The same ill

Meaning

The “same ill” belongs to the compressed balancing clause in Nuysement’s self-quoted cosmological ode. Water or air counterbalances the rounded heavy body with so firm and equal a weight that it cannot fall into decline “without suffering the same ill.” The verse preserves a mutual-balance relation but does not fully spell out its mechanics.

The acting subject of the larger passage is spirit, which separates heavy from light and pours soul and seeds into the earth; earth becomes the fruitful nurse. The short clause should not be smoothed into a confident modern law, nor confused with the separate prose account of hereditary corruption. The supplied English deliberately retains its compression rather than inventing an explanatory agent.