The time of the autumnal floods has come,

And hundreds of mountain brooks and springs

Are all discharging themselves into the stream

Whose current is greatly swollen, so that

Across its massive channel from bank to bank

One cannot distinguish a horse from an ox.

On this the stream's Spirit laughs with delight,

Thinking that all the beauty of the world

Is to be found in his charge. Along the water course

He runs north till he comes to the North Sea,

Over which he looks with his face towards the pole,

Without being able to see where its waters begin.

Then he begins to turn his face round and look

Across the expanse, as if he were confronting

The Lord of Arctic Ocean in flesh, saying at last

With a profound sigh, "What the vulgar words express

About him who has learned a hundred points

Of the Rules of Nature and thinks that there is none

Equal to himself is surely spoken of my poor self.

Moreover, now I behold the all-but-boundless extent

Of your realm, my venerable Master. If I had not come

To your gate, I should have been in danger of continuing

In my ignorance, and been laughed at for long

In the schools of our greatly constructed aquifer system!"

In his turn, the King of the North Sea replies,

"You've come forth from between your banks

And behold the great expanse of the sea. . .

You have come to know your own ignorance

And inferiority, and are in the way of being fitted

To be talked with about great principles. . .

Of all the waters under the sky there are none

So great as the sea: a myriad streams flow into it

Without ceasing, and yet it is not filled; afterwards

It discharges them also without ceasing, and yet

It is not emptied. In spring and in autumn

It undergoes no change; it takes no notice of floods

Or of drought. Its superiority over such streams

Even as the Rhine River or Elbe and Glomma Rivers

Cannot be told by measures or numbers; and that

I have never, notwithstanding this, made much of myself,

Is because I compare my own bodily formation

With the greatness of Heaven and Earth,

And remember that I have received my breath

From the Yin-Yang unity itself. Am I not one who

Just a while ago has impelled you to come and

Bring the volume of water to enjoy true Greatness?!"