Water, Vital Humour of the Earth, in Endless Circulation
A prose meditation on water rising from sea to mountain and returning
A single leaf, seen by transmitted light and filled with a continuous prose meditation on water. Leonardo calls water the vital humour dedicated to the arid earth, driven through its veins against the natural downward course of heavy things just as humours move in living bodies. He describes water lifting itself from the deepest sea to the mountain tops and falling again through broken veins in ceaseless revolution, taking on the likeness of every place it passes, and transforming by turns into cloud, snow, hail, rain and ice, likened at the last to a sponge pressed beneath the water. The hand is even but faint, with writing showing through from the reverse.
On this page
Water rising from the sea to the mountains and returning
From the lowest depth of the sea the water lifts itself to the summits of the mountains, and through the broken veins falls back to the bottom and returns to the sea, rising anew; thus between down and up, within and without, without rest, now with accidental and now with natural motion, the whole element turns about in continual revolution.
Water moving through the veins of the earth
As from the lower part of the vine the sap is driven up to its pruned branches and falls back upon its roots, so water moves through the veins of the earth against the natural course of heavy things; it takes the ground and gives it, unloading timber, stones, sand and mud, with no fixity in its bed or bank.
The changing faces of water
Water has nothing of itself but moves and takes all; now it shows a turbulent face, now it is clear and serene, now thin mist mingling with the air, now ruinous rain, snow or tempestuous hail, now frozen and now warm. Climbing on high as rare mist, it presses the air after the likeness of a sponge squeezed under water.