Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 112-124

“As I remember, a remnant and a mirror of this thing

Turns always and stands before our eyes.

Only consider this, whenever the sun’s gleam

Pours its light over the shadows of a closed room:

You will see many motes mixing much in the emptiness,

Bodies swirling in the very light of the rays—

Something like an eternal conflict spawning

Battles, skirmishes, one after another without pause

Roiling on with increasing collisions and divisions.

You can predict from this what the first elements of matter

Were like as they were endlessly churning in the great emptiness.

To some extent, then, a small matter can offer a model

Of great affairs and trace out the tracks of their passing.”

Cuius, uti memoro, rei simulacrum et imago

ante oculos semper nobis versatur et instat.

contemplator enim, cum solis lumina cumque

inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum:

multa minuta modis multis per inane videbis

corpora misceri radiorum lumine in ipso

et vel ut aeterno certamine proelia pugnas

edere turmatim certantia nec dare pausam,

conciliis et discidiis exercita crebris;

conicere ut possis ex hoc, primordia rerum

quale sit in magno iactari semper inani.

dum taxat, rerum magnarum parva potest res

exemplare dare et vestigia notitiai.

Lexicographers:

Photius

“Atom: Instead of atmêton [“uncuttable”]. It signifies that a thing is [sufficient] on its own.”

῎Ατομον· ἀντὶ τοῦ ἄτμητον. σημαίνει δὲ καὶ τὸ καθ’ ἕκαστον.

Hesychius

“Atom: A refined thing. Objects which cannot admit [further] division.”

*ἄτομα· λεπτά. τομὴν μὴ δυνάμενα λαβεῖν

From the Suda

Atoma: “The most refined things. Things which cannot be [further] refined [lit. “cut”] because of their extreme irreducibility. The Greeks also call bodies uncuttable [atoma] or without subsection [lit, “limbless”, amerê] because they are resistant to harm or really small and are thus incapable of submitting to cutting or division. For this reason they call the most refined and smallest bodies [atoms] those which the sun shows emitting through its rays and in itself moving up and down.”

Ἄτομα: λεπτότατα. τὰ μὴ δυνάμενα διὰ τὴν ἄκραν λεπτότητα τέμνεσθαι. ὅτι ἄτομα ὠνόμασαν οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ ἀμερῆ σώματα διὰ τὸ ἀπαθὲς ἢ σμικρὸν ἄγαν, ἅτε μὴ τομὴν ἢ διαίρεσιν δέξασθαι δυνάμενα. οὕτω δὲ καλοῦσι τὰ λεπτότατα καὶ σμικρότατα σώματα, ἃ διὰ τῶν φωταγωγῶν εἰσβαλλόμενα ὁ ἥλιος δείκνυσιν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἄνω καὶ κάτω παλλόμενα.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Email

Tumblr

Reddit

Pinterest

