TANS. Let it suffice that all "run well," and that each does his utmost,
for the heroic nature is content and shows its dignity rather in
falling, or in failing worthily in the high undertaking, in which it
shows the dignity of its spirit, than in succeeding to perfection in
lower and less noble things.
CIC. Truly a dignified and heroic death is better than a mean, low
triumph.
TANS. On that theme I made this sonnet:
16.
Since I have spread my wings to my desire,
The more I feel the air beneath my feet,
So much the more towards the wind I bend
My swiftest pinions,
And spurn the world and up towards heaven I go.
Not the sad fate of Daedalus's son
Does warn me to turn downwards,
But ever higher will I rise.
Well do I see, I shall fall dead to earth;
But what life is there can compare with this my death?
Out on the air my heart's voice do I hear:
"Whither dost thou carry me, thou fearless one?
Turn back. Such over-boldness rarely grief escapes."
"Fear not the utmost ruin then," I said,
"Cleave confident the clouds and die content,
That heaven has destined thee to such illustrious death."
CIC. I understand when you say: "Enough that thou hast lifted me on
high;" but not: "And from the ignoble crowd hast severed me;" unless it
means his having come out from the Platonic groove on account of the
stupid and low condition of the crowd; for those that find profit in
this contemplation cannot be numerous.
TANS. Thou understandest well; but thou mayst also understand, by the
"ignoble crowd," the body, and sensual cognition, from which he must
arise and free himself who would unite with a nature of a contrary
kind.
CIC. The Platonists say there are two kinds of knots which link the soul
to the body. One is a certain vivifying action which from the soul
descends into the body, like a ray; the other is a certain vital
quality, which is produced from that action in the body. Now this active
and most noble number, which is the soul, in what way do you understand
that it may be severed from the ignoble number, which is the body?
TANS. Certainly it was not understood according to any of these modes,
but according to that mode whereby those powers which are not
comprehended and imprisoned in the womb of matter, sometimes as if
inebriated and stupefied, find that they also are occupied in the
formation of matter and in the vivification of the body; then, as if
awakened and brought to themselves, recognizing its principle and
genius, they turn towards superior things and force themselves on the
intelligible world as to their native abode, and from thence, through
their conversion to inferior things, they are thrust into the fate and
conditions of generation. These two impulses are symbolized in the two
kinds of metamorphosis expressed in the following:
17.
That god who shakes the sounding thunder,
Asteria as a furtive eagle saw;
Mnemosyne as shepherd; Danae gold;
Alcmene as a fish; Antiope a goat;
Cadmus and his sister a white bull;
Leda as swan, and Dolida as dragon;
And through the lofty object I become,
From subject viler still, a god.
A horse was Saturn;
And in a calf and dolphin Neptune dwelt;
Ibis and shepherd Mercury became;
Bacchus a grape; Apollo was a crow;
And I by help of love,
From an inferior thing, do change me to a god.
In Nature is one revolution and one circle, by means of which, for the
perfection and help of others, superior things lower themselves to
things inferior, and, by their own excellence and felicity, inferior
things raise themselves to superior ones. Therefore the Pythagoreans and
Platonists say it is given to the soul that at certain times, not only
by spontaneous will, which turns it towards the comprehension of Nature,
but also by the necessity of an internal law, written and registered by
the destined decree, they seek their own justly determined fate; and
they also say that souls, not so much by determination of their own will
as through a certain order, by which they become inclined towards
matter, decline as rebels from divinity; wherefore, not by free
intention, but by a certain occult consequence, they fall. And this is
the inclination that they have to generation, as towards a minor good.
Minor, I say, in so far as it appertains to that particular nature; not
in so far as it appertains to the universal nature, where nothing
happens without the highest aim, and which disposes of all things
according to justice. In which generation finding themselves once more
through the changes which permutably succeed, they return again to the
superior forms.
CIC. So that they mean, that souls are impelled by the necessity of
fate, and have no proper counsel which guides them at all.
TANS. Necessity, fate, nature, counsel, will, those things, justly and
rightfully ordained, all agree in one. Besides which, as Plotinus
relates, some believe that certain souls can escape from their own evil,
if knowing the danger, they seek refuge in the mind before the corporeal
habit is confirmed; because the mind raises to things sublime, as the
imagination lowers to inferior things. The mind always understands one,
as the imagination is one in movement and in diversity; the mind always
understands one, as the imagination is always inventing for itself
various images. In the midst is the rational faculty, which is a
mixture of all, like that in which the one agrees with the many,
sameness with variety, movement with fixedness, the inferior with the
superior. Now these transmutations and conversions are symbolized in the
wheel of metamorphosis, where man sits on the upper part, a beast lies
at the bottom, a half-man, half-beast descends from the left, and a
half-beast, half-man ascends from the right. This transmutation is shown
where Jove, according to the diversity of the affections and the
behaviour of those towards inferior things, invests himself with divers
figures, entering into the form of beasts; and so also the other gods
transmigrate into base and alien forms. And, on the contrary, through
the knowledge of their own nobility, they re-take their own divine form;
as the passionate hero, raising himself through conceived kinds of
divine beauty and goodness, with the wings of the intellect and rational
will, rises to the divinity, leaving the form of the lower subject. And
therefore he said, "I become from subject viler still, a god. From an
inferior thing do change me to a god."
=Fourth Dialogue.=