18. A. Thou speakest rightly; but I wonder why thou wouldst separate from this class those poems and jests, and other imitative trifles. R. Because forsooth it is one thing to will to be false, and another not to be able to be true. Therefore these works of men themselves, such as comedies or tragedies, or mimes, and other such things, we may include with the works of painters and sculptors. For a painted man cannot be so true, however much he may tend into the form of man, as those things which are written in the books of the comic poets. For neither do they will to be false, nor are they false by any appetite of their own; but by a certain necessity, so far as they have been able to follow the mind of the author. But on the stage Roscius in will was a false Hecuba, in nature a true man; but by that will also a true tragedian, in that he was fulfilling the thing proposed: but a false Priam, in that he made himself like Priam, but was not he. From which now arises a certain marvellous thing, which nevertheless no one doubts to be so. A. What, pray, is it? R. What think you, unless that all these things are in certain aspects true, by this very thing that they are in certain aspects false, and that for their quality of truth this alone avails them, that they are false in another regard? Whence to that which they either will or ought to be, they in no wise attain, if they avoid being false. For how could he whom I have mentioned have been a true tragedian, had he been unwilling to be a false Hector, a false Andromache, a false Hercules, and innumerable other things? or how would a picture, for instance, be a true picture, unless it were a false horse? or how could there be in a mirror a true image of a man, if it were not a false man? Wherefore, if it avails some things that they be somewhat false in order that they may be somewhat true; why do we so greatly dread falsity, and seek truth as the greatest good? A. I know not, and I greatly marvel, unless because in these examples I see nothing worthy of imitation. For not as actors, or specular reflections, or Myron’s brazen cows, ought we, in order that we may be true in some character of our own, to be outlined and accommodated to the personation of another; but to seek that truth, which is not, as if laid out on a bifronted and self-repugnant plan, false on one side that it may be true on the other. R. High and Divine are the things which thou requirest. Yet if we shall have found them, shall we not confess that of these things is Truth itself made up, and as it were brought into being from their fusion—Truth, from which every thing derives its name which in any way is called true? A. I yield no unwilling assent.

CAPUT X. Quaedam eo vera quo falsa.

18. A. Recte dicis: sed miror cur ab hoc genere tibi secernenda illa poemata et joca visa sunt, caeteraeque fallaciae. R. Quia scilicet aliud est falsum esse velle, aliud verum esse non posse. Itaque ipsa opera hominum velut comoedias aut tragoedias, aut mimos, et id genus alia possumus operibus pictorum fictorumque conjungere. Tam enim verus esse pictus homo non potest, quamvis in speciem hominis tendat, quam illa quae scripta sunt in libris comicorum. Neque enim falsa esse volunt, aut ullo appetitu suo falsa sunt; sed quadam necessitate, quantum fingentis arbitrium sequi potuerunt. At vero in scena Roscius voluntate falsa Hecuba erat, natura verus homo; sed illa voluntate etiam verus tragoedus, eo videlicet quo implebat, institutum: falsus autem Priamus, eo quod Priamum assimilabat, sed ipse non erat. Ex quo jam nascitur quiddam mirabile, quod tamen ita se habere nemo ambigit. A. Quidnam id est? R. Quid putas, nisi haec omnia inde esse in quibusdam vera, unde in quibusdam falsa sunt, et ad suum verum hoc solum eis prodesse, quod ad aliud falsa sunt? Unde ad id quod esse aut volunt aut debent, nullo modo perveniunt, si falsa esse fugiunt. Quo pacto enim iste quem commemoravi, verus tragoedus esset, si nollet esse falsus Hector, falsa Andromache, falsus Hercules, et alia innumera? aut unde vera pictura esset, si falsus equus non esset? unde in speculo vera hominis imago, si non falsus homo? Quare, si quibusdam, ut verum aliquid sint, prodest ut sint aliquid falsum; cur tantopere falsitates formidamus, et pro magno bono appetimus veritatem? A. Nescio, et multum miror, nisi quia in exemplis istis nihil imitatione dignum video. Non enim tanquam histriones, aut de speculis quaeque relucentia, aut tanquam Myronis buculae ex aere, ita etiam nos ut in nostro quodam habitu veri simus, ad alienum habitum adumbrati atque assimilati, et ob hoc falsi esse debemus; sed illud verum quaerere, quod non quasi bifronte ratione sibique adversanti, ut ex aliqua parte verum sit, ex aliqua falsum sit . R. Magna et divina quaedam requiris. Quae tamen si invenerimus, nonne fatebimur his ipsam confici, et quasi conflari veritatem, a qua denominatur omne quod verum quoquo modo nominatur? A. Non invitus assentior.