Thus is described the discourse of heroic love, in all which tends to
its own object, which is the highest good; and heroic intellect, which
devotes itself to the study of its own object, which is the primal
verity, or absolute truth. Now the first discourse holds the sum of this
and the intention, the order of which is described in five others
following:
18.
To the woods, the mastiffs and the greyhounds young Actæon leads,
When destiny directs him into the doubtful and neglected way,
Upon the track of savage beasts in forests wild.
And here, between the waters, he sees a bust and face more beautiful
than e'er was seen
By mortal or divine, of scarlet, alabaster, and fine gold;
He sees, and the great hunter straight becomes that which he hunts.
The stag, that towards still thicker shades now goes with lighter
steps,
His own great dogs swiftly devour.
So I extend my thoughts to higher prey, and these
Now turning on me give me death with cruel savage bite.
Actæon signifies the intellect, intent on the pursuit of divine wisdom
and the comprehension of divine beauty. He lets loose the mastiffs and
the greyhounds, of whom the latter are more swift and the former more
strong, because the operation of the intellect precedes that of the
will; but this is more vigorous and effectual than that; seeing that, to
the human intellect, divine goodness and beauty are more loveable than
comprehensible, and love it is that moves and urges the intellect, and
precedes it as a lantern. The woods, uncultivated and solitary places,
visited and penetrated by few, and where there are few traces of men.
The youth of little skill and practice, as of one of short life and of
wavering enthusiasm. In the doubtful road of uncertain and distorted
reason--a disposition assigned to the character of Pythagoras--where you
see the most thorny, uncultivated, and deserted to be the right and
difficult path, where he lets loose the greyhounds and the mastiffs upon
the track of savage beasts, that is, the intelligible kinds of ideal
conceptions, which are occult, followed by few, visited but rarely, and
which do not disclose themselves to all those who seek them. Here,
amongst the waters,--that is, in the mirror of similitude, in those
works where shines the brightness of divine goodness and splendour,
which works are symbolized by the waters superior and inferior, which
are above and below the firmament, he sees the most beautiful bust and
face--that is, external power and operation, which it is possible to
see, by the habit and act of contemplation and the application of mortal
or divine mind, of man or any god.
CIC. I do not believe that he makes a comparison, nor puts as the same
kind the divine and the human mode of comprehending, which are very
diverse, but as to the subject they are the same.
TANS. So it is. He says "of red and alabaster and gold," because that
which in bodily beauty is red, white, and fair, in divinity signifies
the scarlet of divine vigorous power, the gold of divine wisdom, the
alabaster of divine beauty, through the contemplation of which the
Pythagoreans, Chaldeans, Platonists, and others, strive in the best way
that they can to elevate themselves. "The great hunter saw," he
understood as much as was possible, and became the hunted. He went out
for prey, and this hunter became himself the prey, by the operation of
the intellect converting the things learned into itself.
CIC. I understand. He forms intelligible conceptions in his own way and
proportions them to his capacity, so that they are received according to
the manner of the recipient.
TANS. And does he hunt through the operation of the will, by the act of
which he converts himself into the object?
CIC. As I understand: because love transforms and converts into the
thing loved.
TANS. Well dost thou know that the intellect learns things
intelligibly--_i.e._, in its own way, and the will pursues things
naturally, that is, according to the reason that is in themselves. So
Actæon with those thoughts--those dogs--which hunted outside themselves
for goodness, wisdom, and beauty, thus came into the presence of the
same, and ravished out of himself by so much splendour, he became the
prey, saw himself converted into that for which he was seeking, and
perceived, that of his dogs or thoughts, he himself came to be the
longed-for prey; for having absorbed the divinity into himself it was
not necessary to search outside himself for it.
CIC. For this reason it is said "the kingdom of Heaven is in us;"
divinity dwells within through the reformed intellect and will.
TANS. It is so. See then, Actæon hunted by his own dogs--pursued by his
own thoughts--runs and directs these novel paces, invigorated so as to
proceed divinely and "more easily," that is, with greater facility and
with refreshed vigour "towards the denser places," to the deserts and
the region of things incomprehensible. From being such as he first was,
a common ordinary man, he becomes rare and heroic, his habits and ideas
are strange, and he leads an unusual life. Here his great dogs "give him
death," and thus ends his life according to the mad, sensual, blind, and
fantastic world, and he begins to live intellectually; he lives the life
of the gods, fed on ambrosia and drunk with nectar.
Next we see under the form of another similitude the manner in which he
arms himself to obtain the object. He says:
19.
My solitary bird! away unto that region
Which overshadows and which occupies my thought,
Go swiftly, and there nestle; there every
Need of thine be strengthened,
There all thy industry and art be spent!
There be thou born again, and there on high,
Gather and train up thy wandering fledglings
Since adverse fate has drawn away the bars
With which she ever sought to block thy way.
Go! I desire for thee a nobler dwelling-place,
And thou shalt have for guide a god,
Who is called blind by him who nothing sees.
Go! and ever be by thee revered,
Each deity of that wide sphere,
And come not back to me till thou art mine.
The progress symbolized above by the hunter who excites his dogs, is
here illustrated by a winged heart, which is sent out of the cage, in
which it lived idle and quiet, to make its nest on high and bring up its
fledglings, its thoughts, the time being come in which those impediments
are removed, which were caused, externally, in a thousand different
ways, and internally by natural feebleness. He dismisses his heart then
to make more magnificent surroundings, urging him to the highest
propositions and intentions, now that those powers of the soul are more
fully fledged, which Plato signifies by the two wings, and he commits
him to the guidance of that god, who, by the unseeing crowd, is
considered insane and blind, that is Love, who, by the mercy and favour
of heaven, has power to transform him into that nature towards which he
aspires, or into that state from which, a pilgrim, he is banished.
Whence he says, "Come not back to me till thou art mine," and not
unworthily may I say with that other--
Thou has left me, oh, my heart,
And thou, light of my eyes, art no more with me.
Here he describes the death of the soul, which by the Kabbalists is
called the death by kisses, symbolized in the Song of Solomon, where the
friend says:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,
For, when he wounds me,
I suffer with a cruel love.
By others it is called sleep; the Psalmist says:
It shall be, that I give sleep unto mine eyes,
And mine eyelids shall slumber,
And I shall have in him peaceful repose.
The soul then is said to be faint, because it is dead in itself, and
alive in the object:
20.
Give heed, enthusiasts, unto the heart!
For mine condemns me to a life apart,
Bound by unmerciful and cruel ties,
He dwells with joy, there where he faints and dies.
At every hour I call him back by thoughts:
A rebel he, like gerfalcon insane,
He feels no more the hand that did restrain,
And is gone forth not to return again.
Thou beauteous beast that dost in punishment
Knit up the soul, spirit and heart content'st
With pricks, with lightnings, and with chains!
From looks, from accents, and from usages,
Which faint and burn and keep thee bound,
Where shall he that heals, that cools, and loosens thee be found?
Here the soul, sorrowful, not from real discontent, but on account of
pains which she suffers, directs the discourse to those who are affected
by passions similar to her own: as if she had not of her own free will
and of her own desire dismissed her heart, which goes running whither it
cannot arrive, stretches out to that which it cannot reach, and tries to
enfold that which it cannot comprehend, and with this, because he vainly
separates from her, ever more and more goes on aspiring towards the
infinite.
CIC. Whence comes it, oh Tansillo, that the soul in such progression
delights in its own torments? Whence comes that spur which urges it ever
beyond that which it possesses?
TANS. From this, which I will tell thee now. The intellect being
developed to the comprehension of a certain definite and specific form,
and the will to a love commensurate with such comprehension; the
intellect does not stop there, but by its own light it is prompted to
think of this: that it contains within itself the germ of everything
intelligible and desirable, until it comes to comprehend with the
intellect the depth of the fountain of ideas, the ocean of every truth
and goodness. So that it happens, that whatever conception is presented
to the mind, and becomes understood by it, from that which is so
presented and comprehended it judges, that above it, is other greater
and greater, and finds itself ever in a certain way discoursing and
moving with it. Because it sees that all which it possesses is only a
limited thing, and therefore cannot be sufficient of itself, nor good of
itself, nor beautiful of itself; because it is not the universal nor the
absolute entity; but contracted into being this nature, this species,
this form, represented to the intellect and present to the soul. Then
from the beautiful that is understood, and consequently limited, and
therefore beautiful through participation, it progresses towards that
which is really beautiful, which has no margin, nor any boundaries.