ally that it has a soul, and in its movement is guided by choice in
certain menaces it makes (O. xii. 383):--

I will go down to Hades and shine among the dead.

And on this thus Zeus exhorts him:--

Helios, see that thou shine on amidst the deathless gods amid
mortal men upon the earth, the grain giver.

From which it is plain that the sun is not a fire, but some more potent
being, as Aristotle conjectured. Assuredly, fire is borne aloft, is
without a soul, is easily quenchable and corruptible; but the sun is
orbicular and animate, eternal and imperishable.

And as to the other planets scattered through the heavens, that Homer is
not ignorant is evident in his poems (I. xviii. 480):--

Pleiads and Hyads and Orions might.

The Bear which always encircles the North Pole is visible to us. By
reason of its height it never touches the horizon, because in an equal
time, the smallest circle in which the Bear is, and the largest in which
Orion is, revolves in the periphery of the world. And Bootes, slowly
sinking because it makes a frequent setting, has that kind of position,
that is carried along in a straight line. It sinks with the four signs
of Zodiac, there being six zodiacal signs divided in the whole night.
That he has not gone through all observations of the stars, as Aratus or
some of the others, need be surprising to no one. For this was not his
purpose.

He is not ignorant of the causes of disturbances to the elements as
earthquakes and eclipses, since the whole earth shares in itself air,
fire, and water, by which it is surrounded. Reasonably, in its depths
are found vapors full of spirit, which they say being borne outward move
the air; when they are restrained, they swell up and break violently
forth. That the spirit is held within the earth they consider is caused
by the sea, which sometimes obstructs the channels going outward, and
sometimes by withdrawing, overturns parts of the earth. This Homer knew,
laying the cause of earthquakes on Poseidon, calling him Earth Container
and Earth Shaker.

Now, then, when these volatile movements are kept within the earth, the
winds cease to blow, then arises the darkness and obscurity of the sun.
Let us see whether he was aware also of this. He made Poseidon moving
the earth after Achilles issued forth to fight. For he had previously
mentioned on the day before what the state of the air was. In the
incident of Sarpedon (I. xvi. 567):--