The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) · 6 of 49 · tr. L. Williams
First Dialogue-e
For nothing is produced absolutely from a homœogeneous (pacifico) principle, but all from opposite principles, through the victory and dominion of one part of the opposites, and there is no pleasure of generation on one side without the pain of corruption on the other: and where these things which are generated and corrupted are joined together and as it were compose the same subject, the feeling of delight and of sadness are found together; so that it comes to be called more easily delight than sadness, if it happens that this predominates, and solicits the senses with greater force.
III.
Ces.
Now let us take into consideration the following image which is that of a phœnix, which burns in the sun, and the smoke from which almost obscures the brightness of that by which it is set on fire, and here is the motto which says: Neque simile, nec par mar.
43.
Mar.
: This phoenix set on fire by the bright sun, Which slowly, slowly to extinction goes, The while she, girt with splendour burning lies; Yields to her star antagonistic fief Through that which towards the sky to Heaven ascends.
Black smoke, and sombre fog of murky hue Concealing thus his radiance from our eyes, And veiling that which makes her burn and shine.
And so my soul, illumined and inflamed By radiance divine, would fain display The brightness of her own effulgent thought; The lofty concept of her song sends forth.
In words which do but hide the glorious light, [C]While I dissolve and melt and am destroyed.
Ah me!
this lowering cloud, this smoky fire of words Abases that which it would elevate.
[C] But not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted—not until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it, as a mere subject for the grave experiment and experience—not until the whole nature has yielded and become subject unto its higher self, can the bloom open.—("Light on the Path.") Ces.
This fellow then says that as this phoenix set on fire by the sun and accustomed to light and flame comes to send upwards that smoke which obscures him who has rendered her so luminous, so he, the inflamed and illuminated enthusiast, through that which he does in praise of such an illustrious subject which has warmed his heart and which shines in his thought, comes rather to conceal it than to render it light for light, sending forth that smoke the effect of the flame, in which the substance of himself is resolved.
Mar.
I, without weighing and comparing the studies of that fellow, repeat what I said to you the other day, that praise is one of the greatest oblations that human affection can offer to an object.
And leaving on one side the proposition of the Divine, tell me, who would have known of Achilles, Ulysses, and all the other Greek and Trojan chiefs?
Who would have heard of all those great soldiers, the wise and the heroes of the earth, if they had not been placed amongst the stars and deified by the oblation of praise which has lighted the fire on the altar of the heart of illustrious poets and other singers, so that usually, the sacrificant, the victim and the sanctified deity, all mounted to the skies, through the hand and the vow of a worthy and lawful priest?
Ces.
Well sayest thou "of a worthy and lawful priest," for the world is at present full of apostate ones, the which, as they are for the most part unworthy themselves, sing the praises of other unworthy ones, so that, asini asinos fricant.
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 text uses strong alchemical metaphors of burning, melting, dissolving, and the phoenix to describe spiritual transformation.
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.
[auto] The passage explicitly states the need for the 'whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted' to achieve spiritual bloom.
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 explicitly from Bruno's 'Heroic Enthusiasts' and describes the 'inflamed and illuminated enthusiast' driven by divine ardor.