Orationes 18
Orationes 18 Imperial Aelius Aristides Greek- But what could you say of the sacred well? Or is it plain that you find fault with the nature of language, as not reaching adequately to all things, nor sometimes able to display sufficiently the reality? At any rate, no single speech could display what manner of thing its beauty and its pleasure are; rather, we are better at drinking this water and bathing in it and looking upon it with delight than at being able to say anything about it—just like those who love beautiful boys, who have been captured by the power of the beauty and know what manner of thing they love, but if anyone asks them, they could not say anything about them when they are absent, though when they are present, I think, they would point to them. And we have experienced the very same thing concerning the well, and are its lovers, very many of us, or rather almost all, but what manner of thing it is we cannot say. But if one of us were taken aside and asked, we should think fit to take him along and lead him to it and show it. And even this will not suffice him, but, having tasted and made trial of it, he will seem to have tasted the lotus in Homer, wishing to remain and only with difficulty consenting to depart from it. But indeed one ought not, as they say, like the thirsty, to drink in silence, but to add some ornament by speech too, and to address both the saviour god, whose work and creation this also is, and the Nymphs who hold it and work with him, and grant to us the use of the god's grace, both gratifying him and serving alongside him. What, then, would be the beginning? Or, just as when we drink from it, having set the cup to our lips, we no longer take it away, but pour it in all at once, so too shall the speech have everything said all at once? Let this stand for us in place of the setting of the cup to the lip: that it is in the fairest part of the whole inhabited world. For what the god chose out of all places as the most healthful and most pure, and what by his benefactions he has made the most conspicuous of all, surely this is most exceedingly
- the fairest of all things on earth. For it is not, as other gods are from the beginning native to other places—though these too, I think, one ought to count honoured by the very fact that the gods themselves have them by lot—but this is a greater thing: that the god, setting out from Epidaurus itself, came hither and conceived the greatest love for it, as is plain from the fact that, having chosen it, he remained there for the rest of time and preferred it to the others. And to that which the god, and the gentlest and most humane of the gods, judged worthy of his attention—how is it possible for us, and these his servants, to say anything else than that this is the best? That it is in the fairest part of the inhabited world, then, one may thus say. And further, of the sanctuary itself, all the open and accessible space is in the fairest part; for it is set in the very middle of the middle. And the water, if you will, flows from a plane-tree—for like some token this too has grown up beside it—or, if you will, what is fairer still and more sacred, it flows out from the very foundations on which the temple stands. So that to everyone there underlies this opinion and belief, that it is borne from a healthful place and a place that bestows health, setting out from the sanctuary and from the feet of the saviour; for nothing could flow from more healthful or purer places than this, flowing from these. Appearing, then, in such a place and setting out from such things, as is likely, it is the fairest. For first it is most fine, nearest to air; then, what follows upon this, lightest and gentlest; third, sweetest and most drinkable, self-poured, drinking which you would feel no further need of wine. For Homer said that the Titaresius flowed upon the Peneius, like a man swimming on the surface from the lightness of the water; but to my thinking, if you were to dash other water upon it, it rises up to the top, while the other sinks like divers ducking to the depth from above—unless one may say this too, that, to my thinking, it would even lift the poured-in water by its own lightness. And that we do not boast, it is judged by weight. And yet what would the offshoot of the Styx say, when, set against it, it sinks down? And this is added, that
- neither is this stream an offshoot of the Styx nor has it anything else of horror, but you would address it as an offshoot of health, or of nectar, or of something of that kind. And this too is a proof: time, at least, does not touch it, but when the water has been drawn off and is outside, it does the same as that which always remains in the well, remaining unspoiled and unaffected. And again, the abundance of this well is so great that, one may say, no other well has the like; the drawers must be quite untiring and attentive, lest what comes welling up overtake them. At any rate, this alone of all wells, though men draw from it and let it be, always furnishes the same measure, doing the opposite of the pierced jar. For that is never filled, but this is always near the brim. For inasmuch as it is the servant and fellow-worker of the most humane of the gods, most ready for service, it is always full; and just as he has no leisure to do anything other than save men, so this, imitating its master, always fills the need of those who require it, and is, as it were, another nursling or gift of Asclepius—just as Homer made the arms and works of Hephaestus move according to that god's pleasure. And since I have now come to this point, what water among men could be compared to this for usefulness? For it is not only drink, but the same is also a bath most pleasant and most harmless, nor is it set the wrong way against the seasons of the year, being in summer coldest of itself, but in winter becoming as gentle as may be, always loosening and soothing the hardships of the present occasion—such as the sacred spring of Asclepius ought to be. For these things are fair and pleasant both to one who uses it and to one who sees others, in the summer season, standing in a row about the lips of the well like a swarm of bees or flies about milk, seeking from dawn to forestall the stifling heat, in place of any other drink of those that ward off
- thirst and check it; and again when one, stretching out his hand toward the frozen ice and washing it off, becomes warmer than himself and more pleased. But for the rest too the god uses it as another fellow-worker, and for many men already, many times, this well has contributed toward their obtaining from the god the things they needed. For just as the assistants of physicians and of conjurers are trained for the services and, working with them, astound the spectators and those who use them, so this is a discovery and a possession of the great conjurer who does all things for the salvation of men, and it works with him toward everything and becomes for many in place of a drug. For many, bathing in it, have recovered their eyes; many, drinking, have had their chest healed and have got back their necessary breath; the feet of some it has set straight, and for others something else. And one man already, drinking, sent forth a voice out of dumbness, like those who, drinking of the secret waters, become prophetic. And for some the very drawing of it has been in place of any other salvation. And so to the sick it is thus an averter of harm and a saviour, and to the healthy who dwell there it makes the use of any other water blameworthy. For everything by now, after this water, seems to those who make trial of it as if one were drinking some spoiled wine after a fragrant one. And this alone, the same, is to the sick and the healthy alike most pleasant and most profitable, both to each and to both together; and you would compare neither milk to it nor long for wine, but it is, as Pindar made nectar, self-poured, drinkable, blended sufficiently by some divine tempering. So that if there were two cups, the one of other water and of the fairest wine, the other of this water, you would be at a loss which to take. And further, the other sacred waters have fled the use of the many—such as the one on Delos, and any other such anywhere else—but this is sacred by saving those who use it, not by no one's touching it;
- and the same suffices both for the purifications about the sanctuary and for men to drink and bathe and to be gladdened in looking upon it. For my part, neither the Cydnus nor the Choaspes, whence the King used to drink, nor the Peneius, for which the earth sent up the fairest garlands about each bank, nor any bottomless spring, nor any other water you may name, would I compare to this water that is in all things sacred; but I would say that it is among waters as victorious by so much as its patron god is among the gods. It remains to say one thing: that we should be acting piously too in so judging; for the god first cast this vote concerning it, as they say.