TANS. On the next crest there is painted a full moon and the legend:
"Talis mihi semper ut astro," which means that to the star--that is, to
the sun--she is ever such as she here shows herself, full and clear in
the entire circumference of the circle, which, in order that you may
better understand, I will let you hear that which is written on the
tablet.
32.
Oh, changeful moon, inconstant moon!
With horns now full, now void, thou wanderest.
Mounting, thy sphere now white now dark appears.
The mountains and the valleys of the north thou brightenest,
And turning by thy dust-encumbered steps,
Thou lightest in the south the Lybian heights.
My moon for my continual pain.
Is constant ever, ever full.
So is my star,
Which ever from me takes and nothing gives,
For ever burns and ever shines,
Cruel always yet always beautiful.
This noble light of mine
Torments me still and still delights me.
It seems to me, that it means that his particular intelligence is to the
universal intelligence ever the same--that is to say, the one is ever
illuminated by the other, over the whole hemisphere; notwithstanding
that to the inferior powers, and according to the influence of his
actions, it appears now dark, and now more and less clear. Or perhaps it
means that his speculative intellect, which is ever invariable in its
action, is always turned and affected towards the human intelligence
signified by the moon. Because, as this is said to be the lowest of all
the stars, and is nearest to us, so the illuminating intelligence of all
of us in this state is the last in order of the other intelligences, as
Averroes and the more subtle Peripatetics say. That intelligence, in so
far as it is not in any act, goes down before, or sets to the potential
intellect, or as if so to say, it emerged from the bottom of the occult
hemisphere, and showed itself now void, now full, according as it gives
more or less light of intelligence. Now its sphere is dark, now light,
because sometimes it shows itself as a shadow, a semblance, and a
vestige, and sometimes more and more openly: now it declines towards the
south, now it mounts towards the north--that is, now it removes farther
and farther away, and now it approaches nearer and nearer. But the
intellect, active with its continual grief--seeing that it is not
through its human condition and nature that it finds itself so wretched,
so opposed, courted, solicited, distracted, and, as it were, torn by the
inferior powers--sees its object stable, fixed and constant, and ever
full, and in the same splendour of beauty. Thus it ever takes away, in
so far as it does not concede, and ever gives, in so far as it concedes.
It ever burns in the affection in so far as it shines in thoughts, and
is always cruel in withdrawing itself through that which withdraws
itself; as it is always beautiful in communication with, that to which
it presents itself. Always does it torment when it is divided from him
by difference of locality, as always it delights him being joined to it
by affection.