The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury | Page 5

and companions of princes, who
without thee would have melted their spears into pruning-hooks and
ploughshares, or would perhaps be feeding swine with the prodigal.
Where dost thou chiefly lie hidden, O most elect treasure! and where
shall thirsting souls discover thee?
Certes, thou hast placed thy tabernacle in books, where the Most High,
the Light of lights, the Book of Life, has established thee. There
everyone who asks receiveth thee, and everyone who seeks finds thee,
and to everyone that knocketh boldly it is speedily opened. Therein the
cherubim spread out their wings, that the intellect of the students may
ascend and look from pole to pole, from the east and west, from the
north and from the south. Therein the mighty and incomprehensible
God Himself is apprehensibly contained and worshipped; therein is
revealed the nature of things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal; therein
are discerned the laws by which every state is administered, the offices
of the celestial hierarchy are distinguished, and the tyrannies of demons
described, such as neither the ideas of Plato transcend, nor the chair of
Crato contained.
In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things
to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth
the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn
ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the

world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals
with the remedy of books.
Alexander, the conqueror of the earth, Julius, the invader of Rome and
of the world, who, the first in war and arts, assumed universal empire
under his single rule, faithful Fabricius and stern Cato, would now have
been unknown to fame, if the aid of books had been wanting. Towers
have been razed to the ground; cities have been overthrown; triumphal
arches have perished from decay; nor can either pope or king find any
means of more easily conferring the privilege of perpetuity than by
books. The book that he has made renders its author this service in
return, that so long as the book survives its author remains immortal
and cannot die, as Ptolemy declares in the Prologue to his Almagest:
He is not dead, he says, who has given life to science.
Who therefore will limit by anything of another kind the price of the
infinite treasure of books, from which the scribe who is instructed
bringeth forth things new and old? Truth that triumphs over all things,
which overcomes the king, wine, and women, which it is reckoned holy
to honour before friendship, which is the way without turning and the
life without end, which holy Boethius considers to be threefold in
thought, speech, and writing, seems to remain more usefully and to
fructify to greater profit in books. For the meaning of the voice perishes
with the sound; truth latent in the mind is wisdom that is hid and
treasure that is not seen; but truth which shines forth in books desires to
manifest itself to every impressionable sense. It commends itself to the
sight when it is read, to the hearing when it is heard, and moreover in a
manner to the touch, when it suffers itself to be transcribed, bound,
corrected, and preserved. The undisclosed truth of the mind, although it
is the possession of the noble soul, yet because it lacks a companion, is
not certainly known to be delightful, while neither sight nor hearing
takes account of it. Further the truth of the voice is patent only to the
ear and eludes the sight, which reveals to us more of the qualities of
things, and linked with the subtlest of motions begins and perishes as it
were in a breath. But the written truth of books, not transient but
permanent, plainly offers itself to be observed, and by means of the
pervious spherules of the eyes, passing through the vestibule of

perception and the courts of imagination, enters the chamber of intellect,
taking its place in the couch of memory, where it engenders the eternal
truth of the mind.
Finally we must consider what pleasantness of teaching there is in
books, how easy, how secret! How safely we lay bare the poverty of
human ignorance to books without feeling any shame! They are
masters who instruct us without rod or ferule, without angry words,
without clothes or money. If you come to them they are not asleep; if
you ask and inquire of them they do not withdraw themselves; they do
not chide if you make mistakes; they do not laugh at you if you are
ignorant. O books, who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who
ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully!