Part 72 (1/2)
and Pygmalion's judgment so troubled by the impression of the sight of his ivory statue that he loves and adores it as if it were a living woman!
Oscnla dat, reddique putat: sequi turque, tenetque, Et credit tactis digitos insidere membris; Et metuit, pressos veniat ne livor in artus.
”He kisses, and believes he's kissed again; Seizes, and 'twixt his arms his love doth strain, And thinks the polish'd ivory thus held Doth to his fingers amorous pressure yield, And has a timorous fear, lest black and blue Should in the parts with ardour press'd ensue.”
Put a philosopher into a cage of small thin set bars of iron, hang him on the top of the high tower of Notre Dame at Paris; he will see, by manifest reason, that he cannot possibly fall, and yet he will find (unless he has been used to the plumber's trade) that he cannot help but the sight of the excessive height will fright and astound him; for we have enough to do to a.s.sure ourselves in the galleries of our steeples, if they are made with open work, although they are of stone; and some there are that cannot endure so much as to think of it. Let there be a beam thrown over betwixt these two towers, of breadth sufficient to walk upon, there is no philosophical wisdom so firm that can give us the courage to walk over it as we should do upon the ground. I have often tried this upon our mountains in these parts; and though I am one who am not the most subject to be afraid, I was not able to endure to look into that infinite depth without horror and trembling, though I stood above my length from the edge of the precipice, and could not have fallen unless I would. Where I also observed that, what height soever the precipice was, provided there were some tree, or some jutting out of a rock, a little to support and divide the sight, it a little eases our fears, and gives greater a.s.surance; as if they were things by which in falling we might have some relief; but that direct precipices we are not to look upon without being giddy; _Ut despici vine vertigine timid ocvlorum animique non possit:_ ”'To that one cannot look without dizziness;” which is a manifest imposture of the sight. And therefore it was that that fine philosopher put out his own eyes, to free the soul from being diverted by them, and that he might philosophize at greater liberty; but, by the same rule, he should have dammed up his ears, that Theophrastus says are the most dangerous instruments about us for receiving violent impressions to alter and disturb us; and, finally, should have deprived himself of all his other senses, that is to say, of his life and being; for they have all the power to command our soul and reason: _Fit etiam sope specie quadam, sope voc.u.m gravitate et cantibus, ut pettantur animi vehementius; sope etiam cura et timore,_ ”For it often falls out that the minds are more vehemently struck by some sight, by the quality and sound of the voice, or by singing; and ofttimes also by grief and fear.” Physicians hold that there are certain complexions that are agitated by the same sounds and instruments even to fury. I have seen some who could not hear a bone gnawed under the table without impatience; and there is scarce any man who is not disturbed at the sharp and shrill noise that the file makes in grating upon the iron; as also to hear chewing near them, or to hear any one speak who has an impediment in the throat or nose, will move some people even to anger and hatred. Of what use was that piping prompter of Gracchus, who softened, raised, and moved his master's voice whilst he declaimed at Rome, if the movements and quality of the sound had not the power to move and alter the judgments of the auditory? In earnest, there is wonderful reason to keep such a clutter about the firmness of this fine piece, that suffers itself to be turned and twined by the motion and accidents of so light a wind.
The same cheat that the senses put upon our understanding they have in turn put upon them; the soul also some times has its revenge; they lie and contend which should most deceive one another. What we see and hear when we are transported with pa.s.sion, we neither see nor hear as it is:--
Et solem geminum, et duplices se ostendere Thebas.
”Thebes seems two cities, and the sun two suns.”
The object that we love appears to us more beautiful than it really is;
Multimodis igitur pravas turpesque videmus Esse in deliciis, summoque in honore vigere;
”Hence 'tis that ugly things in fancied dress Seem gay, look fair to lovers' eyes, and please;”
and that we hate more ugly; to a discontented and afflicted man the light of the day seems dark and overcast. Our senses are not only depraved, but very often stupefied by the pa.s.sions of the soul; how many things do we see that we do not take notice of, if the mind be occupied with other thoughts?
In rebus quoque apertis noscere possis, Si non advertas animum, proinde esse quasi omni Tempore semotae fuerint, longeque remotae:
”Nay, even in plainest things, unless the mind Take heed, unless she sets herself to find, The thing no more is seen, no more belov'd, Than if the most obscure and most remov'd:”
it would appear that the soul retires within, and amuses the powers of the senses. And so both the inside and the outside of man is full of infirmity and falsehood.
They who have compared our lives to a dream were, perhaps, more in the right than they were aware of. When we dream, the soul lives, works, and exercises all its faculties, neither more nor less than when awake; but more largely and obscurely, yet not so much, neither, that the difference should be as great as betwixt night and the meridian brightness of the sun, but as betwixt night and shade; there she sleeps, here she slumbers; but, whether more or less, 'tis still dark, and Cimmerian darkness. We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds; moreover, sleep, when it is profound, sometimes rocks even dreams themselves asleep; but our waking is never so sprightly that it rightly purges and dissipates those whimsies, which are waking dreams, and worse than dreams. Our reason and soul receiving those fancies and opinions that come in dreams, and authorizing the actions of our dreams with the like approbation that they do those of the day, wherefore do we not doubt whether our thought, our action, is not another sort of dreaming, and our waking a certain kind of sleep?
If the senses be our first judges, it is not ours that we are alone to consult; for, in this faculty, beasts have as great, or greater, than we; it is certain that some of them have the sense of hearing more quick than man; others that of seeing, others that of feeling, others that of touch and taste. Democritus said, that the G.o.ds and brutes had the sensitive faculties more perfect than man. But betwixt the effects of their senses and ours the difference is extreme. Our spittle cleanses and dries up our wounds; it kills the serpent:--
Tantaque in his rebas distantia differitasque est, Ut quod aliis cibus est, aliis fuat acre venenum.
Saepe etenim serpens, hominis contacta saliva, Disperit, ac sese mandendo conficit ipsa:
”And in those things the difference is so great That what's one's poison is another's meat; For serpents often have been seen, 'tis said, When touch'd with human spittle, to go mad, And bite themselves to death:”
what quality shall we attribute to our spittle? as it affects ourselves, or as it affects the serpent? By which of the two senses shall we prove the true essence that we seek for?
Pliny says there are certain sea-hares in the Indies that are poison to us, and we to them; insomuch that, with the least touch, we kill them. Which shall be truly poison, the man or the fish? Which shall we believe, the fish of the man, or the man of the fish? One quality of the air infects a man, that does the ox no harm; some other infects the ox, but hurts not the man. Which of the two shall, in truth and nature, be the pestilent quality? To them who have the jaundice, all things seem yellow and paler than to us:--
Lurida praeterea fiunt, quaecunque tuentur Arquati.