Читать книгу The Greatest Works of Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 160

Table of Contents

But since I've taught already of what sort

The seeds of all things are, and how distinct

In divers forms they flit of own accord,

Stirred with a motion everlasting on,

And in what mode things be from them create,

And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,

And of what things 'tis with the body knit

And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn

That mind returns to its primordials,

Now will I undertake an argument—

One for these matters of supreme concern—

That there exist those somewhats which we call

The images of things: these, like to films

Scaled off the utmost outside of the things,

Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere,

And the same terrify our intellects,

Coming upon us waking or in sleep,

When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes

And images of people lorn of light,

Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay

In slumber—that haply nevermore may we

Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron,

Or shades go floating in among the living,

Or aught of us is left behind at death,

When body and mind, destroyed together, each

Back to its own primordials goes away.

And thus I say that effigies of things,

And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent,

From off the utmost outside of the things,

Which are like films or may be named a rind,

Because the image bears like look and form

With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth—

A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits,

Well learn from this: mainly, because we see

Even 'mongst visible objects many be

That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused—

Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires—

And some more interwoven and condensed—

As when the locusts in the summertime

Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves

At birth drop membranes from their body's surface,

Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs

Its vestments 'mongst the thorns—for oft we see

The breres augmented with their flying spoils:

Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too

That tenuous images from things are sent,

From off the utmost outside of the things.

For why those kinds should drop and part from things,

Rather than others tenuous and thin,

No power has man to open mouth to tell;

Especially, since on outsides of things

Are bodies many and minute which could,

In the same order which they had before,

And with the figure of their form preserved,

Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too,

Being less subject to impediments,

As few in number and placed along the front.

For truly many things we see discharge

Their stuff at large, not only from their cores

Deep-set within, as we have said above,

But from their surfaces at times no less—

Their very colours too. And commonly

The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue,

Stretched overhead in mighty theatres,

Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering,

Have such an action quite; for there they dye

And make to undulate with their every hue

The circled throng below, and all the stage,

And rich attire in the patrician seats.

And ever the more the theatre's dark walls

Around them shut, the more all things within

Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints,

The daylight being withdrawn. And therefore, since

The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye

From off their surface, things in general must

Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge,

Because in either case they are off-thrown

From off the surface. So there are indeed

Such certain prints and vestiges of forms

Which flit around, of subtlest texture made,

Invisible, when separate, each and one.

Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such

Streams out of things diffusedly, because,

Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth

And rising out, along their bending path

They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight

Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.

But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film

Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught

Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front

Ready to hand. Lastly those images

Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,

In water, or in any shining surface,

Must be, since furnished with like look of things,

Fashioned from images of things sent out.

There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,

Like unto them, which no one can divine

When taken singly, which do yet give back,

When by continued and recurrent discharge

Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.

Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept

So well conserved that thus be given back

Figures so like each object.

Now then, learn

How tenuous is the nature of an image.

And in the first place, since primordials be

So far beneath our senses, and much less

E'en than those objects which begin to grow

Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few

How nice are the beginnings of all things—

That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof:

First, living creatures are sometimes so small

That even their third part can nowise be seen;

Judge, then, the size of any inward organ—

What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs,

The skeleton?—How tiny thus they are!

And what besides of those first particles

Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?—Seest not

How nice and how minute? Besides, whatever

Exhales from out its body a sharp smell—

The nauseous absinth, or the panacea,

Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury—

If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain

Perchance [thou touch] a one of them

Then why not rather know that images

Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes,

Bodiless and invisible?

But lest

Haply thou holdest that those images

Which come from objects are the sole that flit,

Others indeed there be of own accord

Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies,

Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,

Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,

Cease not to change appearance and to turn

Into new outlines of all sorts of forms;

As we behold the clouds grow thick on high

And smirch the serene vision of the world,

Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seen

The giants' faces flying far along

And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times

The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks

Going before and crossing on the sun,

Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain

And leading in the other thunderheads.

Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be

Engendered, and perpetually flow off

From things and gliding pass away....

For ever every outside streams away

From off all objects, since discharge they may;

And when this outside reaches other things,

As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where

It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood,

There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back

An image. But when gleaming objects dense,

As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it,

Nothing of this sort happens. For it can't

Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent—its safety,

By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.

'Tis therefore that from them the images

Stream back to us; and howso suddenly

Thou place, at any instant, anything

Before a mirror, there an image shows;

Proving that ever from a body's surface

Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.

Thus many images in little time

Are gendered; so their origin is named

Rightly a speedy. And even as the sun

Must send below, in little time, to earth

So many beams to keep all things so full

Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same,

From things there must be borne, in many modes,

To every quarter round, upon the moment,

The many images of things; because

Unto whatever face of things we turn

The mirror, things of form and hue the same

Respond. Besides, though but a moment since

Serenest was the weather of the sky,

So fiercely sudden is it foully thick

That ye might think that round about all murk

Had parted forth from Acheron and filled

The mighty vaults of sky—so grievously,

As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night,

Do faces of black horror hang on high—

Of which how small a part an image is

There's none to tell or reckon out in words.

Now come; with what swift motion they are borne,

These images, and what the speed assigned

To them across the breezes swimming on—

So that o'er lengths of space a little hour

Alone is wasted, toward whatever region

Each with its divers impulse tends—I'll tell

In verses sweeter than they many are;

Even as the swan's slight note is better far

Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes

Among the southwind's aery clouds. And first,

One oft may see that objects which are light

And made of tiny bodies are the swift;

In which class is the sun's light and his heat,

Since made from small primordial elements

Which, as it were, are forward knocked along

And through the interspaces of the air

To pass delay not, urged by blows behind;

For light by light is instantly supplied

And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.

Thus likewise must the images have power

Through unimaginable space to speed

Within a point of time,—first, since a cause

Exceeding small there is, which at their back

Far forward drives them and propels, where, too,

They're carried with such winged lightness on;

And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off,

With texture of such rareness that they can

Through objects whatsoever penetrate

And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.

Besides, if those fine particles of things

Which from so deep within are sent abroad,

As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide

And spread themselves through all the space of heaven

Upon one instant of the day, and fly

O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then

Of those which on the outside stand prepared,

When they're hurled off with not a thing to check

Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed

How swifter and how farther must they go

And speed through manifold the length of space

In time the same that from the sun the rays

O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be

Example chief and true with what swift speed

The images of things are borne about:

That soon as ever under open skies

Is spread the shining water, all at once,

If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth,

Serene and radiant in the water there,

The constellations of the universe—

Now seest thou not in what a point of time

An image from the shores of ether falls

Unto the shores of earth? Wherefore, again,

And yet again, 'tis needful to confess

With wondrous...