On Animals and Plants.

71. If belief lack pith, and thou still doubt How from the mingling of the elements, The Earth and Water, the Ether and the Sun, So many forms and hues of mortal things Could thus have being, as have come to be, Each framed and knit by Aphrodite’s power…

72. As the tall trees and fish in briny floods.

73. As Kypris, after watering Earth with Rain, Zealous to heat her, then did give Earth o’er To speed of Fire that then she might grow firm.

74. Leading the songless shoals of spawning fish.

75. Of beasts, inside compact with outsides loose, Which, in the palms of Aphrodite shaped, Got this their sponginess.

76. ‘Tis thus with conchs upon the heavy chines Of ocean-dwellers, aye, of shell-fish wreathed, Or stony-hided turtles, where thou mark’st The earthen crust outside the softer parts.

77-78. Trees bore perennial fruit, perennial fronds, Laden with fruit the whole revolving year, Since fed forever by a fruitful air.

79. Thus first tall olives lay their yellow eggs.

80. Wherefore pomegranates slow in ripening be, And apples grow so plentiful in juice.

81. Wine is but water fermented in the wood, And issues from the rind

82. From the same stuff on sturdy limbs grow hair, Leaves, scales of fish, and bird’s thick-feathered plumes.

83. Stiff hairs, keen-piercing, bristle on the chines Of hedge-hogs.

Our Eyes.

84. As when a man, about to sally forth, Prepares a light and kindles him a blaze Of flaming fire against the wintry night, In horny lantern shielding from all winds; Though it protect from breath of blowing winds, Its beam darts outward, as more fine and thin, And with untiring rays lights up the sky: Just so the Fire primeval once lay hid In the round pupil of the eye, enclosed In films and gauzy veils, which through and through Were pierced with pores divinely fashioned, And thus kept off the watery deeps around, Whilst Fire burst outward, as more fine and thin.

85. The gentle flame of eye did chance to get Only a little of the earthen part.

86. From which by Aphrodite, the divine, The untiring eyes were formed.

87. Thus Aphrodite wrought with bolts of love.

88. One vision of two eyes is born.

Similia similibus.

Knowing that all things have their emanations.

Thus Sweet seized Sweet, Bitter on Bitter flew, Sour sprung for Sour, and upon Hot rode hot.

Water to wine more nearly is allied, But will not mix with oil.

As when one mixes with the copper tin.

With flax is mixed the silvery elder’s seed.

The Black River Bottoms.

et niger in fundo fluvii color exstat ab umbra, atque cavernosis itidem spectatur in antris. And the black color of the river’s deeps Comes all from shade; and one may see the same In hollow caves.

Eyes.

As, in the palms of Kypris shaped, they first Began to grow together…

Bones.

Kind Earth for her broad-breasted melting-pots, Of the eight parts got two of Lucid Nestis, And of Hephaestos four. Thence came white bones, Divinely joined by glue of Harmony.

The back-bone.

Blood and Flesh.

98. And after Earth within the perfect ports Of Aphrodite anchored lay, she met Almost in equal parts Hephaestos red, And Rain and Ether, the all-splendorous (Although the parts of Earth were sometimes less, Sometimes a little more than theirs). From these There came our blood and all the shapes of flesh.

The Ear.

99. A bell… a fleshy twig.

The Rushing Blood and the Clepsydra.

100. And thus does all breathe in and out. In all, Over the body’s surface, bloodless tubes Of flesh are stretched, and, at their outlets, rifts Innumerable along the outmost rind Are bored; and so the blood remains within; For air, however, is cut a passage free. And when from here the thin blood backward streams, The air comes rushing in with roaring swell; But when again it forward leaps, the air In turn breathes out; as when a little girl Plays with a water-clock of gleaming bronze: As long as ever the opening of the pipe Is by her pretty fingers stopped and closed, And thuswise plunged within the yielding mass Of silvery water, can the Wet no more Get in the vessel; but the air’s own weight, That falls inside against the countless holes, Keeps it in check, until the child at last Uncovers and sets free the thickened air, When of a truth the water’s destined bulk Gets in, as air gives way. Even so it is, When in the belly of the brazen clock The water lies, and the girl’s finger tip Shuts pipe and tube: the air, that from without Comes pressing inward, holds the water back About the gateways of the gurgling neck, As the child keeps possession of the top, Until her hand will loosen, when amain— Quite contrariwise to way and wise before— Pours out and under the water’s destined bulk, As air drops down and in. Even so it is With the thin blood that through our members drives: When hurrying back it streams to inward, then Amain a flow of air comes rushing on; But when again it forward leaps, the air In turn breathes out along the selfsame way.