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for searching only. HORACE 523
The latent implication here is that we are less likely to be deceived when we use our own eyes than when through our ears we use the eyes of others. Parrhasius also has some affinity with Shakspere's idea,
Duo stint quibus animi mouentur, oculi & aures. sed oculorum sensus maxime est acerrimus, qui ponit gene in conspectu animi quae cernere & uidere non possumus. Vnde recte illi fecisse uidentur, qui primi localem memoriam inuenerunt: ut quae auribus aut cogitatione perciperent, etiam oculorum commendatione animis traderentur.'
The things which are perceived by the ears or by cogitation are transferred to our souls or minds with the commendation of the eyes. It is still assumed as usual that the eyes are better than the ears, and that the ears are good in proportion as they are aided by the eye, but no reason is given directly as to why this is so. Similarly Lambinus has a long note from which we may select the following passage as closest to the idea of Shakspere,
Nam aspectus quidem vni cum HS, quae oculis subijciuntur, concurrit, & conspirat: auditu verb facile est verbis artificiosis, & numerosis attollere, suspensumq; tenere, & falsis rationibus capere, ac fallere.
Here sight concurs and conspires with the facts themselves immediately under the eyes, while the ear may easily be frustrated and deceived by false words and reasons. Again we have the assumption that the eye is nearest to truth, while the ear is secondary. But it is not directly stated that the eye interprets to the ear as in Shakspere.
Shakspere's interpretation, however, is a kind of paraphrase of Horace himself, "quae ipse sibi tradit spectator." Perhaps the following arrangement will show what has happened.
For then the eye interprets to the ear
et quae ipse spectator tradit sibi
and what the beholder himself teaches to himself
On the background of contemporary psychology, the statement of Lam binus being closest, Shakspere has himself simply paraphrased a statement in Horace. He must either have had the passage under his eye as he wrote, or else rather vividly in memory. Nor would Drant have furnished any part of the pattern.
The things reported to the eares moue not the myne so sone As lyuely set before thyne eyes, in acte for to behold.06
in Horace, Opera (Basle, 1580, p. 1506. 124 I.ambinus, Horace (1567), Pt. 11, p. 365. 125 Drant, Horace (1567), [A6Jr & v.
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