The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 21 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Second Dialogue-a
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Tansillo.
Now begins the enthusiast to display the affections and uncover the wounds which are for a sign in his body, and in substance or essence in his soul, and he says thus: 9.
Of Love the standard-bearer I; My hopes are ice, and glowing my desires.
At once I tremble, sparkle, freeze, and burn; Am mute, and fill the air with clamorous plaints.
Water my eyes distil, sparks from my heart.
I live, I die, make merry and lament.
Living the waters, the burning never dies, For in my eyes is Thetys, and Vulcan in my heart.
Others I love; myself I hate.
If I be winged, others are changed to stone; They high as heaven, if I be lowly set.
I cease not to pursue, they ever flee away; If I do call, yet none will answer me.
The more I search, the more is hid from me.
In accordance with this, I will continue with that which just before I said to thee, that one should not strive so hard to prove that which is so very evident—namely, that there is nothing pure and unalloyed; and some have said that no mixed thing is a real entity, as alloyed gold is not real gold, manufactured wine is not real simple wine.
Almost all things are made up of opposites, whence it comes that the success of our affections, through the mixture that is in things, can afford no pleasure without some bitterness; and more than this, I will say, that were it not for the bitter, there would be no sweet; seeing that it is through fatigue that we find pleasure in repose; separation is the cause of our pleasure in union; and, examining generally, we shall ever find that one opposite is the reason that the other opposite pleases and is desired.
Cic.
Then there is no delight without the contrary?
Tans.
Certainly not; as without the opposite there is no pain; as is shown by that golden Pythagorean poet when he says: Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, nec Respiciunt, clausæ tenebris, e carcere cæco.
This, then, is what the mixture of things causes, and hence it is that no one is pleased with his own state, except some senseless blockhead, who is so all the more the deeper is the degree of obscure folly in which he is sunk; then he has little or no apprehension of pain; he enjoys the actual present without fearing the future; he enjoys that which is and that in which he finds himself, and has neither care nor sorrow for what may be; and, in short, has no sense of that opposition which is symbolized by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Cic.
From this we see that ignorance is the mother of sensual felicity and beatitude, and this same is the garden of paradise of the animals; as is made clear in the dialogues of the Kabala of the horse Pegasus; and as says the wise Solomon, "Whoso increases knowledge increases sorrow." Tans.
Hence it appears that heroic love is a torment, because it does not enjoy the present, as does animal love, but is of the future and the absent; and, on the contrary, it feels ambition, emulation, suspicion and dread.
One evening, after supper, a certain neighbour of ours said: "Never was I more jolly than I am now." John Bruno, father of the Nolano, answered him: "Never wert thou more foolish than now." Cic.
You would imply, then, that he who is sad is wise, and that other who is more sad is wiser?
Tans.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The metaphor of 'alloyed gold' and 'manufactured wine' is used to explain the mixture of opposites in reality.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
The term 'enthusiast' and the description of contradictory passions suggest an ecstatic receptivity or possession akin to divine intoxication.
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 text describes the 'enthusiast' and 'furori' which aligns with the definition of ecstatic irrational rapture or Bruno's furore transcending ordinary reason.
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 Gli Eroici Furori and explicitly discusses the 'enthusiast' and 'heroic love' as a passionate ardor distinct from animal passion.
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.
The distinction between 'animal love' (present enjoyment) and 'heroic love' (future-oriented torment) implies a hierarchy or stages of eros.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The 'animal' state is described as enjoying the present without care or sorrow, akin to mechanical existence.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
[auto] The passage explicitly argues that 'separation is the cause of our pleasure in union' and heroic love is oriented toward the absent.