On the Nature of Things · 29 of 30

Book VI, Part 5

Thus, too, those Birdless places must up-send An essence bearing death to winged things, Which from the earth rises into the breezes To poison part of skiey space, and when Thither the winged is on pennons borne, There, seized by the unseen poison, ’tis ensnared, And from the horizontal of its flight Drops to the spot whence sprang the effluvium. And when ‘thas there collapsed, then the same power Of that effluvium takes from all its limbs The relics of its life. That power first strikes The creatures with a wildering dizziness, And then thereafter, when they’re once down-fallen Into the poison’s very fountains, then Life, too, they vomit out perforce, because So thick the stores of bane around them fume. Again, at times it happens that this power, This exhalation of the Birdless places, Dispels the air betwixt the ground and birds, Leaving well-nigh a void. And thither when In horizontal flight the birds have come, Forthwith their buoyancy of pennons limps, All useless, and each effort of both wings Falls out in vain. Here, when without all power To buoy themselves and on their wings to lean, Lo, Nature constrains them by their weight to slip Down to the earth, and lying prostrate there Along the well-nigh empty void, they spend Their souls through all the openings of their frame.

Further, the water of wells is colder then At summer time, because the earth by heat Is rarefied, and sends abroad in air Whatever seeds it peradventure have Of its own fiery exhalations. The more, then, the telluric ground is drained Of heat, the colder grows the water hid Within the earth. Further, when all the earth Is by the cold compressed, and thus contracts And, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo, That by contracting it expresses then Into the wells what heat it bears itself.

’Tis said at Hammon’s fane a fountain is, In daylight cold and hot in time of night. This fountain men be-wonder over-much, And think that suddenly it seethes in heat By intense sun, the subterranean, when Night with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands- What’s not true reasoning by a long remove: I’ faith when sun o’erhead, touching with beams An open body of water, had no power To render it hot upon its upper side, Though his high light possess such burning glare, How, then, can he, when under the gross earth, Make water boil and glut with fiery heat?- And, specially, since scarcely potent he Through hedging walls of houses to inject His exhalations hot, with ardent rays. What, then, the principle? Why, this, indeed: The earth about that spring is porous more Than elsewhere the telluric ground, and be Many the seeds of fire hard by the water; On this account, when night with dew-fraught shades Hath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down Grows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out Into the spring what seeds she holds of fire (As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot The touch and steam of the fluid. Next, when sun, Up-risen, with his rays has split the soil And rarefied the earth with waxing heat, Again into their ancient abodes return The seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water Into the earth retires; and this is why The fountain in the daylight gets so cold. Besides, the water’s wet is beat upon By rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes Rarer in texture under his pulsing blaze; And, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire It renders up, even as it renders oft The frost that it contains within itself And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots. There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind That makes a bit of tow (above it held) Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too, A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round Along its waves, wherever ’tis impelled Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this: Because full many seeds of heat there be Within the water; and, from earth itself Out of the deeps must particles of fire Athrough the entire fountain surge aloft, And speed in exhalations into air Forth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow As to make hot the fountain). And, moreo’er, Some force constrains them, scattered through the water, Forthwith to burst abroad, and to combine In flame above. Even as a fountain far There is at Aradus amid the sea, Which bubbles out sweet water and disparts From round itself the salt waves; and, behold, In many another region the broad main Yields to the thirsty mariners timely help, Belching sweet waters forth amid salt waves. Just so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth Athrough that other fount, and bubble out Abroad against the bit of tow; and when They there collect or cleave unto the torch, Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because The tow and torches, also, in themselves Have many seeds of latent fire. Indeed, And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished A moment since, it catches fire before ‘Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch? And many another object flashes aflame When at a distance, touched by heat alone, Before ’tis steeped in veritable fire. This, then, we must suppose to come to pass In that spring also. Now to other things! And I’ll begin to treat by what decree Of Nature it came to pass that iron can be By that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call After the country’s name (its origin Being in country of Magnesian folk). This stone men marvel at; and sure it oft Maketh a chain of rings, depending, lo, From off itself! Nay, thou mayest see at times Five or yet more in order dangling down And swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one Depends from other, cleaving to under-side, And ilk one feels the stone’s own power and bonds- So over-masteringly its power flows down. In things of this sort, much must be made sure Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give, And the approaches roundabout must be; Wherefore the more do I exact of thee A mind and ears attent. First, from all things We see soever, evermore must flow, Must be discharged and strewn about, about, Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight. From certain things flow odours evermore, As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls Along the coasts. Nor ever cease to seep The varied echoings athrough the air. Then, too, there comes into the mouth at times The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea We roam about; and so, whene’er we watch The wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings. To such degree from all things is each thing Borne streamingly along, and sent about To every region round; and Nature grants Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow, Since ’tis incessantly we feeling have, And all the time are suffered to descry And smell all things at hand and hear them sound. Now will I seek again to bring to mind How porous a body all things have- a fact Made manifest in my first canto, too. For truly, though to know this doth import For many things, yet for this very thing On which straightway I’m going to discourse, ’Tis needful most of all to make it sure That naught’s at hand but body mixed with void. A first ensample: in grottos, rocks o’erhead Sweat moisture and distil the oozy drops; Likewise, from all our body seeps the sweat; There grows the beard, and along our members all And along our frame the hairs. Through all our veins Disseminates the foods, and gives increase And aliment down to the extreme parts, Even to the tiniest finger-nails. Likewise, Through solid bronze the cold and fiery heat We feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass Through gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand The brimming goblets. And, again, there flit Voices through houses’ hedging walls of stone; Odour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire That’s wont to penetrate even strength of iron. Again, where corselet of the sky girds round

And at same time, some Influence of bane, When from Beyond ‘thas stolen into our world. And tempests, gathering from the earth and sky, Back to the sky and earth absorbed retire- With reason, since there’s naught that’s fashioned not With body porous. Furthermore, not all The particles which be from things thrown off Are furnished with same qualities for sense, Nor be for all things equally adapt. A first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch The earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams Compels the lofty snows, up-reared white Upon the lofty hills, to waste away; Then, wax, if set beneath the heat of him, Melts to a liquid. And the fire, likewise, Will melt the copper and will fuse the gold, But hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks. The water hardens the iron just off the fire, But hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens. The oleaster-tree as much delights The bearded she-goats, verily as though ’Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia; Than which is naught that burgeons into leaf More bitter food for man. A hog draws back For marjoram oil, and every unguent fears Fierce poison these unto the bristled hogs, Yet unto us from time to time they seem, As ’twere, to give new life. But, contrariwise, Though unto us the mire be filth most foul, To hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem That they with wallowing from belly to back Are never cloyed. A point remains, besides, Which best it seems to tell of, ere I go To telling of the fact at hand itself. Since to the varied things assigned be The many pores, those pores must be diverse In nature one from other, and each have Its very shape, its own direction fixed. And so, indeed, in breathing creatures be The several senses, of which each takes in Unto itself, in its own fashion ever, Its own peculiar object. For we mark How sounds do into one place penetrate, Into another flavours of all juice, And savour of smell into a third. Moreover, One sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo, One sort to pass through wood, another still Through gold, and others to go out and off Through silver and through glass. For we do see Through some pores form-and-look of things to flow, Through others heat to go, and some things still To speedier pass than others through same pores. Of verity, the nature of these same paths, Varying in many modes (as aforesaid) Because of unlike nature and warp and woof Of cosmic things, constrains it so to be.

Wherefore, since all these matters now have been Established and settled well for us As premises prepared, for what remains ’Twill not be hard to render clear account By means of these, and the whole cause reveal Whereby the magnet lures the strength of iron. First, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds Innumerable, a very tide, which smites By blows that air asunder lying betwixt The stone and iron. And when is emptied out This space, and a large place between the two Is made a void, forthwith the primal germs Of iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined Into the vacuum, and the ring itself By reason thereof doth follow after and go Thuswise with all its body. And naught there is That of its own primordial elements More thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres Than nature and cold roughness of stout iron. Wherefore, ’tis less a marvel what I said, That from such elements no bodies can From out the iron collect in larger throng And be into the vacuum borne along, Without the ring itself do follow after. And this it does, and followeth on until ‘Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it By links invisible. Moreover, likewise, The motion’s assisted by a thing of aid (Whereby the process easier becomes)- Namely, by this: as soon as rarer grows That air in front of the ring, and space between Is emptied more and made a void, forthwith It happens all the air that lies behind Conveys it onward, pushing from the rear. For ever doth the circumambient air Drub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth The iron, because upon one side the space Lies void and thus receives the iron in. This air, whereof I am reminding thee, Winding athrough the iron’s abundant pores So subtly into the tiny parts thereof, Shoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails. The same doth happen in all directions forth: From whatso side a space is made a void, Whether from crosswise or above, forthwith The neighbour particles are borne along Into the vacuum; for of verity, They’re set a-going by poundings from elsewhere, Nor by themselves of own accord can they Rise upwards into the air. Again, all things Must in their framework hold some air, because They are of framework porous, and the air Encompasses and borders on all things. Thus, then, this air in iron so deeply stored Is tossed evermore in vexed motion, And therefore drubs upon the ring sans doubt And shakes it up inside....