§5Haec testimonia animae quanto uera, tanto simplicia, quanto simplicia, tanto uulgaria, quanto uulgaria, tanto communia, quanto communia, tanto naturalia, quanto naturalia, tanto diuina.
These testimonies of the soul are as true as they are simple, as simple as they are commonplace, as commonplace as they are universal, as universal as they are natural, as natural as they are divine.
non puto cuiquam friuola et ridicula uideri posse, si recogitet naturae maiestatem, ex qua censetur auctauctoritas animae.
I do not think they can seem trivial and ridiculous to anyone, if he reflects on the majesty of nature, from which the authority of the soul is derived.
quantum dederis magistrae, tantum adiudicabis discipulae.
As much as you grant to the mistress, so much you will award to the disciple.
magistra natura, anima discipula.
Nature is the mistress, the soul the disciple.
quicquiduid aut illa edocuit aut ista perdidicit, a deo traditum,ditum est, mamagistro scilicet ipsius magistrae.
Whatever either the former has taught or the latter has thoroughly learned was delivered by God, who is indeed the master of the mistress herself.
quid anima possit de principalipali institutore praesumere, in te est aestimare de ea quae in te est.
What the soul can presume concerning her principal founder, it is in your power to estimate from that which is within you.
senti illam quae ut sentias efficit.
Feel her who makes you feel.
recogita in praesagiis uatem, in ominibus augurem, in euentibus prospicem.
Reflect on her as a prophet in forebodings, as an augur in omens, as a seer in events.
mirum, si a deo data homini nouit diuinare? tam mirum, si eum, a quo data est, nouit.
Is it a wonder if, given to man by God, she knows how to divine? Is it so wonderful if she knows Him by whom she was given?
etiam circumuenta ab aduersario meminit sui auctoris et bonitatis et decreti eius et exitus sui et aduersarii ipsius.
Even when deceived by her adversary, she remembers her author, His goodness and decree, her own end, and the adversary himself.
sic mirum, si a deo data eadem canit quae deus suis dedit nosse? sed qui eiusmodi eruptiones animae non putauit dodoctrinam esse naturae et congenitae et ingenitae conscientiae ae tacita commissa, dicet potius diuentilatis in uulgus opinionibus publicatarum litterarum usum iam et quasi uitium corroboratumatum taliter sermocinandi.
Is it then a wonder if, given by God, she sings the very things which God has granted His own to know? But he who has not thought that such eruptions of the soul are the teaching of nature and the silent trusts committed to her connate and inborn consciousness, will say rather that the habit of speaking in this way has been strengthened as a long-established and, as it were, vicious custom, from opinions of published literature dispersed among the common people.
certe prior anima quam littera et prior sermo quam liber et prior sensus quam stilus et prior homo ipse quam philosophus et poeta.
Surely the soul is prior to the letter, and speech prior to the book, and sense prior to the pen, and man himself prior to the philosopher and the poet.
numquid ergo credendum est ante litteraturam et diuulgationem eius mutosos ab huiusmodi pronuntiationibus homines uixisse? nemo deum et bonitatem eius, nemo mortem, nemo inferos loquebatur? mendicabat sermo, opinor, immo nec ullus esse poterat, cecessantibus bus etiam tunc sine quibus etiam hodie beatior et locupletior et prudentior esse non potest, si ea, quae tam facilia, tam assidua, tam proxima hodie sunt, in ipsis quodammodo labiis paparta retro, non fuerunt, antequam litterae in saeculo germinassent, antequam Mercurius, opinor, natus fuisset.
Is it then to be believed that before literature and its publication, men lived mute from such pronouncements? Did no one speak of God and His goodness, no one of death, no one of the underworld? Language, I suppose, begged for bread, or rather could not have existed at all, when those things were lacking without which even today it cannot be happier, richer, and wiser, if those things which are so easy, so constant, so near at hand today, prepared as it were on the very lips of old, did not exist before letters had sprouted in the world, before Mercury, I suppose, had been born.
set. et undede, oro, ipsis litteris contigit nosse et in usum loquellaeae disseminarenare quae nulla umquam mens conceperat aut lingua protuleratlerat aut auris exceperat? at enim cum diuinae scripturae, quae penes nos uel Iudaeos sunt, in quorum oleastro insititi sumus, multo saecularibus litteris, quarum uel modica tantumtum aetate aliqua, antecedant, ut loco suo edocuimus ad fidemem earum demonstrandam, et si haec eloquia de litteris usurpauit animama, utique de nostris credendum erit, non de uestris, quia potiora sunt ad instruendam animam priora quam postera, quae, et ipsa a prioribus instrui sustinebant, cum, etsi de uestris instructam concedamus, ad originem tamen principalemem traditio pertineat, nostrumque omnino sit quodcumque que de nostris sumsissesse et tradidisse contigit uobis.
And whence, I pray, did it happen to letters themselves to know and to scatter abroad for the use of speech things which no mind had ever conceived, no tongue had ever uttered, and no ear had ever received? But since the divine scriptures, which are in our hands or those of the Jews (into whose olive tree we have been grafted), precede secular literature by much more than just some small age—as we have shown in its proper place to demonstrate their authority—and if the soul borrowed these utterances from literature, we must certainly believe they were taken from ours, not from yours, because prior things are more powerful for instructing the soul than subsequent ones, which themselves had to submit to being instructed by the prior; and even if we grant that the soul was instructed by yours, yet the tradition belongs to the principal origin, and whatever you happened to take and hand down from ours is entirely ours.
quod cum ita sit, non multum refert, a deo formata sit animae conscientia an litteris dei.
Since this is so, it does not matter much whether the consciousness of the soul was formed by God or by the writings of God.
quid igitur uis, homo, de humanis sententiis litterarum tuarum exisse haec in usus communis callositatem?
Why then, O man, do you wish that these things should have issued from the human opinions of your literature into the callousness of common usage?