Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Is rarefied, and sends abroad in air

Whatever seeds it peradventure have

Of its own fiery exhalations.

The more, then, the telluric ground is drained

Of heat, the colder grows the water hid

Within the earth. Further, when all the earth

Is by the cold compressed, and thus contracts

And, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo,

That by contracting it expresses then

Into the wells what heat it bears itself.

'Tis said at Hammon's fane a fountain is,

In daylight cold and hot in time of night.

This fountain men be-wonder over-much,

And think that suddenly it seethes in heat

By intense sun, the subterranean, when

Night with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands—

What's not true reasoning by a long remove:

I' faith when sun o'erhead, touching with beams

An open body of water, had no power

To render it hot upon its upper side,

Though his high light possess such burning glare,

How, then, can he, when under the gross earth,

Make water boil and glut with fiery heat?—

And, specially, since scarcely potent he

Through hedging walls of houses to inject

His exhalations hot, with ardent rays.

What, then's, the principle? Why, this, indeed:

The earth about that spring is porous more

Than elsewhere the telluric ground, and be

Many the seeds of fire hard by the water;

On this account, when night with dew-fraught shades

Hath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down

Grows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out

Into the spring what seeds she holds of fire

(As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot

The touch and steam of the fluid. Next, when sun,

Up-risen, with his rays has split the soil

And rarefied the earth with waxing heat,

Again into their ancient abodes return

The seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water

Into the earth retires; and this is why

The fountain in the daylight gets so cold.

Besides, the water's wet is beat upon

By rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes

Rarer in texture under his pulsing blaze;

And, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire

It renders up, even as it renders oft

The frost that it contains within itself

And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots.

There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind

That makes a bit of tow (above it held)

Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too,

A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round

Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled

Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this:

Because full many seeds of heat there be

Within the water; and, from earth itself

Out of the deeps must particles of fire

Athrough the entire fountain surge aloft,

And speed in exhalations into air

Forth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow

As to make hot the fountain). And, moreo'er,

Some force constrains them, scattered through the water,

Forthwith to burst abroad, and to combine

In flame above. Even as a fountain far

There is at Aradus amid the sea,

Which bubbles out sweet water and disparts

From round itself the salt waves; and, behold,

In many another region the broad main

Yields to the thirsty mariners timely help,

Belching sweet waters forth amid salt waves.

Just so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth

Athrough that other fount, and bubble out

Abroad against the bit of tow; and when

They there collect or cleave unto the torch,

Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because

The tow and torches, also, in themselves

Have many seeds of latent fire. Indeed,

And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps

Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished

A moment since, it catches fire before

'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch?

And many another object flashes aflame

When at a distance, touched by heat alone,

Before 'tis steeped in veritable fire.

This, then, we must suppose to come to pass

In that spring also.

Now to other things!

And I'll begin to treat by what decree

Of nature it came to pass that iron can be

By that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call

After the country's name (its origin

Being in country of Magnesian folk).

This stone men marvel at; and sure it oft

Maketh a chain of rings, depending, lo,

From off itself! Nay, thou mayest see at times

Five or yet more in order dangling down

And swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one

Depends from other, cleaving to under-side,

And ilk one feels the stone's own power and bonds—

So over-masteringly its power flows down.

In things of this sort, much must be made sure

Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give,

And the approaches roundabout must be;

Wherefore the more do I exact of thee

A mind and ears attent.

First, from all things

We see soever, evermore must flow,

Must be discharged and strewn about, about,

Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.

From certain things flow odours evermore,

As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray

From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls

Along the coasts. Nor ever cease to seep

The varied echoings athrough the air.

Then, too, there comes into the mouth at times

The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea

We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch

The wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings.

To such degree from all things is each thing

Borne streamingly along, and sent about

To every region round; and nature grants

Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,

Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,

And all the time are suffered to descry

And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.

Now will I seek again to bring to mind

How porous a body all things have—a fact

Made manifest in my first canto, too.

For, truly, though to know this doth import

For many things, yet for this very thing

On which straightway I'm going to discourse,

'Tis needful most of all to make it sure

That naught's at hand but body mixed with void.

A first ensample: in grottos, rocks o'erhead

Sweat moisture and distil the oozy drops;

Likewise, from all our body seeps the sweat;

There grows the beard, and along our members all

And along our frame the hairs. Through all our veins

Disseminates the foods, and gives increase

And aliment down to the extreme parts,

Even to the tiniest finger-nails. Likewise,

Through solid bronze the cold and fiery heat

We feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass

Through gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand

The brimming goblets. And, again, there flit

Voices through houses' hedging walls of stone;

Odour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire

That's wont to penetrate even strength of iron.

Again, where corselet of the sky girds round

And at same time, some Influence of bane,

When from Beyond 'thas stolen into [our world].

And tempests, gathering from the earth and sky,

Back to the sky and earth absorbed retire—

With reason, since there's naught that's fashioned not

With body porous.

Furthermore, not all

The particles which be from things thrown off

Are furnished with same qualities for sense,

Nor be for all things equally adapt.

A first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch

The earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams

Compels the lofty snows, up-reared white

Upon the lofty hills, to waste away;

Then, wax, if set beneath the heat of him,

Melts to a liquid. And the fire, likewise,