Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

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