54.
She who my mind to other love did move,
To whom all others vile and vain appear,
In whom alone is sovereign beauty seen,
And excellence Divine is manifest.
She from the forest coming, I beheld,
Huntress of myself, beloved Artemis,
'Midst beauteous nymphs, with air of nascent bells.
Then said I unto Love: See, I am hers.
And he to me: Oh, happy lover thou!
Delectable companion of thy fate!
That she alone of all the numberless,
That hold within their bosom life and death,
Who most with virtues high the world adorns,
Thou didst obtain, through will and destiny,
Within the Court of Love.
So happy thou in thy captivity
Thou enviest not the liberty of man or God.
See how contented he is under that yoke, that marriage which has joined
him to her whom he saw issuing from the forest, from the desert, from
the woods, that is, from parts removed from the crowd, and from the
conversation of the vulgar who have but small enlightenment. Diana, the
splendour of the intelligible species, and huntress; because with her
beauty and grace she first wounded him, and then bound him and holds him
in her power, more contented than otherwise he could possibly have been.
He speaks of her "amidst beauteous nymphs," that is, the multitude of
other species, forms and ideas, and "air of bells," that is the genius
and the spirit which displayed itself at Nola, which lies on the plain
of the Campanian horizon.[J] He acknowledges her, and she, more than any
other, is praised by Love, who considers him so fortunate, because
amongst all those present or absent to mortal eyes, she does more highly
adorn the world, and makes man glorious and beautiful. Hence he says
that his mind is raised towards the highest love, and that it learns to
consider "every other goddess," that is, the care or observation of
every other kind, as vile and vain.[K] Now, in saying that she has
roused his mind to high love, he takes occasion to magnify the heart
through the thoughts, desires and works, as much as possible, and (to
say) that we ought not to be entertained with low things which are
beneath our faculties, as happens to those who, through avarice or
through negligence, or indolence, become in this brief life attached to
unworthy things.
[J] Does he allude to the fact that bells were first used in
Christian Churches at Nola?--(Tr.)
[K] The delights which are perceived in things corporeal are vile;
for every delight is such that it becomes viler the more it proceeds
to external things, and happier, the more it proceeds to things
internal.--("Spiritual Torrents.")
CES. There must be artisans, mechanics, agriculturists, servants,
trotters, ignoble, low, poor, pedants and such like, for otherwise there
could not be philosophers, meditators, cultivators of souls, masters,
captains, nobles, illustrious ones, rich, wise, and the rest who may be
heroes like to gods. Now why should we force ourselves to corrupt the
state of nature which has separated the universe into things major and
minor, superior and inferior, illustrious and obscure, worthy and
unworthy, not only outside ourselves but also inside in the substance of
us, even to that part of us which is said to be immaterial?
So of the intelligences: some are low, others are pre-eminent, some
serve and some obey, some command and govern. I believe, however, that
this ought not to be brought forward as an example, so that subjects
wishing to be superiors, and the ignoble to equal the noble, the order
of things would become perverted and confounded, so that a sort of
neutrality would supervene, and a brutal equality, such as is found in
certain deserts and uncultured republics. Do you not see what damage has
been done to science through this: _i.e._ pedants wishing to be
philosophers; to treat of natural things, and mix themselves with and
decide about things Divine? Who does not see how much evil has happened,
and does happen, through the mind having been moved through similar
facts to exalted affections? Who is there, of good sense, who cannot see
what a fine thing Aristotle made of it, when, being a master of belles
lettres at Alexandria, he set himself to oppose and make war against the
Pythagorean doctrine, and that of natural philosophy; seeking by means
of his logical ratiocination to propose definitions and notions,
certain fifth entities and other abortive portions of fantastical
cogitations, as principles and substance of things, more anxious about
the esteem of the vulgar stupid crowd, which is influenced and governed
by sophisms and appearances which are found in the superficies of things
rather than by the Truth, which is occult and hidden in the substance of
them, and is the substance itself of them? He roused his mind, not to
make himself a mediator, but judge and censor of things which he had
never studied, nor well understood. Thus in our day, that little which
Aristotle can bring, is peculiar for its inventive reasoning, its
suggestiveness, its metaphysics, and is useful for other pedants, who
work with the same "Sursum corda," who institute new dialectics and
modes of forming the reason (judgment?) which are as much viler than
those of Aristotle, as may be the philosophy of Aristotle is
incomparably viler than that of the ancients. And it has been caused by
this, that certain grammarians having grown old in the birching of
children, and in anatomizing phrases and words, have sought to rouse the
mind to the formation of new logic and metaphysics, judging and
sentencing those which they had never studied nor understood: as also
these by the approbation of the ignorant multitude, with whose mind
they have most affinity, can easily demolish the humanities and
ratiocination of Aristotle, as the latter was the executioner of the
Divine philosophies of others. See, then, what it comes to, if all
should aspire to the sacred splendour, and yet are occupied about things
low and vain.