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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=450288" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book III - Part 01 - Proem</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">O thou who first uplifted in such dark <br>So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light <br>Upon the profitable ends of man, <br>O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks, <br>And set my footsteps squarely planted now <br>Even in the impress and the marks of thine- <br>Less like one eager to dispute the palm, <br>More as one craving out of very love <br>That I may copy thee!- for how should swallow <br>Contend with swans or what compare could be <br>In a race between young kids with tumbling legs <br>And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou, <br>And finder-out of truth, and thou to us <br>Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out <br>Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul <br>(Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds), <br>We feed upon thy golden sayings all- <br>Golden, and ever worthiest endless life. <br>For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang <br>From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim <br>Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain <br>Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world <br>Dispart away, and through the void entire <br>I see the movements of the universe. <br>Rises to vision the majesty of gods, <br>And their abodes of everlasting calm <br>Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash, <br>Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm <br>With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky <br>O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light. <br>And nature gives to them their all, nor aught <br>May ever pluck their peace of mind away. <br>But nowhere to my vision rise no more <br>The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth <br>Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all <br>Which under our feet is going on below <br>Along the void. O, here in these affairs <br>Some new divine delight and trembling awe <br>Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine <br>Nature, so plain and manifest at last, <br>Hath been on every side laid bare to man! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And since I've taught already of what sort <br>The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct <br>In divers forms, they flit of own accord, <br>Stirred with a motion everlasting on, <br>And in what mode things be from them create, <br>Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems, <br>Make clear the nature of the mind and soul, <br>And drive that dread of Acheron without, <br>Headlong, which so confounds our human life <br>Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is <br>The black of death, nor leaves not anything <br>To prosper- a liquid and unsullied joy. <br>For as to what men sometimes will affirm: <br>That more than Tartarus (the realm of death) <br>They fear diseases and a life of shame, <br>And know the substance of the soul is blood, <br>Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim), <br>And so need naught of this our science, then <br>Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now <br>That more for glory do they braggart forth <br>Than for belief. For mark these very same: <br>Exiles from country, fugitives afar <br>From sight of men, with charges foul attaint, <br>Abased with every wretchedness, they yet <br>Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet <br>Make the ancestral sacrifices there, <br>Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below <br>Offer the honours, and in bitter case <br>Turn much more keenly to religion. <br>Wherefore, it's surer testing of a man <br>In doubtful perils- mark him as he is <br>Amid adversities; for then alone <br>Are the true voices conjured from his breast, <br>The mask off-stripped, reality behind. <br>And greed, again, and the blind lust of honours <br>Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law, <br>And, oft allies and ministers of crime, <br>To push through nights and days of the hugest toil <br>To rise untrammelled to the peaks of power- <br>These wounds of life in no mean part are kept <br>Festering and open by this fright of death. <br>For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace <br>Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet, <br>Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death. <br>And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar, <br>Driven by false terror, and afar remove, <br>With civic blood a fortune they amass, <br>They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up <br>Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh <br>For the sad burial of a brother-born, <br>And hatred and fear of tables of their kin. <br>Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft <br>Makes them to peak because before their eyes <br>That man is lordly, that man gazed upon <br>Who walks begirt with honour glorious, <br>Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around; <br>Some perish away for statues and a name, <br>And oft to that degree, from fright of death, <br>Will hate of living and beholding light <br>Take hold on humankind that they inflict <br>Their own destruction with a gloomy heart- <br>Forgetful that this fear is font of cares, <br>This fear the plague upon their sense of shame, <br>And this that breaks the ties of comradry <br>And oversets all reverence and faith, <br>Mid direst slaughter. For long ere to-day <br>Often were traitors to country and dear parents <br>Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron. <br>For just as children tremble and fear all <br>In the viewless dark, so even we at times <br>Dread in the light so many things that be <br>No whit more fearsome than what children feign, <br>Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark. <br>This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, <br>Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, <br>Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse, <br>But only Nature's aspect and her law.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Lucretius">Lucretius</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=450288" data-title="Book III - Part 01 - Proem de Lucretius" data-description="O thou who first uplifted in such dark 
So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light 
Upon the profitable ends of man, 
O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks, 
And set my footsteps squarely planted now 
Even in the impress and the marks of thine- 
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