What harm, pray, could they do, though now alive? None, I presume: for the earth even now abounds With wild beasts to repletion, and is filled With shuddering terror throughout its woods, great mountains And deep forests, regions which we have power For the most part to avoid. But if the heart Has not been purged, what tumults then, what dangers Must needs invade us in our own despite! What fierce anxieties, offspring of desire, Rend the distracted man, what mastering fears! Pride also, sordid avarice, and violence, Of what calamities are not they the cause! Luxury too, and slothfulness! He therefore Who could subdue all these, and banish them Out of our minds by force of words, not arms, Is it not right we should deem such a man Worthy to be numbered among the gods? The more that he was wont in beautiful And godlike speech to utter many truths About the immortal gods themselves, and set The whole nature of things in clear words forth. I, in his footsteps treading, follow out His reasonings and expound in my discourse By what law all things are created, how They are compelled to abide within that law, Without power to annul the immutable Decrees of time; and first above all else The mind’s nature was found to be composed Of a body that had birth, without the power To endure through a long period unscathed: For it was found to be mere images That are wont to deceive the mind in sleep, Whenever we appear to behold one Whom life has abandoned. Now, for what remains, The order of my argument has brought me To the point where I must show both how the world Is composed of a body which must die, Also that it was born; and in what way Matter once congregating and uniting Established earth sky sea, the stars, the sun, And the moon’s globe: also what living creatures Rose from the earth, and which were those that never At any time were born: next in what way Mankind began to employ varied speech One with another by giving names to things: Then for what causes that fear of the gods Entered their breasts, and now through the whole world Gives sanctity to shrines, lakes and groves, Altars and images of gods. Moreover I will make plain by what force and control Nature pilots the courses of the sun And the wanderings of the moon, lest we perchance Deem that they traverse of their own free will Their yearly orbits between heaven and earth, Obsequiously furthering the increase Of crops and living things, or should suppose That they roll onwards by the gods’ design. For those who have learnt rightly that the gods Lead a life free from care, if yet they wonder By what means all things can be carried on, Such above all as are perceived to happen In the ethereal regions overhead,