The fatter earth by handling we may find, With ease distinguished from the meagre kind: Poor soil will… — Virgil
The fatter earth by handling we may find,
With ease distinguished from the meagre kind:
Poor soil will crumble into dust; the rich
Will to the fingers cleave like clammy pitch.
Pinguis item quae sit tellus, hoc denique pacto
discimus: haud umquam manibus iactata fatiscit,
Sed picis in morem ad digitos lentescit habendo.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
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But when you hold him in the grasp of hands and fetters, then will manifold forms baffle you, and figures of wild beasts. For of a sudden he will become a bristly boar, a deadly tiger, a scaly serpent, or a lioness with tawny neck; or he will give forth the fierce roar of flame, and thus slip from his fetters, or he will melt into fleeting water and be gone.
And now farewell! Involved in shades of night,
For ever I am ravished from thy sight.
In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!
And lay down their lives in the wound.
