Plotinus porphyrian III.8 · chronological 30 · chapter 4 · volkmann page 334-336

καὶ εἴ τις δὲ αὐτὴν ἔροιτο τίνος ἕνεκα ποιεῖ, εἰ τοῦ ἐρωτῶντος ἐθέλοι ἐπαίειν καὶ λέγειν, εἴποι ἄν: ‘ἐχρῆν μὲν μὴ ἐρωτᾶν, ἀλλὰ συνιέναι καὶ αὐτὸν σιωπῇ, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ σιωπῶ καὶ οὐκ εἴθισμαι λέγειν. τί οὖν συνιέναι; ὅτι τὸ γενόμενόν ἐστι θέαμα ἐμὸν [ἐμοῦ] σιωπησάσης καὶ φύσει γενόμενον θεώρημα, καί μοι γενομένῃ ἐκ θεωρίας τῆς ὡδὶ τὴν φύσιν ἔχειν φιλοθεάμονα ὑπάρχει καὶ τὸ θεωροῦν μου θεώρημα ποιεῖ, ὥσπερ οἱ γεωμέτραι θεωροῦντες γράφουσιν: ἀλλ’ ἐμοῦ μὴ γραφούσης, θεωρούσης δέ, ὑφίστανται αἱ τῶν σωμάτων γραμμαὶ ὥσπερ ἐκπίπτουσαι. καί μοι τὸ τῆς μητρὸς καὶ τῶν γειναμένων ὑπάρχει πάθος: καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι εἰσὶν ἐκ θεωρίας καὶ ἡ γένεσις ἡ ἐμὴ ἐκείνων οὐδὲν πραξάντων, ἀλλ’ ὄντων μειζόνων λόγων καὶ θεωρούντων αὐτοὺς ἐγὼ γεγέννημαι.’ τί οὖν ταῦτα βούλεται; ὡς ἡ λεγομένη φύσις ψυχὴ οὖσα, γέννημα ψυχῆς προτέρας δυνατώτερον ζώσης, ἡσυχῇ ἐν ἑαυτῇ θεωρίαν ἔχουσα οὐ πρὸς τὸ ἄνω οὐδ’ αὖ ἔτι πρὸς τὸ κάτω, στᾶσα δὲ ἐν ᾧ ἔστιν, ἐν τῇ αὐτῆς στάσει καὶ οἷον συναισθήσει, τῇ συνέσει ταύτῃ καὶ συναισθήσει τὸ μετ’ αὐτὴν εἶδεν ὡς οἷόν τε αὐτῇ καὶ οὐκέτι ἐζήτησεν ἄλλα θεώρημα ἀποτελέσασα ἀγλαὸν καὶ χάριεν. καὶ εἴ τις βούλεται σύνεσίν τινα ἢ αἴσθησιν αὐτῇ διδόναι, οὐχ οἵαν λέγομεν ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων τὴν αἴσθησιν ἢ τὴν σύνεσιν, ἀλλ’ οἷον εἴ τις τὴν τοῦ ὕπνου [τῇ] τοῦ ἐγρηγορότος προσεικάσειε. θεωροῦσα γὰρ θεώρημα αὐτῆς ἀναπαύεται γενόμενον αὐτῇ ἐκ τοῦ ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ σὺν αὐτῇ μένειν καὶ θεώρημα εἶναι: καὶ θεωρία ἄψοφος, ἀμυδροτέρα δέ. ἑτέρα γὰρ αὐτῆς εἰς θέαν ἐναργεστέρα, ἡ δὲ εἴδωλον θεωρίας ἄλλης. ταύτῃ δὴ καὶ τὸ γεννηθὲν ὑπ’ αὐτῆς ἀσθενὲς παντάπασιν, ὅτι ἀσθενοῦσα θεωρία ἀσθενὲς θεώρημα ποιεῖ: ἐπεὶ καὶ ἄνθρωποι, ὅταν ἀσθενήσωσιν εἰς τὸ θεωρεῖν, σκιὰν θεωρίας καὶ λόγου τὴν πρᾶξιν ποιοῦνται. ὅτι γὰρ μὴ ἱκανὸν αὐτοῖς τὸ τῆς θεωρίας ὑπ’ ἀσθενείας ψυχῆς, λαβεῖν οὐ δυνάμενοι τὸ θέαμα ἱκανῶς καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐ πληρούμενοι, ἐφιέμενοι δὲ αὐτὸ ἰδεῖν, εἰς πρᾶξιν φέρονται, ἵνα ἴδωσιν, ὃ μὴ νῷ ἐδύναντο. ὅταν γοῦν ποιῶσι, καὶ αὐτοὶ ὁρᾶν βούλονται αὐτὸ καὶ θεωρεῖν καὶ αἰσθάνεσθαι καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους, ὅταν ἡ πρόθεσις αὐτοῖς ὡς οἷόν τε πρᾶξις ᾖ. πανταχοῦ δὴ ἀνευρήσομεν τὴν ποίησιν καὶ τὴν πρᾶξιν ἢ ἀσθένειαν θεωρίας ἢ παρακολούθημα: ἀσθένειαν μέν, εἰ μηδέν τις ἔχοι μετὰ τὸ πραχθέν: παρακολούθημα δέ, εἰ ἔχοι ἄλλο πρὸ τούτου κρεῖττον τοῦ ποιηθέντος θεωρεῖν. τίς γὰρ θεωρεῖν τὸ ἀληθινὸν δυνάμενος προηγουμένως ἔρχεται ἐπὶ τὸ εἴδωλον τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ; μαρτυροῦσι δὲ καὶ οἱ νωθέστεροι τῶν παίδων, οἳ πρὸς τὰς μαθήσεις καὶ θεωρίας ἀδυνάτως ἔχοντες ἐπὶ τὰς τέχνας καὶ τὰς ἐργασίας καταφέρονται.

And if someone were to ask nature why it makes, if it were willing to listen to the questioner and speak, it would say: 'You ought not to have asked, but to have understood, you too, in silence, as I am silent and am not accustomed to speak. Understood what? That what comes to be is my spectacle, made while I was silent, an object of contemplation come to be by nature; and that, since I came to be from a contemplation of this kind, I have a nature that loves spectacle; and what contemplates in me makes an object of contemplation, as the geometers draw as they contemplate. But I do not draw; I contemplate, and the lines of bodies come to subsist as if falling out of me. And what happened to my mother and to those who begot me is mine too: for they also are from contemplation, and my birth came about with them doing nothing; but because they are greater rational forms and contemplate themselves, I have been begotten.' What does this mean? That what is called nature, being a soul, the offspring of a prior soul that lives more powerfully, having contemplation quietly within itself, directed neither upward nor yet downward, but standing where it is, in its own stillness and a kind of self-perception — by this understanding and self-perception it saw what comes after it, as far as it could, and sought nothing further, having brought to completion an object of contemplation, splendid and graceful. And if one wishes to grant it some understanding or perception, it is not the perception or understanding we speak of in other things, but as if one were to compare the awareness of sleep with that of one awake. For it contemplates its own object of contemplation and is at rest, an object that has come to be for it from its remaining in itself and with itself and being an object of contemplation; and its contemplation is soundless, but dimmer. For there is another, clearer to see than it; this one is an image of another contemplation. This is why what is begotten by it is altogether weak: a weak contemplation makes a weak object of contemplation. So also human beings, when they are too weak for contemplating, make action a shadow of contemplation and of reason. For because contemplation is not enough for them, through weakness of soul — unable to grasp the spectacle adequately and so not filled by it, yet aiming to see it — they are carried into action, so as to see what they could not see with intellect. At any rate, when they make something, they want to see it themselves and to contemplate it, and they want others to perceive it, whenever their purpose is, as far as possible, action. Everywhere, then, we shall find that making and action are either a weakness of contemplation or an accompaniment of it: a weakness, if one has nothing beyond what has been done; an accompaniment, if one has something else, prior to this, better than what has been made, to contemplate. For who, able to contemplate what is true, goes first of all to the image of what is true? The duller children bear witness too: unable for learning and contemplation, they sink down to the crafts and manual work.

Nature's speech is set in quotation marks by Volkmann. φιλοθεάμονα, 'that loves spectacle', recalls the φιλοθεάμονες of Plato, Republic V 475d. The geometers' 'drawing' plays on θεώρημα as 'theorem', its ordinary sense, while the glossary keeps 'object of contemplation'. συναίσθησις is 'self-perception', kept in the family of αἴσθησις 'perception'. Volkmann brackets ἐμοῦ in 'my spectacle' as a deletion; the English follows the text without it. He also brackets τῇ before τοῦ ἐγρηγορότος; without it the comparison of sleep and waking must be understood rather than read, and the English supplies it, as the sentence requires on either reading. λόγου in 'a shadow of contemplation and of reason' is the ordinary sense (glossary). Volkmann prints αὐτ- where the reflexive is meant; the English follows the sense ('itself').

Greek collated line by line against the Volkmann plate (vol. 1, pp. 334–336); every departure of the First1KGreek transcription from the printed page is corrected and recorded in the apparatus.

In the crux Ennead III.8 [30], On Nature and Contemplation and the One, chapter 4