The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori)

The translator (L. W., Folkestone, September 1887) explains the translation was begun two years earlier for pleasure, that "Gli Eroici Furori" had never appeared in English, thanks friends for help, admits its defects, and states the choice of "Enthusiasts" over "Enthusiasms"; errata follow. The Introduction describes Nola, birthplace of Giordano Bruno, its culture and Pythagorean traditions as noted by David Levi. Bruno's childhood near Mount Cicada is recounted, including nights watching Vesuvius and his first doubt about the senses. Before the Holy Office at Venice he states his name, birth in 1548, father Giovanni, mother Francesca Savolini. Amid earthquakes, plague, Turks, bandits under Marcone, and the Inquisition, he became a friar at fifteen at St. Dominic, Naples, stayed thirteen years, praised the Arians, was threatened, and fled to Rome, then discarded his habit, sailed to Liguria, and settled at Noli, teaching grammar and the Sphere and expounding Copernicus. Suspected, he left for Turin, where the text describes Duke Emanuele Filiberto and, via Berti, compares Bruno with Tasso. At Venice he wrote the lost "Segni del Tempo"; at Padua monks persuaded him to resume the robe. Adopting the motto "Altiora Peto," he crossed the Alps. A note on his works cites Goethe and translation difficulties. At Geneva, met by the Marchese di Vico and Pietro Martire Vermigli, he declined Calvinism and left poor. At Lyons he failed to gain work from Aldo and Grifi; at Toulouse he took a Doctor's degree, taught "De Anima," and held all Nature ensouled. At Paris he lectured on thirty Divine attributes; Henry III summoned and subsidized him; after tumult he left for England in 1583. His philosophy is derived from Pythagoras.

The text presents Pythagoras's idea, developed by Bruno, that numbers are the beginning of things, and above their mutability stands the Immutable One, the Infinite. From Substance, which is one, proceed worlds, living creatures, and the Universe. It describes the absolute One as sun of suns, systems moving in spirals toward a central sun, harmony becoming morality and law, and the study of celestial harmony guiding civil bodies. Human souls are lights undergoing a purifying process across existences; life is struggle. Humanity's guiding star is the religion of philosophy; vulgar creeds veiled the Truth. The text returns to Bruno, aged about thirty-six, leaving Paris for England, lecturing at Oxford on the Quadruple Sphere and the Immortality of the Soul, maintaining nothing is lost. It notes his anticipation of Goethe and Darwin, and describes "Gli Eroici Furori," dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, as laying the basis for the religion of thought. It recounts Bruno's return to Paris in 1585, travels through Germany, Mocenigo's invitation to Venice, Bruno's betrayal, imprisonment, trial before the Inquisition, transfer to Rome, and his burning in the Campo dei Fiori on 17 February 1600. The First Dialogue begins between Tansillo and Cicada. Cicada bids Tansillo read. Tansillo recites verses addressing the Muses. He explains why he repulsed the Muses, and discusses myrtle and laurel crowns, species of poets, and rejects the schoolmen who judge poets by Aristotle's rules, arguing rules derive from poetry, not poetry from rules. He lists various crowns for various poets. Cicada concludes the poet retires to the Muses in times of storm.

He cries invoking the mountain of Parnassus, the Muses, and the fountain of Helicon, asking to have his death changed to life, cypress to laurels, and hells to heavens. Tansillo says Heaven turns evils to good; Cicada adds that dying in one age lets one live in the rest. A sonnet likens his heart to Parnassus; Tansillo explains the mountain as affection, Muses as beauties, fountain as tears, and tells Cicada the heart has two summits (love and hate) on one base. Another sonnet describes a captain calling warriors; Tansillo identifies the captain as the human will governed by reason. Asked why love is symbolized by fire, Tansillo says love converts the loved into the lover as fire converts elements. A sonnet names Love, Fate, the Object, and Jealousy; Tansillo defines each. Further sonnets treat the beloved wound and Jealousy as wicked child of Envy and Love. Cicada asks why Love is called insensate boy and why Fate is blind and bad; Tansillo answers, citing the Apulian poet on Maecenas. Tansillo says Love shows Paradise and is not blind; Cicada cites the Nolano's sonnet on Love revealing truth. A sonnet reduces four principles to two, then one, ending "Inconstant Love." In the standard-bearer sonnet the enthusiast burns and freezes; Tansillo argues nothing is pure, opposites coexist, quoting a Pythagorean poet, the Kabala of Pegasus, and Solomon. He recounts a neighbour saying he was never more jolly, and John Bruno, father of the Nolano, answering he was never more foolish. Discussing wisdom, Tansillo locates virtue in the mean between merry and sad. A final sonnet describes living death and Ixion; Tansillo explains the double vice of departing from the temperate middle toward extremes.

The text describes the enthusiast ascending and descending, his soul in dissension as senses rebel against reason. It introduces a dialogue in which Reason, called Filenio, questions the enthusiast, called Shepherd. In sonnet 11, Filenio asks and Shepherd answers that he suffers because neither life nor death claims him, blaming Love, who holds and wounds him through the eyes; he hopes for pity, remains silent from purity, and fears scorn more than torment. Commentary explains he loves unhappily. Cicada calls his love heroic; Tansillo describes three Platonic species of love and distinguishes barbarous natures seeking bodily enjoyment from those loving beauty of spirit. Cicada warns against enslavement to unworthy objects; Tansillo agrees. Tansillo then divides enthusiasts into two kinds—divinely possessed vessels and those with innate contemplative fervour—and, asked by Cicada, ranks the first as having divinity (like the ass carrying sacraments), the second as themselves divine. He states these enthusiasms are memory, rational impetus, not black bile or Circe's drink. Sonnet 12 gives the butterfly, stag, and unicorn images. Sonnet 13 celebrates fire and noose. Cicada objects that vicious spirits still enkindle love; the Nolano's sonnet 14 laments union with the bad. Tansillo distinguishes loving from liking. Sonnet 15 thanks Love and adores a living image of God. Cicada and Tansillo discuss whether the object is a conception or divinity itself, concluding God is seen here as shadow or mirror; they cite Pythagoreans and Plotinus on soul and body. They discuss the infinite object and, citing Averroes, felicity through speculative sciences. Tansillo praises worthy failure over low triumph. Cicada affirms heroic death is better; Tansillo recites sonnet 16 on spreading wings heavenward despite Daedalus's fate, ending with a voice crying "Turn back."

A verse fragment urges cleaving the clouds and dying content. Cic. accepts "lifted me on high" but questions "severed from the ignoble crowd." Tans. glosses the crowd as body and sensual cognition. Cic. cites the Platonists' two knots binding soul to body; Tans. explains how powers occupied in matter awaken and turn toward superior things. Poem 17 lists divine metamorphoses (Jove as eagle, Saturn a horse, Neptune, Mercury, Bacchus, Apollo) and concludes "I change me to a god." Tans. describes Nature's revolution and, citing the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Plotinus, discusses soul's fate, generation, mind, imagination, the rational faculty, and the wheel of metamorphosis. Tansillo introduces heroic love and intellect. Poem 18 tells of Actæon leading mastiffs and greyhounds, seeing a bust and face of scarlet, alabaster, and gold, becoming the hunted, and devoured by his own dogs. Tans. interprets Actæon as intellect, the dogs as thoughts, the waters and colors; the hunter becomes prey. Dialogue affirms love transforms and "the kingdom of Heaven is in us." Poem 19 sends the "solitary bird" to nest on high under blind Love as guide. Tans. discusses the winged heart, death by kisses (Kabbalists, Song of Solomon), and the Psalmist's sleep. Poem 20 bids enthusiasts heed the heart the soul has dismissed. Cic. asks why the soul delights in torments; Tans. explains the intellect's pursuit of the infinite, discussing circumference and centre, bonds, insanity as surpassing knowledge, and pricks, lightnings, chains, looks, accents, customs. Poem 21 sends lofty thoughts to recall the heart. Tans. explains arming with love and repressing sight, followed by an extended dialogue on seeing, desire, and knowledge. Poem 22 laments the "cruel sons" who opened their eyes and stayed with the heart.

The soul, deprived of heart and thoughts, laments its misery and asks why death does not come. It questions how to nourish itself and calls its flying thoughts and rebel heart to return to aid the body, complaining of the divorce between its parts. It discusses the laws of sense, reason, and intellect, harmony in diversity, and being forced to remain at home by Nature's law, closing "Heaven the second gift denies, To him who does the first despise." The soul recalls its thoughts and laments in sonnet 23, "Ah, dogs of Actæon," desiring to dissolve and be deified. Cicada and Tansillo discuss the Platonists' view of the soul, the sun-ray analogy, ascent and descent through the faculties, the three degrees of intelligence (celestial, human, and demons or heroes), the pig unable to desire manhood, the meaning of "dogs of Actæon," a theologian rapt to the third heaven, "Leave me life," the soul's two progressions, and the soul of the world. Tansillo notes the promotion from animal to heroic enthusiasm and reads sonnet 24, "Destiny, when shall I that mountain mount," explaining Destiny, Fate, and Love uniting the members. In the Fifth Dialogue, Cicada asks to consider the enthusiasts through their emblems. Tansillo describes the first: a flame under a bronze head, "At regna senserunt tria," explaining fire, water, and vapour and reading sonnet 25 on tears, air, and fire. The second bears a sun, "Idem semper ubique totum," with sonnet 26 on Capricorn and Cancer. The third shows a naked child and fiery castle, "Mutuo fulcimur," with sonnet 27; Tansillo notes magicians' faith. The fourth shows a butterfly at a flame, "Hostis non hostis." The text breaks off at "28."

. This is the ordinary language of the flesh and blood; but that which the enthusiastic heroism of him means and says who is illumined by the sensible splendour of the divine object, and warmed by the heat of the affections, follows and will make apparent. Lo! how he lives who first well knows to die. Cic. Read. Tans. 34. Since I have spread these wings unto desire, The more beneath each foot the air I feel, The more towards the wind broad pinions spread, Spurning the earth, I soar unto the skies. Nor at the cruel fate of Dædalus' son Do I bend downward, but still rise the more. That I shall fall to earth full well I know, But what life equals this my death divine? I hear my heart-voice calling in the air: Where dost thou draw me, rash one? Descend, since For the most part unto too much boldness Dread ruin follows. Fear no lofty fall I answer, cleave the clouds, and die content, If Heaven such a glorious death decree. Here the enthusiast displays the affection, the strength, and disposition of the heart, which cannot be repressed by any thoughts, be they never so intent on natural preservation, nor be turned aside by the fear of perilous death; he shows the natural instinct, and the reflection which is made on the powers, so that they may not despair when he shall have to spread his wings towards the desirable precipice; because it is a nobler thing to procure a glorious death than an ignoble and cowardly triumph. The philosophers are sometimes especially aware that there is more of the divine reason where there is more emotion. Cic. The Epicureans, however, do not think in this way, for they defend the ease and the health of the body. Tans. But they hold in less repute those things which are lowest and most unworthy, contemplating the peace and tranquillity of the spirit; for we do not consider the Epicurean philosophy in other terms than those in which we find it explained by itself, whereby it does not confirm the mere voluptuousness and physical pleasures of certain beastly men, who are amongst us far more Epicurean than Epicurus himself, seeing that he was very continent in food and drink. Cic. It is true; for they do not deny that the summit and end of felicity consists in not grieving and not fearing, seeing that they place the highest good in not sorrowing, whence they were reputed to place it in pleasure, as the contrary of sorrow, meaning it not the pleasure of intemperance, but that of temperance—that is to say, in so far as it is free from the perturbations of fear and of desire. Tans. To this end (that we may not digress from the enthusiast), the heroic wish is more towards raising itself to the object of the divine light than to reject and flee from the emotion which comes to it through certain grief; but here it is not, that in a subject there is no imperfection or evil, but that from a good it goes towards a better, and, drawn from the state in which it is, it aspires and rises to a superior and more heroic state. Cic. It seems to me that the tablet contains something of this.

Tansillo explains the Epicurean maxim on virtue: true firmness for Epicurus bears inconveniences without feeling them, and perfect divine heroic love feels no other affections, its highest blessedness being rapture without pain. When Cicada says the ignorant reject this, Tansillo cites Epicurus's testament, written on his last and happiest day with tranquil mind. He compares firmness to a tree that does not stir, and names Regulus, Lucretia, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Scævola, and Cocles, who felt not their torments. Cicada bids him proceed. Device X shows an anvil and hammer, "ab Aetna," with Vulcan; verse 34 declares the soul makes harmony from its pangs. Tansillo describes the forge of Vulcan, the god within every lover, and the soul purifying itself by fire; Cicada cites Plato's Banquet on Love born of Poverty. Device XI shows a golden apple, "Pulchriori detur," recalling Paris and the three goddesses; verse 35 exalts his goddess above Venus, Pallas, and Juno. Tansillo explains that in the divine essence all attributes are equal and identical, like a sphere's dimensions. Device XII shows a four-faced head of winds, two stars, "Novae ortae aeoliae"; verse 36 has Aeolus address the winds now enclosed in the enthusiast's breast. Tansillo interprets the two stars as divine beauty and goodness, and discusses finite intellect's infinite potency. Device XIII shows burning light, "Ad vitam, non ad horam"; verse 37 contrasts the resting peasant with the ever-burning enthusiast. Tansillo quotes the Epicurean poet and the Hebrew saying that increased knowledge increases pain. Device XIV shows a flaming arrow, noose, "Amor instat ut instans"; Tansillo and Cicada debate "instans" as meaning the instant, invoking Aristotle on time and eternity.

A speaker argues love cannot persist in a single instant and reads stanza 38 on time's alternations and Love waiting, striking, binding, burning. Cic. assents. In XV, Tans. describes a serpent in snow thrown by a labourer and a child burning in fire, with the legend "Idem, itidem non idem," and interprets it. Cic. defers, then reads lines 39 and 40 on the snake. They agree to untie the knot. The Apology of the Nolan addresses the nymphs of England and Diana.