Plotino - Tratado 27,27 (IV, 3, 27) — A memória pertence à alma

27. Nos preguntamos ahora: pero, ¿a qué alma? ¿Nos referimos acaso al alma divina, según la que somos nosotros mismos, o esa otra alma que nos viene del universo? Diremos, en efecto, que cada una de estas almas tiene recuerdos, algunos de los cuales son particulares, mientras otros son comunes. Una vez que las almas se unen, ya los recuerdos se dan conjuntamente; pero cuando aquéllas vuelven a separarse, cada una de las almas se llena de sus propios recuerdos, aunque conserve además durante algún tiempo los recuerdos de la otra. Esa es, al menos, la imagen de Hércules en el Hades [1]. Porque dicha imagen, en mi opinión, debe ser pensada como recordando todas las acciones de su vida, ya que esta vida le pertenece sobre todas las cosas. En cuanto a las otras almas, que eran realmente dobles, no podían referirse nada más que los acontecimientos ocurridos en esta vida; pues, siendo las almas dobles, conocían tan sólo estos mismos acontecimientos y, si acaso, los que conciernen a la justicia. No se ha dicho, sin embargo (por Homero  ), lo que podría contarnos Hércules, una vez separado de su imagen. ¿Qué diría, en efecto, esta alma divina cuando estuviese completamente liberada? Porque, mientras se siente arrastrada hacia abajo, refiere solamente todo lo que el hombre hizo o sufrió; mas, a medida que el tiempo avanza y se acerca la hora de la muerte, reaparecen en ella los recuerdos de vidas anteriores, de los cuales únicamente desprecia algunos. Cuanto más libre se encuentre del cuerpo, más volverá sobre los recuerdos que no poseía en su vida actual y, si pasa de un cuerpo a otro, podrá referirnos los hechos de la vida exterior al cuerpo, tanto los de la vida que acaba de dejar como los múltiples acontecimientos de las vidas anteriores. Aunque, con el tiempo, muchos de estos sucesos caerán en el olvido.

Pero, una vez a solas, ¿de qué se acordará esta alma? Consideremos a este respecto por medio de qué facultad sobreviene el recuerdo en el alma.

XXVII. À quelle âme appartient la mémoire ? Est-ce à l’âme qui a une nature plus divine et qui nous constitue essentiellement ? Est-ce à l’âme que nous recevons de l’Âme universelle [2] ?

La mémoire appartient à l’une et à l’autre ; mais, dans un cas, elle est particulière, et dans l’autre, générale. Si les deux âmes sont réunies, elles possèdent ensemble les deux espèces de mémoire ; si elles existent et demeurent toutes deux séparées, elles se rappellent chacune plus longtemps ce qui la concerne elle-même, moins longtemps ce qui concerne l’autre. C’est pour cela que l’on dit que l’image d’Hercule est aux enfers [3]. Or, nous devons admettre que cette image se rappelle toutes les actions faites en cette vie : car c’est à elle que cette vie appartient spécialement. Quant aux autres âmes qui [réunissant en elles la partie raisonnable à la partie irraisonnable] possèdent ensemble les deux espèces de mémoire, elles ne peuvent cependant se rappeler que les choses qui concernent cette vie et qu’elles ont connues ici-bas, ou même les actes qui ont quelque rapport avec la justice.

Il nous reste à déterminer ce que dirait Hercule [c’est-à-dire [l’homme proprement dit] seul et séparé de son image. Que dirait donc l’âme raisonnable si elle était séparée et isolée ? — Car, l’âme qui a été attirée par le corps connaît tout ce que l’homme [proprement dit] a fait ou éprouvé ici-bas. Avec le cours du temps, à la mort, se reproduisent les souvenirs des existences antérieures ; mais l’âme en laisse échapper quelques-uns par mépris. S’étant en effet purifiée du corps, elle se rappellera les choses qu’elle n’avait pas présentes dans cette vie. Si, après être entrée dans un autre corps, elle vient à considérer le passé, elle parlera de cette vie qui lui est devenue étrangère, de ce qu’elle a récemment abandonné, et d’une foule de faits antérieurs. Quant aux circonstances qui arrivent dans une longue période, elles seront toujours plongées dans l’oubli.

Mais, encore une fois, que se rappellera l’âme isolée du corps ? Pour résoudre cette question, il faut déterminer à quelle puissance de l’âme appartient la mémoire.

MEMORY BELONGS BOTH TO THE DIVINE SOUL, AND TO THAT DERIVED FROM THE WORLD-SOUL.

27. To which soul, however, does memory belong? To the soul whose nature is more divine, and which constitutes us more essentially, or to the soul that we receive from the universal Soul (the rational and irrational souls)? Memory belongs to both; but in one case it is general, and in the other particular. When both souls are united, they together possess both kinds of memory; if they both remain separate, each remembers longer what concerns herself, and remembers less long what concerns the other. That is the reason people talk of the image of Hercules being in the hells. Now this image remembers all the deeds committed in this life: for this life particularly falls to her lot. The other souls which (by uniting within themselves the rational part to the irrational) together possess both kinds of memory. They yet cannot remember anything but the things that concern this life, and which they have known here below, or even the actions which have some relation with justice.

WHAT THE RATIONAL SOUL, IF SEPARATED, WOULD REMEMBER OF LIFE.

We must still clear up what would be said by Hercules (that is, the man himself), alone, and separated from his image. What then would the rational soul, if separated and isolated, say? The soul which has been attracted by the body knows everything that the man (speaking strictly), has done or experienced here below. In course of time, at death, the memories of earlier existences are reproduced; but the soul, out of scorn, allows some to escape her. Having indeed purified herself from the body, she will remember the things that were not present to her during this life.

If, after having entered into another body, she happen to consider the past, she will speak of this life which will become foreign to her, of what she has recently abandoned, and of many other earlier facts. The circumstances which happen during a long period will always remain buried in oblivion. But we have not yet discovered what the soul, when isolated from the body will remember. To solve this question, we shall be forced to decide to which power of the soul memory belongs.

XXVII. To what soul, however, does memory pertain ? Does it belong to that more divine soul according to which we subsist, or to the other which we derive from the universe ? May we not say, that memory pertains to each of these; but that one kind of memory is peculiar, and another common ? and that when they are conjoined, all the species of memory subsist at once; but that when they are separated, if both should exist and remain, each soul will preserve for a long time the remembrance of things pertaining to itself, but for a short time the recollection of things foreign to its nature ? The image, therefore, of Hercules, is in Hades.2 For it appears to me requisite to think, that this image has a recollection of every thing that has been transacted in life. For to this image life especially pertained. Other souls, however, heing hoth these together, have nothing more to say than what pertains to this life, and in consequence of being the composite of soul and body, know the concerns of the present state of existence, or besides this, something belonging to justice. But we have not yet shown what Hercules himself, who is without the image, will say. What, therefore, will the other soul say that is liberated and alone? For the soul, indeed, which is attracted by body, will recollect every thing which the man did or suffered [in the present life]. In the course of time, however, after death, the recollection of other things also from former lives will arise, so that some of these will be dismissed and despised. For the soul becoming in a greater degree purified from the body, will recollect those things, the remembrance of which she had lost in the present life. But when she becomes situated in another body, she will then indeed departing [from an intellectual] speak of the concerns of an external life. She will, likewise, speak of the things which she has just left, and also of many things pertaining to a superior life. But as many adventitious circumstances will arise in the course of time, she will always be oppressed with oblivion. What, however, will the soul which becomes alone remember ? Or should we not first consider to what power of the soul remembrance belongs ?

27. But of what soul; of that which we envisage as the more divine, by which we are human beings, or that other which springs from the All?

Memory must be admitted in both of these, personal memories and shared memories; and when the two souls are together, the memories also are as one; when they stand apart, assuming that both exist and endure, each soon for gets the other’s affairs, retaining for a longer time its own. Thus it is that the Shade of Hercules in the lower regions - this "Shade," as I take it, being the characteristically human part - remembers all the action and experience of the life, since that career was mainly of the hero’s personal shaping; the other souls [soulphases] going to constitute the joint-being could, for all their different standing, have nothing to recount but the events of that same life, doings which they knew from the time of their association: perhaps they would add also some moral judgement.

What the Hercules standing outside the Shade spoke of we are not told: what can we think that other, the freed and isolated, soul would recount?

The soul, still a dragged captive, will tell of all the man did and felt; but upon death there will appear, as time passes, memories of the lives lived before, some of the events of the most recent life being dismissed as trivial. As it grows away from the body, it will revive things forgotten in the corporeal state, and if it passes in and out of one body after another, it will tell over the events of the discarded life, it will treat as present that which it has just left, and it will remember much from the former existence. But with lapse of time it will come to forgetfulness of many things that were mere accretion.

Then free and alone at last, what will it have to remember?

The answer to that question depends on our discovering in what faculty of the soul memory resides.

XXVII. To what soul, however, does memory pertain ? Does it belong to that more divine soul according to which we subsist, or to the other which we derive from the universe ? May we not say, that memory pertains to each of these; but that one kind of memory is peculiar, and another common ? and that when they are conjoined, all the species of memory subsist at once; but that when they are separated, if both should exist and remain, each soul will preserve for a long time the remembrance of things pertaining to itself, but for a short time the recollection of things foreign to its nature ? The image, therefore, of Hercules, is in Hades.2 For it appears to me requisite to think, that this image has a recollection of every thing that has been transacted in life. For to this image life especially pertained. Other souls, however, heing hoth these together, have nothing more to say than what pertains to this life, and in consequence of being the composite of soul and body, know the concerns of the present state of existence, or besides this, something belonging to justice. But we have not yet shown what Hercules himself, who is without the image, will say. What, therefore, will the other soul say that is liberated and alone? For the soul, indeed, which is attracted by body, will recollect every thing which the man did or suffered [in the present life]. In the course of time, however, after death, the recollection of other things also from former lives will arise, so that some of these will be dismissed and despised. For the soul becoming in a greater degree purified from the body, will recollect those things, the remembrance of which she had lost in the present life. But when she becomes situated in another body, she will then indeed departing [from an intellectual] speak of the concerns of an external life. She will, likewise, speak of the things which she has just left, and also of many things pertaining to a superior life. But as many adventitious circumstances will arise in the course of time, she will always be oppressed with oblivion. What, however, will the soul which becomes alone remember ? Or should we not first consider to what power of the soul remembrance belongs ?