By : Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 BCE - 55 BCE), translated by William Ellery Leonard (1876 - 1944)
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Synopsis
The poem consists of six untitled books, in dactylic hexameter. The first three books provide a fundamental account of being and nothingness, matter and space, the atoms and their movement, the infinity of the universe both as regards time and space, the regularity of reproduction (no prodigies, everything in its proper habitat), the nature of mind (animus, directing thought) and spirit (anima, sentience) as material bodily entities, and their mortality, since, according to Lucretius, they and their functions (consciousness, pain) end with the bodies that contain them and with which they are interwoven. The last three books give an atomic and materialist explanation of phenomena preoccupying human reflection, such as vision and the senses, sex and reproduction, natural forces and agriculture, the heavens, and disease.
Lucretius opens his poem by addressing Venus not only as the mother of Rome (Aeneadum genetrix) but also as the veritable mother of nature (Alma Venus), urging her to pacify her lover Mars and spare Rome from strife. By recalling the opening to poems by Homer, Ennius, and Hesiod (all of which begin with an invocation to the Muses), the proem to De rerum natura conforms to epic convention. The entire proem is also written in the format of a hymn, recalling other early literary works, texts, and hymns and in particular the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. The choice to address Venus may have been due to Empedocles's belief that Aphrodite represents "the great creative force in the cosmos". Given that Lucretius goes on to argue that the gods are removed from human life, many have thus seen this opening to be contradictory: how can Lucretius pray to Venus and then deny that the gods listen to or care about human affairs? In response, many scholars argue that the poet uses Venus poetically as a metonym. For instance, Diskin Clay sees Venus as a poetic substitute for sex, and Bonnie Catto sees the invocation of the name as a metonym for the "creative process of natura".
After the opening, the poem commences with an enunciation of the proposition on the nature and being of the deities, which leads to an invective against the evils of superstition. Lucretius then dedicates time to exploring the axiom that nothing can be produced from nothing, and that nothing can be reduced to nothing (Nil fieri ex nihilo, in nihilum nil posse reverti). Following this, the poet argues that the universe comprises an infinite number of Atoms, which are scattered about in an infinite and vast void (Inane). The shape of these atoms, their properties, their movements, the laws under which they enter into combination and assume forms and qualities appreciable by the senses, with other preliminary matters on their nature and affections, together with a refutation of objections and opposing hypotheses, occupy the first two books.
In the third book, the general concepts proposed thus far are applied to demonstrate that the vital and intellectual principles, the Anima and Animus, are as much a part of us as are our limbs and members, but like those limbs and members have no distinct and independent existence, and that hence soul and body live and perish together; the book concludes by arguing that the fear of death is a folly, as death merely extinguishes all feeling—both the good and the bad.
The fourth book is devoted to the theory of the senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, of sleep and of dreams, ending with a disquisition upon love and sex.
The fifth book is described by Ramsay as the most finished and impressive, while Stahl argues that its "puerile conceptions" is proof that Lucretius should be judged as a poet, not as a scientist. This book addresses the origin of the world and of all things therein, the movements of the heavenly bodies, the changing of the seasons, day and night, the rise and progress of humankind, society, political institutions, and the invention of the various arts and sciences which embellish and ennoble life.
The sixth book contains an explanation of some of the most striking natural appearances, especially thunder, lightning, hail, rain, snow, ice, cold, heat, wind, earthquakes, volcanoes, springs and localities noxious to animal life, which leads to a discourse upon diseases. This introduces a detailed description of the great pestilence that devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War. With this episode, the book closes; this abrupt ending suggests that Lucretius might have died before he was able to finalize and fully edit his poem.
Purpose
Lucretius wrote this epic poem to "Memmius", who may be Gaius Memmius, who in 58 BC was a praetor, a judicial official deciding controversies between citizens and the government. There are over a dozen references to "Memmius" scattered throughout the long poem in a variety of contexts in translation, such as "Memmius mine", "my Memmius", and "illustrious Memmius". According to Lucretius's frequent statements in his poem, the main purpose of the work was to free Gaius Memmius's mind of the supernatural and the fear of death—and to induct him into a state of ataraxia by expounding the philosophical system of Epicurus, whom Lucretius glorifies as the hero of his epic poem.
However, the purpose of the poem is subject to ongoing scholarly debate. Lucretius refers to Memmius by name four times in the first book, three times in the second, five in the fifth, and not at all in the third, fourth, or sixth books. In relation to this discrepancy in the frequency of Lucretius's reference to the apparent subject of his poem, Kannengiesse advances the theory that Lucretius wrote the first version of De rerum natura for the reader at large, and subsequently revised in order to write it for Memmius. However, Memmius' name is central to several critical verses in the poem, and this theory has therefore been largely discredited. The German classicists Ivo Bruns and Samuel Brandt set forth an alternative theory that Lucretius did at first write the poem with Memmius in mind, but that his enthusiasm for his patron cooled over time. Stearns suggests that this is because Memmius reneged on a promise to pay for a new school to be built on the site of the old Epicurean school. Memmius was also a tribune in 66, praetor in 58, governor of Bithynia in 57, and was a candidate for the consulship in 54 but was disqualified for bribery, and Stearns suggests that the warm relationship between patron and client may have cooled (sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas / suavis amicitiae quemvis efferre laborem, "But still your merit, and as I hope, the joy / Of our sweet friendship, urge me to any toil").
There is a certain irony to the poem, namely that while Lucretius extols the virtue of the Epicurean school of thought, Epicurus himself had advised his acolytes from penning poetry because he believed it to make that which was simple overly complicated. Near the end of his first book, Lucretius defends his fusion of Epicureanism and poetry with a simile, arguing that the philosophy he espouses is like a medicine: life-saving but often unpleasant. Poetry, on the other hand, is like honey, in that it is a "a sweetener that sugarcoats the bitter medicine of Epicurean philosophy and entices the audience to swallow it." (Of note, Lucretius repeats these 25 lines, almost verbatim, in the introduction to the fourth book.)
Completeness
The state of the poem as it currently exists suggests that it was released in an unfinished state. For instance, the poem concludes rather abruptly while detailing the Plague of Athens, there are redundant passages throughout (e.g., 1.820–821 and 2.1015–1016) alongside other aesthetic “loose ends”, and at 5.155 Lucretius mentions that he will spend a great deal of time discussing the nature of the gods, which never comes to pass. Some have suggested that Lucretius died before being able to edit, finalize, and publish his work.
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