Timaeus: and all that kind which tends to expand the contracted parts of the mouth, so far as their nature allows, and by this property produces sweetness, has received as a general designation the name of “honey”; and the foamy kind, which tends to dissolve the flesh by burning, and is secreted from all the saps, is named “verjuice.” Of the species of earth, that which is strained through water becomes a stony substance in the following way. When the water commingled therewith is divided in the process of mingling, it changes into the form of air; and when it has become air it rushes up to its own region;

In the earth the heat of the sun kindleth the sweet quality of water, in all imaged or framed figures; and then through the heat the light cometh to...

When the sweet quality thus flies from the bitter, and from the sour and astringent, then the astringent and the bitter make all the haste they can...

When the sweet quality thus stretcheth or wideneth itself, and retireth from the bitter, then the astringent always presseth after it, and would also...

And the sweet quality always flies from the bitter and the astringent, and always stretcheth its palate wider, and the bitter and the astringent conti...

Now when the heat kindleth the sweet quality, and would mitigate its heat in the sweet water (whence it riseth up and shineth in the whole body),...

The sweet water is the beginning of nature, and the astringent quality draweth or attracteth it together, that it becomes natural and creatural, to...

For the sweet quality is the heart of the water, for it is thin and light or bright, and is like heaven: and the bitter quality makes it separable or ...