On Architecture

Vitruvius Pollio

Vitruvius Pollio, creator; Morgan, M. H. (Morris Hicky), 1859-1910, translator

20. Then there are springs in which wine seems to be mingled, like the one in Paphlagonia, the water of which intoxicates those who drink of the spring alone without wine. The Aequians in Italy and the tribe of the Medulli in the Alps have a kind of water which causes swellings in the throats of those who drink it.

21. In Arcadia is the well-known town of Clitor, in whose territory is a cave with running water which makes people who drink of it abstemious. At this spring, there is an epigram in Greek verses inscribed on stone to the effect that the water is unsuitable for bathing, and also injurious to vines, because it was at this spring that Melampus cleansed the daughters of Proetus of their madness by sacrificial rites, and restored those maidens to their former sound state of mind. The inscription runs as written below:

  1. Swain, if by noontide thirst thou art opprest
  2. When with thy flocks to Cleitor's bounds thou'st hied,
  3. Take from this fount a draught, and grant a rest
  4. To all thy goats the water nymphs beside.
  5. But bathe not in't when full of drunken cheer,
  6. Lest the mere vapour may bring thee to bane;
  7. Shun my vine-hating spring—Melampus here
  8. From madness once washed Proetus' daughters sane,
  9. And all th' offscouring here did hide, when they
  10. From Argos came to rugged Arcady.

22. In the island of Zea is a spring of which those who thoughtlessly drink lose their understanding, and an epigram is cut there

240
to the effect that a draught from the spring is delightful, but that he who drinks will become dull as a stone. These are the verses:
  1. This stone sweet streams of cooling drink doth drip,
  2. But stone his wits become who doth it sip.

23. At Susa, the capital of the Persian kingdom, there is a little spring, those who drink of which lose their teeth. An epigram is written there, the significance of which is to this effect, that the water is excellent for bathing, but that taken as drink, it knocks out the teeth by the roots. The verses of this epigram are, in Greek, as follows:

  1. Stranger, you see the waters of a spring
  2. In which 't is safe for men their hands to lave;
  3. But if the weedy basin entering
  4. You drink of its unpalatable wave,
  5. Your grinders tumble out that self-same day
  6. From jaws that orphaned sockets will display.