CIC. But what means that glowing arrow, which has flames in place of a
hard point, around which is encircled a noose with the legend: "Amor
instat ut instans"? Say, what does it mean?
TANS. It seems to me to mean that love never leaves him, and at the same
time eternally afflicts him.
CIC. I see the noose, the arrow, and the fire. I understand that which
is written: "Amor instat"; but that which follows I cannot
understand--that is, that love as an instant, or persisting, persists;
which has the same poverty of idea as if one said: "This undertaking he
has feigned as a feint; he bears it as he bears it, understands it as he
understands it, values it as he values it, and esteems it as he who
esteems it."
TANS. It is easy for him to decide and condemn who does not even
consider. That "instans" is not an adjective from the verb "instare,"
but it is a noun substantive used for the instant of time.
CIC. Now, what is the meaning of the phrase "love endures as an
instant?"
TANS.. What does Aristotle mean in his book on Time, when he says that
eternity is an instant, and that all time is no more than an instant?
CIC. How can this be, seeing that there is no time so short that it
cannot be divided into seconds? Perhaps he would say that in one instant
there is the Flood, the Trojan war, and we who exist now; I should like
to know how this instant is divided into so many centuries and years,
and whether, by the same rule, we might not say that the line is a
point?
TANS. If time be one, but in different temporal subjects, so the instant
is one in different and all parts of time. As I am the same I was, am,
and shall be; so I myself am always the same in the house, in the
temple, in the field, and wheresoever I am.