Third day — dry land, seas, and plants

On the third day, by God’s command, the water was gathered into its gatherings and the dry appeared; and he called the dry earth, and the systems of the waters he called seas. It was gathered into one gathering so that it might not […] from the places where it is and, spilling over, cover the mainland. That is why the sea, often raging from winds and rising to a great height in waves, when it only touches the shores dissolves its rush into foam and turns back — bridled by sand, weakest of all things. What kept the Red Sea from flooding all Egypt, which lies lower than it, and joining the neighboring deep, if it were not bound by the Maker’s command? That this is true Sesostris the Egyptian and Darius the Mede persuaded us in deed: attempting to join the Egyptian and Indian seas, they could not. So much lower than the Red Sea is Egypt. He ordered the waters gathered into one gathering, and that another sea not arise from this one, but remain in the first collection. For there were many […] waters […] hollows […] gathering and ravines. And “the systems of the waters he called seas” points to the gulfs left in their own shape by the surrounding land — northern sea, southern sea, eastern and western deeps, and their proper names: Pontus, Aegean, Ionian, Sardinian, Sicilian, Tyrrhenian. Not chance pools of water ended in one sea or system, but the greatest and outstanding; one must not think also of marsh and lake. As fire, even when crumbled small, is still poured as one under the air, so with water: though there are small divided systems, there is one gathering that separates the whole element from the rest. For the sea’s water is the spring of all moisture about the earth, and the whole earth is under-channeled, and it is distributed through unseen passages, as some underground places of the mainland show. The flowing sea, running through narrow places, when left in crooked and upright exits, pushed by the force of the wind breaks the earth’s surface and, coming outside, becomes drinkable, changed to sweetness by filtering. Again, when left in hot places toward the exit, drawn by the same cause under the wind it comes boiling. This too is the spring of the aerial waters: its waters drawn up through clouds, warmed by the sun’s ray, chilled in the cloud’s shade, and clarified from that height, grow sweet and sprinkle the mainland. On the same day God also ordered the earth to sprout pasture of grass, sowing seed according to kind, and fruit-tree making fruit whose seed is in it. And still now the order of what grows witnesses to the first arranging. Sprouting leads every herb and every plant: when the earth has moisture in measure and warmth, the seed is cast into it and becomes soft and many-seeded, and beginning from the earth about it draws to itself what is its own and kindred, and fattened it spreads — so that it roots downward and pushes upward, and puts out stalks equal in number to the roots. As the sprout is always warmed, the moisture drawn through the roots is carried along by the earth’s heat with the nourishment, and this is portioned into stalk and husk and the wheat’s cases and the wheat itself and the awns. The wheat’s stalk is girded with joints so that, like some bonds, they may bear the weight of the ears. The stalk is also hollow so that it may be a case for the grain, not easy plunder for seed-pickers. It has thrust out the awns like spears to keep off the harms of small creatures. Oats stand empty through and through because they are not weighted at the head. And if harmful plants sprouted with the nourishing — hellebore, aconite, mandrake, and the juice of the poppy — none of these was taken idle for use. Starlings feed on hemlock by the making of their body: having fine passages to the heart, they manage to send off what is swallowed; quails eat hellebore and take no harm, having a peculiar temperament. By mandrake physicians bring on sleep, and with opium they lay fierce pains to rest. With hemlock they wither mad appetites, and with hellebore they soothe chronic sufferings. “And fruit-tree making fruit.” And all sprang from the earth in one turn of time that were not before, each with its own property, each known by its own character. Olive, date-palm, and cypress grow tall. And of these some are not many-branched — fir and cypress, and sometimes the palm. Evergreen are olive, palm, laurel, myrtle, pine, cypress, fir, juniper, thuja, and what Arcadians call philodrys; also phyleos, cedar, pine, box, holm-oak, arake, lathyrus. The rose then sprouted without the thorn; later the thorn was yoked to the flower’s beauty — so that having grief set beside delight we may remember the sin through which the earth was condemned to sprout thorns and thistles for us. The almond blossoms first and brings fruit last. The bitter almond, its stem bored toward the root and receiving a pitched pine wedge driven into the middle pith, turns the harsh juices to edible sweetness. The sharp pomegranate, receiving the same treatment, turns to sweetness. The female palm lets down her branches as if longing for the male’s embrace; and farmers, putting the male’s pollen into her branches, set her back into her proper upright shape. The mulberry sprouts late but does not lag the others in fruiting. Olive, linden, white poplar, and elm turn their leaves upside-down after the summer solstice; and by this all know that the summer turns have come.