Book I, Part 6: Confutation of Other Philosophers

Poetry

On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation)

by Titus Lucretius CARUS (c. 99 BCE - 55 BCE)

On the Nature of Things, written in the first century BCE by Titus Lucretius Carus, is one of the principle expositions on Epicurean philosophy and science to have survived from antiquity. Far from being a dry treatise on the many topics it covers, the original Latin version (entitled De Rerum Natura) was written in the form of an extended poem in hexameter, with a beauty of style that was admired and emulated by his successors, including Ovid and Cicero. The version read here is an English verse translation written by William Ellery Leonard. Although Leonard penned his version in the early twentieth century, he chose to adhere to both the vocabulary and meter (alternating between pentameter and hexameter) of Elizabethan-era poetry.While the six untitled books that comprise On the Nature of Things delve into a broad range of subjects, including the physical nature of the universe, the workings of the human mind and body, and the natural history of the Earth, Lucretius repeatedly asserts throughout the work that his chief purpose is to provide the reader with a means to escape the "darkness of the mind" imposed by superstition and ignorance. To this end he offers us his enlightening verses, that through them might be revealed to us "nature's aspect, and her laws". (Summary by Daniel Vimont)

Listen next episodes of On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation):
Book I, Part 7: The Infinity of the Universe , Book II, Part 1: Proem , Book II, Part 2: Atomic Motions , Book II, Part 3: Atomic Forms and Their Combinations , Book II, Part 4: Absence of Secondary Qualities , Book II, Part 5: Infinite Worlds , Book III, Part 1: Proem , Book III, Part 2: Nature and Composition of the Mind , Book III, Part 3: The Soul is Mortal , Book III, Part 4: Folly of the Fear of Death , Book IV, Part 1: Proem , Book IV, Part 2: Existence and Character of the Images , Book IV, Part 3: The Senses and Mental Pictures , Book IV, Part 4: Some Vital Functions , Book IV, Part 5: The Passion of Love , Book V, Part 1: Proem , Book V, Part 2: Argument of the Book and New Proem Against a Teleological Concept , Book V, Part 3: The World is Not Eternal , Book V, Part 4: Formation of the World and Astronomical Questions , Book V, Part 5: Origins of Vegetable and Animal Life , Book V, Part 6: Origins and Savage Period of Mankind , Book V, Part 7: Beginnings of Civilization , Book VI, Part 1: Proem , Book VI, Part 2: Great Meteorological Phenomena, Etc. , Book VI, Part 3: Extraordinary and Paradoxical Telluric Phenomena , Book VI, Part 4: The Plague Athens