On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (17 page)

As when Cilician saffron o’er the stage

Is freshly cast, or when a near-by altar

Exhales the perfumes of Arabia.

And colours too, whose beauty feeds the eye,

Cannot be composed of atoms similar

To those that prick the pupil and force tears,

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Or bring through ugliness disgust and loathing.

For everything that charms the senses must

Contain some smoothness in its primal atoms.

But by contrast things that are harsh and painful

Are found to have some roughness in their matter.

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Some atoms are rightly thought to be neither smooth

Nor altogether hooked, with curving points,

But rather to have angles projecting slightly;

These tickle our senses without harming them.

Of such kind are wine-lees and piquant endive.

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And fire with heat and frost with cold have teeth

That bite our senses in quite different ways,

As touch in each case indicates to us.

For touch (by all the holy powers of heaven!),

Touch is the body’s sense, whether from outside

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A thing slips in, or something inside hurts us,

Or pleasure comes when something issues forth

In procreative acts of Venus, or when some blow

Upsets the body’s atoms and we feel

Disordered by their ferment—and for proof

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Hit yourself anywhere with your own hand!

So atoms must have widely different shapes

Since they can cause such varying sensations.

Again, things that seem hard and dense must be

Composed much more of atoms hooked together

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Held tight deep down by branch-like particles.

First in this class and in the leading rank

Stand diamonds, well used to scorn all blows.

Next come stout flints and the hard strength of iron

And bronze that fights and shrieks when bolts are shot.

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But liquids in their fluid composition

Must consist more of atoms smooth and round.

You can pour poppy seeds as easily as water,

The tiny spheres do not hold each other back,

And if you knock a heap of them they run

Downhill in the same way as water does.

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And all those things you see that in an instant

Disperse, like smoke or clouds or flames, must be,

If not composed entirely of smooth round atoms,

At least not hampered by a close-knit texture,

So they can sting the body and pass through stones

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Without adhering together. So you can see

That all things of this kind that prick the senses

Are made of atoms sharp but not enmeshed.

And some things too can be both fluid and bitter,

Like the salt sea. This should cause no surprise.

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For, being fluid, it consists of smooth round atoms,

And rough ones are mixed with them, thus causing pain.

There is no need for them to be hooked together.

You must know that they are round as well as rough

And so can roll and also hurt the senses.

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It can be shown that Neptune’s bitter brine

Comes from a mixture of atoms, rough with smooth.

There is a way to separate them. You can see

How the sweet water, when the same is filtered

Through many layers of earth, runs separately

Into a pit and loses all its saltness.

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The atoms of nauseous salt are left on top.

Since being rough they adhere more to the earth.

Now I have explained this I will link a fact

Associated with it and gaining credence from it:

That atoms have a finite number of shapes.

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If this were not so, then inevitably

Some atoms will have to be of infinite size.

Within the small space of a single atom

There can be no large variety of shapes.

Suppose that atoms consist of three minimal parts,

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Or make them larger by adding a few more,

When you have taken those parts of a single body

And turned them top to bottom, changed them right and left,

And have worked out in every possible way

What shape each order gives to the whole body,

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Then, if you wish perhaps to vary the shapes,

You must add other parts; thence it will follow

That if you wish to change the shapes still further

The arrangement in like manner will need others.

Therefore novelty of shape involves

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Increase in size. And so you cannot believe

That atoms differ infinitely in shape

Or you will make some have enormous magnitude,

Which I have proved above to be impossible.

Were it not so, the Orient’s richest robes

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And gleaming silks of Meliboean purple

Dyed with the hues of shells of Thessaly,

And peacocks’ golden breed of laughing beauty,

All, put to shame, would pale before new colours.

Myrrh’s scent and honey’s taste would be despised,

The swan’s sweet song, the high-wrought melodies

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Of Phoebus’ lyre would vanish, crushed and silent.

Always there would be something more excellent.

And as we see good things would yield to better,

So turning back, they might give way to worse.

Things might well come successively more filthy

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And foul to eyes and ears and mouth and nostrils.

Since this does not occur, but things are bound

By limits at each extreme, you must admit

A limit too for matter’s different forms.

The path that leads from fires to icy frosts

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Also is finite, and the way back is finite.

There are heat and cold and middle temperatures

Between the two which make the range complete.

A finite distance governs their creation,

And two points mark the extremes at either end,

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Where flame scorches the one and frost the other.

Now I have explained this I will link a fact

Associated with it, and gaining credence from it:

That atoms which are made of similar shapes

Are infinite in number. Since the variety

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Of shapes is finite, then of necessity

The number of similar shapes must be infinite,

Or else the sum of matter would be finite,

Which I have proved it not to be, and in my verses

Have shown that the universe is held together

From infinity by particles of matter

In endless chain of impacts everywhere.

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You can see that certain animals are rarer,

And nature grants them less fertility;

Yet other climes and places, distant lands,

Breed many of that kind, to swell the total.

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Of quadrupeds among the first we see

Snake-handed elephants, where India

Lies safe behind a wall of countless thousands,

Of ivory, a rampart none can pass.

So huge the number is of those great beasts,

Of which we see but very few examples.

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Let me concede this too: let us suppose

One thing exists alone, unique from birth,

That has no likeness in the whole wide world.

Unless there is an infinite supply

Of matter to conceive it, give it birth,

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It would have no chance of ever being created,

Still less of growth and further nourishment.

Let us assume also that a finite number

Of atoms generative of one single thing

Exists, dispersed at large through the universe,

Then whence, then where, by what force, in what way

Shall they combine and meet in that vast sea,

That alien turmoil of endless matter?

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They have no means, I think, of union ever.

Observe, when some great flotilla has been wrecked

How the sea throws up pieces everywhere,

And scatters thwarts, ribs, masts, yards, oars adrift,

And every shore along the coast can see

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Stern-posts a-floating, warning mortal men

To shun the snares and violence and guile

Of the false faithless sea, and never trust

A calm sea’s smiling treacherous blandishments.

So, if you once decide that certain atoms

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Are in number finite, through all time they must be tossed

And scattered on conflicting tides of matter,