The sea

when a sea offers itself, cleansing with dust is not lawful for me — and upon the clearness of the nights turbidity comes to pass, and the beasts have learned the scent of lions — with the brow of the ass the hoof of the horse goes forth.

Let him know that the swiftness with which the good become well disposed when they are won over is like the swiftness with which rainwater mingles with the seas, and that the remoteness of the wicked from such concord, however long one consorts with them, is like the remoteness of beasts from mutual affection, however long they are fed together.

four things that none mounts but a rash fool, and out of which few come safe — joining battle, going to sea, drinking poison by way of experiment, and entrusting women with a secret.

mixing with the wicked is a danger, and patience in their company is like going to sea, in that he who comes out of it safe in body does not come out safe in heart from the wariness of it.

Indeed, if we take into account the share of the Spaniards, whose claim is the same as that of the Portuguese, only a little less than the whole ocean is found to be subject to two nations, while all the rest of the peoples in the world are restricted to the narrow bounds of the northern seas.

And as for the assumption of the Portuguese that no one has sailed that ocean before themselves, that is anything but true.

But have the Portuguese completely covered the ocean, as we are wont to do on land, by laying out estates on it in such a way that they have the right to exclude from that ocean whom they will?

And many of the sailors from the triremes got frightened and began to flee toward the sea, and Cleander also fled.

So after returning to the spot where the first encounter took place and erecting a trophy, they set out on their way back to the sea at about sunset;

Again, if we do reach the sea in safety, what a great ravine, one may say, is the Euxine!

Now if Ceres is from bearing (for so you said), the earth itself is a goddess (and so it is held;

Again, few know that the twenty-seventh of the month is best for opening a wine jar, and putting yokes on the necks of oxen and mules and swift-footed horses, and for hauling a swift ship of many thwarts down to the sparkling sea;

earth quakes and the sea also where fishes shoal.

great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves, while foam burst forth suddenly:

When Leda had lain with the dark-clouded Son of Cronos, she bare them beneath the peak of the great hill Taygetus, — children who are deliverers of men on earth and of swift-going ships when stormy gales rage over the ruthless sea.

There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam, and there the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously.

But fluids, which cannot be limited or restrained, except they be contained within some other substance, cannot be occupied.

Notwithstanding the statements above made, it must be admitted that some things are impossible to be reduced to a state of property, of which the Sea affords us an instance both in its general extent, and in its principal branches.

The same appellation of common may be given to the sand of the shore, which being incapable of cultivation, is left free to yield its inexhaustable supplies for the use of all.

Yet you do not know what lies outside this concept (*mafhūm*) — like one who hears the word “quiddity” (*māhiyyah*) and does not know of which individuals it is truly predicated, so that the ship of his thought is sunk in the sea of determination.

* Do not think it far-fetched that the effect is one of the modes of its cause.

from whatever quarter you come to him — its deep is beneficence and its shore generosity

as in your saying, “his speech is pearls”, “his knowledge a sea”, “his bounty a raincloud”, “his face the moon”, “long of sword-belt”, “abundant of ashes”, and “his house was robbed” — and all that is of this sort among metaphors and metonymies

and your saying, in praise of a man, “a bough of the leafy tree of lineage, a branch of the tree of merit, the delight of nobility's eye, the gladness of the forefather's heart”;

But on the contrary the Egyptian commander, who, persecuting the people of God — once afflicted, long denied to its own Lord — rushed into battle, after so many proofs of the plagues, perished by the dividing of the sea, which to the people alone it was permitted to pass through, the waves rolling back.

The fact is, I am reminded that fishermen, though their business is in the sea, and they neither stop the boat to take a look nor slow down, nevertheless, when they see the crops as they scud past the farms, do not hesitate to express an opinion about the land, which is the good and which is the bad sort, now condemning, now praising it.