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FIRST PART OF THE HEROIC FRENZIES
First Dialogue INTERLOCUTORS: Tansillo,
Cicada
Tansillo: The frenzies, then, most
worthy
of being placed in the first rank and
considered
first are those I present to you in
the order
that has seemed to me most convenient.
Cicada: Begin to read them then.
Tansillo: Muses, whom I have so often
rejected,
importunate cohorts of my suffering,
alone
consoling me in my woes by such verses,
rimes,
and frenzies the like of which you
never
showed to others who boast of the myrtle
and the laurel; now let the wind, anchor,
and port keep me close to you, if I
am forbidden
to cruise elsewhere. Oh mountains,
oh goddesses,
oh streams, where I live, converse,
and nourish
myself; where I learn in quiet and
find beauty;
through whom I rise, reawaken, adorn
my heart,
spirit, and brow; maybe you transform
death,
cypresses and infernos into fire, into
laurels,
into eternal stars. One may infer that
he
rejected the muses often and for many
reasons,
among which perhaps are these. First,
because
he was not able to be idle, as the
priest
of the muses must be; for one cannot
be idle
who must defend himself against the
ministers
and servants of envy, ignorance, and
malice.
Second, because he had received no
assistance
from worthy protectors and defenders,
who
might have given him security. As it
is said
by the poet: Oh Flaccus, there will
be no
want for Maros, if there is no lack
of Maecenae.
Another reason was that he regarded
himself
obligated to devote himself to the
contemplation
and philosophical studies, which if
not more
advanced in maturity, ought none the
less,
as mothers to the Muses, to come before
them.
Moreover, because the tragic Melpomene
drew
him on the one hand with more matter
than
talent, and the comic Thalia drew him
on
the other hand with more talent than
matter,
it happened that as one took from the
other,
he stood between the two weak and idle,
rather
than doubly active. Besides, he had
become
a victim of the authority of the censors,
who, turning him from the more worthy
and
noble things to which he was naturally
inclined,
shackled his intellect, in order to
enslave
him beneath the rule of a most vile
and senseless
hypocrisy, from the freedom he had
under
the rule of virtue. But finally, because
of the great heat of annoyance into
which
he fell, it happened that having nothing
else from which to draw consolation,
he accepted
the call of those who are said to have
inspired
him with certain frenzies, verses,
and rimes,
the like of which they never shared
with
anyone else. It is for that reason
that this
work sparkles with originality more
than
with imitation.
Cicada: Tell me, what is meant by those
who
praise themselves by means of the myrtle
and the laurel?
Tansillo: Those who can and do win
praise
for themselves by the myrtle are those
who
sing of love. If these bear themselves
nobly,
they win the crown of that plant concecrated
to Venus who inspires them with her
frenzy.
Those who can praise themselves by
the laurel
are those who sing worthily of heroic
things,
who instruct heroic souls through speculative
and moral philosophy, or who celebrate
those
heroic souls and present them as exemplary
mirrors of political and civil action.
Cicada: Are there still other species,
then,
of poets and awards?
Tansillo: There are not only as many
as there
are Muses, but a great many more besides.
For, although one can distinguish certain
sorts of poets and awards, one would
not
know how to define certain modes and
species
of human genius.
Cicada: I know certain makers of poetic
rules
who accept with difficulty Homer as
a poet,
and who reject Virgil, Ovid, Martial,
Hesiod,
Lucretius, and many other versifiers,
after
having examined them according to the
rules
of Aristotle's Poetics.
Tansillo: You can be sure, my friend,
that
these are veritable blockheads, for
they
do not considered that those rules
serve
chiefly to make clear the nature of
the poetry
of Homer, or the nature of some other
particular
poet. They do not consider that those
rules
are there only to show us the kind
of epic
poet Homer was, and not to serve as
modes
of instruction to other poets who could
in
other veins, skills, and frenzies be
in their
several kinds equal, similar, or even
greater
than Homer.
Cicada: If I understand you correctly,
then,
Homer in his genre was not a poet who
depended
upon rules, but he is the cause of
the rules
which serve others who are more adept
at
imitating than inventing. And these
rules
were drawn up by an author who was
not a
poet of any sort, but who knew how
to assemble
rules of that particular kind (that
is, rules
of Homeric poetry) for the benefit
of one
who would wish to be not another poet
with
a muse of his own, but an imitator
of Homer
and the ape of Homer's muse.
Tansillo: You conclude well that poetry
is
not born of the rules, except by the
merest
chance, but that the rules derived
from the
poetry. For that reason there are as
many
genres and species of true rules as
there
are of true poets.
Cicada: How will the true poets, then,
be
recognized?
Tansillo: By our singing their verses,
and
by this, that when they are sung, either
they will be delightful, or they will
be
useful, or they will be useful and
delightful
at the same time.
Cicada: Whom then to the rules of Aristotle
serve?
Tansillo: Those who cannot, as Homer,
Hesiod,
Orpheus, and others could, be a poet
without
the aid of Aristotle. And they serve
him
who, not having a muse of his own,
prefers
to court the muse of Homer.
Cicada: Then certain dismal pedants
of our
own day are wrong, who exclude some
from
the rank of poets because they do not
conform
their speech and metaphors or the introductions
of their books and songs to those of
Homer
or Virgil, or because they do not observe
the traditional use of the invocation,
or
because they entwine one story with
another,
or end their songs with summaries of
what
has been said already, and with announcements
of what is to come; and because of
other
reasons drawn from a thousand methods
of
examination, of censures and rules
in virtue
of that text. Therefore it appears
that they
themselves would be the true poets
(should
they so decide), and would easily attain
the end toward which the others tend
only
with effort. But, if the truth were
known,
these pedants are nothing but worms,
who
do not know how to do anything well,
as are
born only to gnaw, soil, and hurl their
dung
upon the studies and labors of others;
and
being incapable of becoming illustrious
through
their own talent virtue and talent,
they
seek to advance themselves through
the vices
and errors of others.
Tansillo: Now to return to the point
from
which passion has led us to digress
to some
extent, I say that there are and can
be so
many kinds of sentiment and human creations,
which one can adorn with garlands not
only
of all sorts and species of plants,
but also
of all types and species of material.
As
a result, crowns for poets are made
not only
of myrtle and laurel but also of the
vine
branch for scurrilous verses, of ivy
for
Bacchic verses, of olive for sacrifices
and
laws, of the poplar, elm and corn for
agriculture,
of cypress for funerals, and other
garlands
without number for as many other occasions;
and, if you will permit, even of that
material
which a gallant gentleman designated,
when
he said: Oh Brother Porro, poet of
flukes,
at Milan you girdle yourself with a
garland
of pudding, tripe, and sausage.
Cicada: Therefore, through various
talents
which he displays in various meanings
and
purposes, this poet certainly will
be able
to adorn himself with branches of various
plants, and be able to speak worthily
with
the muses, because near them he finds
the
air which comforts him, the anchor
which
sustained him, and the poet that welcomes
him in time of fatigue, turmoil, and
tempest.
Thus he says, Oh mount Parnassus where
I
live, Muses with whom I converse, stream
of Helicon (or some other) where I
nourish
myself, mount which gives me tranquil
abode,
Muses who inspire me with profound
doctrine,
font which refreshes me and cleanses
me of
every stain, mount where I lift up
my heart
as I ascend, Muses conversing with
whom I
revive my spirit, font reposing under
whose
shadows I adorn my brow -- change my
death
into life, my cypresses into laurels,
and
my infernos into heaven. That is to
say,
destine me to immortality, make me
a poet,
render me illustrious, the while I
sing of
death, cypresses, and infernose.
Tansillo: Good. Because for those who
are
favored by heaven, the greatest evils
are
converted into even greater good; for
necessity
nourishs labors and studies, and these
as
a rule nourish the glory of immortal
splendor.
And so the death of one century brings
life
to all the others.
Cicada: Continue.
Tansillo: Next he says: My heart is
in the
place and form of Parnassus, which
I must
ascend for my safety; my muses are
the thoughts
which at every hour reveal to me their
glorious
tale; my fount of Helicon is there,
where
my eyes often pour forth profuse tears.
Through
such mountains, through such nymphs
and waters,
as it pleased heaven, I was born a
poet.
Now let no king or favorable hand of
any
emperor, or highest priest, and sovereign
shepherd give me such favors, honors,
and
privileges. My heart, my thoughts,
and my
tears themselves cause the laurel to
bear
leaves for my adornment. Here first
he declares
what his mount is, speaking of it as
the
lofty passion of his heart; secondly,
what
his muses are, speaking of them as
the beauties
and prerogatives of his object; third,
what
his founts are, and these he speaks
of as
his tears. Upon that mount his passion
is
enkindled, out of beauties proceeds
his frenzy,
and by these tears is made manifest
his passion.
In this way he deems himself no less
able
to be crowned illustriously through
his own
heart, thoughts and tears, than others
who
are crowned by the hands of kings,
emperors,
and popes.
Cicada: Make clear to me what he means
when
he speaks of the heart in the form
of Parnassus.
Tansillo: By these words he means that
the
human heart contains two summits, which
rise
progressively from one root; and in
the spiritual
sense, from a single passion of the
heart
proceed the two contraries of hate
and love.
For Mount Parnassus has two summits
rising
from the one foundation.
Cicada: Continue.
Tansillo: He says: The Captain summons
all
is warriors beneath a banner by the
sound
of the trumpet; where, if it happens
that
for some of them it sounds in vain,
and they
come not promptly, those who are traitors
he kills, the madmen he banishes from
his
camp or he scorns them: so the soul
with
those of its intentions which come
not to
assemble under one standard, either
it wishes
them dead or removed. I regard one
object,
which absorbs my mind, and it is a
single
visage. I remain fixed upon one beauty,
which
has so pierced my heart, and is a single
dart; by one flame only I burn, and
know
but a single paradise. The captain
is the
human will which sits at the stern
of the
soul and with the little rudder of
reason
governs the affections of the inferior
potencies
against the surge of their natural
violence.
With the sound of the trumpet, that
is to
say, by determined election, he summons
all
his warriors; that is, he calls forth
all
the potencies of the soul (warriors
we call
them because they are in continuous
conflict
and opposition), or the effects of
those
potencies, which are the conflicting
thoughts,
some of which incline toward one, and
others
toward the other contrary; and he seeks
to
assemble them beneath a single banner
for
a determined end. If it happens that
some
of these thoughts which are required
to present
themselves promptly and obediently
are called
in vain, (especially those which proceed
from the natural powers that either
do not
obey the reason at all or obey it very
little),
the captain is forced at least to prevent
those thoughts from taking action,
and if
this cannot be accomplished, he condemns
them; it is thus that he is shown as
one
who would put some of them to death
and banish
the others, proceeding against the
former
with the sword of anger, and against
the
latter with the whip of distain. Here
he
regards one object to which he is turned
by his intention. A single visage pleases
him and absorbs his mind. In a single
beauty
he is delighted and pleased, and is
said
to remain fixed upon it, because the
work
of the intelligence is not an operation
of
motion, but one of rest. And from that
beauty
only does he conceive the dart which
kills
him; that is, which summons him to
the ultimate
end of perfection. He burns by one
flame
only, that is, he is sweetly consumed
by
a single love.
Cicada: Why is love symbolized by fire?
Tansillo: Putting aside many other
reasons
for the moment, let this suffice for
you
now. Love converts the thing loved
into the
lover, as the fire, among all the most
active
elements, is able to convert all the
other
simple and complex elements into itself.
Cicada: Now continue.
Tansillo: He knows a paradise, that
is, a
principal end; because paradise commonly
means the end; and here one must distinguish
between the end which is absolute in
truth
and essence, and that end which is
so by
similitude, shadow, and partipation.
According
to the first mode, there cannot be
more than
one end, just as there is only one
ultimate
and prime good; according to the second
mode,
there are an infinite number. Love,
fate,
the object, and jealousy are for me
pleasure,
torment, content, and distress. The
senseless
boy, the blind and guilty one, the
supreme
beauty and my one sole death shows
me paradise,
and snatches it away, presents me with
every
good, and withdraws it from me; so
much so
that the heart, mind, spirit, and soul
have
joy, have discomfort, have refreshment,
and
a heavy burden. Who will rescue me
from the
conflict? Who will make me enjoy the
fruit
of my good in peace? Who will put that
which
wearies me far from that which delights
me,
so as to cause my ardors and my tears
to
become happy ones? In this verse he
shows
the cause and the origin whence his
frenzy
is conceived and his enthusiasm is
born --
by ploughing the field of the Muses,
by scattering
the seeds of his thoughts there, by
aspiring
to love's harvest, and discovering
the fervor
of the sun in the heat of his own passions
and the humour of the rain in his own
tears.
He places four things first: love,
his fate,
the object, and jealousy. Here love
is not
a base, ignoble and unworthy mover,
but a
heroic lord and his guide. Fate is
nothing
else than the fatal disposition and
order
of mishaps to which he is subjected
by his
destiny. The object is the lovable
thing
and the correlative of the lover, and
it
is clear that jealousy is the zeal
of the
lover concerning the thing loved; it
is not
necessary to explain this to him who
has
tasted love, and in vain shall we strain
ourselves to explain it to others.
Love pleases
because to him who loves it is pleasant
to
love; and he who truly loves would
not wish
not to love. Wherefore I do not wish
to omit
referring to that which I have shown
in this
sonnet of mine: Dear, gentle, and revered
wound of that sweet dart, which love
ever
chooses; lofty, gracious, and precious
ardor,
which makes the soul toss in ever burning
delight, what virtue of herb, or force
of
magic art, will ever release you from
the
center of my heart, since the fresh
onslaught
which strikes there at every hour,
delights
me the more it torments me? My sweet
pain,
new in the world and rare, when shall
I ever
escape from your burden, since the
remedy
is weariness to me, and the pain delight?
Eyes, flames, and bow of my lord, twofold
fire in the soul, and arrows in the
heart,
because the languishing is sweet to
me, and
the fire is dear. His fate torments
because
of the unhappy and unwished for events,
or
because it causes the subject to be
esteemed
less worthy of enjoying its object,
and less
proportioned to its dignity; or because
it
does not permit reciprocal relation
between
the lover and his object; or for other
reasons
and obstacles which confront him. The
object
makes the subject content, who does
not nourish
himself with anything else, who seeks
nothing
else, occupies himself with nothing
else
and because of that objects banishes
every
other thought. Jealousy distresses
inasmuch
as it is the daughter of that love
from which
it derives, the inseparable companion
and
sign of that love, -- and where love
manifests
itself jealousy is understood as a
necessary
consequence, a counter-proof of which
one
can find among generations which, from
the
frigidity of the climate and backwardness
of spirit, comprehend less, love little
and
thus know nothing of jealousy -- inasmuch,
I say, as it is the daughter of love,
its
companion and its sign, it never ceases
to
disturb and poisons everything found
beautiful
and good in loves. Therefore as I have
said
in another one of my sonnets: Oh daughter
so guilty of love and envy, that you
turn
the joys of your father into pain,
the adroit
Argus to disaster, and the blind idiot
to
well being, minister of torment, Jealousy,
infernal Tisiphone, fetid harpy, who
seizes
and poisons the sweets of others; cruel
Auster,
through whom the loveliest flower of
my hope
must languish; wild beast odious to
yourself,
bird foreboding of nothing but mourning,
pain which enters the heart through
a thousand
gates, if one could deny you entrance,
the
kingdom of love would be as sweet as
a world
without hate and without death. Add
to what
has been said that Jealousy is not
only sometimes
the death and ruin of the lover, but
on many
occasions kills love itself, especially
when
it nurtures contempt; for then jealousy
becomes
so dominated by its offspring that
it extinguishes
love and puts the object to scorn;
in fact,
makes it no longer the object.
Cicada: Now explain the other particulars
which follow; that is, the reason why
love
is called the senseless boy.
Tansillo: I shall explain everything.
Love
is called the senseless boy, not because
it is foolish of itself, but because
it makes
most lovers foolish and in such lovers
is
a foolish thing. But in those who are
the
more intellectual and speculative,
love raises
the mind the more and purifies the
intellect
the more, awakening it, filling it
with zeal
and prudence, developing a heroic ardor
of
the soul, and an emulation of virtue
and
magnanimity in the desire to please
and become
worthy of the thing loved. By the majority
love is understood as crazy and stupid,
for
love makes most men pour forth their
peciliar
sentiments and urges them on in exaggeration,
because it finds their spirit, soul,
and
body badly constituted and incapable
of considering
and distinguishing what has is fitting
for
them from what renders them more deformed,
and thus makes them subjects of scorn,
laughter,
and vituperation.
Cicada: They say commonly and proverbially
that love makes old men mad, and young
men
sages.
Tansillo: The former unseemliness does
not
fall to all old men, nor does the latter
advantage fall to all young men; but
it is
true of the latter who are well constituted,
and of the former who are badly constituted.
And therefore it is certain that whoever
is accustomed in youth to love with
discernment,
in old age will love without going
astray.
But derision and laughter belong to
those
who at a mature age would, as it were,
begin
to learn their alphabet.
Cicada: Now tell me, why is his destiny
or
fate called blind and guilty?
Tansillo: Fate is called blind and
even guilty
not of itself, for it is the very number
and measured order of the universe;
but with
respect to its subjects it is called
blind
and is blind because it renders them
blind
to its view by being itself most uncertain.
And similarly fate is called guilty
because
there is no mortal whose lamentations
and
complaints do not accuse it in some
way.
Thus the Apulian poet said: How is
it Maecenas,
that no one in the world seems happy
with
the lot he has chosen or that heaven
reserved
for him? (Horace, Satires i. 1. 1-3)
He then
calls the object supreme beauty because
to
him it is unique and most eminent and
efficacious
for drawing him to itself, and for
that reason
does he deem it most worthy and most
noble;
and yet he feels the object to be dominant
and superior over him, as he is rendered
subject and enslaved by it. My one
sole death
he says of jealousy because just as
love
has no more inseparable companion than
jealousy,
so love has no sense of any greater
enemy;
just as nothing is more an enemy to
iron
than rust, though that rust is generated
of the same iron.
Cicada: Now since you have begun by
this
method, proceed to show point by point
what
remains.
Tansillo: I shall do so. Next he says
of
love, It shows me paradise. By this
he means
that love is not blind of itself, and
renders
certain lovers blind not because of
its nature,
but because of the ignoble dispositions
of
the subject as it happens that the
nocturnal
birds become blind in the presence
of the
sun. With respect to itself, therefore,
love
illumines, makes clear, opens the intellect,
makes all things penetrate and spurs
miraculous
impulses toward the good.
Tansillo: I'm quite certain the Nolan
shows
this in another one of his sonnets:
Love
who shows me so high a truth that it
opens
black portals of diamond, enters its
deity
through the eyes and by the sight is
born,
lives, is nourished, and reigns eternally
and makes me perceive how much heaven,
earth,
and hell conceal. Love brings to light
the
true forms of absent things, regains
force
and with a sure dart stabs and ever
wounds
the heart, uncovers what is within.
Oh, therefore,
vile herd, heed the truth, lend your
ear
to my words that are not fallacious,
senseless
and squint-eyed ones, open, open your
eyes,
if you can. You believe the boy, because
you understand little; because you
change
swiftly, to you he seems fleeting;
in your
blindness, you call him blind. Love
therefore
shows him paradise because it makes
him know,
understand, and accomplish the highest
things,
or because it gives grandeur at least
in
appearance to the things loved. Fate
snatches
paradise away he says, for often fate
does
not concede to the deceived lover all
love
has shown him, inasmuch as what he
sees and
longs for is distant and opposed to
him.
It presents me with every good, he
says of
the object, because the thing which
love
points out to him seems to him unique,
principal,
and ultimate. It withdraws it from
me, he
says of Jealousy, not because it actually
wrings every good from his presence
and from
his view, but because it makes the
good no
longer a good but an agonizing evil;
the
sweet no longer sweet but an agonizing
languor.
Therefore the heart, that is to say,
the
will find joy, and finds it in that
very
will through the power of love regardless
of the outcome. The mind, in that part
that
recognizes that it partakes of an ungracious
fate has grief. The spirit, otherwise
called
the natural affection, finds refreshment
in being captivated by that object
which
gives joy to the heart and can satisfy
the
intellect. The soul as the passive
and sensitive
substance has a heavy burden because
it finds
itself oppressed by the heavy weight
of the
jealousy which torments it. After a
consideration
of his state, he adds a woeful lament,
and
says, Who will rescue me from the conflict
and give me peace; who will separate
that
which wearies me and condemns me from
that
which pleases me, and open heaven's
gates
to me, so that the burning flames of
my heart
may be sweet and my tears be happy?
Then,
continuing his proposal, he adds: O,
Destiny,
my enemy, go torment others. And you,
Jealousy,
go forth from the world. That noble
visage
and insatiable Love alone, assisted
by their
royal attendants can accomplish everything;
for love snatches me from life, she
from
death, she gives me wings, he burns
my heart;
he kills my soul; she revives it; she
is
my systainer and he is my bereaved
burden.
But what have I to say of Love, if
Love and
her noble visage are only one being
or one
form, if by the same command and law
they
leave one imprint in the center of
my heart?
They are not two then. They are one
which
make my lot joyous and melancholy.
Four principles
and extremes of two contraries he would
reduce
to two principles and one contrariety.
This
is why he says, Ah me, torment the
others,
which is to say, it is enough, oh my
destiny,
that you have oppressed me to this
extent,
and (since you cannot exist without
activity)
turn your fury elsewhere. And you,
Jealousy,
go forth from the world, because one
of the
other two which remain will be able
to take
your vicissitudes and functions upon
itself:
for you, my destiny, are not other
than my
Love, and you, Jealousy, are not foreign
to Love's substance. Therefore it is
Love
that remains to deprive me of life,
to burn
me, to give me death and to put all
its weight
upon my bones. As for her noble visage,
it
remains there to snatch me from death,
to
give me wings, to revise and sustain
me.
Finally, these two principles and one
contrariety
he reduces to a single principal and
to a
single efficacy, when he says: but
what have
I to say of Love? If her visage belongs
to
his empire, which is none other than
that
of Love; if then the law of Love is
the same
as her law; if the impression of Love
sealed
in my heart is certainly none other
than
her impression, what need is there,
then,
having called it a noble visage, to
speak
of it again as an insatiable Love?
FIRST PART OF THE HEROIC FRENZIES
Second Dialogue
Tansillo:
Here the frenzied one begins to reveal
his
passions and disclose the wounds which
are
represented as wounds of the body,
but are
substantially or essentially wounds
of the
soul; and he speaks thus: I who carry
the
lofty banner of love, have frozen hopes
and
burning desires: at one and the same
time
I tremble, freeze, burn, and sparkle,
I am
dumb, and I fill the sky with ardent
shrieks.
My heart throws off sparks, while my
eyes
distil water; and I live and die, laugh
and
lament; the waters remain living, and
the
fire does not die, because I have Thetis
in my eyes and Vulcan in my heart.
I love
another and despise myself; but if
by spread
my wings, the other is changed to stone;
the other is raised to heaven, if I
am thrust
below; the other always flees, if I
ceaselessly
pursue; if I call, there is no reply,
and
the more I seek, the more is hidden
from
me. A propos of this poem I would like
to
return to what I was saying a little
while
ago. It is not necessary to tire one's
self
out proving what is so evident: nothing
is
pure and unmixed (and, as some used
to say,
nothing that is a composite is a true
entity;
for composite gold is not pure gold
and mixed
wine is not true and pure wine); moreover,
all things are made of contraries,
and because
of this composition in all things never
do
the affections which engage us bring
us delight
without also bringing something bigger.
In
fact, I shall go further; if it were
not
for the bitter in things there would
not
be delight, just as hard labor makes
us find
delight in rest; separation is the
cause
of our finding pleasure in union; and
if
we investigate the matter generally,
it will
always be found that one contrary is
the
occasion for the other contrary's desirability
and pleasure.
Cicada: Then there is no delight without
its contrary?
Tansillo: Definitely not, just as without
its opposite there is no pain, as the
Pythagorean
poet expresses it when he says: They
fear
and desire, sorrow and rejoice; nor
do their
eyes pierce the air while barred in
the blind
darkness of their prison house (Virgil,
Aeneid
vi. 733-734) Such are the consequences
of
the composition of things. This is
how it
happens that none is satisfied with
his lot,
except some insensate and stupid person,
satisfied so much the more as he finds
himself
in the last degree of the obscure phase
of
his folly; for then he has little or
no apprehension
of his evil, he enjoys the present
without
fear of the future, he is fully content
with
himself and with the world which surrounds
him, and he has no remorse or care
for what
is or may be; and finally, he as no
sense
of the contrariety represented by the
tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
Cicada: From this we see that ignorance
is
the mother of felicity and sensuous
happiness;
and this same happiness is the garden
of
paradise of the animals, as it is made
clear
in the dialogues of the Cabala of the
Pegasian
Horse and in that which the wise Solomon
says: Who increases wisdom, increases
sorrow
(Eccl. 1.18).
Tansillo: From this we learn that heroic
love is a torment, because it does
not rejoice
in the present as animal love does
but in
the future and the absent; and its
contrary
awakens in it ambition, emulation,
suspicion,
and fear. Thus one of our neighbors
said
one evening after dinner: Never was
I so
happy as I am now; -- Giouanni Bruno,
father
of the Nolan, replied: -- Neither were
you
ever more mad than now. --
Cicada: Do you mean then, that he who
is
sad, is wise, and he who is sadder
is even
wiser?
Tansillo: No, in fact I mean that in
these
is another species of madness, and
one much
worse.
Cicada: If he who is content is mad,
and
he is who is sad is mad, then who has
wisdom?
Tansillo: He who is neither content
nor sad.
Cicada: Who then? He who sleeps? He
who has
no feeling? He who is dead?
Tansillo: No; but he who endures, observes,
and understands; who, considering the
evil
and the good, holding the one and the
other
as something variable and subject to
movement,
mutation, and change (so that the end
of
one contrary is the beginning of the
other,
and the extreme stage of one is the
commencement
of the other), takes care neither to
humiliation
himself, nor becomes puffed up with
pride,
moderates his inclinations and tempers
his
desires; for him it is an established
fact
that pleasures not pleasure, because
he is
ever aware of its limits, and in the
same
way pain to him is not pain, because
he is
aware of its limits by the power of
reflection.
In this manner the wise holds all mutable
things as things which do not exist,
and
he believes these are nothing else
but vanity
and nothingness, because the same proportion
exists between finite time and eternity
that
exists between mere point and the line.
Cicada: So that never can we appropriately
hold the view that we are content or
discontent
without also holding that we are mad
and
without expressly confessing it; and
no one
who debates the question and thus participates
in it will be wise. Consequently in
the end
everyone will be mad.
Tansillo: I do not intend this conclusion;
for I would call him most wise who
could
truly express one of his contrary states
occasionally by means of the other:
-- Never
have I been less happy than now; --
or again:
-- Never have I been less sad than
now --.
Cicada: But where two contrary feelings
are
evident, how is it that you do not
see two
contrary qualities? I mean, why do
you understand
the minimum happiness and the minimum
sadness
and two virtues and not as one vice
and one
virtue?
Tansillo: For the reason that both
contraries
in excess (that is, when they begin
to go
beyond their limits) are vices, for
they
exceed their range; and inasmuch as
these
move toward the lesser degree they
become
virtue because they are contained and
enclosed
within their extremes.
Cicada: How is the state of lesser
content
and the state of lesser sadness not
one virtue
and one vice, but two virtues?
Tansillo: I say further that they are
one
and the same virtue; for where there
is contrariety
there is vice; and contrariety is there
above
all where the extreme is; the greater
contrariety
is nearest to the extreme, and least
contrary
or no contrary at all is in the middle
where
the extremes meet and become one and
indifferent.
For example, between the extremes of
hot
and cold is the more cold, and in the
middle
is the point you can call either hot
or cold,
or neither hot nor cold, a point at
which
no extremes are found. In the same
way he
who is the least content and the least
happy
is at the degree of indifference, and
finds
himself in the house of temperance
where
virtue resides and the condition of
a strong
soul, which does not give way to the
south
wind for the north. This is the reason
why,
to come to our point, the heroic frenzy,
which our present discourse somewhat
clarifies,
differs from other more ignoble frenzies
not as virtue differs from vice, but
as vice
practiced in a divine way by a more
divine
subject differs from vice practiced
in a
bestial way by a more bestial subject.
Therefore,
the difference is not according to
the form
of vice itself, but according to the
subjects
who practice it in different ways.
Cicada: From what you have said, I
can very
will infer the state of this frenzied
lover
who says, I have frozen hopes, and
burning
desires, because he is not in the temperance
of indifference, but in the excess
of contraries,
his soul in discord; if he trembles
in frigid
hopes, he burns in hot desires; and
if his
insatiability wrings shrieks from him,
fear
renders him dumb; he throws off sparks
from
his heart for the love of another,
and in
compassion for himself tears flow from
his
eyes; he dies in the laughter of another,
lives in his own complaints; and as
one who
no longer belongs to himself, he loves
another
and despises himself. Similarly physicians
say that matter hates its present form
in
proportion to its love of the form
that it
does not have. And thus the eighth
verse
concludes with the war which the soul
has
within itself; and then, when the poet
says
in the sestet, but if I spread my wings,
the other is changed to stone, and
in what
follows, he shows the suffering imposed
upon
him by the war he wages with the contraries
external to him. I recall having read
this
sentence in Iamblicus, where the Egyptian
mysteries are treated, Impiously he
has a
divided will; therefore he can live
neither
with himself nor with others.
Tansillo: Now listen to another sonnet
whose
import follows upon what has been said:
Ah,
what a condition, what a nature, or
what
a destiny is mine! I endure a living
death,
and a dead life! Ah me! love has killed
me
by such a death, so that I am deprived
of
both life and death. Drained of hope
at the
gates of hell, overflowing with desire,
I
reach out to heaven; and as an eternal
slave
to two contraries, I am banished from
heaven
and from hell. There is no respite
for my
pain, because between two burning wheels,
one which draws me here, the other
there,
like Ixion, I must pursue myself and
escape
myself, because the spur and the bit
provide
a contrary lesson to my doubtful fifth
discourse.
He shows how he endures the division
and
discord within himself. The discord
occurs
when the affection, leaving the middle
region
and final goal of temperance, tends
to one
and the other extreme; and when the
affection
is transported high or to the right,
it is
also transported below and to the left.
Cicada: How does that affection which
is
neither exactly at one or the other
extreme
fail to come within the state or bounds
of
virtue?
Cicada: Affection is in the state of
virtue
when it establishes itself in the mean,
departing
from the one and the other extreme;
when
it tends to be extremes, inclining
to one
or the other of them, it falls short
of virtue
so much that it becomes a double vice;
and
vice consists in this, that a thing
deviates
from its own nature whose perfection
consists
in unity; and the composition of virtue
is
at the point where the contraries unite.
Here, then, is how he is dead though
living,
and alive while dying; as when he says,
I
endure a living death and a dead life.
He
is not dead, because he lives in the
object,
he is not alive, because he is dead
to himself;
he is deprived of death, because he
nurtures
thoughts in the object; he is deprived
of
life, because in himself he neither
can vegetate
nor sense anything. Besides, he is
most base
when he considers the loftiness of
the intelligible
object and realizes the weakness of
his power.
He is most lofty through the aspiration
of
the heroic desire that carries him
far above
the limit of his own nature, most lofty
through
the intellectual appetite whose operation
and design is not to join his desire
to its
object; and he is most base because
of the
violence brought upon him by the contrary
sensuality weighing down toward the
inferno.
Therefore, finding himself rising and
falling,
in his soul he feels the greatest discord
possible, and he remains confused by
the
rebellion of the sensuality which spurs
him
to the point where reason, acting in
a contrary
way, restraints him. This is precisely
what
is shown in the following dialogue.
Here
reason interrogates in the name of
Filenio,
and the frenzied lover replies in the
name
of Pastore, who labors to watch over
the
flock of his thoughts, which he feeds
in
the homage and service of his nymph,
that
is, in the service of the affection
of that
object to which he has become enslaved.
F.
Shepherd boy! P. What do you wish?
F. What
are you doing? P. I suffer. F. Why?
P. Because
both life and death reject me. F. Who
is
responsible? P. Love. F. That mischievous
one? P. That mischievous one. F. Where
is
he? P. In the center of my heart, strongly
fixed. F. What does he do there? P.
He stabs.
F. Whom? P. Me. F. You? P. Yes. F.
With what
means? P. With her eyes, portals of
heaven
and hell. F. Do you have hope? P. I
do. F.
Pity? P. Pity. F. The pity of whom?
P. Of
her who tortures me night and day.
F. Does
she have it too? P. I don't know. F.
You're
mad. P. But what if such madness is
pleasant
to the soul? F. Does she promised anything?
P. No. F. Does she refuse? P. Not even
that.
F. Is she silent? P. Yes, because decorum
has taken the boldness from me. F.
Your raving.
P. Why? F. Because you suffer. P. I
fear
her disdain more than I do my torments.
He
tells of his intense pain, he laments
of
his love certainly not because he loves
(for
new no lover really dislikes loving)
but
because he loves unhappily and has
submitted
to the arrows which are the rays of
those
eyes, which, accordingly as they express
disdain and refusal, or on the contrary
as
they express benevolence and favor,
become
the portals which lead to heaven, or,
on
the other hand, to hell. Therefore
he is
maintained in the hope of future and
uncertain
mercy, and in the condition of present
and
certain martyrdom. And even though
his own
madness may be clearly evident to him,
never
does he managed to correct himself
of it
is at any point; nor can he even conceive
of it as unpleasant; and the more he
errs
because of that madness the more he
delights
in it, and he shows us where he says:
May
it never be that I lament of love,
for without
love I never would be happy. Next he
shows
another species of frenzy, nourished
by a
certain light of reason, a species
which
excites fear and destroys the madness
already
mentioned, so that it does not lead
to any
act that would irritates or disdain
the thing
loved. Therefore, he says his hope
is founded
upon the future, although nothing is
promised
or denied him; for he is silent and
asks
nothing for fear of offending chastity.
He
does not dare explain himself or make
any
proposal which could avail to exclude
him
by a rejection, or assure him by a
promise;
for in his mind the evil that could
come
to him in the one case weighs more
than the
good that could come to him in the
other.
He shows himself, then, more readily
dispose
to suffer his particular torment forever
than to risk opening the door to what
might
be an occasion of trouble and sadness
to
his beloved object.
Cicada: This proves his love is truly
heroic,
for he wishes for himself the favor
of her
spirit and the good will of affection
as
objects more important than her corporeal
beauty, a beauty in which the love
he has
for the divine is not satisfied.
Tansillo: You know very well that there
are
three species of Platonic raptures.
One tends
to the contemplative or the speculative
life;
one toward the active or moral life
and the
last toward the life of idleness and
voluptuousness;
similarly there are three species of
love:
one which from the aspect of the corporeal
form rises to a consideration of the
spiritual
and the divine; another which perserveres
only in the delight of the sight and
in conversation;
and finally another which descends
from a
sight to the concupiscence of the touch.
Of these three modes others are composed,
accordingly as the first is accompanied
by
the second or by the third, or as all
three
concur together; and beyond this each
one
of these is multiplied into others
besides,
according to the affections of the
frenzied
lovers which tend either more to the
spiritual
or more toward the corporeal object
or toward
both of them equally. As a result,
among
those who are found in this band, imprisoned
as they all are in love's snare, some
propose
for the accomplishment of their desire
to
gather the fruit of the tree of corporeal
beauty, and, failing in this satisfaction
(or at least in some hope of it), they
deem
decisive and vain every other amorous
labor.
This is the way of those who are of
a barbarous
mind, who neither can nor desire to
attain
greater dignity for themselves by loving
worthy things, by aspiring toward illustrious
things, and higher still, by applying
their
ardors and their deeds to divine things;
for to such ardors and deeds nothing
but
heroic love can more generously and
efficaciously
supply the wings. The goal others propose
for themselves is the fruit of gratification
they take from the aspect of beauty
and grace
of spirit which shines and radiates
in bodily
charm; and although some of these love
the
body and long very much for union with
a
body, lament its inaccessibility and
are
saddened by separation from it, they
always
fear their claim to it might deprive
them
of the affability, conversation, friendship,
and concord most important to them;
for the
assurance of the success of their efforts
could not be greater than the fear
of losing
the favor they looked upon as a thing
so
glorious and worthy.
Cicada: Because of the many virtues
and perfection
found in the human mind, Tansillo,
it is
worthy to seek, accept, nourish, and
preserve
such a love; but one must still take
great
care not to debase himself by becoming
obligated
to an unworthy and degraded object,
lest
he participate in its ignobility and
indignity.
I believe this was the significance
of the
counsel given by the poet of Ferarra:
Seek
to rescue him who steps into love's
snare
without having your wings entangled.
Tansillo: To tell the truth, an object
of
no greater splendor than beauty of
the body
is not worthy of being loved for any
other
purpose than to propagate the species
(as
they say); and it seems to me proper
to the
swine and the horse to be tormented
for that
purpose; as for myself never have I
been
more fascinated by such a beauty than
I am
now over some statue or painting, for
these,
it seems to me, are things of the same
order.
It would be then a great shame for
a noble
spirit to say, speaking of a filthy,
vile,
sluggish, and ignoble soul (no matter
how
excellent its corporeal dress), I fear
her
scorn more than my torment.
FIRST PART OF THE HEROIC FRENZIES
Third Dialogue
Tansillo:
There are many species of frenzies
and these
may be all reduced to two sorts. The
first
accordingly displays only blindness,
stupidity,
and an irrational impulse which tends
to
bestial folly; the second consists
in a certain
divine rapture which makes some become
superior
to ordinary men. The frenzies of the
last
sort are divided into two species;
for some
of those who experience them, because
they
have become habitations of the gods
or divine
spirits, speak and do admirable things
for
which neither they themselves nor anyone
else understand the reason; and these
commonly
have been raised to this state from
having
first been undisciplined and ignorant
and
void of any spirits and sense of their
own;
in them, as in a room which has been
scoured,
is introduced a divine sense and spirit
which
has less chance of revealing itself
in those
who are endowed with their own sense
and
reason, for sometimes it is necessary
that
the world devoutly believe that it
is given
to some men to speak and act under
the influence
of a superior intelligence, inasmuch
as their
speech does not arise from their own
study
and experience; consequently, the multitudes
may justly show her greater admiration
and
faith in men so endowed. Others, because
of a custom or habit of contemplation,
and
because they are naturally endowed
with a
lucid and intellectual spirit, when
under
the impact of an internal stimulus
and spontaneous
fervor spurred on by the love of divinity,
justice, truth and glory, by the fire
of
desire and inspired purpose, they make
keen
their senses and in the sulphurous
cognitive
faculty enkindle a rational flame which
raises
their vision beyond the ordinary. And
these
do not go about speaking an acting
as mere
receptacles and instruments, but as
chief
inventors and authors.
Cicada: Which of these two species
do you
esteem the superior?
Tansillo: Those who are of the first
sort
have within them a great dignity, power,
and efficacy inasmuch as they harbor
the
dignity. But those who belong to the
second
class are of their very selves more
worthy,
powerful, and efficatious; they are
divine.
Those who belong to the first are worthy
in the same way as the ass who carries
the
sacraments; those who belong to the
second
have a worthiness that is truly sacred.
In
those of the first class the divinity
is
considered and viewed according to
its effect
and is admired, adored, and obeyed;
in those
of the second, the excellence of their
special
humanity is considered and brought
to light.
Now we come to our purpose. These frenzies
of which we speak, and whose manifestations
are seen in these dialogues, do not
arise
from forgetfulness, but from a remembrance.
They are not undirected frenzies, but
love
and desire for the beautiful and the
good,
a model of perfection one proposes
to attain
for himself by being transformed into
its
likeness. It is not the rapture of
one caught
in the snare of bestial passion under
the
law of an unworthy fate; but a rational
force
following the intellectual perception
of
the good and the beautiful comprehensible
to man to whom they give pleasure when
he
conforms himself to them, so that he
is enkindled
by their dignity and light, and is
invested
with the quality and condition which
makes
him illustrious and worthy. By intellectual
contact with that godlike object he
becomes
a god; and he has thoughts of nothing
but
things divine and shows himself insensible
and impassible to those things which
ordinary
men feel the most and by which for
they are
most tormented; he fears nothing, and
in
his love of divinity he scorns other
pleasures
and does not give any thought to his
life.
It is not the melancholy frenzy which
--
beyond counsel, reason, and prudence
-- will
make him stray at the mercy of chance
and
carry him in the flow of its ruinous
tempest,
as those who, having transgressed certain
laws of the divine Adrastia, were condemned
to the butchery of the Furies and to
the
loss of all peace by a conflict that
was
physical, arising from seditions, ruin,
and
maladies, as well as spiritual, arising
from
the loss of harmony between the rational
and appetitive powers; but it is a
heat enkindled
in the soul by the sun of the intellect,
and a divine force which sets wings
upon
him; so that always bringing him closer
to
the intellectual sun, rejecting the
rust
of earthly cares he becomes gold proven
and
pure, acquires the feeling of divine
and
internal harmony, and conforms his
thoughts
and acts to the common measure of the
law
innate in all things. He is not as
one inebriated
by the vessel of Circe who goes from
ditch
to ditch and from rock to rock, plunging
and stumbling; nor is he like a variable
Proteus always changing himself from
one
appearance to another, without ever
finding
any place, or mode, or manner of settling
or fixing himself, but without disturbing
his balance he conquers and overcomes
the
terrible monstrous; and if he happens
to
decline, he returns easily to the sixth
sphere,
thanks to those profound instincts
within
him which are like the nine Muses who
dance
and sing around the splendor of the
universal
Apollo; and beneath sensible images
and material
objects he perceives the laws of divine
wisdom.
It is true that sometimes, having for
an
escort Love, who is twofold, and because
he sees himself often defrauded of
the fruits
of his efforts by some rising obstacle,
then,
like one insensible and frenzied, he
overthrows
the love of what he cannot understand;
and
thus confused by the abyss of divinity,
sometimes
he gives up the contest. Then he returns,
nevertheless, and forces himself to
attain
by his will what he cannot obtain by
his
reason. It is also true that he usually
wanders
at random and transports himself now
toward
one and now toward another form of
twofold
Eros, for the chief lesson love teaches
him
is to contemplate the shadow of the
divine
beauty (when he cannot contemplate
its direct
reflection), as, for example, the suitors
of Penelopy amused themselves with
her servants
when they were not permitted to converse
directly with the mistress herself.
Now to
conclude, you can understand from what
has
been said, of what species this frenzied
one is, whose image is shown us in
these
verses: If the butterfly wings its
way to
the sweet light that attracts it, it
is because
it knows not that the fire is capable
of
consuming it; if the thirsty stag runs
to
be brook, it is because he is not aware
of
the cruel bow. If the unicorn runs
to its
chaste nest, it is because he does
not see
the noose which is prepared for him.
In the
light, at the fount, in the bosom of
my love's
light, I see the flames, the arrows
and the
chains. If my languishing is so sweet
to
me, it is because the heavenly face
delights
me so, and because the heavenly bow
so sweetly
wounds; And because in that knot is
bound
up my desire, I suffer eternally through
the fire of my heart, the arrow in
mind brest,
and the yoke upon my soul. Here he
shows
that his of is not like that of the
butterfly,
the stag or the unicorn, who would
run away
if they had some idea of the fire,
of the
arrow and the noose, and who perceive
nothing
but what pleases them. He, on the contrary
is guided by a most keenly felt and
only
too lucid frenzy, which makes him love
that
fire more than any other consideration,
that
wound more than any state of health,
those
chains more than any other freedom.
For this
evil is not an evil absolute; it is
an absolute
evil only with respect to what is held
good
according to a certain opinion. And
this
opinion is as fallacious as the condiment
old Saturn used (for his dinner), when
he
devoured his own sons. For this evil
in the
eyes of the absolute and of eternity
is understood
either as a good, or as a guide leading
us
to the good; for this fire is the burning
desire for divine things, this arrow
is the
impact of the ray of the beauty of
the divine
light, these yokes are the species
of the
true and the good which unite and join
our
minds to the primal truth and the supreme
good. I spoke in this sense when I
said:
By so beautiful a fire and so noble
a yoke,
beauty enkindles me, and chastity entangled
me, so that I must be happy in fire
and in
slavery; liberty I must flee and I
must dread
the ice. The conflagration is such
that I
burn yet am not consumed, and the yoke
is
such that the world celebrates it with
me;
neither am I frozen by dread, nor undone
by grief; but my ardor is tranquil,
my burden
sweet. I perceive so lofty a light
that I
am enkindled by it, and a noose devised
of
such rich yarn, that as contemplation
grows,
desire dies. Because so beautiful a
flame
enkindles my heart, and the desire
for so
sweet a bond compels me, darkness is
my servant
and my ashes glow. All loves (if they
are
heroic, and not purely animal, the
physical
means by which those enslaved by nature
are
called to procreation) have divinity
for
their object and tend to the divine
beauty,
a beauty which first communicates itself
to the souls and is resplendent in
them,
and then, from the soul, or better
still,
through the souls, is communicated
to the
body. Thus a well-ordered passion loves
the
body, or corporeal beauty, only because
it
is a sign of the beauty of spirit.
In fact
we become enamoured of the body because
of
a certain spirituality we see in it,
a spirituality
called beauty, and a beauty which does
not
consist in larger or smaller dimensions,
in determined colors or forms, but
in a certain
harmony and concordance of the bodily
members
and hues. To the most acute and penetrating
senses, this harmony of members shows
a certain
sensible affinity to the spirit; consequently,
those who are so endowed fall in love
more
easily and more intensely and they
also fall
out of love more easily and are more
intensely
provoked. This ease and intensity can
be
explained by a change that takes place
in
the beloved object as it expresses
an ugly
spirit made evident in some gesture
or in
some expressed intention; so that as
such
ugliness passes from the soul to the
body,
the body no longer seems beautiful
as it
once seemed. The beauty of the body,
then,
has the power to enflame, but certainly
does
not have the power to bind the lover
and
keep him from fleeing from it, if that
body
is not assisted by the grace of spirit
he
desires or by chastity, courtesy, and
sagaciyy.
Cicada: Do not believe that this is
always
so, Tansillo; for sometimes, although
we
discover a vicious spirit, we remain
none
the less enflamed and ensnared by it;
or
although the reason recognizes the
evil and
baseness of such love, it does not
have the
virtue of throwing off the disordered
appetite.
I believe the Nolan found himself in
a like
disposition when he wrote: Ah me, a
frenzy
constraints be to cling to my evil;
which
makes love appear to me as a supreme
good.
Ah me, my soul is not troubled that
it is
always bound by contrary counsels;
with that
cruel tyranny which nourishes me in
torment
and has had power to exile me from
myself,
I am content more than with my freedom.
I
hoist my sails to the wind, which pulls
me
toward the odious good and leads me
to sweet
tempestuous damnation.
Tansillo: This occurs when both souls
are
vicious and as though spotted by the
same
ink, so that, because of their likeness
love
is aroused, enkinded, and confirmed.
Thus
the vicious meet each other in a practice
of the same vice. And here I shall
not be
silent about what I know from experience.
I have had occasion to discover in
a certain
soul vices particularly abhorrent to
me such
as sordid avarice, a most gravelling
appetite
for gain, ungrateful disregard of favors
and courtesies granted, and an affinity
for
certain thoroughly vile persons (the
most
displeasing of all vices, because it
leaves
the lover with no hope of ever being
or becoming
more worthy of his beloved, or of becoming
more acceptable to her); none the less
I
did not fail to burn for her corporeal
beauty.
But the reason? I loved her without
good
will, and if this had not been the
case,
I would have been made sad rather than
happy
by her shamefulness and wretchedness.
Cicada: That distinction between loving
and
having good will toward the beloved
is very
apt and to the point.
Tansillo: Yes. For toward many do we
have
good will, which is to say, that we
wish
them to be wise and just, but we do
not love
them, because they are iniquitous and
ignorant.
And many we love because they are beautiful,
but we do not wish them well because
they
do not merit it; and among those things
he
deems his beloved does not merit, the
first
is the love he as for her. For that
reason
he regrets loving her the more he is
unable
to refrain from doing so. This is the
regret
he refers to when he says, Ah me, a
frenzy
constrains me to cling to my evil.
But he
was in an opposite frame of mind when
he
said, either referring to another corporate
object in similitude, or to a truly
divine
subject: Though you inflict upon me
such
cruel tortures, even so I thank you,
and
owe you much, Love, for you opened
my breast
with so generous a wound and have so
mastered
my heart, that it truly adores a divine
and
living object, most beautiful image
of God
on earth. Let him who will, think my
fate
cruel because it kills in hope and
revives
in desire. I am nourished by my high
enterprise;
and although the soul does not attain
the
end desired and is consumed by so much
zeal,
it is enough that it burns in so noble
a
fire; it is enough that I have been
raised
to the sky and delivered from the ignoble
number. Here his love is completely
heroic
and divine. And I would understand
it as
heroic and divine, even though because
of
it he speaks of himself as afflicted
by such
cruelty tortures; for every lover who
is
separated from the beloved (to which,
joined
by his desire, he would also be joined
in
act) finds himself in anguish and pain,
crucifies
himself and torments himself. He is
so tormented,
not only because he loves and is conscious
that his love is most worthily and
nobly
employed, but because his love is deprived
of that fruition which it would attain
if
it had arrived at the end toward which
it
tends. He does not suffer because of
that
desire which enlivens him, but because
of
the difficulty of the labor which martyrs
him. Thus others consider him as being
in
an unhappy condition because of the
fate
which seems to have condemned him to
these
torments; as for himself, despite these
torments,
he will not fail to recognize his debt
to
Love and will not fail to render thanks
to
it, because it has brought an unintelligible
form before his mind. For in that intelligible
form, although he is enclosed within
the
prison of the flesh during this earthly
life,
bound by his sinews and confined by
his very
bones, he has been permitted to contemplate
an image of the divinity more exalted
than
would have been possible had some other
species
and simitude of it been offered him.
Cicada: The god-like and living object
of
which he speaks, then, is the highest
intelligible
aspect of the divinity he is able to
experience
for himself; and it is not some corporeal
beauty which would obscure his thought
as
it appears superficially to the sense.
Tansillo: True, because no sensible
thing
or species of it can be elevated to
so much
dignity.
Cicada: Then hope is it that he mentions
the intelligible form as the object
(of his
love) if, as it seems to me, the true
object
is the divinity itself?
Tansillo: The divinity is the final
object,
the ultimate and the most perfect object,
but it certainly cannot be found here
below
where we can see God only as in a shadow
or a mirror; and for that reason the
divinity
can be the object only in similitude,
and
not a similitude abstracted and acquired
from corporeal beauty and excellence
by virtue
of the senses, but a similitude the
mind
can discern by virtue of the intellect.
When
it has reached this state, the mind
begins
to lose love and affection for every
other
sensible as well as intelligible object,
for joined to that light it becomes
that
light, and consequently becomes a god.
For
the mind draws the divinity unto itself,
being in God by the effort to penetrate
the
divinity (as much as it can); and God
is
in that mind, for after having penetrated
the divinity the mind will conceive
the dignity
and (as much as it can) will receive
the
divinity and retain a concept of it.
Now
the human intellect feeds itself upon
species
and similitudes in this inferior world,
inasmuch
as it is not permitted to contemplate
the
beauty of the divinity with purer eyes.
Thus
he who arrives at some most excellent
and
most beautifully adorned edifice and
considers
it in each detail, is pleased, contented,
and filled with a noble wonder; but
then
should it happen that he also see the
lord
of these images in his incomparably
greater
beauty, he would abandon every concern
and
thought of such images, turn and become
completely
intent upon the contemplation of that
lord.
Such is the difference between the
state
in which he see the divine beauty in
its
intelligible aspects which are drawn
from
the divine beauty's effects, operations,
designs, shadows, and similitudes,
and that
other state in which we might be permitted
to see it in its own unique being.
Then he
says, I am nourished by my high enterprise
because (as the Pythagoreans knew)
in this
way the soul is turned and moves toward
God,
as the body moves toward the soul.
Cicada: The body, then, is not the
abode
of the soul?
Tansillo: No; for the soul is not in
the
body locally, but is in it intrinsically
as its form, and extrinsically as creator
of its form, similar to that which
forms
the members and shapes the composite
from
within and from without. It is the
body,
then, that is in the soul; the soul
is in
the mind, and the mind either is God
or is
in God, as Plotinus said. And just
as by
its essence the mind is in God who
is its
life, similarly by its intellectual
operation
and the consequent operation of the
will,
the mind refers itself to its own light
and
its beatific object. It is therefore
with
dignity that this passion of the heroic
frenzy
feeds itself upon so high an enterprise.
Although the beatific object is infinite,
and in act perfectly simple, and although
our intellective potency is unable
to comprehend
the infinite, except in speech or in
a certain
manner of speaking, or, as otherwise
said,
by a certain potential reason and natural
disposition, he of whom we speak does
not
differ from one who would aspire toward
the
immeasurable as an end where in fact
there
is no end
Cicada: And this is most nobly as it
should
be; for, in fact, the last end ought
not
to have an end, otherwise it would
not be
the last. Therefore it is infinite
in purpose,
in perfection, in essence, and in every
matter
possible.
Tansillo: You speak the truth. Now
in this
life the peculiarity of such nourishment
is that it enflames the desire more
than
it can satisfy it, as that divine poet
shows
us well in the words, My soul languishes
in the desire for the living God; and
elsewhere
when he who says, "My eyes are
diminished
as they gaze into the heavens"
(Isaiah
38:14). This is why our own poet says,
And
though the soul does not attain the
end desired
and is consumed in so much zeal, it
is enough
that it burns in so noble a fire. He
means
the soul is consoled in this ardor
and receives
all the glory possible to it in its
present
state, and participates in that ultimate
frenzy of man, inasmuch as he is a
man in
the state in which he finds himself
presently
as we see him.
Cicada: I imagine the Peripatetics
(as Averroes
explained) have this in mind, when
they say
the ultimate happiness of man consists
in
attaining perfection in the speculative
sciences.
Tansillo: It is true, and they put
it very
well. For in this condition of ours
we cannot
desire or attain greater perfection
than
that which is ours when our intellect
through
the medium of some noble intelligible
species
is united either to the separate substances,
as some say, or to the divine mind,
if we
employ the idiom of the Platonists.
And I
shall omit discussion about the soul,
or
man in another state and mode of existence
in which he may find or believe himself.
Cicada: But what perfection and satisfaction
can man find in a cognition which is
not
perfect?
Tansillo: Cognition can never be perfect
to the extent that it shall be able
to understand
the highest object; but only to the
extent
that our intellect has the power to
understand
this object. It suffices that in this
state
of ours and in any other our intellect
may
perceive be divine beauty to the degree
that
it extends the horizon of its vision.
Cicada: But all man cannot reached
that point,
but only one or two.
Tansillo: It is enough that all attempt
the
journey. It is enough that each one
do whatever
he can; for a heroic mind will prefer
falling
or missing the mark nobly in a lofty
enterprise,
whereby he manifests the dignity of
his mind,
to obtaining perfection in things less
noble,
if not base.
Cicada: Certainly a worthy and heroic
death
is preferable to an unworthy and vile
triumph.
Tansillo: A similar thought inspires
the
following sonnet: Since I have spread
my
wings toward sweet delight, the more
do I
feel the air beneath my feet, the more
I
spread proud pinions to the wind, and
contemn
the world, and further my way toward
heaven.
Nor does the cruel fate of Daedalus's
son
burden me, on the contrary I follow
his way
the more: that I shall fall dead upon
the
earth I am well aware; but what life
compares
with this death? I hear the voice of
my heart
upon the wind: Where do you take me,
adventurous
one? Resign yourself, for too much
temerity
is rarely without danger. I reply:
fear not
boble destruction, burst boldly through
the
clouds, and die content, if heaven
destines
us to so illustrious a death.
Cicada: I understand when he says,
It is
enough that I have been raised to the
sky;
but not when he says, and delivered
from
the ignoble number; unless he means
that
he has come out of the Platonic cavern,
removed
from the condition of the stupid and
most
vile multitudes; for it is understood
that
those who profit from this contemplation
can be only a very small number.
Tansillo: You have understood it very
well.
Moreover, by the ignoble sod it is
possible
that he means the body and the sensual
cognition
from which he who would become united
to
a nature of a contrary kind must raise
and
disengage himself.
Cicada: The Platonists speak of two
kinds
of knots with which the soul is tied
to the
body. One is a certain vivifying act
which
like a ray descends from the soul to
the
body; the other is a certain vital
quality
in the body which results from this
act.
Now in what manner do you understand
that
this most noble moving number called
the
soul is disengaged from that ignoble
number
which is the body?
Tansillo: It certainly was not meant
that
the soul can detach itself from the
body
in some physical way, but in a way
peculiar
to its potencies, which, not enclosed
and
enslaved within the bosom of matter,
are
sometimes as though lulled and inebriated
and find themselves nevertheless occupied
in the formation of matter and in the
vivifaction
of the body. Sometimes these potencies,
as
though reawakened and remembering themselves,
recovering consciousness of their principle
and origin, turn themselves to superior
things
and force themselves toward the ineligible
world as to their native home; but
sometimes
the potencies tumble from the intelligible
world by a conversion to inferior things
beneath the fate and necessities of
generation.
These two drives are represented by
the two
kinds of metamorphoses which the present
sonnet describes: That god who wields
the
resounding thunderbolt Asteria saw
as a furtive
eagle, Mnemosyne saw as a shepherd,
Danae
saw as gold, Alcmena saw as a fish,
and Antiope
as a satyr; to the sisters of Cadmus
he was
a white bull, to Leda he was a swan,
and
a dragon to the daughter of Demeter.
I, because
of the loftiness of my object, from
the most
vile subject become a god. Saturn was
a horse,
Neptune a dolphin, Ibis took the form
of
a heifer, and Mercury became a shepherd,
Bacchus a grape, Apollo a raven; and
I by
the mercy of love, am changed from
a base
thing into a deity. There is in nature
a
revolution and a circle in virtue of
which,
for the perfection and aid of others,
superior
things incline toward the inferior,
and for
their own excellence and felicity inferior
things are raisedto the superior. But
the
Pythagoreans and the Platonists hold
that
souls, not only by a spontaneous will
which
brings them to an understanding of
natures,
but also by the necessity of an inward
law
written and recorded by a fatal decree,
at
certain times set out to seek their
own destinies
justly determined. And these say that
if
souls separate themselves from the
divinity,
it is not so much from a rebellious
will
of their own, as from a certain order
in
virtue of which they become inclined
toward
the material. Therefore, not from a
voluntary
intention, but from a certain mysterious
consequence, they begin to fall. And
this
is why their tendency leads them toward
the
lesser good called generation. (I will
use
the word lesser insofar as it pertains
to
a particular nature; but not at all
as it
pertains to universal nature, where
nothing
happens without the highest purpose
which
disposes of all things according to
justice.)
Once they and occupied themselves with
generation,
the souls (by a new conversion which
follows
in turn) return once again to their
superior
states.
Cicada: Would those have it, then,
that the
souls are impelled by the necessity
of fate,
and that they have no counsel of their
own
to guide them at all?
Tansillo: Necessity, fate, nature,
counsel,
will, in things justly and impeccably
ordered,
all concur. Besides, according to the
inference
of Plotinus, some would have it that
certain
souls can escape their peculiar evil,
those
souls which, before they are confirmed
in
their corporeal garb, recognizing the
danger,
take refuge in the mind. Because the
mind
raises them to sublime things, as imagination
debases them to interior things; the
mind
maintains them in rest and identity
as the
imagination in movement and diversity;
the
mind forever understands the one, as
the
imagination forever goes about inventing
varied images. In the middle is the
rational
faculty which is composed of everything,
as that in which concurs the one and
the
many, the same with the diverse, motion
with
position, the interior with the superior.
Now this conversion and change is symbolized
in the wheel metamorphoses, in which
a man
is placed at the top, a beast lies
at the
bottom, one half-man and half-beast
descends
from the left, and one half man and
half
beast ascends from the right. This
transformation
is shown in which Jove, according to
the
diversity of the affections and their
manifestations
toward inferior things, invests himself
in
varying appearances, which assume the
forms
of beasts; and the other deities likewise
transform themselves into ignoble and
alien
forms. And on the other hand, because
of
the sense of their own dignity, they
recover
their own divine forms; just as the
heroic
lover, raising himself by his conception
of the species of divine beauty and
goodness
upon the wings of his intellect and
intellectual
will exalts himself toward the divinity,
abandoning the form of more ignoble
thing.
And for that reason he said: From a
more
vile creature I become a God, I change
into
a deity from a base creature.
Fourth Dialogue
Tansillo: Now is described the path
taken
by heroic love, as it tends toward
its proper
object, the supreme good, and the path
taken
by the heroic intellect as it strives
to
attain its proper object, the primary
or
absolute truth. All of the above is
summarized
in the first poem which expresses the
purpose
to be developed in the following five.
Thus
he says: The youthful Actaeon unleashes
the
mastiffs and the greyhounds to the
forests,
when destiny directs him to the dubious
and
perilous path, near the traces of the
wild
beasts. Here among the waters he sees
the
most beautiful countenance and breast,
that
ever one mortal or divine may see,
clothed
in purple and alabaster and fine gold;
and
the great hunter becomes the prey that
is
hunted. The stag which to the densest
places
is wont to direct his lighter steps,
is swiftly
devoured by his great and numerous
dogs.
I stretch my thoughts to the sublime
prey,
and these springing back upon me, bring
me
death by their hard and cruel gnawing.
Actaeon
represents the intellect intent upon
the
capture of divine wisdom and the comprehension
of the divine beauty. He unleashes
the mastiffs
and the greyhounds; of these the greyhounds
are swifter and the mastiffs more powerful,
for the operation of the intellect
precedes
the operation of the will; but the
latter
in turn is the more vigorous and efficacious;
since divine goodness and beauty are
more
lovable than comprehensible to the
human
intellect, and besides love moves and
spurs
the intellect to go before it, like
a lantern,
to the forests, uncultivated and lonely,
very rarely visited and explored, with
the
result that few men have left the traces
of their steps there. The youth is
of little
experience and practice, as one whose
life
is brief and whose frenzy is unstable.
In
the dubious path refers to the uncertain
and the ambiguous reason and passion
which
the letter Y of Pythagoras symbolized.
On
the right this path shows him the more
thorny,
uncultivated and deserted arduous path
upon
which he unleashes the greyhounds and
mastiffs
near the traces of the wild beasts,
which
are the intelligible modes of ideal
concepts.
These are hidden, are pursued by few
men,
and visited most rarely, and do not
offer
themselves to everyone who seeks them.
Here
among the waters, that is to say, in
the
mirror of similitudes, in the works
in which
is resplendent the efficacy of the
divine
goodness and splendor -- these works
are
represented by the symbol of the superior
and inferior waters over and beneath
the
firmament. He sees the most beautiful
countenance
and breast, that is to say, he sees
the power
and external operation which can be
seen
in the state and act of diligent contemplation
of a mortal or divine mind, by a man,
or
by some deity.
Cicada: If he compares divine and human
comprehension
and places them within the same class,
I
believe that he does so not with respect
to the two modes of comprehension,
which
are very different, but with respect
to the
object of contemplation which is one
and
the same.
Tansillo: That is it exactly. He says
in
purple, alabaster and gold, meaning
the purple
of divine power, the gold of divine
wisdom,
the alabaste of divine beauty, in the
contemplation
of which the Pythagoreans, Chaldeans,
Platonists,
and others attempt to rise as best
they can.
The great hunter sees: he as understood
as
much as he can, and he himself becomes
the
prey; that is to say, this hunter set
out
for prey and became himself the prey
through
the operation of his intellect whereby
he
converted the apprehended objects into
himself.
Cicada: I see. For he gives shapes
according
to his mode to the intelligible species
and
proportions them to his capacity inasmuch
as they are received according to a
mode
of him who receives them.
Tansillo: And he becomes the prey by
the
operation of the will whose act converts
him into the object.
Cicada: I understand; for love converts
and
transforms into the thing loved.
Tansillo: You know very well that the
intellect
understands things intelligently, that
is,
according to its own mode; and the
will pursues
things naturally, that is, according
to the
manner in which things exist in themselves.
Therefore, Actaeon, who with these
thoughts,
his dogs, searched for goodness, wisdom,
beauty, and the wild beast outside
himself,
attained them in this way. Once he
was in
their presence, ravished outside of
himself
by so much beauty, he became the prey
of
his thoughts and saw himself converted
into
the thing he was pursuing. Then he
perceived
that he himself had become the coveted
prey
of his own dogs, his thoughts, because
having
already tracked down the divinity within
himself it was no longer necessary
to hunt
for it elsewhere.
Cicada: Then it is well said that the
kingdom
of God is within us, and that divinity
lives
within us by virtue of the regenerated
intellect
and will.
Tansillo: Precisely. Actaeon becomes
the
prey of his own dogs, pursued by his
own
thoughts, turns his feet and directs
his
new steps; is renewed for a divine
course
-- that is, with greater facility and
with
a more efficatious inspiration -- toward
the densest places, toward the deserts,
toward
the region of incomprehensible things:
from
the vulgar and common man he was, he
becomes
rare and heroic, rare in all he does,
rare
in his concepts, and he leads the extraordinary
life. It is there that his great and
numerous
dogs bring him death; thus he stops
living
according to the world of folly, of
sensuality,
of blindness, and of illusion, and
begins
to live by the intellect; he lives
the life
of the gods, he feeds upon ambrosia
and is
drunk with nectar. Now, in the form
of other
similitude, he describes the manner
in which
Actaeon arms himself for the attainment
of
the object, and he says: My solitary
sparrow,
no longer delay making your nest in
that
place which clouds and fills all my
thought.
There, above, give the full measure
of your
labor, your industry, and art. Find
new life
there and raise your lovely offspring.
Now
that cruel destiny has run its full
course,
it no longer impedes you from your
enterprise,
as it used to do. Go, a more noble
refuge
I desire for you -- and you shall have
as
a guide a god who by those who see
nothing
is called blind. Go, and may every
god of
this immense creation be merciful to
you;
and return not to me, since you are
no longer
mine. The lover's former progress symbolized
by the hunter stirring his dogs here
is symbolized
by a winged heart; and from the cage
in which
it reposed in idleness and quiet it
is dispatched
to build its nest up on high, and to
raise
its little ones there -- its thoughts
--
the time having come in which the obstacles
posed by a thousand lures without and
by
the natural feebleness within are no
longer
present. He gives the heart permission,
then,
to attain a more noble state for itself,
and turns it to a more lofty design
and purpose,
now that those powers of the soul which
the
Platonists have already represented
by the
two wings are more firmly developed.
And
as a guide to the heart he designates
that
god whom the vulgar in their blindness
call
blind and mad; and that god is love
who by
the mercy and favor of heaven has the
power
to transform the heart into that other
nature
to which it aspires, or, after its
voyage
of exile, to restore it to that state
from
which it was banished. That is why
he said,
and return not to me since you are
no longer
mine, so that not unworthily I may
say with
that other poet: You have left me,
my heart,
and light of my eyes, you are no longer
with
me. (Ps. 37.11) Next he describes the
death
of the soul, called by the Cabalists
death
of the kiss, symbolized in the Canticle
of
Solomon, where the beloved lady speaks
these
words: Let him kiss me with the kiss
of his
mouth, because by his blows too cruel
a love
makes me languish; (Cant. 1: 1, 5:6-8)
by
others this death is called sleep,
as in
the Psalmist's words: If I shall give
sleep
to my eyes, slumber to my eyelids,
I shall
find in him peaceful repose. (Ps. 131:
4,5)
He then speaks for the soul as languid
inasmuch
as it is dead in itself, and alive
in its
object: O frenzied ones, take care
of your
hearts; for mine, too much estranged
from
me, led away by a harsh and pitiless
hand,
finds its happy sojourn where it is
smitten
and dies. My thoughts call it back
at every
hour; and in revolt, foolish falcon,
it no
longer knows that friendly hand, from
which
it has flown forth not to return. Wild
beast,
who satisfies while giving pains, you
ensnare
the heart, the spirit, and the soul
by your
spurs, your flames, and your chains,
by your
glances, accents, and lures; and the
one
who lanquishes and burns and does not
return,
who shall heal him, who shall cool
his fire
and unloose his chains? Here the sorrowing
soul, not in real discontent, but in
the
passion of a certain amorous martyrdom,
speaks
as though addressing its discourse
to those
who are similarly impassioned. It has
dismissed
its heart, as it were, against its
will,
for the heart directs its course toward
an
impossible goal, extends itself where
it
cannot reach and would embrace what
it cannot
grasp; and the more the heart is estranged
from the soul, the more does it enkindle
itself toward the infinite.
Cicada: Tansillo, how does it happen
that
the soul in this stage of its development
is happy in its own torment? Where
does that
spur come from which always stimulates
it
beyond what it possesses?
Tansillo: From this which I shall tell
you
now. Although the intellect has arrived
at
the apprehension of a certain definite
intelligible
form, and the will to a desire in proportion
to that apprehension, the intellect
does
not stop there; for its own light impels
it to think of that which contains
every
genus of be intelligible and appetitive,
until it is about to apprehend the
eminence
of the source of ideas, the ocean of
all
truth and good. Thus it happens that
whatever
species is represented to the intellect
and
comprehended by the will, the intellect
concludes
there is another species above it,
a greater
and still greater one, and consequently
it
is always impelled toward new motion
and
abstraction in a certain fashion. For
it
ever realizes that everything it possesses
is a limited thing which for that reason
cannot be sufficient in itself, good
in itself,
or beautiful in itself, because the
limited
thing is not the universe and is not
the
absolute entity, but is contracted
to this
nature, this species or this form represented
to the intellect and presented to the
soul.
As a result, from that beautiful which
is
comprehended, and therefore limited,
and
consequently beautiful by participation,
the intellect progresses toward that
which
is truly beautiful without limit or
circumscription
whatsoever.
Cicada: This procedure seems vain to
me.
Tansillo: Not at all, in fact, because
it
is neither fitting nor natural that
the infinite
be understood, or that it present itself
as finite, for then it would cease
to be
infinite; but it is perfectly in accord
with
nature that the infinite, because of
its
being infinite, be pursued without
end, in
that mode of pursuit which is not physical
movement, but a certain metaphysical
movement.
And this movement is not from the imperfect
to the perfect, but it goes circling
through
the degrees of perfection to reach
that infinite
center which is neither form nor formed.
Cicada: I would like to know how by
circling
you can arrive at the center.
Tansillo: This I cannot imagine.
Cicada: Then why do you say it?
Cicada: Because I can say it and leave
it
for you to consider.
Cicada: If you don't mean that he who
pursues
the infinite is like one who, moving
along
the circumference, seeks the center,
I don't
know what you mean.
Tansillo: It is other than that.
Cicada: Now if you don't wish to explain
it, we'll not speak of it any more.
But tell
me, if you will, what he means when
he says
that his heart is led away by a harsh
and
pitiless hand?
Tansillo: He uses here a similitude
or metaphor
borrowed from common usage, which calls
cruel
the object that gives no fruition,
or, at
best partial fruition, and is more
an object
of desire than of possession, so that
he
who has partial possession of it cannot
rest
in full happiness, because he still
desires
it with an ardor which brings him to
the
point of a swooning, and to the point
of
death.
Cicada: What are those thoughts which
call
back the heart to retard it from so
noble
an enterprise?
Tansillo: The sensitive and other natural
affections which looks to the preservation
of the body.
Cicada: What have these affections
to do
with the body which can in no way be
of any
aid or assistance to them?
Tansillo: They have nothing to do with
the
body, but with the soul which, too
intent
upon a single effort or goal, becomes
remiss
and shows little zeal for anything
else.
Cicada: Why does he called his heart
that
foolish falcon?
Tansillo: Because it knows of things
above.
Cicada: Usually one calls foolish those
who
know less than others.
Tansillo: No. As a matter of fact those
are
called foolish whose knowledge does
not conform
to the common rule, whether they tend
to
base things, having less sense, or
to higher
things, having more intellect.
Cicada: I believe you are right. Now
tell
me further. What are the spurs, the
flames,
and the chains?
Tansillo: The spurs are those new pricks
which stimulate and re-awaken the affection
in order to render it attentive; the
flames
are those rays of beauty which enkindle
the
man who is ready to contemplate it;
the chains
are the details and circumstances which
fix
the eyes of the attention and firmly
unite
the intellectual powers to their object.
Cicada: What are the glances, accents,
and
lures?
Tansillo: Glances are the persuasions
whereby
the object (as though it gazed at us)
presents
itself to us; the accents are the persuasions
the object uses to inspire and inform
us;
if the lures are the circumstances
which
please and attract us. So that the
heart
which sweetly languishes, gently burns,
and
constantly perserveres in its enterprise,
fears that its wound may heal, that
its fire
will go out, and its knot be untied.
Cicada: Now recite what follows.
Tansillo: Lofty, profound, and living
thoughts
of mine, ready to flee the maternal
bonds
of the afflicted soul, and disposed
as archers
to aim where the lofty idea is born;
along
these steep paths, heaven allows you
to encountered
the cruel beast. Remember to return
and recall
the heart which lies concealed in the
hand
of a savage goddess. Arm yourselves
with
the love of the domestic fires, and
curb
your sight so forcefully, that these
companions
of my heart shall not make you stranger
to
it. At least bring tidings of its delight
and joy. Here is described the natural
solicitude
of the soul made attentive to generation
by the friendship it has contracted
with
matter. The soul dispatches its armed
thoughts
which, stimulated and spurred on by
the complaint
of the inferior nature, are commanded
to
call back the heart. The soul instructs
its
thoughts how they are to behave, for
charmed
and attracted by the object as they
are,
they are not too easily seduced to
remain
captives and companions of a heart.
Therefore
the soul tells them they ought to arm
themselves
with the love which burns with domestic
fires,
that is, the love friendly to generation
to which they have an obligation, and
of
which they are to be the messengers,
ministers,
and soldiers. The soul, then, orders
its
thoughts to curb their sight, to close
their
eyes, in order not to gaze upon any
other
beauty or goodness than the one present
to
them, their friend and mother. And
the soul
finally concludes that, should its
thoughts
not wish to be recalled for any other
duty,
they at least can return to give the
soul
some news of the condition and state
of its
heart.
Cicada: Before you proceed further,
I should
like you to explain what the soul means
when
it says to its thoughts, Curb your
sight
so forcefully?
Tansillo: I will tell you. All love
proceeds
from the sight, intellectual love from
the
eye of the mind; sensible love from
the view
of the senses. Now the word sight has
two
meanings. If it can mean the visual
potency,
that is, the power of seeing of the
intellect
or of the eye; or it can also mean
the visual
act, the application which the eye
or the
intellect makes upon the material or
intellectual
object. Thus when the thoughts are
advised
to curb the sight, it is not to be
understood
in the first way, but in the second,
because
it is the visual potency become act
which
begets the affection of the appetite,
whether
sensitive or intellectual.
Cicada: This is what I desired to hear
you
say. Now if the visual act is the cause
of
the evil or of the good which proceeds
from
the sight, how is it that we love and
desire
the sight? And how does it happen that
in
the matter of divine things our love
is greater
than our understanding?
Tansillo: We desire the sight because
in
some way we know the good of seeing,
and
that the act of seeing offers us beautiful
things. Therefore, we desire that act
because
we desire beautiful things.
Cicada: We desire the beautiful and
the good,
but the sight is neither beautiful
nor good;
in fact, it is rather an instrument
of comparison
or light whereby we see not only the
beautiful
and good, but also the wicked and the
ugly.
It seems to me that the sight can be
beautiful
or good, as we can see either white
or black.
Therefore, if the sight (which actively
perceives)
is neither beautiful or good, how can
it
be desired?
Tansillo: It is not desired for itself,
but
surely because of some object, inasmuch
as
the apprehension of an object cannot
take
place without it.
Cicada: What will you say if the object
is
neither one of sense nor of intellect?
How,
I ask, can the object be desired, or
even
seen, if there is no knowledge of it
at all,
if it has not occasioned any act of
intellect
or sense, in fact if one doubts whether
it
is an intelligible or sensible, incorporeal
or corporeal object, or whether it
is one
or two or more objects, or of one or
the
other nature?
Tansillo: To that I would say that
there
exists in the sense and in the intellect
an appetite and impulse towards the
sensible
in general. This is because the intellect
desires to know all of the truth, in
order
to grasp all that is beautiful and
good in
the intelligible world. The sensitive
potency
wishes to be informed of all that comes
within
the class of the sensible, and to grasp
all
that appears as beautiful and good
to the
senses. Thus we desire no less to see
things
we have never seen than things we have
already
understood and seen. But it does not
follow
from this that desire does not proceed
from
cognition, and consequently that we
desire
things which we do not know. On the
contrary,
I hold it to be well established that
we
do not desire what is unknown. For
if things
are unknown with respect to their particular
natures, they are not unknown with
respect
to their general natures; in the visual
potency
one finds everything which is visible
in
aptitude, and in the intellective potency
everything which is intelligible. Therefore,
because the inclination to act is in
the
aptitude, both the visual and the intellectual
potency are inclined to act toward
the universal,
as toward something naturally understood
as good. It follows, then, that the
soul
was not addressing itself to the deaf
or
the blind, when it counseled its thoughts
to curb the sight; for although the
sight
may not be the proximate cause of desire,
it is nevertheless the primary and
underlying
cause of it.
Cicada: What do you mean by this last
statement?
Tansillo: I mean that it is not the
sensible
or intelligible appearance of a form
or species
which of itself moves the soul, for
he who
contemplates the form as it is manifest
to
the eyes does not yet come to love
it; but
from the instant when the soul conceives
the form as an object no longer of
sight
but of thought, no longer divisible
but indivisible,
no longer under the species of a particular
thing, but under the species of the
good
and the beautiful, then at once love
is born.
Now this is the object from which the
soul
would divert the eyes of its thoughts.
This
sight is wont to encourage the inclination
to love more than it sees; for as I
said
a little while ago, the affection always
considers -- by its universal knowledge
of
the beautiful and the good -- that
beyond
the species of the good and the beautiful,
which it has been able to attain, there
are
infinitely more and more species.
Cicada: But how does it happen that
having
abstracted a species of beauty which
is a
conception of the soul we still desire
to
feed upon its external appearance?
Tansillo: Because the soul always desires
to love more than it loves and to see
more
than it sees. Moreover the soul desires
that
this species which the sight has engendered
in it should not become attenuated,
enfeebled,
or lost. The soul therefore wishes
to see
even more and more, so that what might
become
darkened to the soul's internal affection
might be frequently illumined by the
external
aspect of the species, which, having
been
the beginning of its existence ought
to be
the beginning of its conservation.
A similar
analogy exists between the act of seeing
and the act of understanding, for the
sight
is proportioned to visible objects
exactly
as the intellect is proportioned to
intelligible
objects. I believe, then, that you
now understand
the intention and sense of the words
the
soul speaks when it says, curb your
sight.
Cicada: I see very well. Now proceed
to relate
what comes of these faults.
Tansillo: There follows the complaint
of
the mother against her sons who, having
opened
their eyes and fixed them upon the
splendor
of the object, contrary to her command,
now
wander in the company of the heart.
Thus
she says: And you, cruel sons, you
abandon
me to embitter my pain the more; and
because
you constantly oppose me, you carry
off with
you my every hope. For what reason
do I remain
conscious, oh covetous heavens? For
what
reason are these powers mutilated and
wasted,
if not to make of me the subject and
example
of so heavy a martyrdom and of so long
a
punishment? Oh, in the name of God,
dear
sons, let even my winged fire become
a prey,
and let me see some one of you again
returned
to me from those tenacious claws. Alas,
no
one returns, a party consolation for
my woe.
Here am I miserable, deprived of a
heart,
abandoned by my thoughts, bereft of
the hope
I had entirely placed in them. Nothing
else
remains but the sense of my poverty,
unhappiness,
and wretchedness. And what am I not
deprived
of this sense too? Why does death not
come
to my aid, now that I am deprived of
life?
For what purpose are my natural faculties
deprived of their power? How shall
I be able
to feed upon the intelligible species
alone,
the food for the intellect, if my substance
is a composite? How shall I be able
to remain
in the company of these dear and friendly
members, which I have woven around
myself;
how shall I order them according to
the symmetry
of their elements, if I am abandoned
by my
thoughts and passions because they
are intent
on immaterial and divine food? Come,
come,
oh my fleeting thoughts, my rebellious
heart.
Let the sense live on sensible things
and
the intellect upon intelligible things.
Let
matter and the corporeal subject be
the support
of the body, and the intellect be satisfied
by its own objects; so that this complex
continue to subsist, so that there
be no
dissolution of this machine, whose
spirit
unites the soul to the body. Why, wretched
that I am, rather by my own doing than
through
external violence, do I witness this
horrible
divorce within my parts and members?
Why?
Because the intellect meddles by ruling
the
sense and depriving it of its nourishment;
the sense, on the contrary, resists
the intellect,
for it would live according to its
own rules,
and not according to those of the other.
Only its own rules and not those of
the other
can assure its existence and its happiness,
because it must care for its own and
not
the other's convenience and life. There
are
no harmony and concord where there
is that
uniformity whereby one nature wishes
to absorb
the whole being; but harmony and concord
are present where there is order and
due
proportion among diverse things and
where
each thing serves its own nature. Therefore
let the sense feed itself according
to the
law of sensible things, the flesh according
to the law of the flesh, the spirit
according
to the law of the spirit, the reason
according
to the law of the reason; let them
not be
confused or troubled with one another.
It
suffices that one does not at all alter
or
prejudice the law of the other. For
if it
is unjust that the sense outrage the
law
of reason, it is equally blamable that
the
reason tyrannize over the law of the
senses,
inasmuch as the intellect is the greater
wanderer and the sense more domestic
and
as though in its own abode. This is
why it
is then, oh my thoughts, that some
of you
are obligated to care for your home,
while
others can set out to seek other cares
elsewhere.
Such is the law of nature and such
consequently
is His law who is the author and the
principle
of nature. Therefore you transgress
when,
seduced by the beauties of the intellect,
you leave the other part of me in danger
of death. Whence have you engendered
this
perverse and melancholy humour of breaking
certain natural laws of the true life,
a
life you hold in your power, for an
uncertain
life that is nothing if not a shadow
beyond
the limits of the imaginable? Does
it seem
natural to you that creatures should
refuse
the animal or the human life in order
to
live the divine life when they are
not gods
but only men and animals? It is a law
of
fate and of nature that each thing
work according
to the condition of its nature. Why,
therefore,
in pursuit of coverting the nectar
of the
gods do you lose that nectar which
is proper
to you, afflicting yourself perhaps
with
the vain hope of some other nectar?
Do you
not believe that nature should disdain
to
accord you this other good, when you
so stupidly
disdain the good she offers you? Heaven
scorns
giving a second good To one who has
not held
first one dear. By these and similar
arguments
the soul, pleading the cause of its
more
infirm part, seeks to recall the thoughts
to the care of the body. But those,
although
late, return and show themselves to
it not
in the form in which they formerly
departed;
they return only to declare their rebellion
and to force the whole soul to follow
them.
That is why the soul utters the dolorous
complaint: Oh, dogs of Actaeon, oh
ungrateful
beasts, whom I had directed to the
refuge
of my goddess, you return to me devoid
of
hope; and coming to the maternal shore,
too
grievous a pain do you bring back.
You tear
me to pieces and wish me deprived of
life.
Then leave me, life, become a double
stream
deprived of its source, that I may
reascend
to my sun. When will nature agree to
release
me of my grievous burden? When will
it come
to pass that from here I too may raise
myself
and swiftly be delivered to the lofty
object
and together with my heart and common
offspring
dwell there? The Platonists hold that
with
respect to its superior part the soul
consists
only in the intellect, so that it is
more
reasonably called intelligence than
soul;
for it is called soul only in so far
as it
vivifies the body and sustains it.
Therefore
here the same essence which nourishes
the
thoughts and maintains them on high
in the
vicinity of the exalted heart experiences
a sadness in its inferior part and
recalls
those thoughts as rebels.
Cicada: So that there are not two contrary
essences, but only one essence subject
to
two extremes of contrariety?
Tansillo: Exactly. As the ray of the
sun
reaches the earth and touches the inferior
and obscure elements it illuminates,
vivifies
and enkindles, but is for all this
no less
in contact with the element of fire,
that
is, with the star whence it proceeds,
is
diffused and has its principle and
own original
subsistence, similarly the soul which
is
in the horizon of its corporeal and
incorporeal
nature, raises itself to superior things
and inclines to inferior things. And
you
can see that this happens not by reason
and
order of local motion, but only through
the
impulse of the one and the other potency
or faculty. For example when the sense
mounts
to the imagination, the imagination
to the
reason, the reason to the intellect,
the
intellect to the mind, then the whole
soul
converts itself to God and inhabits
the intelligible
world. From there by a contrary conversion
the soul descends to the sensible world
by
the degrees of the intellect, the reason,
imagination, sense, and the vegetative
faculty.
Cicada: Indeed, I have been told that
the
soul that finds itself in the ultimate
degree
of divine things, justly descends to
the
mortal body and from there climbs again
the
divine degrees; and also that there
are three
degrees of intelligences -- those in
which
the intellectual dominates over the
animal,
called celestial intelligences; those
in
which the animal prevails over the
intellectual,
called human intelligences; and others
in
which the two balance each other as
in the
intelligences of demons or heroes.
Tansillo: In exercising its faculty,
then,
the mind can desire an object only
to the
extent that it is near, proximate,
known
and familiar to it. Thus a pig cannot
wish
to be a man nor desire anything appropriate
to the appetite of a man. He prefers
to wallow
in the mud rather than in a bed of
fine linen;
he would sooner mate with a sow than
with
the most beautiful woman nature produces,
because the desire conforms to the
nature
of the species. And among men one can
see
it is the same, according as some men
are
more or less similar to one or another
species
of brute animals. Some men have something
of the quadruped, others something
of the
volatile animals and perhaps these
men have
an affinity -- one I would not wish
to describe
-- which draws them to the love of
certain
kinds of beasts. Now, if the mind,
finding
itself oppressed by the soul's tie
to the
body is permitted to raise itself to
the
contemplation of another state which
the
soul can attain, it certainly will
be able
to see the difference between one state
and
the other, and to disdain the present
for
the sake of the future one. Similarly,
if
a beast were sensible of the difference
between
his own condition and that of man,
between
the state of his own ignobility and
the nobility
of the human state which he would not
deem
impossible to achieve, then, as a way
out,
he would prefer death to a life that
would
detain him in his present existence.
Therefore
at this point when the soul laments,
saying,
O dogs of Actaeon, it is introduced
as something
constituted only of the inferior potencies,
and the mind has revolted against it,
and
carried the heart away, that is, it
has carried
away all the affections and the entire
army
of thoughts. For that reason, perceiving
its present state, and in ignorance
of any
other, believing none other any longer
exists,
and having no knowledge of it, the
soul laments
that its thoughts, in their tardy return,
come back rather to draw it up with
them
than to find any refuge in it. And
because
of the distraction it if suffers from
the
double love of material and intelligible
things, the soul feels itself lacerated
and
torn to pieces, so that it must finally
yield
to the more vigorous and powerful attraction.
Now if the soul ascends by virtue of
contemplation,
or is transported above the horizon
of the
natural affections, perceiving with
a most
pure eye the difference between the
life
of contemplation and the life of passion,
then, conquered by its most lofty thoughts,
as though dead to the body, it aspires
to
the superior regions; and although
it continues
to live in the body, the soul vegetates
there
as if dead and is present in the body
as
an animate potency incapable of any
action;
not that it is inoperative so long
as the
body exists, but that the operations
of the
soul as a composite are delayed, enfeebled,
and debilitated.
Cicada: This, then, is the sense in
which
a certain theologian, who is said to
have
been transported to the third heaven,
was
dazzled by the heavenly vision, and
desired
the dissolution of his body.
Tansillo: In this manner, although
the soul
at first launches complaints against
its
heart and thoughts, it now desires
to be
raised with them and manifestly deplores
the union and familiarity contracted
with
corporeal matter. Leave me then, it
cries,
corporeal life, and do not trouble
me, so
that I may reascend to my native home,
to
my sun. From now on leave me to dry
the tears
from my eyes, eyes I can no longer
aid, separated
as I am from my good. Leave me, for
it is
neither proper nor possible for a doubles
stream to flow deprived of its source,
that
is deprived of its heart; for how can
I form
two rivers of tears here below, if
my heart,
the source of those rivers, has flown
above
with its nymphs which are my thoughts?
Therefore,
little by little from its disaffection
and
regret the soul progresses toward a
hatred
of inferior things which it expresses
by
the words, When will nature agree to
release
me of my grievous burden? C . I understand
this very well, and even what you would
infer
with respect to the principle point
of this
discourse, that there are degrees of
loves,
affections, and frenzies, according
to the
degrees of greater or lesser light
of cognition
and intelligence.
Tansillo: You understand me well. This
should
lead you to that doctrine commonly
borrowed
from the Pythagoreans and the Platonists
according to which the soul makes the
double
progress of ascent and decent, corresponding
to the double concern it has for itself
and
for matter, inasmuch as it is moved
by the
appetite for its proper good on the
one hand,
and as its material part on the other
hand
is directed by the providence of fate.
Cicada: But please tell me briefly
what you
think about the world soul. Can it
too ascend
and descend?
Tansillo: If you speak of the world
as the
vulgar refer to it, when they call
it the
universe, I reply that this world being
infinite
and without dimension or measure appears
to be immobile, inanimate, and unformed,
even though it is the place of an infinite
number of movable worlds and has infinite
space in which are all those large
animals
we call stars. If you speak of the
world
according to the meaning held among
the true
philosophers for whom the world is
every
globe, every star, this our earth,
the sun's
body, the moon and even others, I reply
that
the soul of each of these worlds not
only
ascends and descends but moves in a
circle.
Because each of these souls is composed
of
superior and inferior powers, the superior
powers lead it toward the divinity,
the inferior
ones toward the material mass which
becomes
vivified by that divinity and maintained
among the tropics of generation and
corruption
of the living things of these worlds;
and
each soul eternally serves its own
life;
and the action of divine providence
always
in the same measure and order, by warmth
and divine light always maintains it
in the
same, customary state.
Cicada: This suffices me on this subject.
Tansillo: Just as these particular
souls
according to the diverse degrees of
their
ascent and descent are diversely affected
in their behavior and inclinations,
so they
manifest a diversity of matter and
degree
of frenzy, love and sensitivity; and
there
is this diversity not only in the ladder
of nature according to the order of
the diverse
lives the soul assumes in diverse bodies
as expressly held by the Pythagoreans,
the
Saducees and others and implicitly
by Plato
and those who have more profoundly
penetrated
his meaning, but also in the ladder
of human
affections which has as many degrees
as the
ladder of nature, inasmuch as man in
all
his potencies represents every species
of
being.
Cicada: For that reason souls can be
known
to ascend or decend by their affections,
to come from above or from below, to
be on
the way of becoming beasts or gods,
according
to their specific natures, as the Pythagoreans
understood it. Or one may understand
it simply
by the similitude of the affections
held
by common opinion; for the human soul
need
not have the power to become the soul
of
a brute, as Plotinus and other Platonists
justly maintain, following the lesson
of
their master.
Tansillo: Good. Now, a to come to the
point,
this soul of which we speak having
advanced
from an animal to an heroic frenzy,
expresses
itself in these words: When will it
come
to pass that I raise myself to the
lofty
object, and dwell there in the company
of
my heart and common offspring? It continues
with the same proposal when it says:
Destiny,
when shall I be allowed to ascend the
mount,
which for my perfect blessing shall
bring
me to the lofty gates where I shall
know
those rare beauties? When will my tenacious
pain be strongly comforted by him who
reassembles
my dislocated members and preserves
my failing
powers from death? My spirit will prevail
over its enemy, if it ascends where
error
assails it no longer, and attains the
end
it waits for, and ascends where the
lofty
object is, and seizes the good which
one
alone possesses, whereby so many faults
are
remedied and happiness is found --
as he
declares who alone predicts all things.
O
destiny, oh fate, oh divine and immutable
providence, when shall I be allowed
to ascend
that mount, when will I reach so much
loftiness
of mind that I may transport myself
and reach
those high portals and enter to see
those
rare beauties, beauties that in some
way
shall be explained and understood?
When will
he accord efficacious comfort to my
pain
(releasing me from the rigorous knots
of
care), he who read reassembles and
unites
my members, till then disunited and
dislocated?
The question is asked of Love, who
brings
about the union of these corporeal
members,
till then divided from each other as
much
as one contrary is divided from another;
all Love, who, besides, preserves from
death
these intellectual potencies which
have been
failing to act, and provides them with
the
spirit whereby they may aspire to ascend.
When, I say, shall I be fully comforted
by
giving these potencies free flight,
so that
my whole substance can fix its home
in that
place where by my own effort I may
amend
all my faults? Arriving at that summoned
my spirit will prevail over its enemy,
for
nothing is present there that may outrage
it, no contrary that may conquer it,
no error
that may assail it. Oh, if my spirit
attains
and reaches the place which with all
its
power it desires, if it climbs and
arrives
at the summit where its object is and
settles
itself to remain there; if it manages
to
possess the good which cannot be possessed
except by one alone (that is, by that
good
itself, inasmuch as everything else
has goodness
only in the measure of its own capacity,
and that good alone has it in all its
plenitude),
then I shall be permitted to be happy
according
to the mode in which he declares who
predicts
all things, that is, he who declares
this
loftiness and in whom declaring and
accomplishing
are the same thing. I will be happy
according
to the way in which he declares or
acts,
who predicts everything; that is to
say,
he who is the principle and efficient
cause
of all things, for whom to declare
and to
order is the true making and undertaking.
This is how Love's affection makes
its way
from above and from below upon the
ladder
of superior and inferior things, and
how
the intellect and the sense make their
way
from above and from below in the order
of
intelligence and sensible things.
Cicada: Therefore the greater number
of philosophers
hold that nature delights in the vicissitude
which is seen in the revolution of
its wheel.
Fifth Dialogue I.
Cicada: Let me have a look here, so
than
by my own effort I may be able to consider
the states of these frenzies, according
to
the arrangement of the militia presented
here.
Tansillo: Notice how the warriors carry
the
emblems of their affections and their
fortunes.
Let us consider their names and their
dress.
Let it suffice us to give our attention
to
the meaning of the emblems and to the
meaning
of what is written, as well as to the
motto
which accompanies the emblematic figure
and
the poem which completes the figure
by clarifying
its sense.
Cicada: This is most agreeable. Here
then
is the first one. He carries a shield
divided
in four colors; on the crest of the
shield
is painted a flame underneath a head
of bronze,
from whose apertures a smoky wind issues
with great force and written above
are the
words, At regna senserunt tria ('But
three
realms afflict him').
Tansillo: I shall give you some clarification
of the above. As one can see, the presence
of the flame warms the globe, in which
water
is contained, and causes this humid
element,
rendered lighter and less dense by
virtue
of the heat, to resolve itself into
vapor
and consequently to demand a much greater
space to contain it. If the water does
not
find an easy exit, it bursts forth
with the
greatest force and destruction to crack
the
vessel; but if an easy exit is procured
for
it, it issues out little by little
with less
violence and according to the extent
of its
evaporation exhales and expands into
air.
This figure represents the frenzied
one's
heart whose organization has been well
disposed
to the contact of love's flame, and
consequently
from its vital substance one part (of
the
heart) sparkles in flames, another
part is
transformed into abundant weeping rising
from the breast, and still another
sends
up a wind of sighs to incense the air.
And
that is the reason for the words, At
regna
senserunt tria. Here the word at has
the
virtue of implying difference, diversity,
and opposition, as if to say that there
is
some one else who is capable of experiencing
the same feelings, and yet does not
experience
them. This is very well explained in
the
verse placed underneath the emblematic
figure:
From my twin lights I, a little earth,
am
wont to pour forth no sparing humor
to the
sea; the sighs hidden within my breast
the
avid winds receive in no small measure;
and
the flame loosed from my heart mounts
to
the sky without diminishing. With tears,
sighs, and my ardor I render a tribute
to
the sea, to the air and to the fire.
Water,
air, and fire receive some part of
me; but
my goddess shows herself so iniquitous
and
cruel, that my tears find no solace
in her,
nor does she hear my cries, nor does
she
ever turn in pity toward my ardor.
Here the
material subject represented by the
earth
is the substance of the frenzied lover.
From
twin lights, that is to say, from his
eyes,
he pours forth copious tears which
flow into
the sea; from his breast he sends an
abundance
and multitude of sighs to the immense
receptacle
of the air; and the fire of his heart
does
not abate upon the stream of air like
a small
or weak flame, does not resolve into
smoke
and transmigrate into another essence,
but,
powerful and vigorous (rather nourishing
itself upon some other substance than
abandoning
anything of its own), it joins a kindred
sphere.
Cicada: I have understood it well.
Now to
the other. II.
Tansillo: He who comes next has on
his shield,
also divided into four colors, a crest
in
which the sun extends its rays upon
the back
of the earth; and there is the motto,
Idem
semper ubique totum ('always and everywhere
the same.)
Cicada: I see that this cannot be easy
to
interpret.
Tansillo: The meaning is the more excellence,
as it is the less vulgar, and you will
see
that it is single, unified, and not
strained.
You must consider that although the
sun appears
different with respect to different
regions
of the earth according to time and
place,
nevertheless with respect to the entire
globe
it acts always and everywhere in the
same
way, for in whatever point of the ecliptic
it may find itself, it causes winter,
summer,
autumn, and spring, and the entire
earthly
globe receives these four seasons because
of it. For it is never hot in one part
but
it is cold in an other. When it is
hottest
for us in the topic of Cancer, it is
coldest
in the tropic of Capricorn, so that
the sun
is the cause of the summer here, the
winter
there, and the cause of the spring
and autumn
according to the disposition of the
middle
and temperate regions. Therefore the
earth
is always subject to rain, wind, heat,
cold;
in fact the earth would not be wet
in one
part, if it were not dry in the other,
and
the sun would not heat it from one
side,
if it had not withdrawn its heat from
the
other.
Cicada: Before you complete your argument,
I understand what you and the frenzied
lover
mean. As the sun always directs its
impressions
upon the earth and as the earth always
receives
all of them entirely, so does the lover's
object by its active splendor render
him
passively to tears, symbolized by the
waters,
to passions, symbolized by the flames,
and
to sighs, symbolized by these intermediate
vapors which depart from the fire and
proceed
to the waters, or depart from the waters
and proceed to the fire.
Tansillo: It is very well explained
in the
following sonnet: When the sun sets
in Capricorn,
there is no torrent the rains do not
enrich;
when it returns through the Equinox,
then
are unleashed the messengers of Aeolus,
and
it enkindles us by a more prolific
day whenever
it reascends to burning Cancer. But
my tears,
sighs, and ardors do not accord with
these
frosts, tempests, and hot seasons;
for I
am always in tears, no matter how intense
my sighs and fires. And though I know
too
much of water and fire, never does
it happen
that I sigh the less, and there is
no limit
to my burning amid sighs and previous
weeping.
Cicada: The meaning of the emblem is
explained
less by this poem than by the preceding
commentary;
for the poem follows rather as a consequence
and companion of the commentary.
Tansillo: Say rather that the emblem
is implied
in the commentary, and the motto is
fully
explained in the poem. For both the
emblem
and the motto are most appropriately
represented
by the symbol of the sun and the earth.
Cicada: Let us proceed to the third.
III.
Tansillo: The third lover carries upon
a
shield a nude boy lying upon the green
meadow.
The boy rests his head upon his arm,
and
turns his eyes to the sky toward certain
edifices, houses, towers, landscapes,
and
gardens set above the clouds; and a
castle
is also to be found whose walls are
made
of fire, with the motto, Mutuo fulcimur
('Mutually we are sustained').
Cicada: What does this mean?
Tansillo: You are to understand that
the
nude boy represents the frenzied lover,
simple,
pure, and exposed to all the accidents
of
nature and fortune, who with his powerful
imagination builds castles in the air
and,
among other things, a tower, whose
architect
is love, whose walls are the amorous
fires
and whose builder is himself who says,
Mutuo
fulcimur. This is to say, I build and
sustain
you up there with my thoughts, and
you sustain
me here below with hope. You would
not exist
were it not for my imagination and
my thought
which forms and sustains you; and I
would
not be alive were it not for the consolation
and the comfort I received because
of you.
Cicada: It is true that even the most
vain
and chimerical fancy can be a more
real and
genuine medicine to a frenzied heart
than
the herbs, stones, oils, or other products
produced by nature.
Tansillo: Magicians can do more by
means
of faith than doctors by means of the
truth,
and in the gravest illnesses the sick
profit
more by believing all that the first
say,
than by understanding all that the
second
do. Now let us read the verse. Beyond
the
clouds, in the highest region, sometimes
when I burn in delirium, for the refreshment
and deliverance of my spirit I form
a castle
of fire in the air. If my fatal destiny
incline
a little, so that the sovereign grace
bend
without scorn and anger toward the
flame
which kills me, O happy my pain and
my death!
Oh, youth, of your flames and of your
snares
-- because of which men and gods sigh
and
become slaves -- I do not feel the
ardor,
nor the burden, but, you, O love, can
cause
them to possess me, if your merciful
hand
will lead you to uncover my torment.
Cicada: The lover in this poem shows
that
what nourishes his fancy and revives
his
spirit is the belief (for he lacks
the boldness
to explain and make known his pain
to himself,
profoundly subject as he is to martyrdom)
that, if severe and rebellious fate
bend
somewhat (and finally decide to smile
upon
him) by making the lofty object reveal
itself
to him without scorn and anger, such
good
fortune would make him deem no joy
so happy,
no life so blessed as the happiness
he would
find in his pain and the blessedness
he would
find in death.
Tansillo: And thus he begins to explain
to
Love that, if it can ever have access
to
his heart, it will never be by using
the
armed might whereby he usually triumphs
over
men and gods; but only by uncovering
his
burning heart and tormented spirit;
for only
by such a sight will compassion be
able to
open the way to him and introduce him
to
that difficult abode. IV.
Cicada: What is the meaning of that
fly which
flies around the flame and is almost
at the
point of being burned, and the meaning
of
the motto, Hostis non hostis ('an enemy
yet
not an enemy')?
Tansillo: It is not difficult to understand
that the fly, which is seduced by the
beauty
of the dazzling light, throws itself
innocent
and full of love into the deadly flame.
For
that reason hostis refers to the scalding
effect of the flame; non hostis refers
to
the desire of the fly. Thus hostis,
the fly
as passive; non hostis (the fly) as
active.
Hostis, the flame because of its fire;
non
hostis, because of its splendor.
Cicada: Now what is that written on
the tablet?
Tansillo: May it never be that I lament
of
love, without which I do not wish felicity.
Even if it be true that I toil for
it in
pain, I can only desire what it grants
me.
Whether the sky is clear or obscured,
cold
or burning, I shall ever be a true
phoenix,
for another destiny or fate can hardly
untie
that knot which death cannot untied.
For
the heart, for the spirit, and for
the soul
there is no pleasure, liberty, or life
which
smiles so much, rejoices, and is so
welcomed,
is so sweet, so gracious, and so excellent
as the hardship, yoke, and death provided
for me by nature, will, and destiny.
This
emblem shows the similarity between
the frenzied
lover and the fly drawn toward the
light.
But then the poem makes apparent their
difference
more than their similarity. For one
ordinarily
believes that if the fly could foresee
its
own ruin, it would rather flee the
flame
than pursue it as it does now, for
it would
hold it evil to lose itself by dissolving
in the inimical fire. But the frenzied
one
would like to perish in a flames of
love
no less than he would like rapturously
to
contemplate the beauty of that rare
splendor
beneath whose sway by the inclination
of
nature, his own free choice and the
disposition
of fate he toils, serves, and dies,
more
joyful, more resolved, and more valiant
than
the influence of any other pleasure
offered
to his heart, liberty offered to his
spirit,
and life reawakened in his soul.
Cicada: Tell me, why does he say, I
shall
ever be one?
Tansillo: Because he thinks it worthy
to
explain that the reason for his constancy
is that the wise man does not change
like
the moon. It is the stupid man who
changes
as the moon does, but this lover is
one and
immovable, like the Phoenix. V.
Cicada: Good. But what does that branch
of
palm mean, accompanied by the motto,
Caesar
adest ('Caesar is here')?
Tansillo: Without too much discussion
all
may be understood by reference to the
writing
on the tablet: Unconquered hero of
Pharsalia,
although your warriors were almost
extinct
when they saw you, they rose again
most potent
in battle and subdued your haughty
enemies.
Thus does my good, which is equal to
heaven's
blessedness, in revealing itself to
the sight
of my thoughts whose light was obscured
by
my scornful soul, revive them so that
they
are more powerful than love. Its sole
presence,
or the memory of it, so revives them,
that
with sway and divine power they reduce
every
contrary violence. My good governs
me in
peace, but does not abandon its snare
nor
its torch. The inferior powers of the
soul,
like a valiant and inimical army which
one
finds disciplined, skilled, and well
provided
in its own country, sometimes turn
against
the foreign enemy, who descends from
the
high summit of the intelligence to
dominate
the people of the valley and the swampy
plains.
It happens that, because of the harassing
presence of the enemy and the difficulty
of the precipitous swamps, these people
find
themselves almost lost, and in fact
would
be lost, were it not for a certain
conversion
by the act of contemplation to the
splendor
of the intelligible species; for the
act
of contemplation there is a conversion
from
the inferior to the superior degrees.
Cicada: What are these degrees?
Tansillo: The degrees of contemplation
are
like the degrees of light. Light, which
is
never in darkness but sometimes appears
shadowy,
is seen better in colors in the order
of
their progression from one extreme,
black,
to the opposite extreme, white; is
more efficaciously
in the refulgence diffused upon refined
and
transparent bodies as in the reflection
of
a mirror or the moon; is more vividly
in
the rays scattered from the sun, and
in the
highest and most principal degree,
is seen
in the sun itself. Now the potencies
of comprehension
and affection are ordered in such a
way that
a potency always has an affinity for
the
one immediately above it, and each
potency
by a conversion toward the one which
raises
it reinforces itself against the inferior
one that draws it down (as the reason,
converted
to the intellect, is not seduced or
conquered
by the sensitive powers); consequently,
when
the rational appetite clashes with
the sensual
concupiscence and by the act of contemplation
confronts the intellectual light, then
it
retrieves its lost virtue, reinforces
its
nerves, frightens the enemy and puts
him
to rout.
Cicada: In what way do you mean that
this
conversion takes place?
Tansillo: By three preparations which
the
contemplative Plotinus notes in his
book
Of the Divine Intelligence [Enneads
5.8].
The first is by resolving to conform
the
vision to the divine likeness by turning
the sight from things equal or inferior
to
its own perfection; the second is by
applying
the vision with every purpose and attention
to the superior species; the third
is by
submitting the entire world and affection
to God. For he who behaves in this
way is
beyond a doubt infused with the divinity,
present everywhere and ready to penetrate
him who turns himself to it by an intellectual
act and offers himself to it by the
will's
affection without reserve.
Cicada: Then it is not corporeal beauty
which
this lover longs for?
Tansillo: Certainly not; because not
being
true or constant, corporeal beauty
cannot
be the cause of true or constant love.
The
beauty one sees in a body is an accident
and a shadow, and is like other things
that
are altered, tainted, and wasted by
the mutation
of the subject, which from beautiful
often
becomes ugly without any alteration
taking
place in the soul. The reason then
apprehends
the truest beauty by converting itself
to
the thing which gives the body its
beauty
and its form; and this thing is the
soul,
the modeller and sculptor of the body.
After
this, the intellect rises further and
well
understands that the beauty of the
soul is
incomparably superior to the beauty
found
in bodies; but it is not persuaded
that the
soul is beautiful essentially and in
itself;
for if it were, there would not be
the differences
one sees within the genus of souls,
some
of which are wise, amiable, and lovely,
others
stupid, odious, and ugly. It is necessary,
then, to be raised to that superior
intellect
which is beautiful in itself and good
in
itself. This is that one and supreme
captain,
who alone, placed in the sight of militant
thoughts, illuminates them, encourages
them,
reinforces them, and assures them of
victory
through scorn for every other beauty
and
the repudiation of every other good.
This,
then, is the presence which overcomes
every
difficulty and conquers every violence.
Cicada: I understand completely. But
what
is the significance of, there it governs
me in peace, but does not abandon its
snare,
nor its torch?
Tansillo: It means and proves that
love of
whatever sort, the stronger its empire
and
the more certain its power, makes its
bonds
more tight, its yoke more firm, and
flames
more ardent, unlike the ordinary prince
or
tyrant who uses the greatest force
and constraint
when his power is weakest.
Cicada: Let us go to the next one.
VI.
Tansillo: Here I see an image of a
flying
phoenix toward which a little boy is
turned
who burns in the midst of flames, and
I see
the motto, Fata obstant ('Their fates
run
contrary'). But in order to understand
this
better, let us read the tablet: Unique
bird
of the sun, lovely Phoenix, who are
as old
as the world in happy Arabia, you are
still
what you always were, while I am no
longer
the same. Because of the fire of love
I die
unhappy, while you the sun revives
with its
rays. You burn in one, but I in every
place.
I from Cupid, but you from Phoebus
have your
flame. You have predestined for you
the term
of a long life, and I have a brief
one, whose
end is offered me in ruins without
number.
I know neither the life I shall live,
nor
the life I have lived. A blind destiny
leads
me, while you, assured of yours, turn
once
again toward your heart. The sense
of the
verse shows us that the emblem represents
the antithesis between the fate of
the phoenix
and the fate of the frenzied one, and
that
the motto, Fata obstant, does not mean
the
fates are contrary either to the boy
or to
the phoenix, or to the two of them,
but that
for each one of them the decrees of
fate,
far from being the same are different
and
opposite. For the phoenix is what it
was,
inasmuch as by the fire the body of
the phoenix
is renewed in the same material, and
its
form is renewed by the same spirit
and soul.
The frenzied one is what he was not,
because
as a human subject he belonged previously
to some other species, separated from
the
human species by differences without
number.
Therefore one knows what the phoenix
was
and knows what it shall be, but only
in terms
of many and uncertain metamorphoses
shall
this lover be able to clothe himself
again
in a natural form identical or similar
to
the one which is his today. Besides,
the
phoenix in the presence of the sun
changes
death for life, and this subject in
the presence
of love changes life for death. And
further,
the phoenix consumes itself on the
aromatic
altar, and the lover finds his fire
everywhere
and takes it with him wherever he goes.
Moreover
the phoenix is assured of the terms
of a
long life, but the lover because of
infinite
vicissitudes of time and innumerable
reasons
of circumstance has only the uncertain
term
of a short life. The phoenix enkindles
itself
with certainty, the lover burns in
the doubt
of ever seeing the sun again.
Cicada: What do you suppose this emblem
represents?
Tansillo: It represents the difference
between
the inferior intellect (commonly called
the
intellect in potency, or the possible
or
passive intellect), which is uncertain,
diverse,
and multiform, and the superior intellect,
the one perhaps called by the Peripatetics
the lowest in the hierarchy of the
intelligences,
which, they say, immediately influences
every
individual of the human species and
is the
active and actual intellect. This intellect,
unique for the human species, influences
every individual and is comparable
to the
moon which is always of the same species
and whose aspect ever renews itself
as it
turns toward the sun, the first and
universal
intelligence. However, the human intellect,
individual and multiple, is turned
like the
eyes toward countless and most diverse
objects,
so that it is informed according to
an infinity
of degrees and an infinity of natural
forms.
That is why it happens that this particular
intellect is frenzied, wandering, and
uncertain,
while the universal intellect is tranquil,
stable, and certain with respect to
the appetite
as well as to the apprehension. Therefore
(as you can easily decipher for yourself),
this figure symbolizes the nature of
the
sensitive appetite and apprehension,
changing,
shifting, inconsistent, and uncertain,
and
the nature of the intellectual appetite
and
its concept, firm, stable, and definite.
The figure also symbolizes the difference
between sensual love, uncertain and
undiscerning
of its objects, and intellectual love
which
sees only a single object toward which
it
turns, whereby its thought is illumined,
its passion enkindled, inflamed, illuminated,
and maintained in unity, identity,
and position.
VII.
Cicada: But what is the meaning of
that figure
of the sun with a circle inside it
and another
circle outside of it, and of the motto,
Circuit
('It revolves in a circle')?
Tansillo: I'm sure I would never have
understood
the meaning of the figure if the author
himself
had not explained it to me. Now it
must be
understood that Circuit refers to the
motion
the sun makes around the double circle
drawn
inside it and around it to signify
that the
sun both moves itself and is moved
at the
same time. Therefore, the sun is always
found
to be in every point of the traversed
circle,
for in the single instant of time,
it both
moves and is moved simultaneously and
is
equally present in the entire circumference
of the circle in which motion and rest
converge
and become one.
Cicada: This I have understood in the
dialogues
Of the Infinite Universe and Innumerable
Worlds, where it is explained that
the divine
wisdom (as Solomon said) is movable
to the
highest degree and at the same time
most
stable, as it is declared and understood
by all those who know. Now proceed
to your
explanation of it.
Tansillo: The author of the emblem
means
that his sun is not like that sun which
(as
is commonly believed) circles the earth
in
the daily motion of twenty-four hours
and
completes its planetary motion in twelve
months, affecting the earth by the
four distinct
seasons of the year according to the
regions
in which it finds itself in the four
cardinal
points of the Zodiac. But his sun is
such
that, representing eternity itself
and therefore
in perfect possession of all, it comprises
the winter, spring, summer, the autumn,
the
day, and the night together, for it
is wholly
everywhere and in all points and places.
Cicada: Now apply your statement to
the emblem.
Tansillo: Because it is impossible
to design
the whole sun at each point in the
circle,
two circles have been drawn here. One
circle
is drawn around the sun to show that
the
sun moves itself through it. The other
circle
is drawn inside the sun, to show that
the
sun is moved by it.
Cicada: But this figuration seems to
me obscure
and not precise.
Tansillo: It is sufficient that it
is as
clear and precise as he was able to
make
it. If you can find a better one, you
are
given every authority to remove this
one
and replace it with one of your own.
For
this was presented only in order that
the
idea might not be without some concrete
form.
Cicada: What do you say about the word
circuit?
Tansillo: That motto, according to
its fullest
meaning, represents as much as can
be represented;
for by the sun's revolving itself and
being
revolved in a circle is signified its
present
and perfect motion.
Cicada: Most excellent. Granted that
those
circles express poorly the coexistence
of
movement and rest, we can nevertheless
say
that they have been put there to signify
a single revolution. And so I am content
with the subject and form of the heroic
emblem.
Now let us read the rime.
Tansillo: Sun, you send down temperate
rays
from Taurus, from Leo you ripen and
burn
all, and when you shed light from stinging
Scorpio much of your fiery vigor you
abandon,
until from proud Aquarius you consume
everything
with cold, and harden the humid bodies.
--
But I in spring, summer, autumn, and
in winter
am eternally warmed, burned, inflamed,
and
enkindled. So hot is my desire, that
I am
easily moved to contemplate that lofty
object
for which I burn so much, that my ardor
throws
off sparks to the stars. The years
have no
moment which see any change in my anguish.
Notice here that the four seasons of
the
year are indicated not by the four
movable
signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and
Capricorn,
but by the four which are called fixed,
that
is to say, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and
Aquarius,
in order to represent the perfection,
stability,
and fervor of those four seasons. Note
also
that by virtue of those apostrophes
found
in the eighth verse, you may read mi
scaldo,
accendo, ardo, avvampo; or, scaldi,
accendi,
ardi, avvampi; or also, scalda, accende,
arde, avvampa. Besides, you must consider,
these are not four synonyms but four
diverse
terms which express so many degrees
of the
effects produced by the fire; for first,
the fire warms, second, it inflames,
third,
it burns, fourth, it enkindles or sets
him
on fire who has been warmed, inflamed,
and
burned. And therefore are denoted in
the
frenzied one desire, intention, zeal,
and
the affection of love which he feels
at every
moment.
Cicada: Why do you give it the name
of anguish?
Tansillo: Because the divine light
is in
this life more an object of laborious
emptiness
than of tranquil fruition, since our
minds
move toward that light like birds of
the
night toward the sun.
Cicada: Let us proceed. I have now
heard
enough to grasp everything. VIII.
Tansillo: The following crest presents
a
full moon with the motto, Talis mihi
semper
et astro ('Such is it always to me
and to
the sun'). It means that to the star,
that
is, to the sun and to him the moon
is always
such as it is here, full and free clear
in
the entire circumference of its circle.
So
that you may understand this better,
I would
have you read the poem written upon
the tablet:
Inconstant moon, fickle moon, you who
emerge
from the horizon with your horns now
empty,
now full, your orb reascends now white,
now
dark; now you illuminate Boreas and
the valleys
of the Caucasus, now you turn along
your
usual path to give light to the south
and
the last confines of Lybia. So the
moon of
my sky for my continual torment is
ever steady,
and is ever full. And my sun is the
same,
which forever ravishes and restores
me, which
ever burns and is so resplendent, always
so cruel and so beautiful. This my
noble
torch ever martyrs me, and still it
delights
me. It seems to me that this lover's
particular
intelligence is always thus with regard
to
the universal intelligence. In other
words,
the universal intelligence illumines
the
entire hemisphere, even though that
intelligence
appears sometimes obscure, sometimes
more
or less luminous, according to the
impressions
it makes upon the inferior potencies.
Or
perhaps it would mean that his speculative
intellect (invariably in act) is always
turned
and drawn toward that human intelligence
represented by the moon. For as the
moon
is called the lowest among all the
planets
and is found nearest to us, so the
intelligence
which illuminates all of us (in our
present
state) is the lowest in the hierarchy
of
intelligences, as Averroes and other
more
subtle Peripatetics note. With respect
to
the intellect in potency, the human
intelligence
represented by the moon sometimes seems
to
decline, insofar as it does not display
itself
in act, and sometimes it seems to rise
from
the valley, that is, from the bottom
of the
concealed hemisphere; sometimes it
displays
itself vacant and sometimes full, accordingly
as it gives more or less light; sometimes
its orb is obscure, sometimes brilliant,
because sometimes it dispenses only
a shadow,
similitude, and vestige, or sometimes
it
pours out the light more openly; sometimes
it declines toward the south, sometimes
to
the north; that is, sometimes it retires
and alienates itself more and more
from us,
sometimes it returns and approaches.
But
the active intellect by incessant labor
(for
it is foreign to human nature and the
human
condition which is wearied, beaten,
incited,
solicited, distracted, and as though
torn
by the inferior potencies) always sees
its
object immobile, fixed and constant,
and
always in plenitude, and in the same
splendor
of beauty. Therefore the object always
ravishes
him insofar as he fails to offer himself
to it, and always restores him insofar
as
he succeeds in offering himself to
it. It
always enflames his passion as much
as it
is resplendent in his thought; it is
always
as cruel to him by withdrawing itself
as
he similarly withdraws himself, and
always
so beautiful in communicating itself
to the
degree that he offers himself to it.
It always
martyrs him separated from him by space;
and it always delights him because
he is
conjoined to it in his affection.
Cicada: Now apply the meaning to the
motto.
Tansillo: He says then, Talis mihi
semper;
that is to say, by means of the constant
application of my intellect, memory
and will
(for they alone do I remember, understand
and desire), it is always such to me,
and
insofar as I can understand, it is
entirely
present and is never separated from
me by
distraction of my thought, never obscured
by any deficiency of attention, for
there
is no thought that turns me from its
light,
no natural necessity that compels me
to attend
it less. Talis mihi semper, means further
that, on its own part, the moon is
itself
invariable in substance, virtue, beauty,
and efficacy with respect to all that
shows
and invariable constancy toward it.
He says,
then, et astro because with respect
to the
face of the sun which illumines it,
the moon
is always equally luminous inasmuch
as it
is equally turned to the sun and the
sun
equally diffuses its rays upon it.
Although
that moon which we see with our eyes
appears
to this earth sometimes dark and sometimes
light, sometimes less brilliant and
sometimes
more brilliant, it nevertheless receives
an equal measure of the sun's illumination,
because it always receives the sun's
rays
at least upon the entire surface of
its hemisphere.
Similarly this earth is equally illuminated
upon the surface of its hemisphere,
even
though from time to time from its watery
area it sends up its light to the moon
according
to the variability of the light it
receives
from it. (We think of the moon, as
well as
each of the innumerable stars, as another
earth). Thus both the earth and the
moon
change their positions toward one another
as each one finds itself nearer to
the sun.
Cicada: How is this intelligence represented
by the moon, which shines from its
entire
hemisphere?
Tansillo: All the intelligences are
represented
by the moon, inasmuch as they participate
in potentiality and act, and inasmuch,
I
say, as they have the light unrefined
and
according to participation because
they receive
it from another. And these intelligences
do not have the light of themselves
and by
their nature but have it by the view
of the
sun, the first intelligence, pure and
absolute
light, pure and absolute act.
Cicada: Then everything dependent and
not
prime act and first cause is as though
composed
of darkness and light, matter and form,
potency
and act?
Tansillo: Exactly. Besides, our soul
in its
entire substance is symbolized by the
moon.
It shines through the hemisphere of
the superior
potencies when turned toward the light
of
the intelligible world; and it is darkened
on the side of the inferior potencies
when
occupied with the government of matter.
IX.
Cicada: It seems to me the emblem I
see on
the following shield may contain some
issue
and symbol relevant to what has already
been
said. The emblem is a rugged, branchy
oak
tree blown by the wind and is circumscribed
by the motto, Ut robori robur ("strong
as an oak"); and on the tablet
attached
to the emblem is the following poem:
Ancient
oak which spreads its branches to the
air
and fixes its roots in the earth, neither
the trembling of the earth, nor the
powerful
spirits the sky lets loose from the
bitter
north wind, nor whatever the dreadful
winter
may send, can ever uproot you from
the place
where you stand firm; you demonstrate
the
true semblance of my faith, for which
no
external accident has ever shaken.
You ever
embrace, nourish, and contain the same
ground
in whose depths you spread agreeable
roots
upon a generous bosom: Upon one has
single
object I have fixed my spirit, sense,
and
intellect.
Tansillo: The motto is clear. The frenzied
one is proud that he has the strength
in
robustness of the oak tree; like one
of the
lovers before him he is proud to be
one and
the same with the unique phoenix, and
like
the one who immediately precedes him,
proud
to be able to conform to the moon in
its
everlasting brilliance and beauty.
Moreover,
he is proud that he does not resemble
the
moon insomuch as it is variable to
our eyes,
but insomuch as it always receives
an equal
measure of the solar splendor. Therefore,
he is proud of having remained so constant
and firm against the north wind and
the tempestuous
winters, so strong in the unshakable
attachment
which fixes him to his sun where his
desire
and purpose root him, like the oak
tree whose
roots intertwine with the veins of
the earth.
Cicada: For my part I regard it better
to
remain in peace and free from any onslaught
than to find myself in circumstances
of such
vigorous endurance.
Tansillo: There is an aphorism of Epicurus
which, if understood properly, would
not
be judged so profane as the ignorant
think
it; for it does not deny virtue to
be such
as I have defined it and takes nothing
from
the perfection of constancy, but rather
adds
something to that protection which
the vulgar
comprehend; for he believes the true
and
complete virtue of sturdiness and constancy
is not the constancy which resists
discomforts
and puts up with them, but the constancy
which takes them upon oneself without
feeling
them. He does not hold perfect, divine,
and
heroic the love which feels the spur,
the
bit, remorse, or pain caused by that
vulgar
kind of love, but heroic that love
which
abolishes any sense of other affections,
so that he attains the degree of pleasure
which has no power to annoy him by
diverting
him or by making him stumble upon some
obstacle;
and this is to reach the highest beatitude
in this state, to have desire and not
to
have any sense of pain.
Cicada: The common opinion does not
accept
this interpretation of Epicurus.
Tansillo: That is because one does
not read
his books, nor read those books which
report
his arguments without prejudice, but
those
who read the story of his life and
the circumstances
of his death will understand his meaning
in the words he dictated as the exordium
to his testament: Having come to the
last
and most happy day of our live, we
have planned
for that day peace, health, and tranquillity
of mind; for no matter how much, on
the one
hand, the greatest pain has tormented
us
with obstacles, that torment, on the
other
hand, has become completely absorbed
by the
pleasure we have taken in our creations
and
in the consideration of our end. And
it is
clear that he did not find more happiness
than pain in eating, drinking, sleeping,
and generating. His happiness consisted
in
feeling no hunger, no thirst, nor fatigue,
nor sexual appetite. Consider, then,
what
we hold to be the perfection of constancy.
Constancy does not consist in this,
that
the tree does not allow itself to be
shattered,
bend, or broken; but in this, that
it does
not even stir. In the likeness of that
oak
our hero holds fast his spirit, sense,
and
intellect, at that point where no tempestuous
onslaught can move him.
Cicada: Do you mean then that to put
up with
torment is a desirable thing because
it is
a sign of strength?
Tansillo: To put up with torment, as
you
say, is a part of constancy, but it
is not
its complete virtue; and I call it
putting
up with it with hardiness, and Epicurus
calls
it, torment without feeling it. This
privation
of feeling results from this that everything
has been entirely absorbed in the cultivation
of virtue, the true good and happiness.
Such
was the insensibility of Regulus toward
the
tomb, of Lucrezia toward the dagger,
of Socrates
toward poison, of Anaxarcus toward
the mortar
(which bruised him), of Mucius Scaevola
toward
the fire, of Horatius Cocles toward
the abyss
of the Tiber, and of other virtuous
men toward
the things which greatly torment and
horrify
those who are ordinary and vile.
Cicada: Now proceed. X.
Tansillo: Look at this other emblem
which
contains the image of an anvil and
hammer
and has the motto, Ab Aetna ('from
Aetna').
But before we consider it, let us read
the
poem in which the prosopopoeia of Vulcan
is introduced: To my Sicilian mount
where
I may temper the thunderbolts of Jove
now
I shall not return. Here I shall remain,
I, scabrous Vulcan, for here a prouder
giant
rebels, a giant who is enflamed against
the
sky and rages in vain, as he attempts
new
labors and trials. A better forger
of Aetna,
a better smith, anvil, and hammer do
I find
here in this breast which exhales sighs
and
whose bellows vivify the furnace, where
the
soul lies prostrate from so many assaults
of such long tortures and great martyrdoms,
and brings a concert which divulges
so bitter
and cruel a torment. This poem shows
the
pains and afflictions inherent in love,
especially
in vulgar love, which is nothing else
than
the smith's shop of Vulcan who forges
the
thunderbolts of Jove to torment delinquent
souls. For disordered love bears within
itself
the germ of its own pain, inasmuch
as God
is near us, with us and inside us.
There
is found in us a certain consecrated
mind
and divine intelligence served by a
peculiar
passion, the vindicator of the intelligence,
which with a certain remorse of conscience
strikes the transgressive soul as with
a
heavy hammer. This intelligence observes
our actions and passions, and as we
treat
it so are we treated in turn. I say
that
every lover has his Vulcan, for there
is
no man or lover who does not have God
within
him. God is most certainly in everyone,
but
the kind of god in everyone is not
so easily
known; and if it were at all possible
to
probe the question and shed light upon
it,
nothing I believe would clarify it
for us
more than love; for love is as one
who pushes
the oars, inflates the sail, and tempers
this composite (which we are) to the
end
that it becomes affected for the better
or
for the worse. I say affected for the
better
or for the worse inasmuch as love operates
through moral or contemplative acts,
and
because there are common afflictions
by which
all lovers are wounded. For inasmuch
as things
come in mixtures, there is no intelligible
or sensible good to which evil is not
joined
or opposed, nor is there any truth
to which
falsehood is not joined or opposed;
similarly,
there is no love without fear, zeal,
jealousy,
rancor, and the other passions proceeding
from the one contrary which disturbs
us,
while the other contrary pleases us.
Therefore,
as the soul desires to recover its
natural
beauty, it seeks to purge itself, heal
and
reform itself; and for this purpose
the soul
uses fire, for like gold mixed with
earth
and shapeless, it wishes by a vigorous
trial
to liberate itself from impurities,
and this
end is achieved when the intellect,
the true
smith of Jove, sets to work actively
exercising
the intellectual powers.
Cicada: This I believe is related to
the
passage in Plato's Symposium where
it is
said that Love from his mother Penury
inherited
aridity, leanness, pallor, destitution,
submission,
and homelessness, circumstances which
represent
the torment of the afflicted soul wearied
by contrary passions.
Tansillo: It is exactly so; because
the spirit
affected by this frenzy is distracted
by
profound thoughts, tortured by pressing
cares,
burned by fervent longings, and solicited
on occasions without number. As a result,
because it finds itself suspended,
the soul
necessarily becomes less diligent and
operative
with respect to the government of the
body
and the activity of the vegetative
potency.
Consequently, the body becomes lean,
undernourished,
extenuated, deficient in blood, and
overcome
by melancholy humors; and if these
humors
do not become the instruments of a
well disciplined
soul and of a clear and lucid spirit,
they
lead to insanity, to stupidity, and
to a
bestial frenzy, or at least they lead
to
a negligence of the self and self-disdain
which Plato represents by the figure
of bare
feet. Love becomes debased and flies
close
to the ground when it is attached to
base
things; it flies high when it is intent
upon
the more noble enterprises. In conclusion,
then, whatever it may be, love is always
afflicted and tortured, so that it
cannot
avoid becoming material for the furnace
of
Vulcan; for the soul, a divine thing
and
by its nature not the slave but the
lord
of the material body, is thrown into
painful
disturbance while it voluntarily serves
the
body where it does not find that which
satisfies
it. And no matter how much it may fix
itself
upon the beloved object, the soul cannot
avoid being sometimes agitated and
shaken
by hopeful sighs, by fears, doubts,
zeal,
troubles of conscience, remorse, willfulness,
contrition, and other tormentors represented
by the bellowings, coals, anvils, hammers,
pincers, and the other tools found
in the
workshop of this sordid and squalid
spouse
of Venus.
Cicada: Now a good deal has been said
of
this subject. Be so good as to see
what follows
next. XI.
Tansillo: Here is a golden apple tree
which
richly enameled with a variety of the
most
precious fruits, and this emblem is
circumscribed
by a motto which says, Pulchrioro detur
('it
shall be given to the more beautiful
one').
The allusion to the story of the three
goddesses
who submitted themselves to the judgment
of Paris is most familiar. But let
us read
the verse which will inform us more
precisely
of the intention of this frenzied one.
Venus,
goddess of the third sphere and mother
of
the blind archer, subduer of all men;
that
other, sprung from the forehead of
Jove,
and the proud wife of Jove, Juno, call
the
Trojan shepherd to judge which of them,
most
beautiful, deserves the golden fruit.
If
my goddess were set among them, it
would
be awarded neither to Venus, Athena,
or Juno.
The Cyprian goddess is beautiful by
reason
of lovely limbs, Minerva through her
intellect,
and Juno pleases by that worthy splendor
of majesty, which satisfies the Thunderer;
but my goddess contains within herself
all
that is requisite of beauty, intelligence,
and majesty. In this poem the frenzied
one
compares his object, which contains
and unites
the qualities, characteristics, and
species
of beauty to other objects which can
only
offer one, and, besides, each one distributed
among diverse individuals. For example,
in
the category of corporeal beauty Apollo
cannot
find every species united in one virgin
but
distributed among many. Now it happens
that
here there are three species of beauty,
although
all three are found in each of the
three
goddesses; for Venus is not deficient
in
wisdom and majesty, and Juno is not
wanting
in beauty and wisdom any more than
Athena
is wanting in majesty and beauty. Nevertheless,
in each of the three goddesses one
of these
qualities happens to surpass the others
and
for that reason is considered proper
to her,
while the other qualities are considered
mere accidents; moreover, with respect
to
the quality which predominates in her,
each
goddess appears sovereign and outweighs
her
rivals. And the reason for this difference
is that certain qualities do not belong
to
each goddess primarily and according
to its
essence, but according to participation
and
derivation. Just as in all contingent
things
perfections exist more or less only
according
to inferior or superior degrees. But
in the
simplicity of the divine essence all
exists
in all and not according to measure;
and
thus in the divine essence wisdom is
not
superior to beauty and majesty any
more than
goodness is superior to power. In fact
all
the attributes of the divine essence
are
not only equal, but they are even identical
and are one simple thing. In a similar
way
all the dimensions of a sphere are
not only
equal (length being equal to depth
and breadth)
but even identical, because in a sphere
that
which you call depth you may at the
same
time call length and breadth. Analogously,
in the divine essence the height of
wisdom
is one with depth of power and breadth
of
goodness. All these projections are
equal
because they are infinite. One must
therefore
measure the greatness of the one according
to the greatness of the other. But
where
these things are finite, wisdom may
surpass
beauty and goodness, goodness and beauty
may surpass wisdom, wisdom and goodness
may
surpass power and power may surpass
both
goodness and wisdom. But where there
is infinite
wisdom that wisdom can not exist without
infinite power, otherwise that wisdom
would
not possess the power to know infinitely.
Where there is infinite goodness that
goodness
must have infinite wisdom, otherwise
that
goodness would not know how to be infinitely
good. Where there is infinite power
that
power must also have infinite goodness
and
wisdom, for the infinite power must
have
power to know as well as the knowledge
of
power. You see, then, how the beloved
object
of this frenzied one to is inebriated
with
drinking the divine nectar is incomparably
higher than any other object. You see,
I
mean to say, how the intelligible species
of the divine essence possesses the
perfection
of all the other species in the highest
degree,
so that the degree of participation
in the
form he can attain will give him the
appropriate
degree of potential comprehension and
action
and the appropriate degree of love
for this
single beauty and disregard and disdain
for
every other. Therefore, to that one
alone
who is all in all must the golden apple
be
consecrated; and it must not be consecrated
to beautiful Venus whom Minerva surpasses
in wisdom and whom Juno surpasses in
majesty;
not to Athene whom Venus surpasses
in beauty
and Juno in majesty; not even to Juno,
who
is neither the goddess of intelligence
nor
of love.
Cicada: Certainly just as there are
degrees
in nature and in essences, so are there
degrees
of intelligible species and degrees
of magnanimity
in the affections and frenzies of love.
XII.
Cicada: The following emblem has a
head with
four faces which blow toward the four
corners
of the sky. Four winds issue from that
single
head, and above those winds two stars
are
seen to rise. The emblem bears the
motto,
Novae ortae Aeoliae ('a new Aeolus
is born').
I should like to know what this means.
Tansillo: It seems to me that the sense
of
the emblem follows that of the one
just preceding;
for, as the former emblem presented
an infinite
beauty as the object of love, this
one presents
a very great aspiration, zeal, affection,
and desire for that infinite beauty;
for
that reason I believe these winds are
meant
to represent sighs, as we shall understand
if we look and read the verse: Zephyrs
of
the Titan Astraeus and of Aurora, who
trouble
the sky, the sea, and the land, as
if discord
had hurled you forth into space for
having
made proud war against the gods, you
no longer
make your home in the Aeolian cave,
where
my power refrains and bridles you,
but are
confined within that breast I see constricted
by so much sighing. Turbulent cohorts
of
the tempests of one and the other sea,
nothing
else avails to assuage you but those
murderous
and innocent lights. Those lights when
clear,
will render you tranquil; when dark,
will
render you bold. It is easy to see
that Aeolus
is introduced as speaking to the winds,
which
he says are no longer governed by him
in
his cavern, but are now governed by
two stars
in the breast of frenzied one. Here
the two
stars do not represent the two eyes
of a
beautiful face but the two intelligible
species
of the divine beauty and goodness of
the
infinite splendor which influence the
intellectual
and rational desire and cause it to
aspire
infinitely to the extent that it understands
the grandeur, beauty, and infinite
goodness
of that excellent light. For if love
is finite,
content, and fixed upon a certain limit,
it will not approach the species of
divine
beauty but a species other than the
divine
beauty; but if love aspires higher
and higher,
one may say that it will expand toward
the
infinite.
Cicada: How can the aspiration be appropriately
represented by puffing out? How is
desire
symbolized by the winds?
Tansillo: He among us who aspires to
this
state, sighs, and also puffs out. And
therefore
the vehemence of aspiration is conveyed
to
that hieroglyphic of a powerful puffing
out.
Cicada: But there is a difference between
sighing and puffing out.
Tansillo: The one is not meant to be
identical
to the other. There is only a similarity
between them.
Cicada: Then proceed with your argument.
Tansillo: The infinite aspiration,
then,
expressed by the sighs and symbolized
by
the winds is not under the government
of
Aeolus in the Aeolian caves but is
under
the government of the lights that are
mentioned,
which murder the frenzied one not only
by
their innocence but by their supreme
benignity,
for they make him die to all other
things
because of his zealous affection. Moreover,
if these lights go out or conceal themselves,
they render a tempest within him, and,
if
they are clear, they render him tranquil.
Similarly, in a season when a veil
of clouds
darkens the eyes of the human body,
then
the zealous soul feels only turbulence
and
affliction; but if the veil is torn
and thrown
aside, the soul will enjoy a tranquillity
noble enough to satisfy its nature.
Cicada: But how can our finite intellect
pursue an infinite object?
Tansillo: By the intellect's infinite
potency.
Cicada: A vain potency if it must remain
unfulfilled.
Tansillo: The intellectual potency
would
be vain, if it moved toward a finite
act
in which its infinite potency would
remain
in privation; but it would not be vain
if
it moved toward an infinite act in
which
its infinite potency enjoys perfect
fulfillment.
Cicada: If the human intellect and
action
are finite by nature, how and why is
the
intellect endowed with infinite potency?
Tansillo: Because it is eternal and
because
its delight is not limited by time,
it knows
no end or limit of delight; and because,
although finite in itself, it is infinite
with respect to its object.
Cicada: What is the difference between
the
infinity of the object and infinity
of the
potency?
Tansillo: The potency is finitely infinite,
and the object is infinitely infinite.
But
to return to our discourse. The motto
says,
Novae ortae Aeoliae because we may
believe
that all the winds enclosed in the
deep caves
of Aeolus are converted into the lover's
sighs, if we consider that these sighs
are
caused by the affection which ceaselessly
aspires to the supreme good in infinite
beauty.
XIII.
Cicada: Next let us see what the meaning
is of that burning torch whose motto
is,
Ad vitam, non ad horam ('For always,
not
just for an hour').
Tansillo: It signifies the perseverance
and
love and the burning desire for the
true
good in which the frenzied one burns
while
in this temporal state. This, I believe,
is what the following tablet teaches:
The
peasant leaves his lodging when the
day breaks
from the bosom of the Orient, and when
the
sun strikes more intensely, tired and
smitten
by the heat he sits down in the shade.
Then
he works and tires himself until a
dark gloom
covers the hemisphere; then he rests.
But
I am exposed to continual blows morning,
noon, evening, and night. Those fierce
rays
which issue from the two arcs of my
sun (as
my destiny wills) from the horizon
of my
soul never depart, burning my afflicted
heart
at every hour from its meridian.
Cicada: This verse interprets the emblem
in a general way without explaining
its meaning
and detail.
Tansillo: And I do not have to strain
to
show you its precise meanings, for
these
can be understood if you give them
a little
consideration. The sun's rays are the
forms
whereby the divine beauty and goodness
are
manifest to us; and they are fiery
because
they cannot be apprehended by the intellect
without consequently enkindling the
desire.
The two arcs of the sun are the two
species
of knowledge called by the scholastic
theologians
matins and vespers; so that the intelligence
which illumines us through the medium
of
the air leads the species to us, either
in
virtue of our admiration of it for
itself,
or of our admiration for the efficacy
contemplated
in its effects. The horizon of the
soul is
the region of the superior potencies;
and
in this region the valiant intellectual
apprehension
is aided by the vigorous impulse of
the affection
represented by the heart, which is
afflicted
because it burns at every hour; for
all the
fruits of love we can gather in this
(mortal)
state are not so sweet that they are
not
mingled with certain affliction; at
least
the affliction that comes from the
consciousness
of fruition without plenitude. This
is particularly
the case in the fruits of natural love,
whose
condition I should not know how to
express
better than the Epicurean poet has:
Ex hominis
vero facile pulchroque colore Nil datur
in
corpus preater simulacra fruendum Tenuia,
qaue vento spes captat saepe misella.
Ut
bibere in somnis sitiens cum quaerit,
et
humor Non datur, ardorem in membris
qui stinguere
possit; Sed laticum simulacra petit
frustraque
laborat In medioque sitit torrenti
flumine
potans: Sic in armore Venus simulacris
ludit
amantes, Nec satiare queunt spectando
corpora
coram, Nec manibus quicquam teneris
abradere
membris Possunt, errantes incerti corpore
toto. Denique cum membris conlatis
flore
fruuntur Aetatis; dum iam praesagit
gaudia
corpus, Atque in eo est Vewnus, et
muliebria
conserat arva, Adfigunt avide corpus
iunguntque
salivas Oris et inspirant pressantes
dentibus
ora, Nequicquam, quoniam nihil inde
abradere
possunt, Nec penetrare et abire in
corpus
corpore toto.
(Lucretius De rerum natura iv. 1094-1111:
'... The body is given nothing to enjoy
by
a pretty face or a pleasant complexion
but
tenuous images which all too often
fond hope
scatters to the wind. When a thirsty
man
tries to drink in his dreams, the liquid
which can quench the fire in his limbs
is
not given him. But he seeks images
of spring
water with fruitless effort and thirsts
nightly
in the midst of torrential rivers.
Even so
in the midst of love Venus mocks her
lovers
with images, for they cannot satisfy
their
sight by looking upon her bodily form,
nor
can they snatch anything of her tender
limbs
with their hands, as they wander aimlessly
over her whole body. Finally they pluck
the
fruit of life with their joined limbs.
But
even while their bodies thrill in the
presentiment
of joy, and unite in a fertile union,
as
they join the saliva of their mouths
and
press and breath with their tongues,
it is
all in vain. For they can glean nothing
from
the other, and they cannot penetrate
and
be wholly absorbed body in body...')
Similarly
does that wise Hebrew judge the manner
in
which we can enjoy divine things here
below.
As we force ourselves to penetrate
and unite
with those divine things, we find we
are
more afflicted by our desire for them
than
pleased by our conception of them.
And therefore
that wise Hebrew [Eccl. 1:18] could
say that
he who increases wisdom increases pain,
for
the greater comprehension nurtures
the greater
and loftier desire, and the greater
desire
brings the greater scorn and pain because
of the deprivation of the thing desired.
Therefore Epicurus, who pursues the
most
tranquil life, says with respect to
vulgar
love: Sed fugitare decet simulacra
et pabula
amoris Abstergere sibi atque alio convertere
mentem, Nec servare sibi curam certumque
dolorem: Ulcus enim virescit et inveterascit
alendo, Inque dies gliscit furor atque
aerumna
gravescit, Nec Veneris fructu caret
is qui
vitat amorem, Sed potius quae sunt
sine paena
commoda sumit.
(Lucretius De rerum natura iv. 1055-1066:
'... But one must fly from love's image
and
nourishment and deny oneself and divert
the
mind elsewhere and not become enslaved
to
sorrow and inevitable pain. For an
ulcer
grows and festers with nourishing,
and, in
time, the frenzy increases and burdens
us
with calamity. And he who avoids this
passion
does not miss the delights of Venus,
but,
instead, he reaps those profits which
carry
no burden with them...')
Cicada: What does the meridian of the
heart
mean?
Tansillo: The meridian of the heart
refers
to the highest and most eminent part
of the
will which the strongest, most direct,
and
most luminous rays enflame. It means
that
the affection in question is not as
though,
in its initial movement, nor as though
in
its final repose, but is in a point
between
the two, when its fervor is most intense.
XIV.
Cicada: But what is the meaning of
that arrow
aglow with flames at the iron point,
around
which a noose is twisted, and of the
motto,
Amor instat ut instans ('Love persists
as
does the instant'). How do you understand
it?
Tansillo: I would say it means that
love
never leaves him, and eternally afflicts
him with invariable pain.
Cicada: I well understand the noose,
arrow,
and the flame and I understand the
words,
Amor instat, but I cannot understand
what
follows: that love persists because
it is
both of one instant and is also insistent.
This lacks as much sense as if one
would
say, -- he had imagined this emblem
as he
had imagined it, carries it as he carries
it; I understand it as I understand
it; it
is worth what it is worth; or, I esteem
it
as I esteem it --.
Tansillo: The less one considers the
more
easily is he apt to judge quickly and
condemn.
Instans is not to be taken as the adjective
which comes from the verb instare.
It is
to be understood as a substantive which
means
an instant of time.
Cicada: Then what does he wish to express
when he says that love persists as
the instant
persists?
Tansillo: What does Aristotle mean
in his
book on Time [Physics iv. 217b, 224a.],
when
he says that eternity is an instant
and the
whole of time is nothing but an instant?
Cicada: How can this be, if there is
no time
so brief that does not have many instants?
Would he mean to imply that a single
instant
encompasses the deluge, the Trojan
war, and
this very hour of our lives? I would
like
to know how this instant can be divided
into
so many centuries and years. I would
also
like to know why we could not affirm
by a
similar measurement that the line is
no more
than a point?
Tansillo: As time is one and yet is
divided
into diverse temporal subjects, so
the instant
is one in all the diverse parts of
time.
As I am the same one who was, who exists
now, and who will exist in the future,
so
am I the same person here at home,
in church,
in the fields, and everywhere.
Cicada: But why would you have the
instant
to be the whole of time?
Tansillo: Because if there were not
the instant,
there would not be time, which time
in essence
and substance is nothing more but an
instant.
And this will suffice -- if you have
the
wherewithal to grasp it (for I have
no time
to give you a pedantic discourse on
the fourth
book of the Physics) -- to make you
understand
that he means that love attends him
by a
presence which lasts for no less than
the
whole of time; for the word instans
here
is not to be taken to mean a mere atom
of
time.
Cicada: This meaning ought to be specified
one way or another, if we wish to avoid
the
motto's being viciously equivocal.
Thus we
ought to be free to understand him
to mean
either that his love is the love of
one instant,
that is, of one atom of time and of
no consequence,
or, on the contrary, as you interpret
it,
that his love is eternal.
Tansillo: Indeed if these two contrary
senses
had been implied, the motto would be
a farce.
But it is not a farce, if you consider
it
well; for it is impossible that love
in one
instant, if instant means a point or
an atom
of time, should persist with him forever;
it is necessary, therefore, to understand
the instant in another sense. In order
to
end this debate, let us read the verse:
One
time it expands, another time it reassembles;
one time it builds, another time it
destroys;
one time it weeps, at another it laughs;
one time it is sad, at another it reposes;
one time it stands upright, at another,
it
sinks down. One time it lends a hand,
another,
it withdrawals itself; one time it
moves
us on, another, stops us; one time
it brings
life, another, death. Through all the
years,
months, days, and hours love is present,
strikes, burns, and binds me. Continually
it shatters me, ever destroys me and
keeps
me in tears. It is my doleful languor
in
each and every hour. It forever harasses
and uplifts me, and is too powerful
in despoiling
me. There is no instant when it does
not
harass me, no instant when it does
not bring
me death.
Cicada: I have understood the meaning
perfectly;
and I confess that everything corresponds
very well. But I think it time to proceed
to the next one. XV.
Tansillo: Here you see a serpent languishing
in the snow where a laborer has thrown
it,
a nude boy burning in the midst of
flames,
and some other details and circumstances,
all accompanied by the motto, Idem,
itidem,
non idem ('The same, in the same way,
yet
not the same'). This emblem seems to
me more
enigmatic than the one before it. Thus
I
shall not flatter myself that I can
give
a perfect explanation of it. However,
I should
think it meant that the same molesting
fate
torments both the boy and the serpent
in
a similar way (with intensity, without
mercy,
and to the point of death) by those
diverse
and contrary principles of heat and
cold.
But I believe this requires longer
and more
detailed consideration.
Cicada: Once again, read the verse.
Tansillo: Languid serpent, you writhe,
shrink,
rise, and sink in that dense humour;
and
to ease your intense pain, you move
from
one part of the cold to another. If
the ice
had ears to hear you, you a voice to
speak
or to reply, I believe you would have
an
efficacious argument to render it merciful
to your torment. I am tossed, consumed,
burned,
scorched in the eternal fire, and in
the
ice of my goddess neither love of me
nor
pity finds any place for my delivery.
Ah
me, because she does not feel how great
is
the rigor of my ardent flame! Snake,
you
seek to escape, but you are powerless.
You
cling to your shelter, but it is dissolved.
You call back your own forces, but
they are
spent. Your hope is turned to the sun,
but
a dense midst conceals it. You ask
mercy
of the laborer, and he hates your sting.
You invoke fortune, but senseless,
she does
not hear you. Neither flight, refuge,
force,
the stars, man, nor fate can save you
from
death. You are hardened by the cold,
while
I am liquefied by the heat; I wonder
at your
rigor, you wonder at my ardor; you
lust after
the evil I suffer, and I, after your
desire.
Neither can I relieve your distress,
nor
can you relieve mine. Now, aware enough
of
our cruel fate, let us abandoned all
hope.
Cicada: Let us go now, so that as we
walk
we shall find a way to untie this knot,
if
possible.
Tansillo:
Good.
End of the Fifth Dialogue And the First
Part
of THE HEROIC FRENZIES
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