A letter to my daughter on Lucretius

My daughter studies zoology. She sent me the modules she is going to study next year. One of the modules, ‘Evolution of communication: from animal signals to human speech’, compelled me to write to her on Lucretius, a Roman philosopher and poet, who in his poem On the nature of things (De rerum natura) deals with the theme outlined in the module. The passages in his poem devoted to it can be read as a historical background to the module. My daughter read my letter with interest, which encouraged me to put it on my blog in the hope that other students might find it worth reading.

The relevant passages from the poem can be found on my blog in the post of Tuesday, November 3, 2020 entitled ‘Lucretius on the beginning of civilization’. It is not easy to read, for in the post I quote Lucretius verse by verse first in Latin, then in an English translation. In my letter I have eliminated the Latin, giving just an English version, in Bailey’s translation. Bailey follows the Latin original very faithfully, and so it is not easy to read. I therefore preface each section with a short explanatory introduction, printed in italics.

 

After people got themselves huts and skins and fire, they began to soften:

‘Then after they got themselves huts and skins and fire,

and woman yoked with man retired to a single

home, and the laws of marriage

were learnt, and they saw children sprung from them,

then first the race of man began to soften.

For fire brought it about that their chilly limbs could not now so well bear cold under the roof of heaven,

and Venus lessened their strength, and children, by their winning ways, easily broke down the will of their parents.’

 

Then neighbours began to make friendship one with another, with cries and gestures entrusted children and women to the charge of men, made compacts of unity, not to hurt or be harmed, and for the most part faithfully kept them:

‘Then, too, neighbours began eagerly to form friendship one with another, not to hurt or be harmed,

and they commended to mercy children and the race of women,

when with cries and gestures they taught by broken words

that ‘tis right for all men to have pity on the weak.

Yet not in all ways could unity be begotten,

but a good part, the larger part, would keep their compacts loyally;

or else the human race would even then have been all destroyed,

nor could breeding have prolonged the generations until now.’

 

Men used different voices for different things in their dealings with one another:

‘But the diverse sounds of the tongue nature constrained men to utter, and use shaped the names of things in a manner not far other than the very speechlessness of their tongue is seen to lead children on to gesture, when it makes them point out with finger the things that are before their eyes.’

 

Lucretius supports this insight into the beginning of language by referring to the behaviour of baby animals:

‘For everyone feels for what purpose he can use his own powers.

Before the horns of a calf appear and sprout from his forehead,

he buts with them when angry, and pushes passionately.

But the whelps of panthers and lion-cubs

already fight with claws and feet and biting,

when their teeth and claws are scarce yet formed.

Further, we see all the tribe of winged fowls trusting to their wings, and seeking an unsteady aid from their pinions.’

 

It is silly to think that somebody gave names to things and taught them to men [as Socrates and Plato and their followers believed]:

‘Again, to think that any one then parcelled out names

to things, and that from him men learnt their first words,

is mere folly. For why should he be able to mark off all things

by words, and to utter the diverse sounds of the tongue,

and at the same time others be thought unable to do this?

Moreover, if others too had not used words to one another, whence was implanted in him the concept of their use; whence was he given the first power to know and see in his mind what he wanted to do?

Likewise one man could not avail to constrain many, and vanquish them to his will, that they should be willing to learn all his names for things;

nor indeed is it easy in any way to teach and persuade the deaf what it is needful to do; for they would not endure it,

nor in any way suffer the sounds of words unheard before to batter on their ears any more to no purpose.’

 

Clearly, men used their tongue and voice to mark different things with different sounds for their diverse feelings, just as dumb animals give forth diverse sounds for their diverse feelings in different situations:

‘Lastly, what is there so marvellous in this,

if the human race, with strong voice and tongue,

should mark off things with diverse sounds for diverse feelings?

When the dumb cattle, yea and the races of wild beasts

are wont to give forth diverse unlike sounds,

when they are in fear or pain, or again when their joys grow strong.

Yea verily, this we may learn from things clear to see.’

When the large loose lips of Molossian dogs start to snarl in anger, bearing their hard teeth, thus drawn back in rage, they threaten with a noise far other than when they bark and fill all around with their clamour.

Yet when they assay fondly to lick their cubs with their tongue,

or when they toss them with their feet, and making for them with open mouth, feign gently to swallow them, checking their closing teeth

they fondle them with growling voice in a way far other

than when left alone in the house they bay, or when

whining they shrink from beating with cringing body.

Again, is not neighing seen to differ likewise,

when a young stallion in the flower of his years rages among the mares, pricked by the spur of winged love,

and from spreading nostrils snorts for the fray,

and when, it may be, at other times he whinnies with trembling limbs?

Lastly, the tribe of winged fowls and the diverse birds,

hawks and ospreys and gulls amid the sea-waves, seeking in the salt waters for life and livelihood,

utter at other times cries far other

than when they are struggling for their food and fighting for their prey.

And some of them change their harsh notes with the weather as the long-lived tribes of crows

and flocks of rooks, when they are said to cry for water and rain, and anon to summon the winds and breezes.

And so, if diverse feelings constrain animals,

though they are dumb, to utter diverse sounds,

how much more likely is it that mortals should then have been able to mark off things unlike with one sound and another.’