This paper outlines the full details of Lucretius’ treatment of parental love. It shows that Lucretius is faithful to Epicurus’ notorious claim that parental love is not natural: in addition to orthodox Epicurean hedonist concerns, Lucretius asserts that children do not ‘belong to’ their parents by nature; as such, even though parental love is now ubiquitous and indeed a cultural norm, there is no basis for the naturalness of parental love. This model of the relationship between parents and children does not, however, apply in the case of certain animals, who do have natural parental love for their offspring. Focussing on two famous scenes, the sacrifice of Iphigenia and the forlorn heifer seeking her sacrificed calf, the paper argues that, by highlighting the fragility of human parental love in comparison to that of the animals, Lucretius brings to his Roman readers’ attention the relative weakness of the familial ties that bond human beings together. At the same time, he emphasises the need to maintain these ties, if social and political concord, with all its benefits, is to continue. It transpires that unlocking the details of Lucretius’ treatment of parental love brings a key lesson of the poem into clearer focus.

中文翻译：

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卢克莱修谈父母之爱的本质

本文概述了卢克莱修对父母之爱的处理的全部细节。这表明卢克莱修忠实于伊壁鸠鲁臭名昭著的主张，即父母的爱不是自然的：除了正统的伊壁鸠鲁享乐主义者的关注之外，卢克莱修还断言孩子天生不“属于”他们的父母。因此，即使现在父母之爱无处不在，而且确实是一种文化规范，但父母之爱的自然性没有任何基础。然而，这种父母与孩子之间关系的模型不适用于某些动物，因为它们确实对后代有父母的爱。聚焦于两个著名的场景，伊菲革涅亚的牺牲和孤零零的小母牛寻找她牺牲的小牛，该论文认为，通过强调人类父母之爱与动物相比的脆弱性，卢克莱修让他的罗马读者注意到将人类联系在一起的家庭纽带的相对薄弱。同时，他强调，如果社会和政治和谐及其所有好处要继续下去，就必须保持这些联系。揭示卢克莱修斯对待父母之爱的细节使这首诗的一个关键教训更加清晰。