Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. The book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, “On the Nature of Things,” by Lucretius – a thrillingly beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion.
The copying and translation of this ancient book, the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age, fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had revolutionary influence on writers from Montaigne to Thomas Jefferson.
The stuff of the universe, Lucretius proposed, is an infinite number of atoms moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. When you look up at the night sky and, feeling unaccountably moved, marvel at the numberless stars, you are not seeing the handiwork of the gods or a crystalline sphere detached from our transient world. You are seeing the same material world of which you are a part and from whose elements you are made. There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design. All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited die off quickly. But nothing—from our own species to the planet on which we live to the sun that lights our days—lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal.
I know how hard it is in Latian verse
To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find
Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;
Nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta
difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse,
multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum
propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem;
To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find
Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing;
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/lucretius/lucretius1.shtml
"'In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words - Here begins a new life.'"
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Italian/TheNewLifeI.htm
In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: ‘Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life’. Under that heading I find written the words that it is my intention to copy into this little book: and if not all, at least their essence.
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/latin_to_english/other/243594-arma_virumque_cano.html#635923
It tells how Aeneas, driven from his home city through its destruction by the Greeks in the Trojan war, wandered for many years, through many adventures, and eventually arrived in Italy and founded Rome. It is modelled on the epic poems of Homer, particularly the Odyssey, which tells of the wanderings of Odysseus after the same war. This was from the Greek side, though.
“Cano” – Latin often puts the verb at the end, but I want to take it first – means literally “I sing”. But this is Virgil claiming to be an epic poet in the tradition of Homer, a bard who sings an epic tale as entertainment at a feast, in the days before music systems. We could translate it as “I write”, which is what Virgil really did, I don´t think anyone ever sang the Aeneid. But I guess he earned his place amongst the bards, and we can give him his “I sing”.
“Arma” means arms, in the sense of weapons, but the meaning is wider. “War” is not a bad translation. You could argue, though, that it is not wide enough, since weapons are not used only in war – not when you wander many years, through often barbarous and uncivilised lands, in search of a new home.
“virumque”: the –que is a Latin form of “and”. “Virum” is from “vir”, Latin “man” (as opposed to woman). Latin does not use articles such as “a” and “the” – you can translate either as “ ... and a man” or “ ... and the man”.
The traditional translation, very literal, is “Of arms and the man I sing”, but the new-style version quoted by Rowan is interesting. Another newer version takes this line together with the next few and makes it “I sing the hero who founded the Trojan kingdom in Italy, his voyages and his wars”.
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc\'d by fate,
And haughty Juno\'s unrelenting hate,
Expell\'d and exil\'d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin\'d town;
“I sing of arms and the man, who, at first (exiled by fate) from the shores of Troy, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores…”
arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem
inferretque deos Latio;
qui tacet consentire
Who is silent gives consent.
delphinum natare doces
You are teaching a dolphin to swim
perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.
dulce bellum inexpertis
War is sweet to those who have never fought.
castigat ridendo mores
One corrects customs by laughing at them.
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.1.i.html
Whosoever is awake (to the material world) is the more asleep (to the spiritual world); his wakefulness is worse than his sleep.
When our soul is not awake to God, wakefulness is like closing our doors (to Divine influences).
All day long, from the buffets of phantasy and from (thoughts of) loss and gain and from fear of decline,
There remains to it (the soul) neither joy nor grace and glory nor way of journeying to Heaven.
The one asleep (to spiritual things) is he who hath hope of every vain fancy and holds parley with it.
Diabolum per somnum videt tanquam virginem caelestem, deinde propter libidinem effundit cum diabolo aquam (seminis).
Postquam semen generationis in terram salsuginosam infudit, ipse ad se rediit, fugit ab eo illa imago.
Hinc percipit languorem capitis et (videt) corpus pollutum. Proh dolor ob illud simulacrum visum (sed revera) non visum!
The bird is flying on high, and its shadow is speeding on the earth, flying like a bird:
Some fool begins to chase the shadow, running (after it) so far that he becomes powerless (exhausted),
Not knowing that it is the reflexion of that bird in the air, not knowing where is the origin of the shadow. He shoots arrows at the shadow; his quiver is emptied in seeking (to shoot it):
The quiver of his life became empty: his life passed in running hotly in chase of the shadow.
Rumi , The Mathnawi v1. TRANSLATION, & COMMENTARY BY REYNOLD A. NICHOLSON
in Book IV, line 511: "Materterae si testiculi essent, ea avunculus esset: this is hypothetical-- 'if there were.'" ["(If) an aunt [khâla] were to have testicles [khâya], she would be an uncle [khâlû]-- but this 'if there were' is (only) by supposing (something)."]); and for choosing a method of translating the Masnavi that was aimed primarily at helping gradutate students learn classical Persian (thereby making the translation even more difficult for the general reader to approach and appreciate).
Blood Circulation Not by William Harvey
Ibn al-Nafis discoveed of the minor circulation of the blood—that between the heart and lungs. The fact that he had made this discovery was not known until 1924, when the Egyptian physician Dr. Muhyo al-Deen Altawi discovered a manuscript, The Epitome of the Canon, an introduction to the work of Ibn Sina in which Ibn al-Nafis first describes the minor circulation of the blood.
It is possible that European physicians first learned of the minor circulation through a translation of the work of Ibn al-Nafis by Andrea Alpago of Belluno (d. 1520). The first European to write about the minor circulation was Michael Servetus (ca. 1510-1553), an Aragonese physician and theologian, who was condemned by Calvin for his unorthodox religious opinions and burned at the stake in Geneva.
The definitive theory of blood circulation was finally given by the English physician William Harvey (1578-1657) in his Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cortis et Sanguinis, published in 1628, which is generally considered to mark the beginning of modern medicine. Note capillaries were discovered only 33 years later by Malpigi
================ Malpigi ====================
Ibn al-Nafis was followed by his student Ibn al-Quff, who won renown as a surgeon and medical writer, his best-known treatise being The Basic Work Concerning the Art of Surgery Ibn al-Quff is credited with being the first to suggest the existence of capillaries in blood circulation. The first European scientist to make this discovery was Marcello Malpighi of Bologna (1628-1694), who in 1661 used a microscope to detect capillaries and explain their role in circulating blood between the arteries and veins. Malpighi pursued his microscopic studies while teaching and practicing medicine. He identified the taste buds and regarded them as terminations of nerves, described the minute structure of the brain, optic nerve, and fat reservoirs, and in 1666 was the first to see the red blood cells and to attribute the colour of blood to them. Again, his research and teaching aroused envy and controversy among his colleagues.
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