et emissamque hyemem sensit Neptunus et imis_, and
likewise it shows very present and visibly all the burning of the city, in
every part, represented and seen as if it were really true; on one side
those who run through the streets and squares, on the other those who jump
from the walls and towers; here the temples half demolished and the
reflection of the flames in the rivers, and the surrounded shores
illuminated; how Pantheus as he runs away limping with his idols, leading
his grandchild by the hand; how the Trojan horse gives birth in the centre
of a great square to armed men; how Neptune, very wrath, throws down the
walls; how Pyrrhus beheads Priam; AEneas with his father on his shoulders,
and Ascanius and Creusa who follow him in the darkness of night, full of
fear; and all this so present and so connected and natural that very often
you are moved to think that you are not safe before it, and you are glad
to know they are only colours and that they cannot inspire or do harm. It
does not show you this spread out in words, whilst you remember only the
part which is before your eyes having already forgotten the past and not
knowing the future, and which verses only the ears of a grammarian can
understand with difficulty, but one's eyes visibly enjoy that spectacle as
being true, and one's ears seem to hear the actual cries and clamour of
the painted figures; it seems as if you smell the smoke, you fly from the
flames, you fear the fall of the buildings; you are ready to give a hand
to those who are falling, you defend those who are fighting against
numbers; you run away with those who run away and stand firm with the
courageous. Not only the learned are satisfied, but also the simple, the
countryman, the old woman; not only these, but also the Sarmatian
stranger, the Indian, and the Persian (who never understood the verses of
Virgil, or Homer, which are dumb to them), delight themselves with and
understand that work with great pleasure and quickness; the barbarian
ceases to be barbarian, and understands, by virtue of the eloquent
painting, that which no poetry or numbered feet could teach him. And the
law of painting says: _in ipsa legunt qui literas nesciunt_, and further
on says: _pro lectione pictura est_. When Cebes, a Theban, wished to write
an opinion of his for a law of human life, he simulated and painted it on
a 'panel,' as he thought that he would express it better thus, and that it
would be more noble and mor