Fictionsuit user: ouroboros.

Encirclopediaist

And how surprised I was to find the following argument in The Biography of the Infinite attributed to Ibn Bajja, who, taking Aristotle’s commentary that the second of Zeno’s paradox of motion (known to readers of Lewis Carrol as the “Achilles and the Tortoise”) is essentially the argument of the first paradox of motion (“bisection”) as a starting point, recasts it as a single regressus in infinitum.

“And when the serpent should grow to a length of nine parasangs [an ancient unit of measurement estimated at about three miles] it turns upon itself. In the time it takes the serpent to grow another three parasangs, it has swallowed the last nine of its length. As the serpent grows one parasang, it swallows three. It swallows that parasang as it grows another ten stades. It grows three stades as it swallows ten; two plethron as it swallows those six [two plethron were equal to one stade], its circumference shrinking to a mere 32 podos. And yet, no matter how ravenous the ouroboros, it shall never consume itself entire; the circle it forms in conjunction with itself shall never be destroyed.