For when once the face of the spring day is revealed and the teeming breeze of the west wind is loosed from prison and blows strong, first the birds in high heaven herald thee, goddess, and thine approach, their hearts thrilled with thy might.

Thou, goddess, thou dost turn to flight the winds and the clouds of heaven, thou at thy coming for thee earth, the quaint artificer, puts forth her sweet-scented flowers for thee the levels of ocean smile, and the sky, its anger past, gleams with spreading light. MOTHER of Aeneas’s sons, joy of men and gods, Venus the life-giver, who beneath the gliding stars of heaven fillest with life the sea that carries the ships and the land that bears the crops for thanks to thee every tribe of living things is conceived, and comes forth to look upon the light of the sun. It might indeed be thought that with so fine a model in existence it is unnecessary and unprofitable to undertake the task again. but one is possessed with a strong feeling that he has finally set the tone or colour which Lucretius in English must assume. It is not only that certain striking phrases ring in one's ears - vitai claustra, 'the fastnesses of life,' alte terminus haerens, ' the deepset boundary-mark,' &c. No one can set about translating Lucretius into English without finding his head full of the great work of H.A.J. Other translations of Lucretius are also available here: | Munro | Brown | Leonard | Bailey (unamended) | Preface To Bailey 1936 Edition ¶ All headings are added for ease of reference and are not a part of the original text, or of the Bailey translation. Please report any errors or suggested corrections to numbers in brackets '' are taken from the 1975 Loeb Edition, edited by Martin Ferguson Smith. This online edition will contain annotations that are not found in the original edition. A number of corrections were made by Bailey in his 1947 edition, and some of these, along with occasional notes from other sources, are incorporated in the transcription below. A PDF of that edition is available at here. Where Is Epicurus In the School of Athens?Įxcept where noted, the translation below is that of Cyril Bailey, Oxford University Press, 1936 reprint of 1910 edition. Pleasure Is The Goal of Life - Not Tranquility

Epicurus on the nature of things