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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
In explaining to Memmius his purpose in writing De Rerum Natura Lucretius wrote:
nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta
difficile inlustrare Latinis vxsersibus esse
multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum
propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem.
He thus showed that he realized the difficulty of his task in making the Latin tongue express what it had never expressed before. But in spite of the poverty of Latin and the apparently unpoetic nature of his subject, he has proclaimed his philosophy in language that shows him a poet. For the ancient word ‘poet’ has truth in its root (πoıητής); a poet is a maker who, by using words in new ways, makes a new world; he is also, as the Romans knew, a seer, not one who foretells the future, but one who tells forth truths that lie hidden behind appearances.
page 1 note 1 i. 136–9.
page 1 note 2 v. 850.
page 1 note 3 Dr. , Bailey translation in T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura libri sex (Oxford, 1947).Google Scholar
page 1 note 4 vi. 17–23.
page 2 note 1 iii. 1–3.
page 3 note 1 Ann. II, fr. xxiv.
page 3 note 2 Ann. I., fr. lxxii e.
page 3 note 3 Cic. De Re Publica I. xli. 64.
page 3 note 4 iii. 1033.
page 3 note 5 iii. 1042.
page 3 note 6 iii. 1043–4.
page 4 note 1 ii. 147–8.
page 4 note 2 v. 281–2.
page 4 note 3 ii. 212.
page 4 note 4 iv. 450.
page 4 note 5 v. 384.
page 4 note 6 v. 575–6.
page 4 note 7 v. 692–3.
page 4 note 8 v. 1436–7.
page 5 note 1 ii. 316–20.
page 5 note 2 i. 402.
page 5 note 3 v. 597–601.
page 6 note 1 v. 602–3.
page 6 note 2 v. 43–4.
page 6 note 3 iv. 524.
page 6 note 4 i. 404–9.
page 7 note 1 i. 187.
page 7 note 2 ii. 11–12.
page 7 note 3 v. 179–80.
page 7 note 4 ii. 192.
page 7 note 5 Prop. III. vii. 3.
page 7 note 6 Prop. 1. xvii. 23–4.
page 8 note 1 ii. 32–3.
page 8 note 2 i. 247.
page 8 note 3 iv. 743.
page 8 note 4 iv. 87–8.
page 8 note 5 Address before the Royal Institute of Great Britain, 23 Feb. 1945, p. 5.
page 8 note 6 v. 389.
page 8 note 7 i. 418.
page 8 note 8 vi. 42.
page 9 note 1 iv. 513–21.
page 9 note 2 iv. 505–6.
page 9 note 3 v. 67–9 (cf. v. 451–3).
page 9 note 4 v. 928–9.
page 10 note 1 Notes on , Lucretius, Criterion, 1931–2, pp. 25 f.Google Scholar
page 10 note 2 i. 75–7.
page 10 note 3 ii. 7–9.