What an extraordinary man!
Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things—the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also.
[D] He must be a wizard and no mistake.
Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself?
What way?
An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you [E]would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and 309 all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.
Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.
But this is an appearance only: and the painter too is a maker of appearances. Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another—a creator of appearances, is he not?
Of course.
But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed?