The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever Read Online Free PDF Page B

manuscript of De Rerum Naturum survived the flames. There are several translations; I have chosen the one translated by my fellow Devonian and Oxonian, W. Hannaford Brown. Brown’s own manuscript was almost destroyed during the Nazi bombardment of England in 1943: if a religious book had survived so many vicissitudes we can easily imagine what the faithful would say. But Lucretius teaches us to live without such piffle.
    From Book I

    2
Now, for the rest, lend ears unstopped, and the intellect’s keen edge;
    Severed from cares, attend to a true philosophical system;
    Lest it should hap that my gifts which I zealously set forth before you,
    Scorned, you abandon untouched before they can be comprehended.
    For ’tis high lore of heaven and of gods that I shall endeavour
    Clearly to speak as I tell of the primary atoms of matter
    Out of which Nature forms things: ’tis “things” she increases and fosters;
    Then back to atoms again she resolves them and makes them to vanish.
    “Things,” for argument’s sake, my wont is to speak of as “matter”;
    Also the “seeds” of those things to name the small parts which beget them:
    Further, those infinitesimal parts, (an alternative figure)
    Primary “atoms” to call, whereof matter was all first created.
    3
When in full view on the earth man’s life lay rotting and loathsome,
    Crushed ’neath the ponderous load of Religion’s cruel burdensome shackles,
    Who out of heaven displayed her forehead of withering aspect,
    Lowering over the heads of mortals with hideous menace,
    Upraising mortal eyes ’twas a Greek who first, daring, defied her;
    ’Gainst man’s relentless foe ’twas Man first framed to do battle.
    Him could nor tales of the gods nor heaven’s fierce thunderbolts’ crashes
    Curb; nay rather they inflamed his spirit’s keen courage to covet.
    His it should first be to shiver the close-bolted portals of Nature.
    Therefore his soul’s live energy triumphed, and far and wide compassed
    World’s walls’ blazing lights, and the boundless Universe traversed
    Thought-winged; from realms of space he comes back victorious and tells us
    What we may, what we must not perceive; what law universal
    Limits the ken of each, what deep-set boundary landmark:
    Then how in turn underfoot Religion is hurled down and trampled,
    Then how that victory lifts mankind to high level of heaven.
    4
One apprehension assails me here, that haply you reckon
    Godless the pathway you tread which leads to the Science of Nature
    As to the highroad of sin. But rather how much more often
    Has that same vaunted Religion brought forth deeds sinful and godless.
    Thus the chosen Greek chiefs, the first of their heroes, at Aulis,
    Trivia’s altar befouled with the blood of Iphianassa.
    For when the equal-trimmed ribbons, her virgin tresses encircling,
    Unfurled from each fair cheek so bravely, so gallantly fluttered;
    Soon as she saw her sorrowing sire in front of the altar
    Standing, with serving-men near, their gleaming knives vainly concealing,
    And, at the sight of her plight, her countrymen bitter tears shedding;
    Dumb with fear, her knees giving way, to earth she fell sinking.
    Nor in her woe could it be of avail to the hapless maiden
    That it was she first gave to the king the title of father.
    For, by men’s hands upborne, she was, quivering, led to the altar;
    Not, forsooth, to the end that, sacred rites duly completed,
    With ringing clarion song of marriage she might be escorted;
    But, pure maid foully slain in wedlock’s appropriate season,
    That she a victim might fall ’neath the slaughter stroke of her father,
    So that a happy and lucky dispatch to the fleet might be granted!
    Such are the darksome deeds brought to pass by Religion’s fell promptings!
    6
Now this terror and darkness of mind must surely be scattered,
    Not by rays of the sun, nor by gleaming arrows of daylight,
    But by the outward display and unseen workings of Nature.
    And her first rule for us from this