Mediis sitiemus in undis.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.761

pron = MEH-dees sih-tee-AY-moos in OON-dees.

In the middle of the ocean, we will be thirsty.

Comment: This saying comes in the middle of the story if Iphis and Ianthe in Ovid's Metamorphosis. In short, Iphis' father tells her mother just before Iphis is born that he has prayed for a son, and if a girl is born, she is to be killed. Iphis' mother does her own praying, and the goddess Isis responds that she will help her. A baby daughter is born, and only Iphis' mother and nurse know. Her mother orders that it be told that a son is born, and Iphis' father names the baby (thinking it a son) Iphis, after his own father. Ovid notes that Iphis' mother was relieved because Iphis is a name that is common in gender to boys and girls.

Iphis grows up a girl, pretending to be a boy in order to escape the fate that would happen if the truth were known--all the way to the day of her betrothed wedding to a girl who thinks, too, that Iphis is a young man.

Iphis, seeing what is about to happen notes: on the wedding day, in the midst of the ocean (apart from her gender--life has been very, very good to her), they will, finally, be thirsty. (Nature will not lie. Nature will reveal the lie in the midst of an otherwise wonderful life).

Ah, but Isis appears at the last moment, and true to her promise made to her mother who feared for her baby's death, turns Iphis into a boy.

And so, this expression is a codified way of saying that one is, despite all other blessings, running short of what only nature, and a miracle, could supply.

This story is rich in symbolic meanings. Among them, we might note that the "miracle" happened in this story because a parent made a judgment out of pride, and another made a plea out of love. Love won the moment.

The power of love can be like that. Child abuse also happens so often in settings like this.

There is a marvel to wonder at: how these same patterns express themselves in all of our lives.

Which pattern shall I play into today: pride, or love?