על שינוי השמות ל׳On the Change of Names 30
א׳
1[161] Much the same often befalls the soul. When good is hoped for, it rejoices in anticipation, and thus may be said to feel joy before joy, gladness before gladness. We may find in this a likeness to what happens in the vegetable world. They too, when they are going to bear fruit, put forth shoots, flowers and leaves in anticipation.
ב׳
2[162] Observe the cultivated vine, what a wonderful piece of nature’s handiwork it is, with its twigs, tendrils, suckers, petals, leaves, which seem almost to break out into speech and proclaim their joy at the coming fruit of the tree. And the day laughs in forecast while the dawning is still young because the sunrise is coming. For beam heralds beam and the dimmer light leads the way for the clearer.
ג׳
3[163] And so the good when it has come is accompanied by joy, and when it is expected, by hope. For we rejoice at its arrival and hope when it is coming. Similarly with their opposites. The presence of evil produces grief, and its expectation fear. And so fear is grief before grief, just as hope is joy before joy. For fear, I think, bears the same relation to grief as hope does to joy.
ד׳
4[164] The senses, too, carry with them clear signs of what is here stated. Smell presides over taste and passes judgement in advance on practically all that serves for food or drink. And therefore some looking to the obvious fact have given to smell the apposite name of fore-taster. And so it is natural for hope to taste beforehand as it were the coming good and to recommend it to the soul which will have it for its solid possession.
ה׳
5[165] Again the hungry or thirsty traveller, if he suddenly sees in his journeying springs of water or trees of every kind laden with refreshing fruits, finds a preliminary satisfaction in the hope of future enjoyment, before he eats or drinks and even before he draws the water or plucks the fruit. And if we can find a feast in what feeds the body before we actually eat, can we possibly suppose that what feeds the mind is unable to give us a foretaste of gladness when the feast it provides is still to come?