Spring (hydrology)

A spring is a natural exit point at which groundwater emerges out of the aquifer and flows onto the top of the Earth's crust (pedosphere) to become surface water. It is a component of the hydrosphere, as well as a part of the water cycle. Springs have long been important for humans as a source of fresh water, especially in arid regions which have relatively little annual rainfall.

Quotes

• From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet.
  • Hesiod, Theogony, ll. 1–8
  • H. G. Evelyn-White, tr., Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (1920)

• I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
  • Revelation 21:6 (KJV)
• I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
  • Revelation 21:6 (NIV)

• O fons Bandusiae splendidior vitro ...
• Bandusia, stainless mirror of the sky!
  Thine is the flower-crown'd bowl, for thee shall die,
    When dawns again yon sun, the kid;
    Whose budding horns, half-seen, half-hid,
  Challenge to dalliance or to strife—in vain!
  Soon must the hope of the wild herd be slain,
    And those cold springs of thine
    With blood incarnadine.
  Fierce glows the Dog-star, but his fiery beam
  Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream
    To labour-wearied ox,
    Or wanderer from the flocks:
  And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain:
  My harp shall tell how from yon cavernous mountain,
    Topt by the brown oak-tree,
    Thou breakest babblingly.
  • Horace, Odes, III, 13
  • Charles Stuart Calverley, tr., "To the Fountain of Bandusia"
  • Verses and Translations (1862); The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1913)
  • Variant: 6. "firstling" for "hope"