· 6

(69)

Double bearing.[53]

(70)

Sheepskin.[54]

(71)

But if thy assurance of these things was in any way deficient as to how, out of Water and Earth and Air and Fire mingled ​together, arose the forms and colours of all those mortal things that have been fitted together by Aphrodite, and so are now come into being....

(72)

How tall trees and the fishes in the sea...

(73)

And even as at that time Kypris, preparing warmth,[55] after she had moistened the Earth in water, gave it to swift fire to harden it.... R. P. 171.

(74)

Leading the songless tribe of fertile fish.

(75)

All of those which are dense within and rare without, having received a flaccidity of this kind at the hands of Kypris....

(76)

This thou mayest see in the heavy-backed shell-fish that dwell in the sea, in sea-snails and the stony-skinned turtles. In them thou mayest see that the earthy part dwells on the uppermost surface of the skin.

(77–78)

It is moisture[56] that makes evergreen trees flourish with abundance of fruit the whole year round.

(79)

And so first of all tall olive trees bear eggs....

(80)

Wherefore pomegranates are late-born and apples succulent.

(81)

Wine is the water from the bark, putrefied in the wood.

(82)

Hair and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, and the scales that grow on mighty limbs, are the same thing.

(83)

But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles on their backs.

(84)

And even as when a man thinking to sally forth through a stormy night, gets him ready a lantern, a flame of blazing fire, fastening to it horn plates to keep out all manner of winds, and they scatter the blast of the winds that blow, but the light leaping out through them, 5shines across the threshold with unfailing beams, as much of it as is finer;[57] even so did she (Love) then entrap the elemental fire, the round pupil, confined within membranes and delicate tissues, which are pierced through and through with wondrous passages. They keep out the deep water that surrounds the pupil, 10but they let through the fire, as much of it as is finer. R. P. 177 b.