§90.23Hoc aliquis secutus exemplar lapidem asperum aspero inposuit ad similitudinem dentium, quorum pars immobilis motum alterius exspectat; deinde utriusque attritu grana franguntur et saepius regeruntur, donec ad minutiam frequenter trita redigantur.
"Someone, following this model, placed a rough stone upon another rough stone in imitation of teeth, of which one part remains motionless and awaits the movement of the other; then, by the friction of both, the grains are crushed and repeatedly thrown back, until by frequent grinding they are reduced to powder.
Tum farinam aqua sparsit et adsidua tractatione perdomuit unxitque panem, quem primo cinis calidus et fervens testa percoxit, deinde fumi paulatim reperti et alia genera, quorum fervor serviret arbitrio. "Non multum afuit, quin sutrinum quoque inventum a sapientibus diceret.
Then he sprinkled the flour with water, and by constant kneading subdued it and shaped the bread, which at first hot ashes and a glowing tile baked, and then gradually discovered ovens and other kinds, whose heat would serve human will." He was not far from saying that even the art of shoemaking was invented by wise men.
§90.24Omnia ista ratio quidem, sed non recta ratio commenta est.
Reason, indeed, devised all these things, but not right reason.
Hominis enim, non sapientis inventa sunt, tam mehercules quam navigia, quibus amnes quibusque maria transimus aptatis ad excipiendum ventorum impetum velis et additis a tergo gubernaculis, quae huc atque illuc cursum navigii torqueant Exemplum a piscibus tractum est, qui cauda reguntur et levi eius in utrumque momento velocitatem suam flectunt. "
For they are inventions of man, not of the wise man, as surely, by Hercules, as the ships by which we cross rivers and seas, with sails fitted to catch the force of the winds and rudders added at the stern to turn the course of the vessel hither and thither. The model was drawn from fish, which are steered by their tail and bend their speed in either direction by its light movement.
§90.25Omnia," inquit, "haec sapiens quidem invenit; sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret, sordidioribus ministris dedit. "Immo non aliis excogitata ista sunt quam quibus hodieque curantur.
"All these things," he says, "the wise man indeed invented; but because they were too small for him to handle, he gave them to baser assistants." On the contrary, these things were devised by no other than those who even today take charge of them.
Quaedam nostra demum prodisse memoria scimus, ut speculariorum usum perlucente testa clarum transmittentium lumen, ut suspensuras balneorum et inpressos parietibus tubos, per quos circumfunderetur calor, qui ima simul ac summa foveret aequaliter.
We know that some things have come forth only within our memory, such as the use of window-panes transmitting clear light through a transparent substance, such as the suspended floors of baths and tubes pressed into the walls, through which heat might be circulated to warm the lowest and highest parts equally at the same time.
Quid loquar marmora, quibus templa, quibus domus fulgent? Quid lapideas moles in rotundum ac leve formatas, quibus porticus et capacia populorum tecta suscipimus? Quid verborum notas, quibus quamvis citata excipitur oratio et celeritatem linguae manus sequitur? Vilissimorum mancipiorum ista commenta sunt; §90.26sapientia altius sedet nec manus edocet, animorum magistra est.
Why should I speak of the marbles by which temples and houses shine? Why of the stone masses formed into a round and smooth shape, with which we support porticoes and roofs capable of holding crowds? Why of the shorthand signs of words, by which an address, however rapid, is caught, and the hand follows the quickness of the tongue? These are the inventions of the cheapest slaves; wisdom sits higher and does not instruct the hands; she is the mistress of minds.
Vis scire, quid illa eruerit, quid effecerit? Non decores corporis motus nec varios per tubam ac tibiam cantus, quibus exceptus spiritus aut in exitu aut in transitu formatur in vocem.
Do you wish to know what she has unearthed, what she has accomplished? Not graceful movements of the body, nor various songs on the trumpet and pipe, by which the breath, being received, is shaped into a voice either at its exit or in transit.
Non arma nec muros nec bello utilia molitur, paci favet et genus humanum ad concordiam vocat.
She does not fashion weapons, nor walls, nor things useful in war; she favors peace and calls the human race to concord.
§90.27Non est, inquam, instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex.
She is not, I say, a maker of tools for necessary uses.
Quid illi tam parvola adsignas? Artificem vides vitae.
Why do you assign such tiny things to her? You see the artisan of life.
Alias quidem artes sub dominio habet.
Indeed, she holds other arts under her dominion.
Nam cui vita, illi vitam ornantia quoque serviunt; ceterum ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, illo vias aperit.
For to whom life belongs, to him those things that adorn life also serve; but she moves toward a happy state, leads thither, opens ways thither.
§90.28Quae sint mala, quae videantur ostendit, vanitatem exuit mentibus, dat magnitudinem solidam, inflatam vero et ex inani speciosam reprimit, nec ignorari sinit inter magna quid intersit et tumida, totius naturae notitiam ac suae tradit.
She shows what are evils and what only seem to be; she strips vanity from minds, gives solid greatness, but restrains that which is inflated and showy from emptiness; she does not allow us to be ignorant of what difference there is between what is great and what is merely swollen; she delivers the knowledge of all nature and of her own.
Quid sint di qualesque declarat, quid inferi, quid lares et genii, quid in secundam numinum formam animae perpetuatae, ubi consistunt, quid agant, quid possint, quid velint.
She declares what the gods are and of what kind, what the underworld is, what the lares and genii are, what the souls are that have been perpetuated into a second form of divinities, where they remain, what they do, what they can do, what they wish.
Haec eius initiamenta sunt, per quae non municipale sacrum, sed ingens deorum omnium templum, mundus ipse reseratur, cuius vera simulacra verasque facies cernendas mentibus protulit.
These are her initiations, through which not a municipal shrine, but the huge temple of all the gods, the universe itself, is unlocked, whose true images and true faces she has brought forth to be discerned by minds.
Nam ad spectacula tam magna hebes visus est.
For before spectacles so grand, the bodily sight is dull.
§90.29Ad initia deinde rerum redit aeternamque rationem toti inditam et vim omnium seminum singula proprie figurantem.
She then returns to the beginnings of things, and to the eternal reason implanted in the whole, and to the power of all seeds shaping each thing in its own proper way.
Tum de animo coepit inquirere, unde esset, ubi, quamdiu, in quot membra divisus Deinde a corporibus se ad incorporalia transtulit veritatemque et argumenta eius excussit, post haec quemadmodum discernerentur vitae aut vocis ambigua, in utraque enim falsa veris inmixta sunt.
Then she began to inquire about the soul, whence it was, where, how long, into how many parts divided. Then she transferred herself from bodies to incorporeal things, and examined truth and its arguments; after these, how the ambiguities of life or of speech should be distinguished, for in both of them false things are mixed with true.
§90.30Non abduxit, inquam, se, ut Posidonio videtur, ab istis artibus sapiens, sed ad illas omnino non venit.
The wise man, I say, did not withdraw himself, as it seems to Posidonius, from those arts, but he did not come to them at all.
Nihil enim dignum inventu iudicasset, quod non erat dignum perpetuo usu iudicaturus.
For he would have judged nothing worthy of invention which he was not going to judge worthy of perpetual use.
Ponenda non sumeret.
He would not take up what was to be laid down.