LUCRETIUS
De rerum natura
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A man leaves his great house because he's bored
With life at home, and suddenly returns,
Finding himself no happier abroad.
He rushes off to his villa driving like mad,
You'ld think he's going to a house on fire,
And yawns before he's put his foot inside,
Or falls asleep and seeks oblivion,
Or even rushes back to town again.
So each man flies from himself (vain hope, because
It clings to him the more closely against his will)
And hates himself because he is sick in mind
And does not know the cause of his disease.
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Nothing is more blissful than to occupy the heights effectively fortified by the teaching of the wise, tranquil sanctuaries from which you can look down upon others and see them wandering everywhere in their random search for the way of life, competing for intellectual eminence, disputing about rank, and striving night and day with prodigious effort to scale the summit of wealth and to secure power. O minds of mortals, blighted by your blindness! Amid what deep darkness and daunting dangers life’s little day is passed! To think that you should fail to see that nature importantly demands only that the body may be rid of pain, and that the mind, divorced from anxiety and fear, may enjoy a feeling of contentment!
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Trees don't live in the sky, and clouds don't swim
In the salt seas, and fish don't leap in wheatfields,
Blood isn't found in wood, nor sap in rocks.
By fixed arrangement, all that live and grows
Submits to limit and restrictions.
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You see that stones are worn away by time,
Rocks rot, and towers topple, even the shrines
And images of the gods grow very tired,
Develop crack or wrinkles, their holy wills
Unable to extend their fated term,
To litigate against the Laws of Nature.
And don't we see the monuments of men
Collapse, as if to ask us, "Are not we
As frail as those whom we commemorate?"?
Boulders come plunging down from the mountain heights,
Poor weaklings with no power to resist
The thrust that says to them, Your time has come!
But they would be rooted in steadfastness
Had they endured from time beyond all time,
As far back as infinity. Look about you!
Whatever it is that holds in its embrace
All earth, if it projects, as some men say,
All things out of itself, and takes them back
When they have perished, must itself consist
Of mortal elements. The parts must add
Up to the sum. Whatever gives away
Must lose in the procedure, and gain again
Whenever it takes back.
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in terris oppressa gravi sub religione, quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra; quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem inritat animi virtutem, effringere ut arta naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret.
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in the lands, crushed under heavy Religion, which was displaying its head from the regions of the sky, lowering with a horrible face over mortals, for the first time a Greek man dared to direct his eyes against it, and he was the first to stand against it. Neither the fame of the gods nor thunderbolds nor the sky with its threatening murmur controlled him but it provoked the sharp virtue of his mind so much more that he wanted to be the first to break open the close-barred barriers of nature’s gates.
op aarde neerlag, verdrukt door de strenge godsdienst die haar hoofd vanuit de hemelsferen toonde, de stervelingen van boven bedreigend met zijn afgrijselijke blik, durfde voor het eerst een Griekse sterveling zijn ogen ertegen op te heffen en zich als eerste ertegen te verzetten; Noch legenden over de goden, noch de bliksems, noch de hemel met zijn dreigend gedreun konden hem het zwijgen opleggen, maar des te meer vuurden ze zijn scherpe intelligentie aan, zodat hij als eerste verlangde de strakke grendels van de poorten van de natuur open te breken.
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