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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=450294" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book IV - Part 02 - Existence And Character Of The Images</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">But 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>And since I've taught what the mind's nature is, <br>And of what things 'tis with the body knit <br>And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn <br>That mind returns to its primordials, <br>Now will I undertake an argument- <br>One for these matters of supreme concern- <br>That there exist those somewhats which we call <br>The images of things: these, like to films <br>Scaled off the utmost outside of the things, <br>Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere, <br>And the same terrify our intellects, <br>Coming upon us waking or in sleep, <br>When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes <br>And images of people lorn of light, <br>Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay <br>In slumber- that haply nevermore may we <br>Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron, <br>Or shades go floating in among the living, <br>Or aught of us is left behind at death, <br>When body and mind, destroyed together, each <br>Back to its own primordials goes away. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thus I say that effigies of things, <br>And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent, <br>From off the utmost outside of the things, <br>Which are like films or may be named a rind, <br>Because the image bears like look and form <br>With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth- <br>A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits, <br>Well learn from this: mainly, because we see <br>Even 'mongst visible objects many be <br>That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused- <br>Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires- <br>And some more interwoven and condensed- <br>As when the locusts in the summertime <br>Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves <br>At birth drop membranes from their body's surface, <br>Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs <br>Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see <br>The breres augmented with their flying spoils: <br>Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too <br>That tenuous images from things are sent, <br>From off the utmost outside of the things. <br>For why those kinds should drop and part from things, <br>Rather than others tenuous and thin, <br>No power has man to open mouth to tell; <br>Especially, since on outsides of things <br>Are bodies many and minute which could, <br>In the same order which they had before, <br>And with the figure of their form preserved, <br>Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too, <br>Being less subject to impediments, <br>As few in number and placed along the front. <br>For truly many things we see discharge <br>Their stuff at large, not only from their cores <br>Deep-set within, as we have said above, <br>But from their surfaces at times no less- <br>Their very colours too. And commonly <br>The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue, <br>Stretched overhead in mighty theatres, <br>Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering, <br>Have such an action quite; for there they dye <br>And make to undulate with their every hue <br>The circled throng below, and all the stage, <br>And rich attire in the patrician seats. <br>And ever the more the theatre's dark walls <br>Around them shut, the more all things within <br>Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints, <br>The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since <br>The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye <br>From off their surface, things in general must <br>Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge, <br>Because in either case they are off-thrown <br>From off the surface. So there are indeed <br>Such certain prints and vestiges of forms <br>Which flit around, of subtlest texture made, <br>Invisible, when separate, each and one. <br>Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such <br>Streams out of things diffusedly, because, <br>Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth <br>And rising out, along their bending path <br>They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight <br>Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad. <br>But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film <br>Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught <br>Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front <br>Ready to hand. Lastly those images <br>Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, <br>In water, or in any shining surface, <br>Must be, since furnished with like look of things, <br>Fashioned from images of things sent out. <br>There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, <br>Like unto them, which no one can divine <br>When taken singly, which do yet give back, <br>When by continued and recurrent discharge <br>Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane. <br>Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept <br>So well conserved that thus be given back <br>Figures so like each object. <br>Now then, learn <br>How tenuous is the nature of an image. <br>And in the first place, since primordials be <br>So far beneath our senses, and much less <br>E'en than those objects which begin to grow <br>Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few <br>How nice are the beginnings of all things- <br>That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof: <br>First, living creatures are sometimes so small <br>That even their third part can nowise be seen; <br>Judge, then, the size of any inward organ- <br>What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs, <br>The skeleton?- How tiny thus they are! <br>And what besides of those first particles <br>Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?- Seest not <br>How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever <br>Exhales from out its body a sharp smell- <br>The nauseous absinth, or the panacea, <br>Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury- <br>If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain <br>Perchance [thou touch] a one of them </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then why not rather know that images <br>Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes, <br>Bodiless and invisible? <br>But lest <br>Haply thou holdest that those images <br>Which come from objects are the sole that flit, <br>Others indeed there be of own accord <br>Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies, <br>Which, moulded to innumerable shapes, <br>Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are, <br>Cease not to change appearance and to turn <br>Into new outlines of all sorts of forms; <br>As we behold the clouds grow thick on high <br>And smirch the serene vision of the world, <br>Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen <br>The giants' faces flying far along <br>And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times <br>The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks <br>Going before and crossing on the sun, <br>Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain <br>And leading in the other thunderheads. <br>Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be <br>Engendered, and perpetually flow off <br>From things and gliding pass away.... </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For ever every outside streams away <br>From off all objects, since discharge they may; <br>And when this outside reaches other things, <br>As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where <br>It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood, <br>There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back <br>An image. But when gleaming objects dense, <br>As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it, <br>Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't <br>Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent- its safety, <br>By virtue of that smoothness, being sure. <br>'Tis therefore that from them the images <br>Stream back to us; and howso suddenly <br>Thou place, at any instant, anything <br>Before a mirror, there an image shows; <br>Proving that ever from a body's surface <br>Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things. <br>Thus many images in little time <br>Are gendered; so their origin is named <br>Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun <br>Must send below, in little time, to earth <br>So many beams to keep all things so full <br>Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same, <br>From things there must be borne, in many modes, <br>To every quarter round, upon the moment, <br>The many images of things; because <br>Unto whatever face of things we turn <br>The mirror, things of form and hue the same <br>Respond. Besides, though but a moment since <br>Serenest was the weather of the sky, <br>So fiercely sudden is it foully thick <br>That ye might think that round about all murk <br>Had parted forth from Acheron and filled <br>The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously, <br>As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night, <br>Do faces of black horror hang on high- <br>Of which how small a part an image is <br>There's none to tell or reckon out in words. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now come; with what swift motion they are borne, <br>These images, and what the speed assigned <br>To them across the breezes swimming on- <br>So that o'er lengths of space a little hour <br>Alone is wasted, toward whatever region <br>Each with its divers impulse tends- I'll tell <br>In verses sweeter than they many are; <br>Even as the swan's slight note is better far <br>Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes <br>Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first, <br>One oft may see that objects which are light <br>And made of tiny bodies are the swift; <br>In which class is the sun's light and his heat, <br>Since made from small primordial elements <br>Which, as it were, are forward knocked along <br>And through the interspaces of the air <br>To pass delay not, urged by blows behind; <br>For light by light is instantly supplied <br>And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven. <br>Thus likewise must the images have power <br>Through unimaginable space to speed <br>Within a point of time,- first, since a cause <br>Exceeding small there is, which at their back <br>Far forward drives them and propels, where, too, <br>They're carried with such winged lightness on; <br>And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off, <br>With texture of such rareness that they can <br>Through objects whatsoever penetrate <br>And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air. <br>Besides, if those fine particles of things <br>Which from so deep within are sent abroad, <br>As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide <br>And spread themselves through all the space of heaven <br>Upon one instant of the day, and fly <br>O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then <br>Of those which on the outside stand prepared, <br>When they're hurled off with not a thing to check <br>Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed <br>How swifter and how farther must they go <br>And speed through manifold the length of space <br>In time the same that from the sun the rays <br>O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be <br>Example chief and true with what swift speed <br>The images of things are borne about: <br>That soon as ever under open skies <br>Is spread the shining water, all at once, <br>If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth, <br>Serene and radiant in the water there, <br>The constellations of the universe- <br>Now seest thou not in what a point of time <br>An image from the shores of ether falls <br>Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again, <br>And yet again, 'tis needful to confess <br>With wondrous...</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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The seeds of all things are, and how distinct 
In divers forms they flit of own accord, 
Stirred with a motion everlasting on, 
And in what mode things be from them create, 
And since I've taught what th..."></div>
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