On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (59 page)

11
The clash of intellects, the fight for honours
: Lucretius dramatizes the opposing slogans of the so-called ‘new men’ in Roman politics, who claimed to rise through talent, and the established ‘nobles’, whose claims were based on family distinction.

16–19
… Nature cries for this…
: Lucretius encapsulates all four of the types of pleasure analysed by Epicurus,
katastematic
or ‘steady-state’ pleasure of the body (absence of pain) and the mind (absence of anxiety), and
kinetic
or ‘motive’ pleasure of the body (pleasure of the senses) and mind (reflection on sensual pleasure): see Introduction.

24
golden statues of young men
: Lucretius echoes Homer,
Odyssey
7. 100–2, describing the mythical luxury of Phaeacia. Moralizing interpretations of the Phaeacian episode in the
Odyssey
were common in antiquity, and Heraclitus ‘the Allegorizer’ (perhaps first century
AD
) calls Epicurus ‘the Phaeacian philosopher’ (79. 2). At
Odyssey
9. 5 Odysseus (in a line much discussed by ancient moralists and echoed here in 23) tells his hosts that there is nothing more pleasing than when everyone has ‘good cheer’ (
euphrosyne
) at a banquet: Epicurus took over the word
euphrosyne
for bodily pleasure and certainly did not reject sensual pleasure (cf. e.g. fr. 67), but true Epicurean ‘luxury’ is much simpler, as Lucretius explains here.

31–3
… On the soft grass beside a flowing stream…
: the description here is repeated in
Book 5
(1392–6) (significantly dealing there with the simple life of early man), and places in a new Epicurean context the commonplaces of the so-called
locus amoenus
or pleasance, as seen canonically in Hesiod,
Works and Days
588–96, and Plato,
Phaedrus
230b.

55
like children frightened of the dark
: 55–61 are repeated at the end of the prologues to
Book 3
(87 ff.) and
Book 6
(35 ff.), while 60–1 also conclude the prologue to
Book 1
(see above on 148). The contrast of light and dark that runs through the prologue to
Book 2
is the most obvious of the symbolic complexes that structure the poem: here and in
Book 6
the light of reason is set against the darkness of ignorance, while in
Book 3
the fear of death is the more prominent target, but the weapons of enlightenment remain the same.

62–323
motions…
: atoms for the Epicureans were constantly moving at the greatest possible speed (one minimal space-unit per minimal time-unit: cf.
Letter to Herodotus
61–2). Compounds consist of more-or-less stable clusters of atoms whose movements interlock, and the properties of compounds are in part determined by the nature of these motions. As Lucretius explains at the end of
Book 2
in connection with the human body and the cosmos, there is a constant interchange of atoms between compounds and their surrounding environment: some motions lead to the creation of new compounds and the replenishment of existing ones, others to decay and destruction (cf. 2. 569 ff.). A proper appreciation of this cycle of change has wider implications for Epicurean ethical theory: human beings have to see that they themselves are also part of this process (cf. 76 ff.). On the presentation of atomic motion before atomic shape, see below on 334 ff.

76–7
mortals live… | Some races increase
: although ‘mortals’ is general and ‘races’ includes the different species of animals, the language used here suggests
human institutions such as families and whole peoples, and the common places of the rise and fall of empires and polities (cf. e.g. Herodotus,
Histories
1. 5. 4, Polybius,
Histories
1. 2, Ovid,
Metamorphoses
15. 420 ff.).

79
the torch of life
: in the Latin ‘vitai lampada’, adopted as the title for the poem of Henry Newbolt whose refrain is ‘Play up! Play up! and play the game!’ The image (from Athenian torch races) goes back to Plato,
Laws
6. 777b, in the context of marriage (torches were borne at both weddings and funerals in antiquity).

94
I have shown
: in 1. 958 ff.

112
An image and similitude of this
: the example of dust in a sunbeam (which goes back to Democritus fr. A28, and Epicurus fr. 293) is used in two ways by Lucretius: to give a conceptual picture of what atomic motion is like (112 ff.) and as an argument from observed phenomena to underlying atomic causation (125 ff.: see Introduction). Although molecular movement is responsible for the ‘Brownian motion’ of particles in fluids and gases, the movement of dust in a beam of light is in fact due merely to air currents (as the Stoics held in antiquity: cf. Seneca,
Natural Questions
5. 1). Through a paraphrase of Lucretius in the church father Lactantius (third–fourth century
AD
:
On Anger
10. 9), the image enters Dante’s
Paradiso
(14. 112 ff.).

153
particles of heat
: something like the modern conception of ‘molecules’, but without the notion of fixed size and constitution. Atoms always move at the same speed, within and outside compounds, but the motion of a ‘molecule’ is the sum of all the motions of its constituent atoms (as in a swarm of insects moving
en masse
).

164 Although this is not noted in the manuscripts, there seems to be a substantial portion of text missing at this point.

175
all things for men’s sake
: although Lucretius’ target in this section is generally all those who believe in divine providence, and Xenophon (fifth–fourth century
BC
) already has Socrates arguing that everything is ordered for man (
Memorabilia
4. 3. 12), the Stoics were particularly renowned for believing that all was for the sake of man in this best of all possible worlds (cf. e.g. Cicero,
On Duties
1. 22,
On the Nature of the Gods
2. 133).

182
I will make clear to you later
: 177–81 are repeated at 5. 195–9, where the argument is pursued in more detail.

185–6
no material thing can… |… travel upwards
: all atoms in Epicureanism have a natural motion ‘downwards’, even though the universe is infinite in space and time, and there has never been a time when all atoms were pursuing this natural motion rather than moving as a result of collisions or the ‘swerve’. This natural motion reasserts itself, so that an atom travelling ‘horizontally’ as a result of a collision will eventually return to a natural downward path. Epicurus seems to have introduced this notion of natural motion
partly in response to criticisms of the earlier atomists made by Aristotle (cf. e.g.
On the Heavens
3.2, 300
^b
8 ff.).

219
swerve slightly from their course
: the famous ‘swerve’ of the atoms has been much discussed in ancient and modern times (Karl Marx devoted part of his doctoral dissertation to it) and remains controversial. Atoms ‘jump tracks’ (probably by one minimal space-unit, and without changing direction) at indeterminate moments: this not only provides a way in which atomic collisions might occur (though, as explained above, there has never been a time when collisions have not been occurring) but is somehow involved in ‘free will’ (256–7). The swerve is well attested in Epicurean sources, but is not mentioned in any extant passage of Epicurus himself: this may be just chance. Swerves were probably frequent occurrences, but usually had little effect in the relatively robust compounds of the world: if they took place, however, in the fine substance of the souls of people and animals (cf. 3. 177 ff.), and in particular in its nameless ‘fourth part’ (3. 273 ff.), a change might occur which at the level of consciousness would be an act of decision. Many details remain unclear, but the swerve paradoxically enabled Epicureans to stress individual agency and freedom from fate on a moral level (cf. 279 ff.).

254
the bonds of fate
: ‘fate’ was especially the watchword of the Stoics, who were strict determinists, and believed in an unbroken chain of cause and effect.

276
Until the will has reined limbs back
: Lucretius’ continued use of the imagery of chariot-racing can be seen as an appropriation of Plato’s image of the chariot of the soul in the
Phaedrus
(253d).

324
in mimic war
: the mock battles of the prologue (5 ff., 40 ff.) return, suggesting an underlying ethical point to the physical observation. There is a place to stand where all the epic grandeur of human endeavour (Homer,
Iliad
19. 357 ff. and other passages are recalled) is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

334–5
shapes | And… figures
: the shape of the atoms determines how their motions interact, and the topic is treated by Epicurus before that of their motion in
Letter to Herodotus
54–5, 55–6. Lucretius, however, proceeds from shape to primary and secondary qualities (treated separately in the
Letter to Herodotus
68 ff.) in a movement ‘upwards’ from the atomic level to that of compounds which is part of the wider plot of the poem: see below on 2. 730 ff.

352
in front of noble shrines of gods
: Lucretius insinuates a point against religion into his argument from the variety of things, but there is perhaps also a further anti-providentialist point: the Greek church father Nemesius (
c
.400
AD
) argues that the ability of animals to recognize each other is providential (
On the Nature of Man
41. 154 ff.) and in general the wondrous variety of the world is a common argument for divine activity (cf. e.g. Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
2. 98 ff.).

416
Cilician saffron
: before dramatic performances (cf. e.g. Ovid,
Art of Love
1. 104) the stage was sprinkled with saffron, imported from Corycus in Cilicia (southern Turkey); cf. Pliny,
Natural Histories
21. 31.

480
atoms have a finite number of shapes
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Herodotus
42, 55–6. Democritus seems to have been prepared to accept atoms even as big as a world-system (frr. A43, A47): Epicurus saw that, if the number of different shapes was infinite and there were minimal units of space, we should have to suppose that there were infinitely large atoms. Again, Epicurus seems to have been responding to Aristotle: cf.
On the Heavens
303
^a
,
On Sensation
442
^b
.

485
minimal parts
: see above 1. 601 ff.

501
Meliboean purple
: Meliboea was a town in Thessaly, where purple dye was made from shellfish (like the more famous ‘Tyrian purple’).

524–5
atoms which are made of similar shapes | Are infinite in number
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Herodotus
42, 55–6.

532–40
certain animals are rarer…
: The Epicureans used a principle of
isonomia
or ‘equal distribution’ (our only source for the term is Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
1. 50. 109): if one set of things is rarer in a particular location than another, but there is no reason why there should be more in total of the one than the other, there must be a place somewhere (possibly in another world) where the proportions are reversed, and if things are destroyed in one part, they must be being created elsewhere.

538
Of ivory, a rampart none can pass
: some traveller’s tale must lie behind this ‘wall of ivory’, but there is no exact parallel in extant literature.

577
the wailing of the infant child
: it has often been observed that Lucretius’ opposition between the ‘positive’ cry of a child being born and the ‘negative’ cries of lamentation for death still tends towards a negative view of human life: cf. 5. 222 ff.

598
Great Mother of the Gods
: Cybele the ‘Great Mother’, an Anatolian deity whose cult was brought to Rome in 204
BC
. Her worship combined a continuing orientalism with a central role in Roman public cult through the festival of the Megalensia, aided by the Romans’ belief in their Trojan origins (cf. 1. 1 ff.). Lucretius’ description is of the public procession of her eunuch priests at the festival. Various allegorical interpretations of her attributes similar to those offered here are extant (Varro (first century
BC
) in St Augustine,
City of God
7. 24, Cornutus (first century
AD
),
Theology of the Greeks
6). The Epicureans rejected allegory as it was normally employed, to save a religious interpretation of an implausible myth, though Lucretius’ own use of myth is more complicated (see Introduction). Lucretius associates her with the Cretan goddess Rhea (see below 632 ff.) and with ‘Mother Earth’: she joins Venus and Nature as another powerful female figure within the poem.

600
Grecian poets
: we do not know who these poets were, but that this is more than a vague generalization is suggested by the parallel phrase at 6. 754, where there is a specific reference to the poet Callimachus (see below).

611
Idaean Mother
: Cybele was associated with Mt Ida near Troy (in Phrygia, northern Turkey), but there was also a Mt Ida on Crete linked to the worship of Rhea.

614
Eunuchs
: the priests of Cybele (known as
Galli
) were eunuchs (cf. Catullus 63).

633
Curetes
: the Curetes were young men of Crete who made a noise with their shields to drown the cries of Rhea’s son Jupiter in order to prevent his father Saturn (Cronos) eating him. Here (as elsewhere) they are identified with the worshippers of Cybele, the Corybantes.

646–51
perfect peace…
: these lines translate the first of Epicurus’
Master Sayings
and are repeated from the prologue to
Book 1
(44–9: see above).

655
the sea Neptune | And corn Ceres
: cf. 2. 472, 6. 1076 (Neptune), 5. 742 (Ceres), 3. 221, 5. 743 (Bacchus), and compare the use of Venus for ‘sex’ at the end of
Book 4
(1058 ff.). Lucretius does not say why one might want to use mythological figures in this way, and his own use of myth is more extensive: see Introduction.