Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear! 
And for myself, my mind is not deceived 
How dark it is: But the large hope of praise 
Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart; 
On the same hour hath strook into my breast 
Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct, 
I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, 
Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, 
Trodden by step of none before. I joy 
To come on undefiled fountains there, 
To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, 
To seek for this my head a signal crown 
From regions where the Muses never yet 
Have garlanded the temples of a man: 
First, since I teach concerning mighty things, 
And go right on to loose from round the mind 
The tightened coils of dread religion; 
Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame 
Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout 
Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem, 
Is not without a reasonable ground: 
But as physicians, when they seek to give 
Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch 
The brim around the cup with the sweet juice 
And yellow of the boney, in order that 
The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled 
As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down 
The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled 
Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus 
Grow strong again with recreated health: 
So now I too (since this my doctrine seems 
In general somewhat woeful unto those 
Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd 
Starts back from it in horror) have desired 
To expound our doctrine unto thee in song 
Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, 
To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse- 
If by such method haply I might hold 
The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, 
Till thou see through the nature of all things, 
And how exists the interwoven frame. 

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made 
Completely solid, hither and thither fly 
Forevermore unconquered through all time, 
Now come, and whether to the sum of them 
There be a limit or be none, for thee 
Let us unfold; likewise what has been found 
To be the wide inane, or room, or space 
Wherein all things soever do go on, 
Let us examine if it finite be 
All and entire, or reach unmeasured round 
And downward an illimitable profound. 

Thus, then, the All that is is limited 
In no one region of its onward paths, 
For then 'tmust have forever its beyond. 
And a beyond 'tis seen can never be 
For aught, unless still further on there be 
A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same- 
So that the thing be seen still on to where 
The nature of sensation of that thing 
Can follow it no longer. Now because 
Confess we must there's naught beside the sum, 
There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end. 
It matters nothing where thou post thyself, 
In whatsoever regions of the same; 
Even any place a man has set him down 
Still leaves about him the unbounded all 
Outward in all directions; or, supposing 
moment the all of space finite to be, 
If some one farthest traveller runs forth 
Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead 
A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think 
It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent 
And shoots afar, or that some object there 
Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other 
Thou must admit; and take. Either of which 
Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel 
That thou concede the all spreads everywhere, 
Owning no confines. Since whether there be 
Aught that may block and check it so it comes 
Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal, 
Or whether borne along, in either view 
'Thas started not from any end. And so 
I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set 
The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes 
Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass 
That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that 
The chance for further flight prolongs forever 
The flight itself. Besides, were all the space 
Of the totality and sum shut in 
With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere, 
Then would the abundance of world's matter flow 
Together by solid weight from everywhere 
Still downward to the bottom of the world, 
Nor aught could happen under cope of sky, 
Nor could there be a sky at all or sun- 
Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie, 
By having settled during infinite time. 
But in reality, repose is given 
Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements, 
Because there is no bottom whereunto 
They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where 
They might take up their undisturbed abodes. 
In endless motion everything goes on 
Forevermore; out of all regions, even 
Out of the pit below, from forth the vast, 
Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied. 
The nature of room, the space of the abyss 
Is s