On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics)

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Translation © Sir Ronald Melville 1997
Editorial matter © Don and Peta Fowler 1997

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First published by the Clarendon Press 1997
First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1999

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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

LUCRETIUS

Translated by
RONALD MELVILLE

With an Introduction and Notes by
DON AND PETA FOWLER

Introduction

Select Bibliography

Synopsis of the Poem

ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

Explanatory Notes

ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

L
UCRETIUS
(T. L
UCRETIUS
C
ARUS
) lived in the terrible times of the collapse of the Roman republic into chaos and civil war, and this is reflected in his writing. Nothing is known for certain about his life, but scholars agree that he was born shortly after 100
BC
and died between 55 and 50
BC
. The
gens Lucretia
was aristocratic, and he was probably a member of it. His poem shows familiarity with the luxurious life-style of great houses in Rome, and his deep feeling for the countryside and its people and animals invites one to imagine that his family owned country estates. Certainly he was expensively educated, and apart from being a master of Latin he acquired a deep knowledge of the Greek language, its literature and philosophy.

There is a famous story told by St Jerome that he died of madness caused by a love-philtre, and composed his poem during lucid intervals. This is unlikely.

R
ONALD
M
ELVILLE
studied Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was a civil servant until his retirement in 1973. He was brother to the late A. D. Melville, who initiated this translation and who translated Ovid and Statius for Oxford World’s Classics. Ronald Melville died in 2001.

D
ON
F
OWLER
was Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford.

P
ETA
F
OWLER
is Lecturer in Classics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

IN MEMORIAM

A.D.M.

FRATRIS DILECTISSIMI

I made this translation between May 1994 and November 1995, working for a couple of hours in the evening after dinner, with a glass of port at hand in case I got stuck. My brother Alan had completed a first draft of
Book 1
and most of
Book 2
when he died, and I started on it to help him. It is to him that I owe the joy and privilege of living for eighteen months in mind and spirit in the company of one of the world’s greatest poets.

There are some admirable prose translations of Lucretius, by Munro, Bailey, Rouse, and Latham. I have been particularly helped by the last two in the elucidation of difficult passages, and I owe to them numerous happy turns of phrase. I am especially indebted to Professor E. J. Kenney of Cambridge University for his criticism and encouragement.

Above all I am indebted to Charterhouse, to those great teachers Frank Fletcher and A. L. Irvine, who laid in me the enduring foundations of classical scholarship and of a love of English poetry.

R.H.M.

‘All nature, as it is in itself, consists of two things: there are bodies and there is void in which these bodies are and through which they move.’ This statement could have come from the opening of any textbook of natural science before the modern elaboration of subatomic physics: in fact it is a translation of two lines by a Latin poet writing over 2,000 years ago, who based his account of the world on the theories of a Greek philosopher living over 200 years earlier still. Lucretius’
On the Nature of the Universe
, as its title suggests, gives an account of the world, the universe, and everything in terms of atomic physics. (The Latin title
Dererum natura
is even more general: it means literally ‘On the Nature of Things’.) As the only detailed account of ancient atomism to come down to us more or less intact, it has been enormously influential on the development of both science and philosophy: and the account of the development of human civilization in
Book 5
of the work has been of similar importance, through Rousseau and others, in the development of modern social science. In the light of this, it is easy simply to marvel at the poem’s anticipations of modern ideas. But the work invites many other readings: as the product of first-century
BC
Rome and a key text in our constructions of the end of the Roman Republic, as a philosophical meditation on human happiness, and as perhaps the greatest didactic poem ever written in any language. The power of the work resides above all in the intersection of the reading practices which these different classifications invite.

We know less about the life of T. Lucretius Carus, the author of
On the Nature of the Universe
, than about almost any other Latin poet. His full name is given only in the manuscripts of his work, and nothing is known of his place of birth or social status, though both have been the subject of much speculation. The only secure date is a reference in a letter of Cicero (
To his Brother Quintus
2. 10(9) 3) written in February 54
BC
. In this Cicero praises Lucretius’
poemata
as possessing both flashes of genius (
ingenium
) and great artistry (
ars
)—that is, as combining the qualities of
an inspired and a craftsmanlike poet. This is certainly a reference to
On the Nature of the Universe
, and, although
poemata
could refer to just selections, the easiest hypothesis is that Lucretius’ poem was published by this time. The poem has often been thought to be unfinished: if so, Lucretius may have been dead by the time of the letter. But textual corruption rather than incompleteness may be responsible for the problems in the text. St Jerome (fourth–fifth century
AD
, but basing himself on the first–second-century
AD
writer Suetonius) reports the story (later made famous by Tennyson and others) that Lucretius wrote the poem in brief intervals of sanity after having been driven mad by a love-potion given him by his wife, and eventually committed suicide. If this story were true, it would be surprising that it was not used by Ovid half a century later in defending his
Art of Love
or by the fathers of the church attacking paganism and Epicureanism: it may be the result of a biographical reading of parts of
Books 3
and
4
, or of confusion with Lucretius’ contemporary the politician C. Licinius Lucullus, of whom a similar story is told. Nor is there any reason to believe Jerome’s statement that Cicero edited
On the Nature of the Universe
after its author’s death. The tale to tell of Lucretius’ life may be one of madness and premature death: equally, it may well be that the author was perfectly sane, and gave his poem to the world well before he died in his bed.