She also carries a long spear, because wisdom strikes at long range with its pronouncements. They give her a plume and helmet, for the mind of the wise man is both armed and noble whence Plautus in his Tirnummus declares: “It certainly has a head like a mushroom, it covers him completely.” She is also enfolded in a robe of three folds, either because all wisdom is many-sided or because it is kept hidden. They associate her with the Gorgon, worn on her breast as a symbol of fear, just as the wise man bears awe in his breast to guard against his enemies. The first or intellectual life we name in honor of contemplative wisdom thus they say that she as born from the head of Jove, because the intellect is situated in the brain and she was armed, because she is full of resource. But let me explain what these three goddesses have to say for themselves on the three kinds of living. But the shepherd Paris, being neither straight as an arrow nor sure as a spear nor handsome of face nor wise of mind, did a dull and stupid thing and, as is the way of wild beasts and cattle, turned his snail’s eyes towards lust rather than selected virtue or riches. But they pass the decision over to man, to whom a free choice is owed. They have said that Jove could not judge among these, perhaps because they did not realize that the judgment of his world has preordained limits, for they believed man was made with free will wherefore, if Jove had judged as God, in condemning two lives he would have committed the world to only one kind. The poets explain in such terms as these the contest of the three goddesses – that is, Minerva, Juno, and Venus – rivals in the superior excellence of their beauty. This life of an Epicurean or pleasure-lover according to the ancients, what among us seems to natural way of life, is not a punishable offense: since no one pursues the good, no good can be produced. The life is pleasure, entirely given up to lust, is the sinful kind which considers nothing honourable to be worthwhile, but seeking only the corrupt ways of living is either made effeminate by lust or bloodied by murder or burnt up by theft or soured by envy. The second kind of life is the active one, so eager for advantages, acquisitive of adornment, insatiable for possessions, sly in grasping them, assiduous in guarding them for it covets what it can get rather than seeks after knowledge, and thinks nothing of what is right when it seizes what is at hand it has no stability because it does not go about things honourably in olden times certain despots led such a life, among us the whole world leads it. With these there is no greed for profit, no insane rage, no poisonous spite, no reek of lust and if concern for tracking down the truth and meditating on what is right keeps them thin, they are adorned by their good name and fed by their hope. For the first or contemplative life is that which has to do with the search for knowledge and truth, the life led in our days by bishops, priests, and monks, in olden days by philosophers. Philosophers have distinguished a threefold life for mankind, by which they mean first, the meditative second, the practical and third, the sensual – or as we call them in Latin, the contemplative, the active, the voluptuary – as the prophet David declared, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,” that is, does not go, does not stand, does not sit. Therefore, if you do learn more about these matters, praise the sincerity of a mind which has not held back what it possessed and if you were ignorant of these matters before, you at least have from my efforts an arena in which you can exercise your own mental talents. Just as it is a sign of malice to keep silent on what I know, so it is not a fault to explain what I have understood. But since these matters in no way exalt my reputation or disguise my shortcomings (in the sense that if the reader improve his knowledge by them, he may acknowledge it to God for granting the improvement to him but if he find worse folly in them, he may blame it on the one who committed it), these things, therefore, are not ours, but His gift, and whatever improvements may result, their bestowal is of God, not man. WHITBREAD BOOK 2 PROLOGUEĪttentive to your revered command, Master, I have in my destitute state committed this foolishness of mine to your judgment, suspended on the horns of a dilemma whether any reader will praise what I have put together or demolish what I have worked over. Alpheus & Arethusa MYTHOLOGIES 2 - 3, TRANSLATED BY L.
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