Plotino – Tratado 5,2 (V, 9, 2) — Qual é o lugar além do mundo d’aqui de baixo?

2. Pero, ¿cuál es esta región? ¿Y cómo podrá llegarse a ella? Podrá llegar a ella el que sea de naturaleza amorosa y, ya desde un principio, posea realmente la disposición de un filósofo porque es propio del amante afrontar con dolor la producción de lo bello y no contentarse tan sólo con la belleza del cuerpo, sino partir de aquí para acercarse a la belleza del alma, a la virtud, a la ciencia, a las ocupaciones honestas y a las leyes , remontando a la causa de las bellezas del alma e incluso a lo que es anterior a ella, hasta llegar a un primer término que sea ya bello por sí mismo. Una vez llegado aquí, cesa todo su dolor, que no conocerá en adelante. Pero, ¿cómo ascender hasta aquí? ¿Y de dónde recibirá este poder o qué discurso le enseñará este amor? ¿Será acaso el que sigue? Las bellezas que encontramos en los cuerpos son extrañas a los cuerpos, porque son en ellos como formas en una materia. Ciertamente, el sujeto de la belleza es algo cambiante y de bello puede convertirse en feo. La razón nos dice que los cuerpos son bellos por participación. ¿Qué es, pues, lo que ha producido en ellos la belleza? En un cierto sentido, la presencia de la belleza; en otro el alma misma, que modela y trae la forma a los cuerpos. ¿Pues qué? ¿Es el alma entonces bella por sí misma? No, sin duda, puesto que unas almas son prudentes y bellas, en tanto otras son insensatas y feas. Luego la belleza del alma provendrá de su buen juicio. Pero, ¿quién proporciona al alma este buen juicio? ¿Será necesariamente la Inteligencia?, pero no la inteligencia que unas veces lo es y otras no, sino la Inteligencia verdadera, que es, por tanto, bella por sí misma. ¿Debemos, pues, detenernos en ella, como si se tratase de un primer término, o hemos de ir todavÍa más allá? La Inteligencia está situada delante del principio primero con relación a nosotros y, colocada en el vestíbulo del Bien, nos da a conocer todas las cosas que se dan en El; ella misma es, sobre todo, como una impronta del Bien en lo múltiple, mientras el Bien permanece enteramente en la unidad.

II. Quelle est cette région supérieure? Que faut-il être pour y parvenir? Il faut être naturellement porté à l’amour, être né véritablement philosophe (5). En présence du beau, l’amant éprouve quelque chose de semblable au mal d’enfant; mais, loin de s’arrêter à la beauté du corps, il s’élève à celle qu’offrent dans l’âme la vertu, la science, les devoirs et les lois; puis, il remonte à la cause de leur beauté, et il ne s’arrête dans cette marche ascendante que lorsqu’il est arrivé au principe qui occupe le premier rang, ace qui est beau par soi-même (6). C’est alors seulement qu’il cesse d’être aiguillonné par ce tourment que nous comparons au mal d’enfant.

Mais comment monte-t-il là-haut? Comment en a-t-il le pouvoir? Comment apprend-il à aimer? Le voici. La beauté qu’on voit dans les corps est adventice : elle consiste dans les formes (μορφαί) dont les corps sont la matière (7). Aussi la substance change-t-elle et la voit-on de belle devenir laide. C’est que le corps n’a qu’une beauté d’emprunt. Qui la lui a communiquée? D’un côté, la présence de la beauté; de l’autre, l’acte de l’âme qui a façonné le corps et lui a donné la forme qu’il possède. Quoi? L’âme est-elle ou non par elle-même le Beau absolu? Non, puisque telle âme est sage et belle; telle autre, insensée et laide. C’est donc par la sagesse que rame est belle. Mais de qui tient-elle la sagesse? de l’Intelligence nécessairement : de l’Intelligence qui n’est pas tantôt intelligente, tantôt inintelligente, de l’Intelligence véritable, qui par cela même est belle (8). Faut-il s’arrêter à elle comme au Premier principe? Faut-il au contraire s’élever encore au-dessus d’elle? Il le faut : car l’Intelligence ne se présente à nous avant le Premier principe que parce qu’elle est en quelque sorte placée dans le vestibule du Bien (9); elle porte toutes choses en elle-même et elle les manifeste, en sorte qu’elle offre l’image du Bien dans la pluralité, tandis que le Bien même demeure dans une unité absolument simple.

THE HIGHER REGION REACHED ONLY BY THOSE WHO ARE BORN PHILOSOPHERS.

2. Which is this higher region? What must be done to reach it? One must be naturally disposed to love, and be really a born philosopher. In the presence of beauty, the lover feels something similar to the pains of childbirth; but far from halting at bodily beauty, he rises to that aroused in the soul by virtue, duties, science and laws. Then he follows them up to the cause of their beauty, and in this ascending progress stops only when he has reached the Principle that occupies the first rank, that which is beautiful in itself. Then only does he cease being driven by this torment that we compare to the pains of childbirth.

LOVE IS TRANSFORMED INTO PROGRESSIVELY HIGHER STAGES.

But how does he rise up thither? How does he have the power to do so? How does he learn to love? Here it is. The beauty seen in bodies is incidental; it consists in the shapes of which the bodies are the matter. Consequently the substance changes, and it is seen changing from beauty to ugliness. The body has only a borrowed beauty. Who imparted that beauty to the body? On the one hand, the presence of beauty; on the other, the actualization of the soul, which fashioned the body, and which gave it the shape it possesses. But is the soul, by herself, absolute beauty? No, since some souls are wise and beautiful, while some others are foolish and ugly. It is therefore, only by wisdom that the soul is beautiful. But from what is her wisdom derived ? Necessarily from intelligence; not from the intelligence that is intelligent at some time, though not at others, but from the genuine Intelligence, which is beautiful on that very account. Shall we stop at Intelligence, as a first principle? Or shall we on the contrary still rise above it ? Surely so, for Intelligence presents itself to us before the firsfirst Principle only because it is, so to speak, located in the antechamber of the Good. It bears all things within itself, and manifests them, so that it displays the image of the Good in manifoldness, while the Good itself remains in an absolute simple unity.

II. What then is this place ? And how may some one arrive at it? He, indeed, will arrive thither, who is by nature amatory, and who is truly a philosopher in disposition from the beginning. For as being amatory, he will be parturient about the beautiful, yet will not be satisfied with the beauty which is in body, but will fly from thence to the beauty of soul, to virtues and sciences, studies and laws, and will again from these ascend to the cause of the beauty contained in soul. If, also, there is a beauty prior to this, he will ascend to it, till he at length arrives at that which is first, and which is beautiful from itself. Having likewise arrived hither, he will be liberated from his parturiency, but not before. But how will he ascend, whence does he derive the power of ascending, and what is the reasoning which will conduct this love [to the desired end ?] Is it the following ? This beauty which is in bodies, is adventitious to bodies. For the morphes, or forms themselves of bodies, are in them as in matter. The subject, therefore, is changed, and from being beautiful becomes deformed. Hence reason says that body is beautiful by participation. What is it then which causes body to be beautiful ? This, indeed, is effected in one way by the presence of beauty, but in another by soul, which fashions body, and inserts in it a morphe, or form of such a kind.

What then ? Is soul of itself beautiful or not ? Certainly not; since if it were, one soul would not be wise and beautiful, but another unwise and base. Hence, the beauty which is in soul is derived from wisdom. Who is it, therefore, that imparts wisdom to the soul? Is it not necessarily intellect ? But it is an intellect, which is not at one time intellect, and at another deprived of it: for it is true intellect, and which is therefore beautiful from itself. Is it then necessary to stop here as at that which is first, or is it requisite to pass beyond intellect? Intellect, indeed, as with reference to us precedes the firsfirst principle of things, announcing as it were in the vestibules of the good, that all things subsist in itself; as being a multitudinous impression of the good which entirely abides in unity.

2. What is this other place and how it is accessible?

It is to be reached by those who, born with the nature of the lover, are also authentically philosophic by inherent temper; in pain of love towards beauty but not held by material loveliness, taking refuge from that in things whose beauty is of the soul – such things as virtue, knowledge, institutions, law and custom – and thence, rising still a step, reach to the source of this loveliness of the Soul, thence to whatever be above that again, until the uttermost is reached. The First, the Principle whose beauty is self-springing: this attained, there is an end to the pain inassuageable before.

But how is the ascent to be begun? Whence comes the power? In what thought is this love to find its guide?

The guiding thought is this: that the beauty perceived on material things is borrowed.

The pattern giving beauty to the corporeal rests upon it as Idea to its Matter and the substrate may change and from being pleasant become distasteful, a sign, in all reason, that the beauty comes by participation.

Now, what is this that gives grace to the corporeal?

Two causes in their degree; the participation in beauty and the power of Soul, the maker, which has imprinted that form.

We ask then is soul, of itself, a thing of beauty: we find it is not since differences are manifest, one Soul wise and lovely, another foolish and ugly: soul-beauty is constituted by wisdom.

The question thus becomes, “What principle is the giver of wisdom to the soul? and the only answer is “The Intellectual-Principle,” the veritably intellectual, wise without intermission and therefore beautiful of itself.

But does even this suffice for our First?

No; we must look still inward beyond the Intellectual, which, from our point of approach, stands before the Supreme Beginning, in whose forecourt, as it were, it announces in its own being the entire content of the Good, that prior of all, locked in unity, of which this is the expression already touched by multiplicity.