The Awe and Wonder of Epicurean Revelation
Translation Tuesday: On the Nature of Things, Book III Proem
You I follow, the glory of all the Greek race, Who in such darkness first raised a blazing torch, Illuminating all the great goods and joys of life. In your footsteps, I set my own firm marks, Aiming not at rivalry, but only in love Yearning to emulate your path—could a swallow Sing like a swan, or could a newborn kid With his trembling limbs match a horse’s vigor? You are our father; you are the discoverer of truths. In your words we find a father’s precepts, And like bees sipping sweet nectar in a meadow of flowers, We feed upon your golden sayings, each of which, Each golden sentence, deserves to live forever. For as soon as your reason proclaims the nature of things, And your mind like a god’s shows us at last what is real, All the terrors that once haunted the soul disappear, The walls of the world open, and everything is revealed. Now the gods are seen as they are, undisturbed In their peaceful realm, where no winds can shake them, Nor rainclouds darken their sky, nor biting snow Mar their comfort, but a constant, cloudless aether Laughs, and covers all their world with light. There all things are supplied by nature, And nothing can diminish the gods’ tranquility of mind. And though the earth no longer obstructs our vision, With all the void laid open, above and below, The fabled realms of Acheron are nowhere to be seen. Granted these sights, a divine pleasure takes hold of me, And I am filled with awe and wonder, seeing by your power Nature now uncovered and her beauty all laid bare.
Commentary
From much of what I’ve written so far, a reader might get the impression that Epicureanism is merely about calculation and prudence, a philosophy of petty and mundane advantages and disadvantages. This is only part of the story. The other part is what Lucretius expresses here: our philosophy is revelatory, awe-inspiring, and transformative.
It’s my fault—in my translations so far, I have sadly neglected the great poet of Epicureanism. For newcomers to the philosophy, Lucretius is actually our most voluminous ancient source, having penned the 200-page epic poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura), a magisterial tour of Epicurean scientific thinking that combines physics, meteorology, biology, anthropology, and ethics with some of the most eloquent Latin poetry every composed. Written in the 1st century BCE, the poem postdates Epicurus’ life by a few hundred years, but is generally considered to reflect the original tenets of the school fairly closely, perhaps being modeled specifically on Epicurus’ mostly lost treatise On Nature.
For my project here of assembling a digital anthology of ethical texts, much of the poem is somewhat tangential, occupied as it is with physics and celestial phenomena. But Lucretius does regularly turn to the ethical import of his scientific teachings, and to considerations of the value of Epicureanism writ large. This is especially true in the “proems,” the introductory passages that begin each of the six books of the poem. The first, second, and fourth of these are perhaps even more famous—and I’m sure I will turn to them at some point—but for today I have selected the proem to Book III, which offers a powerful and direct message that has largely been absent from the texts I have shared so far: that the rewards of Epicurean philosophy are not merely prudential, mundane, and banal, but are positively liberating and life-changing. Epicureanism changes how you see the world, making it a source of wonder, not of fear.
I would say that the positive, noble vision expressed in this proem’s address to Epicurus has two main aspects. The first is a major theme of both the poet and his philosophic master: one of the great blessings of reason is its ability to dispel fear.
For as soon as your reason proclaims the nature of things, And your mind like a god’s shows us at last what is real, All the terrors that once haunted the soul disappear.
People under the sway of superstition and illusion worry about the afterlife, about divine displeasure, about inexplicable phenomena, about the impossibility of satisfying their seemingly endless desires. The world can seem harsh or overwhelming, either incomprehensible or malevolent. And just because the exact forms of our fears have changed over the millennia—most contemporary people I run into don’t fear the ill will of Zeus or the power of lightning—doesn’t mean that this isn’t still generally the case today. I think very many people continue to have fictitious teleological frameworks for the world, seeing themselves as the pawns and victims of larger forces from the old-fashioned nemeses of formal religion and more colloquial bad luck, to the full complement of modern villains: political (fascism is taking over! the woke mind virus is everywhere!), economic (unbridled capitalism! overweening government!), technological (I must use all the tech! tech is bad!) and so on.
I’ve seen this strong human impulse to look for threatening forces described as “hyperactive agency detection.” It makes sense as an evolutionary development—alertness to threats is very valuable for survival. To keep our alarm bells from constantly ringing, however, we need to assess our actual dangers rationally: having the objective framework provided by Epicurean philosophy is an invaluable tool for keeping all such putative dangers in perspective. The reality is that modern residents of the developed world have greater security than humans have ever had. Logically, we should be less afraid. If you aren’t, you need philosophy.
Liberation from fear is the first gift of Epicurus described in this excerpt. The second is a sense of awe and wonder. Epicureanism illuminates the good things of life and reveals the nature of things. Marvellous pleasure is the result:
Granted these sights, a divine pleasure takes hold of me, And I am filled with awe and wonder, seeing by your power Nature now uncovered and her beauty all laid bare.
The wondrousness of existence can’t be fully appreciated as long as our minds are filled with illusions. The worlds of plants and animals, of the skies and the stars, become beautiful and awe-inspiring when they cease to be frightening. For many long centuries, the Epicurean beliefs that humans were not the uniquely perfect creations of God or the center of the universe were heretical. Now, there is widespread (though not universal) acceptance of these ideas. We recognize that such erroneous human-centrism is a form of myopia, obscuring the relatedness of life and the vast extent of the cosmos. There are vast and beautiful patterns in nature, but they are patterns of physics, biology, and evolution, not of some meticulous project of divine design.
Freedom from fear and the blossoming of wonder—these are the great positive gifts of Epicurean philosophy. In closing, I would like to point out two final features we see in Lucretius. First, notice the intense personal admiration he has for Epicurus, the unnamed addressee of this excerpt. Outsiders might find his praise hyperbolic. Admittedly, historical Epicureanism has its cult-like elements. But overall, I think this is a very positive sign: this is a philosophy that inspires warmth, love, and gratitude. People don’t feel this way about Zeno or Aristotle or Kant. Many people admire Socrates, but frankly, I don’t think he’s a great model. Willfully causing trouble until your town executes you is an overrated life path. Most people don’t actually do that because most people don’t want to do that. Followers of Epicurus are happy and grateful, rather than dead.
Lastly, I should give at least passing mention to Lucretius’ poetic abilities. I have tried to translate this poetic fragment as poetry, hoping to capture some elements of rhythm and memorable phrase, but it is of course impossible to convey the full scope of Latin eloquence in translation. While Epicurus himself was not famous as a stylist (though this is probably made to look worse than it is by the paucity of our remaining texts), we can count numerous eloquent voices of antiquity in our ranks: Philodemus, Horace, and Vergil all had inclinations towards both poetry and Epicureanism, in varying degrees. But Lucretius is a bona fide giant of Roman literature and is unambiguously on our team.
Noble, ringing phrases are too often lacking from philosophy. The power of language is invaluable, filling bare doctrines with a fervor that convinces. And in the poetry of Lucretius, we see a passion for philosophy that has never been surpassed.
Original Text
De Rerum Natura, Book III, Lines 1-30
O tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen qui primus potuisti inlustrans commoda vitae, te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus, inque tuis nunc ficta pedum pono pressis vestigia signis, non ita certandi cupidus quam propter amorem quod te imitari aveo; quid enim contendat hirundo cycnis, aut quid nam tremulis facere artubus haedi consimile in cursu possint et fortis equi vis? tu pater es, rerum inventor, tu patria nobis suppeditas praecepta, tuisque ex, inclute, chartis, floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta, aurea, perpetua semper dignissima vita. nam simul ac ratio tua coepit vociferari naturam rerum divina mente coorta diffugiunt animi terrores, moenia mundi discedunt. totum video per inane geri res. apparet divum numen sedesque quietae, quas neque concutiunt venti nec nubila nimbis aspergunt neque nix acri concreta pruina cana cadens violat semperque innubilus aether integit et large diffuso lumine ridet: omnia suppeditat porro natura neque ulla res animi pacem delibat tempore in ullo. at contra nusquam apparent Acherusia templa, nec tellus obstat quin omnia dispiciantur, sub pedibus quae cumque infra per inane geruntur. his ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas percipit atque horror, quod sic natura tua vi tam manifesta patens ex omni parte retecta est.
Excellent piece! (Raising a glass of Chian wine to Epicurus and divina voluptas!)