Lucretius begins his poem with a prayer to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, whose reproductive powers allow everything in nature to flourish. He asks her to bring charm to his words that will help them to endure. Lucretius also tells us in this prayer that he is writing this work for his friend, Memmius.

Lucretius then addresses Memmius and lays out what he hopes to cover in this work: “the working of the heaven above and the nature of the gods, and...the primary elements of things from which nature creates, increases, and sustains all things…” (Book I, lines 50-60; page 4). Lucretius tells us about an earlier time, when humanity was the ignorant slave of superstition, due to their fear of death and the gods. The Greek philosopher Epicurus freed them from their ignorance through science and an establishment of the laws of nature.

Lucretius sets out, therefore, to explain the Epicurean model of nature—including celestial matters, life on earth, and the workings of the mind and the spirit—in order to dispel our fear of the unknown.

Lucretius lays out two fundamental principles of matter: 1) nothing comes from nothing, and 2) nothing entirely disappears.