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

To move along and follow our own steps

And imitate our carriage—if thou thinkest

Air that is thus bereft of light can walk,

Following the gait and motion of mankind.

For what we use to name a shadow, sure

Is naught but air deprived of light. No marvel:

Because the earth from spot to spot is reft

Progressively of light of sun, whenever

In moving round we get within its way,

While any spot of earth by us abandoned

Is filled with light again, on this account

It comes to pass that what was body's shadow

Seems still the same to follow after us

In one straight course. Since, evermore pour in

New lights of rays, and perish then the old,

Just like the wool that's drawn into the flame.

Therefore the earth is easily spoiled of light

And easily refilled and from herself

Washeth the black shadows quite away.

And yet in this we don't at all concede

That eyes be cheated. For their task it is

To note in whatsoever place be light,

In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams

Be still the same, and whether the shadow which

Just now was here is that one passing thither,

Or whether the facts be what we said above,

'Tis after all the reasoning of mind

That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know

The nature of reality. And so

Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,

Nor lightly think our senses everywhere

Are tottering. The ship in which we sail

Is borne along, although it seems to stand;

The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed

There to be passing by. And hills and fields

Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge

The ship and fly under the bellying sails.

The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed

To the ethereal caverns, though they all

Forever are in motion, rising out

And thence revisiting their far descents

When they have measured with their bodies bright

The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon

Seem biding in a roadstead,—objects which,

As plain fact proves, are really borne along.

Between two mountains far away aloft

From midst the whirl of waters open lies

A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet

They seem conjoined in a single isle.

When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,

The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,

Until they now must almost think the roofs

Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.

And now, when nature begins to lift on high

The sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires,

And raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains—

O'er which he seemeth then to thee to be,

His glowing self hard by atingeing them

With his own fire—are yet away from us

Scarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed

Oft scarce five hundred courses of a dart;

Although between those mountains and the sun

Lie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath

The vasty shores of ether, and intervene

A thousand lands, possessed by many a folk

And generations of wild beasts. Again,

A pool of water of but a finger's depth,

Which lies between the stones along the pave,

Offers a vision downward into earth

As far, as from the earth o'erspread on high

The gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view

Clouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged

Wondrously in heaven under earth.

Then too, when in the middle of the stream

Sticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze

Into the river's rapid waves, some force

Seems then to bear the body of the horse,

Though standing still, reversely from his course,

And swiftly push up-stream. And wheresoe'er

We cast our eyes across, all objects seem

Thus to be onward borne and flow along

In the same way as we. A portico,

Albeit it stands well propped from end to end

On equal columns, parallel and big,

Contracts by stages in a narrow cone,

When from one end the long, long whole is seen,—

Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor,

And the whole right side with the left, it draws

Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point.

To sailors on the main the sun he seems

From out the waves to rise, and in the waves

To set and bury his light—because indeed

They gaze on naught but water and the sky.

Again, to gazers ignorant of the sea,

Vessels in port seem, as with broken poops,

To lean upon the water, quite agog;

For any portion of the oars that's raised

Above the briny spray is straight, and straight

The rudders from above. But other parts,

Those sunk, immersed below the water-line,

Seem broken all and bended and inclined

Sloping to upwards, and turned back to float

Almost atop the water. And when the winds

Carry the scattered drifts along the sky

In the night-time, then seem to glide along

The radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds

And there on high to take far other course

From that whereon in truth they're borne. And then,

If haply our hand be set beneath one eye

And press below thereon, then to our gaze

Each object which we gaze on seems to be,

By some sensation twain—then twain the lights

Of lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame,

And twain the furniture in all the house,

Two-fold the visages of fellow-men,

And twain their bodies. And again, when sleep

Has bound our members down in slumber soft

And all the body lies in deep repose,

Yet then we seem to self to be awake

And move our members; and in night's blind gloom

We think to mark the daylight and the sun;

And, shut within a room, yet still we seem

To change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills,

To cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds,

Though still the austere silence of the night

Abides around us, and to speak replies,

Though voiceless. Other cases of the sort

Wondrously many do we see, which all

Seek, so to say, to injure faith in sense—

In vain, because the largest part of these

Deceives through mere opinions of the mind,

Which we do add ourselves, feigning to see

What by the senses are not seen at all.

For naught is harder than to separate

Plain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith

Adds by itself.

Again, if one suppose

That naught is known, he knows not whether this

Itself is able to be known, since he

Confesses naught to know. Therefore with him

I waive discussion—who has set his head

Even where his feet should be. But let me grant

That this he knows,—I question: whence he knows

What 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn,

And what created concept of the truth,

And what device has proved the dubious

To differ from the certain?—since in things

He's heretofore seen naught of true. Thou'lt find

That from the senses first hath been create

Concept of truth, nor can the senses be

Rebutted. For criterion must be found

Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat

Through own authority the false by true;

What, then, than these our senses must there be

Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung

From some false sense, prevail to contradict

Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is

From out the senses?—For lest these be true,

All reason also then is falsified.

Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes,

Or yet the touch the ears? Again, shall taste

Accuse this touch or shall the nose confute

Or eyes defeat it? Methinks not so it is:

For unto each has been divided off

Its function quite apart, its power to each;