“Briny Zaps moans about the maddened deep.”
Similarly Cratinus the younger, the comic poet:
“Zaps casts forth shrimps and little fishes.”
And Simmias of Rhodes:
“Parent of the Ignetes and the Telchines briny Zaps was born.”[775]
And χθών is the earth (κεχυμένη), spread forth to bigness. And Plectron, according to some, is the sky (πόλος), according to others, it is the air, which strikes (πλήσσοντα) and moves to nature and increase, and which fills all things. But these have not read Cleanthes the philosopher, who expressly calls Plectron the sun; for darting his beams in the east, as if striking the world, he leads the light to its harmonious course. And from the sun it signifies also the rest of the stars.
And the Sphinx is not the comprehension[776] of the universe, and the revolution of the world, according to the poet Aratus; but perhaps it is the spiritual tone which pervades and holds together the universe. But it is better to regard it as the ether, which holds together and presses all things; as also Empedocles says:
“But come now, first will I speak of the Sun, the first principle of all things,
From which all, that we look upon, has sprung,
Both earth, and billowy deep, and humid air;