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Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.

From certain things flow odours evermore,

As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray

From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls

Around the coasts. Nor ever cease to flit

The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.

Then too there comes into the mouth at times

The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea

We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch

The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.

To such degree from all things is each thing

Borne streamingly along, and sent about

To every region round; and nature grants

Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,

Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,

And all the time are suffered to descry

And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.

Besides, since shape examined by our hands

Within the dark is known to be the same

As that by eyes perceived within the light

And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be

By one like cause aroused. So, if we test

A square and get its stimulus on us

Within the dark, within the light what square

Can fall upon our sight, except a square

That images the things? Wherefore it seems

The source of seeing is in images,

Nor without these can anything be viewed.

Now these same films I name are borne about

And tossed and scattered into regions all.

But since we do perceive alone through eyes,

It follows hence that whitherso we turn

Our sight, all things do strike against it there

With form and hue. And just how far from us

Each thing may be away, the image yields

To us the power to see and chance to tell:

For when 'tis sent, at once it shoves ahead

And drives along the air that's in the space

Betwixt it and our eyes. And thus this air

All glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as 'twere,

Brushes athrough our pupils and thuswise

Passes across. Therefore it comes we see

How far from us each thing may be away,

And the more air there be that's driven before,

And too the longer be the brushing breeze

Against our eyes, the farther off removed

Each thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work

With mightily swift order all goes on,

So that upon one instant we may see

What kind the object and how far away.

Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed

In these affairs that, though the films which strike

Upon the eyes cannot be singly seen,

The things themselves may be perceived. For thus

When the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke

And when the sharp cold streams, 'tis not our wont

To feel each private particle of wind

Or of that cold, but rather all at once;

And so we see how blows affect our body,

As if one thing were beating on the same

And giving us the feel of its own body

Outside of us. Again, whene'er we thump

With finger-tip upon a stone, we touch

But the rock's surface and the outer hue,

Nor feel that hue by contact—rather feel

The very hardness deep within the rock.

Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass

An image may be seen, perceive. For seen

It soothly is, removed far within.

'Tis the same sort as objects peered upon

Outside in their true shape, whene'er a door

Yields through itself an open peering-place,

And lets us see so many things outside

Beyond the house. Also that sight is made

By a twofold twin air: for first is seen

The air inside the door-posts; next the doors,

The twain to left and right; and afterwards

A light beyond comes brushing through our eyes,

Then other air, then objects peered upon

Outside in their true shape. And thus, when first

The image of the glass projects itself,

As to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead

And drives along the air that's in the space

Betwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass

That we perceive the air ere yet the glass.

But when we've also seen the glass itself,

Forthwith that image which from us is borne

Reaches the glass, and there thrown back again

Comes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls

Ahead of itself another air, that then

'Tis this we see before itself, and thus

It looks so far removed behind the glass.

Wherefore again, again, there's naught for wonder

In those which render from the mirror's plane

A vision back, since each thing comes to pass

By means of the two airs. Now, in the glass

The right part of our members is observed

Upon the left, because, when comes the image

Hitting against the level of the glass,

'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off

Backwards in line direct and not oblique,—

Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask

Should dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam,

And it should straightway keep, at clinging there,

Its shape, reversed, facing him who threw,

And so remould the features it gives back:

It comes that now the right eye is the left,

The left the right. An image too may be

From mirror into mirror handed on,

Until of idol-films even five or six

Have thus been gendered. For whatever things

Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same,

However far removed in twisting ways,

May still be all brought forth through bending paths

And by these several mirrors seen to be

Within the house, since nature so compels

All things to be borne backward and spring off

At equal angles from all other things.

To such degree the image gleams across

From mirror unto mirror; where 'twas left

It comes to be the right, and then again

Returns and changes round unto the left.

Again, those little sides of mirrors curved

Proportionate to the bulge of our own flank

Send back to us their idols with the right

Upon the right; and this is so because

Either the image is passed on along

From mirror unto mirror, and thereafter,

When twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves;

Or else the image wheels itself around,

When once unto the mirror it has come,

Since the curved surface teaches it to turn

To usward. Further, thou might'st well believe

That these film-idols step along with us

And set their feet in unison with ours

And imitate our carriage, since from that

Part of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn

Straightway no images can be returned.

Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright

And shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds,

If thou goest on to strain them unto him,

Because his strength is mighty, and the films

Heavily downward from on high are borne

Through the pure ether and the viewless winds,

And strike the eyes, disordering their joints.

So piecing lustre often burns the eyes,

Because it holdeth many seeds of fire

Which, working into eyes, engender pain.

Again, whatever jaundiced people view

Becomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies

Flow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet

The films of things, and many too are mixed

Within their eye, which by contagion paint

All things with sallowness. Again, we view

From dark recesses things that stand in light,

Because, when first has entered and possessed

The open eyes this nearer darkling air,

Swiftly the shining air and luminous

Followeth in, which purges then the eyes

And scatters asunder of that other air

The sable shadows, for in large degrees

This air is nimbler, nicer, and more strong.

And soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light

The pathways of the eyeballs, which before

Black air had blocked, there follow straightaway

Those films of things out-standing in the light,

Provoking vision—what we cannot do

From out the light with objects in the dark,

Because that denser darkling air behind

Followeth in, and fills each aperture

And thus blockades the pathways of the eyes

That there no images of any things

Can be thrown in and agitate the eyes.

And when from far away we do behold

The squared towers of a city, oft

Rounded they seem,—on this account because

Each distant angle is perceived obtuse,

Or rather it is not perceived at all;

And perishes its blow nor to our gaze

Arrives its stroke, since through such length of air

Are borne along the idols that the air

Makes blunt the idol of the angle's point

By numerous collidings. When thuswise

The angles of the tower each and all

Have quite escaped the sense, the stones appear

As rubbed and rounded on a turner's wheel—

Yet not like objects near and truly round,

But with a semblance to them, shadowily.

Likewise, our shadow in the sun appears

To move along and follow our own steps

And imitate our carriage—if thou thinkest

Air that is thus bereft of light can walk,

Following the gait and motion of mankind.

For what we use to name a shadow, sure

Is naught but air deprived of light. No marvel:

Because the earth from spot to spot is reft

Progressively of light of sun, whenever

In moving round we get within its way,

While any spot of earth by us abandoned

Is filled with light again, on this account

It comes to pass that what was body's shadow

Seems still the same to follow after us

In one straight course. Since, evermore pour in

New lights of rays, and perish then the old,

Just like the wool that's drawn into the flame.

Therefore the earth is easily spoiled of light

And easily refilled and from herself

Washeth the black shadows quite away.

And yet in this we don't at all concede

That eyes be cheated. For their task it is

To note in whatsoever place be light,

In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams

Be still the same, and whether the shadow which

Just now was here is that one passing thither,

Or whether the facts be what we said above,

'Tis after all the reasoning of mind

That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know

The nature of reality. And so

Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,

Nor lightly think our senses everywhere

Are tottering. The ship in which we sail

Is borne along, although it seems to stand;

The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed

There to be passing by. And hills and fields

Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge

The ship and fly under the bellying sails.

The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed

To the ethereal caverns, though they all

Forever are in motion, rising out

And thence revisiting their far descents

When they have measured with their bodies bright

The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon

Seem biding in a roadstead,—objects which,

As plain fact proves, are really borne along.

Between two mountains far away aloft

From midst the whirl of waters open lies

A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet

They seem conjoined in a single isle.

When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,

The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,

Until they now must almost think the roofs

Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.

And now, when nature begins to lift on high

The sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires,

And raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains—

O'er which he seemeth then to thee to be,

His glowing self hard by atingeing them

With his own fire—are yet away from us

Scarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed

Oft scarce five hundred courses of a dart;

Although between those mountains and the sun

Lie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath

The vasty shores of ether, and intervene

A thousand lands, possessed by many a folk

And generations of wild beasts. Again,

A pool of water of but a finger's depth,

Which lies between the stones along the pave,

Offers a vision downward into earth

As far, as from the earth o'erspread on high

The gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view

Clouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged

Wondrously in heaven under earth.

Then too, when in the middle of the stream

Sticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze

Into the river's rapid waves, some force

Seems then to bear the body of the horse,

Though standing still, reversely from his course,

And swiftly push up-stream. And wheresoe'er

We cast our eyes across, all objects seem

Thus to be onward borne and flow along

In the same way as we. A portico,

Albeit it stands well propped from end to end

On equal columns, parallel and big,

Contracts by stages in a narrow cone,

When from one end the long, long whole is seen,—

Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor,

And the whole right side with the left, it draws

Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point.

To sailors on the main the sun he seems

From out the waves to rise, and in the waves

To set and bury his light—because indeed

They gaze on naught but water and the sky.

Again, to gazers ignorant of the sea,

Vessels in port seem, as with broken poops,

To lean upon the water, quite agog;

For any portion of the oars that's raised

Above the briny spray is straight, and straight

The rudders from above. But other parts,

Those sunk, immersed below the water-line,

Seem broken all and bended and inclined

Sloping to upwards, and turned back to float

Almost atop the water. And when the winds

Carry the scattered drifts along the sky

In the night-time, then seem to glide along

The radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds

And there on high to take far other course

From that whereon in truth they're borne. And then,

If haply our hand be set beneath one eye

And press below thereon, then to our gaze

Each object which we gaze on seems to be,

By some sensation twain—then twain the lights

Of lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame,

And twain the furniture in all the house,

Two-fold the visages of fellow-men,

And twain their bodies. And again, when sleep

Has bound our members down in slumber soft

And all the body lies in deep repose,

Yet then we seem to self to be awake

And move our members; and in night's blind gloom

We think to mark the daylight and the sun;

And, shut within a room, yet still we seem

To change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills,

To cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds,

Though still the austere silence of the night

Abides around us, and to speak replies,

Though voiceless. Other cases of the sort

Wondrously many do we see, which all

Seek, so to say, to injure faith in sense—

In vain, because the largest part of these

Deceives through mere opinions of the mind,

Which we do add ourselves, feigning to see

What by the senses are not seen at all.

For naught is harder than to separate

Plain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith

Adds by itself.

Again, if one suppose

That naught is known, he knows not whether this

Itself is able to be known, since he

Confesses naught to know. Therefore with him

I waive discussion—who has set his head

Even where his feet should be. But let me grant

That this he knows,—I question: whence he knows

What 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn,

And what created concept of the truth,

And what device has proved the dubious

To differ from the certain?—since in things

He's heretofore seen naught of true. Thou'lt find

That from the senses first hath been create

Concept of truth, nor can the senses be

Rebutted. For criterion must be found

Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat

Through own authority the false by true;

What, then, than these our senses must there be

Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung

From some false sense, prevail to contradict

Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is

From out the senses?—For lest these be true,

All reason also then is falsified.

Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes,

Or yet the touch the ears? Again, shall taste

Accuse this touch or shall the nose confute

Or eyes defeat it? Methinks not so it is:

For unto each has been divided off

Its function quite apart, its power to each;

And thus we're still constrained to perceive

The soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart

All divers hues and whatso things there be

Conjoined with hues. Likewise the tasting tongue

Has its own power apart, and smells apart

And sounds apart are known. And thus it is

That no one sense can e'er convict another.

Nor shall one sense have power to blame itself,

Because it always must be deemed the same,

Worthy of equal trust. And therefore what

At any time unto these senses showed,

The same is true. And if the reason be

Unable to unravel us the cause

Why objects, which at hand were square, afar

Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,

Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause

For each configuration, than to let

From out our hands escape the obvious things

And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck

All those foundations upon which do rest

Our life and safety. For not only reason

Would topple down; but even our very life

Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared

To trust our senses and to keep away

From headlong heights and places to be shunned

Of a like peril, and to seek with speed

Their opposites! Again, as in a building,

If the first plumb-line be askew, and if

The square deceiving swerve from lines exact,

And if the level waver but the least

In any part, the whole construction then

Must turn out faulty—shelving and askew,

Leaning to back and front, incongruous,

That now some portions seem about to fall,

And falls the whole ere long—betrayed indeed

By first deceiving estimates: so too

Thy calculations in affairs of life

Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee

From senses false. So all that troop of words

Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.

And now remains to demonstrate with ease

How other senses each their things perceive.

Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,

When, getting into ears, they strike the sense

With their own body. For confess we must

Even voice and sound to be corporeal,

Because they're able on the sense to strike.

Besides voice often scrapes against the throat,

And screams in going out do make more rough

The wind-pipe—naturally enough, methinks,

When, through the narrow exit rising up

In larger throng, these primal germs of voice

Have thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,

Also the door of the mouth is scraped against

[By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].

And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words

Consist of elements corporeal,

With power to pain. Nor art thou unaware

Likewise how much of body's ta'en away,

How much from very thews and powers of men

May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged

Even from the rising splendour of the morn

To shadows of black evening,—above all

If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.

Therefore the voice must be corporeal,

Since the long talker loses from his frame

A part.

Moreover, roughness in the sound

Comes from the roughness in the primal germs,

As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;

Nor have these elements a form the same

When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,

As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe

Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans

By night from icy shores of Helicon

With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.

Thus, when from deep within our frame we force

These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,

The mobile tongue, artificer of words,

Makes them articulate, and too the lips

By their formations share in shaping them.

Hence when the space is short from starting-point

To where that voice arrives, the very words

Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.

For then the voice conserves its own formation,

Conserves its shape. But if the space between

Be longer than is fit, the words must be

Through the much air confounded, and the voice

Disordered in its flight across the winds—

And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,

Yet not determine what the words may mean;

To such degree confounded and encumbered

The voice approaches us. Again, one word,

Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears

Among the populace. And thus one voice

Scatters asunder into many voices,

Since it divides itself for separate ears,

Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.

But whatso part of voices fails to hit

The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,

Idly diffused among the winds. A part,

Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back

Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear

With a mere phantom of a word. When this

Thou well hast noted, thou canst render count

Unto thyself and others why it is

Along the lonely places that the rocks

Give back like shapes of words in order like,

When search we after comrades wandering

Among the shady mountains, and aloud

Call unto them, the scattered. I have seen

Spots that gave back even voices six or seven

For one thrown forth—for so the very hills,

Dashing them back against the hills, kept on

With their reverberations. And these spots

The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be

Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;

And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise

And antic revels yonder they declare

The voiceless silences are broken oft,

And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet

Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,

Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race

Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings

Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan

With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er

The open reeds,—lest flute should cease to pour

The woodland music! Other prodigies

And wonders of this ilk they love to tell,

Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots

And even by gods deserted. This is why

They boast of marvels in their story-tellings;

Or by some other reason are led on—

Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been,

To prattle fables into ears.

Again,

One need not wonder how it comes about

That through those places (through which eyes cannot

View objects manifest) sounds yet may pass

And assail the ears. For often we observe

People conversing, though the doors be closed;

No marvel either, since all voice unharmed

Can wind through bended apertures of things,

While idol-films decline to—for they're rent,

Unless along straight apertures they swim,

Like those in glass, through which all images

Do fly across. And yet this voice itself,

In passing through shut chambers of a house,

Is dulled, and in a jumble enters ears,

And sound we seem to hear far more than words.

Moreover, a voice is into all directions

Divided up, since off from one another

New voices are engendered, when one voice

Hath once leapt forth, outstarting into many—

As oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle

Itself into its several fires. And so,

Voices do fill those places hid behind,

Which all are in a hubbub round about,

Astir with sound. But idol-films do tend,

As once sent forth, in straight directions all;

Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught,

Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.

Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,

Present more problems for more work of thought.

Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,

When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,—

As any one perchance begins to squeeze

With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.

Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about

Along the pores and intertwined paths

Of the loose-textured tongue. And so, when smooth

The bodies of the oozy flavour, then

Delightfully they touch, delightfully

They treat all spots, around the wet and trickling

Enclosures of the tongue. And contrariwise,

They sting and pain the sense with their assault,

According as with roughness they're supplied.

Next, only up to palate is the pleasure

Coming from flavour; for in truth when down

'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is,

Whilst into all the frame it spreads around;

Nor aught it matters with what food is fed

The body, if only what thou take thou canst

Distribute well digested to the frame

And keep the stomach in a moist career.

Now, how it is we see some food for some,

Others for others....

I will unfold, or wherefore what to some

Is foul and bitter, yet the same to others

Can seem delectable to eat,—why here

So great the distance and the difference is

That what is food to one to some becomes

Fierce poison, as a certain snake there is

Which, touched by spittle of a man, will waste

And end itself by gnawing up its coil.

Again, fierce poison is the hellebore

To us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.

That thou mayst know by what devices this

Is brought about, in chief thou must recall

What we have said before, that seeds are kept

Commixed in things in divers modes. Again,

As all the breathing creatures which take food

Are outwardly unlike, and outer cut

And contour of their members bounds them round,

Each differing kind by kind, they thus consist

Of seeds of varying shape. And furthermore,

Since seeds do differ, divers too must be

The interstices and paths (which we do call

The apertures) in all the members, even

In mouth and palate too. Thus some must be

More small or yet more large, three-cornered some

And others squared, and many others round,

And certain of them many-angled too

In many modes. For, as the combination

And motion of their divers shapes demand,

The shapes of apertures must be diverse

And paths must vary according to their walls

That bound them. Hence when what is sweet to some,

Becomes to others bitter, for him to whom

'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs

Have entered caressingly the palate's pores.

And, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet

Is sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt

The rough and barbed particles have got

Into the narrows of the apertures.

Now easy it is from these affairs to know

Whatever...

Indeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile

Is stricken with fever, or in other wise

Feels the roused violence of some malady,

There the whole frame is now upset, and there

All the positions of the seeds are changed,—

So that the bodies which before were fit

To cause the savour, now are fit no more,

And now more apt are others which be able

To get within the pores and gender sour.

Both sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey—

What oft we've proved above to thee before.

Now come, and I will indicate what wise

Impact of odour on the nostrils touches.

And first, 'tis needful there be many things

From whence the streaming flow of varied odours

May roll along, and we're constrained to think

They stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about

Impartially. But for some breathing creatures

One odour is more apt, to others another—

Because of differing forms of seeds and pores.

Thus on and on along the zephyrs bees

Are led by odour of honey, vultures too

By carcasses. Again, the forward power

Of scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on

Whithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast

Hath hastened its career; and the white goose,

The saviour of the Roman citadel,

Forescents afar the odour of mankind.

Thus, diversly to divers ones is given

Peculiar smell that leadeth each along

To his own food or makes him start aback

From loathsome poison, and in this wise are

The generations of the wild preserved.

Yet is this pungence not alone in odours

Or in the class of flavours; but, likewise,

The look of things and hues agree not all

So well with senses unto all, but that

Some unto some will be, to gaze upon,

More keen and painful. Lo, the raving lions,

They dare not face and gaze upon the cock

Who's wont with wings to flap away the night

From off the stage, and call the beaming morn

With clarion voice—and lions straightway thus

Bethink themselves of flight, because, ye see,

Within the body of the cocks there be

Some certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes

Injected, bore into the pupils deep

And yield such piercing pain they can't hold out

Against the cocks, however fierce they be—

Whilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least,

Either because they do not penetrate,

Or since they have free exit from the eyes

As soon as penetrating, so that thus

They cannot hurt our eyes in any part

By there remaining.

To speak once more of odour;

Whatever assail the nostrils, some can travel

A longer way than others. None of them,

However, 's borne so far as sound or voice—

While I omit all mention of such things

As hit the eyesight and assail the vision.

For slowly on a wandering course it comes

And perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed

Easily into all the winds of air;—

And first, because from deep inside the thing

It is discharged with labour (for the fact

That every object, when 'tis shivered, ground,

Or crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger

Is sign that odours flow and part away

From inner regions of the things). And next,

Thou mayest see that odour is create

Of larger primal germs than voice, because

It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough

Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne;

Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not

So easy to trace out in whatso place

The smelling object is. For, dallying on

Along the winds, the particles cool off,

And then the scurrying messengers of things

Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.

So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.

Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind,

And learn, in few, whence unto intellect

Do come what come. And first I tell thee this:

That many images of objects rove

In many modes to every region round—

So thin that easily the one with other,

When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air,

Like gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed,

Far thinner are they in their fabric than

Those images which take a hold on eyes

And smite the vision, since through body's pores

They penetrate, and inwardly stir up

The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.

Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus

The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see,

And images of people gone before—

Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago;

Because the images of every kind

Are everywhere about us borne—in part

Those which are gendered in the very air

Of own accord, in part those others which

From divers things do part away, and those

Which are compounded, made from out their shapes.

For soothly from no living Centaur is

That phantom gendered, since no breed of beast

Like him was ever; but, when images

Of horse and man by chance have come together,

They easily cohere, as aforesaid,

At once, through subtle nature and fabric thin.

In the same fashion others of this ilk

Created are. And when they're quickly borne

In their exceeding lightness, easily

(As earlier I showed) one subtle image,

Compounded, moves by its one blow the mind,

Itself so subtle and so strangely quick.

That these things come to pass as I record,

From this thou easily canst understand:

So far as one is unto other like,

Seeing with mind as well as with the eyes

Must come to pass in fashion not unlike.

Well, now, since I have shown that I perceive

Haply a lion through those idol-films

Such as assail my eyes, 'tis thine to know

Also the mind is in like manner moved,

And sees, nor more nor less than eyes do see

(Except that it perceives more subtle films)

The lion and aught else through idol-films.

And when the sleep has overset our frame,

The mind's intelligence is now awake,

Still for no other reason, save that these—

The self-same films as when we are awake—

Assail our minds, to such degree indeed

That we do seem to see for sure the man

Whom, void of life, now death and earth have gained

Dominion over. And nature forces this

To come to pass because the body's senses

Are resting, thwarted through the members all,

Unable now to conquer false with true;

And memory lies prone and languishes

In slumber, nor protests that he, the man

Whom the mind feigns to see alive, long since

Hath been the gain of death and dissolution.

And further, 'tis no marvel idols move

And toss their arms and other members round

In rhythmic time—and often in men's sleeps

It haps an image this is seen to do;

In sooth, when perishes the former image,

And other is gendered of another pose,

That former seemeth to have changed its gestures.

Of course the change must be conceived as speedy;

So great the swiftness and so great the store

Of idol-things, and (in an instant brief

As mind can mark) so great, again, the store

Of separate idol-parts to bring supplies.

It happens also that there is supplied

Sometimes an image not of kind the same;

But what before was woman, now at hand

Is seen to stand there, altered into male;

Or other visage, other age succeeds;

But slumber and oblivion take care

That we shall feel no wonder at the thing.

And much in these affairs demands inquiry,

And much, illumination—if we crave

With plainness to exhibit facts. And first,

Why doth the mind of one to whom the whim

To think has come behold forthwith that thing?

Or do the idols watch upon our will,

And doth an image unto us occur,

Directly we desire—if heart prefer

The sea, the land, or after all the sky?

Assemblies of the citizens, parades,

Banquets, and battles, these and all doth she,

Nature, create and furnish at our word?—

Maugre the fact that in same place and spot

Another's mind is meditating things

All far unlike. And what, again, of this:

When we in sleep behold the idols step,

In measure, forward, moving supple limbs,

Whilst forth they put each supple arm in turn

With speedy motion, and with eyeing heads

Repeat the movement, as the foot keeps time?

Forsooth, the idols they are steeped in art,

And wander to and fro well taught indeed,—

Thus to be able in the time of night

To make such games! Or will the truth be this:

Because in one least moment that we mark—

That is, the uttering of a single sound—

There lurk yet many moments, which the reason

Discovers to exist, therefore it comes

That, in a moment how so brief ye will,

The divers idols are hard by, and ready

Each in its place diverse? So great the swiftness,

So great, again, the store of idol-things,

And so, when perishes the former image,

And other is gendered of another pose,

The former seemeth to have changed its gestures.

And since they be so tenuous, mind can mark

Sharply alone the ones it strains to see;

And thus the rest do perish one and all,

Save those for which the mind prepares itself.

Further, it doth prepare itself indeed,

And hopes to see what follows after each—

Hence this result. For hast thou not observed

How eyes, essaying to perceive the fine,

Will strain in preparation, otherwise

Unable sharply to perceive at all?

Yet know thou canst that, even in objects plain,

If thou attendest not, 'tis just the same

As if 'twere all the time removed and far.

What marvel, then, that mind doth lose the rest,

Save those to which 'thas given up itself?

So 'tis that we conjecture from small signs

Things wide and weighty, and involve ourselves

In snarls of self-deceit.