He is a beneficent and venerable old man of the sea, full of wisdom and skilled in prophecy, but, like Proteus, he will only reveal what he knows under compulsion.
Sometimes this principle has weight, and sometimes it has not; sometimes it is free fire and sometimes it is fire combined with the earthy element; sometimes it passes through the pores of vessels, sometimes these are impervious to it; it explains both causticity and non-causticity, transparency and opacity, colours and their absence; it is a veritable Proteus changing in form at each instant."
A, The larva of Echinorhynchus proteus from the body cavity of Phoxinus laevis, with the proboscis retracted and the whole still enclosed in a capsule.
After eight years' wandering in the east, he landed on the island of Pharos, where Proteus revealed to him the means of appeasing the gods and securing his return.
