MAR. It seems to me that the following figure is closely connected and
linked with the above; there are two stars in the form of two radiant
eyes, with the legend: Mors et vita.
CES. Read the sonnet!
MAR. I will do so:
47.
Writ by the hand of Love may each behold
Upon my face the story of my woes.
But thou, so that thy pride no curb may know,
And I, unhappy one, eternally might rest,
Thou dost torment, by hiding from my view
Those lovely lights beneath the beauteous lids.
Therefore the troubled sky's no more serene,
Nor hostile baleful shadows fall away.
By thine own beauty, by this love of mine
(So great that e'en with this it may compare),
Render thyself, oh Goddess, unto pity!
Prolong no more this all-unmeasured woe,
Ill-timed reward for such a love as this.
Let not such rigour with such splendour mate
If it import thee that I live!
Open, oh lady, the portals of thine eyes,
And look on me if thou wouldst give me death!
Here, the face upon which the story of his woes appears is the soul; in
so far as it is open to receive those superior gifts, for the which it
has a potential aptitude, without the fulness of perfection and act
which waits for the dew of heaven. Thus was it well said: Anima mea
sicut terra sine aqua tibi; and again: Os meum operui; and again:
Spiritum, quia mandata tua desiderabam. Then "pride which knows no curb"
is said in metaphor and similitude, as God is sometimes said to be
jealous, angry, or that He sleeps, and that signifies the difficulty
with which He grants so much even as to show his shoulders, which is the
making himself known by means of posterior things and effects. So the
lights are covered with the eyelids, the troubled sky of the human mind
does not clear itself by the removal of the metaphors and enigmas.
Besides which, because he does not believe that all which is not, could
not be, he prays the divine light, that by its beauty, which ought not
to be entirely concealed, at least according to the capacity of whoever
beholds it, and by his love, which, perchance, is equal to so much
beauty (equal, he means, of the beauty, in so far as he can comprehend
it) that it surrender itself to pity, that is, that it should do as
those who are compassionate, and who from being capricious and gloomy
become gracious and affable and that it prolong not the evil which
results from that privation, and not allow that its splendour, for which
it is so much desired, should appear greater than that love by means of
which it communicates itself, seeing that in it all the perfections are
not only equal but are also the same. In fine, he begs that it will no
further sadden by privation, for it can kill with the glance of its eyes
and can also with those same give him life.
CES. Does he mean that death of lovers, which comes from intense joy,
called by the Kabalists, mors osculi, which same is eternal life, which
a man may anticipate in this life and enjoy in eternity?
MAR. He does.