"Pleasure" and the opening line of Lucretius

Voluptas was also a goddess, signifying sensual pleasure, granddaughter of Venus--alternatively, an aspect of Venus herself--and her Greek equivalent was Hedone.

Delight makes for a good English translation in part because it is 'higher in tone'--more suited to an archaic form like Latin epic verse. It has the same Latin root as 'delectable', and there are also metrical considerations. "de-LIGHT of GODS and MEN" is iambic, the standard English poetic foot. Delight of gods and men...the darling buds of May.

Pleasure breaks up the flow. This is true even in prose, though it wouldn't be as strongly felt.

"DELIGHT of Humane kind, and Gods above,

Parent of Rome; Propitious Queen of Love,

Whose vital pow’r, Air, Earth, and Sea supplies,

And breeds what e’r is born beneath the rowling Skies:

For every kind, by thy prolifique might,

Springs, and beholds the Regions of the light."

John Dryden translation in heroic couplets; rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. Dryden is already taking liberties with the meter in the second line, bit he nails the first line and that sets the tone.

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, vŏluptas

Don looking at the above Latin Dictionary entry for "voluptas" -- it occurs to me that delight sounds like a mental pleasure, and where as plain old "pleasure" is in the body.

(Just my take on it).

Quote from Kalosyni

Don looking at the above Latin Dictionary entry for "voluptas" -- it occurs to me that delight sounds like a mental pleasure, and where as plain old "pleasure" is in the body.

I guess you could say it's all bodily in some ways since the mind resides in the body?

We also have to consider the motives of the early translators. Most of them in their frontmatter went to great lengths to disavow the main tenets of the poem. One published anonymously, another vowed that she would feed it to the fire if she still had it in her hands. Delight is a gray area. Pleasure is subversive.

Quote from Joshua

Pleasure is subversive.

Gimme that old time subversion! It's good enough for me!

Everybody sing along!!

I don't know if this helps, but I'm checking some translations into Spanish.

Abbe Marchena (1791): Engendradora del romano pueblo / placer de hombres y dioses, alma Venus (Marchena's translation is the most popular.)

Francisco Socas (2003): Engendradora de los Enéadas, placer de hombres y dioses, nutricia Venus

Victoria Pégolo et. al. (2020): Engendradora de los Enéadas, impulso vital de los hombres y de los dioses, nutricia Venus

In Spanish is a little more frequent the use of the word "pleasure /placer", although it's interesting that an abbe in a catholic country like Spain in XVIII century used that word.

Quote from Don

Gimme that old time subversion! It's good enough for me!

Everybody sing along!!

OMG! As the kids say, 'I feel seen.' Howling with laughter.