אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ב י״חAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book II 18
א׳
1[71] “Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts on the earth, which the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Two things, mind and bodily sense, having already come into being, and these being in nakedness after the manner that has been set forth, it was necessary that there should be a third subsistence, namely pleasure, to bring both of them together to the apprehension of the objects of mental and of bodily perception. For neither could the mind apart from bodily sense apprehend an animal or a plant or a stone or a log or any bodily shape whatever, nor could the bodily sense apart from the mind maintain the act of perceiving.
ב׳
2[72] Since then it was necessary that both of these should come together for the apprehension of the objects about them, who was it that brought them together save a third, a bond of love and desire, under the rule and dominion of pleasure, to which the prophet gave the figurative name of a serpent?
ג׳
3[73] Exceeding well did God the Framer of living beings contrive the order in which they were created. First He made mind, the man, for mind is most venerable in a human being, then bodily sense, the woman, then after them in the third place pleasure. But it is potentially only, as objects of thought, that they differ in age; but in actual time they are equal in age. For the soul brings all together with herself, some parts in virtue of actual existence, others in virtue of the potentiality to arrive, even if they have not yet reached their consummation.
ד׳
4[74] The reason pleasure is likened to a serpent is this. The movement of pleasure like that of the serpent is tortuous and variable. To begin with it takes its gliding course in five ways, for pleasures are occasioned by sight and by hearing and by taste and by smell and by touch; but those connected with sexual intercourse prove themselves the most violent of all in their intensity, and this is the method ordained by Nature for the reproduction of the type.
ה׳
5[75] Furthermore the fact that pleasure insinuates itself about all the organs of the irrational portion of the soul is not the only reason for our calling her variable; for we call her so also because she glides with many a coil about each part. For instance variegated pleasures come through sight, those afforded by every kind of painting and of sculpture, and by all other artistic creations which in one art after another charm the eye; by the changes too that plants go through as they shoot up, bloom, and bear fruit; by the beauty of animals seen in so many forms. Similarly the ear gets pleasure from the flute, from the harp, from every kind of instrument, from the tuneful voices of creatures without reason, swallows, nightingales, other birds which Nature has made musical; from the euphonious speech of beings endowed with reason, from musicians as they exercise their histrionic powers in comedy, tragedy, and all that is put on the stage.