The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 27 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Third Dialogue-b
It is not a fury of black bile which sends him drifting outside of judgment, reason, and acts of prudence, and tossed by the discordant tempest, like those who, having violated certain laws of the divine Adrastia, are condemned to be scourged by the Furies, in order that they may be excited by a dissonance as corporeal through seditions, destructions, and plagues, as it is spiritual, through the forfeiture of harmony between the perceptive and enjoying powers; but it is aglow kindled by the intellectual sun in the soul, and a divine impetus which lends it wings, with which, drawing nearer and nearer to the intellectual sun, and ridding itself of the rust of human cares, it becomes a gold tried and pure, has the perception of divine and internal harmony, and its thoughts and acts accord with the symmetry of the law, innate in all things.
Not, as drunk from the cups of Circe, does he go dashing and stumbling, now in this and then in that ditch, now against this or that rock, or like a shifting Proteus, changing now to this, now to the other aspect, never finding place, fashion, or ground to stay and settle in; but, without spoiling the harmony, conquers and overcomes the horrid monsters, and however much he may swerve, he easily returns to himself[A] by means of those inward instincts that, like the nine Muses, dance and sing round the splendours of the universal Apollo, and under tangible images and material things, he comes to comprehend divine laws and counsels.
It is true that sometimes, having love for his trusty escort, who is double, and because sometimes through occasional impediments he finds himself defrauded of his strength, then, as one insane and furious, he squanders away the love of that which he cannot comprehend; whence, confused by the obscurity of the divinity, he sometimes abandons the work, and then again returns, to force himself with his will thither, where he cannot arrive with the intellect.
It is true also that he commonly wanders, and transports himself, now into one, now into another form of the double Eros; therefore, the principal lesson that Love gives to him is, that he contemplate the divine beauty in shadow, when he cannot do so in the mirror, and, like the suitors of Penelope, he entertain himself with the maids when he is not permitted to converse with the mistress.
Now, in conclusion, you can comprehend, from what has been said, what is this enthusiast whose picture is put forth, when it is said: 12.
If towards the shining light the butterfly, Winging his way knows not the burning flame, And if the thirsty stag, unmindful of the dart, Runs fainting to the brook, Or unicorn, unto the chaste breast running, Ignores the snare that is for him prepared, I, in the light, the fount, the bosom of my love Behold the flames, the arrows, and the chains.
If it be sweet in plaintiveness to droop, Why does that lofty splendour dazzle me?
Wherefore the sacred arrow sweetly wound?
Why in this knot is my desire involved?
And why to me eternal irksomeness Flames to my heart, darts to my breast and snares unto my soul?
[A] Facilmente ritorna al sesso.
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 transformation of the soul is described using alchemical imagery of becoming gold tried and pure by removing rust.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
Divine laws are comprehended under tangible images and material things, reflecting the cosmic structure.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The soul rids itself of the rust of human cares to achieve purity.
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.
The text contrasts a negative fury of black bile with a positive divine madness that transcends ordinary reason to attain higher knowledge.
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.
The passage explicitly defines and distinguishes the heroic furor from pathological madness as a divine impetus driving the soul toward the intellectual sun.
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 passage describes the ascent through Eros, contemplating divine beauty in shadow when not permitted to see it in the mirror.
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.
The soul drifts outside judgment and is tossed by a discordant tempest before returning.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The soul becomes gold tried and pure, transforming into a state akin to the divine.