A stone that behaves like a living thing

Ach, ihr Menschen, im Steine schläft mir ein Bild, das Bild meiner Bilder! Ach, dass es im härtesten, hässlichsten Steine schlafen muss!

Alle Substanz besitzt Leben, anorganische ebenso wie organische; alle Dinge sind beseelt, Kristalle so gut wie Organismen.

Everything that exists, even a stone, has two sides to its nature. It fiercely maintains its own individuality, its own solidity. And it reaches forth from itself in the subtlest flow of desire.

And what grows in this fair earth—its trees and flowers and fruit—is more beautiful than what grows with us in the same proportion: and so likewise are the hills and the stones in their smoothness and transparency and colour: the pebbles which we prize in this world, our cornelians, and jaspers, and emeralds, and the like, are but fragments of them: but there all the stones are as our precious stones, and even more beautiful still.

Τῆς δ᾽ ἀναθυμιάσεως τῆς ἀτμιδώδους, ὅσα μεταλλεύεται, καὶ ἔστιν ἢ χυτὰ ἢ ἐλατά· οἷον σίδηρος, χρυσός, χαλκός· ποιεῖ δὲ ταῦτα πάντα ἡ ἀναθυμίασις ἡ ἀτμιδώδης, ἐγκατακλειομένη· καὶ μάλιστα ἐν τοῖς λίθοις, διὰ ξηρότητα εἰς ἓν συνθλιβομένη, καὶ πηγνυμένη, οἷον δρόσος ἢ πάχνη, ὅταν ἀποκριθῇ.

Lymphae, quae tegitis cognato carcere lymphas, Et, quae nunc estis quaeque fuistis, aquae, Quod vos ingenium iunxit? qua frigoris arte Torpuit et maduit prodigiosa silex? Quis tepor inclusus securas vindicat undas? Interior glacies quo liquefacta Noto? Gemma quibus causis arcano mobilis aestu Vel concreta fuit vel resoluta gelu?

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Burthen: Ding-dong. Ari. Hark! now I hear them,—Ding-dong, bell.

Corallus sub aquis ut crescit & aëre induratur, sic lapis.

They seemed changed to one another’s eyes, in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same fire to the lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back before its power.

In hoc enim lapide quatuor continentur elementa: assimilaturque mundo, & mundi compositioni.

Moreover, as you see, all fruits grow out of the earth into the air, and none of them remain in the earth, but go out of it and separate themselves from it, so, growing out of the water, there go forth metals, salts, gems, stones, talcs, marcasites, sulphurs, etc.—all proceeding from the matrix of this element into another matrix, that is, into the earth, where the water completes its operation, but the root of minerals is in the water, as the root of trees and herbs is in the earth.

A tutti gli enti donar moto il fuoco noi scorgiamo, poichè le cose grosse e fredde, come le pietre e acque gelate e piante e la terra, moto non hanno; ma, essendo dal fuoco resolute in fumo e vapore più sottile, tutte si muovono e donano moto alle cose a cui s’attaccano.