Tales de Mileto

O Poço

The Well

Mileto era uma cidade movimentada na costa da Ásia Menor. Navios iam e vinham. O mercado cheirava a peixe, azeite de oliva e lã.

Miletus was a busy town on the coast of Asia Minor. Ships came and went. The market smelled of fish, olive oil and wool.

Cerca de dois mil e quinhentos anos atrás, um homem chamado Tales morava lá.

About two and a half thousand years ago, a man called Thales lived there.

Tales não era rico e não era soldado. Ele não vendia nada. O que ele fazia era olhar. Ele olhava para o mar. Ele olhava para as estrelas e anotava para onde a lua se movia.

Thales was not rich, and he was not a soldier. He did not sell anything. What he did was look. He looked at the sea. He looked at the stars, and he wrote down where the moon moved.

Certa noite, ele estava voltando para casa a pé com a cabeça no céu. Ele estava observando as estrelas surgirem uma a uma. Ele estava pensando nelas com tanta força que se esqueceu dos seus pés. Na frente dele, no escuro, havia um poço: um buraco fundo e redondo com água no fundo.

One evening he was walking home with his head in the sky. He was watching the stars come out one by one. He was thinking about them so hard that he forgot his feet. In front of him, in the dark, there was a well: a deep, round hole with water at the bottom.

Ele caiu dentro.

He fell in.

Uma jovem serva da Trácia tinha ido ao poço buscar água. Ela ouviu o barulho da água e olhou para baixo. Lá estava o homem sábio de Mileto, em pé na água fria até o peito, ainda olhando para cima.

A young servant from Thrace had come to the well for water. She heard the splash and looked down. There was the wise man of Miletus, standing in the cold water up to his chest, still looking up.

Ela riu dele. “Você está tentando descobrir o que acontece no céu,” ela disse, “mas não consegue ver nem o que está na frente dos seus próprios pés.”

She laughed at him. “You are trying to find out what happens in the sky,” she said, “but you cannot even see what is in front of your own feet.”

Essa é a piada mais antiga sobre pensadores, e começa com Tales. A moça tinha razão. Mas ela também estava errada, porque o homem na água estava ocupado com uma pergunta que ninguém tinha feito antes.

That is the oldest joke about thinkers, and it starts with Thales. The girl was right. But she was also wrong, because the man in the water was busy with a question that no one had asked before.

A pergunta era esta: do que tudo é feito?

The question was this: what is everything made of?