LucretiusAnmeldelser

This is Lucretius's presentation of the philosophy of the Greek Epicurus. The Latin original was destroyed as heretical by almost every monastery in Europe.

The philosophy of Epicurus is not presented any better than in the classic poem, On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) by Titus Lucretius Carus. We know little about his life. He was probably born in the early first century B.C. This meant that he lived during the turbulent era of the end of the Roman Republic and beginning of the Empire that saw the rise of Sulla and Pompey and, ultimately, Julius Caesar. On the Nature of Things, posthumously edited by Cicero, was his poetic plea to the Roman elite that they change course.

The poem by Lucretius has the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. It was written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean philosophy and physics through richly poetic language and metaphors. It is a rational and materialistic view of the world that presents the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna, "chance", and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities. He extols the life of contemplation as seen in these lines from the opening of Book Two:
"But nothing is sweeter than to dwell in the calm
Temples of truth, the strongholds of the wise." (II, 7-8)

Thankfully we can still enjoy the vision of the good life as presented in this beautiful poem. The basics of Lucretius' philosophy include acknowledging pleasure (or the absence of pain) as the highest good, basing ethics on the evidence of the senses, and extolling plain living and high thinking. He also is a committed atheist, denouncing the gods in Book I of the poem, advocating free will in Book II, and reassuring his readers that they have nothing to fear from death in Book III. This lucid translation by Anthony M. Esolen reminds me why Lucretius is still worth reading.

Versified philosophy isn't poetry--it's versified philosophy.

This is one of those classics that has always looked too hard even though it's widely quoted and I was a bit reluctant to start on 7000 lines plus of poetry. But finally made the effort...and it wasn't so difficult in this translation anyway. And it's certainly been an eye opener for me. As Richard Jenkyns says in the introduction ..it's a poem without a story, without people; instead it's a treatise on science and philosophy. And....amazingly modern.
Essentially, Lucretius sets out to explain the universe and we who live in it.
He was a convert to the philosophy of Epicurus who died in 270BC and Lucretius was writing about 40AD ...so a difference of about 300 years. And I find it remarkable that Lucretius was able to absorb and maybe transform the ideas of Epicurus into a major statement of how the world works. In many ways, he is amazingly modern...especially with his rejection of the gods and religion; "it is religion breeds wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds".
Basically he espouses the atomic theory and explains how atoms can pretty much account for every phenomena that we observe in the world. Commencing with his evidence for the existence of particles which" ARE but cannot be seen"...as evidenced in the squalls and sweeping hurricanes.
And there is an amazing passage p43 explaining why "all things fall at equal speed through the still void. (although they fall at different speeds through water or thin air). It took another 1400 years for Galileo to show this.
From simple reasoning he claims that the atoms of things that flit about must come in many a shape.....and this is more or less what the periodic table combined with quantum theory tells us.Though he does suggest p55 that there is nothing that's composed of atoms of a single kind.....which seems to wipe out the chances of isolating the pure elements such as oxygen or gold.
It's a remarkable tour de force......not perfect: but given that nearly 2000 years have elapsed since he wrote the work it is astonishing to me how closely he was able to explain so much of the natural world. His explanation of magnetism p119 is rather fanciful but if you replace "seeds flowing out from the lodestone" by magnetic lines of force...you come fairly close to the truth.
I love his analysis of lightning....and his put-down of the superstitious: "If the gods can throw lightning bolts in whatever direction they like, why don't they smite the scoundrels ?...and why do they waste good throws on deserted places?...and why does Jupiter never hurl one of his blows in fine weather? And why does he smite the sea?.... what have the whitecaps ever done him? Great questions.
All in all, I was mightily impressed by his thoughtful rationality and his explanatory powers. Just amazing really. I'm surprised that it never really seemed to have more impact and we still have people today seeing God's justice in lightning bolts.
Oh, and I think the translator, A.E. Stallings, has done a great job. I'm not qualified to check his Latin but it certainly flows well. No mean feat translating poetry and keeping something of the metre etc.
Happy to give this book five stars.

Tito Lucrecio Caro ( 94 a.C. – 51 a. C?, poeta y filósofo romano. En la obra compuesta por más de 7400 hexámetros, distribuidos en grupos, se desarrollan los principios del atomismo, la psicología epicúrea y la cosmología...

Enjoyed reading Ronald Melville’s verse translation of De rerum natura in a concentrated burst over the past week. Here are a couple of thoughts on the poem as a whole.

The two things that most impressed me were:
1. Lucretius’ bottom-up thinking: His general approach is to explain natural phenomena without recourse to outside agency and this method, allied with technological advances, has been essential to the progress of science. That Lucretius and the other atomists were read by so many of the greatest minds such as Newton, and may have been influential in his thinking about the laws of motion, is enough to secure him a valuable place in the history of western thought, in my eyes.
2. Lucretius’ poetry and spirit: There are so many wonderful passages, especially as the poem progresses, notably the lyrical codas to Books 3 and 5, the latter containing Lucretius’ potted history of the evolution of prehistoric man, probably my favourite section of the entire poem. I also enjoyed his irreverent spirit, notably the passage where he shamelessly advocates sexual permissiveness (“And by avoiding love you need not miss / The fruits that Venus offers, but instead / You may take the goods without the penalty”).

Only disappointment I had, apart from some of the comical explanations (i.e. a rough voice is caused by rough atoms, a smooth one by smooth atoms) and the occasional misogyny, was the way the poem ends abruptly, in an unsatisfying way. That said, I don’t feel that there’s enough in the text itself to suggest he was going mad; it’s fair to say that the first two books of the poem come across as more rigorous than the other four, but he seems lucid to me throughout and the greater freedom he enjoys in Books 3-6 is to the benefit of the poetry.

Enjoyed reading Ronald Melville’s verse translation of De rerum natura in a concentrated burst over the past week. Here are a couple of thoughts on the poem as a whole.

The two things that most impressed me were:
1. Lucretius’ bottom-up thinking: His general approach is to explain natural phenomena without recourse to outside agency and this method, allied with technological advances, has been essential to the progress of science. That Lucretius and the other atomists were read by so many of the greatest minds such as Newton, and may have been influential in his thinking about the laws of motion, is enough to secure him a valuable place in the history of western thought, in my eyes.
2. Lucretius’ poetry and spirit: There are so many wonderful passages, especially as the poem progresses, notably the lyrical codas to Books 3 and 5, the latter containing Lucretius’ potted history of the evolution of prehistoric man, probably my favourite section of the entire poem. I also enjoyed his irreverent spirit, notably the passage where he shamelessly advocates sexual permissiveness (“And by avoiding love you need not miss / The fruits that Venus offers, but instead / You may take the goods without the penalty”).

Only disappointment I had, apart from some of the comical explanations (i.e. a rough voice is caused by rough atoms, a smooth one by smooth atoms) and the occasional misogyny, was the way the poem ends abruptly, in an unsatisfying way. That said, I don’t feel that there’s enough in the text itself to suggest he was going mad; it’s fair to say that the first two books of the poem come across as more rigorous than the other four, but he seems lucid to me throughout and the greater freedom he enjoys in Books 3-6 is to the benefit of the poetry.

12/6/21

12/6/21

SB-4

My wonderful Latin magister recommended this one...it blew my mind.

RG-3

La parola “virus” Tito Lucrezio Caro l’ha usata oltre duemila anni fa nel senso di “secrezione fetida”.
Oggi la riscopriamo pulita e silenziosa, tanto invisibile quanto assassina, in grado di scatenare una pandemia che può destabilizzare il pianeta Terra.

Ne ho scritto in un precedente post con un approccio social linguistico riguardante la sua pronunzia.
Oggi mi occuperò di un libro presente nella mia biblioteca da sempre e che ha una importanza letteraria degna di un aggiornamento.

Si tratta della “natura delle cose” e di chi, tra l’anno 100 e il 50 avanti Cristo, chiamato Tito Lucrezio Caro, ne volle scrivere in versi esametri, spinto dalla sua passione per il mondo fisico e morale della natura umana.

Il suo libro, oltre che essere questo, voleva essere anche uno strumento per istruire e per diffondere la conoscenza. Si sa ben poco sia di lui, sappiamo soltanto che secondo la tradizione impazzì con una pozione d’amore e che forse si tolse la vita. Per carattere possiamo dire che se fu una persona originale, il suo pensiero non lo fu tanto in quanto trasse ispirazione dal pensiero greco nelle opere di Epicuro, Democrito e Leucippo.

Lucrezio fa suo il loro materialismo atomistico, svuotando il mondo di ogni presenza divina. Le sue divinità sono sterili ed inattive presenze negli interspazi celesti con nessun interesse per gli uomini. In effetti lui è chiaramente un ateo. Gli uomini e le loro cose si muovono soltanto con e a causa degli atomi, in un freddo determinismo.

L’anima finisce con il corpo, per questa ragione egli invita gli uomini a vivere senza alcuna superstizione. Il poema è un messaggio di propaganda razionalistica quanto mai moderna. Il libero arbitrio concesso agli uomini viene aiutato dagli “atomi” in un determinismo generale. La sua teoria “atomica” ha ben poca somiglianza con la moderna teoria atomica di cui non anticipa nulla. Lucrezio però anticipa molte cose della moderna antropologia, sociologia e evoluzionismo. Il suo poema è difficile da capire in quanto non è possibile tradurre in versi la fisica e la cosmologia, ma ci sono brani di grande bellezza come questo che vi propongo:

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suavest.
Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri
per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli;
sed nihil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,
certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.
O miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!
Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis
degitur hoc aevi quod cumquest! nonne videre
nihil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut qui
corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur
iucundo sensu cura semota metuque?
— —
È dolce, quando sul vasto mare i venti turbano le acque, assistere da terra al gran travaglio altrui, non perché sia un dolce piacere che qualcuno soffra, ma perché è dolce vedere di quali mali tu stesso sia privo. È dolce anche vedere i grandi scontri di guerra schierati nella pianura senza che tu prenda parte al pericolo. Ma nulla è più dolce che tenere saldamente gli alti spazi sereni, fortificati dalla dottrina dei sapienti, da dove tu puoi stare a guardare dall’alto gli altri, e osservarli errare qua e là e cercare smarriti la via della vita, gareggiare in qualità intellettuali, contendere in nobiltà di sangue e sfarzosi di notte e giorno, con instancabile attività, per arrivare ad una grande ricchezza e impadronirsi del potere. O misere menti degli uomini, o ciechi animi! In quali tenebre di vita e in quanti pericoli si trascorre questo poco di vita, qualunque essa sia! E come non vedere che la natura null’altro pretende per sé, se non che in quanto al corpo il dolore sia lontano, e in quanto all’anima goda di piacevoli sensazioni, priva di affanni e di timori?

Lucrezio: Proemio del libro II del “De rerum natura” ( VV.1–61) (Analisi del testo di Marino Faggella)

Lucrezio riesce ad avere sempre una corretta visione d’insieme della realtà e tradurla in immagini indimenticabili. Quando Virgilio scrisse “Felice l’uomo che conosce la ragione delle cose” forse si riferiva a Lucrezio che fece di questa ricerca la ragione del suo poema, liberandosi di miti e superstizioni.

In questo consiste la sua modernità nonostante la critica che ne fece uno scienziato moderno che corrisponde al nome di Albert Einstein in suo libro pubblicato nel 1927. Egli non solo esprime la sua ammirazione, ma fa al poeta filosofo anche una critica che Luciano Canfora ha definito “intelligentissima, rispettosa e severa al tempo stesso”. Einstein scrive esattamente:

“L’obiettivo principale che Lucrezio si propone col suo poema è di liberare l’uomo dalla paura che suscitano religione e superstizione e che ci rende schiavi; una paura alimentata e sfruttata dai sacerdoti per i propri interessi”.

Un laicismo profondo che non contraddice, anzi rinsalda, la contemplazione dei “nessi casuali”: “Dio non gioca a dadi”, nella celebre battuta dello scienziato. Va riconosciuta a Lucrezio, nonostante tutti i suoi errori di dettaglio, il fatto che con i suoi versi in esametri riesce a costruire un universo unitario che viene fuori dal nulla ma è fatto di spazio e materia: “le cose della natura”, appunto, incluso i “virus”.

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

Heavy going in places but interesting, nevertheless

LA NATURALEZA

De la naturaleza de las cosasa​ (en latín, Dē rērum natūra) es un poema didáctico, dentro del género de los periphyseos cultivado por los filósofos atomistas griegos, escrito en el siglo I a. C. por Tito Lucrecio Caro; dividido en seis libros, proclama la realidad del hombre en un universo sin dioses e intenta liberarlo de su temor a la muerte. Expone la física atomista de Demócrito y la filosofía moral de Epicuro. Posiblemente la mayor obra de la poesía de Roma y, sin duda, uno de los mayores intentos destinados a la comprensión de la realidad del mundo y de lo humano.

Literalmente el título se traduce del latín como Sobre la naturaleza de las cosas, aunque a veces se llega a traducir como la Sobre la naturaleza del Universo, quizás para reflejar la escala real que se trata en el libro, o La naturaleza simplemente. La visión de Lucrecio es bastante austera, sin embargo incita a unos cuantos puntos importantes que permiten a los individuos un escape periódico de sus propios deseos y pasiones para observar con compasión a la pobre humanidad en su conjunto, incluyéndose a sí mismo, pudiendo observar la ignorancia promediada, la infelicidad reinante, e incita a mejorar aunque sólo sea un poco más todo aquello que nos rodea.
La responsabilidad personal consiste en hablar sobre la verdad personal que se vive. De acuerdo con Sobre la naturaleza de las cosas la proposición de verdad de Lucrecio está dirigida a una audiencia ignorante, esperando que alguien le escuche, le comprenda y de esta forma le pase la semilla de la verdad capaz de mejorar al mundo.

Composición del poema
El poema está compuesto por los siguientes argumentos:

-La sustancia es eterna.
-Los átomos se mueven en el vacío.
-El universo está compuesto de átomos y vacío, nada más. (Por esta razón, Lucrecio es visto como un atomista.)
-El alma del hombre consiste en átomos diminutos que se disuelven como el humo cuando este muere.
-Reclama la existencia de los dioses, pero Dios no inició el universo, y concierne poco a las acciones de los hombres.

-Existen otros mundos como el universo y son similares a este.
-Debido a que estamos compuestos de una sopa de átomos en constante movimiento, este mundo y los otros no son eternos.
-Los otros mundos no están controlados por dioses, al igual que este.
-Las formas de vida en este mundo y en los otros está en constante movimiento, incrementando la potencia de unas formas y decreciendo la de otras.
-El hombre debe pensar que desde sus más salvajes inicios ha vivido una gran mejora en habilidades y conocimientos, pero esto pasará y vendrá una decadencia.

-Lo que llega a saber el hombre proviene sólo de los sentidos y de la razón.
-Los sentidos tienen dependencias.
-La razón nos deja la posibilidad de alcanzar motivos ocultos, pero ésta no está libre de fallos y de falsas inferencias. Por esta razón, las inferencias deben ser continuamente verificadas por los sentidos.(Comparado con Platón, quien creía que los sentidos podrían ser confundidos mientras que la razón no.)

-Los sentimientos perciben las colisiones macroscópicas e interacciones de los cuerpos.
Pero la razón infiere los átomos y el vacío que los sentidos perciben.
-El hombre evita el dolor y busca todo aquello que le da placer.
Una persona normal (media) está impelida siempre para evitar los dolores y buscar los placeres.

-Las personas nacen con dos miedos innatos: el miedo a los dioses y el miedo a la muerte.
Pero los dioses no quieren hacernos daño, la muerte es fácil cuando la vida se ha ido.
Cuando uno se muere, los átomos del alma y los átomos del cuerpo continúan su esencia dando forma a las rocas, lagos o a las flores...

The philosophy of Epicurus is not presented any better than in the classic poem, On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) by Titus Lucretius Carus. We know little about his life. He was probably born in the early first century B.C. This meant that he lived during the turbulent era of the end of the Roman Republic and beginning of the Empire that saw the rise of Sulla and Pompey and, ultimately, Julius Caesar. On the Nature of Things, posthumously edited by Cicero, was his poetic plea to the Roman elite that they change course.

The poem by Lucretius has the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. It was written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean philosophy and physics through richly poetic language and metaphors. It is a rational and materialistic view of the world that presents the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna, "chance", and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities. He extols the life of contemplation as seen in these lines from the opening of Book Two:
"But nothing is sweeter than to dwell in the calm
Temples of truth, the strongholds of the wise." (II, 7-8)

Thankfully we can still enjoy the vision of the good life as presented in this beautiful poem. The basics of Lucretius' philosophy include acknowledging pleasure (or the absence of pain) as the highest good, basing ethics on the evidence of the senses, and extolling plain living and high thinking. He also is a committed atheist, denouncing the gods in Book I of the poem, advocating free will in Book II, and reassuring his readers that they have nothing to fear from death in Book III. This lucid translation by Anthony M. Esolen reminds me why Lucretius is still worth reading.

I read the Frank Copley translation, and found his notes and introduction quite useful. The poem itself is exceedingly strange and seems surprisingly modern in certain places (though decidedly less so in others). Glad to have finally read it, though; I can see why it's stood the test of time.½

Philosophy is Supposed to be Fun!

Cicero, because of his personal aversion to the Epicurean philosophy, didn't quite do it justice in his book [b:The Nature of the Gods|84603|The Nature of the Gods|Marcus Tullius Cicero|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1171056392s/84603.jpg|81664], which introduced the Greek philosophical schools to the Romans (He all but made the Epicurean the laughing-stock of all the other philosophers). However, he also prepared and edited the transcript of this book by Lucretius, arguably the best exposition of Epicureanism, as a counterpoint.

Lucretius made a strong case for Epicureanism with epic poetry and systematic reasoning. His thoughts and presentation with creative use of analogies are eminently clear and logical to a modern reader, in spite of his relative lack of scientific knowledge. In this book, he sought to dispel the notion of gods governing the universe, and demonstrate the natural causes of all things based on a few premises, from thunderbolts to earthquakes, from the nature of disease to the nature of the mind, from the beginning of the earth to the development of society.

Highly recommended for its epic scope, clarity of thought, beauty of narrative, richness of humor and compassion.

I don't have the background for deep analysis of classical writing, but from a novice's perspective:

Lucretius says that his purpose is to explain the work of Epicurus in an entertaining manner, and I was mostly entertained. Some of the highlights (SPOILERS?):

1) Earth is not made up of teeny tiny little Earths put together to form one big earth. Instead, it is made of particles that are in themselves different from what they can produce when combined.

2) Understanding the world using the senses is more accurate than relying on the stories of the gods

3) Maggots and worms grow from dead flesh on the ground, as can clearly be observed with the senses.

4) Latin does not contain some of the needed words to directly express concepts translated from the Greek of Epicurus, which is a challenge for Lucretius.

This was an enjoyable reading experience and did provide some small insight into the time period for me.

Read this in preparation for reading "The Swerve" about the discovery of Lucretius' poem. Have to say that it is a difficult read. The translation is not "modern" in any sense. That said, the ingeniousness of Lucretius is evident: very nearly explaining the true scientific nature of the world at a time when humankind ascribed everything to "the gods".

My recommendation is to find a different (better) translation (although I don't know if one exists).

A present-day-English translation, of the 7400-line Latin didactic poem _De Rerum Natura_, that's not only metrical (iambic heptameter) but also in rhyming couplets (which I just love). A delight to read, especially after plowing through the old prose translation by John Selby Watson.
To choose a good translation of Lucretius, I would say,
One ought to pick a version in the English of today.
And metered verse is called for too -- a poem needs to chime.
The bill was filled when Stallings crafted pairs of lines that rhyme.

Can anyone explain to me what's interesting in this book? Why is it considered a masterpiece?
It is admirable that Lucretius more than 2000 years ago spoke about atoms and the fact that light is faster than sound, but for a contemporary reader, why isn't this book boring content-wise? If you are not into Latin translation, what's there, aside from a questionable observation of Nature?

Philosophy, poetry, ancient physics all in one work. A very fine translation of an Epicurean classic.

This verse translation works well. One might anticipate that the rhyming couplets would become tiresome. Stallings has, however, arranged her syntax so that most of the time phrases and clauses carry past the line breaks and so the text reads much like prose. At the end of paragraphs and sections, Stallings does align the syntax with the rhyme with the result that these breaks are emphasized.

The translation does not attempt to capture the deliberately archaic language that Lucretius wrote in. I was skeptical at first of some of Stallings' more modern and colloquial word choices, but a check with the Latin showed that these still stayed close to the original meaning.

This is an accessible and recommendable translation of an important work.