Hexameron 5.19–5.44

But you too, husband (for we can also take it so), lay aside the swelling of your heart and the harshness of your ways when a diligent wife defers to you; drive away indignation when your coaxing spouse calls you to love. You are not a master but a husband; you have not obtained a maidservant but a wife. God willed you to be the guide of the weaker sex, not its overlord. Return her zeal, repay love with gratitude. The viper pours out its poison; can you not lay aside the hardness of your mind? But you have a natural sternness: you ought to temper it in consideration of marriage, and out of reverence for the union lay aside the fierceness of your spirit. It can also be taken this way: husbands, do not seek another's bed, do not lay snares for another's union. Adultery is grievous, it is an injury to nature. God first made two, Adam and Eve, that is, man and wife, and the wife from the man, that is, from Adam's rib, and he commanded both to be in one body and to live in one spirit. Why do you separate one body, why do you divide one spirit? It is adultery against nature. The embrace of the lamprey and the viper, sought not by right of kind but by the heat of lust, teaches this. Learn, husbands: whoever seeks to … another's wife, whose cohabitation he desires to claim for himself, is to be compared to a serpent. He hastens to a viper, which comes into the bosom of a man not by the straight path of truth but by the slippery way of straying love. He hastens to one who, like the viper, takes back her poison, for the viper is said, after the act of union is done, to suck back the poison she had vomited; for the adulteress is a viper. So Solomon too says that he who has been drunk, when lust is accustomed to boil through wine, is stretched out as if by the bite of a snake, and poison is spread through him as by a horned serpent. And so that you may know he said this of the adulteress, he added: “When your eyes see a strange woman, your mouth will speak perverse things.”

And let no one think that we have set down contradictory things, using the example of this viper both for good and for bad, since both profit for instruction: if we are ashamed either not to show to our beloved the faithfulness which a serpent shows, or, abandoning holy marriages, to prefer slippery and harmful things to healthful ones, as he does who mixes with a serpent.

And since we have begun to weave a discourse on cunning, by which each one strives to get round and deceive his brother and contrives new frauds, so as to entrap by trickery the one he cannot overcome by force and cover him with a kind of disguise of art, I will not pass over that fraudulent cleverness of the octopus. Having found a rock on a shallow shore, it fastens itself to it and, by its shadowy cleverness, takes on its colour; and with its back covered in a similar appearance, it encloses in the nets of its stealthy art the fish that glide up to it without any suspicion of fraud, while they think it was not there and is a rock, and catches them in a kind of fold of its flesh. So the prey comes of its own accord. And they are caught by tricks like those of people who often change their temper and set in motion different arts of harming, so as to probe the minds and feelings of each: placed among the continent they preach continence; in a gathering of the intemperate they are as if strayed from the pursuit of chastity and sunk in the wallows of intemperance, so that those who hear or see them believe them with careless ease and fall the more quickly, since they do not know how to turn aside or beware of what harms, since wickedness is heavier and more harmful when shadowed by a covering. So we must beware of those who spread the tentacles and arms of their fraud far and wide or put on a many-shaped appearance. For they are octopuses, having many coils and the traces of crafty wits, by which they may ensnare whatever has fallen onto the rocks of their fraud.

And what tricks the crab too contrives for the sake of food! For it too delights in the oyster and seeks a feast of its flesh. But since … to contrive the food, because the hunt is both difficult and dangerous (difficult, because the food inside is enclosed by stronger shells; for nature, the interpreter of the imperial command, has fortified the softness of the flesh as with walls, nourishing and cherishing it in a hollow fold in the middle of the shells and spreading it as in a valley; and so all the attempts of the crab are vain, because it can open the closed oyster by no force; and dangerous, if the oyster shuts in its claw), it takes refuge in arguments and contrives snares by a new fraud. So, since all kinds are soothed by pleasure, it watches whether at some time the oyster, in remote places, now away from everything and facing the rays of the sun, opens that double-leaved shell of its own and unbars the bolts of its shells, so as to take some pleasure for its insides in the free air; and then, secretly inserting a pebble, it prevents the oyster from closing, and so, finding the bolts open, it safely inserts its claws and feeds on the inner organs.

There are, then, men who, in the manner of the crab, creep into the practice of cheating others and prop up the weakness of their own strength by a kind of cunning, weave a trick against a brother and feed on another's misery. But you, be content with your own, and do not feed on another's losses. Simplicity of innocence is good food. Content with its own goods, it does not know how to lay snares for others' goods, nor is it set on fire by the torches of greed; for to it every gain is a loss toward virtue and a burning toward desire. And so poverty with truth is blessed, if it knows its own goods, and is to be preferred to all treasures, because a little given with the fear of God is better than great treasures without fear. For how much is it that feeds a man? Or if you seek what may also abound for others as a kindness, that too is not much; for “better is hospitality with herbs, with grace, than the preparation of fatted calves with discord.” Let us use our wit, then, to seek grace and guard salvation, not to cheat another. We may use the examples of the sea for the progress of our own salvation, not for the danger of another's.

The sea urchin, a tiny animal, cheap and despised (I mean the marine one), is often the sign of a coming storm, or a herald of fair weather to sailors. Indeed, when it senses beforehand a gale of winds, it seizes a sturdy pebble and carries it like ballast and drags it like an anchor, so as not to be dashed about and thrown down. So it does not balance itself by its own strength, but steadies and steers itself by another weight. From this sign sailors take as it were the signal of coming disturbance and rouse themselves, lest an unforeseen whirlwind find them unprepared. What mathematician, what astrologer or Chaldaean can so understand the courses of the stars, the motions and signs of heaven? By what wit has it gathered this, from what teacher has it learned it? Who was its interpreter of so great an omen? Men see the confusion of the air and are often deceived, because it often scatters without a storm; the urchin is not deceived, the urchin's own signs never escape it.

From where does so small an animal have such knowledge that it foretells the future? The more there is nothing in it by which it could have such …, believe that by the goodness of the Lord of all things it too has received this foreknowledge. For if God so clothes the grass that we wonder at it; if he feeds the birds; if he has prepared food for each, for the raven (for its young cry to the Lord); if he gave women skill in weaving; if he did not leave the spider, which so finely and skilfully hangs its loose nets in doorways, without wisdom; if he himself gave strength to the horse and loosed fear from its neck, so that it exults in the plain and, meeting kings …, smells the battle from afar and is roused by the sound of the trumpet; if he has filled these many irrational things, and other senseless ones like the grass, like the lilies, with the ordering of his wisdom: why do we doubt that he has also conferred on the urchin the grace of this foreknowledge? For he has left nothing unexamined, nothing overlooked. He who feeds all sees all; he who made all things in wisdom fills all things with wisdom, as it is written. And so, if he has not passed over the urchin as lacking his visitation, if he considers it and informs it by signs of the future, does he not consider yours? Yes, he certainly considers them, as his divine Wisdom testifies, saying: “If he regards the birds, if he feeds them, are you not of more value than they? For if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is cast into the fire, how much more you, O you of little faith?”

Or do we think that this grace too remains to fish without some endowment of nature, that each kind of fish has dwellings prescribed for it, which no one of its kind leaves and no stranger invades? What geometer divided their dwellings for them, never to be broken in any times? We have heard of a geometer, but we have never heard of a sea-measurer; and yet fish know their measure, not prescribed by city walls and gates, not limited by the buildings of houses or the boundaries of fields, but the measure of what is fitting, so that as much is enough for each as abounds for use, not as much as some immoderate greed claims for itself. It is a kind of law of nature to seek only as much as suffices for living, and to reckon the size of one's patrimony by the measure of nourishment. This kind of fish is fed and born in that bay of the sea, that one in another. Indeed you will not find the kinds of fish mixed, but what abounds here is lacking elsewhere in turn. That bay of the sea feeds mullets, that one sea bass, that one …, another crayfish. There is no free power of wandering, and yet the supply is not shut in by mountains nor the passage blocked by rivers flowing between, but a habit impressed by nature keeps each one within the bounds of its homeland, as it were, and makes going beyond the inhabitants suspect.

But with us the view is far different: to change homes by exile, to be held by distaste for our neighbours, to court the favour of newcomers, to move the everlasting boundaries which our fathers set, to join field to field, house to house. The earth is not enough for men; the seas too are built over; again, according to each one's whim, the land is cut, the sea poured in, so that they may make islands and possess straits. They claim stretches of sea for themselves by right of ownership and speak of the rights over fish as subject to them like slaves in the condition of servitude. “This bay of the sea,” he says, “is mine, that one another's”: the powerful divide the elements among themselves. For them oysters are reared in the waves, for them fish are shut up in ponds. The sea is not enough for luxury unless they have storehouses of oysters. So they count their ages and build receptacles for fish, lest the seas cannot fill a banquet from the sea. For with what ears do they hear the name of neighbour, with what eyes do they look at their possessions! How they devise day and night to take something from those nearest them! “Will you alone dwell upon the earth?” cries the prophet. The Lord knows these things and reserves them for vengeance.

How foreign to fish is the plunder of greed! They seize their natural secret places and know the sea beyond the bounds of the world, which no islands interrupt, nor does any land lie between or lie beyond. There, then, where the widely spread sea shuts off all use of looking and the daring of sailing for profit, the whales are said to hide themselves, those immense kinds of fish, with bodies equal to mountains, as those who were able to see them have handed down to us. There they spend a quiet life, separated from the islands and set apart from all contact with seaside cities; they have their regions and dwellings distributed. They remain in them without offending the boundary of their neighbours, and they do not seek changes of place by wandering passage, but love them as their native soil and think it sweet to linger in them. They chose these so that they could spend a solitary life far from the interference of witnesses.

There are, however, some kinds of fish that change places not from fickleness of temper but from the necessity of cherishing their offspring. Providing for it at a fitting and lawful time, they come together from very many places and different bays of the sea as if by common counsel, and in a united column make for the seas of the north and strive toward that sea for the bringing forth of young by a kind of law of nature. You would say, if you saw them going up, that it was some current; so they rush forward and cut through the waves, streaming with violent force through the Propontis into the Euxine. Who announces these places to the fish and prescribes the times? Who gave them the arrangement of their journey, the order of their company, the goals and times of their return? Men, of course, have an emperor whose command is awaited; the order goes forth, edicts are posted for the provincials to assemble, letters are sent to the military tribunes, the day is fixed; and many cannot arrive on the appointed days. What emperor gave the fish their command, what teacher gave them this discipline, what surveyors lay out the routes, what leaders direct the march, so that no one fails to arrive? But I recognize who that emperor is, who by divine ordinance pours his command into the senses of all, who silently gives to dumb animals the order of natural discipline, who not only penetrates great things but pours himself through all the smallest. The fish obeys the divine law, and men contradict it. The fish solemnly hears the heavenly commands, and men make void the precepts of God. Or does it seem contemptible to you because it is dumb and without reason? But see that you do not begin to be more contemptible to yourself if you are found more irrational than it. And what is more rational than this passage of the fish, whose reason they do not explain in words but speak in deeds? For they go in the summer season to the strait of the Pontus, because this bay is sweeter than the rest of the sea. For the sun does not linger as long on its waves as on the others, and that is the reason it does not drain all the water that is sweet and drinkable. And who does not know that even sea creatures often delight in fresh waters? Indeed, while they follow the rivers and go upstream, fish of a different kind are often caught in the sea. Since, then, this reason makes the Pontus more pleasing to them, or because the regular blowing of the north wind there tempers the heat, they judge it more suitable than the others for breeding and bringing forth their young and rearing them all, since tender offspring can hardly bear the toil of a strange region, while there the soft mildness of the air cherishes them. So, their task done, they all return together in the same column to where they came from.

Let us consider what reason this is. The bay of the Pontus is exposed to the north wind and the most violent blasts of the other winds, so that if a severe storm rages there, tempests are stirred up, so that the sand is turned up from the depths; the sandy wave is a sign of this, which, rising higher by the motion of the winds, and then heavier by its weight, is held without doubt to be intolerable not only to sailors but also to the sea creatures themselves. Add that, since very many and very great rivers mingle with the Pontus, the bay itself is colder in the winter season and stiffens all the torrents. So the fish, like judges of the streams, seize in summer the mildness of the northern breeze there, and having enjoyed its pleasantness, strive in turn to avoid the harshness of winter, and, fleeing the savagery of the northern region, betake themselves to the other bays, in which either the calm of the winds is softer or the mildness of the sun is wont to be spring-like. The fish, then, knows the time of bringing forth, which the wisdom of Solomon spoke of as a great mystery; it knows the time of going and returning, the time of enjoyment and of being tossed, and it knows it so that it cannot be deceived, because it uses not the estimate of reason and the argument of disputation but the inspiration of nature, which is the true teacher of piety. Indeed, all living creatures have times for reserving and for giving birth; man alone has them undistinguished and confused. The other kinds seek the mildness of the season; women alone pour out their offspring without regard to season, for a wandering and intemperate lust for generating produces a wandering age of giving birth. The fish crosses so far there so as to seek some advantage for its kind; we too cross the wide seas; but how much more honourable is what is undertaken for love of succession than for greed of money! In short, for them the crossing is reckoned to devotion, for us to gain. They bring back offspring, worth all merchandise; we, in wretched desire for profit, bring back merchandise far from equal to the risk run. So they seek their homeland again, we abandon ours; they gain an increase of their kind by swimming, we lose ours by sailing.

Who then would deny that a cleverness and power of this kind has been poured into them by God, when he sees these fish arrange with lively wit so solemn a pilgrimage to the north for the fulfilment of fruitfulness, and others take on such strength in a small body that they stop the greatest ships running here with full sails in the midst of the waves? So the little fish echeneis is recorded to stop a huge ship with such ease that you would see it stick to the sea as if rooted and not be moved; for it keeps it unmoved for some time. Or do you think that such power could be supplied to it too without the gift of the creator? What shall I say of the swordfish, or the sawfish, or the dogfish, or the whales, or the hammerhead sharks, or even the sting of the stingray, and that of a dead one? For as, if anyone treads on the bones of a viper, while they are fresh, it is said to harm more seriously than poison and the wound to spread incurably, so the stingray, dead, is said to bring more danger with its sting than alive. The sea hare too, a timid animal on land, in the sea is formidable, bringing a swift corruption which cannot easily be cured. For your creator willed that you should not be quite safe from those who lie in wait even in the sea, so that, because of the few things that harm, placed as on watch, you should always hope for the protection of salvation from your Lord through the arms of faith and the shield of devotion.

Let us come to the Atlantic Sea. How huge are the sea monsters there, of infinite size, which, if ever they swim on the surface of the waves, you would think were islands walking, very high mountains rising with their peaks to heaven! These are said to be seen not on beaches or shores but in the depth of the Atlantic Sea, so that at the sight of them sailors are called back from the presumption of sailing in those places and do not dare to approach the secrets of the elements without the utmost terror of death.

But now let us rise up ourselves from the depth of the sea, and let our discourse emerge somewhat and lift itself to higher things. Only these things, familiar to many and full of grace: how water is turned into the solidity of salt, so that it is often cut with iron, which is no wonder in the British salts, which shine with the snowy whiteness of the same metal in the appearance of hard marble, healthful as food for the body and very pleasing to drink; how coral too, a not unlovely stone, is a plant in the sea, but if it is transferred to the air is solidified with the firmness of stone; whence nature has set in oysters the most precious pearl, how the water of the sea hardens it in such soft flesh. Things that are hard to find among kings lie commonly on the shores as at noon and are gathered on rough rocks and crags. Water also nourishes a golden fleece, and the shores produce wool in the appearance of the metal mentioned, whose colour no one of those who dye fleeces with various dyes has yet been able to imitate. So human industry does not know how to fulfil the grace of sea nature. We know with what care even the less precious fleeces of sheep are tended; though they be the best, yet no dye is born in them. Here is a natural colour, which no dye has yet equalled. This fleece too belongs to a fish. And the murex shells themselves, which give the royal insignia, are of the sea.

And what grace of meadows or pleasantness of gardens can equal the picture of the blue sea? Though flowers shine in the meadows, wool too shines with the brilliance of gold …; and those soon wither, these last long. … in gardens shine from afar, sails on ships; here fragrance breathes, there wind. What use is there in a leaf? How much commerce in ships! Lilies bring sweetness to the nostrils, sails bring salvation to men. Add the leaping fish and the playing dolphins, add the waves sounding with a hoarse murmur, add the ships running to shore or going out from the shores. And when the four-horse chariots are let out of the starting gates, with what zeal and love of the spectators is the contest waged! Yet the horse runs in vain, the ships do not: it in vain, because it is empty, these to some purpose, as being full of grain. What is more pleasing to sing than ships, which are driven not by the whip but by the breath of the winds, where no one is an opponent but all are supporters, where no one who arrives is defeated, but all the sterns that have reached port are crowned, where the palm is the reward of safety, victory the price of return? For how great is the difference between straight courses and circling ones! These go on and on, those …. Add the shores woven with oars, for which the banner of departure is a breeze from heaven. So the charioteers bring back empty applause, these pay their vows as men saved.

What shall I say worthily of Jonah, whom the sea monster received to life and returned to the grace of prophesying? The water corrected the one whom earthly things had turned aside; he sang psalms in the belly of the monster who mourned on land; and so that the redemption of both elements may not be passed over, the salvation of the lands went before in the sea, because the sign of the Son of Man is a sign to be feared. As he was in the belly of the monster, so Jesus was in the heart of the earth. In both is a remedy; yet the greater example of devotion is in the sea, since fish received the one whom men rejected, and fish preserved the one … whom men crucified. Peter too wavers on the sea but does not fall, and having confessed on the waves, yet he denied on land. So there he is grasped by the hand as one devoted, here, as one forgetful, he is reproved by a censuring look. But now let us ask the Lord that our discourse, like Jonah, may be cast out onto the land, lest it toss any longer on the deep. And well too has the gourd come forth to shade us from our evils. But it too, withered as the sun rose, warns us to rest, lest on land we begin to boil over in our wit and words fail us. Certainly more remission of sins has been given to us in the waters than to the Ninevites.

And when he had been silent a little while, he began his discourse again and said: The necessary discussion of the nature of birds had escaped us, dearly beloved brothers, and our discourse of this kind had flown away from us with the birds themselves. For it happens by a kind of nature that those who look at something or wish to express it in speech take on the quality of what they are looking at or speaking of, so that with the slower ones we are roused and with the swift we are carried along by a swift gaze, and we use a pen either slower or swift. So, while I was taking care that the things sunk in the sea should not pass by and the things covered by the waters should not escape me, every winged creature escaped me, because, while bent over I was searching the lowest depths of the waters, I did not look back at the flights in the air, nor did even the shadow of a swift wing, which could have shone in the waters, draw me away. But when I thought the whole task done and believed myself finished and judged the fifth day complete, the birds came to my mind, which, when they go to roost, as if glad that their task is done, usually soothe the sky with song. This they usually renew solemnly at the rising and setting of the day, so as to return to their creator the praises of the night or the day that is past or about to begin. I had lost, then, a great incentive for rousing our devotion. For who that has the sense of a man would not blush to end the day without the celebration of psalms, when even the tiniest birds attend the risings of days and nights with solemn devotion and sweet song?

Let our winged discourse return to us, then, which had almost slipped from our eyes and, like the eagle seeking the heights, had hidden its weight in the clouds; but while we lifted our eyes, washed with water, from the deep to heaven, observing the air empty of flights, we thought it must be called back to the needs of the pen. You will be the judges, you who are fowlers of the word, whether it flies away … or has usefully fallen back into your nets. Nor do I fear that weariness may creep upon us in searching out flights, since it did not creep upon us in probing the depths, or that any of us may fall asleep in the discussion, when he can be roused by the songs of the birds. But surely one who has stayed awake among the dumb fish, I do not doubt, cannot feel sleep among the singing birds, when he is called to wakefulness by such a grace. Nor let it be thought cheap, because it could have been passed over, since it is the third part of the creation among living things. For there is no doubt that there are three kinds of living creatures: those of land, of air, and of water. Indeed it is written thus: “Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls after their kind, and birds flying above the earth along the firmament of heaven after their kind.”

We are called back to what we passed, like forgetful travellers who, having passed by without thought, retrace their steps and take on a great deal of labour of the road repeated because of their carelessness. Yet there is also a good traveller, who makes up the loss of going back by the quick speed of the rest of the journey, as I think I must do, especially since the discourse is about birds, which usually dazzle men's eyes with their swift flight. For why should we linger over those in whom speed usually pleases? Let our discourse, then, out of the way and unusual in this kind of writing, resound and echo with singing birds.

But where shall I find swan songs, which delight even under the heavy terror of imminent death? Where shall I find those natural melodies of song, by which even the marshes, made tuneful, give forth songs most sweet in their charm? Where shall I find the voices of the parrot and the sweetness of the blackbirds? Would that the nightingale sang here, to rouse the sleeper from sleep; for that bird usually signals the rising of the day and brings a more abundant joy at dawn. Yet if their sweetness is lacking, there are the moaning turtledoves and the hoarse doves, and the crow too calls the rain with full voice. So, in a rustic style, as we can, let us follow up the knowledge that country people have taught us.

And since we have spoken of the creeping things of the waters, it is hard for our discourse to rise suddenly to the birds of heaven. So let us speak first of those birds that frequent the waters of the sea and the rivers, with which we can emerge. Let us begin our discourse, then, with the halcyon. It is a sea bird that usually brings forth its young on the shores, laying its eggs in the sand at about midwinter. For it has assigned that time to cherishing its young, when the sea rises most and is dashed more violently against the shores, so that the grace of this bird may shine out the more through the solemn occurrence of a sudden calm. For when the sea has been stormy, as soon as the eggs are laid it suddenly grows gentle, and all the gales of winds drop, and the blasts of breezes are still, and the sea stands calm with the winds, while the halcyon cherishes her eggs. The brooding lasts seven days; when they have passed she brings out her chicks and completes her young. At once she adds another seven days, in which to nourish her offspring until they begin to grow up. Nor should you wonder at so short a time of nourishing, since the completion of the young takes so few days. So great a grace, divinely granted, does the little bird have that sailors look to these fourteen days with confidence of fair weather, and call them halcyon days, in which they dread no motion of a stormy tempest. “Are you not of more value than sparrows?” says the Lord.

If, then, out of regard for a tiny bird, the sea that has risen … and suddenly, amid the heavy gales and tempests of winds of harsh winter, tranquillity poured over all the elements wipes the clouds from the sky and calms the waves, you know how much you ought to presume, O man, made in the image of God, if only you imitate the faith of this little bird with zeal of devotion. When she sees storms rising and winds raging amid the savagery of winter, she is not called back or turned aside, but driven on. Indeed she places her eggs on the shore, where the sand still wet from the ebbing wave may receive them, and she does not fear the rising waves, which she sees murmur and glide up.

And lest you think that she seems to have contempt for the eggs, at once, when she has laid the eggs, she builds a nest and cherishes her young with her body, and does not fear for her own safety from the washing of the shore, but, secure in the grace of God, entrusts herself to the winds and the waves. This is not enough. She adds as many other days for nourishing, and does not fear that the calm of the faithless sea will be broken in so many days, and tests her trust, now founded by the solemn custom of nature. She does not hide her tender young in any hiding places or under roofs, nor shut them in caves, but entrusts them to the bare and appointed ground; she does not defend them from the cold, but thinks they will be safer by the divine cherishing, the more she despises other things. Which of us does not cover our little ones with clothes, hide them under roofs, shut them in the enclosures of bedrooms, so carefully block the windows on all sides that no breeze can penetrate even lightly? Justly, those whom we clothe and cherish so anxiously we strip of the covering of heavenly kindness; but those whom she casts out naked, he clothes with divine clothing.

Nor will I pass you by, divers, to whom the name has stuck from your constant diving. How, always diving, you gather the signs of the breezes, and, foreseeing a coming storm, fly back quickly from mid-sea and withdraw with a cry to the safety of the shores! How you too, coots, who delight in the depths of the sea, fleeing the commotion of the sea which you foresee, play in the shallows! The heron itself, which usually keeps to the marshes, leaving its familiar haunts and fearing the rains, flies above the clouds so as not to feel the storms of the clouds. Let us consider the different birds of the sea, how, when a motion of the winds threatens, they betake themselves to safer pools, sweeter to them at that time, and search out in a hidden fold of the land the food known to them.

And who would not marvel at the night watches of the geese, who attest their vigils by the persistence of their cackling? Indeed by it they even saved the Roman Capitol from the Gallic enemy. Rightly you owe them, Rome, that you reign. Your gods were sleeping, and the geese were awake. That is why on those days you sacrifice to the goose and not to Jupiter; for your gods give way to the geese, by whom they know they were defended, lest they too should be captured by the enemy.