"Homer and Hesiod attributed to gods everything that is disgraceful and blameworthy among men, and very many lawless deeds of gods they recorded—theft, adultery, and mutual deceit."
Another set of scattered fragments, small in number and meagre in their information, from the poem by Xenophanes on φύσις, show that he held the views afterwards developed by Parmenides concerning the uncertainty of human opinion, and that the elemental substances which he favored in his cosmogonical theory were earth and water. These also I have translated:
"For all of us from earth and water sprang.
"Earth and water are all things that come into being and have birth.
"The spring of water is the sea.
"This upper surface of the earth beneath our feet is open to the sight, and borders on the air; but the lower parts reach down into infinity.
"What we call Iris, that also is a cloud, purple-dark, scarlet-bright, yellow-pale to look upon.
"The very truth itself no man who hath been or will be can know concerning gods and all whereof I speak; for though he publish the most absolute, yet even so he does not know: opinion is supreme o'er all things.
"These things are matters of opinion, shadows of the truth.
"Not from the beginning did gods reveal all things to mortals; but in course of time by seeking they make progress in discovery."