On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation)

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By Listen TheBook Posted on May 31, 2023

In Category - Classics (Greek & Latin Antiquity), Poetry, Ancient

Authors: Titus Lucretius Carus In Year : 1916

Book Language: English

Audiobook: On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation)

Book I, Part 1: Proem
Book I, Part 2: Substance is Eternal
Book I, Part 3: The Void
Book I, Part 4: Nothing Exists per se Except Atoms and the Void
Book I, Part 5: Character of the Atoms
Book I, Part 6: Confutation of Other Philosophers
Book I, Part 7: The Infinity of the Universe
Book II, Part 1: Proem
Book II, Part 2: Atomic Motions
Book II, Part 3: Atomic Forms and Their Combinations
Book II, Part 4: Absence of Secondary Qualities
Book II, Part 5: Infinite Worlds
Book III, Part 1: Proem
Book III, Part 2: Nature and Composition of the Mind
Book III, Part 3: The Soul is Mortal
Book III, Part 4: Folly of the Fear of Death
Book IV, Part 1: Proem
Book IV, Part 2: Existence and Character of the Images
Book IV, Part 3: The Senses and Mental Pictures
Book IV, Part 4: Some Vital Functions
Book IV, Part 5: The Passion of Love
Book V, Part 1: Proem
Book V, Part 2: Argument of the Book and New Proem Against a Teleological Concept
Book V, Part 3: The World is Not Eternal
Book V, Part 4: Formation of the World and Astronomical Questions
Book V, Part 5: Origins of Vegetable and Animal Life
Book V, Part 6: Origins and Savage Period of Mankind
Book V, Part 7: Beginnings of Civilization
Book VI, Part 1: Proem
Book VI, Part 2: Great Meteorological Phenomena, Etc.
Book VI, Part 3: Extraordinary and Paradoxical Telluric Phenomena
Book VI, Part 4: The Plague Athens

On the Nature of Things, written in the first century BCE by Titus Lucretius Carus, is one of the principle expositions on Epicurean philosophy and science to have survived from antiquity. Far from being a dry treatise on the many topics it covers, the original Latin version (entitled De Rerum Natura) was written in the form of an extended poem in hexameter, with a beauty of style that was admired and emulated by his successors, including Ovid and Cicero. The version read here is an English verse translation written by William Ellery Leonard. Although Leonard penned his version in the early twentieth century, he chose to adhere to both the vocabulary and meter (alternating between pentameter and hexameter) of Elizabethan-era poetry.

While the six untitled books that comprise On the Nature of Things delve into a broad range of subjects, including the physical nature of the universe, the workings of the human mind and body, and the natural history of the Earth, Lucretius repeatedly asserts throughout the work that his chief purpose is to provide the reader with a means to escape the "darkness of the mind" imposed by superstition and ignorance. To this end he offers us his enlightening verses, that through them might be revealed to us "nature's aspect, and her laws". (Summary by Daniel Vimont)