it is of brilliant whiteness,
because there the nature of the aether is purer, and far away, he avoids
{all} infection from the earth. Nor can there ever be the same or a
similar appearance of the nocturnal Diana; and always that of the
present day is less than on the morrow, if she is on the increase; {but}
greater if she is contracting her orb.

"And further. Do you not see the year, affording a resemblance of our
life, assume four {different} appearances? for, in early Spring, it is
mild, and {like} a nursling, and greatly resembling the age of youth.
Then, the blade is shooting, and void of strength, it swells, and is
flaccid, and delights the husbandman in his expectations. Then, all
things are in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles with the tints of
its flowers; and not as yet is there any vigour in the leaves. The year
{now} waxing stronger, after the Spring, passes into the Summer; and in
its youth it becomes robust. And indeed no season is there more
vigorous, or more fruitful, or which glows with greater warmth. Autumn
follows, the ardour of youth {now} removed, ripe, and placed between
youth and old age, moderate in his temperature, with a {few} white hairs
sprinkled over his temples. Then comes aged Winter, repulsive with his
tremulous steps, either stript of his locks, or white with those which
he has.

"Our own bodies too are changing always and without any intermission,
and to-morrow we shall not be what we were or what we {now} are. The
time was, when only as embryos, and the earliest hope of human beings,
we lived in the womb of the mother. Nature applied her skilful hands,
and willed not that our bodies should be tortured {by} being shut up
within the entrails of the distended parent, and brought us forth from
our dwelling into the vacant air. Brought to light, the infant lies
without {any} strength; soon, {like} a quadruped, it uses its limbs
after the manner of the brutes; and by degrees it stands upright,
shaking, and with knees still unsteady, the sinews being supported by
some assistance. Then he becomes strong and swift, and passes over the
hours of youth; and the years of middle age, too, now past, he glides
adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the
robustness of former years; and Milo,[13] {now} grown old, weeps when he
sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of
the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus
weep