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Notes Do not display Latin text Display Dutch text | Ovid XV Chapter 6: 237-258 Pythagoras' Teachings:The Elements | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
'Even the things we call elements do not persist. Apply your concentration, and I [Note 1] will teach the changes they pass through. The everlasting universe contains four generative states of matter. Of these, two, earth and water, are heavy, and sink lower, under their own weight. The other two lack heaviness, and, if not held down, they seek height: that is air, and fire, purer than air. Though they are distinct in space, nevertheless they are all derived from one another, and resolve into one another. Earth, melting, is dilated to clear water: the moisture, rarified, changes to wind and air: then air, losing further weight, in the highest regions shines out as fire, the most rarified of all. Then they return, in reverse, revealing the same series of changes. Since fire, condenses, turns into denser air, and this to water, and water, contracted, solidifies as earth. Nothing keeps its own form, and Nature, the renewer of things, refreshes one shape from another. Believe me, nothing dies in the universe as a whole, but it varies and changes its aspect, and what we call 'being born' is a beginning to be, of something other, than what was before, and dying' is, likewise, ending a former state. Though, 'that' perhaps is transferred here, and 'this', there, the total sum is constant. Note 1: I = Pythagoras |
'Haec quoque non perstant, quae nos elementa vocamus, quasque vices peragant, animos adhibete: docebo. quattuor aeternus genitalia corpora mundus continet; ex illis duo sunt onerosa suoque 240 pondere in inferius, tellus atque unda, feruntur, et totidem gravitate carent nulloque premente alta petunt, aer atque aere purior ignis. quae quamquam spatio distent, tamen omnia fiunt ex ipsis et in ipsa cadunt: resolutaque tellus 245 in liquidas rarescit aquas, tenuatus in auras aeraque umor abit, dempto quoque pondere rursus in superos aer tenuissimus emicat ignes; inde retro redeunt, idemque retexitur ordo. ignis enim densum spissatus in aera transit, 250 hic in aquas, tellus glomerata cogitur unda. 'Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras: nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo, sed variat faciemque novat, nascique vocatur 255 incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante, morique desinere illud idem. cum sint huc forsitan illa, haec translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant. |