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 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.