Analysis of Lucretius
Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, found
Her master cold; for when the morning flush
Of passion and the first embrace had died
Between them, tho' he loved her none the less,
Yet often when the woman heard his foot
Return from pacings in the field, and ran
To greet him with a kiss, the master took
Small notice, or austerely, for his mind
Half buried in some weightier argument,
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise
And long roll of the hexameter -- he past
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls
Left by the Teacher, whom he held divine.
She brook'd it not, but wrathful, petulant
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they said
To lead an errant passion home again.
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink,
And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth
Confused the chemic labor of the blood,
And tickling the brute brain within the man's
Made havoc among those tender cells, and check'd
His power to shape. He loathed himself, and once
After a tempest woke upon a morn
That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried:
"Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rain
Rushing; and once the flash of a thunderbolt --
Methought I never saw so fierce a fork --
Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and show'd
A riotous confluence of watercourses
Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it,
Where all but yester-eve was dusty-dry.
"Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams!
For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance
We do but recollect the dreams that come
Just ere the waking. Terrible: for it seem'd
A void was made in Nature, all her bonds
Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streams
And torrents of her myriad universe,
Ruining along the illimitable inane,
Fly on to clash together again, and make
Another and another frame of things
For ever. That was mine, my dream, I knew it --
Of and belonging to me, as the dog
With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies
His function of the woodland; but the next!
I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed
Came driving rainlike down again on earth,
And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, sprang
No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth,
For these I thought my dream would show to me,
But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art,
Hired animalisms, vile as those that made
The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worse
Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods.
And hands they mixt, and yell'd and round me drove
In narrowing circles till I yell'd again
Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw --
Was it the first beam of my latest day?
"Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the
The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword
Now over and now under, now direct,
Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down shamed
At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire,
The fire that left a roofless Ilion,
Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I woke.
"Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine,
Because I would not one of thine own doves,
Not even a rose, were offered to thee? thine,
Forgetful how my rich proemion makes
Thy glory fly along the Italian field,
In lays that will outlast thy deity?
"Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue
Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these
Angers thee most, or angers thee at all?
Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof
From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn,
Live the great life which all our greatest fain
Would follow, centred in eternal calm.
"Nay, if thou canst,
Goddess, like ourselves
Touch, and be touch'd, then would I cry to thee
To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms
Round him, and keep him from the lust of blood
That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome.
Scheme AXBCXDXXEFXXGEXHIXXJXKXLB MXXXCNX OXXXXOPMXXNXFXHXXXQXXPXXIXX XXKXXDX GXGXXQ XXXXLMX AXQXJXQ Poetic Form Metre 110111 0101110101 1100010111 0111110101 1101010111 011100101 1111010101 110110111 110011100 1101010101 01110111 1101011101 1101011101 111111100 1011010101 1101111011 1111010101 0111110111 0101110101 010110101 010110101 11001110101 11011110101 1001010101 1111010101 1001111101 1001011010 111011101 1101010101 010010011 10100001011 111111101 1011110111 111110101 111010111 11010100111 0111010101 1011010101 0101010010 100010101 11110100101 0100010111 11011111111 1001011101 110101011 110101101 1111011101 110110111 01110111 110100111 1111111111 111100011 10111111 01011101 1111010101 0111010111 01001011101 110001101 1101111101 111101110 011100101 1100110101 1001111111 111100111010 01011011 1111011111 1111010101 0111111111 11001010111 01011111 11010100101 011111100 1001110011 11111111 1011110111 11111111101 11010100101 10111110101 110100101 1111 101001 1011111111 111111101 1101110111 1101010111 1 Closest metre Iambic pentameter Characters 4,424 Words 656 Sentences 22 Stanzas 7 Stanza Lengths 25, 7, 27, 7, 6, 7, 7 Lines Amount 86 Letters per line (avg) 33 Words per line (avg) 8 Letters per stanza (avg) 403 Words per stanza (avg) 94 Font size:Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
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"Lucretius" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1038/lucretius>.
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