On Architecture

Vitruvius Pollio

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

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

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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.