On the Nature of Things

by Lucretius · c. 55 BCE

William Ellery Leonard's verse translation, 1916. 28 parts, about 73,660 words, 6 hours of reading. Source edition.

Passages the guide marks

Such evil deeds could religion prompt.
Book 1, line 101 · Read it in Book I
Nothing can ever be begotten of nothing by divine will.
Book 1, lines 150 to 151 · Read it in Book I
Death therefore to us is nothing, concerns us not a jot.
Book 3, line 830 · Read it in Folly of the Fear of Death
Atoms falling through the void swerve a little, at no fixed place and no fixed time, and without that swerve nothing would ever collide and nothing new would ever happen.
Book 2, lines 216 to 224
The poem ends with bodies piled in the streets and temples of Athens during the plague, and with people fighting over the pyres of strangers.
Book 6, closing lines

About this text

Public domain in the United States; the Project Gutenberg edition is free of restrictions under the Project Gutenberg License. Translated by William Ellery Leonard. It is not the edition the programs assign; the guide names that one, and the buy links there point at it.

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