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 more easily understood by all men; he then desired
more to know how to paint, in order to speak, than how to write.
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