Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/47

Book II.] BOOK II.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD AND THE ELEMENTS.

[I have adopted the division of the chapters from Hardouin, as given in the editions of Valpy, Lemaire, Ajasson, and Sillig.; the Roman figures, enclosed between brackets, are the numbers of the chapters in Dalechamps, De Laët, Gronovius, Holland, and Poinsinet. The titles of the chapters are nearly the same with those in Valpy, Lemaire, and Ajasson.]

CHAP. 1. (1.) — WHETHER THE WORLD BE FINITE, AND WHETHER THERE BE MORE THAN ONE WORLD.

The world, and whatever that be which we otherwise "Mundus." In translating from one language into another, it is proper, as a general principle, always to render the same word in the original by the same word in the translation. But to this rule there are two exceptions; where the languages do not possess words which pre- cisely correspond, and where the original author does not always use the same word in the same sense. Both these circumstances, I apprehend, apply to the case in question. The term Mundus is used by Pliny, sometimes to mean the earth and its immediate appendages, the visible solar system, and at other times the universe; while I think we may venture to assert, that in some instances it is used in rather a vague manner, without any distinct reference to either one or other of the above designations. I have, in almost all cases, translated it by the term world, as approaching nearest to the sense of the original. The word mundus is frequently employed by Lucretius, especially in his fifth book, and seems to be almost always used in the more extended sense of universe. There are, indeed, a few passages where either meaning would be equally appropriate, and in one line it would appear to be equivalent to firmament or heavens; "et mundi speciem violare serenam," iv. 138. Cicero, in his treatise De Natura Deorum, generally uses the term mundus in the sense of universe, as in ii. 22, 37, 58 and 154; while in one passage, ii. 132, it would appear to be employed in the more limited sense of the earth. It occasionally occurs in the Fasti of Ovid, but it is not easy to ascertain its precise import; as in the line "Post chaos, ut primum data sunt tria corpora mundo," v. 41, where from the connexion it may be taken either in the more confined or in the more general sense. Manilius employs the word very frequently, and his commentators remark, that he uses it in two distinct senses, the visible firmament and the universe; and I am induced to think that he attaches still more meaning to the term. It occurs three times in the first eleven lines of his poem. In the third line, "deducere mundo aggredior," mundus may be considered as