MAN WANTS BUT LITTLE. BY LUCRETIUS. (Translation by W. H. Mallock.) [TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS, a Roman poet of the first rank in original genius and artistic ability, was probably born B.C. 99 or 98, and died в.c. 55, perhaps by suicide from melancholia or mental overstrain. Nothing is really known of his life, though he was younger than Cicero (who probably published his great poem posthumously) and Cæsar, and died when Catullus was over thirty and Horace a boy his one brief biography dates four centuries later and is fabulous. But this silence proves that he was a quiet student and artist: apparently a member of a great Roman aristocratic house, certainly of the highest culture, and used in early life to all the luxury of the best society; very sensitive and of broad humanity, and keenly appreciative of nature in all aspects. He adopted enthusiastically the Epicurean system of philosophy on its highest plane, - as opposed to the Stoic system which was coming into general vogue in Rome, and embodied it in his great poem "On the Nature of Things," which works out the atomistic theory of the universe with great splendor of thought and poetry.] MOTHER and mistress of the Roman race, Pleasure of gods and men, O fostering Venus, whose presence breathes in every place, Water and earth and air and everything, Since by thy power alone their life is given Goddess, thou comest, and the clouds before thee For lo, no sooner come the soft and glowing Out of the bill of every pairing bird; Next the herds feel thee; and the wild fleet races Led by thy chain, and captive in thy tether. Wherefore, since thou, O lady, only thou When human life a shame to human eyes, With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate Him not the tales of all the gods in heaven, By these vain vauntings, to desire the more To burst through Nature's gates, and rive the unriven His spirit broke beyond our world, and past And back returning, crowned with victory, he How to each force is set strong boundaries, 7et fear I lest thou haply deem that thus And those great chiefs who, in the windless season, Bade young Iphianassa's form be laid Upon the altar of the Trivian maid? Soon as the fillet round her virgin hair Fell in its equal lengths down either cheek,- Hiding the knife, and many a faithful Greek Weeping-her knees grew weak, and with no sound She sank, in speechless terror, on the ground. But naught availed it in that hour accurst To save the maid from such a doom as this, That her lips were the baby lips that first Called the king father with their cries and kiss. For round her came the strong men, and none durst Refuse to do what cruel part was his; So silently they raised her up, and bore her, And as they bore her, ne'er a golden lyre Rang round her coming with a bridal strain; But in the very season of desire, A stainless maiden, amid bloody stain, She died a victim felled by its own sire. That so the ships the wished-for wind might gain, And air puff out their canvas. Learn thou, then, To what damned deeds religion urges men. "Tis sweet when tempests roar upon the sea To watch from land another's deep distress Amongst the waves - his toil and misery: Not that his sorrow makes our happiness, But that some sweetness there must ever be Watching what sorrows we do not possess: So, too, 'tis sweet to safely view from far Gleam o'er the plains the savage ways of war. But sweeter far to look with purgèd eyes And far below us see this world of ours, The pain and piteous rivalries of life. O peoples miserable! O fools and blind! What perils prowl! But you nor will nor can Is all that Nature pleads for, for this span, So that between our birth and grave we gain Some quiet pleasures, and a pause from pain. Wherefore we see that for the body's need A pause from pain almost itself suffices. What though about the halls no silent band Dangle their hanging lamps from outstretched hand, Nor gold nor silver fret the dazzling wall, Nor does the soft voluptuous air resound The grass is ours, and sweeter sounds than these, That shade us, whisper; and for food we bring Ah, sweet is this, and sweetest in the spring, When the sun goes through all the balmy hours, And all the green earth's lap is filled with flowers! THE BUGBEAR OF DEATH. BY LUCRETIUS. (Translated by Dryden.) WHAT has this bugbear death to frighten man, For, as before our birth we felt no pain, When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled, Nay, e'en suppose, when we have suffered fate, The soul should feel in her divided state, What's that to us? for we are only we We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part For backward if you look on that long space Of ages past, and view the changing face In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind From thence to infer, that seeds of things have been In the same order as they now are seen: Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace, Has come betwixt. . . . For whosoe'er shall in misfortunes live, Must be, when those misfortunes shall arrive; |