The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 62 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Fifth Dialogue-r
But it is not so, if you consider well, for it cannot be that in one instant, which is an atom or point, love persists or endures; therefore one must of necessity understand the instant in another signification.
And for the sake of getting out of the mesh, read the stanza: 38.
One time scatters and one gathers; One builds, one breaks; one weeps, one laughs; One time to sadness, one to gaiety inclines; One labours and one rests; one stands, one sits; One proffers and one takes away; One stays and one removes; one animates, one kills.
In all the years, the months, the days, the hours, Love waits on me, strikes, binds, and burns.
To me continual dissolution, Continual weeping holds me and destroys.
All times to me are full of woe; All things time takes from me, And gives me naught, not even death.
Cic.
I understand the meaning quite perfectly, and confess that all things agree very well.
It is time to proceed to the next.
XV.
Tans.
Here behold a serpent languishing in the snow, where a labourer has thrown it, and a naked child burning in the midst of the fire, with certain other details and circumstances, with the legend which says: "Idem, itidem non idem." This seems more like an enigma than anything else, and I do not feel sure that I can explain it at all; yet I do believe that it means that the same fate vexes, and the same torments both the one and the other—that is, immeasurably, without mercy and unto death, by means of various instruments or contrary principles, showing itself the same whether cold or hot.
But this, it seems to me, requires longer and special consideration.
Cic.
Some other time.
Read the lines: 39.
Limp snake, that writhest in the snow, Twisting and turning here and there To find some ease from the tormenting cold, If the congealing ice could know thy pain, Or had the sense to feel thy smart, And thou couldst find a voice for thy complaint, I do believe thy argument would make it pitiful.
I with eternal fire am scourged, am burnt, and bitten, And in the iciness of my divinity find no deliverance, No pity does she feel, nor can she know, alas!
The rigorous ardour of my flames.
40.
Serpent, thou fain wouldst flee, but canst not; Try for thy hiding-place, it is no more; Recall thy strength, 'tis spent; Wait for the sun, behind thick fog he hides; Cry mercy of the hind, he fears thy tooth.
Fortune invoke, she hears thee not, the jade!
Nor flight, nor place, nor star, nor man, nor fate Can bring to thee deliverance from death.
Thou dost become congealed.
Melting am I.
I like thy rigours, thee my ardour pleases; Help have I none for thee, and thou hast none for me.
Clear is our evil fate—all hope resign.
Cic .
Let us go, and by the way we will seek to untie this knot—if possible.
Tans .
So be it.
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LONDON AND EDINBURGH THE APOLOGY OF THE NOLAN TO THE MOST VIRTUOUS AND LOVELY LADIES.
O lovely, graceful nymphs of England!
Not in repugnance nor in scorn Our spirit holds you, Nor would our pen abase you More than it must—to call you feminine!
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.
Imagery of fire, ice, melting, and congealing reflects the transformative processes of alchemical spirituality.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The text depicts a stage of purgative suffering ('continual dissolution,' 'weeping') where the soul feels abandoned by God.
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 'heroic furor' described implies an ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine ardour.
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 intense emotional state of burning and scourging reflects the ecstatic irrational rapture associated with higher knowledge.
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 speaker experiences 'continual dissolution' and destruction, akin to the annihilation of the self.
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 describes the passionate spiritual ardor and torment that drives the soul toward divine wisdom.
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 details the actions of Love (strikes, binds, burns) as part of the soul's arduous journey toward the divine.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
[auto] The text relies heavily on the enigma of opposing states (cold/hot, serpent/child) sharing the same fate to convey spiritual truth through contradiction.
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 speaker describes a state of exile where time takes all things and gives nothing, not even death.