v REFLECTION 27 



manifest when one approaches it. For, I repeat, 

 the same happens to the clouds themselves : they 

 are not all a sham merely because under certain 

 conditions they cease to be visible. Besides, 



when you are told that the cloud is dyed by the sun, 

 it does not mean that that colour of his is mingled, 

 as it were, with a hard, firm, durable body, but 

 with a liquid unstable body that is incapable of more 

 than a very brief impress. Let me add that there 12 

 are certain artificial colours which display their 

 virtue at a distance. The better and richer the 

 Tyrian purple is, the higher up you must hold it to 

 display its full blaze. It does not cease to possess 

 its colour simply because it does not reveal its best 

 shade in any and every position in which it is 

 exhibited. I am of the same opinion as 



Posidonius in holding that the bow is formed in a 

 cloud shaped like a hollow round mirror, whose form 

 is that of a section through a ball. This cannot be 13 

 proved without the aid of geometry : the mathe 

 matical proofs leave no doubt that the bow is an 

 image of the sun, but one that does not resemble it. 

 Nor, indeed, are all objects faithfully represented in 

 mirrors. There are some mirrors one is terrified to 

 let one s eyes rest upon, such is the misshapen 

 and distorted image they reproduce of those who 

 gaze upon them. They deform the likeness they 

 preserve withal. Some, again, there are, a glance at M 

 which causes great self-satisfaction in one s strength : 

 the arms are enormously increased, and the appear 

 ance of the whole body is enlarged to superhuman 

 proportions. There are mirrors that turn faces to 

 the right, and mirrors that turn them to the left, 

 others twist and even invert them. What wonder, 

 then, that a mirror of this kind should be formed in 



