The fleeting glory of the powerful and the ordered growth of plants
Basil is preaching on the creation of vegetation, and has just compared human glory to the flower of grass; he now expands that comparison with a portrait of a powerful man, then turns to the literal process by which seeds sprout and grow.
One man is admired for his abundance of wealth. Around him is a crowd of flatterers, a bodyguard of pretended friends who court his favor, a host of relatives, and these too merely for show. There is a vast swarm of attendants, some for his table and some for his daily needs, whom he drags along as he goes out and comes back, and he is envied by those who meet him. Add to the wealth some political power, or honors from kings, or the governance of nations, or command of armies: the herald shouting loudly before him, the lictors on either side striking blows that fill the governed with the heaviest dread, the confiscations, the arrests, the prisons, from which an unbearable fear is gathered from those under his hand. And what comes after this? One night, or a single fever, or pleurisy, or pneumonia, carries the man off, snatched away from among human beings, and is gone, suddenly stripping bare the whole stage-setting around him, and that glory was confuted like a dream. So the prophet's comparison of human glory to the weakest flower has hit the mark.
"Let the earth sprout the herb of grass, bearing seed according to kind and according to likeness" (Genesis 1:11). Even now the order of growing things testifies to that first arrangement. For sprouting comes first for every herb and every grass. Whether something is sent out from a root by a shoot from below, like the crocus and the dog's-tooth grass, it must first sprout and push out to the surface; or whether it comes from seed, in that case too there must first be sprouting, then the herb, then the green grass, then the fruit ripening on the now dry and thick stalk. "Let the earth sprout the herb of grass." When the seed falls into earth that has a proper measure of moisture and warmth, it becomes porous and full of holes, takes hold of the surrounding earth, and draws to itself the things that are akin and of the same kind. The finest particles of the seed enter the pores of the earth and slip through them, and they widen its own bulk more and more, so that the seed takes root downward and pushes upward, sending out stalks equal in number to the roots. As the sprout is continually warmed, the moisture drawn through the roots brings up with it, by the pull of the heat, a measured amount of the earth's nourishment, and distributes it into stalk and husk and the sheaths of the grain, and into the grain itself and the awns. And so, as the growth proceeds little by little, each of the growing things reaches its proper measure, whether it is one of the grains, or the legumes, or the vegetables, or the brushwood.
One grass and one herb is enough to occupy your whole mind in contemplating the skill that produced them: how the stalk of the grain is girded with joints, so that like some kind of bindings they easily bear the weight of the ears when they are full of fruit and bend down toward the ground. For this reason brome-grass is entirely hollow, since its head is weighed down by nothing; but the grain nature has secured with these bindings. And it has placed the kernel in a sheath so that it is not easily snatched away by seed-pickers; and further, by the projection of the awns, as with points, it keeps off the harm from small creatures.
Greek
Ὁ δεῖνα περίβλεπτος ἐπὶ χρημάτων περιουσίᾳ· καὶ πλῆθος περὶ αὐτὸν κολάκων· δορυφορία φίλων προσποιητῶν τὴν ἀπ' αὐτοῦ χάριν θεραπευόντων· πλῆθος συγγενείας, καὶ ταύτης κατεσχημα τισμένης· ἑσμὸς τῶν ἐφεπομένων μυρίος τῶν τε ἐπὶ σιτίων καὶ τῶν κατὰ τὰς χρείας αὐτῷ προσεδρευόντων, οὓς καὶ προϊὼν καὶ πάλιν ἐπανιὼν ἐπισυρόμενος ἐπίφθονός ἐστι τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι. Πρόσθες τῷ πλούτῳ καὶ πολιτικήν τινα δυναστείαν, ἢ καὶ τὰς ἐκ βασιλέων τιμάς· ἢ ἐθνῶν ἐπιμέλειαν· ἢ στρατοπέδων ἡγεμονίαν· τὸν κήρυκα μέγα βοῶντα πρὸ αὐτοῦ· τοὺς ῥαβδούχους ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν βαρυ τάτην κατάπληξιν τοῖς ἀρχομένοις ἐμβάλλοντας τὰς πληγάς· τὰς δημεύσεις· τὰς ἀπαγωγάς· τὰ δεσμωτήρια, ἐξ ὧν ἀφόρητος ὁ παρὰ τῶν ὑποχειρίων συναθροίζεται φόβος. Καὶ τί μετὰ τοῦτο; Μία νὺξ, ἢ πυρετὸς εἷς, ἢ πλευρῖτις, ἢ περιπνευμονία, ἀνάρπαστον ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀπάγουσα τὸν ἄνθρωπον οἴχεται, πᾶσαν τὴν κατ' αὐτὸν σκηνὴν ἐξαπίνης ἀπογυμνώσασα, καὶ ἡ δόξα ἐκείνη ὥσπερ ἐνύπνιον ἀπηλέγχθη. Ὥστε ἐπιτέτευκται τῷ προφήτῃ ἡ πρὸς τὸ ἀδρανέστατον ἄνθος ὁμοίωσις τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης δόξης. 5.3 Βλαστησάτω ἡ γῆ βοτάνην χόρτου, σπεῖρον σπέρμα κατὰ γένος καὶ καθ' ὁμοιότητα. Ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἡ τάξις τῶν φυομένων μαρτυρεῖ τῇ πρώτῃ διακοσμήσει. Ἡ γὰρ βλάστησις καθηγεῖται πάσης βοτάνης καὶ πάσης πόας. Εἴτε γὰρ ἀπὸ ῥίζης ἐκδίδοταί τι ἐκ τῆς κάτωθεν προβολῆς, ὡς κρόκος καὶ ἄγρωστις, ἀναβλαστῆσαι δεῖ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἔξω προκύψαι· εἴτε ἀπὸ σπέρματος, καὶ οὕτως ἀνάγκη πρῶτον βλάστησιν, εἶτα βοτάνην γενέσθαι, εἶτα χόρτον χλοάζοντα, εἶτα τὸν καρπὸν ἐπὶ ξηρᾶς ἤδη καὶ παχείας τῆς καλάμης ἁδρυνόμενον. Βλαστησάτω ἡ γῆ βοτάνην χόρτου. Ὅταν εἰς γῆν καταπέσῃ τὸ σπέρμα συμμέτρως νοτίδος καὶ θέρμης ἔχουσαν, χαῦνον γενόμενον καὶ πολύπορον, τῆς παρακειμένης γῆς περιδραξάμενον, τὰ οἰκεῖα καὶ σύμφυλα πρὸς ἑαυτὸ ἐπισπᾶται. Ἐμπίπτοντα δὲ τοῖς πόροις καὶ περιολισθαίνοντα τῆς γῆς τὰ λεπτότατα μόρια, ἐπὶ πλέον ἀνευρύνει τοὺς ὄγκους αὐτῆς ὥστε ῥιζοῦσθαι μὲν εἰς τὸ κάτω, ἐπὶ τὸ ἄνω δὲ προκύπτειν ἰσαρίθμων ταῖς ῥίζαις τῶν καλάμων προβαλλομένων· θαλπομένου δὲ ἀεὶ τοῦ βλαστήματος, συρομένην διὰ τῶν ῥιζῶν τὴν νοτίδα, τῇ ὁλκῇ τοῦ θερμοῦ συνεπάγεσθαι τοῦ τροφίμου τῆς γῆς ὅσον μέτριον, καὶ τοῦτο καταμερίζειν εἰς καλάμην καὶ φλοιὸν καὶ τὰς θήκας τοῦ σίτου, καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν σῖτον καὶ τοὺς ἀνθέρικας· καὶ οὕτω κατὰ μικρὸν τῆς αὐξήσεως γινομένης, ἐπὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον μέτρον ἕκαστον τῶν φυομένων ἀποκαθίστασθαι, εἴτε τι τῶν σιτηρῶν, εἴτε τῶν χεδροπῶν, εἴτε τῶν λαχανωδῶν ἢ φρυγανικῶν τυγχάνοι. Εἷς χόρτος καὶ μία βοτάνη ἐξαρκεῖ τὴν διάνοιάν σου πᾶσαν εἰς τὴν θεωρίαν τῆς ἐξεργασαμένης αὐτὰ τέχνης ἀπασχολῆσαι· πῶς γόνασι διαζώννυται ἡ καλάμη τοῦ σίτου, ἵνα ὥσπερ σύνδεσμοί τινες ῥᾳδίως τὸ βάρος τῶν ἀσταχύων φέρωσιν, ὅταν πλήρεις ὄντες καρπῶν πρὸς τὴν γῆν κατακλίνωνται. Διὰ τοῦτο ὁ μὲν βρόμος διόλου κενὸς, ἅτε μηδενὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν βαρυνόμενος· τὸν δὲ σῖτον τοῖς συνδέσμοις τούτοις ἡ φύσις κατησφαλίσατο. Ἐν θήκῃ δὲ τὸν κόκκον ἀποθεμένη ὡς μὴ εὐδιάρπαστον εἶναι τοῖς σπερμολόγοις· ἔτι καὶ τῇ προβολῇ τῶν ἀνθερίκων οἷον ἀκίσι τὰς ἐκ τῶν μικρῶν ζῴων ἀφίστησι βλάβας.