The force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed.

Having glimpsed a small part of life, men rise up and disappear as smoke, knowing only what each one has learned.

[On the volcano.] And many a fire there burns beneath the ground.

At one time through love all things come together into one, at another time through strife s hatred, they are borne each of them apart.

Earth's sweat, the sea.

None of the gods has formed the world, nor has any man, it has always been.

For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea.