[Illustration]
This fable is easy of explanation. Time is the child of heaven and earth;
he has wings because he flies rapidly, a scythe because he destroys all, an
hour-glass to measure his course equally; and the serpent is the symbol of
eternity, which has neither a beginning nor an end. He slew his father,
because, the world and time once created, he could exist no longer; he
devoured his infants because time destroys all, and he threw them from his
stomach because time returns with the years and days; and this part of the
fable is also an image of the operations which nature accomplishes under
the influence of time. He did not devour Jupiter, as he represents the
celestial regions, nor Juno, she being the prototype of the air: Time,
mighty and all-destroying as he is, having no influence over the elements.
* * * * *
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