excerpts from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Mandelbaum

    *
    So, when the Nile, the stream with seven mouths, 
    recedes from the soaked fields and carries back
    its waters to the bed they had before,
    and slime, still fresh, dries underneath the sun,
    the farmers, turning over clods, discover
    some who are newly born, who've just begun
    to take their forms, and others who are still
    unfinished, incomplete-they've not achieved
    proportion; and indeed, in one same body,
    one part may be alive already, while
    another is a lump of shapeless soil.
    For, tempering each other, heat and moisture
    engender life: the union of these two
    produces everything. Though it is true
    that fire is the enemy of water,
    moist heat is the creator of all things:
    discordant concord is the path life needs.
    *