But as physicians, when they seek to give Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch The brim around the cup with the sweet juice And yellow of the honey, in order that The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus Grow strong again with recreated health:
So now I too (since this my doctrine seems In general somewhat woeful unto those Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-If by such method haply I might hold The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou see through the nature of all things, And how exists the interwoven frame.
But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made Completely solid, hither and thither fly Forevermore unconquered through all time, Now come, and whether to the sum of them There be a limit or be none, for thee Let us unfold; likewise what has been found To be the wide inane, or room, or space Wherein all things soever do go on, Let us examine if it finite be All and entire, or reach unmeasured round And downward an illimitable profound.
Thus, then, the All that is is limited In no one region of its onward paths, For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
And a beyond 'tis seen can never be For aught, unless still further on there be A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-So that the thing be seen still on to where The nature of sensation of that thing Can follow it no longer. Now because Confess we must there's naught beside the sum, There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
It matters nothing where thou post thyself, In whatsoever regions of the same;Even any place a man has set him down Still leaves about him the unbounded all Outward in all directions; or, supposing A moment the all of space finite to be, If some one farthest traveller runs forth Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent And shoots afar, or that some object there Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other Thou must admit and take. Either of which Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel That thou concede the all spreads everywhere, Owning no confines. Since whether there be Aught that may block and check it so it comes Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal, Or whether borne along, in either view 'Thas started not from any end. And so I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that The chance for further flight prolongs forever The flight itself. Besides, were all the space Of the totality and sum shut in With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere, Then would the abundance of world's matter flow Together by solid weight from everywhere Still downward to the bottom of the world, Nor aught could happen under cope of sky, Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie, By having settled during infinite time.
But in reality, repose is given Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements, Because there is no bottom whereunto They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where They might take up their undisturbed abodes.
In endless motion everything goes on Forevermore; out of all regions, even Out of the pit below, from forth the vast, Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.
The nature of room, the space of the abyss Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts Can neither speed upon their courses through, Gliding across eternal tracts of time, Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run, That they may bate their journeying one whit:
Such huge abundance spreads for things around-Room off to every quarter, without end.
Lastly, before our very eyes is seen Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill, And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea, And sea in turn all lands; but for the All Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
That, too, the sum of things itself may not Have power to fix a measure of its own, Great nature guards, she who compels the void To bound all body, as body all the void, Thus rendering by these alternates the whole An infinite; or else the one or other, Being unbounded by the other, spreads, Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless Immeasurably forth....
Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky, Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods Could keep their place least portion of an hour: