On Nature

1. To His Friend
Hear thou, Pausanias, son of wise Anchitus!

2. Limitations of Knowledge
For narrow through their members scattered ways
Of knowing lie. And many a vile surprise
Blunts soul and keen desire. And having viewed
Their little share of life, with briefest fates,
Like smoke they are lifted up and flit away,
Believing only what each chances on,
Hither and thither driven ; yet they boast
The larger vision of the whole and all.
But thuswise never shall these things be seen,
Never be heard by men, nor seized by mind ;
And thou, since hither now withdrawn apart,
Shalt learn — no more than mortal ken may span.

3.
Shelter these teachings in thine own mute breast.

4.
But turn their madness, Gods ! from tongue of mine,
And drain through holy lips the well-spring clear !
And many-wooed, O white-armed Maiden-Muse,
Thee I approach : O drive and send to me
Meek Piety's well-reined chariot of song,
So far as lawful is for men to hear,
Whose lives are but a day. Nor shall desire
To pluck the flowers of fame and wide report
Among mankind impel thee on to dare
Speech beyond holy bound and seat profane
Upon those topmost pinnacles of Truth.
But come, by every way of knowing see
How each thing is revealed. Nor, having sight,
Trust sight no more than hearing will bear out,
Trust echoing ear but after tasting tongue ;
Nor check the proof of all thy members aught :
Note by all ways each thing as 'tis revealed.

5.
Yea, but the base distrust the High and Strong ;
Yet know the pledges that our Muse will urge,
When once her words be sifted through thy soul.

6. The Elements
And first the fourfold root of all things hear ! —
White gleaming Zeus, life-bringing Here, Dis,
And Nestis whose tears bedew mortality.

7.
The uncreated elements.

8. Birth and Death
More will I tell thee too : there is no birth
Of all things mortal, nor end in ruinous death ;
But mingling only and interchange of mixed
There is, and birth is but its name with men.

9.
But when in man, wild beast, or bird, or bush,
These elements commingle and arrive
The realms of light, the thoughtless deem it "birth" ;
When they dispart, 'tis "doom of death ;" and though
Not this the Law, I too assent to use.

10.
Avenging Death.

11. Ex nihilo nihil
Fools ! for their thoughts are briefly brooded o'er.
Who trust that what is not can e'er become,
Or aught that is can wholly die away.

12.
From what-is-not what-is can ne'er become;
So that what-is should e'er be all destroyed,
No force could compass and no ear hath heard —
For there 'twill be forever where 'tis set.

13. The Plenum
The All hath neither Void nor Overflow.

14.
But with the All there is no Void, so whence
Could aught of more come nigh?

15. Our Elements Immortal
No wise man dreams such folly in his heart,
That only whilst we live what men call life
We have our being and take our good and ill,
And ere as mortals we compacted be,
And when as mortals we be loosed apart,
We are as nothing.

16. Love and Hate, the Everlasting
For even as Love and Hate were strong of yore,
They shall have their hereafter ; nor I think
Shall endless Age be emptied of these Twain.

17. The Cosmic Process
I will report a twofold truth. Now grows
The One from Many into being, now
Even from the One disparting come the Many.
Twofold the birth, twofold the death of things :
For, now, the meeting of the Many brings
To birth and death ; and, now, whatever grew
From out their sundering, flies apart and dies.
And this long interchange shall never end.
Whiles into One do all through Love unite;
Whiles too the same are rent through hate of Strife.
And in so far as is the One still wont
To grow from Many, and the Many, again,
Spring from primeval scattering of the One,
So far have they a birth and mortal date ;
And in so far as the long interchange
Ends not, so far forever established gods
Around the circle of the world they move.
But come! but hear my words! For knowledge gained
Makes strong thy soul. For as before I spake,
Naming the utter goal of these my words,
I will report a twofold truth. Now grows
The One from Many into being, now
Even from the One disparting come the Many, —
Fire, Water, Earth and awful heights of Air;
And shut from them apart, the deadly Strife
In equipoise, and Love within their midst
In all her being in length and breadth the same.
Behold her now with mind, and sit not there
With eyes astonished, for 'tis she inborn
Abides established in the limbs of men.
Through her they cherish thoughts of love, through her
Perfect the works of concord, calling her
By name Delight or Aphrodite clear.
She speeds revolving in the elements,
But this no mortal man hath ever learned —
Hear thou the undelusive course of proof:
Behold those elements own equal strength
And equal origin; each rules its task;
And unto each its primal mode ; and each
Prevailing conquers with revolving time.
And more than these there is no birth nor end ;
For were they wasted ever and evermore,
They were no longer, and the great All were then
How to be plenished and from what far coast ?
And how, besides, might they to ruin come,
Since nothing lives that empty is of them? —
No, these are all, and, as they course along
Through one another, now this, now that is born —
And so forever down Eternity.

18.
Love.

19.
Firm-clasping Lovingness.

20. Love and Hate in the Organic World
The world-wide warfare of the eternal Two
Well in the mass of human limbs is shown :
Whiles into one do they through Love unite,
And mortal members take the body's form,
And life doth flower at the prime ; and whiles,
Again dissevered by the Hates perverse,
They wander far and wide and up and down
The surf-swept beaches and drear shores of life.
So too with thicket, tree, and gleaming fish
Housed in the crystal walls of waters wide ;
And so with beasts that couch on mountain slopes,
And water-fowls that skim the long blue sea.

21. From the Elements is All We See
But come, and to my words foresaid look well,
If their wide witness anywhere forgot
Aught that behooves the elemental forms:
Behold the Sun, the warm, the bright-diffused ;
Behold the eternal Stars, forever steeped
In liquid heat and glowing radiance; see
Also the Rain, obscure and cold and dark,
And how from Earth streams forth the Green and Firm.
And all through Wrath are split to shapes diverse ;
And each through Love draws near and yearns for each.
For from these elements hath budded all
That was or is or evermore shall be —
All trees, and men and women, beasts and birds,
And fishes nourished in deep waters, aye,
The long-lived gods, in honors excellent.
For these are all, and, as they course along
Through one another, they take new faces all,
By varied mingling and enduring change.

22. Similia similibus
For amber Sun and Earth and Heaven and Sea
Is friendly with its every part that springs,
Far driven and scattered, in the mortal world ;
So too those things that are most apt to mix
Are like, and love by Aphrodite's hest.
But hostile chiefly are those things which most
From one another differ, both in birth,
And in their mixing and their molded forms —
Unwont to mingle, miserable and lone,
After the counsels of their father, Hate.

23. An Analogy
And even as artists — men who know their craft
Through wits of cunning — paint with streak and hue
Bright temple-tablets, and will seize in hand
The oozy poisons pied and red and gold
(Mixing harmonious, now more, now less),
From which they fashion forms innumerable,
And like to all things, peopling a fresh world
With trees, and men and women, beasts and birds,
And fishes nourished in deep waters, aye,
And long-lived gods in honors excellent:
Just so (and let no guile deceive thy breast),
Even so the spring of mortal things, leastwise
Of all the host born visible to man.
O guard this knowledge well, for thou hast heard
In this my song the Goddess and her tale.

24. The Speculative Thinker
To join together diverse peaks of thought,
And not complete one road that has no turn.

25. An Aphorism
What must be said, may well be said twice o'er.

26. The Law of the Elements
In turn they conquer as the cycles roll,
And wane the one to other still, and wax
The one to other in turn by olden Fate;
For these are all, and, as they course along
Through one another, they become both men
And multitudinous tribes of hairy beasts ;
Whiles in fair order through Love united all,
Whiles rent asunder by the hate of Strife,
Till they, when grown into the One and All
Once more, once more go under and succumb.
And in so far as is the One still wont
To grow from the Many, and the Many, again,
Spring from primeval scattering of the One,
So far have they a birth and mortal date.
And in so far as this long interchange
Ends not, so far forever established gods
Around the circle of the world they move.

27. The Sphere
There views one not the swift limbs of the Sun,
Nor there the strength of shaggy Earth, nor Sea;
But in the strong recess of Harmony,
Established firm abides the rounded Sphere,
Exultant in surrounding solitude.

27a.
Nor faction nor fight unseemly in its limbs.

28.
The Sphere on every side the boundless same,
Exultant in surrounding solitude.

29.
For from its back there swing no branching arms,
It hath no feet nor knees alert, nor form
Of life-producing member, — on all sides
A sphere it was, and like unto itself.

30.
Yet after mighty Strife had waxen great
Within the members of the Sphere, and rose
To her own honors, as the times arrived
Which unto each in turn, to Strife, to Love,
Should come by amplest oath and old decree . . .

31.
For one by one did quake the limbs of God.

32. Physical Analogies
The joint binds two.

33.
But as when rennet of the fig-tree juice
Curdles the white milk, and will bind it fast. . .

34.
Cementing meal with water . . .

35. The Conquest of Love
But hurrying back, I now will make return
To paths of festal song, laid down before,
Draining each flowing thought from flowing thought.
When down the Vortex to the last abyss
Had foundered Hate, and Lovingness had reached
The eddying center of the Mass, behold
Around her into Oneness gathered all.
Yet not a-sudden, but only as willingly
Each from its several region joined with each ;
And from their mingling thence are poured abroad
The multitudinous tribes of mortal things.
Yet much unmixed among the mixed remained,
As much as Hate still held in scales aloft.
For not all blameless did Hate yield and stand
Out yonder on the circle's utmost bounds;
But partwise yet within he stayed, partwise
Was he already from the members gone.
And ever the more skulked away and fled,
Then ever the more, and nearer, inward pressed
The gentle minded, the divine Desire
Of blameless Lovingness. Thence grew apace
Those mortal Things, erstwhile long wont to be
Immortal, and the erstwhile pure and sheer
Were mixed, exchanging highways of new life,
And from their mingling thence are poured abroad
The multitudinous tribes of mortal things,
Knit in all forms and wonderful to see.

36.
And as they came together, Hate began
To take his stand far on the outer verge.

37. Similia similibus
And Earth through Earth her figure magnifies,
And Air through Air.

38. The World as It Now Is
Come! I will name the like-primeval Four,
Whence rose to sight all things we now behold —
Earth, many-billowed Sea, and the moist Air,
And Aether, the Titan, who binds the globe about.

39. Earth and Air Not Illimitable
If Earth's black deeps were endless, and o'er-full
Were the white Ether, as forsooth some tongues
Have idly prated in the babbling mouths
Of those who little of the All have seen . . .

40. Sun and Moon
Keen-darting Helios and Selene mild.

41.
But the sun's fires, together gathered, move
Attendant round the mighty space of heaven,

42.
And the sun's beams
The moon, in passing under, covers o'er,
And darkens a bleak tract of earth as large
As is the breadth of her, the silver-eyed.

43.
As sunbeam striking on the moon's broad disk.

44.
Toward Olympos back he darts his beams,
With fearless face.

45.
Round earth revolves a disk of alien light.

46.
Even as revolves a chariot's nave, which round
The outmost . . .

47.
For toward the sacred circle of her lord
She gazes face to face.

48.
But earth makes night for beams of sinking sun.

49. The Darkling Night
Of night, the lonely, with her sightless eyes.

50. Wind and Rain
Iris from sea brings wind or mighty rain.

51. Fire
And fire sprang upward with a rending speed.

52. The Volcano
And many a fire there burns beneath the ground.

53. Air
For sometimes so upon its course it met,
And ofttimes otherwise.

54. Things Passing Strange
In Earth sank Ether with deep-stretching roots.

55.
Earth's sweat, the sea.

56.
The salt grew solid, smit by beams of sun.

57. Strange Creatures of Olden Times
There budded many a head without a neck,
And arms were roaming, shoulderless and bare,
And eyes that wanted foreheads drifted by.

58.
In isolation wandered every limb,
Hither and thither seeing union meet.

59.
But now as God with God was mingled more,
These members fell together where they met,
And many a birth besides was then begot
In a long line of ever varied life.

60.
Creatures of countless hands and trailing feet.

61.
Many were born with twofold brow and breast,
Some with the face of man on bovine stock,
Some with man's form beneath a bovine head,
Mixed shapes of being with shadowed secret parts,
Sometimes like men, and sometimes woman-growths.

62.
But come! now hear how 'twas the sundered Fire
Led into life the germs, erst whelmed in night,
Of men and women, the pitied and bewailed;
For 'tis a tale that sees and knows its mark.
First rose mere lumps of earth with rude impress,
That had their shares of Water and of Warm.
These then by Fire (in upward zeal to reach
Its kindred Fire in heaven) were shot aloft,
Albeit not yet had they revealed a form
Of lovely limbs, nor yet a human cry,
Nor secret member, common to the male.

63. The Process of Human Generation To-day
But separate is the birth of human limbs ;
For 'tis in part in man's . . .

64.
Love-longing comes, reminding him who sees.

65.
Into clean wombs the seeds are poured, and when
Therein they meet with Cold, the birth is girls ;
And boys, when contrariwise they meet with Warm.

66.
Into the cloven meads of Aphrodite.

67.
For bellies with the warmer wombs become
Mothers of boys, and therefore men are dark,
More stalwart and more shaggy.

68.
On the tenth day, in month the eighth, the blood
Becomes white pus.

69.
Twice bearing.

70.
Sheepskin.

71. On Animals and Plants
And if belief lack pith, and thou still doubt
How from the mingling of the elements,
The Earth and Water, the Ether and the Sun,
So many forms and hues of mortal things
Could thus have being, as have come to be,
Each framed and knit by Aphrodite's power . . .

72.
As the tall trees and fish in briny floods.

73.
As Kypris, after watering Earth with Rain,
Zealous to heat her, then did give Earth o'er
To speed of Fire that then she might grow firm.

74.
Leading the songless shoals of spawning fish.

75.
Of beasts, inside compact with outsides loose,
Which, in the palms of Aphrodite shaped,
Got this their sponginess.

76.
'Tis thus with conchs upon the heavy chines
Of ocean-dwellers, aye, of shell-fish wreathed,
Or stony-hided turtles, where thou mark'st
The earthen crust outside the softer parts.

77-78.
Trees bore perennial fruit, perennial fronds,
Laden with fruit the whole revolving year,
Since fed forever by a fruitful air.

79.
Thus first tall olives lay their yellow eggs.

80.
Wherefore pomegranates slow in ripening be,
And apples grow so plentiful in juice.

81.
Wine is but water fermented in the wood,
And issues from the rind.

82.
From the same stuff on sturdy limbs grow hair,
Leaves, scales of fish, and bird's thick-feathered plumes.

83.
Stiff hairs, keen-piercing, bristle on the chines
Of hedge-hogs.

84. Our Eyes
As when a man, about to sally forth,
Prepares a light and kindles him a blaze
Of flaming fire against the wintry night,
In horny lantern shielding from all winds;
Though it protect from breath of blowing winds,
Its beam darts outward, as more fine and thin,
And with untiring rays lights up the sky:
Just so the Fire primeval once lay hid
In the round pupil of the eye, enclosed
In films and gauzy veils, which through and through
Were pierced with pores divinely fashioned,
And thus kept off the watery deeps around,
Whilst Fire burst outward, as more fine and thin.

85.
The gentle flame of eye did chance to get
Only a little of the earthen part.

86.
From which by Aphrodite, the divine,
The untiring eyes were formed.

87.
Thus Aphrodite wrought with bolts of love.

88.
One vision of two eyes is born.

89. Similia similibus
Knowing that all things have their emanations.

90.
Thus Sweet seized Sweet, Bitter on Bitter flew,
Sour sprung for Sour, and upon Hot rode Hot.

91.
Water to wine more nearly is allied,
But will not mix with oil.

92.
As when one mixes with the copper tin.

93.
With flax is mixed the silvery elder's seed.

94. The Black River Bottoms
And the black color of the river's deeps
Comes all from shade; and one may see the same
In hollow caves.

95. Eyes
As, in the palms of Kypris shaped, they first
Began to grow together . . .

96. Bones
Kind Earth for her broad-breasted melting-pots,
Of the eight parts got two of Lucid Nestis,
And of Hephæstos four. Thence came white bones,
Divinely joined by glue of Harmony.

97.
The back-bone.

98. Blood and Flesh
And after Earth within the perfect ports
Of Aphrodite anchored lay, she met
Almost in equal parts Hephæstos red,
And Rain and Ether, the all-splendorous
(Although the parts of Earth were sometimes less,
Sometimes a little more than theirs). From these
There came our blood and all the shapes of flesh.

99. The Ear
A bell ... a fleshy twig.

100. The Rushing Blood and the Clepsydra
And thus does all breathe in and out. In all,
Over the body's surface, bloodless tubes
Of flesh are stretched, and, at their outlets, rifts
Innumerable along the outmost rind
Are bored; and so the blood remains within;
For air, however, is cut a passage free.
And when from here the thin blood backward streams,
The air comes rushing in with roaring swell;
But when again it forward leaps, the air
In turn breathes out; as when a little girl
Plays with a water-clock of gleaming bronze:
As long as ever the opening of the pipe
Is by her pretty fingers stopped and closed,
And thuswise plunged within the yielding mass
Of silvery water, can the Wet no more
Get in the vessel; but the air's own weight,
That falls inside against the countless holes,
Keeps it in check, until the child at last
Uncovers and sets free the thickened air,
When of a truth the water's destined bulk
Gets in, as air gives way. Even so it is,
When in the belly of the brazen clock
The water lies, and the girl's finger tip
Shuts pipe and tube: the air, that from without
Comes pressing inward, holds the water back
About the gateways of the gurgling neck,
As the child keeps possession of the top,
Until her hand will loosen, when amain —
Quite contrariwise to way and wise before —
Pours out and under the water's destined bulk,
As air drops down and in. Even so it is
With the thin blood that through our members
drives :
When hurrying back it streams to inward, then
Amain a flow of air comes rushing on;
But when again it forward leaps, the air
In turn breathes out along the selfsame way.

101. Scent
Sniffing with nostrils mites from wild beasts' limbs,
Left by their feet along the tender grass ....

102.
And thus got all things share of breath and smells.

103. On the Psychic Life
Thus all things think their though by will of Chance.

104.
And in so far the lightest at their fall
Do strike together ....

105.
In the blood-streams, back-leaping unto it,
The heart is nourished, where prevails the power
That men call thought; for lo the blood that stirs
About the heart is man's controlling thought.

106.
For unto men their thrift of reason grows,
According to the body's thrift and state.

107.
For as of these commingled all things are,
Even so through these men think, rejoice, or grieve.

108.
As far as mortals change by day, so far
By night their thinking changes . . .

109.
For 'tis through Earth that Earth we do behold,
Through Ether, divine Ether luminous,
Through Water, Water, through Fire, devouring Fire,
And Love through Love, and Hate through doleful Hate.

110.
For if reliant on a spirit firm,
With inclination and endeavor pure,
Thou wilt behold them, all these things shall be
Forever thine, for service, and besides
Thereof full many another shalt thou gain;
For of themselves into that core they grow
Of each man's nature, where his essence lies.
But if for others thou wilt look and reach —
Such empty treasures, myriad and vile,
As men be after, which forevermore
Blunt soul and keen desire — O then shall these
Most swiftly leave thee as the seasons roll;
For all their yearning is a quick return
Unto their own primeval stock. For know:
All things have fixed intent and share of thought.

111. Dominion
And thou shalt master every drug that e'er
Was made defense 'gainst sickness and old age —
For thee alone all this I will fulfil —
And thou shalt calm the might of tireless winds,
That burst on earth and ruin seedlands; aye,
And if thou wilt, shalt thou arouse the blasts,
And watch them take their vengeance, wild and shrill,
For that before thou cowedst them. Thou shalt change
Black rain to drought, at seasons good for men,
And the long drought of summer shalt thou change
To torrents, nourishing the mountain trees,
As down they stream from ether. And thou shalt
From Hades beckon the might of perished men.