before the heavier weight;

     But contrariwise the empty void cannot,

     On any side, at any time, to aught

     Oppose resistance, but will ever yield,

     True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,

     With equal speed, though equal not in weight,

     Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.

     Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above

     Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes

     Which cause those divers motions, by whose means

     Nature transacts her work. And so I say,

     The atoms must a little swerve at times—

     But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

     Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.

     For this we see forthwith is manifest:

     Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,

     Down on its headlong journey from above,

     At least so far as thou canst mark; but who

     Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

     At all aside from off its road's straight line?

     Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,

     And from the old ever arise the new

     In fixed order, and primordial seeds

     Produce not by their swerving some new start

     Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,

     That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,

     Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,

     Whence is it wrested from the fates,—this will

     Whereby we step right forward where desire

     Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

     In motions, not as at some fixed time,

     Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

     The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

     In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself

     That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

     Incipient motions are diffused. Again,

     Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,

     The bars are opened, how the eager strength

     Of horses cannot forward break as soon

     As pants their mind to do? For it behooves

     That all the stock of matter, through the frame,

     Be roused, in order that, through every joint,

     Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;

     So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered

     From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds

     First from the spirit's will, whence at the last

     'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.

     Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,

     Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers

     And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough

     All matter of our total body goes,

     Hurried along, against our own desire—

     Until the will has pulled upon the reins

     And checked it back, throughout our members all;

     At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes

     The stock of matter's forced to change its path,

     Throughout our members and throughout our joints,

     And, after being forward cast, to be

     Reined up, whereat it settles back again.

     So seest thou not, how, though external force

     Drive men before, and often make them move,

     Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,

     Yet is there something in these breasts of ours

     Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?—

     Wherefore no less within the primal seeds

     Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,

     Some other cause of motion, whence derives

     This power in us inborn, of some free act.—

     Since naught from nothing can become, we see.

     For weight prevents all things should come to pass

     Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;

     But that man's mind itself in all it does

     Hath not a fixed necessity within,

     Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled

     To bear and suffer,—this state comes to man

     From that slight swervement of the elements

     In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.

     Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,

     Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:

     For naught gives increase and naught takes away;

     On which account, just as they move to-day,

     The elemental bodies moved of old

     And shall the same hereafter evermore.

     And what was wont to be begot of old

     Shall be begotten under selfsame terms

     And grow and thrive in power, so far as given

     To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.

     The sum of things there is no power can change,

     For naught exists outside, to which can flee

     Out of the world matter of any kind,

     Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,

     Break in upon the founded world, and change

     Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.