lucretius on the nature of things translation

It took another 1400 years for Galileo to show this.įrom simple reasoning he claims that the atoms of things that flit about must come in many a shape.and this is more or less what the periodic table combined with quantum theory tells us.Though he does suggest p55 that there is nothing that's composed of atoms of a single kind.which seems to wipe out the chances of isolating the pure elements such as oxygen or gold. (although they fall at different speeds through water or thin air). Commencing with his evidence for the existence of particles which' ARE but cannot be seen'.as evidenced in the squalls and sweeping hurricanes.Īnd there is an amazing passage p43 explaining why 'all things fall at equal speed through the still void. In many ways, he is amazingly modern.especially with his rejection of the gods and religion 'it is religion breeds wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds'.īasically he espouses the atomic theory and explains how atoms can pretty much account for every phenomena that we observe in the world. And I find it remarkable that Lucretius was able to absorb and maybe transform the ideas of Epicurus into a major statement of how the world works. He was a convert to the philosophy of Epicurus who died in 270BC and Lucretius was writing about 40AD. And.amazingly modern.Įssentially, Lucretius sets out to explain the universe and we who live in it. it's a poem without a story, without people instead it's a treatise on science and philosophy.

As Richard Jenkyns says in the introduction. And it's certainly been an eye opener for me. But finally made the effort.and it wasn't so difficult in this translation anyway. This is one of those classics that has always looked too hard even though it's widely quoted and I was a bit reluctant to start on 7000 lines plus of poetry.

Lucretius on the nature of things translation