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Search - Lucretius On The Nature Of Things - Translated From The Latin Into English Verse - By Sir Robert Allison - With Introd, Appendices, And Notes

Lucretius On The Nature Of Things Translated From The Latin Into English Verse By Sir Robert Allison With Introd Appendices And Notes
Author: Titus Lucretius Carus

INTRODUCTION F Titus Lucretius Carus, one of the vorlds 0 great poets, wa know llardly anything. One of the maxims which his beloved Master, Epicurus, impressed upon his followers was, Hide thyself, and P LSS thro glihfe unlrnown and so successfully has his pupil followed his advice, that no details of his life and vorks have come down to us. Al... more »thougll the contemporary of Cicero and Catullus, we know nothing of him beyond the fact, vhich Mr. Monro thinks certain, that he was born at Rome in 99 n. c., and died at the age of forty-four in 55 B. C. A story is told, on which Tenilyson has founded his poem on Lucretius, how, after being driven mad by a love potion administered by a jealous woman, possibly his wife, he committed suicide in the forty-fourth year of his age. The story, originating as it does some three or four centuries later, and otherwise unsupported, may be dismissed. On the same authority we are informed that Cicero edited his unfinished work. We have indeed a letter from the great orator to his brother Quintus, written a few months after the poets death, in which he says I fol1o. c t he rendering of Mr. Shuckburgh The poems of Lucretius are, as you say, full of brilliant flashes of genius, yet very technical. In Cf. Letter x x x . Tyrrells Edition these words he is probably contrasting the fine poetical passages with the dry details of the long philosophical disquisitions with which the poets work abounds, which have led some to assert that out of the twelve thousand lines, seven hundred only can be termed poetry. But there is nothing to lead us to suppose he edited it, and indeed it seems unlikely he should edit a work which in its main doctrines conflicts so strongly with his own on the existence of the Gods, and the fear of death. In one of his letters he calls Epicurinnism the philosophy of the kitchen. That Lucretius left his vorlr unfinished and without his final revision is certain, and there are passages in the poem which seem to render it not impossible that he died by his own hand. Thus in his third book iii. 941 he says If life itself disgusts Why seek to add to it, to lose again And perish all in vain Why not prefer To make an end of life and labour too And again iii. 79 Oft again, Prom fear of death, disgust of light and life Seizes on men, and with a saddened heart They do themselves to death. He was, we cannot doubt, disgusted with the world he saw around him, with the squalid passions and disputes unloosed on every side, and in his very first lines he calls upon the goddess of peace and love to supplicate the god of war to still the wild tumult of the surging storm, and INTRODUCTION once more to bring back rest and concord to the troubled world Oh, while he lies within thy fond embrace, Pour low sweet words from thy soft lips, l nda sk Peace, gentle pence for Rome. But the peace so earnestly longed for c tme not, and Lucretius alone, apart,, hangs like one of his own storrn clouds- Sach are the clouds Which oft we see to gather in the sky, Blot the fair face of he tvcii, and as they go . . Cr ress the air...

ISBN-13: 9781408636800
ISBN-10: 1408636808
Publication Date: 2/28/2008
Pages: 312
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Cook Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 1
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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Search - Lucretius On The Nature Of Things - Translated From The Latin Into English Verse - By Sir Robert Allison - With Introd, Appendices, And Notes

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