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

And thus we're still constrained to perceive

The soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart

All divers hues and whatso things there be

Conjoined with hues. Likewise the tasting tongue

Has its own power apart, and smells apart

And sounds apart are known. And thus it is

That no one sense can e'er convict another.

Nor shall one sense have power to blame itself,

Because it always must be deemed the same,

Worthy of equal trust. And therefore what

At any time unto these senses showed,

The same is true. And if the reason be

Unable to unravel us the cause

Why objects, which at hand were square, afar

Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us,

Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause

For each configuration, than to let

From out our hands escape the obvious things

And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck

All those foundations upon which do rest

Our life and safety. For not only reason

Would topple down; but even our very life

Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared

To trust our senses and to keep away

From headlong heights and places to be shunned

Of a like peril, and to seek with speed

Their opposites! Again, as in a building,

If the first plumb-line be askew, and if

The square deceiving swerve from lines exact,

And if the level waver but the least

In any part, the whole construction then

Must turn out faulty—shelving and askew,

Leaning to back and front, incongruous,

That now some portions seem about to fall,

And falls the whole ere long—betrayed indeed

By first deceiving estimates: so too

Thy calculations in affairs of life

Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee

From senses false. So all that troop of words

Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.

And now remains to demonstrate with ease

How other senses each their things perceive.

Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard,

When, getting into ears, they strike the sense

With their own body. For confess we must

Even voice and sound to be corporeal,

Because they're able on the sense to strike.

Besides voice often scrapes against the throat,

And screams in going out do make more rough

The wind-pipe—naturally enough, methinks,

When, through the narrow exit rising up

In larger throng, these primal germs of voice

Have thus begun to issue forth. In sooth,

Also the door of the mouth is scraped against

[By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].

And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words

Consist of elements corporeal,

With power to pain. Nor art thou unaware

Likewise how much of body's ta'en away,

How much from very thews and powers of men

May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged

Even from the rising splendour of the morn

To shadows of black evening,—above all

If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.

Therefore the voice must be corporeal,

Since the long talker loses from his frame

A part.

Moreover, roughness in the sound

Comes from the roughness in the primal germs,

As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create;

Nor have these elements a form the same

When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar,

As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe

Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans

By night from icy shores of Helicon

With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.

Thus, when from deep within our frame we force

These voices, and at mouth expel them forth,

The mobile tongue, artificer of words,

Makes them articulate, and too the lips

By their formations share in shaping them.

Hence when the space is short from starting-point

To where that voice arrives, the very words

Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.

For then the voice conserves its own formation,

Conserves its shape. But if the space between

Be longer than is fit, the words must be

Through the much air confounded, and the voice

Disordered in its flight across the winds—

And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive,

Yet not determine what the words may mean;

To such degree confounded and encumbered

The voice approaches us. Again, one word,

Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears

Among the populace. And thus one voice

Scatters asunder into many voices,

Since it divides itself for separate ears,

Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.

But whatso part of voices fails to hit

The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond,

Idly diffused among the winds. A part,

Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back

Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear

With a mere phantom of a word. When this

Thou well hast noted, thou canst render count

Unto thyself and others why it is

Along the lonely places that the rocks

Give back like shapes of words in order like,

When search we after comrades wandering

Among the shady mountains, and aloud

Call unto them, the scattered. I have seen

Spots that gave back even voices six or seven

For one thrown forth—for so the very hills,

Dashing them back against the hills, kept on

With their reverberations. And these spots

The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be

Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;

And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise

And antic revels yonder they declare

The voiceless silences are broken oft,

And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet

Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,

Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race

Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings

Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan

With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er

The open reeds,—lest flute should cease to pour

The woodland music! Other prodigies

And wonders of this ilk they love to tell,

Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots

And even by gods deserted. This is why

They boast of marvels in their story-tellings;

Or by some other reason are led on—

Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been,

To prattle fables into ears.

Again,

One need not wonder how it comes about

That through those places (through which eyes cannot

View objects manifest) sounds yet may pass

And assail the ears. For often we observe

People conversing, though the doors be closed;

No marvel either, since all voice unharmed

Can wind through bended apertures of things,

While idol-films decline to—for they're rent,

Unless along straight apertures they swim,

Like those in glass, through which all images

Do fly across. And yet this voice itself,

In passing through shut chambers of a house,

Is dulled, and in a jumble enters ears,

And sound we seem to hear far more than words.

Moreover, a voice is into all directions

Divided up, since off from one another

New voices are engendered, when one voice

Hath once leapt forth, outstarting into many—

As oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle

Itself into its several fires. And so,

Voices do fill those places hid behind,

Which all are in a hubbub round about,

Astir with sound. But idol-films do tend,

As once sent forth, in straight directions all;

Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught,

Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.

Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel,

Present more problems for more work of thought.

Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth,

When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,—