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

Matter as a Mirror 107
change in the eyes is not evident to us although it is present
(for the nature of the discharges is the same as that of semen);
and the air is moved by them, and has a certain effect on the air
on the surface of the mirror which is continuous with it, i.e. it
makes that air affected in the same way that it is itself; and the
air on the mirror affects the surface of the mirror. As in the
case of clothes, the purest mirrors are most quickly stained; for
a pure mirror shows accurately whatever it receives, and the
purest shows the smallest movements. The bronze, because it
is smooth, perceives best any touch at all (one should think of
the touch of the air as a sort of rubbing, — like a wiping or a
washing), and because it is pure the touch, however slight it
may be, becomes apparent in it. The reason why the stain does
not leave new mirrors quickly is their purity and smoothness;
for in their case it penetrates both in depth and all over —
in depth because of their purity, all over because of their
smoothness. The stain does not remain on old mirrors because
it does not penetrate in the same way but more superficially. 179
In this amazing description of tactile vision, Aristotle introduces the
bloody mirror to account for time-delayed action that occurs in our sensory
organs while we are dreaming; the story serves him as example of how senseimpressions
linger in the mind, even when the object that caused them is no
longer present. The dream is a phenomenon analogous to sense-perception.
Obviously, it may be subsumed under the larger category of events called
“action at a distance.” Moreover we learn from this passage that a material
exchange takes place between eye and reflecting surface to such an extent
that the reflected object (in our case, a menstruating woman) may even stain
a mirror. Obviously, in the process of reflection (that is in our context, while
we are dreaming) some sort of matter is impressed with a form. And indeed,
the story of the bloody mirror provides us with the key to the mechanisms
of transmission, reflection, transformation, and retention of dreams in our
imagination as the images are captured by a reflecting surface.
The theoretical assumptions that structure the account of the
bloody mirror may be outlined in the following way: a beam of highly refined
menstrual blood is emitted by pores of the body and the sense organs
179 Trans. J. I. Beare in Aristotle (1984) 73; 459b 28–30.