The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 50 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Fifth Dialogue-f
I understand it all; but what is the meaning of, "May I be happy in this governance and with these bonds, and may that light not cease?" Tans.
He means, and he proves, that every sort of love, the greater its dominion and the surer its hold, the more tight are the bonds, and the more firm the yoke, and the more ardent the flames that are felt, as compared with the ordinary princes and tyrants, who adopt a greater rigour wherever they see they have less hold.
Cic.
Go on.
VI.
Tans.
Here we see described the idea of a flying ph[oe]nix, towards which is turned a boy who is burning in the midst of flames; and there is the legend, "Fata obstant." But in order better to understand it, let us read the tablet: 30.
Sole bird of the sun, thou wandering ph[oe]nix!
That measurest thy days as does the world With lofty summits of Arabia Felix.
Thou art the same thou wast, but I what I was not: I through the fire of love, unhappy die; But thee the sun with his warm rays revives; Thou burn'st in one, and I, in every place; Eros my fire, while thine Apollo gives.
Predestined is the term of thy long life; Short span is mine, And menaced by a thousand ills.
Nor do I know how I have lived, nor how shall live, Me does blind fate conduct; But thou wilt come again, again behold thy light.
From the meaning of these lines, you will see that in the figure is drawn the comparison between the fate of the ph[oe]nix and that of the enthusiast; and the legend, "Fata obstant," does not signify that the fates are adverse either to the boy, or to the ph[oe]nix, or to both; but that the fatal decrees for each are not the same, but are diverse and opposite.
The ph[oe]nix is that which it was, because the same matter, by means of the fire, renews itself, and becomes again the body of the ph[oe]nix, and the same spirit and soul come to inhabit it.
The enthusiast is that which he was not, because the subject, which is a man, was first of some other species, according to innumerable differentiations.
So that what the ph[oe]nix was, is known, and what it will be, is known; but this subject cannot return, except through many and uncertain means, to invest the same or a similar natural form.
Then the ph[oe]nix, through the sun's presence, changes death into life, and that other, by the presence of love, transmutes life into death.
The one kindles his fire on the aromatic altar, the other finds it ever present with him and carries it wherever he goes.
The one again, has certain conditions of a long life; but the other, through the infinite differences of time and innumerable circumstances, has the mutable conditions of a short life.
The one kindles with certainty, the other with doubt as to whether he will see the sun again.
Cic.
What do you think that this means?
Tans.
It means the difference that exists between the lower intellect called the intellect of power, either possible or passive, which is uncertain, multifarious, and multiform, and the higher intellect, which, perhaps, is like that which is said by the Peripatetics to be the lowest of the intelligences, and which exerts an immediate influence over all the individuals of the human species, and is called the active and acting intellect.
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.
Fire metaphors describe the transformation of the soul from life into death and back through love.
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 passage draws a direct comparison between the cosmic fate of the phoenix and the human enthusiast.
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 concept of 'enthusiasts' implies a state of divine possession or ecstatic rapture.
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 'ardent flames' and 'fire of love' that characterize the enthusiast's ecstatic state transcending ordinary reason.
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 enthusiast 'dies' in the fire of love, suggesting self-effacement for spiritual renewal.
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 excerpted from Gli Eroici Furori and explicitly describes the enthusiast's passionate spiritual ardor driven by love.
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 the hierarchy of love's dominion and the ascent through ardent flames beyond ordinary rulers.
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 enthusiast reflects the solar phoenix, mapping celestial cycles onto individual spiritual life.
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 human subject is distinguished from the phoenix by mutable conditions and blind fate, indicating exile.