Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Joshua

It seems fitting here to remember that W. B. Yeats considered Lucretius' fourth book to contain "the greatest description of sexual intercourse ever written". He responded to it by writing that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul"--in other words, that, try as they might, lovers never can succeed in becoming two in one.

(RE-POST): I wanted to include a few classical references (or direct theft) of Epicurus. We'll start with Virgil's ode:

"He sung the secret seeds of Nature's frame –

How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame

Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall

Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball.

The tender soil then stiffening by degrees

Shut from the bounding Earth the bounding seas.

Then earth and ocean various forms disclose,

And a new sun to a new world arose.

And mists condensed to cloud obscure the sky:

And clouds dissolved the thirsty ground supply.

The rising trees the lofty mountains grace,

The lofty mountains feed the savage race,

Yet few, and strangers in the unpeople place.

From hence the birth of man the song pursued,

And how the world was lost and how renewed." (Virgil, Eclogues, vi.31)

Following this (much, much later), Edmond Halley wrote an ode to Newton in the forward of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Matematica (1687). While it is not necessarily Epicurean, the historical link is interesting:

"...Then ye who now on heavenly nectar fare,

Come celebrate with me in song the name

Of Newton, to the Muses dear; for he

Unlocked the hidden treasuries of Truth:

So richly through his mind had Phoebus cast

The radiance of his own divinity.

Nearer the gods no mortal may approach." (Edmund Halley, Ode To Isaac Newton)

And I may as mention Horace, since Virgil made the list:

"Treat every day that dawns for you as the last.

The unhoped-for hours' ever welcome when it comes.

When you want to smile then visit me: sleek, and fat

I'm a hog, well cared-for, one of Epicurus' herd." (Horace, The Epistles 1.4.13-16)

Next, Edmund Spenser steals Lucretius' invocation to Venus from the beginning of Book I, and then, later, in the same poem, makes an allusion to DRN V:747.

"Great Venus, Queene of beautie and of grace,

The ioy of the Gods and men, that vnder skie

Doest fayrest shrine, and most adorne thy place,

That with they smyling looke doest pacifie

The raging seas, and makst the stormes to flie;

Thee goddesse, thee the winds, the clouds doe feare,

And when though spreadst thy mantle forth on hie,

The waters play and pleasant lands appeare,

And heauens laugh, & al the world shrews ioyous cheare." (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene 4.10.44)

"Lastly, came Winter cloathed in all frize,

Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill." (Spenser, The Faerie Queene 7.7.31.1-2)

The following is Lord Byron's rendering of DRN I-33-41:

"In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies

Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?

And gazing in thy face as toward a star,

Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,

Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are

With lava kisses melting while they burn,

Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!" (Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 4.51)

I am now convinced that Shakespeare was quite familiar with ancient Greek philosophy:

"LEAR: Why, no, boy: nothing can be made out of nothing." (King Lear 1:4.106)

"MERCUTIO: She is the faeries' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than agate-stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomi

Over men's noses as they lie asleep." (Romeo and Juliet 1.4.52-56)

"CELIA: It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the

propositions of a lover. But take a taste of my

finding him, and relish it with good observance. I

found him under a tree like a dropped acorn." (As You Like It 3.2.1332-1335)

"OTHELLO: ...like to the Pontick Sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontick at Hellesport." Othello 3.3.453-456; allusion to DRN V:506-508)

There are a number of contemporary thinkers who have translated parts of DRN into English prose. For example, the French metaphysician Gilles Deleuze translates lines 633-634 from De Rerum Natura:

"...out of connections, densities, shocks, encounters, occurrences, and motions." (Deleuze [1990a] 267)

In The Advancement of Education the English philosopher Francis Bacon translated DRN II:1-10:

"In is a view of delight ... to stand of walke vpon the shoare side, and to see a shippe tossed with tempest vpon the sea; or to bee in a fortified Tower, and to see two Battailes ioyie vppon a plaine. But is a pleasure incomparable for the minde of man to be setled, landed, and fortified in the certaintie of truth; and from thence to descrie and behould the errours, perterbations, labours, and wanderings up and downe of other men." (1605)

Of special note, French philosophy Denis Diderot invoked a line from De Rerum Natura as his personal motto. He paraphrases DRN IV:338 as an emblematic, rallying cry for the entire Enlightenment period:

"Now we see out of the dark what is in the light." (Philosophical Thoughts 1746)

While they do not provide direct translation, we have notable reflections on Lucretian evolution from Erasmus Darwin (the less-famous grandfather of Charles) in The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society (1803) as well as David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), regarding the poetry of DRN V:772-878.

Even one of my personal heroes, Carl Sagan makes commentary on DRN II:1090-1092.

"As Lucertius summarize [the Ionian philosophers'] views, 'Nature free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods." (Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World)

The English poet George Sandys offers a translation of DRN II:14-19.

"O wretched minds of men! Depriued of light!

Through what great dangers, o[n] hou dark a night,

Force you your weary lives! and cannot see

How Nature onely craues a body free

From hated paine; a chearefulle Mind possest

Of safe delights, by care not feare opprest." (1632)

Of the beginning Book III, Frederick II is posthumously recorded as having said that "There are no better remedies for maladies of the mind." We then note that Lord Tennyson translated DRN III:18-24.

"...The Gods, who haunt

The lucid interspace of world and world,

Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,

Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,

Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,

Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar

Their sacred, everlasting calm!" (Lord Tennyson, Lucretius 104-110)

England's first Poet Laureate, John Dryden provides a brief reflection of DRN III:831.

"What has this Bugbear death to frighten Man,

If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can?"

The poet Thomas Grey seems to appropriate the tone and imagery of DRN III:895-897.

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share." (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 21-24)

The poet Percy Shelley provides a beautiful rendition of DRN IV:415-420.

"We paused beside the pools that lie

Under the forest bough,

Each seemed as 'twere a little sky

Gulfed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay." (Shelley, To Jane: The Recollections 53-58)

William Wordsworth provides us with a version of DRN V:222-227.

"Like a shipwrecked Sailor tost

By rough waves on a perilous coast

Lies the babe, in helplessness

And in tenderest nakedness

Flung by laboring Nature forth

Upon the mercies of the earth

Can its eye beseech? No more

Than the hands are free to implore:

Voice but serves for one brief cry;

Plaint was it? or prophesy

Of sorrow that will surely come?

Omen of man's grievous doom!" (William Wordsworth, To-Upon the Birthday of Her First-Born Child 1-12)

In Book VII of Paradise Lost, John Milton elaborates on Lucretian evolution from DRN V:772-878. I recommend reading further in Book VII because Milton (to my surprise) appropriates a significant amount of Lucretian imagery.

"Then Herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour'd

Op'ning thir various colours, and made gay

Her bosom smelling sweet..." (Paradise Lost, Book VII)

Diogenes of Oinoanda borrows heavily, directly from Lucretius. While he does not write in verse, the fact that he cites lines from DRN justify to me that he should be included in this list.I will just list the connections:

- Diogenes' fr. 47.III.10-IV.2 corresponds with Lucretius' DRN III:953-955

- Diogenes' NF 126-127.VI-IX, fr. 20 corresponds with DRN V:156-173

- Diogenes' fr. 12.II.11-V.14 corresponds with DRN V around line 1040.

This is what I have compiled in terms of Lucretian references in my most recent read-through.

There was one other discovery I wanted to share (somewhat off-topic, but just humor me...). In Book VI, Lucretius alludes to the largest seismic event in Antiquity (besides the earlier eruption of Mt. Etna and the later eruption of Mt. Vesuvius). This event occurred on the North side of the Peloponnesian peninsula, almost directly West of Athens. Presumably, a number of Athenians would have experienced this event ... Athenians like Plato. This occured in c. 373 BCE, and lead to the complete destruction of the ancient city of Helike as well as all of its inhabitants. So what exactly happened? From records, ancient authors describe what we might call as a "collapse" of a plate. In this instance, such an event would lead to the complete collapse of land above the event. Uniquely, it would have appeared that an entire mass of land fell straight downward, dozens of feet over the duration of only a few seconds. As I mentioned, we would have expected Athenians (like Plato), who were just East of this event, to have been very aware of it. Exactly 13 years later, Plato published his dialogue Timaeus in which he (and he alone) describes the fabled allegory of Atlantis, which collapses into the sea.

Coincidence? I propose that the destruction of the fictional city of Atlantis was inspired by the collapse of Helike.

Quote from Joshua

We do have this thread going, which is an excellent resource, and great for compiling this kind of information. I generally like to keep tidy formatting there and limited conversation, but Nate, your post would be a great addition.

Thanks, Joshua ! I will do that. I thought you had a post like this around here somewhere...

Epicurus taught that “The occurrence of certain bodily pains assists us in guarding against others like them" (VS 73). He seems to have had a lot to say about the potential pitfalls of unrestrained sexuality ...

History may justify both characterizations, the sinner and the saint: Epicurus may have pursued a less-restrained sexual path as a youth (considering he was renown to have an attractive and beloved personality), and may have run into some of the undesirable side effects that helped shape his sense of selective sexual prudence.

I have been subjectively trying to convey this to my psychiatrists for years.

I call that old model the "Paint Bucket" model (that's just me). In the "Paint Bucket" model, the healthy brain is a perfect shade of purple, equal parts red (mania) and blue (depression). If you have too much of one color, you need to balance it out with the other color, thus, serotonin and dopamine seem to be the primary neurotransmitters psychiatrists try to regulate with the use of medication that specifically affects the "color" of your mind.

This is really limiting.

Take me. I have Bipolar I (manic-heavy side of BP), and they tend to treat me with things that counter-act mania, so, they try to eliminate insomnia, intrusive thoughts, obsessive behaviors, etc. Overall, the basic mood stabilization is a good place to start. It keeps me from passing a red line that leads to dangerous, physically-harmful behavior.

That's just a fraction of the story. The average Bipolar brain (in addition to people with Major Depressive Disorder) tend to have enlarged amygdalas, which manage emotions. That means anyone with a mood disorder (regardless of serotonin and dopamine levels) is more emotionally reactive and more emotionally affective. We get more emotional faster, we stay emotional longer, and it takes longer to return to a baseline. Medication cannot change the fact that I have a larger amygdala. Bipolar patients also tend to uniquely possess smaller-than-average pre-frontal cortecies, so while those of us with the stereotypical and ancient "Melancholic" personality exhibit brilliant phases of creativity and achievement, the shrunken pre-frontal cortex leads to a hinderance on a Bipolar patient's ability to clearly identify cause-and-effect, to make healthy, long-term plans, and to minimize risky-taking behaviors. Again, anti-depressants, mood-stabilizers, benzodiazepines, and even cannabinoids don't really address that issue. The closest treatment we provide to physically altering the structure of the brain is a lobotomy, and it is h-o-r-r-i-f-i-c.

Psychotherapy is needed to help patients ... learn to work with their limitations (and unique advantages). But even then, a supportive environment is crucial. Birds need sky, fish need lakes, basketball players need hoops, and Bipolar patients need friends with a LOT of patience and strong senses of self. Being surrounded by enemies can make the other treatments so ineffective that the patient begins wondering if there is any hope at all. And there is. Quite a lot.

I wanted to include a few classical references (or direct theft) of Epicurus. We'll start with Virgil's ode:

"He sung the secret seeds of Nature's frame –
How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball.
The tender soil then stiffening by degrees
Shut from the bounding Earth the bounding seas.
Then earth and ocean various forms disclose,
And a new sun to a new world arose.
And mists condensed to cloud obscure the sky:
And clouds dissolved the thirsty ground supply.
The rising trees the lofty mountains grace,

The lofty mountains feed the savage race,
Yet few, and strangers in the unpeople place.
From hence the birth of man the song pursued,
And how the world was lost and how renewed." (Virgil, Eclogues, vi.31)

Following this (much, much later), Edmond Halley wrote an ode to Newton in the forward of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Matematica (1687). While it is not necessarily Epicurean, the historical link is interesting:

"...Then ye who now on heavenly nectar fare,

Come celebrate with me in song the name

Of Newton, to the Muses dear; for he

Unlocked the hidden treasuries of Truth:

So richly through his mind had Phoebus cast

The radiance of his own divinity.

Nearer the gods no mortal may approach." (Edmund Halley, Ode To Isaac Newton)

And I may as mention Horace, since Virgil made the list:

"Treat every day that dawns for you as the last.
The unhoped-for hours' ever welcome when it comes.
When you want to smile then visit me: sleek, and fat
I'm a hog, well cared-for, one of Epicurus' herd." (Horace, The Epistles 1.4.13-16)

Next, Edmund Spenser steals Lucretius' invocation to Venus from the beginning of Book I, and then, later, in the same poem, makes an allusion to DRN V:747.

"Great Venus, Queene of beautie and of grace,
The ioy of the Gods and men, that vnder skie
Doest fayrest shrine, and most adorne thy place,
That with they smyling looke doest pacifie
The raging seas, and makst the stormes to flie;
Thee goddesse, thee the winds, the clouds doe feare,
And when though spreadst thy mantle forth on hie,
The waters play and pleasant lands appeare,
And heauens laugh, & al the world shrews ioyous cheare." (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene 4.10.44)

"Lastly, came Winter cloathed in all frize,
Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill." (Spenser, The Faerie Queene 7.7.31.1-2)

The following is Lord Byron's rendering of DRN I-33-41:

"In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies

Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?

And gazing in thy face as toward a star,

Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,

Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are

With lava kisses melting while they burn,

Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!" (Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 4.51)

I am now convinced that Shakespeare was quite familiar with ancient Greek philosophy:

"LEAR: Why, no, boy: nothing can be made out of nothing." (King Lear 1:4.106)

"MERCUTIO: She is the faeries' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men's noses as they lie asleep." (Romeo and Juliet 1.4.52-56)

"CELIA: It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
propositions of a lover. But take a taste of my
finding him, and relish it with good observance. I
found him under a tree like a dropped acorn." (As You Like It 3.2.1332-1335)

"OTHELLO: ...like to the Pontick Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontick at Hellesport." (Othello 3.3.453-456; allusion to DRN V:506-508)

There are a number of contemporary thinkers who have translated parts of DRN into English prose. For example, the French metaphysician Gilles Deleuze translates lines 633-634 from De Rerum Natura:

"...out of connections, densities, shocks, encounters, occurrences, and motions." (Deleuze [1990a] 267)

In The Advancement of Education the English philosopher Francis Bacon translated DRN II:1-10:

"In is a view of delight ... to stand of walke vpon the shoare side, and to see a shippe tossed with tempest vpon the sea; or to bee in a fortified Tower, and to see two Battailes ioyie vppon a plaine. But is a pleasure incomparable for the minde of man to be setled, landed, and fortified in the certaintie of truth; and from thence to descrie and behould the errours, perterbations, labours, and wanderings up and downe of other men." (1605)

Of special note, French philosophy Denis Diderot invoked a line from De Rerum Natura as his personal motto. He paraphrases DRN IV:338 as an emblematic, rallying cry for the entire Enlightenment period:

"Now we see out of the dark what is in the light." (Philosophical Thoughts 1746)

While they do not provide direct translation, we have notable reflections on Lucretian evolution from Erasmus Darwin (the less-famous grandfather of Charles) in The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society (1803) as well as David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), regarding the poetry of DRN V:772-878.

Even one of my personal heroes, Carl Sagan makes commentary on DRN II:1090-1092.

"As Lucertius summarize [the Ionian philosophers'] views, 'Nature free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods." (Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World)

The English poet George Sandys offers a translation of DRN II:14-19.

"O wretched minds of men! Depriued of light!
Through what great dangers, o[n] hou dark a night,
Force you your weary lives! and cannot see
How Nature onely craues a body free
From hated paine; a chearefulle Mind possest
Of safe delights, by care not feare opprest." (1632)

Of the beginning Book III, Frederick II is posthumously recorded as having said that "There are no better remedies for maladies of the mind." We then note that Lord Tennyson translated DRN III:18-24.

"...The Gods, who haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred, everlasting calm!" (Lord Tennyson, Lucretius 104-110)

England's first Poet Laureate, John Dryden provides a brief reflection of DRN III:831.

"What has this Bugbear death to frighten Man,
If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can?"

The poet Thomas Grey seems to appropriate the tone and imagery of DRN III:895-897.

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share." (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 21-24)

The poet Percy Shelley provides a beautiful rendition of DRN IV:415-420.

"We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,
Each seemed as 'twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay." (Shelley, To Jane: The Recollections 53-58)

William Wordsworth provides us with a version of DRN V:222-227.

"Like a shipwrecked Sailor tost
By rough waves on a perilous coast
Lies the babe, in helplessness
And in tenderest nakedness
Flung by laboring Nature forth
Upon the mercies of the earth
Can its eye beseech? No more
Than the hands are free to implore:

Voice but serves for one brief cry;
Plaint was it? or prophesy
Of sorrow that will surely come?
Omen of man's grievous doom!" (William Wordsworth, To-Upon the Birthday of Her First-Born Child 1-12)

In Book VII of Paradise Lost, John Milton elaborates on Lucretian evolution from DRN V:772-878. I recommend reading further in Book VII because Milton (to my surprise) appropriates a significant amount of Lucretian imagery.

"Then Herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour'd
Op'ning thir various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet..." (Paradise Lost, Book VII)

Diogenes of Oinoanda borrows heavily, directly from Lucretius. While he does not write in verse, the fact that he cites lines from DRN justify to me that he should be included in this list.I will just list the connections:

- Diogenes' fr. 47.III.10-IV.2 corresponds with Lucretius' DRN III:953-955

- Diogenes' NF 126-127.VI-IX, fr. 20 corresponds with DRN V:156-173
- Diogenes' fr. 12.II.11-V.14 corresponds with DRN V around line 1040.

This is what I have compiled in terms of Lucretian references in my most recent read-through.

There was one other discovery I wanted to share (somewhat off-topic, but just humor me...). In Book VI, Lucretius alludes to the largest seismic event in Antiquity (besides the earlier eruption of Mt. Etna and the later eruption of Mt. Vesuvius). This event occured on the North side of the Peloponnesian peninsula, almost directly West of Athens. Presumably, a number of Athenians would have experienced this event ... Athenians like Plato. This occured in c. 373 BCE, and lead to the complete destruction of the ancient city of Helike as well as all of its inhabitants. So what exactly happened? From records, ancient authors describe what we might call as a "collapse" of a plate. In this instance, such an event would lead to the complete collapse of land above the event. Uniquely, it would have appeared that an entire mass of land fell straight downward, dozens of feet over the duration of only a few seconds. As I mentioned, we would have expected Athenians (like Plato), who were just East of this event, to have been very aware of it. Exactly 13 years later, Plato published his dialogue Timaeus in which he (and he alone) describes the fabled allegory of Atlantis, which collapses into the sea.

Coincidence? I propose that the destruction of the fictional city of Atlantis was inspired by the collapse of Helike.

This is awesome! I've been playing with the idea (once suggested to me by Hiram , which I still think is a great idea), of creating an Epicurean equivalent to the "Bible Verses When You're Feeling..." Section at the end of many modern copies of the New Testament ... you've already started it with the references to the Key Doctrines!

I have been reading and (attempting) to move through De Rerum Natura in the original Latin, and I am finding a lot of really excellent, poignant, insightful, eloquent lines that I would like to begin organizing into something comparable.

Please keep adding to this list and I will eventually have more to share.

Quote from Randall Moose

Salvete,

I've been a lurker here for a while, I was introduced to Epicurus in Happiness: a philosopher's guide by Lenoir, Frédéric in 2017. Long story short, studying Epicurus has helped me deal many childhood abuses and continues to help me today.

I look forward to, hopefully, engaging with y'all.

You are very welcome here, Randall. These teachings can be like a lighthouse in a hurricane.

Quote from Pacatus

Quote from Don

Epicurus is not mentioned in Rucker's book, although I find his text even more Epicurean then "The Art of Frugal Hedonism."

Am reminded of the early post-apostolic Christian Justin Martyr: "Those, therefore, who lived according to reason (logos) were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus and others like them."

Well, I wouldn't want to push that too far, but still:

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.”

(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

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Speaking of Shakespeare, in a recent dive into DRN, I discovered quite a few occasions where Shakespeare shamelessly appropriates Lucretian imagery. Also, the same for Chaucer, Spenser, and Wordsworth.

Outside of Shakespeare, I'm finding explicit instances of DRN being a source of inspiration (or the target of theft) from, at least, Rousseau, Deleuze, Nietzsche, Bergson, Santayana, Gassendi, Machiavelli, Holbach, Descartes, Galileo, Locke, Hobbes, Spinoza, Freud, Horace, Dryden, Diderot, Voltaire, Frederick II, La Mettrie, Marx, Pope, Botticelli, Virgil, Jefferson, Erasmus Darwin, Shelley, Lord Byron, Newton, Halley, Tennyson, Hume, Kant, Milton, Goethe, and Bacon. (I'm currently getting high on the idea that Lucretius is the most significant individual poet of all.)

Quote from Cassius

"Epicurus taught YOLO but not the YOLO That You Are Familiar With." -- added per suggestion from Don - thanks

Good one.

Quote from Don

In keeping with Cassius new thread:

Epicurus taught YOLO but not the YOLO That You Are Familiar With.

I realized after typing "YOLO" that is is both thematically perfect, and also, connotatively antithetical to my message, so my bad for throwing out that adjective (and I'll use this as an opportunity to further demonstrate that nouns are more powerful than adjectives, and a good noun should spare us the expense of having to buy an adjective).

I'm really just a fan of our philosophy just being "Hedonism" (sans adjective). I want to force the other "Hedonists" to defend their "brand" of Hedonism with apologetic adjectives, like, "Unrestrained Hedonism", or "YOLO Hedonism".

I am responding without reading the context surrounding that quote, so I apologize if this is not a direct response.

I think that Epicurus' promotion of rational, non-mystical thinking is most necessary for those enmeshed in a powerfully anti-science environment. We observed this during the Italian Renaissance and Revolutionary France: the dissonance Lucretius offered inspired the founders of modern science and provided a lighthouse in a religious storm.

That observation may seem much less poignant to we, contemporary, urban people, enmeshed in a power grid of modernity. Even Christians who "claim" to have adopted the Christianity that Jesus taught still walk around with computers in their pockets that were invented by disbelievers on the principle of particle physics.

In a way, we are all Epicurean, whether or not reactionary minds are willing to recognize their own context. When Nietzsche said "God Is Dead", he didn't mean, "Atheists Have Killed the Sacred Spirit of the Christians", he meant, "Our medieval mythology has dried-up like a drippy puddle in this, the Summer of Science".

The observation that the Sun is not a conscious deity is also a pretty mundane observation for modern peoples, but only because we were already taught this information. If the majority of American adults were still confused about the basic operations of the sun, this observation would prophetic, threatening, inspiring, and life-changing.

Ultimately, though, whether we are introducing Atomism to a culture that sees shades of infinitely divisible elements, or Heliocentrism to a Geocentric culture, or telling a gay kid in rural Mississippi in 2023 that his feelings are totally natural, it is people who have been neglected scientifically who benefit most from these things.

I guess my thesis is this: Science might seem "oversold" in cultures that are already scientific, but a culture like Afghanistan under the Taliban, for example, DESPERATELY needs a Lucretian revolution of thought. Flat-Earthers might not believe in satellites in outer space ... but they sure do use them a lot when they make phone calls.

Quote from Don

As literal as possible:

ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος "The wealth of nature..."

καὶ ὥρισται* καὶ εὐπόριστός ἐστιν, "is the best and easily procured...

ὁ δὲ τῶν κενῶν δοξῶν (kenōn doxōn "empty beliefs/principles/doctrines") εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει. "But that of empty opinions runs onto infinity."

*πλοῦτος ploutos. Ex., plutocracy. Wealth, riches.

**ὥρισται is, according to LSJ, a contraction of ὁ ἄριστος (o aristos) from which we get aristocracy. So, it literally means "best, finest; best in its kind, and so in all sorts of relations, serving as Sup. of ἀγαθός (agathon "good"). I'm wondering if the "limited" translation is from the idea of oligos as in oligarchy as in rule by a few or limited number. If I've misunderstood ὥρισται I am more than open to correction!

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BD%A4…%84%CE%BF%CF%82

PS. There is ὁριστός from ὁρίζω (horízō, “separate, delimit”) but ὥρισται with its sense connected to "the good" seems to me to make sense here.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%84…2#Ancient_Greek

I would be curious to get Eikadistes 's take.

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I agree with this expression of KD15.

I think in Book III Lucretius, in an attempt to disprove the idea of an immortal soul, entertains the possibility of a bodiless soul, or a soul that is simply disembodied, but is afforded all other qualities of the soul besides its embodiment and then supposes how such an existence would differ from being literal void (I might not be remembering Lucretius completely accurate, but the example still hold). Even in this (impossible) scenario in which a post-mortem soul can cast judgments (i.e. identifying pleasure vs. pain), it requires some sensible experience upon which to cast judgment, therefore, without sensation (even if, somehow, the soul could still "feel" but not sense) judgment is void.

Here, I think Epicurus is explicitly referring to the technical stimulation of sensory organs (or, rather, the lack thereof).

ANAISTHETEI - ANAIΣΘHTEI - ἀναισθητεῖ - /aːnaɪs.thεː'teɪ/ - related to αναίσθητος (anaîsthetos, “insensate”, “unfeeling”)from ἀν- (ἀn-, “without”) + αισθητός (aisthetós, “perceptibility”, “sensibility”) meaning “devoid of sensation”, “unconsciousness”, “no sense-experience”, “absence of sensation”, “lacks awareness”, “no feeling”, “no perception”.

DIALYTHEN - ΔIAΛYΘEN - διαλυθὲν - /diːa.lyː'then/ - from διαλύω (dialūō) from δια- (dia-, “through”) + λυθὲν (luthén), the third-person, plural, aorist, passive indicative infection of λύω (lúō, adjectival suffx) meaning “loosened”, “released”, “dissolved”, “destroyed”, “dispersed”, “disintegrated”, “broken down into atoms”.

I have been translating sections of De Rerum Natura (and plan to continue), and I found something interesting I wanted to share, upon which I will likely build later. Lucretius discusses the difficult task of translating scientific Greek vocabulary into Latin metaphors, and I feel that (overwhelmingly) most translators gloss over Lucertius' specific innovations by employing the word "atom" or "atoms", which can be misleading for several reasons.

Instead, I found that (usually) Munro best preserves Lucretius' linguistic innovations without resorting to contemporary scientific jargon or reducing the poetic flavor to the tone of a textbook.

Latin Words For ATOMI (found in DRN I-VI):

CORPORA — “first bodies” (Munro)

CORPORA MATERIAI — “elements of matter” (Munro)

CORPORA PRIMA — “first bodies” (Munro)

CORPORIBUS PRIMIS — “first bodies” (Munro)

CORPORIS — “first body” (Munro)

CORPVSCVLA MATERIAI — “the minute bodies of matter” (Munro)

ELEMENTA — “elements” (Munro)

ELEMENTAQUE PRIMA — “prime elements” (Munro)

ELEMENTIS — “elements” (Munro)

FIGVRAS — “elements” (Munro)

EXORDIA — “beginnings” (Munro)

EXORDIA PRIMA — “first-beginnings” (Munro)

EXORDIA RERVM — “beginnings of things” (Munro)

GENITALIA CORPORA — “begetting bodies” (Munro)

GENITALIA CORPORA REBVS — “begetting bodies of things” (Munro)

MATERIAI CORPORA — “bodies of matter” (Munro)

MATERIAI CORPORIBVS — “bodies of matter” (Munro)

MATERIEM RERVM — “matter of things” (Munro)

MATERIES AETERNA — “matter everlasting” (Munro)

MINVTIS PERQVAM CORPORIBVS — “exceedingly minute bodies” (Munro)

PRIMAS PARTIS — “primal parts” (Munro)

PRIMASQVE FIGVRAS — “primary elements” (Munro)

PRIMORDIA — “first-beginnings” (Munro)

PRIMORDIA CORPORE — “first elements” (Munro)

PRIMORDIA PRINCIPIORVM — “basic elements” (Humphries)

PRIMORDIA RERVM — “first beginnings of things” (Munro)

PRIMORDIAQVE — “firstlings” (Humphries)

PRIMORVM — “first things” (Munro)

PRINCIPIIS — “primary particles” (Smith)

PRINCIPIIS RERVM — “primary elements of things” (Smith)

PRINCIPIORVM — “primary elements” (Smith)

PRINCIPIORVM CORPORIBVS — “primary particles” (Melville)

PRINCIPIORVM CORPORIS ATQVE ANIMI — “the elements of the body and spirit” (Smith)

SEMINA — “seeds” (Munro)

SEMINA REBVS — “seeds of things” (Munro)

SEMINA RERVM — “seeds of things” (Munro)

SEMINAQVE — “seeds” (Smith)

SEMINE — “seed” (Munro)

SEMINIBVS — “seeds” (Munro)

SEMINIS — “seeds” (Munro)

RERVM PRIMORDIA — “first-beginnings of things”

Of note, lines between 1000-1288 in Book V use SEMINA to refer to male ejaculate fluid, thus, employing literal imagery, creating a necessary, poetic comparison between the generation of the Earth and the generation of a Child through the same, insentient mechanisms; both of which are composed of clumps of eternal matter that get entangled while falling through the void, both of which lead to inextricably vast complexity, coming from simple, primordial seeds.

I plan on reviewing III-VI next, but I thought that I-II would most efficiently provide me with the largest variety of phrases for "atoms" in the ancient context or "subatomic particles" in the modern meaning. (Edit: updated to sixerino)

I believe we are looking for the following:

sentio, ergo sum

"I feel, therefore I am."

“The work of Lucretius will work its magic on anyone who does not completely wrap himself in the spirit of our time and, in particular, occasionally feels like a spectator of the intellectual attitude of his contemporaries. One sees here how an independent man equipped with lively senses and reasoning, endowed with scientific and speculative curiosity, a man who has not even the faintest notion of the results of today’s science that we are taught in childhood, before we can consciously, much less critically, confront them, imagines the world.

The firm confidence that Lucretius, as a faithful disciple of Democritus and Epicurus, places in the intelligibility, in other words, int he casual connectedness of everything that happens in the world, must make a profound impression. He is firmly convinced, he even beleives he can prove, that everything is based on the the regular motion of immutable atoms, ascribing to atoms no qualities other than geometric-mechnaical ones. The sensual qualities warmth, coldenss, color, odor, taste, are to be attributed to the movements of atoms, likewise all phenomena of life. He conceives of the soul and mind as formed from especially light atoms, by assigning (in an inconsistent way) particular qualities of matter to particular characteristics of experience.

He states as the primary objective of his work the liberation of humanity from the slavish fear, induced by religion and superstition, that he sees as nourished and exploited by priests for thei own purposes. This certainly is a serious issue for him. Nonetheless, he does seem to have been guided mostly by the need to persuade his readers of the necessity for the atomistic-mechanical worldview, although he dare not say this openly to his much more practically oriented Roman readers. His reverence for Epicurus, Greek culture and language, which he considers greatly superior to Latin culture and language, is altogether moving. It redounds to the glory of the Romans that this could be said to them. Where is the modern nation that holds and expresses such noble sentiments with regard to one of its contemporary nations?

Diels’s verses read so naturally that one forget it is a translation.”

(Albert Einstein, Foreward in T. Lucretius Carus, De rerum natura, Vol. 2, Lukrez, Von der Natur, trans. by Hermann Diels, Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1924, pp. via-vib)

I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I confirmed this:

There is a vastly misattributed quote to Lucretius and De Rerum Natura that proposes that “Fear first on earth created gods." This comes from Statius, “Primus in orbe deos fecit timor” (Thebais III 661)

Not incompatible, simply, misattributed.