第70章

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, Will melt the copper and will fuse the gold, But hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks.

The water hardens the iron just off the fire, But hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens.

The oleaster-tree as much delights The bearded she-goats, verily as though 'Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia;Than which is naught that burgeons into leaf More bitter food for man.A hog draws back For marjoram oil, and every unguent fears Fierce poison these unto the bristled hogs, Yet unto us from time to time they seem, As 'twere, to give new life.But, contrariwise, Though unto us the mire be filth most foul, To hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem That they with wallowing from belly to back Are never cloyed.

A point remains, besides, Which best it seems to tell of, ere I go To telling of the fact at hand itself.

Since to the varied things assigned be The many pores, those pores must be diverse In nature one from other, and each have Its very shape, its own direction fixed.

And so, indeed, in breathing creatures be The several senses, of which each takes in Unto itself, in its own fashion ever, Its own peculiar object.For we mark How sounds do into one place penetrate, Into another flavours of all juice, And savour of smell into a third.Moreover, One sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo, One sort to pass through wood, another still Through gold, and others to go out and off Through silver and through glass.For we do see Through some pores form-and-look of things to flow, Through others heat to go, and some things still To speedier pass than others through same pores.

Of verity, the nature of these same paths, Varying in many modes (as aforesaid)Because of unlike nature and warp and woof Of cosmic things, constrains it so to be.

Wherefore, since all these matters now have been Established and settled well for us As premises prepared, for what remains 'Twill not be hard to render clear account By means of these, and the whole cause reveal Whereby the magnet lures the strength of iron.

First, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds Innumerable, a very tide, which smites By blows that air asunder lying betwixt The stone and iron.And when is emptied out This space, and a large place between the two Is made a void, forthwith the primal germs Of iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined Into the vacuum, and the ring itself By reason thereof doth follow after and go Thuswise with all its body.And naught there is That of its own primordial elements More thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres Than nature and cold roughness of stout iron.

Wherefore, 'tis less a marvel what I said, That from such elements no bodies can From out the iron collect in larger throng And be into the vacuum borne along, Without the ring itself do follow after.

And this it does, and followeth on until 'Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it By links invisible.Moreover, likewise, The motion's assisted by a thing of aid (Whereby the process easier becomes),-Namely, by this: as soon as rarer grows That air in front of the ring, and space between Is emptied more and made a void, forthwith It happens all the air that lies behind Conveys it onward, pushing from the rear.

For ever doth the circumambient air Drub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth The iron, because upon one side the space Lies void and thus receives the iron in.

This air, whereof I am reminding thee, Winding athrough the iron's abundant pores So subtly into the tiny parts thereof, Shoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails.

The same doth happen in all directions forth: