FRUITS
“For fruits are all of them female, in them lies the seed. And so when they break and show the seed, then we look into the womb and see its secrets. So it is that the pomegranate is the apple of love to the Arab, and the fig has been a catch-word for the female fissure for ages. I don’t care a fig for it! men say. But why a fig? The apple of Eden, even, was Eve’s fruit. To her it belonged, and she offered it to the man. Even the apples of knowledge are Eve’s fruit, the woman’s. But the apples of life the dragon guards, and no woman gives them. . . .”
“No sin is it to drink as much as a man can take and get home without a servant’s help, so he be not stricken in years.”
TREES
“It is said, a disease has attacked the cypress trees of Italy, and they are all dying. Now even the shadow of the lost secret is vanishing from earth.”
“Empedokles says trees were the first living creatures to grow up out of the earth, before the sun was spread out and before day and night were distinguished; from the symmetry of their mixture of fire and water, they contain the proportion of male and female; they grow, rising up owing to the heat which is in the earth, so that they are parts of the earth just as embryos are parts of the uterus. Fruits are excretions of the water and fire in plants.”
FLOWERS
“And long ago, the almond was the symbol of resurrection. — But tell me, tell me, why should the almond be the symbol of resurrection? —
Have you not seen, in the mild winter sun of the southern Mediterranean, in January and in February, the re-birth of the almond tree, all standing in clouds of glory? —
Ah yes! ah yes! would I might see it again!
Yet even this is not the secret of the secret. Do you know what was called the almond bone, the last bone of the spine? This was the seed of the body, and from the grave it could grow into a new body again, like almond blossom in January. — No, no, I know nothing of that.—”
“Oh Persephone, Persephone, bring back to me from Hades the life of a dead man.—”
“Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans! saith Empedokles. For according to some, the beans were the beans of votes, and votes were politics. But others say it was a food-taboo. Others also say the bean was one of the oldest symbols of the male organ, for the peas-cod is later than the beans-cod.”
“But blood is red, and blood is life. Red was the colour of kings. Kings, far-off kings, painted their faces vermilion, and were almost gods.”
THE EVANGELISTIC BEASTS
“Oh, put them back, put them back in the four corners of the heavens, where they belong, the Apocalyptic beasts. For with their wings full of stars they rule the night, and man that watches through the night lives four lives, and man that sleeps through the night sleeps four sleeps, the sleep of the lion, the sleep of the bull, the sleep of the man, and the eagle’s sleep. After which the lion wakes, and it is day. Then from the four quarters the four winds blow, and life has its changes. But when the heavens are empty, empty of the four great Beasts, the four Natures, the four Winds, the four Quarters, then sleep is empty too, man sleeps no more like the lion and the bull, nor wakes from the light-eyed eagle sleep.”
CREATURES
“But fishes are very fiery, and take to the water to cool themselves.”
“To those things that love darkness, the light of day is cruel and a pain. Yet the light of lamps and candles has no fears for them; rather they draw near to taste it, as if saying: Now what is this?
So we see that the sun is more than burning, more than the burning of fires or the shining of lamps. Because with his rays he hurts the creatures that live by night, and lamplight and firelight do them no hurt. Therefore the sun lives in his shining, and is not like fires, that die.”
REPTILES
“Homer was wrong in saying, ‘Would that strife might pass away from among gods and men!’ He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away — for in the tension of opposites all things have their being—”
“For when Fire in its downward path chanced to mingle with the dark breath of the earth, the serpent slid forth, lay revealed. But he was moist and cold, the sun in him darted uneasy, held down by moist earth, never could he rise on his feet. And this is what put poison in his mouth. For the sun in him would fain rise halfway, and move on feet. But moist earth weighs him down, though he dart and twist, still he must go with his belly on the ground. — The wise tortoise laid his earthy part around him, he cast it round him and found his feet. So he is the first of creatures to stand upon his toes, and the dome of his house is his heaven. Therefore it is charted out, and is the foundation of the world.”
BIRDS
“Birds are the life of the skies, and when they fly, they reveal the thoughts of the skies. The eagle flies nearest to the sun, no other bird flies so near.
So he brings down the life of the sun, and the power of the sun. in his wings, and men who see him wheeling are filled with the elation of the sun. But all creatures of the sun must dip their mouths in blood, the sun is for ever thirsty, thirsting for the brightest exhalation of blood.
You shall know a bird by his cry, and great birds cry loud, but sing not. The eagle screams when the sun is high, the peacock screams at the dawn, rooks call at evening, when the nightingale sings. And all birds have their voices, each means a different thing.”
ANIMALS
“Yes, and if oxen or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds.”
“Once, they say, he was passing by when a dog was being beaten, and he spoke this word: ‘Stop! don’t beat it! For it is the soul of a friend I recognized when I heard its voice.’”
“Swine wash in mire, and barnyard fowls in dust.”
GHOSTS
“And as the dog with its nostrils tracking out the fragments of the beasts’ limbs, and the breath from their feet that they leave in the soft grass, runs upon a path that is pathless to men, so does the soul follow the trail of the dead, across great spaces. For the journey is a far one, to sleep and a forgetting, and often the dead look back, and linger, for now they realize all that is lost. Then the living soul comes up with them, and great is the pain of greeting, and deadly the parting again. For oh, the dead are disconsolate, since even death can never make up for some mistakes.”