ὅσοι μὲν ὀφθαλμίας ὅσοι δὲ τῆς ἐκ λοιμῶν καταστάσεως ἀνεπλήσθησαν, θιγόντες μὲν οὐδαμῶς τῶν καμνόντων, ἀλλ̓ οὐδὲ εὐνῆς, ἀλλ̓ οὐδὲ τραπέζης τῆς αὐτῆς μετασχόντες, ἀέρος δὲ μόνου ταὐτοῦ κοινωνήσαντες. τεκμηριούτω δέ σοι τὸν λόγον, εἴπερ ἄλλο τι, καὶ ἡ τῶν ἐρώτων γένεσις, οἷς τὰ ὁρώμενα τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐνδίδωσι, καὶ οἷον ὑπήνεμα διὰ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν τὰ πάθη ταῖς ψυχαῖς εἰστοξεύονται. καὶ μάλα γε εἰκότως: τῶν γὰρ ἐν ἡμῖν πόρων τε καὶ αἰσθήσεων πολυκίνητόν τε καὶ θερμότατον οὖσα ἡ ὄψις δεκτικωτέρα πρὸς τὰς ἀπορροίας γίνεται, τῷ κατ̓ αὐτὴν ἐμπύρῳ πνεύματι τὰς μεταβάσεις τῶν ἐρώτων
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how many have gotten sore eyes, and the plague, though they neither touched those that had such diseases, nor ate at their table, nor lay in their beds, but only by being in the same air. Let love, if anything, be a proof of this, who taketh his beginning and occasion from something which is seen, and then his passion, as though wind borne, shoots through the eyes and into the heart. And this is like to be true. For seeing that of all our other pores and senses sight is the hottest and the most easily moved, it must needs receive such infections as are about it, and by its own hot spirit draw to itself the changing phases of love.
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