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And what is the meaning of our demand for a yearly change of habitation ? In winter we retreat to the loftiest parts of our houses, those farthest from the earth, while in summer we require the lower parts, submerging ourselves and going in quest of comfortable retreats, as we make the best of a life in the embrace of mother earth. Since we do this, are we not guided to the earth by our perception of its coldness ? Do we not acknowledge it as the natural seat of primordial cold ? And surely our living by the sea in the winter is, in a way, an escape from the earth, since we abandon the land as far as possible because of the frost and wrap ourselves in salt sea air because it is warm. Then again, in the summer by reason of the heat, we long for the earth-born, upland air, not because it is itself chilly, but because it has sprung from the naturally and primordially cold and has been imbued with its earthy power, as steel is tempered by being plunged in water.Cf. Mor. 433 a and 946 c supra. And of flowing waters, also, the coldest are those that fall from rocks or mountains, and of well waters the deepest are the coldest; the air from outside does not, in the case of these wells, affect the water, so deep are they, while any such streams burst forth through pure unmixed earth, like the one at Taenarum,Plutarch knew that the mouth of Hades was at Taenarum (Pindar, Pythian, iv. 44) and transferred the Styx to that place. For its water see Frazer on Pausanias, viii. 18. 4. According to Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 158 (ed. Keller) no receptacle except one of horn can contain the water; he adds, All that taste of it die. which they call the water of Styx: it flows from the rock in a trickle, but so cold that no vessel except an ass’s hoof can contain it - all others it bursts and breaks apart.
