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Lucretius, 4.420–25
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
This passage occurs in a series of examples of optical illusions which Lucretius provides in order to illustrate the way in which the mind can misinterpret the evidence of the senses. There are no manuscript variations relevant to the problem which I wish to discuss.
The situation envisaged is that in fording a swift river, a horse has come to a halt in mid-stream. ‘We’, that is, the rider, look down into the rushing water and get the impression that our horse is moving sideways and upstream, although the horse is in fact stationary. And wherever we turn our eyes across the water, everything seems to be in motion. The question is, what is meant by the word ‘everything’, that is, omnia in line 424? Bailey interprets: ‘when after looking down for some time at the rushing stream, we then look up at the objects on the bank, they all seem to be moving.! Similarly Leonard and Smith take the reference to be to’ all objects on the bank or all stones, etc., sticking out of the stream.’ In this case the words ‘assimili nobis ratione’ must be taken closely together: the objects on the bank seem to be moving upstream in the same way that we ourselves appear to do.
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References
1 Bailey, C., Titi Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Oxford, 1947), on 424–5Google Scholar.
2 Leonard, W. E. and Smith, S. B., T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Madison, 1961–1962)Google Scholar, ad be.
3 Bailey is essentially in agreement with Giussani, C., T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex iii (Torino, 1897), p. 202Google Scholar: ‘poi noi alziamo gli occhi alia opposta riva…e allora tutto ci par non solo ferri ma anche fluere, ch la ondeggiante mobilit onde i nostri occhi con pieni, la trasportiamo a ci che ci par correre invece dell ‘onda.’ I take it thatGodwin, J., Lucretius De Rerum Natura IV 2 (Warminster, 1992)Google Scholar, ad foe, has a similar interpretation in mind in commenting that ‘“everything seems to be carried along…” only after we have gazed down in to the water’.
4 For other examples in Lucretius of the dative with videri where illusion is not implied see 1.726, 2.444, 3.224; without a dative expressed examples are numerous. To catch the nuance Bailey sometimes translates ‘see’ rather than ‘seem’, even where opinion rather than visual appearance is in question, e.g. ‘if you see them true’ for ‘si tibi vera videntur’ (2.1042). For my translation cf.Ernout, A., Lucrèce de la nature 4 iv (Paris, 1942), p. 20Google Scholar: ‘et partout ou nous promenons nos regards les objets nous paraissent ėgalement être entrainés et flotter dans le même sense’. LikewiseRouse, W. D., Lucretius de rerum natura 3 (London and Cambridge, 1959), p. 279Google Scholar.
5 Classen, C. J., ‘Poetry and rhetoric in Lucretius’, in Classen, C. J. (ed.), Probleme der Lukrezforschung (Hildesheim, 1986), p. 345Google Scholar, with reference to 1.305–10.
6 Cf. 6.778–9, where tactus is used first of smell and then of touch in general. Bailey notes that tactus is ‘fully appropriate to smell, the word from the Lucretian point of view is used in the same sense in both places, and the nearness of the repetition is not repugnant to Lucretius’.
7 The use of videri with different force in adjacent lines should cause no surprise, cf. e.g.: ‘quae cum magna… videtur… regio…, nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se… videtur. carmina… vociferantur… ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus’ (1.726–32). Here the last of the three occurrences expresses an impression contrary to fact. See also 4.237–8; 4.288–93; 6.674–7. It is worth noting that in our section videre ‘to see’ occurs at 418 and 462 (active) and 428 and 466 (twice) (passive).
8 Bailey, C., ‘The Mind of Lucretius’, AJPh 61 (1940), 283 n. 11Google Scholar.
9 For helpful comments on this article I am grateful to my colleague Dr M. J. Apthorp and to the referee and editors of Classical Quarterly.