The channel that cannot be diverted. Tragic verse (two fragments with a lacuna between them), continuing Book VII's poetic anthology. The first image is medical-magical: people "by food, drink, and incantations (μαγεύμασι) divert the channel (ὀχετόν), so as not to die." ὀχετός is a conduit, a water-course: life as a stream that men strive to turn aside from the mouth of death by diets, drugs, and sorcery. The futility of these devices is the obverse of the EXERCISEmemory of death: the mortal channel cannot be re-dug, treat oneself as one may (cf. 03-03 — Hippocrates, who cured many, died himself; 04-48 — physicians who "so often knit their brows over the sick" are themselves dead).

The wind from god. After the lacuna, the second fragment, a turn toward acceptance: "the fair wind (οὖρον) blowing from god (θεόθεν) must of necessity (ἀνάγκη) be endured (τλῆναι) with unlamented toils (ἀνοδύρτοις)." οὖρος is the sailor's following wind, here двойственный: it both carries and carries off. Against the first verse (futile resistance) stands the second (rational endurance): not to divert the stream but to hold one's course under the wind that has been sent. ἀνοδύρτοις — "without wailing": not merely to bear it, but without murmur, which is DOGMAthe love of fate (cf. 7.41 — "this too has its λόγος"; 10.28 — to murmur is like the piglet being slaughtered: kicking is useless). The discipline is desire.