Time

Use in the book

From the first account of learning number, repeated days, nights, lunar changes, and years make temporal order instructive. When the eight powers are introduced, each is to receive the time in which it completes its own orbit (986c). Acknowledging different periods is part of acknowledging different divine powers, rather than privileging only the familiar year and month.

At 990b the moon brings on the month and full moon, and the sun its turnings through the whole circuit. These phenomena lead back into the preliminary studies required to understand celestial routes. The account moves from what can be recognized in repeated appearance to a more exact comprehension of the relations within those appearances.

The final demand is to grasp the precision of time and how precisely it accomplishes everything that comes about in the heaven (991c–d). This extends the earlier claim that celestial bodies travel precisely by year, month, and day because of soul (983c). Precision is not an alternative to psychic causation in the Athenian's account; it is one of the grounds upon which intelligent divine order is recognized.

The formulation does not make time a newly introduced independent cosmic soul or name it as a second rival cause. Its language of accomplishment personifies or assigns efficacy to the exact temporal order, while the accompanying sentence reasserts soul's priority over body. It would also be anachronistic to read it as a statement of a modern theory of absolute time or relativity.

No numerical observational error bars or exact measured periods are supplied. The reader receives a demand to understand precision, not a data table that could settle every disputed ancient model. This distinction is especially important where the earlier description says that the sun's companions have nearly the same speed “on the whole.” Precision of order and qualified descriptions of particular appearances need to be considered together rather than forcing one to erase the other.

The ethical-theological result is the conviction that all things are full of gods and that divine superiors do not overlook humanity. The temporal vocabulary therefore belongs to the dialogue's account of how mathematical understanding reforms reverence and confidence in divine care.

Places to read

1. 983cεἰς ἀκρίβειαν κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν — Earlier celestial precision is specified by the year
2. 986cμήτε τινὰ χρόνον ἐν ᾧ διεξέρχεται — Withholding a body's period would withhold due recognition
3. 990bμῆνα καὶ πανσέληνον — Month and full moon belong to the moon's circuit
4. 990bτροπὰς ἄγοντα — The sun brings on the turnings
5. 991cτὴν ἀκρίβειαν τοῦ χρόνου — Temporal precision is expressly required
6. 991cὡς ἀκριβῶς ἀποτελεῖ — The exact accomplishment of celestial events is the object of understanding
7. 991c–dπάντα τὰ κατ’ οὐρανὸν γιγνόμενα — The scope is all that comes about in heaven

Translation in this edition

“Precision” and “precisely” preserve the noun-adverb relation. The note explains the sun's “turnings” as solstices and takes “first” with the moon before the sun's “second.” The main text's wording should not be replaced by numerical orbital periods absent from it.

Temporal completion of events — ἀποτελεῖν (apotelein)

ἀποτελεῖν (apotelein)

Temporal completion of events. Time is described as precisely accomplishing heavenly events; the language does not replace soul's accompanying explanatory priority. Attested: ἀποτελεῖ (991c). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Lunar temporal stage — πανσέληνος (panselēnos)

πανσέληνος (panselēnos)

Lunar temporal stage. The moon's circuit brings the month and full moon; the following first-second sequence is interpreted instructionally by the edition. Attested: πανσέληνον (990b). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Manner of celestial accomplishment — ἀκριβῶς (akribōs)

ἀκριβῶς (akribōs)

Manner of celestial accomplishment. The adverb explains the precision that the curriculum requires one to understand, without supplying numerical error measurements. Attested: ἀκριβῶς (991c). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Exact temporal order — ἀκρίβεια (akribeia)

ἀκρίβεια (akribeia)

Exact temporal order. The learner must grasp time's precision in accomplishing celestial events, within the argument for soul's priority and divine care. Attested: ἀκρίβειαν (991c). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Measured celestial fulfillment — χρόνος (chronos)

χρόνος (chronos)

Measured celestial fulfillment. The exactness of time concerns the whole celestial order and supports recognition of divine care; it is not separately introduced as a rival cosmic cause. Attested: χρόνου (991c). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Solar solstice — τροπή (tropē)

τροπή (tropē)

Solar solstice. The sun brings the turnings through its circuit, explained by the edition as solstices rather than arbitrary changes of direction. Attested: τροπὰς (990b). Time precision and celestial accomplishment.

Use in the book

The report of Zeno calls time an interval of motion and a measure and criterion of speed and slowness. It then relates time to what comes to be, reaches completion, and exists. The note in the edition distinguishes this definition from the preceding Aristotelian account through number.

Places to read

1. I.8.headingThe chapter asks about time’s nature, parts, and effects.
2. I.8.40eTime is an interval of motion and a criterion of speed and slowness.
3. I.8.40cBefore, after, and the now explain continuity and division.
4. I.8.40b.2Several reported definitions distinguish measure, quantity, and accompaniment.
5. I.5.22bClotho’s spinning represents the present.
6. I.8.41.1Past, present, and future are considered as both distinct and interconnected.
7. I.1.28cFuture existence is interpreted through generation and embodiment.
8. Arith.3bNun introduces the actual explanatory role assigned to number.
9. I.1.29b.5Earlier doctrines are distinguished in a judgment about philosophical transmission.
10. I.8.22Time’s sharp teeth express its power to wear things away.

Translation in this edition

“Time” renders chronos. The accompanying terms “interval,” “measure,” and “criterion” are retained because they carry the particular account’s explanatory work.

Before, after, and the now

The Aristotelian account calls time the number of motion with respect to before and after. Its now is a shared boundary: the end of what precedes and the beginning of what follows. The collection also records Strato’s quantity in motion and rest and Epicurus’ accompaniment of motions. These compressed definitions classify time differently; the edition retains each report’s key noun instead of replacing them all with a neutral word such as “duration.”

The present

Enestōs, literally standing or being present, names the present time. I.5.22b assigns it to Clotho’s ongoing spinning, distinguished from the completed past and the future allotment. The image makes present activity intelligible through a thread in the process of being worked. This allocation belongs to the passage’s interpretation of the Fates.

The past

Parelēluthōs means having passed and, substantivally, the past. I.8.41.1 examines the relation of past, present, and future through a deliberately paradoxical account of their separation and union. The opening gap and disputed relation to the surviving heading limit attribution, but the interdependence of the temporal terms is clear.

What is to come

Mellon names what is to come or what is impending. In I.1.28c, gods “to come” are interpreted as those subject to generation and bodily association. This is the commentator’s reading of quoted Platonic language, not simply the grammatical meaning of every occurrence of the future participle.

Now and as things stand

Nun commonly means now, but it can also introduce the actual state of affairs after a hypothetical contrast. In Arith.3b, “as it is” better expresses nun de after the claim that without number things would not be intelligible. Not every occurrence of the word develops a philosophical theory of the temporal instant.

Before and after

Proteron and husteron express before and after, or earlier and later. Their relation may be temporal, logical, or explanatory. The form ta protera at I.1.29b.5 concerns earlier doctrines associated with Plato. It is a historical or doctrinal comparison, illustrating why priority should not always be read as a technical claim about the structure of time.

The teeth of time

Odous is a tooth. I.8.22 gives Time sharp teeth with which to wear away even the mightiest things. This personification makes gradual destruction vivid. “Teeth” belongs to the poetic image and should not be rationalized into a literal physical mechanism attributed to an independently bodily Time.

Before and after in the definition

The explicitly temporal pairing occurs in I.8.40c: time is the number of motion in respect of to proteron and to husteron, with the now forming their shared boundary. This technical use should be distinguished from ordinary references to earlier doctrines.

Use in the book

The billiard-ball comparison describes time as movement over space. The pulse then becomes a secret regulator for measuring other successions. Elsewhere time is called a being of reason born of the mind: without memory and foresight it cannot measure movement. These statements illuminate the relation between measure, bodily rhythm, and mental apprehension without being a fully reconciled theory.

The comparison with eternity makes time more than a mere count of instants, while the ordinary images of whitening hair or changing health return it to lived consequences. Time can alter what we can undertake. A lexicon should keep that range visible and should not infer a chronological evolution of doctrine from a few selected dated notes.

Places to read

1. I, p. 457, entry 3, ¶3Movement and pulse supply a physical image and a measure.
2. II, p. 696, entry 6, ¶1Time as a being of reason depends on memory and foresight.
3. I, p. 276, entry 9, ¶1The idea of time is related to eternity.
4. I, p. 34–35, entry 3, ¶1Time whitens materials and hair.
5. I, p. 459, entry 2, ¶2Changing time and health alter tasks.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves “being of reason” and “secret regulator,” rather than replacing the former with unreal or the latter with a modern internal clock. Ordinary “times” can mean a historical period rather than a philosophical entity.

Use in the book

Traherne distinguishes temporal succession from eternity without treating temporal events as worthless. Creatures begin and end, but their moments are permanently present to God. Eternity holds the particulars of their service, not merely a generalized memory after the particulars have vanished. The smallest thought can therefore possess a significance exceeding its brief occurrence.

The distinction is developed spatially. An endless expanse considered at this moment is not yet the whole of what can be enjoyed. Duration provides another region in which all moments and occurrences appear together. Eternity is described as immovable duration containing moving durations, while ages are the successions corresponding to its parts. The text itself allows a question about how far these are commensurate. Its imagery should preserve the difficulty instead of pretending to offer a fully resolved physical model.

The ship passing a standing shore makes creaturely succession vivid. We move through events, yet understanding can anticipate what lies ahead and contemplate what lies behind. The mental presence is real within Traherne’s account, though it differs from the body’s successive location. The power to be concerned with other ages opens a broader life than the present instant’s sensations alone.

Time is also urgently practical. The autobiographical speaker chooses modest means rather than an estate that would consume his days in care. What he seeks is not empty leisure but the freedom to study happiness. The later rule is equally important: after time spent seeking, there must be time spent enjoying. Knowledge of eternal goods should change the present use of hours.

The most striking valuation makes this earthly life the precious season on which eternity depends. Some acts can be done only now, amid faith, danger, and imperfect sight. Heavenly clarity will not reproduce their exact conditions. Eternal perspective thus intensifies the value of temporal opportunity instead of dissolving it. The reader is asked to inhabit time as a part of eternity: finite in its occasions, lasting in the significance of the love and fidelity exercised there.

Places to read

1. III.46The speaker values command of his time above a burdensome wealthy estate.
2. IV.93Present life offers uniquely precious occasions for faithful action.
3. V.6The region of all moments is distinguished from space at one moment.
4. V.7Moving durations are considered within immovable eternity.
5. V.8The passing ship illustrates succession within eternally retained events.

In this edition

Times and ages are not always merely calendar units; they may be the lives and events that fill successive periods. Do not turn the spatial language of V.6–823 into an assertion that bodies literally travel through a physical landscape of years.

Use in the book

The birthday entry measures survival against the imagined brevity of infant lives. Later the departure of winter prompts a wish that time could leap at once to its limit, while Easter’s passing becomes one fewer anniversary before the eternal feast. Calendar progression can therefore feel like both loss and approach.

Personal time is less regular. A past still close casts its long shadow over the present; distance may weaken its power. Friendship ripens, but memories return suddenly and can make ten years of pain contemporary. Two September partings occur almost date for date, yet Guérin insists that their sorrows differ in kind and cannot simply be equated. Repetition supplies comparison without erasing difference.

The notebook’s own intervals matter too. Entries are sparse when suffering blocks expression and expansive when experience becomes communicable. The apparent passage of empty time may conceal disabling intensity. Later practical employment consumes the hours available for thought, setting necessary subsistence against inward duration. The wished-for eternity of calm thinking is an answer to this pressure, not proof that present time has ceased to matter.

Places to read

1. 4 August 1832 · ¶1The birthday turns age into a meditation on survival, trial, and the indirect route to heaven.
2. 22 March 1833 · ¶1The recent past casts a shadow whose strength may diminish with distance.
3. 10 April 1833 · ¶1The passing of Easter is counted as one anniversary fewer before the eternal feast.
4. 1 October 1833 · ¶3Nearly matching dates invite comparison between two partings while preserving their difference.
5. 30 April 1835 · ¶3Material work appropriates the time of thought and provokes the hope of thinking eternally.

Translation in this edition

Carrière at 4 August 1832 · ¶1 means the course of a life, not a professional career, as translator’s note 5 explains. The English “slanting line of human life” keeps its geometrical figure. The subtraction in “One fewer anniversary” likewise preserves time’s forward movement toward an end.

Use in the book

B 16 says boundless aiōn will never be emptied of “these two,” understood from its setting as the opposed powers. B 172, however, says compounds do not possess a steadfast aiōn, even while their sources persist through interchange. The contrast is between enduring recurrence and an unstable particular lifetime, not a change in the word's spelling to a wholly separate metaphysical substance.

Chronos comes round in B 172 and B 110. In the first it accompanies successive dominance; in the latter things cultivated by the listener may remain through a lifetime or depart as time passes. B 30 describes a time fulfilled under an alternating oath. These expressions give time structure through events, turns, and completion without making Chronos a named independent god in the quoted lines.

B 1152 measures wandering by thrice ten thousand seasons and describes growth through time into mortal forms. Nothing in the fragment establishes that those seasons are identical to ordinary solar years or provides their ratio to a complete cosmic cycle. B 129's ten and twenty human lifetimes belong to a claim of exceptional understanding, another use of embodied duration rather than a timetable of world-formation.

Places to read

1. B 16Boundless duration will not be emptied of the two powers.
2. B 17.11–13, 27–292Compounds lack a steadfast lifetime; the sources prevail as time comes round.
3. B 30Strife's rise occurs as an appointed time is fulfilled.
4. B 110.3–9Cultivated things may remain through a lifetime or depart as time comes round.
5. B 115.5–8Wandering is counted in seasons, while successive mortal forms arise through time.
6. B 129.4–6Ten and twenty human lifetimes measure the scope of extraordinary understanding.

Translation in this edition

The edition's “time,” “lifetime,” and “seasons” should not be silently normalised into years or eternity. B 158 also has aiōn, but its doubtful attribution makes it a poor foundation for a general doctrine; this entry relies on the more secure printed fragments.

Use in the book

The past and present appear as two incomplete statues: one mutilated by the ages, the other not yet perfected by the future. The image rejects the notion that either antiquity or modernity supplies a finished object of knowledge. René nevertheless repeatedly turns such incompleteness into a reason for dissatisfaction.

The sunset resembles the pendulum of the clock of centuries; cathedral hours travel from church to church, and each hour opens a grave somewhere in society. Cosmic, civic and personal measures are superimposed. René's own career has barely begun, yet he believes he has devoured centuries. Anticipatory imagination consumes the possibility of experience before experience can unfold.

Amélie's account of the dead young traveler reveals temporal inequality. One group begins mourning when another has already finished. The same death occupies different emotional presents. Her question about how quickly René might forget her changes an abstract moral reflection into a personal appeal. The final “one still shows” similarly places René himself in the position of a remembered trace after death. The telling outlives the life it records, but leaves only a rock and a reported story.

Places to read

1. p. 152Le passé et le présent sont deux statues incomplètes — Neither historical period offers a complete model.
2. p. 158le pendule de l'horloge — The sunset becomes a measure of immense duration.
3. p. 159j'avois déjà dévoré des siècles — Inward anticipation exceeds the speaker’s short life.
4. p. 172dont la mémoire périt — Unequal mourning reveals the vulnerability of remembrance.
5. p. 192On montre encore un rocher — A present act of showing preserves a minimal trace.

Translation in this edition

The edition's printed page boundaries divide several sentences about time. Passage locators therefore distinguish the p. 158 clock from the p. 159 grave-opening hour. The historical setting belongs to the fiction; later publication and revision dates belong to the book's history, not René's personal chronology.

Use in the book

The claim in Fusées XXI to have lived three minutes in one separates experiential density from chronological age. Thirty years could become ninety by this arithmetic of intensity. The comparison with Fusées XVII’s moments when time and extension grow deeper makes clear that the notebook is measuring felt existence, not making a literal biographical correction. Expanded duration can enrich perception, while the gulf of memory in Mon cœur mis à nu CIX makes remembered life another source of vertigo. The same depth offers a poetic resource and a danger to the self.

Fusées XV makes the storm a tocsin of earlier erotic memories; a present physical force calls past passions into renewed sensation. In Fusées XXII the lovers experience pleasures that resemble memories before they cry over an inadequately lived past and an uncertain future. Their reconciliation does not repair the past factually. It changes the relation in which regret is experienced, bringing reciprocal pardon into the present. Later in that section, however, the disillusioned observer sees only bitterness behind and a storm ahead that contains nothing new. A vocabulary of deep years supports opposed experiences rather than one secure philosophy of recollection.

Mon cœur mis à nu LXIV divides the temporal field morally: pleasure fastens the self to the present, concern for salvation suspends it toward the future. Yet the Hygiène fragments insist that deferral is itself perilous. Mon cœur mis à nu CX makes the present minute the most important; Mon cœur mis à nu CXII compares postponing action with postponing conversion. In Mon cœur mis à nu CXI the way to forget oppressive time is to use it. This is no simple recommendation to live only for the future. The imagined future demands a present act, and the pleasure that consumes time is distinguished from work that strengthens the capacity to act again.

The late notebooks also question possession of the past. Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI says that he has enjoyed his memories only alone and must enjoy them in company with one other person. That small proposed change is significant beside the declarations of essential solitude. Memory need not function exclusively as self-enclosed aesthetic wealth. It might become one of the heart’s shared pleasures. The sentence remains a project, not evidence that the project occurred. Likewise, the changing work schedules and budgets describe ways to organize future time, not an accomplished transformation established by the printed sequence.

Places to read

1. Fusées XXIsi j’ai vécu trois minutes en une — Intensity produces a figurative age different from the calendar.
2. Fusées XXIIles tristesses de leur passé avec leurs espérances bien incertaines d’avenir — Past grief and uncertain hope coexist in the lovers’ embrace.
3. Mon cœur mis à nu LXIVLe goût du plaisir nous attache au présent. — The temporal attachment is presented as an ethical problem.
4. Mon cœur mis à nu CXIOn ne peut oublier le temps qu’en s’en servant. — Use, rather than mere distraction, becomes the means of escape.
5. Mon cœur mis à nu CXVIJe n’ai jusqu’à présent joui de mes souvenirs que tout seul ; il faut en jouir à deux. — Recollection is proposed as a shared pleasure.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English keeps ‘deep years’ and ‘three minutes in one’, preserving figurative pressure instead of explaining it away. In Mon cœur mis à nu CXI ‘using’ time carries the verbal return between forgetting and serving oneself with it. The future forms and self-directed imperatives of the late fragments are especially important: an exhortation to work or share memories must not become a translator’s assertion that the work or sharing has already happened.

Use in the book

The Lineland dream occurs on the last day but one of the 1999th year, at the beginning of the Long Vacation. The next evening the Sphere arrives. The narrator's legal holiday thus opens an interval in which private geometry can displace ordinary professional work. Later, however, the displacement becomes damaging: clients and business are neglected as he attempts to recover and transmit the new knowledge.

The half-hour glass localizes the grand calendar. Because Flatland's attraction acts southwards, turning it northward resets it. The last falling sand marks the new period just as the visitor secures a private audience. Time is registered through a material object obedient to this world's physical conditions, rather than through a clock imported unchanged from the reader's world.

The supplied 1884 reading says that the second Millennium has begun, although the surrounding dates and the Council's meetings at years zero, one thousand and two thousand point to the third thousand-year period. The inconsistency is textual evidence, not an invitation for the lexicon to silently correct Abbott. The narrator's world explicitly possesses a year zero, so its dating should not be forced into the conventional Christian era's sequence.

At the Council, historical time has become precedent. Earlier minutes do not prompt reconsideration of earlier errors; they authorize the same response at the same calendrical point. The officers preserve enough knowledge to anticipate revelation while withholding it from the public. Repetition here stabilizes power rather than increasing collective understanding.

Personal duration works differently. A few hours bring the Square from dogmatic rejection to new sight, but months of writing fail to reproduce that sight for anyone else. After about eleven months he can no longer confidently visualize the Cube; after seven years in prison he still has no converts. The widening disparity between the instantaneous event and its protracted aftermath is central to the ending. The book gives more than an ascent: it records the cost of having to live, work and remember after the extraordinary moment has passed.

Places to read

1. §1323“the first day of the Long Vacation” — The dream begins in professional leisure
2. §152“I turned the glass Northward” — Timekeeping follows Flatland's local physics
3. §152“The second Millennium had begun” — The retained 1884 reading conflicts with the surrounding count
4. §18234“the first hour of the first day of the year 0” — The calendar includes a zero-year meeting
5. §2223“Seven years have elapsed” — Narrative retrospect belongs to a long confinement

In this edition

The note explicitly preserves second against later printings' third and explains the discrepancy. It also remarks on the loose very few months of the trial account after a sequence already exceeding eleven months. The lexicon reports those tensions instead of repairing the chronology without notice.

Half-hour glass

A sand-glass measuring thirty minutes. Its final run marks the millennium's turn, and turning it northward adapts timekeeping to Flatland's southward attraction. Printed form: half-hour glass (§ 152). See Time and the millennium.

Long Vacation

The extended holiday during which the lawyer-narrator pursues geometry. The story locates it at the end of Flatland's year without establishing an earthly season. Printed form: Long Vacation (§ 1323). See Time and the millennium.

Millenary

A thousand-year period or its turn. The Council orders renewed searches at each millenary, converting revelation's rare timetable into a schedule for suppression. Printed form: millenary (§ 18234). See Time and the millennium.

Millennium

A thousand-year period. The supplied 1884 text calls the newly opening period the second, despite the surrounding year-numbering; that reading should be reported rather than silently repaired. Printed form: Millennium (§ 152). See Time and the millennium.

Retrospect

A backward view or review. The Square's retrospective thoughts at the year's end are interrupted by a child's prospective extension of geometry and the Sphere's arrival. Printed form: retrospect (§ 152). See Time and the millennium.