The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 18 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
First Dialogue-e
What power or spell of herb or magic art Can tear thee from the centre of my heart, Since he, who with an ever-growing zest, Tormenting most, yet most does make me blest?
How can I of this weight unburdened be, If pain the cure, and joy the sore give me?
Sweet is my pain: to this world new and rare.
Eyes!
ye are the bow and torches of my lord!
Double the flames and arrows in my breast, For languishing is sweet and burning best.
Fate vexes and grieves by undesirable and unfortunate events, or because it makes the subject feel unworthy of the object, and out of proportion with the dignity of the latter, or because a perfect sympathy does not exist, or for other reasons and obstacles that arise.
The object satisfies the subject, which is nourished by no other, seeks no other, is occupied by no other, and banishes every other thought.
Jealousy torments, because although she is the daughter of Love, and is derived from him, and is his companion who always goes with him, and is a sign of the same, being understood as a necessary consequence wherever love is found (as may be observed of whole generations who, from the coldness of the region and lateness of development, learn little, love less, and of jealousy know nothing), yet, notwithstanding its kinship, association, and signification, jealousy comes to trouble and poisons all that it finds of beautiful and of good in Love.
Therefore I said in another sonnet: 6.
Oh, wicked child of Envy and of Love!
That turnest into pain thy father's joys, To evil Argus-eyed, but blind as mole to good.
Minister of torment!
Jealousy!
Fetid harpy!
Tisiphone infernal!
Who steals and poisons others' good, Under thy cruel breath does languish The sweetest flower of all my hopes.
Proud of thyself, unlovely one, Bird of sorrow and harbinger of ill, The heart thou visitest by thousand doors; If entrance unto thee could be denied, The reign of Love would so much fairer be, As would this world were death and hate away.
To the above is added, that Jealousy not only is sometimes the ruin and death of the lover, but often kills Love itself, because Love comes to be so much under its influence that it is impelled to despise the object, and in fact becomes alienated from it, especially when it engenders disdain.
Cic.
Explain now the ideas which follow.
Why is Love called the "insensate boy"?
Tans.
I will tell you.
Love is called the insensate boy, not because he is so of himself, but because he brings certain ones into subjection, and dwells in such subjects, since the more intellectual and speculative one is, the more Love raises the genius and purifies the intellect, rendering it alert, studious, and circumspect, promoting a condition of valorous animosity and an emulation of virtues and dignities by the desire to please and to make itself worthy of the thing loved; others, and they are the largest number, call him mad and foolish, because he drives them distracted, and hurries them into excesses, by which the spirit, soul, and body become sickly, and inept to consider and distinguish that which is seemly from that which is distorted; thus rendering them subject to scorn, derision, and reproach.
Cic.
It is commonly said that love makes fools of the old and makes the young wise.
Tans.
That drawback does not happen to all the aged, nor that advantage to all the young; the one is true of the weak, and the other of the robust.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
Mentions lack of 'perfect sympathy' as a cause for Fate's vexation.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
[auto] The dialogue explicitly explains why Love is called the 'insensate boy' and how it drives some into distraction while purifying others, reframing madness as a spiritual state.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Describes Jealousy as poisoning the 'beautiful and of good in Love.'
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
[auto] The passage is from Bruno's work defining this concept and explicitly discusses how Love drives the soul toward wisdom or madness depending on the subject's capacity.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
[auto] Describes how Love purifies the intellect and promotes emulation of virtues, indicating an ascent through desire.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
Compares human eyes to 'bow and torches of my lord,' reflecting divine attributes.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
[auto] The text describes the object satisfying the subject completely and banishing every other thought, indicating a state of total absorption or union.