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Lucretius poems, quotations and biography on Lucretius poet page. Read all poems of Lucretius and infos about Lucretius.
Lucretius lived from 99-55 BC. His birth date is not certain, and little is known of his parentage or birthplace. Though often referred to as Lucretius, his official name is Titus Lucretius Carus. Highly educated, he belonged to the aristocratic sector of the Tricipitini, which often emerged in positions of official status.
He craved to free humanity from its unhappiness, which mainly resulted from fear of the afterlife and the gods. He was a moralist and a reformer as well as a scientist, and yet always a poet. His major work, 'De Rerum Natura', sought to do this, borrowing from the work of Democritus, who discovered primitive atomic theories, and Epicurus, who believed ... more »
Lucretius Poems
First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call
The intellect, wherein is seated life's
Counsel and regimen, is part no less
Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts... more »
Bodies, again,
Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
Unions deriving from the primal germs.
And those which are the primal germs of things... more »
Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
Now by what motions the begetting bodies
Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
And then forever resolve it when begot,... more »
Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
Of retributions just and expiations... more »
Therefore death to us
Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least,
Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
And just as in the ages gone before... more »
But, now again to weave the tale begun,
All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
In which they're set, and where they're moved around.... more »
'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
To watch another's labouring anguish far,
Not that we joyously delight that man... more »
Book Iii - Part 05 - Cerberus And Furies, And That Lack Of Light
Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
Of retributions just and expiations
For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap
From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,
The executioners, the oaken rack,
The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
And even though these are absent, yet the mind,
With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads
And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile
What terminus of ills, what end of pine
Can ever be, and feareth lest the same ...
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