On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) by Ronald Melville, Don, Peta Fowler Page A

in any way.
310
Then too, as the sun returns through many years,
 
A ring on a finger wears thin underneath,
 
And dripping water hollows out a stone,
 
And in the fields the curving iron ploughshare
 
Thins imperceptibly, and by men’s feet
 
We see the highways’ pavements worn away.
315
Again, bronze statues by the city gates
 
Show right hands polished thin by frequent touch
 
Of travellers who have greeted them in passing.
 
Thus all these things we see grow less by rubbing,
 
But at each time what particles drop off
320
The grudging nature of our vision stops us seeing.
 
Lastly, whatever time and nature add to things
 
Little by little, causing steady growth,
 
No eyes however keen or strained can see.
 
Nor again when things grow old and waste away,
325
Nor when cliffs overhanging the sea are worn
 
By salt-consuming spray, can you discern
 
What at each moment each of them is losing.
 
Therefore nature works by means of hidden bodies.
 
Yet all things everywhere are not held in packed tight
 
In a mass of body. There is void in things.
330
To grasp this fact will help you in many ways
 
And stop you wandering in doubt and uncertainty
 
About the universe, distrusting what I say.
 
By void I mean intangible empty space.
 
If there were none, in no way could things move.
335
For matter, whose function is to oppose and obstruct,
 
Would at all times be present in all things,
 
So nothing could move forward, because nothing
 
Could ever make a start by yielding to it.
 
But in fact through seas and lands and highest heaven
340
We see before our eyes that many things
 
In many different ways do move; which if there were no void,
 
Would not so much wholly lack their restless movement,
 
But rather could never have been produced at all,
 
Since matter everywhere would have been close-packed and still.
345
And however solid things are thought to be
 
Here is proof that you can see they are really porous.
 
In rocky caverns water oozes through,
 
The whole place weeping with a stream of drops.
 
Food spreads to every part of an animal’s body.
350
Trees grow and in due time put forth their fruits,
 
Because all over them through trunks and branches
 
Right from the deepest roots food makes its way.
 
Sounds pass through walls, and fly into closed buildings,
 
And freezing cold can penetrate to the bones.
355
But if there were no void for bodies to pass through
 
You would not see this happen in any way.
 
Lastly, why do we see some things weigh heavier
 
Than others, though their volume is the same?
 
For if there is as much matter in a ball of wool
360
As there is in lead, the weight must be the same,
 
Since it is the function of matter to press downwards.
 
But void, by contrast, stays forever weightless.
 
Therefore a thing of equal size but lighter
 
Declares itself to have more void inside it,
365
But the heavier by contrast makes proclaim
 
That it has more matter in it and much less of void.
 
Therefore there is beyond doubt admixed with things
 
That which we seek with keen-scented reasoning,
 
That thing to which we give the name of void.
 
And here I must forestall what some imagine,
370
Lest led astray by it you miss the truth.
 
They say that water yields to scaly fish
 
Pressing against it, and opens liquid ways,
 
Because fish as they swim leave space behind them
 
Into which the yielding waves can flow together;
 
And that likewise other things can move about
375
And change their place, though every place is filled.
 
All this is based on reasoning wholly false.
 
For how, I ask you, shall the fish advance
 
Unless the water gives way? And how shall the water
 
Be able to move back when the fish cannot move?
380
Either then all bodies must be deprived of movement,
 
Or we must say that void is mixed with things,
 
So that each can take the initiative in moving.
 
My last point is this: if two moving bodies
 
Collide and then bounce far apart,