巴門尼德：論自然

王太慶 譯 元知 2019-04-12

 

 

　　（1）我乘坐的駟馬高車拉着我前進，極力馳騁隨我高興，後來它把我帶上天下聞名的女神大道，這條大道引導着明白人走遍所有的城鎮。於是我的馬車沿着那條道路趲行，拉車的馬兒十分聰明，載着我前進，少女們為我指點出途徑。車軸磨得滾燙，在軸函中發出震耳的嘯聲，因為它的兩端被旋轉的車輪帶着飛速地翻騰。那時太陽的女兒們離開夜宅，掠過頭上的紗巾，把馬車趕嚮光明。 
　　那裏矗立着一座大門，把白天和黑夜的道路劃分，上邊有門楣，下邊有石頭的門檻；這天門上巨大的雙扉閉得緊緊，保管啓閉之鑰的是狄凱，那專司報應的女神。少女們用恭維的辭令央告這位尊神，機靈地勸她同意把插牢的門閂拿開。於是門閂除去，兩根嵌着釘子的黃銅門軸在軸函中一根接着一根轉動，門道洞開。少女們驅着駟馬高車筆直地走進門來，女神親切地將我接待，握着我的右手，用下面的話語嚮我說： 
　　青年人，你在不朽的馭手陪同下，乘着高車駟馬來到我的門庭，十分歡迎！領你走上這條大道的不是惡煞（因為這大道離開人間的小徑確實很遠），而是公平正直之神。所以你應當學習各種事情，從圓滿真理的牢固核心，直到毫不包含真情的凡夫俗子的意見。意見儘管不真，你還是要加以體驗，因為必須通過徹底的全面鑽研，才能對假象作出判斷。 
　　要使你的思想遠離這種研究途徑，別讓習慣用經驗的力量把你逼上這條路，衹是以茫然的眼睛、轟鳴的耳朵或舌頭為準繩，而要用你的理智來解决紛爭的辯論。你面前衹剩下一條道路，可以放膽遵循。 
　　（2）要用你的心靈牢牢地註視那遙遠的東西，一如近在目前。因為它不會把存在者從存在者的聯繫中割裂，以致分崩瓦解，或者聚集會合。 
　　（3）在我看來存在者是一個共同體，我就從這裏開始；因為我將重新回到這裏。 
　　（4）來吧，我告訴你（我的話你要諦聽），衹有哪些研究途徑是可以設想的。一條是：存在者存在，它不可能不存在。這是確信的途徑，因為它遵循真理。另一條是：存在者不存在，這個不存在必然存在。走這條路，我告訴你，是什麽都學不到的。因為不存在者你是既不能認識（這當然辦不到），也不能說出的。 
　　（5）因為能被思維者和能存在者是同一的。 
　　（6）必定是：可以言說、可以思議者存在，因為它存在是可能的，而不存在者存在是不可能的。這就是我教你牢記在心的。這就是我吩咐你註意的第一條研究途徑。然後你還要註意另一條途徑，在那條途徑上，那些什麽都不明白的凡人們兩頭彷徨。因為他們的心中不知所措，被搖擺不定的念頭支配着，所以像聾子和瞎子一樣無所適從。這些不能分辨是非的群氓，居然認為存在者和不存在者同一又不同一，一切事物都有正反兩個方向！ 
　　（7）因為勉強證明不存在者存在，是根本不可能的。你要讓自己的思想遠離這條研究途徑。 
　　（8）所以衹剩下一條途徑，就是：存在者存在。在這條途徑上有許多標志表明，存在者不是産生出來的，也不能消滅，因為它是完全的、不動的、無止境的。它既非過去存在，亦非將來存在，因為它整個在現在，是個連續的一。 
　　因為你願意給它找出哪種來源來呢？它能以什麽方式、從什麽東西裏長出來呢？（它既不能從存在者裏生出，這樣就會有另一個存在者預先存在了）我也不能讓你這樣說或想：它從不存在者裏産生；因為存在者不存在是不可言說、不可思議的。而且，如果它來自不存在，它有什麽必要不早一點或遲一點産生呢？所以它必定是要麽永遠存在，要麽根本不存在。 
　　真理的力量也决不容許從不存在者中産生出任何異於不存在者的東西來。 
　　因此正義决不鬆開它的鎖鏈，聽任存在者産生和消滅，而是牢牢抓住存在者不放。關於這個存在者，我們要判斷的是：它存在還是不存在？所以我們必須斷定：要把一條途徑當作不可思議、不可言說的途徑拋在一邊（這確實不是真的途徑），而把另一條途徑看做存在的、實在的途徑。這樣看來，存在者怎樣能在將來産生，又怎樣能在過去産生呢？因為如果它在過去或將來産生，現在它就不存在了。所以産生是沒有的，消滅也是沒有的。 
　　存在者也是不可分的，因為它全部都是一樣的，沒有哪個地方比另一個地方多些，妨礙它的連續，也沒有哪裏少些。因此它是整個連續的；因為存在者是與存在者連接的。 
　　而且，存在者是不動的，被巨大的鎖鏈捆着，無始亦無終；因為産生與消滅已經被趕得很遠，被真信念趕跑了。它是同一的，永遠在同一個地方，居留在自身之內。因為強大的必然性把它用鎖鏈從四面八方捆着，不能越雷池一步。因此存在者不能是無限的，因為它沒有缺陷；如果無限，那就正好是有缺陷的了。 
　　可以被思想的東西和思想的目標是同一的；因為你找不到一個思想是沒有它所表達的存在物的。存在者之外，絶沒有、也絶不會有任何別的東西，因為命運已經用鎖鏈把它捆在那不可分割的、不動的整體上。因此凡人們在語言中加以固定的東西，如産生和消滅，是和不是，位置變化和色彩變化，衹不過是空洞的名詞。 
　　然而，由於存在者有一條最後的邊界，它在各方面都是完全的，好像一個滾圓的球體，從中心到每一個方面距離都相等，因為不能在哪個地方大一點或小一點。因為既沒有一個不存在者破壞團结，也沒有一個存在者在這裏或那裏比存在者多點或少點，因為它是完全不可損毀的。因為那個與哪一方面距離都相等的點是與邊界距離相等。

 

On Nature (Peri Physeos)
by Parmenides of Elea (c. 475 B.C.)
Edited by Allan F. Randall from translations by David Gallop, Richard D. McKirahan, Jr., Jonathan Barnes, John Mansley Robinson and others.
1The mares, which carry me as far as my heart desires, were escorting me. They brought and placed me upon the well-spoken path of the Goddess, which carries everywhere unscathed the mortal who knows. Thereon was I carried, for thereon the wise mares did carry me, straining to pull the chariot, with maidens guiding the way. The axle, glowing in its naves, gave forth the shrill sound of a musical pipe, urged on by two rounded wheels on either end, even whilst maidens, Daughters of the Sun, were hastening to escort me, after leaving the House of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands.
Ahead are the gates of the paths of Night and Day. A lintel and stone threshold surround them. The aetherial gates themselves are filled with great doors, for which much-avenging Justice holds the keys of retribution. Coaxing her with gentle words, the maidens did cunningly persuade her to push back the bolted bar for them swiftly from the gates. These made of the doors a yawning gap as they were opened wide, swinging in turn the bronze posts in their sockets, fastened with rivets and pins. Straight through them at that point did the maidens drive the chariot and mares along the broad way.

The Goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in Hers, uttered speech and thus addressed me: "Youth, attended by immortal charioteers, who come to our House by these mares that carry you, welcome. For it was no ill fortune that sent you forth to travel this road (lying far indeed from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. And it is right that you should learn all things, both the persuasive, unshaken heart of Objective Truth, and the subjective beliefs of mortals, in which there is no true trust. But you shall learn these too: how, for the mortals passing through them, the things-that-seem must 'really exist', being, for them, all there is.

The Way of Objectivity (Aletheia)
2"Come now, listen, and convey my story. I shall tell you what paths of inquiry alone there are for thinking:
#1. The one: that it is and it is impossible for it not to be.
This is the path of Persuasion, for it accompanies Objective Truth.
#2. The other: that it is not and it necessarily must not be.
That, I point out to you, is a path wholly unthinkable, for neither could you know what-is-not (for that is impossible), nor could you point it out.

6"Whatever can be spoken or thought of necessarily is, since it is possible for it to be, but it is not possible for nothing to be. I urge you to consider this last point, for I restrain you firstly from that path of inquiry (#2), and secondly from:
#3. The one on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander, two-headed, for helplessness in their breasts guides their wandering minds and they are carried, deaf and blind alike, dazed, uncritical tribes, for whom being and not-being are thought the same and yet not the same, and the path of all runs in opposite directions. 7For never shall this be proved: that things that are not are. But do restrain your thought from this path of inquiry, and do not let habit, born from much experience, compel you along this path, to guide your sightless eye and ringing ear and tongue. But judge by reason the highly contentious disproof that I have spoken.
8a"One path only is left for us to speak of: that it is. On this path there are a multitude of indications that what-is, being ungenerated, is also imperishable, whole, of a single kind, immovable and complete. Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one and continuous. For what coming-to-be of it will you seek? How and from where did it grow? I shall not permit you to say or to think that it grew from what-is-not, for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What necessity could have impelled it to grow later rather than sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus it must either fully be, or be not at all. Nor will the force of conviction ever allow anything, from what-is, to come-to-be something apart from itself; wherefore Justice does not loosen her shackles so as to allow it to come-to-be or to perish, but holds it fast.
"The decision on these matters depends on this: either it is or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary, to let go the one as unthinkable and unnameable (for it is no true path), but to allow the other, so that it is, and is true. How could what-is be in the future? How could it come-to-be? For if it came-to-be, it is not, nor is it if at some time it is going to be. Thus, coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing unheard of.

"Nor is it divisible, since it all alike is. Nor is there any more of it here than there, to hinder it from holding together, nor any less of it, but it is all a plenum, full of what-is. Therefore, it is all continuous, for what-is touches what-is.

"Moreover, unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without beginning or end, since coming-to-be and perishing were banished far away, and true conviction drove them out. Remaining the same, in the same place, it lies in itself, and thus firmly remains there. For mighty Necessity holds it fast in the bonds of a limit, which fences it about, since it is not right for what-is to be incomplete. For it lacks nothing. If it lacked anything, it would lack everything.

8c"Since, then, there is an ultimate limit, it is completed from every direction like the bulk of a perfect sphere, evenly balanced in every way from the centre, as it must not be any greater or smaller here than there. For neither is there what-is-not, which could stop it from reaching its like, nor is there a way in which what-is could be more here and less there, since it all inviolably is. For equal to itself in every direction, it reaches its limits uniformly.

3"The same thing is there for thinking of and for being. 4Look upon things which, though absent, are yet firmly present in thought (for you shall not cut off what-is from holding fast to what-is, since it neither disperses itself in all directions throughout the order of the Cosmos, nor does it gather itself together). 8bIt is the same thing, to think of something and to think that it is, since you will never find thought without what-is, to which it refers, and on which it depends. For nothing is nor will be except what-is, since it was just this that Fate did shackle to be whole and unchanging; wherefore it has been named all things that mortals have established, persuaded that they are true: 'to come-to-be and to perish', 'to be and not to be' and 'to shift place and exchange bright colour'.

The Way of Subjectivity (Doxa)
5"Wherever I begin, it is all one to me, for there I shall return again.
8d"Here I stop my trustworthy speech to you and thought about Objective Truth. From here on, learn the subjective beliefs of mortals; listen to the deceptive ordering of my words. For they made up their minds to name two forms, one of which it is not right to name at all (here is where they have gone astray) and have distinguished them as opposite in bodily form and have assigned to them marks distinguishing them from one another:

#1. Here, on the one hand, aetherial flame of fire, gentle, very light, everywhere the same as itself...
#2. But not the same as this other, which in itself is opposite: dark night, a dense and heavy body.

"All this order I present to you as probable, so that no mortal belief shall ever outdo you. 9But since all things have been named light and night, and their powers have been assigned to each, all is a plenum of light and obscure night together, both equal, since nothingness partakes in neither.
10"You shall know the nature of the aether and all the signs in the aether, the destructive works of the splendid Sun's pure torch, and whence they came-to-be. And you shall learn the wandering works of the round-faced Moon, and its nature, and you shall know also the surrounding heaven, whence it grew and how Necessity did guide and shackle it to hold the limits of the stars. 14The Moon: night-shiner, wandering around the Earth, an alien light, 15always looking towards the rays of the Sun. 15aThe Earth: rooted-in-water. 11And you shall learn how Earth and Sun and Moon and the aether common to all, the Milky Way and the outermost heaven, and the hot force of the stars did surge forth to come-to-be.

12"For the narrower rings are filled with unmingled fire, the ones next to them with night, but a due amount of fire is inserted amongst it. In the midst of these is the goddess who governs everything. For she rules over hateful birth and union of all things, sending female to unite with male, and again conversely male with female.

13"She devised Love first of all the gods. 18When man and woman mingle the seeds of love that spring from their veins, a formative power, maintaining proper proportions, moulds well-formed bodies from this diverse blood (for if, when the seed is mingled, the forces therein clash and do not fuse into one, then cruelly will they plague the offspring with a double-gender). 17She placed young males on the right side of the womb, young females on the left.

16"According to the union within each person of disparate body parts, thus does mind emerge in humans. For it is the composition of body parts which does the thinking, and Thought (since it defines the plenum) is the same in each and every human.

19"Thus, according to belief, these things were born and now are, and hereafter, having grown from this, they will come to an end. And for each of these did humans establish a distinctive name. 20One and unchanging is that for which as a whole the name is: 'to be'."