On the Nature of the Universe (Penguin Classics)

I picked up The Nature of Things (De rerum natura) since I was curious to see a verse form applied to what amounts to a lecture. I enjoyed engaging with Lucretius and his treatise on Epicurean philosophy and science. I think A. E. Stallings did a great job translating the text and rendering into rhyming fourteeners. I think it made the text flow more easily and pulled me through the work.

Epicurean philosophy posits a materialistic world, one where natural science is applied to understand the world and its processes. The world is made up of indivisible atoms and all events and processes are merely the effects of their movement, hence there is no need for supernatural explanations (p. ix). It also espouses a pursuit of pleasure, not a hedonistic approach, but one of the abstract joys of philosophical contemplation and friendship.

What strikes me as impressive is how things Lucretius describes are still true today. He notes how jaded people have become to the natural beauty around them: “Behold the pure blue of the heavens, and all that they possess, / The roving stars, the moon, the sun’s light, brilliant and sublime– / […] Now, however, people hardly bother to lift their eyes / To the glittering heavens, they are so accustomed to the skies” (II: 1030-1031, 1038-1039). And some people never change: “For idiots admire things all the more / when they discern them hidden in tangled words, and set great store / In anything that tickles the ear, in phrases dyed a shade / of purple” (I 641-644).

On religion, Lucretius writes “More often, on the contrary, it is Religion breeds / Wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds” (I: 83-84). And “So potent was Religion in persuading to do wrong” [I:101]; a line Voltaire said was so important it would last as long as the world (p. 241).

The ideas are intriguing, Stallings translation is strong and the introduction by Richard Jenkyns is wonderful. ( )

871.01 LUC

TThis great poem stands with Virgil's Aeneid as one of the vital and enduring achievements of Latin literature. Lost for more than a thousand years, its return to circulation in 1417 reintroduced dangerous ideas about the nature and meaning of existence and helped shape the modern world

This is a good handbook type translation that was very popular in first half of 20th Century since this is the 8th printing (1946) ( )

Gave to me long time ago