Descriptiones

ON THE SATYR.

There was a cave near the Egyptian Thebes, resembling a shepherd's pipe, winding of its own nature into coils that circled around the deep recesses of the earth. For it did not open out in a straight line, splitting into channels that ran direct, but, running around the curve of the mountain's base, it stretched out subterranean coils, falling away into a wandering hard to trace. Set up within it was a figure of a Satyr, wrought in stone. He stood upon a base, his figure poised for the dance, lifting the sole of his right foot behind him; and he was handling a flute, and at the sound he was the first to spring up. Yet to the ear no melody of his fluting was attached, nor was the flute vocal; rather, the passion of those who play the flute had, through art, been imported into the stone. You could have seen the veins swelling, as though filling with some breath, and the Satyr drawing the breath up from his breast to make the flute resound, and the image willing itself to act, and the stone falling into the agony of the contest. For it persuaded you that it had within itself an innate power of breathing, and that it had discovered at home the proof of panting—a passage out of the impossible. The body had no share in softness; rather the hardness of the limbs robbed it of bloom, roughening the form into a symmetry of manly joints. For the flesh of a beautiful maiden is soft and yielding, and her limbs are delicate; but the look of a Satyr is rough, as befits a mountain spirit who leaps in honour of Dionysus. Ivy crowned him—not that art had plucked the fruit from a meadow, but the stone, poured out of its hardness into branches, ran around the hair, creeping down from the forehead to join at the sinews of the neck. Pan stood beside him, delighting in the flute-playing and embracing Echo, fearing, I suppose, that the flute, by stirring some musical note, might persuade the Nymph to echo back to the Satyr. When we beheld this image, we believed that even the stone of the Ethiopians had become vocal—that stone which, when Day approached, grew bright at her presence, but when she departed, smitten with grief, groaned a mournful sound, and alone among stones, governed by the presence of pleasure and pain, departed from its native dumbness, overcoming insensibility into the power of voice.

ON THE STATUE OF A BACCHANTE.

It is not the arts of poets and tellers of tales alone that are inspired, when frenzy from the gods falls upon their tongues; the hands of craftsmen too, when they are seized by the gifts of more divine spirits, give utterance to works that are possessed and full of madness. So it was that Scopas, moved as if by some inspiration, imparted into the making of his statue the divine frenzy. But why do I not recount to you the enthusiasm of the art from the beginning? There was a statue of a Bacchante, made of Parian marble, transformed into the likeness of a true Bacchante. For the stone, while keeping to its own proper nature, seemed to step outside the law that governs stones; what appeared was indeed an image, but art had carried the imitation over into reality itself. You could have seen that, hard though it was, it was softened into the semblance of the feminine, the spirited vigour correcting what was womanish; and, though it lacked the power of movement, it knew how to play the Bacchante, and answered to the god when he entered into it. When we saw the face, we stood speechless, so plainly did a token of sensation attend it, though sensation was not present; and a frenzy possessing the Bacchante in her revel was disclosed, though no frenzy struck her; and all the signs that a soul maddened with frenzy carries—so many tokens of passion shone forth, blended by art with an ineffable reason. The hair was let loose to be tossed by the west wind, and it was parted into the bloom of separate strands—which most of all confounded the reason, that stone though it was, it yielded to the fineness of hair and obeyed in its imitation of tresses, and, stripped of the living faculty, yet possessed what is living. You would have said that art had introduced even the principles of growth: so unbelievable was the thing seen, and so much was the unbelievable seen. Moreover it displayed hands in action; for she was not brandishing the Bacchic thyrsus, but was carrying some slain victim, as though crying the Bacchic cry—a symbol of a more bitter madness. And this was a figure of a kid, livid in colour, for the stone took on even the look of the dead; and, though the material was one, it divided the imitation into death and life, setting the one alive and as it were reaching toward Cithaeron, and the other slain by the Bacchic frenzy and wasting away the prime of its senses. Scopas, then, fashioning images even of lifeless births, was a craftsman of truth, and in his bodies the marvels of the soul were stamped; while Demosthenes, moulding statues of words, all but showed a perceptible form of words too, blending the drugs of art with the offspring of intellect and prudence. And you will know at once that the statue set before our contemplation is not even deprived of motion from within itself, but at once it commands itself and preserves in its character its own begetter.

ON THE STATUE OF EROS.

Words wish to prophesy of other holy things of art too. For it is not lawful for me to refuse to call the offspring of art holy. There was an Eros—a work of Praxiteles, Eros himself: a boy in his bloom and young, having wings and a bow. Bronze gave him form, and, as it gave form to Eros, a tyrant god and great, it too was held under his power; for the bronze would not endure to be wholly bronze, but, as much as it was, it became Eros. You could have seen the bronze grow delicate and luxuriate beyond belief into a fullness of flesh, and, to speak briefly, art supplying what was needful, sufficient to itself. He was supple, though without a share of softness; and, having a colour in harmony with the bronze, he was seen blooming; and, deprived of the works of motion, he was ready to show motion. For he was set upon a fixed seat, yet he deceived you as though he had mastery even of an airborne flight. He prided himself into a smile, flashing something fiery and gentle from his eyes, and one could see the bronze obeying the passion and readily receiving the imitation of a smile. He was set up curving his right wrist toward the crown of his head, and with the other hand lifting up the bow, and inclining the balance of his stance toward the left; for he raised the projection of the left flank, breaking up the firmness of the bronze into ease. Locks shaded his head, flowering and curling, glistening with youthful bloom. And the bronze was wonderful indeed: to the eye, a redness shone forth, rising from the tips of the curls; but to the touch, the hair rose up, growing soft beneath the sense. Beholding this art, it came to me to believe that Daedalus had trained a chorus that moved, and gave senses to gold—since here too Praxiteles all but put thoughts into the image of Eros, and contrived for him to cleave the air with his wing.

ON THE STATUE OF AN INDIAN.

Beside a spring stood an Indian, set up as an offering to the Nymphs. The Indian was stone, growing dark and reverting to the colour natural to his race. He had hair flourishing and curled, gleaming not with unmixed black, but at the tips rivalling the bloom of the Tyrian shellfish. For, as though faring well and being moistened by the neighbouring Nymphs, the hair, rising from the roots, was darker, but at the tips turned purple. The eyes, however, did not accord with the stone, for around the pupils ran a whiteness, that part of the rock changing to a paler hue—just where, in the Indian's nature too, the colour is white. Drunkenness put him out of his senses, and the colour of the stone did not betray his being drunk; for it had no means of reddening his cheeks, the black concealing the drunkenness. But from his posture his passion was proclaimed: for he stood swaying and revelling, unable to plant his two feet firm, but trembling and sinking down at the hollow of the knee. The stone seemed as though stricken by the passion and, as it were, quivering, displaying the staggering that comes of drink. The image of the Indian had nothing delicate; nor was it worked up to a grace of colour, but was articulated only into the joining of the limbs. He was uncovered and naked, as the bodies of the Indians are wont to be hardened to manliness against the fiery heat of their prime.

ON THE STATUE OF NARCISSUS.

There was a grove, and in it a most beautiful spring of water exceedingly pure and translucent; and over it stood Narcissus, made of stone. He was a boy, or rather a youth, of an age with the Loves, flashing forth, as it were, from his very body a beauty like lightning. His figure was of this sort: he glittered with golden locks, the hair curling into a circle along his forehead, and pouring down along the neck onto his back. His look was not purely proud, nor purely glad, for by art there had grown up in his eyes a grief as well, so that the image might imitate, along with Narcissus, his fate also. He was arrayed like the Loves, to whom too he was likened in the prime of his bloom. The ornament that adorned him was of this kind: a robe, white-blooming, of one colour with his body, ran around him in a circle; pinned at the right shoulder, it descended below the knee and ceased there, leaving free only the hand at the clasp. So tender was it, and so wrought into the imitation of a robe, that even the colour of the body shone through, the whiteness of the wrapping allowing the radiance in the limbs to pass out. He stood using the spring as a mirror and pouring into it the form of his face; and the spring, receiving the features that came from him, accomplished the same image-making, so that the two natures seemed to vie with one another. For the stone was wholly being transformed into that boy who was real, while the spring contended against the contrivances of art in the stone, working out in a bodiless form the likeness of the bodily model, and clothing the shadow that came down from the image with the nature of the water, as with a kind of flesh. So living and breathing was the figure upon the water that you would have thought it was Narcissus himself, who, coming to the spring, when his form appeared to him upon the water, died (so they say) among the Nymphs, falling in love and longing to unite with the image; and now he is seen as a phantom in the meadows, blooming in the spring seasons. You could have seen how the stone, being one, fitted itself to colour and to the construction of the eyes, and preserved the record of character, and displayed sensations, and disclosed passions, and followed the freedom of the hair, dissolving into the curl of the locks. The thing past telling in words: the stone relaxed into fluidity and furnished a body contrary to its substance; for, though it had been allotted a harder nature, it sent forth a sense of tenderness, dissolving into a kind of loose, soft mass of body. He was also handling a syrinx, with which that one used to make offering to the pastoral gods, and made the wilderness resound with his strains, whenever he longed to converse with musical instruments. Admiring this Narcissus, young men, I have brought him also before you, having reproduced him in the court of the Muses. And my account holds as the image held.

ON THE STATUE OF KAIROS (OPPORTUNITY) AT SICYON.

I wish to set before you in words also the work of Lysippus, which the craftsman fashioned as the most beautiful of statues and set up at Sicyon for men to behold. Kairos (Opportunity) was wrought into a statue of bronze, art contending with nature. He was a boy, Kairos, in the bloom of youth, his prime of youth complete from head to foot. He was fair to look upon, with the first down upon him, and he left his hair loose for the west wind to toss whichever way it would; and his colour was blooming, his body's radiance disclosing the bloom upon it. He resembled Dionysus for the most part: for his forehead glittered with graces, and his cheeks, reddening into youthful bloom, were lovely, casting a soft blush upon the eyes. He stood upon a sphere, poised upon the tips of his feet, with wings upon his feet. His hair did not grow in the customary way; rather the hair in front, creeping down over the brows, shook its curls upon the cheeks, while the back of Kairos was free of locks, showing only the new growth of hair springing from its root. We, then, smitten with speechlessness at the sight, stood gazing upon the bronze contriving the works of nature and stepping out of its own proper order; for, bronze though it was, it grew red; and, hard though its nature was, it was poured out soft, yielding to art whichever way it would; and, lacking living sensation, it gave assurance of having sensation dwelling within; and it was truly fixed, planting its sole firmly, yet, while standing still, it showed that it had the freedom of an impulse, and deceived your eye as though it had mastery of forward motion, and as though it had received from the craftsman the power to cleave even the airy region with its wings, should it wish. And such was the marvel for us; but one of the wise in the arts, who knew how to track down with a more skilled perception the marvels of craftsmen, brought reasoning to bear on the work, expounding the power of Opportunity preserved in the art. The wings upon the feet, he said, hint at swiftness, and how, unrolling the long span of time, he is borne along riding upon the seasons; the bloom of youth, that everything fair is timely and that Opportunity alone is the maker of beauty; and that everything past its bloom is outside the nature of opportunity. The hair upon the forehead means that, while he is approaching, it is easy to seize him, but, once he has passed by, the prime of affairs goes out with him, and there is no laying hold of Opportunity once he has been let slip.

ON THE STATUE OF ORPHEUS.

On Helicon—the place is a shady precinct of the Muses—beside the streams of the river Olmeius and the violet-coloured spring of Pegasus, there stood beside the Muses a statue of Orpheus, the son of Calliope, most beautiful to behold; for the bronze together with the art gave birth to beauty, marking the music of the soul along with the splendour of the body. A Persian tiara, studded with gold, adorned him, rising high from the crown of his head; a tunic, drawn down from the shoulders to the feet, was girt across the breast with a golden belt; and his hair was so flourishing, and signified something so living and breathing, that it deceived the sense, as though, swaying to the blasts of the west wind, it were being shaken. Part of it, falling about the neck, poured down his back; part, dividing in two above and going upon the brows, left clear the glances of the eyes. His sandal was decked with the yellowest gold, and a robe loose down his back came down to the ankle. He was handling the lyre, and it was strung with notes equal in number to the Muses; for the bronze counterfeited even the strings, and, changing to the imitation of each, was obediently led on, all but becoming vocal at the very sound of the notes. Beneath his feet for a base there was no heaven figured, nor the Pleiades cleaving the upper air, nor the revolving circuits of the Bear that have no share in the baths of Ocean; rather there was the whole race of birds standing entranced at the song, and all the beasts of the mountains, and all that pastures in the recesses of the sea; and a horse was charmed, mastered by the strain instead of by the bridle; and an ox, leaving its grazing, listened to the lyre-song; and the unyielding nature of lions was lulled to rest at the harmony. You could have seen the bronze figuring even rivers flowing from their springs toward the strains, and the wave of the sea raised up in love of the song, and rocks struck by the perception of music, and every seasonable shoot hastening from its haunts toward the Orphic muse. And there was nothing that made a sound, nor that roused the harmony of the lyre-song; but art disclosed, in the living creatures, the passions of their love of music, and made the pleasures appear in the bronze, and ineffably brought to light the enchantments blooming upon the senses of the creatures.

ON THE STATUE OF DIONYSUS.

Daedalus, if one must believe the marvel in Crete, was able to contrive works that moved and to force gold into human sensation; but the hands of Praxiteles fashioned works that were living through and through. There was a grove, and Dionysus stood there, imitating the figure of a youth, so tender that the bronze was transformed into flesh, and having a body so supple and relaxed that it seemed to be made of some other material, and not of bronze—which, bronze though it was, grew red, and, having no share in life, yet wished to display the look of life; and at your touch it rose up to meet the prime of youth; and the bronze was truly solid, yet, softened by art, it fled from the touch into flesh. He was blooming, full of softness, flowing with desire, such as Euripides revealed him when he gave him form in the Bacchae. Ivy crowned him, running round in a circle—as if the bronze were ivy, bent into branches and drawing up the curling tresses poured from the forehead. He was full of a smile—which indeed surpassed all marvel: that the material gave forth tokens of pleasure and that the bronze counterfeited the disclosure of passions. A fawn-skin covered him, not such as Dionysus is wont to fasten on, but the bronze was changed into the imitation of the hide; and he stood leaning his left hand upon the thyrsus, and the thyrsus deceived the sense, and, made of bronze though it was, it was reckoned to gleam with something green and flourishing, changing into this material. His eye was bright as fire, frenzied to behold; for the bronze displayed even the Bacchic frenzy and seemed inspired, since, I suppose, Praxiteles was able to mingle into it even the Bacchic madness.

ON THE STATUE OF MEMNON.

I wish to recount to you also the marvel of Memnon; for truly the art is past belief and greater than a human hand. There was an image of Memnon, son of Tithonus, in Ethiopia, made of stone; yet it did not remain within its proper bounds, nor endure the silence of its nature, but, stone though it was, it had the power of voice. For at one time it would address the rising Day, signifying its joy by its voice and growing bright at the presence of its mother; at another, when she declined toward night, it would groan something piteous and grievous, grieving at her absence. Nor was the stone at a loss even for tears, but had even these subservient to its will; and the image seemed to me to differ from a human body in body alone, while it was guided and directed by some soul and a like power of choice. At any rate, it had things that grieved blended in it, and again a sense of pleasure came upon it, being smitten by both passions; and whereas nature has brought forth the birth of stones voiceless and deaf, neither willing to be governed by grief nor knowing how to feel pleasure, but invulnerable to all fortunes, yet to that stone of Memnon art gave both pleasure and mingled the rock with pain, and we know of this art alone that it put thoughts and voice into stone. For Daedalus showed his daring only as far as movement, and his art had the power to bring materials out of themselves and to move them to the dance; but it was impossible and altogether beyond his resource to fashion works that shared in voice; whereas the hands of the Ethiopians, discovering passages out of the impossible, conquered even the voicelessness of the stone. To that Memnon, the story goes, Echo too made answer whenever he uttered a sound; and to him groaning mournfully she sent back a mournful strain, and to him faring well she gave back in return a mimic echo. That work both lulled to rest the griefs of Day and did not let her go on seeking her son, since the art of the Ethiopians set against her, in place of the Memnon vanished by fate, this image of him.

ON THE STATUE OF ASCLEPIUS.

So then, shall we be persuaded that the vessel Argo became vocal, that ship wrought by the hands of Athena, which was allotted a place even among the stars, and yet not believe in a statue into which Asclepius sends his powers, bringing in his providential mind, and turning the power of him who dwells within toward fellowship with himself? Shall we grant that the divine descends into human bodies, where it might be defiled by sufferings, and yet not believe it when it is grown together with that in which there is no offspring of evil? To me, then, what is seen does not seem to be a mere figure, but a moulding of the truth. For behold, the art is not without character, but, having stamped the god upon itself, it passes over into him. Being matter, it sends up a god-like thought; and, being the work of a hand, it does the things that are not lawful for craftsmanship, ineffably giving birth to tokens of soul. The face, when you have beheld it, enslaves your sense; for it is not fashioned into an added-on beauty, but, stirring up an all-pure and gracious eye, it flashes beneath an unspeakable depth of dignity mingled with reverence. The coils of the locks, flowing with graces, some, flourishing onto the back, are poured down loose; others, going up over the forehead toward the brows, are wound about the eyes. As if from a living cause, these too, being watered, curl together into the bending of the tresses, by the law of the art—the material not obeying, but understanding that it gives form to a god and must hold sway. And whereas the things that come to be are wont to perish, the form of this statue, inasmuch as it bears in itself the very substance of health, flourishes, acquiring an indestructible prime. We then have offered you, O Paean, the firstfruits of new words and of memories born of you; for you command it, I suppose; and we are eager to sing your law too, if you grant health.

ON THE STATUE OF A YOUTH.

Have you beheld the youth on the Acropolis, whom Praxiteles set up, or must I set the matter before you by means of art? He was a boy, tender and young, the art softening the bronze toward what is delicate and youthful; he was full of luxury and desire, and showed the bloom of youth, and all of him could be seen changing toward the purpose of the art. For he was tender, having a substance at war with tenderness, and was led toward what is supple though deprived of suppleness; and the bronze wholly stepped out of the bounds of its own nature, passing over into the true type. Though it had no share of breath, it took on the appearance of breathing; for what the material had not received, nor had innate, of these things art supplied the freedom. It imparted to the cheeks a blush—which indeed was a paradox, a redness born of bronze—and the bloom of boyhood shone forth; and the hair had curls going upon the brows. With his headband he crowned his hair, and pushing the locks back from his brows with the fillet, he kept his forehead bare of curls. And as we examined the art in detail, and the cunning workmanships in it, we stood smitten with speechlessness; for the bronze displayed flesh well-nourished and glistening, and adapted itself to the movement of the hair, at one time curling together in the plaits of clustering locks, at another, when the hair willed to be spread out at length down the back, smoothing itself out along with it; and when the figure willed to be bent, yielding to the bend; at another time, when the limbs were to be stretched, passing over into the taut. The eye was full of desire mingled with reverence, charged with the grace of love; for the bronze knew how to emulate what is lovely, and obeyed the image when it willed to pride itself. And though this ephebe was motionless, he would have seemed to you to share in motion and to be making ready for the dance.

ON THE STATUE OF A CENTAUR.

Entering a temple, august and great, which drew into itself the most beautiful semblance, I behold, set up in the forecourt of the shrine, a Centaur—not like a man, after the Homeric likeness, but resembling a woody peak. The Centaur was a man as far as the flank, ending below in the four-legged stance of a horse; for nature, cutting both the horse and the man in half, fitted them together into one body, separating off some of the limbs and contriving others to be in accord with one another. For of the human body she took away as much as is borne down from the loins to the very base, and of the equine body she cut off as much as descends to the navel, and joined it to the human form, so that the horse longs for its head and the sinews of the neck, and as much as broadens out in its descent to the back, while the man seeks the support that runs from the navel to the base. And the body being such, you could have seen even spirit floating upon the work, and the body made wild, and the brutish quality blooming upon the face, and the rock most beautifully counterfeiting the hair, and everything hastening toward the true type.

ON THE STATUE OF MEDEA.

I saw also the much-talked-of Medea on the borders of the Macedonians. It was stone, disclosing the form of the soul, the art having taken an impression in it of the things that fill up the soul; for the token proclaimed reasoning, and spirit rose up, and the image passed over to the disposition of grief; and, to speak briefly, what was seen was an exposition of the drama concerning her. For the reasoning disclosed the woman's purposes beyond the deed; and the spirit, in the rush of anger, defacing nature, roused her toward the deed, ushering in the impulse toward reproach; while the grief signified the pity over the children, drawing the stone feebly out of its anger toward a mother's understanding. For the image was not unfeeling, nor brutish, but was divided into a display of anger and of grief, serving the purposes of the woman's nature. For it was likely that, after her wrath, growing purer of her anger, she would turn toward pity, and that the soul, coming to a thought of the evil, would lament. These passions the image imitated along with the body, and one could see it now bearing anger in its eyes, now looking sullen and softened into gloom—as though the artist had directly filled the imitation with the material of Euripides' dramatic art, in which she both deliberates, stirring up at the same time a prudent understanding, and grows savage in spirit toward anger, casting out the bounds that nature has fixed in love of offspring toward one's children, and lays hold of childish words after the lawless slaughter. And her hand was sword-bearing, ready to serve the anger hastening toward the pollution, and her neglected hair signified squalor, and a mourning garment kept company with her soul.

ON THE PICTURE OF ATHAMAS.

There was a picture on the Scythian shores, wrought not unmusically for display, and indeed for a contest of the excellences of painting. There had been figured upon it Athamas, goaded by madness. He could be seen naked, reddening his hair with blood, his hair tossed by the wind, his eye distraught, full of consternation; and he was armed not with madness alone toward daring, nor only made savage by the soul-destroying terrors that come from the Furies, but iron too was thrust forth from his hand, like one rushing out to the kill. For the picture was truly motionless, yet seemed not to keep to its fixed pose, but by the appearance of motion put the spectators beside themselves, looking out, in its fear, with something pale and dead. There was present Ino, sore afraid, trembling; and she held in her arms an infant child too, and was bringing her breast to its lips, dropping the nurturing streams upon her nurslings. The picture was hastening toward the headland of Sciron and the sea beneath the mountain; and the surge, wont to billow, was curving itself into a hollow to receive her; and something of the west wind held the body, with its clear-toned breath lulling the sea to rest—for the wax made the sense imagine that it knew how to fashion breath, and to shoot up sea breezes, and to bring the imitation over into the works of nature. Sea dolphins were leaping alongside, cleaving the surge in the painting, and the wax seemed to be breathed through, and, toward the imitation of the sea growing moist, to be changed into the very substance. And at the edges of the panel an Amphitrite rose up from the depths, looking out with something fierce and dreadful, and flashing a grey-green gleam from her eyes; and Nereids stood around her, tender and blooming to behold, dripping the desire of love from their eyes, and, above the crests of the sea waves, wheeling the dance, beat upon them. And around them deep-eddying Ocean was poured, all but taught the motion of the river and to billow.