Chapter 2 Matter as a Mirror: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance ...

Matter as a Mirror 93
The hyena’s impressive capacity to avoid the hardships of hunting
(as well as the annoying sound of barking dogs) is thus due to that animal’s
skilful manipulation of the shadows of things. Needless to say, the hyena is
an animal frequently associated with magic; according to Ovid “the hyena
can change its sex, the female that lately allowed the male to mount her becoming
now a male herself.” 143 This is an important detail, since it reminds
us of the mirror’s capacity to transform something from passive object into
active subject. Hence the hyena’s ability to affect other sentient beings by
manipulating their shadows becomes a model for the manipulation of all
things and provides a theoretical basis for magic. Ficino consequently parallels
the qualities of matter and mirror, that is transformation and retention
of the received forms, and subsequent reflection (birth) of new images.
Images do retain some of the power inherent in the things they represent,
albeit to a lesser extent:
Proclus adds that magicians are accustomed to affect things’
images and shadows in marvelous ways, and by means of
these affected images and shadows similarly to affect the
things themselves. It is as if the images and shadows had some
nature of their own that reached to things and that through
this nature a certain mutual sympathy can be achieved. 144
commemorat quasi cognatas, eiusmodi naturam habent, sunt enim & ipsae corporum figurarumque
imagines, plurimamque sympatiam, id est compassionem consensionemque
cum illis ipsis habent a quibus decidunt. Quemadmodum declarant quotcunque Magorum
artes pronuntiant, promittuntque ad idola umbrasque conficere. Quid vero dicam
imaginum umbrarumque vires per quas sunt in animalibus ratione carentibus saepe multa,
quae omnem superant rationem? Nam hyenam ferunt calcantem canis in alto sedentis
umbram, illum ex alto praecipitare statim atque devorare.” De amore VII, 4: 246–249, esp.
248; Allen (1989) 189–191, notes that the passage about the Hyena is from Proclus (1970)
II: 98–99.
143 Trans. Ovid (1955) 345; Metamorphoses XV, 407–410; on the magical power of
the hyena see, for example, Della Porta (1650) I 14 who maintains that the hyena’s fur
deters panthers and even makes them lose their hair when wrapped in a hyena’s skin. On
the hyena as a hieroglyph of instability, see Horapollo (1531) II: 177: “Instabilem aliquem,
neque in eodem statu permanentem, vero modo fortem & audacem, modo imbecillium
& timidum, cum volunt significare, Hyenam serpentem pingunt, haec enim modo mas
modo foemina fit.”
144 Ficino (1989) 275: “Adiungit Proclus solere magos miris modis afficere rerum
imagines atque umbras, hisque affectis similiter res ipsas afficere, quasi imagines atque