Piero de Cosimo's Lucretius - Inspired Paintings

Piero di Cosimo, A Hunting Scene, c. 1500

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Quote

This picture and its companion (also in The Met's collection) reimagine the early history of humankind and are among the most singular works of the Renaissance. Their inspiration was the fifth book of De Rerum Natura by the Epicurean poet and philosopher Lucretius (ca. 99–55 B.C.). A manuscript of Lucretius’s work was discovered in 1417 and published in Florence in 1471–73. Lucretius believed that the workings of the world can be accounted for by natural rather than divine causes, and he put forward a vision of the history of primitive humanity and the advent of civilization that was much discussed in Renaissance Florence—and beyond.

And so now,

in what remains, my train of argument

has now brought me to this point, where I must

set down an explanation how the world

is a mortal substance and was born,

how a collection of materials

established earth, heaven, sea, stars, sun,

and the moon’s globe, then what living creatures

sprang from earth, as well as those never born

at any time, how the human race began

to employ among themselves various words

by giving names to things, and ways in which

that fear of gods slid into human hearts,

which preserves sacred places on earth’s sphere—

shrines, lakes, groves, altars, images of gods.

...

They could not look toward the common good

and did not know how to make for themselves

any laws or customs. A man would take

whatever prize fortune might throw his way,

with each one trained to look out for himself

and get by on his own. And in the woods,

Venus would join bodies in sexual acts,

for each woman was either overwhelmed

by mutual lust, or by the violent force

and reckless passion of the man, or else

by some reward—acorns, or strawberries,

or fine pears. And trusting in the power

of their hands and feet, which was amazing,

they went after wild beasts in the forest

by throwing rocks and with large, heavy clubs.

They brought down many, but there were a few

they avoided in their hiding places.

...

And just in case, while dealing with these things,

you are perhaps quietly wondering,

it was lighting which first carried fire down

to mortal men on earth—with that all heat

from flames is generated. For we see

many things ignite and burn up when struck

by fire from heaven, once the bolt transmits

its heat. Then, too, when a tree with branches

is lashed by winds, sways back and forth, presses

and rubs the branches of another tree,

the violent force of rubbing brings out fire,

and while trunk and branches chafe each other,

sometimes the flaming heat of fire ignites.

Either of these two could have provided

fire to mortal men. And then sun taught them

to cook their food, using the heat of flames

to soften it, because out in the fields

they would see many objects getting soft

once beaten by sun’s heat and lashing rays.

The Return from the Hunt, also at the Met.

The above translation is from Ian Johnston.

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3991/

Yes, that's this one. All three have the forest fire as an important motif.

Good questions! I usually quote Johnston because it's easy to search for key-words and copy/paste. Perseus is a great resource but the chunks of text are often too small and it can be difficult to select text on mobile (although there are workarounds).

I also find Stallings to be a bit distracting, but some people are drawn to her style. My favorite verse translation is Rolfe Humphries, but he admits in his introduction that his focus was to capture the flavor of the poem rather than a literal rendition, which I think he succeeds at.

My best general advice for reading Lucretius is that contextualizing the poem can stave off boredom--we're so familiar with the idea that the earth is extremely old, that the universe is incomprehensibly large and ancient, that matter is made of little particles, that other worlds might potentially harbor life, and that nature is capable of sustaining a vacuum that reading about them in an old poem can seem rather dull. But if keep in mind how revolutionary these ideas really were, I think we can still capture a little bit of the magic.