fire.[1] 5These did the fire, desirous of reaching its like, send up, showing as yet neither the charming form of the limbs, nor yet the voice and parts that are proper to men. R. P. 173 c.
(63)
. . . But the substance of (the child's) limbs is divided between them, part of it in men's (and part in women's body).
(64)
And upon him came desire reminding him through sight.
(65)
. . . And it was poured out in the purified parts; and when it met with cold women arose from it.
(66)
The divided meadows of Aphrodite.
(67)
For in its warmer part the womb brings forth males, and that is why men are dark and more manly and shaggy.
(68)
On the tenth day of the eighth month it turns to a white putrefaction.[2]
(69)
Double bearing.[3]
(70)
Sheepskin.[4]
(71)
But if thy assurance of these things was in any way deficient as to how, out of Water and Earth and Air and Fire mingled
- ↑ Retaining εἴδεος (i.e. ἴδεος), which is read in the MSS. of Simplicius. Cf. above, p. 209, n. 1.
- ↑ That Empedokles regarded milk as putrefied blood is stated by Aristotle (De gen. an. Δ, 8. 777 a 7). The word πύον means pus. There may be a pun on πυός "beestings," but that has its vowel long.
- ↑ Said of women in reference to births in the seventh and ninth months.
- ↑ Of the membrane round the foetus.
