The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 36 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Fourth Dialogue-c
Whence he says, "Come not back to me till thou art mine," and not unworthily may I say with that other— Thou has left me, oh, my heart, And thou, light of my eyes, art no more with me.
Here he describes the death of the soul, which by the Kabbalists is called the death by kisses, symbolized in the Song of Solomon, where the friend says: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, For, when he wounds me, I suffer with a cruel love.
By others it is called sleep; the Psalmist says: It shall be, that I give sleep unto mine eyes, And mine eyelids shall slumber, And I shall have in him peaceful repose.
The soul then is said to be faint, because it is dead in itself, and alive in the object: 20.
Give heed, enthusiasts, unto the heart!
For mine condemns me to a life apart, Bound by unmerciful and cruel ties, He dwells with joy, there where he faints and dies.
At every hour I call him back by thoughts: A rebel he, like gerfalcon insane, He feels no more the hand that did restrain, And is gone forth not to return again.
Thou beauteous beast that dost in punishment Knit up the soul, spirit and heart content'st With pricks, with lightnings, and with chains!
From looks, from accents, and from usages, Which faint and burn and keep thee bound, Where shall he that heals, that cools, and loosens thee be found?
Here the soul, sorrowful, not from real discontent, but on account of pains which she suffers, directs the discourse to those who are affected by passions similar to her own: as if she had not of her own free will and of her own desire dismissed her heart, which goes running whither it cannot arrive, stretches out to that which it cannot reach, and tries to enfold that which it cannot comprehend, and with this, because he vainly separates from her, ever more and more goes on aspiring towards the infinite.
Cic.
Whence comes it, oh Tansillo, that the soul in such progression delights in its own torments?
Whence comes that spur which urges it ever beyond that which it possesses?
Tans.
From this, which I will tell thee now.
The intellect being developed to the comprehension of a certain definite and specific form, and the will to a love commensurate with such comprehension; the intellect does not stop there, but by its own light it is prompted to think of this: that it contains within itself the germ of everything intelligible and desirable, until it comes to comprehend with the intellect the depth of the fountain of ideas, the ocean of every truth and goodness.
So that it happens, that whatever conception is presented to the mind, and becomes understood by it, from that which is so presented and comprehended it judges, that above it, is other greater and greater, and finds itself ever in a certain way discoursing and moving with it.
Because it sees that all which it possesses is only a limited thing, and therefore cannot be sufficient of itself, nor good of itself, nor beautiful of itself; because it is not the universal nor the absolute entity; but contracted into being this nature, this species, this form, represented to the intellect and present to the soul.
Then from the beautiful that is understood, and consequently limited, and therefore beautiful through participation, it progresses towards that which is really beautiful, which has no margin, nor any boundaries.
Cic.
This progression appears to me useless.
Tans.
Not so.
For it is not natural nor suitable that the infinite be restricted, nor give itself definitely, for it would not then be infinite.
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.
The structure of the intellect reflects the structure of the infinite truth and goodness.
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 'enthusiasts' and the context of 'furori' imply a state of divine intoxication or ardor.
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 soul's 'torments' and 'insane' longing as a spur to higher knowledge, aligning with the concept of furor.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The 'death of the soul' and being 'dead in itself' parallels the Sufi concept of self-effacement.
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 text is from Bruno's Gli Eroici Furori and explicitly addresses 'enthusiasts' driven by a passionate ardor toward the infinite.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
[auto] The dialogue centers on the soul's aspiration toward the 'infinite' which has 'no margin, nor any boundaries.'
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] The text describes a progression from limited beauty to the really beautiful and infinite, mirroring the scala amoris.
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.
The human intellect is described as containing the germ of everything intelligible, mirroring the infinite.
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 heart is described as having left the speaker and gone forth not to return, creating a sense of exile.