(20) This (the contest of Love and Strife) is manifest in the mass of mortal limbs. At one time all the limbs that are the body’s portion are brought together by Love in blooming life’s high season; at another, severed by cruel Strife, they wander <<5>> each alone by the breakers of life’s sea. It is the same with plants and the fish that make their homes in the waters, with the beasts that have their lairs on the hills and the seabirds that sail on wings. R. P. 173 d. (21) Come now, look at the things that bear witness to my earlier discourse, if so be that there was any shortcoming as to their form in the earlier list. Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm, and all the immortal things that are bathed in heat and bright radiance.[549] Behold the rain, everywhere dark <<5>> and cold; and from the earth issue forth things close-pressed and solid. When they are in strife all these are different in form and separated; but they come together in love, and are desired by one another. For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall be—trees and men and women, beasts and birds <<10>> and the fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and the gods that live long lives and are exalted in honour. R. P. 166 i. For these things are what they are; but, running through one another, they take different shapes—so much does mixture change them. R. P. 166 g. (22) For all of these—sun, earth, sky, and sea—are at one with all their parts that are cast far and wide from them in mortal things. And even so all things that are more adapted for mixture are like to one another and united in love by Aphrodite. Those things, again, that differ most in origin, <<5>> mixture and the forms imprinted on each, are most hostile, being altogether unaccustomed to unite and very sorry by the bidding of Strife, since it hath wrought their birth. (23) Just as when painters are elaborating temple-offerings, men whom wisdom hath well taught their art,—they, when they have taken pigments of many colours with their hands, mix them in due proportion, more of some and less of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all things, making trees <<5>> and men and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and gods, that live long lives, and are exalted in honour,—so let not the error prevail over thy mind,[550] that there is any other source of all the perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers. Know this for sure, for thou <<10>> hast heard the tale from a goddess.[551] (24) Stepping from summit to summit, not to travel only one path to the end.... (25) What is right may well be said even twice.