AMONG THE GREEKS 53 



without shoulders, eyes without their sockets. As 

 a result of the triumph of love over hate, these 

 j^arts hegan to seek each other and unite, but 

 purely fortuitously. Thus out of this confused 

 play of bodies arose all kinds of accidental and 

 extraordinary beings — animals with the heads of 

 men, and men with the heads of animals, even 

 w^ith double chests and heads like those of the 

 guests in the Feast of Aristophanes. But these 

 unnatural products soon became extinct, because 

 they were not capable of propagation. Here it 

 would appear that Empedocles was mainly en- 

 deavoring to give a naturalistic theory for the 

 origin of the centaurs, chimseras, and other cre- 

 ations of Greek mythology. Thus, at least, Lu- 

 cretius interpreted Empedocles many centuries 

 later, putting these conjectures into verse :^ 



Hence, doubtless, Earth prodigious forms at first 

 Gendered, of face and members most grotesque ; 

 Monsters half -man, half-woman, not from each 

 Distant, yet neither total ; shapes unsound. 

 Footless, and handless, void of mouth or eye. 

 Or from mis junction, maimed, of limb with limb: 

 To act all impotent, or flee from harm. 

 Or nurture^ take their loathsome days t'extend. 



These sprang at first, and things alike uncouth; 



Wn the Nature of Things. Book V, 857-99. Translation of John 

 Mason Good. 



2, 3lt is interesting to note the remote parallel with the modern 

 notion of the 'struggle for existence' as, mainly, success in feed- 

 ing and in leaving progeny. [Reference No. 3 on p. 54.] 



