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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=450301" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book V - Part 06 - Origins And Savage Period Of Mankind</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">But mortal man <br>Was then far hardier in the old champaign, <br>As well he should be, since a hardier earth <br>Had him begotten; builded too was he <br>Of bigger and more solid bones within, <br>And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh, <br>Nor easily seized by either heat or cold, <br>Or alien food or any ail or irk. <br>And whilst so many lustrums of the sun <br>Rolled on across the sky, men led a life <br>After the roving habit of wild beasts. <br>Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, <br>And none knew then to work the fields with iron, <br>Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam, <br>Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees <br>The boughs of yester-year. What sun and rains <br>To them had given, what earth of own accord <br>Created then, was boon enough to glad <br>Their simple hearts. Mid acorn-laden oaks <br>Would they refresh their bodies for the nonce; <br>And the wild berries of the arbute-tree, <br>Which now thou seest to ripen purple-red <br>In winter time, the old telluric soil <br>Would bear then more abundant and more big. <br>And many coarse foods, too, in long ago <br>The blooming freshness of the rank young world <br>Produced, enough for those poor wretches there. <br>And rivers and springs would summon them of old <br>To slake the thirst, as now from the great hills <br>The water's down-rush calls aloud and far <br>The thirsty generations of the wild. <br>So, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs- <br>The woodland haunts discovered as they ranged- <br>From forth of which they knew that gliding rills <br>With gush and splash abounding laved the rocks, <br>The dripping rocks, and trickled from above <br>Over the verdant moss; and here and there <br>Welled up and burst across the open flats. <br>As yet they knew not to enkindle fire <br>Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use <br>And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts; <br>But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods, <br>And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs, <br>When driven to flee the lashings of the winds <br>And the big rains. Nor could they then regard <br>The general good, nor did they know to use <br>In common any customs, any laws: <br>Whatever of booty fortune unto each <br>Had proffered, each alone would bear away, <br>By instinct trained for self to thrive and live. <br>And Venus in the forests then would link <br>The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded <br>Either from mutual flame, or from the man's <br>Impetuous fury and insatiate lust, <br>Or from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears, <br>Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree. <br>And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs, <br>They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts; <br>And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled, <br>A-skulk into their hiding-places... </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft <br>Of gnarled branch. And by the time of night <br>O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars, <br>Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth, <br>Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs. <br>Nor would they call with lamentations loud <br>Around the fields for daylight and the sun, <br>Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night; <br>But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait <br>Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought <br>The glory to the sky. From childhood wont <br>Ever to see the dark and day begot <br>In times alternate, never might they be <br>Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night <br>Eternal should posses the lands, with light <br>Of sun withdrawn forever. But their care <br>Was rather that the clans of savage beasts <br>Would often make their sleep-time horrible <br>For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven, <br>They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach <br>Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong, <br>And in the midnight yield with terror up <br>To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet in those days not much more than now <br>Would generations of mortality <br>Leave the sweet light of fading life behind. <br>Indeed, in those days here and there a man, <br>More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs, <br>Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive, <br>Echoing through groves and hills and forest trees, <br>Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed <br>Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight <br>Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked, <br>Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores, <br>With horrible voices for eternal death- <br>Until, forlorn of help, and witless what <br>Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs <br>Took them from life. But not in those far times <br>Would one lone day give over unto doom <br>A soldiery in thousands marching on <br>Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then <br>The ramping breakers of the main seas dash <br>Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks. <br>But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain, <br>Without all end or outcome, and give up <br>Its empty menacings as lightly too; <br>Nor soft seductions of a serene sea <br>Could lure by laughing billows any man <br>Out to disaster: for the science bold <br>Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times. <br>Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er <br>Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now <br>'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they <br>Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour <br>The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves <br>They give the drafts to others.</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=450301" data-title="Book V - Part 06 - Origins And Savage Period Of Mankind de Lucretius" data-description="But mortal man 
Was then far hardier in the old champaign, 
As well he should be, since a hardier earth 
Had him begotten; builded too was he 
Of bigger and more solid bones within, 
And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh, 
Nor easily sei..."></div>
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