Greek Texts & Translations

Now as regards most forms of water that are intermingled one with another, the kind as a whole, consisting of water that has been strained through earth-grown plants, 60ais called “sap”; but inasmuch as the several sorts have become dissimilar owing to intermixture, most of the kinds thus produced are unnamed. Four of these kinds, however, being fiery and specially conspicuous, have received names. Of these, that which is heating to the soul as well as the body is called “wine”; that which is smooth and divisive of the vision, and therefore bright to look upon and gleaming and glistening in appearance, is the species “oil,” including pitch and castor oil and olive oil itself and all the others that are of the same character; 60band all that kind which tends to expand the contracted parts of the mouth, so far as their nature allows, and by this property produces sweetness, has received as a general designation the name of “honey”; and the foamy kind, which tends to dissolve the flesh by burning, and is secreted from all the saps, is named “verjuice.” ^note

Of the species of earth, that which is strained through water becomes a stony substance in the following way. When the water commingled therewith is divided in the process of mingling, it changes into the form of air; and when it has become air it rushes up to its own region; 60cbut because there was no void space above them, therefore it pressed against the adjacent air; and it, being heavy, when pressed and poured round the mass of earth, crushed it forcibly and compressed it into the spaces from which the new air was ascending. But when earth is thus compressed by the air so as to be indissoluble by water it forms “stone”; of which the fairer sort is that composed of equal and uniform parts and transparent, and the coarser sort the opposite. That kind from which all the moisture has been carried off by the rapidity of fire, and which is more brittle 60din its composition than the first kind, is the kind to which we have given the name of “earthenware.” But sometimes, when moisture is still left in the earth and it has been fused by fire and has cooled again, it forms the species which is black in hue. On the other hand there are two kinds, which, in exactly the same manner, are isolated after the mixture from much of their water, but are composed of finer parts of earth, and are saline: when these have become semi-solid and soluble again by water, one of them is purgative of oil and earth and forms the species called “lye“ ^note; and the other, which blends well with the combinations which affect the sensation of the mouth, 60eis that substance which is customarily termed “beloved of the gods,” ^note namely “salt.”

As regards the kinds which are a blend of these two, and are dissoluble by fire and not by water, their composition is due to the following cause. Fire and air do not melt masses of earth; for, inasmuch as their particles are smaller then the interstices of its structure, they have room to pass through without forcible effort and leave the earth undissolved, with the result that it remains unmelted; whereas the particles of water, being larger, must use force to make their way out, and consequently dissolve and melt the earth. 61aThus earth when it is not forcibly condensed is dissolved only by water; and when it is condensed it is dissolved by fire only, since no entrance is left for anything save fire. Water, again, when most forcibly massed together is dissolved by fire only, but when massed less forcibly both by fire and air, the latter acting by way of the interstices, and the former by way of the triangles; but air when forcibly condensed is dissolved by nothing save by way of its elemental triangles, and when unforced it is melted down by fire only.

As regards the classes of bodies which are compounds of earth and water, 61bso long as the water occupies the interspaces of earth which are forcibly contracted, the portions of water which approach from without find no entrance, but flow round the whole mass and leave it undissolved. But when portions of fire enter into the interspaces of the water they produce the same effects on water as water does on earth; consequently, they are the sole causes why the compound substance is dissolved and flows. And of these substances those which contain less water than earth form the whole kind known as “glass,” 61cand all the species of stone called “fusible”; while those which contain more water include all the solidified substances of the type of wax and frankincense.

And now we have explained with some fullness the Four Kinds, which are thus variegated in their shapes and combinations and permutations; but we have still to try to elucidate the Causes which account for their affective qualities. Now, first of all, the quality of sense-perceptibility must always belong to the objects under discussion; but we have not as yet described the generation of flesh and the appurtenances of flesh, nor of that portion of Soul which is mortal. But, in truth, these last cannot be adequately explained